HOW THE CRUSADES SAVED EUROPE

Hmmmm...

Did the crusades save Europe? From Islam? Not so sure...

After the first five crusades...the big ones...Constantinople still fell, and the Turks did advance well into Europe. The Battle of Lepanto definitely stalled them, but they held on into the 1800's. That's several centuries of dominion in European land.

But, they held parts of eastern Europe and the Balkans, and fuck those places, right? So maybe it's more accurate to say that the Crusades saved Western Europe? But how true is that? The video briefly mentions the Albigensian crusade, where the Catholic forces massacred > 200,000 Cathars in southern France. So...the defenders of Europe turned on themselves. Just goes to show you that the only thing medieval Christians hated more than muslims were Christians of a different denomination. Meanwhile Islamic states still resided fairly comfortably in Spain, while most of the military forces went down to the holy land instead of participating in the reconquista. So, life in western Europe still sucked.

So then maybe the Crusades saved Christendom? Sure. But how much of a threat were the muslim forces prior to the Crusades? Islamic advances in Spain had already been checked a couple centuries before, and the unified Islamic world had already split into the fractious, infighting mess that it has been pretty much up to the present day. Perhaps, if the Islamic arabic dynasties of the Mid-East were allowed to remain in power, then the invading Seljuk Turks from the east would have been checked, or at least stalled in their eventual conquest of Anatolia. Also, Christendom was fighting among itself (again, Albigensian Crusade and the Fourth Crusade) and would only continue to get worse in the Reformation in the coming centuries. The wars of religion following the Reformation far outweigh the crusades in casualties...but it's Christian on Christian killing, so baby Jesus can at least feel a little better about that. As long as those sand loving rag heads don't kill any of our guys, it's all good.

So, perhaps the most accurate thing to say is that the Crusades saved (mostly) western Europe (except Spain) from being killed by Muslims, although western European Christians did plenty of killing among themselves in the process. I dunno, seems like it's all kind of a wash.

Top post. Educational for me as I haven't got much knowledge on crusade stuff.

It's super easy to put an anti-christian spin on the crusades Erjen. 

When you kill a bunch of people while pushing your religion on them it tends to make you look bad. 

Just because you don't like reality doesn't change that it's reality.

One of my high school teachers was talking about the bad blood between Turkey and Greece.  I asked her if the Turks called the Greeks infidels.  She said that's the nicest thing they call them.

Exactly. 

And now the Muslims are returning the sentiment, trying to save the Western world from Christianity.  Interesting that the three Abrahamic religions have to fight to the death over which version of the invisible sky father is the correct one.

Back in 2001, after the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, I made a comment to some people I worked with that the Muslims were just doing what the Christians did during the Crusades.  If looks could kill, I would have been drawn, quartered and beheaded.

Christian Crusade, Muslim Jihad; same thing.  And the Jews have been persecuted by each offshoot of their religion.  All part of 'God's Plan' or just plain old human nature to protect the insiders of the tribe from outsiders.  One would think we could have evolved beyond this by now.

I guess not.

I did mention it briefly, along with the Albigensian Crusade, as an example of Christian infighting. Most all pure intentions of Holy War against infidels dissipated after the First Crusade. The later crusades were mostly land grabs...nascent experiments in colonialism that would be remembered and recalled later by the conquistadors in the New World in their fight against Aztecs/Incas.

If you want to point a finger at a muslim group and call them the enemies of Europe, then it has to be the Seljuk Turks, who were migrating westward from central Asia. The Arabic caliphates were mostly squabbling among themselves and of little threat to European dominion...even the Byzantines. And yes, the Fourth Crusade was a complete failure, and the pope lifted his excommunication of the participants and, of course, accepted the loot that was taken from Constantinople...it's what Jesus would've wanted.

If the Arabic caliphates and Constantinople would've been left unmolested by Crusaders, the Seljuk/Ottoman Turks probably would've still conquered Anatolia and threatened Europe. But, it would've taken them longer. Looking at it that way, I can't agree with you/maya/the video that the Crusades saved Eruope.

Just cos one group of people does something does not make is right, elsewise all things would be ok to do.