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The Christian "Crusades" were a defensive war against the Islam Jihad.

Of course they are stronger nowadays

What a lovely tale to tell, und tell, und tell again...

The paragraph on the 4th crusade is full of absolutely vicious lies.

The Crusades of the 13th century were larger, better funded, and better organized..

So organized and well funded that Forth crusade began by going straight for looting the largest religious center of Christianity in the world at the time.

The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood.

The westerners of the Fourth Crusade undertood perfectly well that they were desecrating, looting, and butchering the inhabitants of the largest Christian city of the day. The web of political manipulation brought by the 4th crusade was spun by the Roman Catholic crusaders, not the Byzantine Greeks. How could it be otherwise when the Roman Catholic armies imposed puppet rulers loyal to the pope for generations with this atrocity?

They had made a detour to Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for the Holy Land.

The Roman Catholic 4th Crusade consisted of atrocities committed upon Christians in Constantinople, with the goal of overthrowing the 1000 year old Orthodox Christian religious order of the city, imposing a line of puppet leaders, looting its riches, desecrating the churches, and butchering the populace.

Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world..

Blaming the victim like this is really sick. The above is written in the form of a monstrously evil lie, which turns truth upon its head. This is the equivalent of saying Muslims terrorists did 9/11 because Americans betrayed them. It is the Roman Catholics who savagely betrayed the Greek Orthodox christians in the 4th crusade, by looting the city, desecrating the churches, and butchering the populace. The populace was greatly confused to see knights with crosses on their chests butchering fellow Christians who had peaceably been let into the city..

Pope Innocent III, who had previously excommunicated the entire Crusade, strongly denounced the Crusaders. But there was little else he could do..

Little else he could do? The pope confirmed and let stand the puppet rulers newly imposed upon the city, loyal to him. So very sincerely sorry about invading, hope you love the new leaders I've imposed, they are staying forever!

The pope's conscience didn't bother him enough to actually return the stolen riches back to the Christian city his soldiers had plundered and butchered. Many of the most prized Christian relics stolen from Constantinople, remain at the Vatican museum on display to this day (a few have recently been returned). Look for the date of aquisition, 1204. Popes also knew that key artworks stolen from the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople were integrated into the Cathedral of Notre Dame, but this was not ordered stopped, none have been returned to this day. So very sorry our Roman Catholic armies have invaded, thanks for all of your most prized religious relics and riches, we are keeping them all!.

It is a terrible irony that the Crusades, which were a direct result of the Catholic desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the two further—and perhaps irrevocably—apart..

Irony? The very first act of the 4th crusade was going straight for butchering and looting the Orthodox equivalent of Rome, a city much greater than Rome at the time. How is it ironic that this 4th crusade sabotaged relations? That's like saying it is ironic that 9/11 sabotaged relations between muslims and Americans. The goal of this crusade was the total destruction of the Orthodox Christian faith and subjugation of the Orthodox city and people unto them, period. We know this because the Popes of the time confirmed this atrocity with generations of imposed puppet leaders loyal to them, and were not bothered to return stolen religious relics and riches.

The sickest part of this writing is blaming the Orthodox christian victims of Constantinople for the atrocity they endured. For what, pride? A good case can be made that much of the crusades were a defensive war, but a very clear exception should be made for the atrocity upon Christian Constantinople committed by the Roman Catholic armies of the 4th crusade.

I'm puzzled. How was a war to take Jerusalem a defence of Christian lands? I thought that Israel was always the land of the Jews?

the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins.

Sounds like a plan...

Thanks for a great post.

B&B

I'm reading a book by Hillaire Belloc about the Crusades. It is so refreshing to get the REAL story on it rather than the modern media's or a revisionist historian's.

Check it out.

ping

Ping for later

bttt

bump

except during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places

I'd been there for three straight years in a row at one point in my younger days. A great place to meet very nice and very intelligent young women as I remember it.

Excellent post. Bookmarking...