Crusades

>>1770237
There was no technological disparity between two groups. Both groups were largely armoured with mail with clothing over it to contain heat, using mainly spears, shields and swords. Arabian and Eastern horses were a bit better than their European counterparts in terms of stamina but not in great deal.

When Europeans first came they crushed through Muslims because Muslims were fractured to 4 different groups which all had infighting while also fighting Byzantines. After they reorganised they defeated Europeans because they had comparably smart tactical decisions and familiarity. There was also a more militant tradition amongst Arabs and Turks compared to Europeans at the time.

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>>1770237
Utterly crushed?

They conquered a bunch of land and kept it for two centuries.

Their problem was maintaining a set of principalities with a really small permanent force and seasonal erratic campaigns launched from Europe.

The linchpin of their military conquest and subsequent occupation was a mix of diplomacy, a network of castles and heavily armed cavalry.

When the Mamluke guys kicked em out they did so by systematically destroying this network of castles.

>>1770253
This and regional issues.German king drowned in Euphrates and French king lost a lot of his army to attrition in Anatolia.

>>1770280
>Utterly crushed?
They lost every crusade but the first.

>>1770280
>The linchpin of their military conquest and subsequent occupation was a mix of diplomacy, a network of castles and heavily armed cavalry.

Eastern cavalry was generally more heavily armed than European ones, aside from Turks who tended to be more lightly armoured but still on par with crusaders for the most part.

The whole knight tank against robe wearing muslims is a meme.

>>1770286
The Fourth Crusade was won :^)

They weren't a consolidated army, too many leaders doing their own thing, and most of the troops had no experience and were poorly equipped. You have to remember that wars in europe were fought by levees where ottomans had a fully funded standing army.

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>>1770297
You got me there m8

>>1770237
>That glorious cross coming over the horizon with the host of the faithful behind it

Ain't even Christian and it almost got a deus vult out of me.

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>>1770324
It was a good cause.

>>1770339
that pic made me autism so hard, its crazy...
Christianity is a made up religion by romans to keep people obeying, roman empire never fell...

>>1770237
One was fighting an overseas war despite having shitty projection power, the other was at home
Yuros should never have been able to win any crusade at all gad the muslims not been so shit

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>>1770290
Then why did Muslims note Frankish cavalry wore heavy armor?

>>1770286
They lost some campaigns but in the end they weren't conquered immediately afterward.

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Because we had Allah (S.A.W.) on our side, infidel kuffar!

>>1770372
This, just read about the first crusade that started it all. It's amazing the Christians took Jerusalem.

>>1770515
I thought it was the khans that took it.

>>1770237
Crushed?They've kept a large patch of land in a hostile environment for almost two hundred years.

>>1770532
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Crusade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Crusade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Crusade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Crusade

"Rage and sorrow are seated in my heart...so firmly that I scarce dare to stay alive. It seems that God wishes to support the Turks to our loss...ah, lord God...alas, the realm of the East has lost so much that it will never be able to rise up again. They will make a Mosque of Holy Mary's convent, and since the theft pleases her Son, who should weep at this, we are forced to comply as well...Anyone who wishes to fight the Turks is mad, for Jesus Christ does not fight them any more. They have conquered, they will conquer. For every day they drive us down, knowing that God, who was awake, sleeps now, and Muhammad waxes powerful"

CHRISTKEKS BTFO

>>1770532
>kept
>constantly changing and shrinking border as well as a complete loss of all mainland holdings 1187

>Why were the Europeans utterly crushed by the Arabs and Turks in the Crusades?
Loaded question, they managed to take and hold Jerusalem for 88 years despite being surrounded.

>What technological or leadership superiority did the Muslim factions have over those of the Christians?
Loaded question, by the time of the crusades there were no significant differences, not enough to safely say one had better technology than the other without quibbling.

>Is it true Europe was rather backwards and corrupt compared to the Islamic world?
Loaded question, again, there were no differences large enough to say there was a clear difference.

>>1770372
>>1770515
The Muslims were fractured as fuck during the first crusade. Some even helped the crusaders.

This is the same excuse people use to discredit the early Muslim expansions into Byzantine and Persian lands.

>>1770480
All the crusader kingdoms were conquered and Europe was invaded and parts occupied to this day.

>>1770532
A hundred years (plus fifty maybe for a couple places). After the fall of Jerusalem most of the major inland fortifications fell and the crusaders were left to primarily coastal enclaves. By no definition "large patches" of land.

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>>1770539
>muslikeks today.

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>>1770655
DELETE THIS

>>1770237
>Europe was rather backwards and corrupt compared to the Islamic world?
they both were

thanks to savages invaded the roman empire

fucking germanics pigs

>>1770500
Anon your shitposting is very funny and everything but you're not doing the turk roleplay very well.
For example infidel in turkish is kafir or gavur which is used more often.

t.a turk

>>1770635
Indeed. Even where they held castles, the surrounding countryside was often not a very secure place.

>>1770698
Rome was already declining, so if it wasn't 'germanic pigs', it would've been easterners. The great migrations out of central asia (e.g. the Huns) were just getting started and putting populations in flux.

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>>1770280
>They conquered a bunch of land and kept it for two centuries.

An utter failure, considering that despite their presence in the Levant for two centuries, the Crusaders left absolutely no imprint on the cultural or religious landscape, whereas the Turks and Arabs left legacies that can still be seen to this day in those places that they conquered.

>>1770817
Large parts of old Jerusalem were built during the Crusader era if I am not mistaken.

As for the cultural imprint, the same can be said of British India or Africa. The language is there but that is about it.

>>1770286
The 3rd was pretty dank

The Christians did pretty well for the distance they traveled. Also th Hungarians got btfo by the mongols and lost that crusade for them.

>>1770290
But weren't most middle eastern "proffesional" armies mostly composed of turks at the time?

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>>1770756
don't encourage the faggot

>>1770578
It's true in both events and no discrediting at all. Only the insecure man would try to negate a good situation for success in order to make already impressive victories greater.

>>1770480
>Then why did Muslims note Frankish cavalry wore heavy armor?
Sauce

>>1770317
The mountain goats are pretty good

>>1771079
I believe it was this one.

http://deremilitari.org/2014/02/the-presentation-of-the-franks-in-selected-muslim-sources-from-the-crusades-of-the-12th-century/

It said something along the lines of: Frankish crusaders only charge and fight so brave because they are covered in armor.

>>1771093
It says they wore armor, but that's not the same as saying they had more or heavier armor.

>>1771102
It is implied that they wore more armor.

Did the seljuks wear mail chausses and full face helmets?

I reckon the crusaders on the first crusade would not have been particularly heavily armed but as time went on the amount of protection increased.

>>1771137
>It is implied that they wore more armor.
I don't see where.

>>1770237
Holding territory over large distances is not sustainable in the long term. Persians and Turks couldn't even maintain dominance over the Middle East constantly. Although the Persians could gain more power over the Middle East eventually.

>>1770305
Ottomans didn't exist back then.

Unless you're referring to the Balkan "crusades" which got btfo

>>1770817
>no imprint on the cultural or religious landscape
There's quite a few Christians in Lebanon and Israel. Lots of Lebanese music has a French style to it. Lots of Syrians and Lebanese have blue eyes.

And there's much less western influence in the Middle-East than it seems like there would be because various Islamic groups throughout history have had a tendency to systematically destroy pre-Islamic architecture and writings. Similar behavior on the part of Christians is also why there's not a ton of Pagan influence in most of Europe.

>>1770237
>utterly
They literally won the first one, negotiated the third, and then had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barons%27_Crusade

Not to mention the fact that it was a logistic nightmare, they were outnumbered in almost every battle, and still had many large successes
>technological or leadership superiority did the Muslim factions have over those of the Christians?
Crusaders were fractured and petty. Muslims had home advantage as well as numbers.
>Is it true Europe was rather backwards and corrupt compared to the Islamic world?
No

>>1770237
I have the opposite perspective desu.

Byzantines lose the Levant after a single battle and cannot retake it after 300 years of war.

Then you have the Latins who arrive from the other side of the world and manage to take back Jerusalem.

>>1771359
Christianity in Lebanon and Israel predate Latin Crusader influences (if any) by centuries, and their only influence today comes from Roman Catholic efforts in the past two centuries. Blue eyes also predate the Crusades, and the state that had the most intermarriage between Latin settlers and local Christians was Antioch, not Tripoli nor Jerusalem. There was no tendency to destroy pre-Islamic architecture until modern groups like ISIS arrived as local Syrian powers occupied Crusader fortifications throughout the time period. These were destroyed not for any religious purpose but in the context of the Mongol invasions of Syria in order to create a virtual no-man's-land to better face the Ilkhanate.

>>1770237
It had nothing to do with technology, leadership, or even numbers. It was a matter of politics. The First Crusade achieved great success by taking advantage of Seljuk political weakness, and then the Zengids and later Ayyubids did the same by taking advantage of Crusader political weakness.

>>1771510
The Byzantines could have taken the Levant earlier, and many even expected them to. They chose not to because of their own political concerns.

>>1771668
>Byzantines could have taken the Levant earlier

Not while getting buttfucked by Turks they couldn't. All they managed to gain was a tiny scrap of Syria while the Abbasids were falling apart. And even that they lost.

>>1771675
That tiny scrap was what I was referring to. They didn't stop because they ran into trouble with their supply lines or capabilities, they stopped because the emperor didn't want to suddenly expand the power of Anatolian dynasts in one fell swoop (without also expanding the Western ones as well, hence Sicily). The Turks were only an issue when in the later civil wars the growing rebellions by non-Greek vassals stopped caring about becoming emperor themselves and started forming their own independent states.

>>1770539
doesn't change the fact that the kingdoms kept existing for that long.

The real blow to the Crusader kingdoms was the battles like Hattin before the 3rd crusade when they lost most of their manpower, which was already thin to begin with.

Yeah, crusaders had a lot of heavy armor so Muslims had light armor and flanged maces. Also desert horses

>>1771693
Interesting.

I did not know that domestic politics played such a large role in Byzantine military expeditions.

Were they ever in a position to restore Roman rule in the Levant, or maybe even Egypt?

>>1771713
Mesopotamia was in their sights as they had a more cordial relationship with the Fatimids. But being that the region was inland communications with Constantinople would be strained and put a lot of power into a local family.

>>1771697
Manpower argument is a meme. Hattin broke what was already a kingdom two steps from multiple civil wars and diplomatically isolated from its allies.

>>1771359
>There's quite a few Christians in Lebanon and Israel

...Those Christians were around for centuries before the Crusades. The majority of these Christians were Syriac (Maronite) or Orthodox Christians, and they were constantly at odds with the Roman Catholic crusaders. Their presence in the Middle East had nothing to do with the Crusaders.

>>1770286
>what is the 6th crusade
Sure it was purely symbolic but it was a technical win for Christians

>>1770237
Allah was with them you fuccboi

>>1770286
the christians actually did accomplish their war goals in the third

>>1770817
when I was in Israel I went to a crusader castle that was pretty cool

>>1770253
There was also a more militant tradition amongst Arabs and Turks compared to Europeans at the time.
>There was also a more militant tradition amongst Arabs and Turks compared to Europeans at the time.
>>>>>There was also a more militant tradition amongst Arabs and Turks compared to Europeans at the time.

>>1770817
Gee, 200 years of fractured land-holdings vs. centuries of total domination... I wonder which side will have more cultural influence?

>>1772296
Lose the holy land?

>>1772328
Militant as in a tradition of being raised for war from childhood and professional armies. While Europeans were mostly nobles, their helpers and levies with assorted soldiers.

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>>1770237
>Why were the Europeans utterly crushed by the Arabs and Turks in the Crusades?

Even if you prescribe to this theory it's the loss of unfettered access to the middle east and its trade w/ Asia that forced Europe to the sea in search of routes to asia, thereby sparking the exploration and discovery that's solidified Western dominance ever since.

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>>1770339

>>1773180
mongolians saved europe?

>>1773180
I think most of this board can agree that /pol/ are a bunch of wankstains with no concept of history, but that meme is also off. Attributing shit like the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and attendant religious wars to the Crusades? Or the Saxon conversions? IN THE SIXTH FUCKING CENTURY??

Go fuck yourself.

Obviously there was no concept of WE IZ (WHITE) EUROPA in former times. You had richfags from the next valley over sending war bands to wreck shit for this or that noble over some silly vendetta. Why should some hothead farm tenant from southern France give a shit about the sacred white Aryan blood of pagan Estonians in the 13th century?

>>1770286

>There were only 4-8 Crusades.

Educate yourself, then come back.

>>1772893
You got a big army

>>1770237

We'll take "crusade" here to generally mean military campaigns between Christian and Muslim powers.

Firstly, not all such efforts were failures. The Reconquista, for example, was ultimately a complete success for the Christians. And while the Christians ultimately lost their control of Jerusalem and the crusader states, they held them for several generations. Many were born, lived, and died in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Why didn't it last? Many reasons, which are the subject of multi-volume historical works. So we're cutting to the chase a bit.

Military campaigns were expensive and difficult to mount on neighbors in this period. To go all the way from continental Europe to the Holy Land with tens of thousands of troops and all their horses and supplies and food was almost unthinkable. And when a Crusade was over, successful or not, most participants generally went back to their castles and towns back home rather than staying in the Levant. Thus manpower was a constant problem.

Leaders were also often squabbling and divided. Their main goal (the crusading indulgence) essentially guaranteed by their mere participation, they would argue about what the right course was and who got what frequently. As these powerful and proud men stubbornly negotiated, time would pass, money and supplies would be expended, and campaigns would falter.

Cont.

>>1773536

These crusader states struggled to develop and remained Christian islands in a Muslim sea. The largest Christian power in the area, Byzantium, was too often on bad terms with western Christians and eventually in steep decline. The Muslims had their own infighting, but when they got their shit sorted out they were able to muster their strength and accomplish substantial reversals.

Crusading as an ideal lasted far longer than most people realize, it didn't end in the late 13th century. But as time went on, Europeans and western Christianity became more and more divided, and with the spread of the Protestant reformation and the massive successes of the Ottomans, holy war to reclaim Jerusalem had lost its practical relevance.

To directly address some of your points, no, the Muslims didn't really have technological or social advantages that tilted the scales in their favor. As to leadership, they were often able to consolidate power under individual leaders (unlike the large forces the crusaders were able to muster, which often had many leaders with no one man clearly in charge), but they didn't have consistently BETTER rulers.

>>1773428
>inventing what someone said
cute

I wouldn't say that we were utterly crushed. After all we created the Kingdom of Jerusalem and kept it for a good 200 years. If anything it was a great success.

>>1770237
The Muslim world better utilized Greek technology.

>>1770237
Can you imagine the logistical chain that runs all the way back to (a reluctant) Constantinople and beyond to Western Europe? The fatigue of men journeying across unfamiliar desert? Also the uneasy alliances of all the nobles with wildly different political aims.

>>1770237
A Byzantine empire in decline, catholics with a protestant problem fighting in the desert of the monkey men that lived there all their lives? Think further than your nose goes.

>>1771739
>The majority of these Christians were Syriac (Maronite) or Orthodox Christians, and they were constantly at odds with the Roman Catholic crusaders.
While I am agree with you about Orthodox Christians being at odds with the Crusaders, the Maronites generally liked the Crusaders and vice versa.

>>1770237
One traveled to a different continent with a fairly small manpower pool, and then saw most of that go home.

The other spent several centuries slowly wiping out the first group.

Demographics is a harsh bitch.

>>1771510

Levant was never high priority for them , when they were getting raped by Turks in Asia Minor.

1st crusade was a trade off for the Byzantines, give up Levant and Syria to crusaders, but regain lost Anatolian territories.

>>1773422
>Aryan blood of pagan Estonians
Estonians aren't even Indo-european
what the fuck are you on about

>>1776299
Demographics favored Europe.

>>1770635
That's why I've said "almost".

>>1778233
A hundred years isn't "almost" two hundred you idiot

>>1778085
That's (part of) the point, genius.

>>1771400

This, the roles just reversed.

The Crusaders started with a degree of unity then became fractured and antagonistic to each other, the middle eastern nations started off despising each other and in complete disunity then gradually got together to fight a common enemy

>>1771510

Were the Byzantines the biggest meme of the crusades?

>>1772295

>Allah sent Crusaders to punish them
>Allah sent Saladin to deliver them

Firm but fair

>>1778555
>Saladin
nice meme

he just picked up Nur ad-Din's scraps and then committed blunder after blunder once he retook Jerusalem

>>1778202
Are you fucking retarded?
In WHAT WAY was outremer favored by demographics? It literally always suffered from a manpower shortage, from the day the first crusade ended, till the day the crusader fucking died.

The crusades were a small, manpower deficient group of kingoms with intermittent support from average sized-armies that may or may not show up some day if at all, and which WILL go home sooner rather than later, vs the muslim world.

Which do you think had more men? Wich do you think could replenish losses faster? which could sustain more war dead before total demographic collapse destroyed society?

>>1779798
Outremer was a populous region with access to a Christian dominated Mediterranean and a large local Christian population. Manpower was not the problem. Political unity was.

>>1770817
>the Crusaders left absolutely no imprint on the cultural or religious landscape

hehe

>>1779826
>manpower was not a problem
There literally isn't a single scholar who will agree with that statement.

>Outremer was a populous region with access to a Christian dominated Mediterranean
Which is completely fucking irrelevant, the crusades weren't a fucking computer game. You didn't just walk down to your port an have christian soldiers magically fucking appear.

You either had people living within your borders of military age who owed you service, or you did not. If you did not, you had money, and mercenaries were nearby, you could hire them. Outremer was not known for being a mercenary hotspot.

Manpower and demographic issues informed literally every action taken by outremer.

>and a large local Christian population.
Which was absolutely dwarfed by the Muslim population that surrounded them on literally all sides.

>>1779852
>There literally isn't a single scholar who will agree with that statement.
They'd agree with the caveat that the Crusader States was not able to field enough soldiers, yes, but not that this was because of a physical lack of able bodied men especially compared to the Muslims.

>Which is completely fucking irrelevant, the crusades weren't a fucking computer game. You didn't just walk down to your port an have christian soldiers magically fucking appear.
Neither do you walk into the desert and out pops Muslim soldiers out of the sand. The point is the Crusaders had issues drawing on potential sources of manpower due to their issues with forging stable local alliances and maintaining relations with foreign princes. Their problem is that they did have people living within their borders of military age, but for a number of reasons did not manage to convince them that they owed military service.

>Which was absolutely dwarfed by the Muslim population that surrounded them on literally all sides.
I'd like to see your sources on Near Eastern demographics that would support that statement, because the best estimates only suggest parity or a slight majority advantage for Muslims over Christians in the region.

>>1779826
>Manpower was not the problem

... It really was. The Kingdom of Jerusalem fielded about 20,000 men in its army at its height. It could either garrison its castles adequately or take the field to fight, not both.

That is objectively a manpower problem.

>>1780074
To clarify, I agree that manpower was a problem, but not in the way the term was being used previously as synonymous with demographics. It wasn't a population issue where there were far more Muslims than Christians available to fight. Latin Outremer's manpower issues were a result of its political weakness and fragmentation, which is what most Crusades historians discuss when they bring up manpower in the first place. There's also the issue that a lot of assumptions are made about Muslim manpower capabilities as well.

>>1780093
I would submit literally the entirety of
God's War: A New History of the Crusades ‑ Christopher Tyerman
As refutation. Yes, politics exacerbated the situation, but the simple reality was that the Christians flat out did not have enough warm bodies under arms to protect their borders and take the field at the same time. On the rare occasion they did, it was taken as a momentous opportunity to actually do something.

>in the area
They literally had to contend with he entire military might of every warlord who looked at them funny. Being near parity at home is irrelevant when the Fatimid caliphate decides it's going to march on you.

>>1779998
>Neither do you walk into the desert and out pops Muslim soldiers out of the sand.
No, you draw them from your collectively far larger domains.

>>1770253
>There was no technological disparity between two groups.

One of these groups literally didn't use the wheel.

>>1782147
Which group was that, then?

>>1782270
The group that used the wheel was also the group that build the highest buildings in the world, had invented the mechanical clock, glasses, made heavy use of wind and water powered machines and generally was responsible for all new inventions on the planet from 1200 onward.

>>1782306
Muslims?

>>1782270
the aztecs

>>1782306
You'll have to clarify what you mean by not using the wheel, because the Muslims had carts, water wheels and windmills at the time of the Crusades.

>>1780270
He's saying the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the holy orders could have had better recruitment methods to overcome their manpower shortages. No one talks about Antioch's issues with manpower for example because it's ruling class formed close knit alliances with local Armenian Lords, nearby kingdoms, and the Byzantines that Jerusalem never managed because of their Frankish dominated policies.

The Saracen powers were no better off at times, and it wasn't ever a given that they had more men to deploy. Rulers like Saladin had to work for his numerical superiority, and even that was a tightrope walk for him.

>>1782147
>1200s Muslims in the Near East didn't use the wheel
>Groups living in the exact same area had been using the wheel for thousands of years prior

I've seen some stupid examples of hate rooted revisionism, but this one takes the cake. There's not even a logic to this one. Congratulations on being the most defining example of retardation I've seen in years.

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>>1782581
>I've seen some stupid examples of hate rooted revisionism, but this one takes the cake

Projecting much? Did I trigger you.

"Eastern society wilfully abandoned the use of the wheel, one of mankind's greatest inventions.

As late as the 1780's the French traveler Volney could still note, "It is remarkable that in all of Syria one does not see a single cart or wagon." Moreover, in the Arabic and Persian languages one is hard pressed to find any vocabulary proper to either the use or construction of carts and wagons."

from the hate rooted revisionists on Saudi Aramco World:
http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/197303/why.they.lost.the.wheel.htm

This is common knowledge. If you are looking for hate rooted revisionism you only have to look in the mirror.

>>1782501
see >>1782768

>>1782768
>>1782306
Having knowledge of something but not using it the same way for cultural and logistical reasons is not a technological disparity.

>>1782768
>It did not, of course, abandon the wheel in all of its many forms. The potter's wheel remained, and so did the huge, picturesque norias, or waterwheels of Syria.

>The counterattack of the wheel began with the coming of the Turks to the Middle East in the 11th century.

They had wheels. They even used them for transport sometimes at the time of the Crusades, but the bulk of movement was done by camel because it was more effective. So no, neither of the groups 'literally didn't use the wheel', and the difference in uses for the wheel weren't some large technological disparity.

>>1782932
>Still the basic economic superiority of the camel prevailed.
>A few wagons reappeared under the Turks.
>However, in general the use of the camel remained all-pervasive until the advent of European influence which stimulated the building of carriages for use in cities.

Again. They didn't use the wheel.
And having knowledge of the wheel doesn't mean you can actually use it. Making good wheels actually is a skill that you can lose. And they had lost it to the point that "one is hard pressed to find any vocabulary proper to either the use or construction of carts and wagons".

That the Europeans were technologically ahead of the Muslims is an objective fact. This isn't something to be ashamed of. Every new invention was coming from Europe from 1200 on.

>>1782996
I'm not ashamed by anything, I just don't think the adoption of a mode of transport explicitly stated to be cheaper is somehow evidence of technological deficiencies. It opens the door to all kinds of bizarre claims, like the idea that 19th century Europe was technologically behind 16th century Europe because they abandoned heavy armour, or that modern metallurgy is inferior to medieval Islamic metallurgy because we've lost the skills involved in Damascus steel.

That the Europeans were technologically ahead of Muslims at the time of the Crusades isn't supported by the argument that all important inventions post-1200 were European, regardless of how true that happens to be.

>>1782996
>And having knowledge of the wheel doesn't mean you can actually use it.
But since they did use it for other things, that means they could use it, and chose not to for other reasons.

>>1783175
You know, I can recall reading a book about technology in Islamic Spain where Spaniards were exported for their wheel making skills.

But even Islamic Spain eventually stopped using the wheel until they were reconquered by Christian Spaniards.

Did you know the first water powered paper mill was built in Christian Spain in 1282? Those technologically advanced (Christian) Europeans really were ahead of everybody else.