Crusade Propaganda: The abuse of Christianity’s holy wars.

Since September 11 the crusades are news. When President Bush used the term "crusade" as it is commonly used, to denote a grand enterprise with a moral dimension, the media pelted him for insensitivity to Muslims. (Nevermind that the media used the term in precisely the same way before the "gaff.") Attempting to capitalize on this indignation, the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, crowed "President Bush has told the truth that this is a crusade against Islam." Yet clearly the crusades were much on the minds of our enemies long before Bush brought them to their attention. In a 1998 manifesto, cosigned by the leaders of Islamist groups in Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Osama bin Laden declared war against the "Jews and the Crusaders." If you didn't guess, the Americans are the crusaders here. On the day the U.S. strikes on Afghanistan began, in a live-from-a-cave address, bin Laden declared Bush to be "the leader of the infidels" in a worldwide war against Islam. He previously warned that "crusader" Bush would lead the infidel forces into Afghanistan "under the banner of the cross."

So, what do the medieval crusades have to do with all this? After all, doesn't the Muslim world have a right to be upset about the legacy of the crusades? Nothing and no.

The crusades are quite possibly the most misunderstood event in European history. Ask a random American about them and you are likely to see a face wrinkle in disgust, or just the blank stare that is usually evoked by events older than six weeks. After all, weren't the crusaders just a bunch of religious nuts carrying fire and sword to the land of the Prince of Peace? Weren't they cynical imperialists seeking to carve out colonies for themselves in faraway lands with the blessings of the Catholic Church? A couch potato watching the BBC/A&E documentary on the crusades (hosted by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame no less) would learn in roughly four hours of frivolous tsk-tsk-ing that the peaceful Muslim world actually learned to be warlike from the barbaric western crusaders. No wonder, then, that Pope John Paul II was excoriated for his refusal to apologize for the crusades in 1999. No wonder that a year ago Wheaton College in Illinois dropped their Crusader mascot of 70 years. No wonder that hundreds of Americans and Europeans recently marched across Europe and the Middle East begging forgiveness for the crusades from any Muslim or Jew who would listen. No wonder.

Now put this down in your notebook, because it will be on the test: The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West's belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact.

Thomas F. Madden is the author of A Concise History of the Crusades and coauthor of The Fourth Crusade, is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Here's the calling card at the library.

Author Belloc, Hilaire, 1870-1953

Title The Jews, by Hilaire Belloc

Imprint Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin [1922}

I found the book at a college library because it was on the same rack as MacCaulay's history. I agree that a few wacky ideas don't have to disqualify the corpus of one's contribution to society, but, that said, this is a case of someone who is very critical of all non-Christians, to an extent deemed repugnant by today's standards. In his time his ideas were fairly commonplace. My worries are about using the ideas of someone who has generated repugnant ideas about one race to discredit another, very similar, one.

Re #12

I believe that the Turkish control of Muslim world happened even without Crusaders from the West. It must have accelerated it, though. The first Crusade is the only one which achieved its goal. That is partly because the first Crusader fought Arabs rather than Turks. Arabs' main battle units are mounted soldiers with lances. This formation was easier to defeat than Turkish steppe formation made up of mounted archers. And their tactics emphasizing deception and speed all helped defeat subsequent Crusades. European Crusaders were fighting Turks not Arabs after first Crusade. Saladin was a Sunni Kurd. But his troops were all Turks. Eventually, Crusaders have become minor disturbance in Muslim world. Hashashin sect was more pressing concern for rules in Mid-East. Even Saladin had to compromise with Hashashins. A few different groups of Turks carved up entire Mid-East. Most of them first started as slave soldiers for Caliph. The slave soldiers were under direct control of Caliph of Baghdad, who can attack any political enemies of Caliph. Other ordinary Muslims balked at all-out war against other Muslims because Koran says that Muslims should not attack other Muslims. So if rival Caliphate appears, Caliph in Baghdad is in quandary. That is why they recruited Turks as if they were slaves, bought in the market. But in time, these soldiers took power from Caliph rendering him as a more figurehead.

Mongol invasion was repelled not by Arabs but Marmeluks of Egypt, Turkish soldiers who took over Egypt. Mongols were distracted by succession intrigue back home. So the troops in Mid-East at the time was not at peak strength. But anyway, they fought against Marmeluks. So this was battle between two steppe tribes from North and Central Asia, not Arabs. Crusaders ironically had great hopes for Mongols(!). They heard news that large steppe army were coming from Central Asia into Mid-East. Crusaders began to weave their wishful thinking into this news. Soon, Mongol army were seen as long lost Christian steppe tribe coming to help fellow Christians in need. When Mongols were going from Damascus, which they just conquered, to Jerusalem, Crusaders rode with them. This was a symbolic guesture of solidarity at the time. But soon Crusaders had second thoughts about true nature of Mongols. So they sent messenger to Baybar, the ruler of Egypt. They buried their hatchet and cooperated. Crusaders helped Marmeluks for safe passage through their area and set up for battle. Marmeluks won the battle near Jerusalem. So everybody was spared from Mongol carnage.

Mid-East was busy with bigger players than Crusaders in later years. Hashashins, Seljuks, Ottomans, Mongols, Marmeluks. Crusaders were minor players. They only held on to small strips of Land in Levant. Hardly a big loss considering that they have domain streching from Morroco to Central Asia.

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