The Crusades

The Crusades

The crusades were a series of wars between the Christians and Muslims in Southwest Asia. The first crusade was when about 5,000 crusaders left Europe to go for the Holy Land in 1906. The first ones to go were the peasants, not the soldiers. On their way to the Holy Land, these peasants attacked Jews in Germany. They then blamed the Jews for Jesus's death. Before they were in the Holy Land, Turkish troops attacked and killed the peasents who where untrained and poorly equipped. Nobles and Knights fared better. They reached Jerusalem in 1099; they found that the Muslim army wasn't ready to fight and after a month of fighting the Crusaders took Jerusalem. Once the Europeans took over Jerusalem they made four small kingdoms in the Holy Land. The rulers of the kingdoms created the lord and vassal system. The second crusade was when in 1147 Fench and German kings began to retake land from the Muslims. This crusade turned out to be failure it was caused by poor planning and heavy losses on the way to the Holy Land. Which led to the Christians' total defeat. The thrid crusade started in 1189, after the Muslims took back Jerusalem. Then the rulers of England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire went to fight for the Holy Land, but problems soon came up. The German King died and the French King was left. King Richard 1 of England was the only one to stay in the Holy Land. King Richard's opponent was Saladin (who was the leader of the Muslim forces). He was a brilliant leader; even crusaders respected his kindness toward fallen enemies. In that way Muslims liked Richard's bravery. Richard and Saladin fought for many months. Richard conquered a couple towns and won protection for the Christian pilgrims. Even though Jerusalem was still controlled by Muslims. The fourth crusade was in 1201 where French knights arrived in Venice ready to sail to the Holy Land to begin the fourth crusade. But the knights could not pay for the voyage. To get the money the Venetians asked the knights to conquer Zara, a rival trade city. The knights did so and later attacked Constantinople and carried off many treasures. The city had been threatened by Muslims before the crusades had been attacked by Christians.