The Crusades: The First Crusade

The crusades were in most part to help grow Christianity and for Christians to regain control of the holy land known as Jerusalem. The holy land mainly consisted of Muslims who were in control of the city. Pope Urban II wanted to regain Christian territory and the Christian people from the Muslims, he thought the Muslims were disrespecting the Christian faith and their holy land. Although the goal for the crusaders was to go after the Muslims to take back from them what they believed was theirs, they started with the Jews. European Jews ended up becoming the first deaths caused be the crusaders. The crusaders randomly started destroying Jewish property and killing Jews. Jews were being robbed of their possessions and then some decapitated.
All the hardships they had went through is to be believed that it weeded out the weak and unsure and only the strong and determined were left. On the 13 of June 1099, the crusaders attempted their overtaking of the holy land. It was a short-lived attack only lasting for several hours. The day before the attack the leaders of the armies saw a hermit on the Mount of Olives and the hermit told them to attack the next day and that God would grant them this victory if they had faith. This in hindsight was the reason for failure because after only fighting for a short time the crusaders became discouraged for they were not winning as God had promised. The crusaders backed out, regrouped, and lived to fight another day. After talking and deliberating the crusaders determined that they needed lumber because they wanted to build towers to give them access to get over the walls surrounding Jerusalem. They had already dismantled two ships and went on searches for more but were still coming up short. Until, "According to Radulph of Caen, Tancred was suffering from dysentery, and after wandering off until he found a rocky hollow surrounded by trees where he could relieve himself in privacy, he found himself facing a cave filled with 400 pieces of prepared lumber. Sometimes the Lord does work in mysterious ways." Everyone began working to build these towers that would consist of catapults, shields, and bridges. Finally, the towers were completed, and the final attack of the holy land was on July 13, 1099. The towers proved to be a huge asset, as they were able to catapult huge rocks into the wall. This caused parts of the wall to collapse and along with the rocks they hurled fire. Both sides were using fire and the fire would be an essential part in helping the crusaders get over the wall. There was so much fire that all the smoke from the fire began to