Where were the first Crusade battles fought?
Ashkelon
During the Crusades, Ashkelon (known to the Crusaders as "Ascalon") was an important city due to its location near the coast and between the Crusader States and Egypt. In 1099, shortly after the Siege of Jerusalem (1099), an Egyptian Fatimid army that had been sent to relieve Jerusalem was defeated by a Crusader force at the Battle of Ascalon. The city itself was not captured by the Crusaders because of internal disputes among their leaders. This battle is widely considered to have signified the end of the First Crusade. Until 1153, the Fatimids were able to launch raids into the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Ashkelon, which meant that the southern border of the Crusader States was constantly unstable. In response to these incursions into Outremer, King Fulk of Jerusalem constructed a number of Christian settlements around the city during the 1130s, in order to neutralise the threat of the Muslim garrison. In 1148, during the Second Crusade, the city was unsuccessfully besieged for eight days by a small Crusader army that was not fully supported by the Crusader States.
First Crusade
The Princes' Crusade, by contrast, was a well-organized military campaign, starting out in late summer of 1096 and arriving at Constantinople between November 1096 and April 1097. 
The crusaders marched into Anatolia, capturing Nicaea in June 1097 and Antioch in June 1098. They arrived at Jerusalem in June 1099 and took the city by assault on 7 July 1099, massacring the defenders. A brief attempt by the Saracens to recapture Jerusalem was repulsed at the Battle of Ascalon.
First Crusade
Meanwhile, a plague broke out, killing many among the army, including the legate Adhemar, who died on 1 August. There were now even fewer horses than before, and worse, the Muslim peasants in the area refused to supply the crusaders with food. Thus, in December, after the Arab town of Ma'arrat al-Numan was captured following a siege, history describes the first occurrence of cannibalism among the crusaders. Radulph of Caen wrote, "In Ma'arrat our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled." At the same time, the minor knights and soldiers had become increasingly restless and threatened to continue to Jerusalem without their squabbling leaders. Finally, at the beginning of 1099, the march restarted, leaving Bohemond behind as the first Prince of Antioch.
Crusades
The term "crusade" used in modern historiography at first referred to the wars in the Holy Land beginning in 1095, but the range of events to which the term has been applied has been greatly extended, so that its use can create a misleading impression of coherence, particularly regarding the early Crusades. The term used for the campaign of the First Crusade was "iter" "journey" or "peregrinatio" "pilgrimage". The terminology of crusading remained largely indistinguishable from that of pilgrimage during the 12th century, reflecting the reality of the first century of crusading where not all armed pilgrims fought, and not all who fought had taken the cross. It was not until the late 12th to early 13th centuries that a more specific "language of crusading" emerged. Pope Innocent III used the term "negotium crucis" "affair of the cross" for the Eastern Mediterranean crusade, but was reluctant to apply crusading terminology to the Albigensian crusade. The "Song of the Albigensian Crusade" from about 1213 contains the first recorded vernacular use of the Occitan "crozada". This term was later adopted into French as "croisade" and in English as "crusade". The modern spelling "crusade" dates to c. 1760. Sinibaldo Fieschi (the future pope Innocent IV) used the terms "crux transmarina" for crusades in Outremer against Muslims and "crux cismarina" for crusades in Europe against other enemies of the church. Medieval Armenian term for Crusades — xacˇ‘e˘nkalk‘.
Battle of Turaida (1211)
Battle of Turaida was one of the biggest battles of Livonian crusade between Estonian tribes and Livonian Brothers of the Sword. The battle took place around modern Turaida, Latvia.
Fall of Ruad
The Fall of Ruad in 1302–3 was one of the culminating events of the Crusades in the Eastern Mediterranean. When the garrison on the tiny Isle of Ruad fell, it marked the loss of the last Crusader outpost on the coast of the Levant. Ten years earlier, in 1291, the Crusaders had lost their main power base at the coastal city of Acre, and the Muslim Mamluks had been systematically destroying any remaining Crusader ports and fortresses since then, forcing the Crusaders to relocate their dwindling Kingdom of Jerusalem to the island of Cyprus. In 1299–1300, the Cypriots sought to retake the Syrian port city of Tortosa, by setting up a staging area on Ruad, two miles (3 km) off the coast of Tortosa. The plans were to coordinate an offensive between the forces of the Crusaders, and those of the Ilkhanate (Mongol Persia). However, though the Crusaders successfully established a bridgehead on the island, the Mongols did not arrive, and the Crusaders were forced to withdraw the bulk of their forces to Cyprus. The Knights Templar set up a permanent garrison on the island in 1300, but the Mamluks besieged and captured Ruad in 1302 or 1303. With the loss of the island, the Crusaders lost their last foothold in the Holy Land. Attempts at other Crusades continued for centuries, but the Europeans were never again able to occupy any territory in the Holy Land until the 20th century, during the events of World War I.
Military history of the Crusader states
The military history of the Crusader states begins with the formation of the County of Edessa in 1097 and ends with the loss of Ruad in 1302, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land.
Christian forces of the First Crusade
The Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos had significant armies and navies in and about Constantinople who fought both the Turks and at times the Crusaders, especially the Normans. The major generals were Manuel Boutoumites, Tatikios Constantine Opos and Michael Aspietes. Admiral Manuel Butumites escorted the forces of Hugh to Great to Constantinople. Other admirals included John Dokas and Constantine Dalassenos. Some notable Europeans joined the emperor’s armies including Welf of Burgundy, William of Grandmesnil, son of Hugh de Grandsmesnil and brother of Ivo, and Guy of Hauteville, half-brother of Bohemund. Manuel and Tatikios both participated in the siege of Nicaea. Tatikios also commanded forces in the siege of Antioch and during the Crusade of 1011.
First Crusade
Lacking military discipline, in what likely seemed to the participants a strange land (Eastern Europe), Peter's fledgling army quickly found itself in trouble despite the fact they were still in Christian territory. The army led by Walter fought with the Hungarians over food at Belgrade, but otherwise arrived in Constantinople unharmed. Meanwhile, the army led by Peter, which marched separately from Walter's army, also fought with the Hungarians, and may have captured Belgrade. At Nish the Byzantine governor tried to supply them, but Peter had little control over his followers and Byzantine troops were needed to quell their attacks. Peter arrived at Constantinople in August, where his army joined with the one led by Walter, which had already arrived, as well as separate bands of crusaders from France, Germany, and Italy. Another army of Bohemians and Saxons did not make it past Hungary before splitting up.
Religious war
During the time of the Crusades, some of those who fought in the name of God were recognized as the "Milites Christi", soldiers or knights of Christ.
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns that took place during the 11th through 13th centuries against the Muslim Conquests. Originally, the goal was to recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims, and support the besieged Christian Byzantine Empire against the Muslim Seljuq expansion into Asia Minor and Europe proper. Later, Crusades were launched against other targets, either for religious reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Northern Crusades, or because of political conflict, such as the Aragonese Crusade. In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II raised the level of war from "bellum iustum" ("just war"), to "bellum sacrum" ("holy war"). In 16th-century France there was a succession of wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants (Hugenots primarily), known as the French Wars of Religion. In the first half of the 17th century, the German states, Scandinavia (Sweden, primarily) and Poland were beset by religious warfare in the Thirty Years War. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism figured in the opposing sides of this conflict, though Catholic France did take the side of the Protestants but purely for political reasons.
André of Brienne
André arrived in the Holy Land on 28 August 1189 to participate in the Siege of Acre with the first French troops, which he led alongside James of Avesnes, Henry I of Barres and Philip of Dreux. On 4 October that year, Saladin launched a new attack against the crusader army besieging the town. The battle was quickly won by the crusaders, but when they had victory within their grasp the crusaders' camp descended into anarchy and began to flee. André of Brienne, in command of the rearguard, tried to stop the fleeing crusaders and send them back into battle, but he was thrown from his horse. Covered in injuries, his screams of despair did not move his companions, not even his brother Erard, as they fled, leaving him to die there. Seven thousand other crusaders were also killed in this battle, including Gerard of Ridefort, grandmaster of the Templars.
History of literature
In November 1095 - Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont. The crusades would affect everything in Europe and the Middle East for many years to come and literature would, along with everything else, be transformed by the wars between these two cultures. For instance the image of the knight would take on a different significance. Also the Islamic emphasis on scientific investigation and the preservation of the Greek philosophical writings would eventually affect European literature.
Rho, Lombardy
It dates back to 11th century also the half-legendary Giovanni de Raude, flagbearer of the Christian army during the First Crusade; he was the man hoisting the first Christian flag on the Jerusalem walls in the battle of July 15, 1099.
William Ferguson Reid
Reid, John Mitchell Brooks and Dr. William S. Thornton began meeting daily at the old Slaughter's Hotel, a popular segregation-era gathering place for black Richmonders in Jackson Ward. The outgrowth of these strategy sessions was the Crusade.
Sweyn the Crusader
Sweyn was born in Denmark, a son of the Danish king Sweyn Estridsen, and husband of Florine of Burgundy. He is famous for his participation in the First Crusade, which he primarily spent fighting the Turks. On his way to Jerusalem in 1097, he and 1,500 other Danish knights were attacked by the Turks. The Danes lost the battle, and Sweyn the Crusader with his wife Florine of Burgundy was killed.
Battle of Tachov
It was part of the Hussite Wars, and it was the first battle in which war wagons were used by the crusaders. The battle showed that the Wagenburg could not be used successfully by just any army. It took an army that knew how to use the wagons to make them successful. This battle ended the Fourth Crusade of the Hussite Wars, and for four years no further crusades were made. This would allow the Hussites to go on their "beautiful rides" into Hungary, Saxony, Bavaria and Silesia.
Christianity in the Middle Ages
The Crusades were a series of military conflicts conducted by Christian knights for the defense of Christians and for the expansion of Christian domains. Generally, the Crusades refer to the campaigns in the Holy Land sponsored by the papacy against invading Muslim forces. There were other crusades against Islamic forces in southern Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily, as well as the campaigns of Teutonic knights against pagan strongholds in Eastern Europe (see Northern Crusades). A few crusades such as the Fourth Crusade were waged within Christendom against groups that were considered heretical and schismatic (also see the Battle of the Ice and the Albigensian Crusade).
Battle of Antioch (1098)
The Battle of Antioch (1098) was a military engagement fought between the forces of the Crusaders of Antioch and a Turkish coalition lead the Emir Kerbogha of Mosul as a part of the First Crusade. Kerbogha's goal was to reclaim Antioch from the Crusaders and affirm his position as a regional power.
Finnish–Novgorodian wars
Also noteworthy is the so-called First Swedish Crusade, which, according to several 15th-century sources, took place in 1150. The crusade is only known from later legends that presented the expedition (if it ever took place) as a Christian mission, headed by a saint king to baptize heathens. However, it seems to have followed the exceptionally edgy 1140s with both the Yem and Swedes fighting against Novgorod. Some historians have seen it as a direct reaction to the failed Yem expedition in 1149, associating it with the co-operation mentioned by the Pope 20 years later.
First Crusade
Urban's speech had been well-planned: he had discussed the crusade with Adhemar of Le Puy and Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, and instantly the expedition had the support of two of southern France's most important leaders. Adhemar himself was present at the Council and was the first to "take the cross". During the rest of 1095 and into 1096, Urban spread the message throughout France, and urged his bishops and legates to preach in their own dioceses elsewhere in France, Germany, and Italy as well. However, it is clear that the response to the speech was much greater than even the Pope, let alone Alexios, expected. On his tour of France, Urban tried to forbid certain people (including women, monks, and the sick) from joining the crusade, but found this nearly impossible. In the end, most who took up the call were not knights, but peasants who were not wealthy and had little in the way of fighting skills, in an outpouring of a new emotional and personal piety that was not easily harnessed by the ecclesiastical and lay aristocracy. Typically, preaching would conclude with every volunteer taking a vow to complete a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; they were also given a cross, usually sewn onto their clothes.
Christian forces of the First Crusade
The People’s Crusade, also known as the Peasant’s Crusade, preceded the First Crusade. and was led by Peter the Hermit as well as a number of other colorful characters. The crusade accomplished little other that the slaughter of Jews and those in the army. The major players were Peter and his deputy Walter Sans-Avoir. Most of the army were peasants with their wives and children, accompanying by some minor knights, brigands and criminals. It is said that he had as many as 20,000 followers. Upon Peter’s failure as a leader, his army was divided into two contingents:
Three other armies joined together to essentially attack the Jews and were eventually slaughtered by the Hungarians:
Finally, the Tafurs, a sect who travelled with Peter who wore sackcloth and were barefoot. They were led by a knight whose name remains unknown. They apparently supplemented their diet of roots and grass with the roasted corpses of dead Turks. They fought not with swords but with sticks and shovels. They were either slaughtered or died of disease.
Christian forces of the First Crusade
The following is an overview of the armies of First Crusade, including the armies of the European noblemen of the "Princes' Crusade", the Byzantine army, a number of independent crusaders as well as the preceding People’s Crusade and the subsequent Crusade of 1101 and other European campaigns prior to the Second Crusade beginning in 1147.
Dorylaeum
Dorylaeum was the site of two battles during the crusades. In 1097, during the First Crusade, the crusaders defeated the Seljuks there, in their first major victory. During the Second Crusade it was the site of a major defeat, which effectively ended the German contribution to the crusade.
First Crusade
At a local level, the preaching of the First Crusade ignited the Rhineland massacres perpetrated against Jews, which some historians have deemed "the first Holocaust". At the end of 1095 and beginning of 1096, months before the departure of the official crusade in August, there were attacks on Jewish communities in France and Germany. In May 1096, Emicho of Flonheim (sometimes incorrectly known as Emicho of Leiningen) attacked the Jews at Speyer and Worms. Other unofficial crusaders from Swabia, led by Hartmann of Dillingen, along with French, English, Lotharingian and Flemish volunteers, led by Drogo of Nesle and William the Carpenter, as well as many locals, joined Emicho in the destruction of the Jewish community of Mainz at the end of May. In Mainz, one Jewish woman killed her children rather than see them killed; the chief rabbi, Kalonymus Ben Meshullam, committed suicide in anticipation of being killed.
Emicho's company then went on to Cologne, and others continued on to Trier, Metz, and other cities. Peter the Hermit may have been involved in violence against the Jews, and an army led by a priest named Folkmar also attacked Jews further east in Bohemia. Emicho's army eventually continued into Hungary but was defeated by the army of Coloman of Hungary. His followers dispersed; some eventually joined the main armies, although Emicho himself went home.
Many of the attackers seem to have wanted to force the Jews to convert, although they were also interested in acquiring money from them. Physical violence against Jews was never part of the church hierarchy's official policy for crusading, and the Christian bishops, especially the Archbishop of Cologne, did their best to protect the Jews. A decade before, the Bishop of Speyer had taken the step of providing the Jews of that city with a walled ghetto to protect them from Christian violence and given their chief Rabbis the control of judicial matters in the quarter. Nevertheless, some also took money in return for their protection. The attacks may have originated in the belief that Jews and Muslims were equally enemies of Christ, and enemies were to be fought or converted to Christianity. Godfrey of Bouillon was rumoured to have extorted money from the Jews of Cologne and Mainz, and many of the Crusaders wondered why they should travel thousands of miles to fight non-believers when there were already non-believers closer to home. The attacks on the Jews were witnessed by Ekkehard of Aura and Albert of Aix; among the Jewish communities, the main contemporary witnesses were the Mainz Anonymous, Eliezer ben Nathan, and Solomon bar Simson.
Crusades
Under the papacies of successive Popes smaller groups of Crusaders continued to travel to the Eastern Mediterranean to fight the Muslims and aid the Crusader States in the early 12thcentury. The third decade saw campaigns by Fulk V of Anjou, the Venetians, and Conrad III of Germany and the foundation of the Knights Templar. The period also saw the innovation of granting indulgences to those who opposed papal enemies, and this marked the beginning of politically motivated Crusades. The loss of Aleppo in 1128 and Edessa (Urfa) in 1144 to Imad ad-Din Zengi, governor of Mosul, led to preaching for what subsequently became known as the Second Crusade. King Louis VII and ConradIII led armies from France and Germany to Jerusalem and Damascus without winning any major victories. As in the First Crusade, the preaching led to attacks on Jews including massacres in the Rhineland, Cologne, Mainz, Worms and Speyer amid claims that the Jews were not contributing financially to the rescue of the Holy Land. Bernard of Clairvaux, who had encouraged the Second Crusade in his preaching, was so perturbed by the violence that he journeyed from Flanders to Germany to deal with the problem.
Christianization
The Northern Crusades (or "Baltic Crusades") were crusades undertaken by the Catholic kings of Denmark and Sweden, the German Livonian and Teutonic military orders, and their allies against the pagan peoples of Northern Europe around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. Swedish and German campaigns against Russian Eastern Orthodox Christians are also sometimes considered part of the Northern Crusades.
Some of these wars were called crusades during the Middle Ages, but others, including most of the Swedish ones, were first dubbed crusades by 19th-century romantic nationalist historians. Lithuania and Samogitia were ultimately Christianized from 1386 until 1417 by the initiative of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila and his cousin Vytautas.
History of antisemitism
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns sanctioned by the Papacy in Rome, which took place from the end of the 11th century until the 13th century. They began as endeavors to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims but developed into territorial wars.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II, when calling for the First Crusade, was the threat to Constantinople from the Turkish invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was of concern if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids (who had recently taken it from the Abassids) by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099.
The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage, and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. Crusader Prince Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first crusader monarch of Jerusalem, decided not to use the title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself "Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri" ("Protector [or Defender] of the Holy Sepulchre"). By the crusader period, a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been the location where Helena had found the True Cross, and began to be venerated as such; although the cistern later became the "Chapel of the Invention of the Cross," there is no evidence of the rumour before the 11th century, and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th century repairs by Monomachos.
According to the German clergyman and orient pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim, the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians" and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given them by the pilgrims in the south door of the church.
Islam and war
The European crusaders re-conquered much of the territory seized by the Islamic state, dividing it into four kingdoms, the most important being the state of Jerusalem. The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land (former Christian territory) from Muslim rule and were originally launched in response to a call from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia. There was little drive to retake the lands from the crusaders, save the few attacks made by the Egyptian Fatimids. This changed, however, with the coming of Zangi, ruler of what is today northern Iraq. He took Edessa, which triggered the Second Crusade, which was little more than a 47-year stalemate. The stalemate was ended with the victory of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (known in the west as Saladin) over the forces of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin in 1187. It was during the course of the stalemate that a great deal of literature regarding Jihad was written. While amassing his armies in Syria, Saladin had to create a doctrine which would unite his forces and make them fight until the bitter end, which would be the only way they could re-conquer the lands taken in the First Crusade. It stated that any one who would abandon the Jihad would be committing a sin that could not be washed away by any means. It also put his amirs at the center of power, just under his rule.
First Crusade
The successful Princes' Crusade was preceded by the "people crusade", which was a popular movement 
instigated by Peter the Hermit in the spring of 1096. Mobs of peasants and laymen travelled to Anatolia where they came up against the Turks, on the way attacking populations of Jews in the Rhineland. They were decisively defeated at the Battle of Civetot in October.
Montfort Castle
Saladin's victory triggered the Third Crusade (1189-1192). Led by King Richard I of England, the Third Crusade ended with a substantial Crusader victory. Nonetheless, the territories of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were much smaller in size than those from before Saladin's reconquests. Jerusalem and most of the central Judea and Samaria mountains remained under Muslim control, and the Crusaders ruled mainly in the coastal plain and the Galilee. As the Crusaders set their new capital in Acre, the significance of the Montfort estate increased, due to the proximity of the property to the new capital (8 mi). Although the de Milly family received back the territory after its recapture during the Third Crusade, they sold it to the Teutonic Knights in 1220. The German knights began to renovate the buildings of the estate and, following internal conflicts between themselves and the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, it was imperative for the Teutonic Knights to leave Acre for a separate headquarters, and the property (on which the Montfort was soon to be built) was a natural choice.
Army of Hugh the Great on the First Crusade
The army of Hugh participated in numerous battles including the siege of Nicaea, the Battle of Dorylaeum, and the siege of Antioch. After Hugh’s return to France, many of the knights under his command joined other Crusader armies.
First Crusade
To the east of Europe lay the Byzantine Empire, composed of Christians who had long followed a separate Orthodox rite; the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches had been in schism since 1054. Historians have argued that the desire to impose Roman church authority in the east may have been one of the goals of the crusade, although Urban II, who launched the First Crusade, never refers to such a goal in his letters on crusading. The Seljuq Turks had taken over almost all of Anatolia after the Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071; however, their conquests were piecemeal and led by semi-independent warlords, rather than by the sultan. A dramatic collapse of the empire's position on the eve of the Council of Clermont brought Byzantium to the brink of disaster. By the mid-1090s, the Byzantine Empire was largely confined to Balkan Europe and the northwestern fringe of Anatolia, and faced Norman enemies in the west as well as Turks in the east. In response to the defeat at Manzikert and subsequent Byzantine losses in Anatolia in 1074, Pope Gregory VII had called for the "miles Christi" ("soldiers of Christ") to go to Byzantium's aid. This call was largely ignored and even opposed. The reason for this was that while the defeat at Manzikert was shocking, it had limited significance and did not lead to major difficulties for the Byzantine empire, at least in the short term.
Crusader states
The first four Crusader states were created in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade:After the First Crusade's capture of Jerusalem and victory at Ascalon the majority of the Crusaders considered their pilgrimage complete and returned to Europe. Godfrey was left with only 300 knights and 2,000 infantry to defend the territory won in the Eastern Mediterranean. Only Tancred of the crusader princes remained with the aim of establishing his own lordship. At this point the Franks held only Jerusalem and two great Syrian cities; Antioch and Edessa but not the surrounding country. Jerusalem remained economically sterile despite the advantages of being the centre of administration of church and state and benefitting from streams of pilgrims.
First Crusade
Egypt and much of Palestine were controlled by the Arab Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphate, which was significantly smaller since the arrival of the Seljuqs. Warfare between the Fatimids and Seljuqs caused great disruption for the local Christians and for western pilgrims. The Fatimids, under the nominal rule of caliph al-Musta'li but actually controlled by vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah, had lost Jerusalem to the Seljuqs in 1073 (although some older accounts say 1076); they recaptured it in 1098 from the Artuqids, a smaller Turkish tribe associated with the Seljuqs, just before the arrival of the crusaders.
Baldwin Chauderon
Baldwin Chauderon (died 1097) was a knight from Berry who was killed during the siege of Nicaea. It is unclear whether or not he belonged to any of the major armies of the First Crusade.
Deus vult
The battle cry of the First Crusade is reported in the "Gesta Francorum", written by an anonymous author associated with Bohemond I of Antioch shortly after the successful campaign, in 1100 or 1101. According to this description, as the Princes Crusade gathered in Amalfi in the late summer of 1096, there assembled a large number of crusaders, armed and bearing the sign of the cross on their right shoulders or on their backs, crying in unison ""Deus le volt, Deus le volt, Deus le volt"". The "Historia belli sacri", written somewhat later, c. 1131, also cites the battle cry.
Godfrey of Bouillon
Their first major victory, with Byzantine soldiers at their side, was at the city of Nicaea, close to Constantinople, which the Seljuk Turks had taken in 1085. Godfrey and his knights of Lorraine played a minor role in the siege of Nicaea, with Bohemond successfully commanding much of the action. Just as the Crusaders were about to storm the city, they suddenly noticed the Byzantine flag flying from the top of the city walls. Alexius I had made a separate peace with the Turks and now claimed the city for the Byzantine Empire. These secret dealings were a sign of things to come in terms of relations between Crusaders and Byzantines.
Godfrey continued to play a minor, but important, role in the battles against the Muslims until the Crusaders finally reached Jerusalem in 1099. Before that time, he helped to relieve the vanguard at the Battle of Dorylaeum after it had been pinned down by the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan I, with the help of the other crusader princes in the main force and went on to sack the Seljuk camp. After this battle and during the trek through Asia Minor, some sources suggest that Godfrey was attacked by a bear and received a serious wound which incapacitated him for a time. In 1098, Godfrey took part in the capture of Antioch, which fell in June of that year after long and bitter fighting. During the siege, some of the Crusaders felt that the battle was hopeless and left the Crusade to return to Europe. Alexius I, hearing of the desperate situation, thought that all was lost at Antioch and did not come to help the Crusaders as promised. When the Crusaders finally took the city, they decided that their oaths to Alexius had been breached and were no longer in effect. Bohemond, the first to enter the city gates, claimed the prize for himself. A Muslim force under Kerbogha, from the city of Mosul, arrived and battled the Crusaders, but the Christians finally defeated these Islamic troops.
First Crusade
Subsequently, upon the Crusaders' arrival, the city was subjected to a lengthy siege, and when Arslan had word of it he rushed back to Nicaea and attacked the crusader army on 16 May. He was driven back by the unexpectedly large crusader force, with heavy losses being suffered on both sides in the ensuing battle. The siege continued, but the crusaders had little success as they found they could not blockade the lake, which the city was situated on, and from which it could be provisioned. To break the city, Alexios sent the Crusaders' ships rolled over land on logs, and at the sight of them the Turkish garrison finally surrendered on 18 June. The city was handed over to the Byzantine troops, which has often been depicted as a source of conflict between the Empire and the crusaders; Byzantine standards flew from the walls while the crusaders were forbidden from looting the city or even entering it except in small escorted bands.
The Crusades (film)
The film takes many of its elements and main characters from the Third Crusade, which was prompted by the Saracen capture of Jerusalem and the crusader states in the Holy Land in A.D. 1187. The character of King Richard the Lionheart is a man of action but little thought. A hermit from Jerusalem arrives in Europe and starts gathering support for a Crusade. The hermit convinces a number of European rulers to travel to Jerusalem in order to bring the Holy City into Christian hands. Richard enlists in order to avoid an arranged betrothal to the King of France's sister, Princess Alice of France, but is followed by the Countess on the Crusade. A plot is laid against Richard's life by his brother Prince John and Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat. En route to the war, Richard meets Berengaria, Princess of Navarre. In order to get food for his men, Richard reluctantly marries her in exchange for her father's cattle and grain. Berengaria is forced to accompany Richard to the Holy Land.
Christianity
From 1095 under the pontificate of Urban II, the Crusades were launched. These were a series of military campaigns in the Holy Land and elsewhere, initiated in response to pleas from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I for aid against Turkish expansion. The Crusades ultimately failed to stifle Islamic aggression and even contributed to Christian enmity with the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.
Battle of Vyšehrad
The Battle of Vyšehrad was a series of engagements at the start of the Hussite War between Hussite forces and Catholic crusaders sent by Emperor Sigismund. The battle took place at the castle of Vyšehrad from 16 August 1419 to c. 1 November 1420.
Crusades
The success of the First Crusade inspired 12th-century popes such as CelestineIII, InnocentIII, HonoriusIII, and GregoryIX to call for military campaigns with the aim of Christianising the more remote regions of northern and north-eastern Europe. These campaigns are known as the Northern Crusades. The Wendish Crusade of 1147 saw Saxons, Danes, and Poles attempt to forcibly convert the tribes of Mecklenburg and Lusatia, who were Polabian Slavs or "Wends". CelestineIII called for a Crusade in 1193, but when Bishop Berthold of Hanover responded in 1198, he led a large army into defeat and to his death. In response, InnocentIII issued a bull declaring a Crusade, and Hartwig of Uthlede, Bishop of Bremen, along with the Brothers of the Sword brought all of the north-east Baltic under Catholic control. Konrad of Masovia gave Chelmno to the Teutonic Knights in 1226 as a base for a Crusade against the local Polish princes. The Livonian Brothers of the Sword were defeated by the Lithuanians, so in 1237 GregoryIX merged the remainder of the order into the Teutonic Order as the Livonian Order. By the middle of the century, the Teutonic Knights completed their conquest of the Prussians before conquering and converting the Lithuanians in the subsequent decades. The order also came into conflict with the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Pskov and Novgorod Republics. In 1240 the Orthodox Novgorod army defeated the Catholic Swedes in the Battle of the Neva, and, two years later, they defeated the Livonian Order in the Battle on the Ice.
Battle of Aussig
The Battle of Aussig () or Battle of Ústí nad Labem () was fought on 16 June 1426, between Roman Catholic crusaders and the Hussites during the Fourth Crusade of the Hussite Wars. It was fought near Aussig (Ústí nad Labem) in northern Bohemia.
Sectarian violence among Christians
Although the First Crusade was initially launched in response to an appeal from Byzantine EmperorAlexios I Komnenosfor help in repelling the invading Seljuq Turks from Anatolia, one of the lasting legacies of the Crusades was to "further separate the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity from each other."
Siege of Ma'arra
The Siege of Maarat, or Ma'arra, occurred in late 1098 in the city of Ma'arrat al-Numan, in what is modern-day Syria, during the First Crusade. It is infamous for the claims of widespread cannibalism displayed by the Crusaders.
The Crusades, An Arab Perspective
The series starts with the Catholic church council in Clermont in France in 1095, under Pope Urban II, and continues to the fall of Acre, the last Crusader foothold in the east, in 1291, covering two centuries of bloody battles, massacres, and conquering and reconquering of territories, including Jerusalem. The story also involves many famous names – Saladin, Richard I of England, Frederick II and Louis IX.
Sectarian violence
Although the First Crusade was initially launched in response to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos for help in repelling the invading Seljuq Turks from Anatolia, one of the lasting legacies of the Crusades was to "further separate the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity from each other."
Battle of the Lake of Antioch
The Battle of the Lake of Antioch took place on 9 February 1098 during the First Crusade. As the Crusaders were besieging Antioch, word reached the Crusader camp that a large relief force led by Radwan, the Seljuq ruler of Aleppo, was on the way. Bohemond of Taranto gathered all remaining horses and marched in the night to ambush the Muslim army. After several successful cavalry charges the Crusader knights routed the numerically superior Muslim army, forcing Radwan to retreat back to Aleppo.
Counter-castle
During the First Crusade the Crusaders built the first siege castles before the gates of Islamic towns and cities in the Holy Land. In 1097 Malregard Castle was built in front of the St. Paul's Gate at Antioch. A little later the castles of "la Mahomerie" and "Tancred's Castle" were built in front of other gateways.
First Crusade
The great French nobles and their trained armies of knights, however, were not the first to undertake the journey towards Jerusalem. Urban had planned the departure of the first crusade for 15 August 1096, the Feast of the Assumption, but months before this, a number of unexpected armies of peasants and petty nobles set off for Jerusalem on their own, led by a charismatic priest called Peter the Hermit. Peter was the most successful of the preachers of Urban's message, and developed an almost hysterical enthusiasm among his followers, although he was probably not an "official" preacher sanctioned by Urban at Clermont.
Crusades
The two-century attempt to recover the Holy Land ended in failure. Following the First Crusade there were six major Crusades and numerous less significant ones. After the last Catholic outposts fell in 1291, there were no more Crusades; but the gains were longer lasting in Northern and Western Europe. The Wendish Crusade and those of the Archbishop of Bremen brought all the North-East Baltic and the tribes of Mecklenburg and Lusatia under Catholic control in the late 12th century. In the early 13th century the Teutonic Order created a Crusader state in Prussia and the French monarchy used the Albigensian Crusade to extend the kingdom to the Mediterranean Sea. The rise of the Ottoman Empire in the late 14th century prompted a Catholic response which led to further defeats at Nicopolis in 1396 and Varna in 1444. Catholic Europe was in chaos and the final pivot of Christian–Islamic relations was marked by two seismic events: the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 and a final conclusive victory for the Spanish over the Moors with the conquest of Granada in 1492. The idea of Crusading continued, not least in the form of the Knights Hospitaller, until the end of the 18th-century but the focus of Western European interest moved to the New World.
First Battle of Bir el Gubi
The First Battle of Bir el Gubi took place on 19 November 1941 near Bir el Gubi, Libya. It was one of the opening engagements of Operation Crusader and the first tank battle in North Africa where Italian armoured forces achieved a success, after their previous poor performance during Operation Compass.
Siege of Edessa (1144)
The County of Edessa was the first of the crusader states to be established during and after the First Crusade. It dates from 1098 when Baldwin of Boulogne left the main army of the First Crusade and founded his own principality.
Fall of Tripoli (1289)
Two years later Acre, the last major Crusader outpost in the Holy Land was also captured in the Siege of Acre in 1291. It was considered by many historians to mark the end of the Crusades, though there were still a few other territories being held to the north, in Tortosa and Atlit. However the last of those, the small Templar garrison on the island of Ruad was captured in 1302 or 1303 in a siege. With the Fall of Ruad, the last bit of Crusader-held land in the Levant was lost.
Philip I of France
It was at the aforementioned Council of Clermont that the First Crusade was launched. Philip at first did not personally support it because of his conflict with Urban II. Philip's brother Hugh of Vermandois, however, was a major participant.
First Crusade
The expedition was a reaction to the appeal for military aid by Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Urban's convocation of the Council of Clermont was specifically dedicated to this purpose, proposing siege warfare against the recently occupied cities of Nicaea and Antioch, even though Urban's speech at Clermont in the testimony of witnesses writing after 1100 was phrased to allude to the re-conquest of Jerusalem and the Holy Land as additional goals.
Military history of the Crusader states
The army of the First Crusade that arrived in Asia Minor in 1097 were a type of armed pilgrimage. A prior expedition, the People's Crusade, made up of peasants and low-ranking knights arrived in Asia Minor in August 1096, but were decisively defeated by Seljuk forces a month later in October. The later force called the Prince's Crusade, which succeeded in taking Jerusalem and started the Crusader states, was representative of European armies. Crusader armies contained heavy cavalry, infantry and ranged troops such as archers or crossbowmen. The original leadership was generally made up of high-ranking knights from modern-day France and Belgium. Later on, other Western European monarchs participated such as Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor from the Holy Roman Empire and Richard I of England in the Third Crusade of 1189–1192. The long distance to the Middle East and the difficulty in crossing often hostile territory resulted in the Crusader forces being relatively outnumbered by the surrounding pre-existing nations. There were regular calls for reinforcements from the Crusader states attempting to alleviate this problem. Several calls resulted in new Crusades.
Battle of Nablus (1918)
The Battle of Nablus took place, together with the Battle of Sharon during the set piece Battle of Megiddo between 19 and 25 September 1918 in the last months of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. Fighting took place in the Judean Hills where the British Empire's XX Corps attacked the Ottoman Empire's Yildirim Army Group's Seventh Army defending their line in front of Nablus. This battle was also fought on the right flank in the Jordan Valley, where Chaytor's Force attacked and captured the Jordan River crossings, before attacking the Fourth Army at Es Salt and Amman capturing many thousands of prisoners and extensive territory. The Battle of Nablus began half a day after the main Battle of Sharon, which was fought on the Mediterranean section of the front line where the XXI Corps attacked the Eighth Army defending the line in front of Tulkarm and Tabsor and the Desert Mounted Corps which rode north to capture the Esdrealon Plain. Together these two battles, known as the Battle of Megiddo, began the Final Offensive of the war in the Sinai and Palestine campaign.
First Crusade
The four main crusader armies left Europe around the appointed time in August 1096. They took different paths to Constantinople and gathered outside its city walls between November 1096 and April 1097; Hugh of Vermandois arrived first, followed by Godfrey, Raymond, and Bohemond. This time, Emperor Alexios was more prepared for the crusaders; there were fewer incidents of violence along the way.
First Crusade
On 28 June 1098, the crusaders defeated Kerbogha in a pitched battle outside the city, a victory caused by Kerbogha's inability to organize the different factions in his army. While the crusaders were marching towards the Muslims, the Fatimid section of the army deserted the Turkish contingent, as they feared Kerbogha would become too powerful were he able to defeat the Crusaders. According to Christian eyewitnesses, an army of Christian saints came to the aid of the crusaders during the battle and crippled Kerbogha's army.
Christian forces of the First Crusade
Some of the renown knights who participated in the First Crusades whose affiliations are unknown include:  Guy, Lord of Dampierre-en-Yvelines, who went to the Holy Land, but it is unclear whether he was a Crusader;  Baldwin Chauderon, described as a rich man and a knight of great renown, and his compatriot Guy of Possesse, both killed at the siege of Nicaea; and Gilduin of Le Puiset, relative of many crusaders, but whose role and affiliations in the campaigns are unclear.
First Crusade
On 12 August, crusader scouts discovered the location of the Fatimid camp, which the crusaders immediately marched towards. According to most crusader and Muslim accounts, the Fatimids were caught unaware. Because of a somewhat ill-prepared Fatimid army, the battle was fairly short, although it still took some time to resolve, according to Albert of Aix. al-Afdal Shahanshah and his army retreated into the heavily guarded and fortified city of Ascalon. The next day the crusaders learned that al-Afdal Shahanshah had retreated back to Egypt via boat, so they plundered what remained of the Fatimid camp. After returning to Jerusalem most of the crusaders returned to their homes in Europe.
Role of Christianity in civilization
In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to re-take the Holy Land from Muslim rule.
"After Mohammad's death in 632, a series of caliphs (successors) waged energetic jihad against neighboring people's. Palestine, Syria, Persia, and Egypt—once the most heavily Christian areas in the world—quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain and were moving into France. In 732, at the Battle of Tours, Charles Martel defeated Muslim invaders and sent them back into Spain. By the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks had conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The holdings of the old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, were reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East." This was the first crusade, but the "Colossus of the Medieval world was Islam, not Christendom" and despite initial success, the conflicts, which lasted four centuries, ultimately ended in a failure to retake the "Holy Land" and only barely prevented the taking of the European continent.
Crusades
The Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271–72. This convention is used by Charles Mills in his "History of the Crusades for the Recovery and Possession of the Holy Land" (1820) and is often retained for convenience even though it is somewhat arbitrary. The Fifth and Sixth Crusades led by FrederickII may be considered a single campaign, as can the Eighth Crusade and Ninth Crusade led by LouisIX.
Maritime republics
Towards the end of the 11th century, the First Crusade in the Holy Land began on the initiative of Pope Urban II, supported by the speeches of Peter the Hermit. Venice and Pisa entered the crusade almost simultaneously, and the two republics were soon in competition. The Venetian naval army of bishop Eugenio Contarini clashed with the Pisan army of Archbishop Dagobert in the sea around Rhodes. Pisa and Venice gave support to the Siege of Jerusalem by the army led by Godfrey of Bouillon. The Pisan force remained in the Holy Land. Daibert became the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and crowned Godfrey of Bouillon first Christian King of Jerusalem. Venice, in contrast, soon ended its participation in the first crusade, probably because its interests lay mainly in balancing Pisan and Genoese influence in the Orient.
Crusades
Minor Crusading efforts lingered into the 14thcentury, and several Crusades were launched during the 14th and 15th centuries to counter the expansion of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. In 1309 as many as 30,000 peasants gathered from England, north-eastern France, and Germany proceeded as far as Avignon but disbanded there. Peter I of Cyprus captured and sacked Alexandria in 1365 in what became known as the Alexandrian Crusade; his motivation was as much commercial as religious. LouisII led the 1390 Barbary Crusade against Muslim pirates in North Africa; after a ten-week siege, the Crusaders signed a ten-year truce.
Battle of Ümera
Battle of Ümera () or Battle of Imera (), recorded by Henry of Latvia was fought south of Valmiera (), near the Gauja River () in August or September 1210, during the Livonian Crusade between Crusaders and Estonians. The Estonians won the battle.
Battle of Harran
The Battle of Harran took place on May 7, 1104 between the Crusader states of the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa, and the Seljuk Turks. It was the first major battle against the newfound Crusader states in the aftermath of the First Crusade marking a key turning point against Frankish expansion. The battle had a disastrous effect on the Principality of Antioch as the Turks regained territory earlier lost.
First Crusade
The causes of the Crusades in general, and particularly of the First Crusade, is widely debated among historians. 
While the relative weight or importance of the various factors may be the subject of ongoing disputes, it is clear that the First Crusade came about from a combination of factors in both Europe and the Near East.
Its origin is linked both with the political situation in Catholic Christendom, including the political and social situation in 11th-century Europe, the rise of a reform movement within the papacy, as well as the military's and religious confrontation of Christianity and Islam in the East.
Seljuk Empire
During the First Crusade, the fractured states of the Seljuqs were generally more concerned with consolidating their own territories and gaining control of their neighbours than with cooperating against the crusaders. The Seljuqs easily defeated the People's Crusade arriving in 1096, but they could not stop the progress of the army of the subsequent Princes' Crusade, which took important cities such as Nicaea (İznik), Iconium (Konya), Caesarea Mazaca (Kayseri), and Antioch (Antakya) on its march to Jerusalem (Al-Quds). In 1099 the crusaders finally captured the Holy Land and set up the first Crusader states. The Seljuqs had already lost Palestine to the Fatimids, who had recaptured it just before its capture by the crusaders.
Sigurd the Crusader
In 1107, Sigurd led the Norwegian Crusade to support the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem which had been founded after the First Crusade. He was the first European king to lead a crusade, and his feats earned him the nickname "Jorsalafari". Sigurd possessed a total force of about 5000 men in about 60 ships, as recorded by the sagas. The two kings, Øystein and Sigurd, initially disputed about who should lead the contingent and who should remain home to rule the kingdom. Sigurd was eventually chosen to lead the crusade, possibly because he was a more experienced traveler, having been on several expeditions with his father, Magnus III, to Ireland and islands outside Scotland.
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia
During the reign of Constantine I, the First Crusade took place. An army of Western European Christians marched through Anatolia and Cilicia on their way to Jerusalem. The Armenians in Cilicia gained powerful allies among the Frankish Crusaders, whose leader, Godfrey de Bouillon, was considered a savior for the Armenians. Constantine saw the Crusaders' arrival as a one-time opportunity to consolidate his rule of Cilicia by eliminating the remaining Byzantine strongholds in the region. With the Crusaders' help, they secured Cilicia from the Byzantines and Turks, both by direct military actions in Cilicia and by establishing Crusader states in Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli. The Armenians also helped the Crusaders; as described by Pope Gregory XIII in his "":
First Crusade
Back at home in Western Europe, those who had survived to reach Jerusalem were treated as heroes. Robert of Flanders was nicknamed "Hierosolymitanus" thanks to his exploits. The life of Godfrey of Bouillon became legendary even within a few years of his death. In some cases, the political situation at home was greatly affected by crusader absences. For instance, while Robert Curthose was away on crusade the throne of England had passed to his brother Henry I of England instead, and their resultant conflict led to the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106.
Divisional Cavalry Regiment (New Zealand)
After spending several months re-equipping, Div Cav fought in Operation Crusader and was the first unit to enter Bardia in January 1942. After returning to Maadi, the regiment was sent to Syria with the 2nd New Zealand Division to prevent an Axis attack from Turkey and was sent back to Egypt after the British rout in the Battle of Gazala. It fought at the first and second battles of El Alamein and the Battle of Alam el Halfa. The regiment pursued retreating German troops and fought at the Battle of El Agheila. In January 1943 it was based at Castel Benito, and participated in the Battle of the Mareth Line in March. After the German surrender in Tunisia on 13 May, the regiment moved back to Maadi for refitting.
Crusades
Five major sources of information exist on the Council of Clermont that led to the First Crusade: the anonymous " Gesta Francorum " (The Deeds of the Franks), dated about 1100–01; Fulcher of Chartres, who attended the council; Robert the Monk, who may have been present, and the absent and Guibert de Nogent. These retrospective accounts differ greatly. In his 1106–07 "Historia Iherosolimitana", Robert the Monk wrote that Urban asked western Roman Catholic Christians to aid the Orthodox Byzantine Empire because "Deus vult" ("God wills it") and promised absolution to participants; according to other sources, the pope promised an indulgence. In these accounts, Urban emphasises reconquering the Holy Land more than aiding the emperor, and lists gruesome offences allegedly committed by Muslims. Urban wrote to those "waiting in Flanders" that the Turks, in addition to ravaging the "churches of God in the eastern regions", seized "the Holy City of Christ, embellished by his passion and resurrection – and blasphemy to say it – have sold her and her churches into abominable slavery". Although the pope did not explicitly call for the reconquest of Jerusalem, he called for military "liberation" of the Eastern Churches.
Christianity in the 12th century
The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were crusades undertaken by the Catholic kings of Denmark and Sweden, the German Livonian and Teutonic military orders, and their allies against the pagan peoples of northern Europe around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. Swedish and German campaigns against Russian Eastern Orthodox Christians are also sometimes considered part of the Northern Crusades.
Some of these wars were called crusades during the Middle Ages, but others, including most of the Swedish ones, were first dubbed crusades by 19th century romantic nationalist historians.
Crusades
The military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar provided Latin Christendom's first professional armies in support of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states.  The Poor Knights of Christ (Templars) and their Temple of Solomon were founded around 1119 by a small band of knights who dedicated themselves to protecting pilgrims enroute to Jerusalem. The Hospitallers and the Templars became supranational organisations as Papal support led to rich donations of land and revenue across Europe. This in turn led to a steady flow of new recruits and the wealth to maintain multiple fortifications across the Outremer. In time, this developed into autonomous power in the region. After the fall of Acre the Hospitallers first relocated to Cyprus, then conquered and ruled Rhodes (1309–1522) and Malta (1530–1798), and continue in existence to the present day. Philip IV of France probably had financial and political reasons to oppose the Knights Templar, which led to him exerting pressure on Pope Clement V. The Pope responded in 1312, with a series of papal bulls including "Vox in excelso" and "Ad providam" that dissolved the order on the alleged and probably false grounds of sodomy, magic, and heresy.
Christianity in the 12th century
Sigurd I of Norway was the first European king who went on a crusade, and his crusader armies defeated Muslims in Spain, the Baleares, and in Palestine where they joined the king of Jerusalem in the Siege of Sidon.
The Swedish conquest of Finland in the Middle Ages has traditionally been divided into three "crusades": the First Swedish Crusade around 1155, the Second Swedish Crusade about 1249 and the Third Swedish Crusade in 1293.
The Crusaders (2001 film)
In the 11th century three men flee from an Italian city and make their way to the Holy Land to take part in the First Crusade (AD 1096-1099).
First Crusade
The First Crusade succeeded in establishing the "crusader states" of Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Tripoli in Palestine and Syria (as well as allies along the Crusaders' route, such as the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia).
However, there were many who had gone home before reaching Jerusalem, and many who had never left Europe at all. When the success of the crusade became known, these people were mocked and scorned by their families and threatened with excommunication by the Pope. Many crusaders who had remained with the crusade all the way to Jerusalem also went home; according to Fulcher of Chartres, there were only a few hundred knights left in the newfound kingdom in 1100. Godfrey himself only ruled for one year, dying in July 1100. He was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin of Edessa, the first person to take the title King of Jerusalem.
Among the crusaders in the Crusade of 1101 were Stephen II, Count of Blois and Hugh of Vermandois, both of whom had returned home before reaching Jerusalem. This crusade was almost annihilated in Asia Minor by the Seljuqs, but the survivors helped to reinforce the kingdom upon their arrival in Jerusalem. In the following years, assistance was also provided by Italian merchants who established themselves in Syrian ports, and from the religious and military orders of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller, which were created during the reign of Baldwin I.
Soldier's Heart (Paulsen novel)
In Charley's first battle, near Manassas Junction, Virginia, in 1861, he is caught in the middle of violent suffering and death. When the battle is over, hundreds of Charley's comrades have been killed in what came to be called the Battle of Bull Run after the name of the creek that ran nearby, or the Battle of Manassas for the junction nearby.
Northern Crusades
In 1206, the crusaders subdued the Livonian stronghold in Turaida on the right bank of Gauja River, the ancient trading route to the Northwestern Rus. In order to gain control over the left bank of Gauja, the stone castle was built in Sigulda before 1210. By 1211, the Livonian province of Metsepole (now Limbaži district) and the mixed Livonian-Latgallian inhabited county of Idumea (now Straupe) was converted to the Roman Catholic faith. The last battle against the Livonians was the siege of Satezele hillfort near to Sigulda in 1212. The Livonians, who had been paying tribute to the East Slavic Principality of Polotsk, had at first considered the Germans as useful allies. The first prominent Livonian to be christened was their leader Caupo of Turaida. As the German grip tightened, the Livonians rebelled against the crusaders and the christened chief, but were put down. Caupo of Turaida remained an ally of the crusaders until his death in the Battle of St. Matthew's Day in 1217.
First Crusade
The crusaders had attempted to negotiate with the Fatimids during their march to Jerusalem, but to no avail. After the crusaders captured Jerusalem from the Fatimids, they learned of a Fatimid army about to attack them. On 10 August Godfrey of Bouillon led the remaining troops from Jerusalem to Ascalon, a day's march away.
Christianity in the Middle Ages
The First Crusade captured Antioch in 1099 and then Jerusalem. The Second Crusade occurred in 1145 when Edessa was retaken by Islamic forces. Jerusalem would be held until 1187 and the Third Crusade, famous for the battles between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. The Fourth Crusade, begun by Innocent III in 1202, intended to retake the Holy Land but was soon subverted by Venetians who used the forces to sack the Christian city of Zara. Innocent excommunicated the Venetians and crusaders. Eventually the crusaders arrived in Constantinople, but due to strife which arose between them and the Byzantines, rather than proceed to the Holy Land the crusaders instead sacked Constantinople and other parts of Asia Minor effectively establishing the Latin Empire of Constantinople in Greece and Asia Minor. This was effectively the last crusade sponsored by the papacy; later crusades were sponsored by individuals. Thus, though Jerusalem was held for nearly a century and other strongholds in the Near East would remain in Christian possession much longer, the crusades in the Holy Land ultimately failed to establish permanent Christian kingdoms. Islamic expansion into Europe would renew and remain a threat for centuries culminating in the campaigns of Suleiman the Magnificent in the sixteenth century. On the other hand, the crusades in southern Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily eventually lead to the demise of Islamic power in the regions; the Teutonic knights expanded Christian domains in Eastern Europe, and the much less frequent crusades within Christendom, such as the Albigensian Crusade, achieved their goal of maintaining doctrinal unity.
Crusades
The Crusades' first experience with the Turkish tactic of lightly armoured mounted archers occurred when an advanced party led by Bohemond and Duke Robert was ambushed at Dorylaeum. The Normans resisted for hours before the arrival of the main army caused a Turkish withdrawal. After this, the nomadic Seljuks avoided the Crusade. The factionalism amongst the Turks that followed the death of Malik Shah meant they did not present a united opposition. Instead, Aleppo and Damascus had competing rulers. The three-month march to Antioch was arduous, with numbers reduced by starvation, thirst, and disease, combined with the decision of Baldwin to leave with 100 knights in order to carve out his own territory in Edessa. The Crusaders embarked on an eight-month siege of Antioch but lacked the resources to fully invest the city; similarly, the residents lacked the resources to repel the invaders. Eventually, Bohemond persuaded a tower guard in the city to open a gate and the Crusaders entered, massacring the Muslim and many Christian Greeks, Syrian and Armenian inhabitants.
Byzantine–Seljuq wars
During the course of the war, the Seljuq Turks and their allies attacked the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, capturing Jerusalem and catalyzing the call for the First Crusade. Crusader assistance to the Byzantine Empire was mixed with treachery and looting, although substantial gains were made in the First Crusade. Within a hundred years of Manzikert, the Byzantines had (with Crusader assistance) successfully driven back the Turks from the coasts of Asia Minor and extended their influence right down to Palestine and even Egypt. Later, the Byzantines were unable to extract any more assistance, and the Fourth Crusade even led to the sack of Constantinople. Before the conflict petered out, the Seljuqs managed to take more territory from the weakened Empire of Nicaea until the Sultanate itself was taken over by the Mongols, leading to the rise of the ghazis and the conclusive Byzantine–Ottoman wars.
History of Western civilization
In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to re-conquer the Holy Land from Muslim rule, when the Seljuk Turks prevented Christians from visiting the holy sites there. For centuries prior to the emergence of Islam, Asia Minor and much of the Mid East had been a part of the Roman and later Byzantine Empires. The Crusades were originally launched in response to a call from the Byzantine Emperor for help to fight the expansion of the Turks into Anatolia. The First Crusade succeeded in its task, but at a serious cost on the home front, and the crusaders established rule over the Holy Land. However, Muslim forces reconquered the land by the 13th century, and subsequent crusades were not very successful. The specific crusades to restore Christian control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, between 1095 and 1291. Other campaigns in Spain and Portugal (the Reconquista), and Northern Crusades continued into the 15th century. The Crusades had major far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts on Europe. They further served to alienate Eastern and Western Christendom from each other and ultimately failed to prevent the march of the Turks into Europe through the Balkans and the Caucasus.
First Crusade
Between the years of 1096 and 1101, the Byzantine Greeks experienced the crusade as it arrived in Constantinople in three separate waves.
In the early summer of 1096, the first large unruly group arrived on the outskirts of Constantinople. This wave was reported to be undisciplined and ill-equipped as an army. This first group is often called the Peasants' Crusade or the People's Crusade. It was led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans Avoir.
Georges Tate
In 1096, Pope Urban II initiated the First Crusade (1095–1099) aimed at recovering the Holy Land from Muslim rule. From Godfrey of Bouillon to Saint Louis, for two centuries, Westerners from all social classes marched to conquer and defend the Holy Land. Religious convictions or political considerations? In the name of Christ, they slaughtered the infidels, took over Nicaea, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, and founded the Latin States of the East. For Muslims, this epic of faith was a barbaric aggression. With the emir Imad ad-Din Zengi and Nur ad-Din, his son and successor, they proclaimed or holy war. The myth of the invincibility of the Franks was destroyed. Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria, was a fatal blow to Westerners who were permanently expelled from the Holy Land in 1291.
Northern Crusades
The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were religious wars undertaken by Catholic Christian military orders and kingdoms, primarily against the pagan Baltic, Finnic and West Slavic peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, and to a lesser extent also against Orthodox Christian Slavs (East Slavs). The crusades took place mostly in the 12th and 13th centuries and resulted in the subjugation and forced baptism of indigenous peoples.
Second Crusade
After the First Crusade and the minor Crusade of 1101, there were three crusader states established in the east: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa. A fourth, the County of Tripoli, was established in 1109. Edessa was the most northerly of these, and also the weakest and least populated; as such, it was subject to frequent attacks from the surrounding Muslim states ruled by the Ortoqids, Danishmends and Seljuq Turks. Count Baldwin II and future count Joscelin of Courtenay were taken captive after their defeat at the Battle of Harran in 1104. Baldwin and Joscelin were both captured a second time in 1122, and although Edessa recovered somewhat after the Battle of Azaz in 1125, Joscelin was killed in battle in 1131. His successor Joscelin II was forced into an alliance with the Byzantine Empire, but in 1143 both the Byzantine emperor John II Comnenus and the King of Jerusalem Fulk of Anjou died. Joscelin had also quarreled with the Count of Tripoli and the Prince of Antioch, leaving Edessa with no powerful allies.
Homs
Towards the end of Ayyubid rule, Homs remained a centrepiece of the wars between them and the Crusaders, as well as internecine conflicts with the Mongol Empire and the Mamluks. The first battle between the Mongols and the Mamluks took place on 10 December 1260, ending in a decisive Mamluk victory. A second battle was fought on 29 October 1281, also ending in a Mamluk victory. The Mamluks were finally defeated in the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar, also known as the "Third Battle of Homs," in 1299.
Mary Greenleaf Clement Leavitt
The temperance campaign that was led by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was born in Ohio and New York State in 1873 when local women, concerned about alcohol's influence on home life, met in churches for prayer and then embarked on visits to saloons to confront those they felt responsible. During the next couple of years, the movement caught fire, with women demanding that saloons cease selling alcohol. The women of Fredonia, New York were the first credited with visiting local saloons under the aegis of their leader Mrs. Esther McNeil and, on December 22, 1873 were the first to call themselves the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Two days later, following a lecture at the Hillsboro, Ohio Music Hall the night before, the Crusade was born when Mrs. Eliza Thompson, a judge's wife and the daughter of a former governor, gathered 70 women in prayer at the Presbyterian Church and marched to the local saloons. Singing hymns as they went, the women demanded the saloons cease selling alcohol.
History of the papacy (1048–1257)
Long-standing divisions between East and West also came to a head in the East-West Schism and the Crusades. The first seven Ecumenical Councils had been attended by both Western and Eastern prelates, but growing doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographic differences finally resulted in mutually denunciations and excommunications. Pope Urban II (1088–99) speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095 became the rallying cry of the First Crusade.
Military history of the Crusader states
The war with Fatimid Egypt began when the First Crusade invaded Fatimid territory and started the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099. Soon after, the Crusaders stormed and captured the city. The war between the newly established Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and Fatimid Egypt continued until Saladin became the effective ruler of Egypt in 1169.
Pedro González de Lara
There is no contemporary evidence for Spanish participation in the First Crusade, but the late thirteenth-century "Gran conquista de Ultramar" refers to "a company of Spanish knights there had been" at the Siege of Nicaea in 1097, "guarding the count of Toulouse, whose chief he had nominated, Lord Pedro González the Roamer, who was a very good knight in arms, and was born in Castile." It goes on to narrate an event which supposedly took place during the Siege of Antioch (1097–98) after the horse of Robert II, Count of Flanders, was killed beneath him and he was forced to fight dismounted against a number of Turks. Two knights, one from France and the other Pedro González, came to his rescue, "but the Spaniard, who arrived first, gave such a great blow to the back of a Moor with the lance he carried in his hand that it came out his chest a cubit, and he left him dead on the ground." It is possible that the "Gran conquista" has confused Pedro González with the "Petrum de Castillione" mentioned in the "Gesta Francorum" as part of Raymond of Toulouse's army, and that the event at Antioch confuses Pedro with Peter Bartholomew, who had a vision at Antioch and found the Holy Lance.
Christian forces of the First Crusade
A number of nobles and knights participated in the First Crusades either as independent agents or  whose affiliation remain unknown.  In some cases it is unclear whether they were participating in the Crusade or merely on a pilgrimage. Some of the more prominent of these are listed below.  The full list can be found in the on-line database of Riley-Smith, et al., and the hyperlinks therein provide details including original sources.
Acre, Israel
After roughly four years of siege, Acre finally capitulated to the forces of King Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1104 following the First Crusade. The Crusaders made the town their chief port in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. On the first Crusade, Fulcher relates his travels with the Crusading armies of King Baldwin, including initially staying over in Acre before the army's advance to Jerusalem. This demonstrates that even from the beginning, Acre was an important link between the Crusaders and their advance into the Levant. Its function was to provide Crusaders with a foothold in the region and access to vibrant trade that made them prosperous, especially giving them access to the Asiatic spice trade. By the 1130s it had a population of around 25,000 and was only matched for size in the Crusader kingdom by the city of Jerusalem. Around 1170 it became the main port of the eastern Mediterranean, and the kingdom of Jerusalem was regarded in the west as enormously wealthy above all because of Acre. According to an English contemporary, it provided more for the Crusader crown than the total revenues of the king of England.
Norwegian Crusade
The first place they arrived at was Formentera, where they encountered a great number of "Blåmenn" (Blue or black men) and "Serkir" (Saracens) who had taken up their dwelling in a cave. The course of the fight is the most detailed of the entire crusade through written sources, and might possibly be the most notable historic event in the small island's history. After this battle, the Norwegians supposedly acquired the greatest treasures they had ever acquired. They then went on to successfully attack Ibiza and then Menorca. The Norwegians seem to have avoided attacking the largest of the Balearic Islands, Majorca, most likely because it was at the time the most prosperous and well-fortified center of an independent taifa kingdom. Tales of their success may have inspired the Catalan–Pisan conquest of the Balearics in 1113–1115.
Lǫgmaðr Guðrøðarson
If Lǫgmaðr was indeed a crusader, it is uncertain which particular crusade he undertook. One possibility is that he took part in the First Crusade, a movement that reached its climax with the successful siege and capture of Jerusalem in mid 1099. Lǫgmaðr could have embarked upon this enterprise in about 1096, the year the pope's calls reached England, and perhaps joined Robert's assembling forces that summer. Alternately, in light of Lǫgmaðr's capture by the Norwegians in 1098, it is conceivable that his release from custody was made conditional upon his exile and participation in the First Crusade. On the other hand, it is not impossible that Lǫgmaðr originally undertook a pilgrimage before catching wind of the crusade en route. Whatever the case, if Lǫgmaðr indeed participated and perished in the First Crusade, he may have met his end on campaign in Syria or Anatolia.