Zusammenfassung der Ressource
"The First Crusade succeeded because
of good military leadership". How far
do you agree or disagree?
- Military Leadership
- Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy possessed good military skill and
managed to keep the princes from going for each other's
throats. he was the Pope's representative so was constantly
reminding them of their religious duty.
- Baldwin went off and managed to gain the county of Edessa. Even
though he never returned to the crusade he proved to be
extremely useful as the county provided a foothold in the east for
the crusaders and somewhere to send to for help.
- Bohemond managed to use use his military know how and spies to infiltrate
Antioch, which boosted the morale of the whole crusade and let the men believe
that God was on their side again.
- Adhemar, although doubting of the authenticity of the Holy Lance, was happy
to let the men believe in it as he saw the lift in morale it gave and recognised
the usefulness of this lift.
- Godfey of Bouillon's idea to take down one of the siege towers they were using against the
wall of Jerusalem and move it to a weaker spot during the night meant the crusaders could
finally breach the walls and get into the city and finish their crusade.
- Muslim Disuntiy
- The countries of the Muslim
Empire existed independent of
each other.
- The Abbasid and Fatimid/ Sunni and
Shia divide also meant that the Muslim
world wasn't united.
- The Seljuk Turks were Muslims, yet they were
happily going around conquering and fighting
other Muslims.
- In the early 1090s many major leaders from both caliphates
died, and even towards the end of the decade they were still
squabbling amongst themselves over who should now take
charge.
- The crusaders were lucky in all this disunity as
it meant that whenever they had to fight any
armies the men in them had no real loyalty to
each other, their leader, or the cause.
- The small lordships were more concerned with
fighting each other than fighting the crusaders.
- The places the caliphates were based (Baghdad
and Cairo) were very far away from the Holy Land.
- They saw the crusade as a raid from Byzantium and failed to see the strong religious
motives. they thought that the crusaders would soon become disillusioned with
their cause and soon go away.
- Religious Fervour
- Great Christian warriors such as Charlemagne
conquered many lands and it was believed that his
success came from his strong belief in God.
- Normans/Franks had the strong religious zeal of the
newly converted.
- The huge reactions to Urban's call showed that
Christendom had been waiting for such a call.
- Men, women and children went with the strong belief that
God would never desert them.
- When the crusaders did what Bishop Adhemar said
during the siege of Antioch , their religious fervour
boosted the morale and helped them get through the
siege.
- Discovery of the Holy Lance also ignited fervour
that meant the morale rose massively.
- Something that was constantly calling to the crusaders was the
lure of Jerusalem. Part of the idea of the crusade was to count it as
a pilgrimage there to remiss their sins, and all throught the journey
this would have been foremost in the crusader's minds.
- The Crusaders believed that once they reached
Jerusalem they would receive the 'indulgence' and
'remission of sins', meaning that when they died they
would go straight to heaven.
- They also believed
that they were God's
servants.
- Conclusion
- All three were of key importance
- Military leadership
- Meant that tactics worked and that the princes
weren't constantly at each others throats.
- The First Crusade succeeded because of the religious fervour of the men taking part, as
it was because of that that the men had something to fight for and make them carry on
- Muslim Disunity
- Meant that the crusader army was able to defeat any Muslim armies
they came up against easier than they should have done, especially as
the bonds between the Muslim fighters were extremely weak
- Religious Fervour
- Gave the crusaders an aim to work to and
gave them an end point. it was their
religious fervour which helped them to get
through the hellish years that constituted
the journey to the Holy Land.
- Introduction
- The First Crusade was preached by Pope Urban II on November
27th 1095 at the Council of Clermont in France.
- There was a huge response and a large army of
peasants set off on crusade. However, their crusade
failed long before they reached the Holy Land.
- The second wave was made up of
real armies made up of knights and
lords. They were much better at
journeying and fighting off the
opponents they met along the way.
- They eventually succeeded in their crusade and took
Jerusalem on 15th July 1099, three years after they
origionally set off and four years after the crusade had
first been preached.
- Three possibel explanations for how they succeeded include:
- Muslim disuntiy
- Military leadership
- Religious fervour