Military Campaigns: The Crusades

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns during the times of Medieval England against the Muslims of the Middle East. They began in the time range from 1095 until around 1270, there were eight crusades all together and there were two children crusades which were both in 1212 (Trueman). The Crusades began, when armies of Christians from Western Europe responded to Pope Urban II’s plea to go to war against Muslim forces (Madden, Crusaders and Historians). The pope asked the warriors of Europe to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. The response from them was said to be overwhelmingly favorable. That is when the first and most successful of at least eight crusades against the Muslims were launched and the wars began. The first crusade
The new emperor’s attempts to offer the Byzantine church to Rome was met with stiff resistance, and Alexius IV was strangled in early 1204. In reaction to this, the Crusaders declared war on Constantinople, and this ended the Fourth Crusade with the conquest and raid of the Byzantine capital later in the year (History.com). The fourth lasted from 1201 until 1204 (Trueman). There was never a greater crime against humanity than the fourth crusade (Runciman 130). During the rest of the 13th century there were a variety of Crusades not aimed at defeating Muslim forces in the Holy Land as they were at fighting any of those seen as enemies of Christian faith. The Albigensian Crusade which was from 1208 until 1229 aimed to rule out the heretical Cathari or Albigensian group of Christianity in France. Meanwhile, the Baltic Crusades which were from 1211 until 1225 were seeking to overcome pagans in Transylvania (History.com). The Fifth Crusade lasted from 1217 until 1221 (Trueman). This crusade in action by Pope Innocent III before his death in 1216, the Crusaders attacked Egypt, but were forced to surrender to Muslim defenders led by Saladin’s nephew, Al-Kamil, in 1221 (History.com). The Sixth Crusade was very short, it was from 1228 until 1229
The Seventh Crusade lasted from 1248 until 1254 (Trueman). It was led by Thibault IV of Champagne, and it briefly recaptured Jerusalem, but it ended up being lost again in 1244 to Khwarazmian forces of Egypt. In 1270, King Louis IX of France led the Eighth Crusade against Egypt, which resulted in defeat at Mansura the following year. As the Crusaders struggled, a new descent known as the Mamluks took power in Egypt. In this same time period, Mamluk forces organized to halt the advance of the Mongols, which were an invading force led by Genghis Khan that had appeared as an ally for the Christians in the region. The Mamluks demolished Antioch in this year, persuading Louis IX to set out on another Crusade, which ended in his death. A new Mamluk, Qalawan, had defeated the Mongols by the end of 1281 and led his attention back to the Crusaders, capturing Tripoli in 1289. This is what was considered the final Crusade, a group of warships from Venice and Aragon arrived to defend the remainder of the Crusader states in 1290. That following year, Qalawan’s son, Al-Ashraf Khalil, walked with a huge army against the port of Acre, the effective capital of the Crusaders in the region. After weeks under blockade, Acre fell, ending the Crusades in the Holy Land after two centuries. Even though the Church