[Cyrus]

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The Crusades were overdone.

[/ QUOTE ] Oh Jesus. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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The historical context ... should not be forgotten: Christian armies forcibly speading Christianity over ever-growing swathes of forcibly conquered lands. The Christians were subjugating the infidels by force in a very aggressive manner over centuries. Christianity had a long history of violent conquest and of gaining land through war, and subsequently subjugating all non-Christians in those regions.

[/ QUOTE ]Fixed your post!

And let me know if you find something wrong with my fixing, so's we can have a laugh with your argument.

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The first Crusade was, in my opinion, a good idea.

[/ QUOTE ] This only shows how ignorant you are of History. I'm sorry but there's no other way of putting it.

The First Crusade's army was populated mostly by tens of thousands of commoners who lacked any war-making experience and who were in it to get wealthy. The Pope who started the frenzy was explicitly promising that "robbers will be turned to barons" (see Urban's sermon in Clermont, France). It was a power grab with a lot of ideological (xenophobic and intolerant) propaganda thrown to the masses.

The logistics of moving 100,00 people across Europe were staggering. The Crusaders were attacked almost everywhere they passed through - and understandably too, since they wanted food and amenities which the locals were not too eager to provide for free or on the cheap! When the first wave of the peasant crusaders arrived, they were duly massacred by the organised army of Turks.

Notably, the First Crusade caused the unleashing of the first wave of anti-Semitic massacres in Christian Europe (see, inter alia, the "First Holocaust" by ...German knights), since many people chose to fight (i.e. murder) the "infidels" at home rather than travel thousands of miles to do so!

Finally, the First Crusade weakened the Christian Byzantine empire (although the Byzantines had a hand in causing it!) and antagonized further the two Christian Churches, thus enabling Constantinople's later fall from power -- and Islam's subsequent advance until the gates of Vienna!

...Yeah, a brilliant idea that Crusade, no doubt about it. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]