How Europeans Invented the Modern World

Since you spoke specifically about Constantinople, I beg to differ.

Regardless, in what way did Christendom fail to defend itself?

The collapse of the Byzantine rule in Egypt, north Africa, and in the Holy Land was rapid; the fight for Anatolia was one of slow withdrawal, and was the trigger for Constantinople’s call for aid in Roman Catholic Europe. The Moslem attacks took the form of rapid, mobile raids for plunder, pillage, burning, kidnapping, rapine, and murder. The fade went on for centuries; from the loss of Egypt and n Africa (639 for Egypt) to the fall of Constantinople (1453) is a gap of eight hundred years.

It took eight centuries or so, but the Spanish kicked out the Muzzies; during the Moslem occupation of Iberia, the French defeated the Moslems in the Pyrenees, preventing the establishment of a Moslem realm in southern France.

The Crusades were successful for a century or more, here and there, and the Crusaders weren’t really cut out for Middle Eastern warfare, and were at each others’ throats most of the time, both in the Holy Land and in Europe. It’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did. On balance, it probably distracted the Muzzies from trying to invade Europe via land and sea.

The Portuguese defeat in Morocco in 1578 resulted from an alliance with a deposed Sultan, and led to the Spanish rule of Portugal for, hmm, too lazy to look it up. The US, British, and French beat on the Barbary Pirates for decades, finally putting them out of business in 1830. The Turkish caliphate which began in the early 16th century (by began, I mean started to conquer its rivals) was defeated at the gates of Vienna, and ceased to exist (thanks to Ataturk and “General Ennui”) in 1924.

We are seeing the latest in many a resurgence of Islamic terror. It won’t come to an end until we pry that black stone out of the ka’aba and convert it to a urinal for the White House.

Thank you for your detailed and informative reply. The remark of the Muslim rule in Portugal is new for me, and I am now eager to read up on that period.

"in what way did Christendom fail to defend itself?"

Up until the middle of the VII century, as you know, there was not such thing as Islam. North Africa was a Christian land, full of important centers of Jewish and Christian learning. In a span of one half of a century, all this was gone, irreversibly to to the present day. Muslim al Andaluse lived for eight centuries (672--1492), i.e. longer than the Roman Empire; this is essentially the only land that was regained up until the fall of the Turkish Empire. In other words, your list of victories may be read differently. To be sure, Muslims were stopped by Martel, but but why only there? Look at North Africa today or Eastern and Central Europe up until XX century. The list of victories does not look so victorious. As you also know Turks have managed accept Islam on their way from the East, became the forward of jihad, and by XI-XII century have concurred lands around Constantinople (Thrace, etc.) They were given all the time they needed --- it took centuries from crossing into Europe to taking Constantinople (this is important by itself: the local population grew to like the Turkish rule, which was indeed progressive as the only extant meritocracy in Europe). They have not been dislodged. This too does not feel like much victory --- or even fight, for that matter.

Roman Empire was strong as long as its citizens identified with it and viewed themselves as Romans. And, conversely, it weakened when local loyalties prevailed over the imperial: only then did various barbarians (Suevi, Allemani, Vandals, Gauls, Visigoths, etc.) attain victory.

It is my belief that Christendom had sufficient resources to stop Islam in its tracks (or at least confine it to the Middle East). It would not have failed to do so had it valued that outcome more than the internal differences.

I am not suggesting that the West should mimic this today, but that is precisely what we presently (and always could) observe on the other side: Muslims unite behind a Muslim fighting an "infidel." Turks seizing the European lands acted on behalf of the entire Islam (even Arabs, for whom they have a dislike).

To summarize: Christendom had sufficient resources to repel the advance of Islam and failed to do so because the Islamic threat was viewed as that to individual kingdoms rather than the Christian World as a whole.

"Islamic terror. It won’t come to an end until we pry that black stone out of the ka’aba"

It could come to an end even sooner. I often wonder: our understanding with the Russians has always been mutually assured destruction (i.e., we'll wipe you out if attacked); why is there not equivalent for the Islamists? There is nothing hypothetical here: we have been already attacked. I am sure that, if not stopped completely, the pressure would be considerably reduced if we gave an ultimatum: one more terrorist attack --- Mecca will be wiped out. It took Reagan one bombing raid to make Lybian terror nonexistent for almost 30 years.

We have to attack what is dear to them. It is not their lives, which they do not value. It must be the holy places. I have no problem with that, as they attack places that are holy to us. Until terror is made expensive in their terms, it will not stop.

If Christendom had not fought back, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

But I wholeheartedly agree — their so-called holy places must be threatened. Even before that, the Islamic population in the US and Europe has to be gotten rid of. In Europe, Islam should be reclassified as a form of Nazism, and banned under existing denazification laws. In the US, going after their economic base of support (which is the Saudis) and their pattern of soliciting and sending economic support to terrorist organizations should be the approach.

re: other stuff

I didn’t remark that Portugal fell under Moslem rule; Portugal came into being after the liberation of Iberia which is still called the reconquista, the Moslems ruled south of the Pyrenees for centuries, and the Christian kingdoms slowly whittled them down. Later on, the Portuguese monarch and most of the nobility of the country, plus their armed forces, headed to Morocco to try to put a deposed sultan (a Moslem) back on the throne, and failed; they were defeated and mostly killed on the spot.

The Roman Empire started during the Republic period, began with the subjugation of neighboring city-states in the 7th century BC, and continued for a thousand years (actually, until the 5th c AD) in the west, and an additional thousand in the east. Roman rule of Macedonia and Greece started at the end of the 3rd century BC, and that’s where Byzantine rule held on longest, 200 BC to 1453 AD, nearly 1700 years.

The city of Rome was polyglot as far back as history can take us. The Roman army was reorganized by Augustus; he eliminated half of the legions and created the Praetorian Guard (which was a full legion, and quartered in Rome for protection of the Emperor and general security). In addition to the 28 regular legions he systematized the use of auxiliaries, 28 legions’ worth of ‘em, and they were not only not citizens to start with, they were foreigners. That sometimes backfired (Teutoborg Forest), but by and large it worked well. The Roman army was pretty small, considering the amount of territory, the size of the threat, and the overall population under Roman rule.

The Roman Empire was the place to be. One Roman writer joked that one had to travel to the provinces to hear Latin spoken; the great writer Ovid OTOH was banished by Augustus to colonies on the north shore of the Black Sea, and came to speak the local Scythian tongue. The population of the Empire was large, and the Latin veneer was thicker in some places than in others. As much as 15 percent of the imperial population was Jewish (at the peak), which was a pretty fair number of people. The last of the emperors from the so-called noble houses of Rome was among the immediate successors to Nero, during the Year of Four Emperors. The general Vespasian wound up Emperor, and after that the ethnic origin of the office was wide open.

Roman religion was a little too open perhaps; beginning perhaps with Julius Caesar, the Senate started deifying dead leaders, which would appear to us to be completely ridiculous, and probably the total mess of deified emperors and foreign cults undermined the supremacy of both the Roman pantheon of deities, and the credibility of the state.

Pompeii had a nice thriving temple and community of worshippers of Isis; in one of the buried houses (may have been in Herculaneum, can’t remember) a Cross had been attached to the wall in a windowless room of one of the houses. It’s not known for certain, but has been speculated that the occupant of the house quick grabbed the Cross and fled the destruction. It could easily have been removed long before the eruption, when the person changed residences, or got caught and punished. Also found in the ash was an ivory carving of an Indian deity.

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