With the cross and the sword
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The philosopher Paul Holbach called the main goal of the crusades the cleansing of Europe from Western scoundrels, who, in order to earn forgiveness for crimes committed in their homeland, bravely set out to commit new ones in foreign lands. But who are these scoundrels? Gangs of landless impoverished nobles plundering rich knightly estates, merchant farmsteads, caravans, monasteries, temples and causing damage worse than the bubonic plague.
Before the powers that be, the question arose: how to put an end to the revelry of thugs and rapists? Pope Urban II found a brilliant way out. On November 26, 1095, in the fields on the outskirts of the French city of Clermont, he made a pretentious speech, which included the following words: “The Holy City of Jerusalem was captured by the Muslims four centuries ago. It is necessary to return the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, erected on the site of the burial of Jesus Christ. Let everyone who is ready for heroic deeds put on the cross and set off on a campaign. Remember, God's soldiers will be forgiven all sins, past and future. Thus, the Pope allowed to rob, burn, kill with impunity, cunningly bypassing the obvious - the Muslims also revered Jesus, considered him a great prophet, protecting everything connected with him.
The end justified the means. Beggar nobles and commoners glorified the Pope, who never tired of repeating about the inexhaustible riches accumulated in the Holy Land, promising without a shadow of doubt: "Whoever is unhappy here, poor, will be happy and rich there." And so in the fall of 1096, badly armed, half-starved, led by the wandering monk Peter the Hermit, the first wave of crusaders splashed out onto the Asian coast, immediately engaged in battle with skilful Seljuk warriors, seasoned in battle. The Muslims literally trampled the aliens into the ground. They did not bury the dead opponents. For many years, their bones covered the gorges near the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople.
The defeat of the pioneers sobered the followers. We prepared perfectly for the attempt of the second seizure of the Holy Sepulcher. The knights of the cross dressed in armor were accompanied by servants, carts of provisions, herds of well-fed horses and mules. The Northern French army was led by the forty-year-old Duke of Lower Lorraine, Gottfried of Bouillon, a saint and a daredevil. The Southern French army was led by the pugnacious money-lover Bohemund Torentsky, who thought not about the glory of the returner of Christian shrines, but about the eternal possession of the abundant lands of the East, about hordes of slaves who would ensure the well-fed prosperity of his family clan. “I mortgaged my possessions in my homeland in order to more than make up for the losses in Jerusalem or somewhere nearby. Profit is my god. And I will rob, shed anyone's blood, even if the fiery hell swallows me up,”the duke admitted cynically. Driven by a manic passion for jewelry, fat pieces of foreign land, this noble nobleman destroyed all who interfered with him, even friends, even co-religionists, not to mention the followers of Islam who defended their good and life. It was he who, at the end of 1096, led the three hundred thousandth armada to the gates of Constantinople.
Emperor Alexei Komnin, showered the leaders of the detachments with gifts, took from them the word that they would expand his domain to the horizon, where the sun is hiding. The crusaders began to siege the fortress of Nicaea. The emperor, who did not believe in their loyalty, honesty and unselfishness, sent the Greeks devoted to him there in a roundabout way. Having bribed the Seljuks of Nicaea, the Greeks freely entered the fortress. The dream of the warriors of the cross about fantastic trophies collapsed. But Nicaea became the only fortification inherited by the emperor of Byzantium.
The Muslims were also not lucky. In July, the crusaders defeated the Seljuks at Dilerei, in February they captured the city of Edessa (now Urfa, Turkey). I had to suffer with Antioch. The siege dragged on. The huge army of Kerbuga, the ruler of the fortress-settlement of Mosul, hurried to the rescue of the Seljuks. The Duke of Terent, capturing a Muslim, an officer of the garrison, gave him a chest of gold bars in exchange for the fact that he would open the central gate. The servant had no choice. The crusaders, having penetrated the city without loss, began robbery, massacre, and raped women. Along the way, hungry, in three days, they slaughtered and ate all the livestock, and destroyed the stocks of flour. The troops of Kerbuga arrived in time and enclosed the city in a ring. Under the threat of pestilence and captivity, the duke again found a way out. He announced that he was the owner of the tip of the Sacred Spear, the verywith which the Roman soldier pierced the crucified Christ. Whether believing in the omnipotence of the miraculous talisman, or out of despair, the crusaders attacked and won. The bins of Antioch were empty. We decided to go to Jerusalem. The Duke of Terenty remained to rule plundered Antioch, referring to that. that the Almighty commanded him to live in the house until the end of his days, where the tip of the Sacred spear was found. July 1099. Crusaders at the walls of Jerusalem. They are annoyed. A tiny detachment of Egyptians repels one attack after another. Only a month later, when Genoese merchants brought siege weapons, the main city of Christian civilization was taken with unprecedented cruelty. One of the detachment commanders, the Comte de Kore, boasted: “Our pilgrims exterminated the Saracens in thousands all the way to the Temple of Solomon. In the church itself, ten thousand soldiers and townspeople who had taken refuge there were stabbed to death. Further - even worse. The crusaders, splattered with blood, burst into houses, grabbing gold, silver, carpets, clothes, pieces of precious silk, mules, horses, raping the women of different faiths. Leaving the torn apart, filthy city, they began to siege Tripoli, showing cruelty and baseness …
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In the middle of the XII century, the entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea - the territory of modern southeast Turkey, western Syria, Lebanon, Israel - passed under the rule of the soldiers of the cross. Vassal knights imposed tribute on the peasants who fought with them, as well as the Arabs, Syrians, Greeks. The hands of the rabble have erected impregnable locks and healed at their pleasure. The dirtiest, hardest work was entrusted to Muslim slaves. The slave is guilty - to count him! Europe was jubilant. Spices, ivory, musk, precious metals and stones flowed there in exchange for grain through the ports of Lebanon. The ruling feudal lord, the Catholic Church, was fabulously enriched. Arab traveler Ibn al-Athir was amazed: "Allah alone can count the riches of the hierarch of Jerusalem!"
Our contemporary, publicist Jacques Ksovier, rightly believes that the history of the Crusades had nothing to do with genuine Christian values. It was just a series of bloodshed, vileness, betrayal, fueled by the pathological greed for profit, typical of all wars of conquest without exception.
Source: “Interesting newspaper. Mysteries of Civilization №9