Here’s What You Don’t Know and Weren’t Taught About the Crusades I

Here’s What You Don’t Know and Weren’t Taught About the Crusades

The word “crusade” comes from “cruce-signati” meaning “those signed by the cross”. It’s modern meaning is for any huge endeavor; for example, a crusade against illiteracy, or poverty. The original Crusades have come to be viewed as a military campaign, religious warfare. Of course religious warfare is despicable, but wars for real estate and secular ideology are okay. The exception in modern time is militant Islamofascism. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

The big clash now between Western Civilization and Islam is a repeat of what happened about a thousand years ago. Christianity had no armies until the Roman Emperor Constantine got converted from paganism about 312 CE. Jesus had no armies. Mohammed had armies. I believe sources need to be looked at; they inform thoughts and behavior or any organization and belief.

Mohammed began by waging war, first against Mecca, the neighboring villages and towns to consolidate his power. He ended up conquering all of Arabia and the Middle East; Persia, Egypt and Syria. After his death, Islam continued to use military might to conquer and convert. They conquered North Africa. Moved across the Straits of Gibraltar and conquered Spain. They met defeat in France. On the other side of Europe, Islamic armies moved in deep, claiming Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia.
They had ships on the Danube. In 846 CE a naval expedition entered the River Tiber and Arab forces sacked Ostia and Rome.

The Crusades were a defensive measure. I’ll start with the First Crusade, which was a success, and then over the next few posts show how the rest were at best marginal failures and others absolute failures.