Crusades the First Crusade Took Place From

Crusades

The First Crusade took place from 1096 -- 1099. The First Crusade was a great surprise to both the Christians and the Muslims, the two opposing parties of the Crusades. The victory of the First Crusade went to the Christians. The Crusades were a series of nine wars waged during the Middle Ages between Christians and Muslims. The wars were waged between the 11th and 13th centuries specifically.

In 1071, the Muslim Turkish armies thoroughly defeated the Christine Byzantine military forces at the Battle of Manzikert. (Madden, 2002) The Christians were defending their territories in Asia Minor. Asia Minor had been swiftly invaded and conquered by outsiders and the Byzantine emperor at the time sought assistance from the west. A council was called and a decision was made:

At the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II called on the knights of western Christendom to right this wrong by taking up arms against the Turks. He also urged them to go further, rolling back earlier Muslim conquests of Christian lands, pushing all the ways to the holy city of Jerusalem itself. The response was tremendous. (Madden, The Crusades, 2002)

Lands that were once Christian were now Muslim as a result of the Battle of Manzikert. The leader of the primary religious institution in all of western culture claims that this event is wrong and that war is the way to correct it. In essence, the Turks took Christian lands, so the Christian response was to not only take the lands back, but also take a great deal of their lands in addition. The Crusades first began as an attempt to release Jerusalem, but over time, other goals included seizing Spain from the Moors, pushing the Slavs and Pagans from Eastern Europe, as well as the seizure of Mediterranean Islands. Thus goals of the Crusades included revenge, land acquisition, and displacement of people whose lifestyles conflicted with the goals of the Pope. One of the goals in any war is power and territory. Those too were goals of the Crusades.

Historians contend that the Crusades failed because of poor strategy and poor tactics on the side of the Christians. The Christians became too greedy in their quest for land acquisition. (McKay et al., 2009) If they retook the lands they originally intended, the war would not have escalated. In war, as in all situations, there are many causes, but there are also definitive moments and choices that heavily influence the outcome of an event. Treaties and peace never lasted long during the Crusades. There was little trust and the Christians often not choose their allies well, some of whom ended up turning on them after the Christians held up their end of a deal or bargain for the partnership. There was unstable leadership, between leaders switching sides, suffering irreparable losses, and even excommunication. Those in power during the Crusades were motivated by vengeance, greed, religious zeal, land acquisition, and prejudicial cultural cleansing.