Why were the Europeans utterly crushed by the Arabs and Turks in the Crusades?
What technological or leadership superiority did the Muslim factions have over those of the Christians?
Is it true Europe was rather backwards and corrupt compared to the Islamic world?
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There was no technological disparity between two groups. Both groups were largely armoured with mail with clothing over it to contain heat, using mainly spears, shields and swords. Arabian and Eastern horses were a bit better than their European counterparts in terms of stamina but not in great deal.
When Europeans first came they crushed through Muslims because Muslims were fractured to 4 different groups which all had infighting while also fighting Byzantines. After they reorganised they defeated Europeans because they had comparably smart tactical decisions and familiarity. There was also a more militant tradition amongst Arabs and Turks compared to Europeans at the time.
Utterly crushed?
They conquered a bunch of land and kept it for two centuries.
Their problem was maintaining a set of principalities with a really small permanent force and seasonal erratic campaigns launched from Europe.
The linchpin of their military conquest and subsequent occupation was a mix of diplomacy, a network of castles and heavily armed cavalry.
When the Mamluke guys kicked em out they did so by systematically destroying this network of castles.
This and regional issues.German king drowned in Euphrates and French king lost a lot of his army to attrition in Anatolia.
>Utterly crushed?
They lost every crusade but the first.
>The linchpin of their military conquest and subsequent occupation was a mix of diplomacy, a network of castles and heavily armed cavalry.
Eastern cavalry was generally more heavily armed than European ones, aside from Turks who tended to be more lightly armoured but still on par with crusaders for the most part.
The whole knight tank against robe wearing muslims is a meme.
The Fourth Crusade was won :^)
They weren't a consolidated army, too many leaders doing their own thing, and most of the troops had no experience and were poorly equipped. You have to remember that wars in europe were fought by levees where ottomans had a fully funded standing army.
You got me there m8
>That glorious cross coming over the horizon with the host of the faithful behind it
Ain't even Christian and it almost got a deus vult out of me.
It was a good cause.
that pic made me autism so hard, its crazy...
Christianity is a made up religion by romans to keep people obeying, roman empire never fell...
One was fighting an overseas war despite having shitty projection power, the other was at home
Yuros should never have been able to win any crusade at all gad the muslims not been so shit
Then why did Muslims note Frankish cavalry wore heavy armor?
They lost some campaigns but in the end they weren't conquered immediately afterward.
Because we had Allah (S.A.W.) on our side, infidel kuffar!
This, just read about the first crusade that started it all. It's amazing the Christians took Jerusalem.
I thought it was the khans that took it.
Crushed?They've kept a large patch of land in a hostile environment for almost two hundred years.
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"Rage and sorrow are seated in my heart...so firmly that I scarce dare to stay alive. It seems that God wishes to support the Turks to our loss...ah, lord God...alas, the realm of the East has lost so much that it will never be able to rise up again. They will make a Mosque of Holy Mary's convent, and since the theft pleases her Son, who should weep at this, we are forced to comply as well...Anyone who wishes to fight the Turks is mad, for Jesus Christ does not fight them any more. They have conquered, they will conquer. For every day they drive us down, knowing that God, who was awake, sleeps now, and Muhammad waxes powerful"
CHRISTKEKS BTFO
>kept
>constantly changing and shrinking border as well as a complete loss of all mainland holdings 1187
>Why were the Europeans utterly crushed by the Arabs and Turks in the Crusades?
Loaded question, they managed to take and hold Jerusalem for 88 years despite being surrounded.
>What technological or leadership superiority did the Muslim factions have over those of the Christians?
Loaded question, by the time of the crusades there were no significant differences, not enough to safely say one had better technology than the other without quibbling.
>Is it true Europe was rather backwards and corrupt compared to the Islamic world?
Loaded question, again, there were no differences large enough to say there was a clear difference.
The Muslims were fractured as fuck during the first crusade. Some even helped the crusaders.
This is the same excuse people use to discredit the early Muslim expansions into Byzantine and Persian lands.
All the crusader kingdoms were conquered and Europe was invaded and parts occupied to this day.
A hundred years (plus fifty maybe for a couple places). After the fall of Jerusalem most of the major inland fortifications fell and the crusaders were left to primarily coastal enclaves. By no definition "large patches" of land.
>muslikeks today.
DELETE THIS
>Europe was rather backwards and corrupt compared to the Islamic world?
they both were
thanks to savages invaded the roman empire
fucking germanics pigs
user your shitposting is very funny and everything but you're not doing the turk roleplay very well.
For example infidel in turkish is kafir or gavur which is used more often.
t.a turk
Indeed. Even where they held castles, the surrounding countryside was often not a very secure place.
Rome was already declining, so if it wasn't 'germanic pigs', it would've been easterners. The great migrations out of central asia (e.g. the Huns) were just getting started and putting populations in flux.
>They conquered a bunch of land and kept it for two centuries.
An utter failure, considering that despite their presence in the Levant for two centuries, the Crusaders left absolutely no imprint on the cultural or religious landscape, whereas the Turks and Arabs left legacies that can still be seen to this day in those places that they conquered.
Large parts of old Jerusalem were built during the Crusader era if I am not mistaken.
As for the cultural imprint, the same can be said of British India or Africa. The language is there but that is about it.
The 3rd was pretty dank
The Christians did pretty well for the distance they traveled. Also th Hungarians got btfo by the mongols and lost that crusade for them.
But weren't most middle eastern "proffesional" armies mostly composed of turks at the time?
don't encourage the faggot
It's true in both events and no discrediting at all. Only the insecure man would try to negate a good situation for success in order to make already impressive victories greater.
>Then why did Muslims note Frankish cavalry wore heavy armor?
Sauce
The mountain goats are pretty good
I believe it was this one.
It said something along the lines of: Frankish crusaders only charge and fight so brave because they are covered in armor.
It says they wore armor, but that's not the same as saying they had more or heavier armor.
It is implied that they wore more armor.
Did the seljuks wear mail chausses and full face helmets?
I reckon the crusaders on the first crusade would not have been particularly heavily armed but as time went on the amount of protection increased.
>It is implied that they wore more armor.
I don't see where.
Holding territory over large distances is not sustainable in the long term. Persians and Turks couldn't even maintain dominance over the Middle East constantly. Although the Persians could gain more power over the Middle East eventually.
Ottomans didn't exist back then.
Unless you're referring to the Balkan "crusades" which got btfo
>no imprint on the cultural or religious landscape
There's quite a few Christians in Lebanon and Israel. Lots of Lebanese music has a French style to it. Lots of Syrians and Lebanese have blue eyes.
And there's much less western influence in the Middle-East than it seems like there would be because various Islamic groups throughout history have had a tendency to systematically destroy pre-Islamic architecture and writings. Similar behavior on the part of Christians is also why there's not a ton of Pagan influence in most of Europe.
>utterly
They literally won the first one, negotiated the third, and then had en.wikipedia.org
Not to mention the fact that it was a logistic nightmare, they were outnumbered in almost every battle, and still had many large successes
>technological or leadership superiority did the Muslim factions have over those of the Christians?
Crusaders were fractured and petty. Muslims had home advantage as well as numbers.
>Is it true Europe was rather backwards and corrupt compared to the Islamic world?
No
I have the opposite perspective desu.
Byzantines lose the Levant after a single battle and cannot retake it after 300 years of war.
Then you have the Latins who arrive from the other side of the world and manage to take back Jerusalem.
Christianity in Lebanon and Israel predate Latin Crusader influences (if any) by centuries, and their only influence today comes from Roman Catholic efforts in the past two centuries. Blue eyes also predate the Crusades, and the state that had the most intermarriage between Latin settlers and local Christians was Antioch, not Tripoli nor Jerusalem. There was no tendency to destroy pre-Islamic architecture until modern groups like ISIS arrived as local Syrian powers occupied Crusader fortifications throughout the time period. These were destroyed not for any religious purpose but in the context of the Mongol invasions of Syria in order to create a virtual no-man's-land to better face the Ilkhanate.
It had nothing to do with technology, leadership, or even numbers. It was a matter of politics. The First Crusade achieved great success by taking advantage of Seljuk political weakness, and then the Zengids and later Ayyubids did the same by taking advantage of Crusader political weakness.
The Byzantines could have taken the Levant earlier, and many even expected them to. They chose not to because of their own political concerns.
>Byzantines could have taken the Levant earlier
Not while getting buttfucked by Turks they couldn't. All they managed to gain was a tiny scrap of Syria while the Abbasids were falling apart. And even that they lost.
That tiny scrap was what I was referring to. They didn't stop because they ran into trouble with their supply lines or capabilities, they stopped because the emperor didn't want to suddenly expand the power of Anatolian dynasts in one fell swoop (without also expanding the Western ones as well, hence Sicily). The Turks were only an issue when in the later civil wars the growing rebellions by non-Greek vassals stopped caring about becoming emperor themselves and started forming their own independent states.
doesn't change the fact that the kingdoms kept existing for that long.
The real blow to the Crusader kingdoms was the battles like Hattin before the 3rd crusade when they lost most of their manpower, which was already thin to begin with.
Yeah, crusaders had a lot of heavy armor so Muslims had light armor and flanged maces. Also desert horses
Interesting.
I did not know that domestic politics played such a large role in Byzantine military expeditions.
Were they ever in a position to restore Roman rule in the Levant, or maybe even Egypt?
Mesopotamia was in their sights as they had a more cordial relationship with the Fatimids. But being that the region was inland communications with Constantinople would be strained and put a lot of power into a local family.
Manpower argument is a meme. Hattin broke what was already a kingdom two steps from multiple civil wars and diplomatically isolated from its allies.
>There's quite a few Christians in Lebanon and Israel
...Those Christians were around for centuries before the Crusades. The majority of these Christians were Syriac (Maronite) or Orthodox Christians, and they were constantly at odds with the Roman Catholic crusaders. Their presence in the Middle East had nothing to do with the Crusaders.
>what is the 6th crusade
Sure it was purely symbolic but it was a technical win for Christians
Allah was with them you fuccboi
the christians actually did accomplish their war goals in the third
when I was in Israel I went to a crusader castle that was pretty cool
There was also a more militant tradition amongst Arabs and Turks compared to Europeans at the time.
>There was also a more militant tradition amongst Arabs and Turks compared to Europeans at the time.
>>>>>There was also a more militant tradition amongst Arabs and Turks compared to Europeans at the time.
Gee, 200 years of fractured land-holdings vs. centuries of total domination... I wonder which side will have more cultural influence?
Lose the holy land?
Militant as in a tradition of being raised for war from childhood and professional armies. While Europeans were mostly nobles, their helpers and levies with assorted soldiers.
>Why were the Europeans utterly crushed by the Arabs and Turks in the Crusades?
Even if you prescribe to this theory it's the loss of unfettered access to the middle east and its trade w/ Asia that forced Europe to the sea in search of routes to asia, thereby sparking the exploration and discovery that's solidified Western dominance ever since.
...
mongolians saved europe?
I think most of this board can agree that /pol/ are a bunch of wankstains with no concept of history, but that meme is also off. Attributing shit like the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and attendant religious wars to the Crusades? Or the Saxon conversions? IN THE SIXTH FUCKING CENTURY??
Go fuck yourself.
Obviously there was no concept of WE IZ (WHITE) EUROPA in former times. You had richfags from the next valley over sending war bands to wreck shit for this or that noble over some silly vendetta. Why should some hothead farm tenant from southern France give a shit about the sacred white Aryan blood of pagan Estonians in the 13th century?
>There were only 4-8 Crusades.
Educate yourself, then come back.
You got a big army
We'll take "crusade" here to generally mean military campaigns between Christian and Muslim powers.
Firstly, not all such efforts were failures. The Reconquista, for example, was ultimately a complete success for the Christians. And while the Christians ultimately lost their control of Jerusalem and the crusader states, they held them for several generations. Many were born, lived, and died in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Why didn't it last? Many reasons, which are the subject of multi-volume historical works. So we're cutting to the chase a bit.
Military campaigns were expensive and difficult to mount on neighbors in this period. To go all the way from continental Europe to the Holy Land with tens of thousands of troops and all their horses and supplies and food was almost unthinkable. And when a Crusade was over, successful or not, most participants generally went back to their castles and towns back home rather than staying in the Levant. Thus manpower was a constant problem.
Leaders were also often squabbling and divided. Their main goal (the crusading indulgence) essentially guaranteed by their mere participation, they would argue about what the right course was and who got what frequently. As these powerful and proud men stubbornly negotiated, time would pass, money and supplies would be expended, and campaigns would falter.
Cont.
These crusader states struggled to develop and remained Christian islands in a Muslim sea. The largest Christian power in the area, Byzantium, was too often on bad terms with western Christians and eventually in steep decline. The Muslims had their own infighting, but when they got their shit sorted out they were able to muster their strength and accomplish substantial reversals.
Crusading as an ideal lasted far longer than most people realize, it didn't end in the late 13th century. But as time went on, Europeans and western Christianity became more and more divided, and with the spread of the Protestant reformation and the massive successes of the Ottomans, holy war to reclaim Jerusalem had lost its practical relevance.
To directly address some of your points, no, the Muslims didn't really have technological or social advantages that tilted the scales in their favor. As to leadership, they were often able to consolidate power under individual leaders (unlike the large forces the crusaders were able to muster, which often had many leaders with no one man clearly in charge), but they didn't have consistently BETTER rulers.
>inventing what someone said
cute
I wouldn't say that we were utterly crushed. After all we created the Kingdom of Jerusalem and kept it for a good 200 years. If anything it was a great success.
The Muslim world better utilized Greek technology.
Can you imagine the logistical chain that runs all the way back to (a reluctant) Constantinople and beyond to Western Europe? The fatigue of men journeying across unfamiliar desert? Also the uneasy alliances of all the nobles with wildly different political aims.
A Byzantine empire in decline, catholics with a protestant problem fighting in the desert of the monkey men that lived there all their lives? Think further than your nose goes.
>The majority of these Christians were Syriac (Maronite) or Orthodox Christians, and they were constantly at odds with the Roman Catholic crusaders.
While I am agree with you about Orthodox Christians being at odds with the Crusaders, the Maronites generally liked the Crusaders and vice versa.
One traveled to a different continent with a fairly small manpower pool, and then saw most of that go home.
The other spent several centuries slowly wiping out the first group.
Demographics is a harsh bitch.
Levant was never high priority for them , when they were getting raped by Turks in Asia Minor.
1st crusade was a trade off for the Byzantines, give up Levant and Syria to crusaders, but regain lost Anatolian territories.
>Aryan blood of pagan Estonians
Estonians aren't even Indo-european
what the fuck are you on about