Papers > History > Why was the First Crusade such an extraordinary military success
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Why was the First Crusade such an extraordinary military success
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Essay One: Why was the First Crusade such an extraordinary military success?
The Crusades were a phenomenon in European history, none more so than the First Crusade. In a very short time a collection of fractious, constantly conflicting states were for the first time (and one of the handful of times in medieval European history) united in a military role with one clear objective: the reclaiming of the Holy Land by Christian forces, especially the ‘liberation’ of Jerusalem. ... Yet with all the odds against them, the First Crusade entered Jerusalem triumphantly in July 1099. In this essay I will look at some of the reasons for this extraordinary success. ... In Western Europe an army of the scale of the First Crusade had simply never been seen before; it is estimated to have consisted of fifty to sixty thousand men (though a contemporary, Fulcher of Chartres, estimated it to be around six hundred thousand – a wild over-exaggeration, but possibly indicative of how large it was perceived to be), plus non-combatants. ... A (albeit small) force of two thousand Byzantine soldiers commanded by Tatikios was contributed to the military efforts on land. ... As with many factors in this unlikely success story, I believe that without Byzantium’s assistance, the campaign would have failed as the Crusaders would have been too weakened by hunger and lack of other provisions to have continued fighting. ... In another respect, they had an advantage over the Muslims, a kind of fanatical military narrow-mindedness to eventually capture Jerusalem - immediately after the fall of Nicaea, Stephen of Blois wrote to his wife saying: “In five weeks time we shall be at Jerusalem” . The Muslims military objectives were no where near this plain – for they had many other threats to deal with.
Which brings me to what I believe (as do most historians, it seems) was the ultimate, major factor in the military victory of the First Crusade: It was launched critically at a time when there were fundamental divisions within the Muslim world. ... The Seljuq military was in fact more zealous on its attacks upon the ‘heretical’ Fatamid state than in attacking the Christian Byzantine Empire and following up its successes in Asia Minor.
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Paper Information
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Title: Why was the First Crusade such an extraordinary military success
Words: 1781
Rating: None
Pages: 7.1
submitted by: BenKenobi
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