The First Crusade, from This Day in History

It was on this day in 1095 that Pope Urban II, while on a speaking tour in France, called for the first Crusade to recapture Jerusalem from the Turks. There was no imminent threat. Muslims had occupied Jerusalem for hundreds of years. But Urban II had noticed that Europe was becoming an increasingly violent place, with low-level knights killing each other over their land rights, and he thought that he could bring peace to the Christian world by directing all that violence against an outside enemy. So he made up stories of how Turks in Jerusalem were torturing and killing Christians, and anyone who was willing to join the fight against them would go to heaven.

About 100,000 men from France, Germany, and Italy answered the call, formed into several large groups, and marched across Asia Minor to the Middle East. Nearly half of them died from exhaustion and sickness before they ever reached their destination. They began sacking cities along the way, and they fought among each other for the spoils of each battle. When they reached the trading city of Antioch, they killed almost everyone, including the Christians who lived there. By the time they got to Jerusalem, it had recently fallen into the hands of Egyptians, who were friendly with the Vatican. But the crusaders attacked anyway, killing every Muslim they could find. The Jews in the city gathered in the temple, and the crusaders set it on fire.

Pope Urban II died two weeks later, never hearing the news. But the crusading would go on for the next 200 years. In the fourth and last Crusade, in 1202, the crusaders never even made it to Jerusalem, but got sidetracked and wound up destroying Constantinople, which was at the time the last great city left over from the Roman Empire.

From the Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, Tuesday, November 26, 2007.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/11/26/#tuesday

Constantinople was the city at the center of the Eastern Roman Empire (called by modern Historians the Byzantine Empire, but the Empire itself always referred to itself as the Roman Republic), but the source of most Military Recruits for the Eastern Empire, since the reforms of Heraclis (610-641 AD), had been Central Asia Minor (Antonia). With Manzikert that area the those recruits came more and more under Turkish control.

The Themes, generally thought to have been implemented by Heraclis, replaces the Roman Mercenary Cohort Legion, with a trained militia, whose service was tied in with land ownership (and the son of the Soldier had to serve in the Army to inherit the land, thus land ownership and military duty were directly connected as it had been under the Early Roman Republic before the "Reforms of Marius" in 109 BC that set up the Classic Roman Mercenary Cohort Legion).

The Themes were to stay the basic system of military recruitment in right is now Turkey till almost World War I (along with the even older Tax system for the area first implemented by Emperor Diocletian about 300 AD).

Thus the Battle of Mazikert was a disaster for the Byzantium Empire, they lost they main source of Recruits and lost them to the Turks. Within ten years all of Central Asia Minor was in the control of the Seljuk Turks and within 20 years the Eastern Emperor was asking the West for Assistance against the Turks. It was this request for Assistance that lead to the Call for the first Crusade, something the Byzantium Empire really did NOT want, they wanted assistance in Asia Minor NOT Palestine. But as Napoleon observed, the best enemy is a Coalition, for each member of the Coalition has its own agenda. Thus the Crusaders saw no advantage in helping Constantinople re-take parts of Asia Minor (Except as a way to get to Palestine). On the other hand The Crusaders did see an advantage in taking Palestine (Beside the Religious one) which was they could set up independent Kingdoms in Palestine, they were away from Constantinople.

Furthermore the Turks, while Moslem and concerned about who ruled Jerusalem, were more concerned about the area they ruled, Baghdad to Asia Minor then Palestine (Technically Palestine was Ruled by Egypt at the time, but it was a weak Shiite Government (The Fatimid Dynasty) that would NOT survive the Crusades for long. Except for a raid in 1169, no Crusaders ever attacked Egypt till the Fifth Crusades, over 200 years AFTER the first Crusade. Furthermore the 1169 Raid saw the Crusaders take and hold one small city on the Egyptian coast but lost that city afterward when Saladin attacked Palestine.

My point is I hate when someone points to an Historical event and does NOT put it in context. The Call for the First Crusade was the result of what had been happening over the previous 30 years in Asia Minor, something that is ignored in most comments on the Crusades.

More On Manziket
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manzikert

The battle of Myriokenphalon which, had the Byzantium won would have undid most of the harm of Manzikert, but the Greeks lost the battle and 30 years later their Capital to the Fourth Crusade (and with that lost, the Greeks ceased to be anything more then a minor impediment to the Ottoman Turks):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Myriokephalon

On Heraclis (Roman Emperor 610-641)
http://www.roman-emperors.org/heraclis.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclius

The Byzantium Themes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_%28Byzantine_administrative_unit%29

Fifth Crusade:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Crusade

The Fatimid Dynasty of Egypt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimid