Waves of Anti-Semitic Rallies Hits Cities Across Germany

The Seljuk Turks were Muslim because it was convenient to invoke the authority of the Caliphate. Far from being Muslim fanatics, they didn't care what religion the people they conquered practiced, so long as they paid tribute. The participants of the first crusade were many and varied. Although Urban called for knights and men at arms to take the cross to defend the Empire from the Turks, the first "crusaders" to arrive were a rag-tag collection of peasants and serfs, with some knights and petty nobles. They didn't give a rat's ass about the Empire or the Turks, and their goal was Jerusalem. Both the followers of Peter the Hermit and of the four armies of mostly French knights and men at arms plundered Hungarian territory on their way east, and attacked Belgrade. They later attached the city of Nish, largely because they had no concept of logistics and their followers were starving--Imperial troops and to fight to drive them off. (Both Belgrade and Nish are now in Serbia.) When these "armies" arrived in Constantinople, it was always at the end of a trail of violence and plunder of Imperial territory. Peter the Hermit's "army" began murdering, raping and plundering in Constantinople as soon as they arrived. The Emperor quickly ferried them across to Asia just to be rid of them.

The last serious attempt on Europe, and for a Muslim conquest had been stopped by Charles Martel at Tours in 732, more than 350 years earlier. The Turks were just doing what they had done for centuries, and not for anything to do with Islam. All of the five or six "armies" that marched in the First Crusade were comprised of nobles, knights, men at arms--but mostly of besotted peasants, men and women, as well as priests and monks. Arriving in Anatolia, they found that the Turks would fight back, and were good at it. So they marched on to Syria and Palestine, thousands dying along the way of thirst and starvation. Once they came down off the Anatolian plateau, they started claiming land and setting up counties (i.e., the feudal estate of a Count, like Raymond of Toulouse) and eventually, the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

To claim they were fighting to protect the Empire from Muslim aggression would be hilarious, were the truth not a good deal uglier. They came because they were deluded by religion, or bent on conquest of new fiefs. Far from aiding the Empire, every army that passed through the territory of the Roman Empire murdered, raped and plundered the Emperor's subjects.

Bill demonstrates once again that he doesn't know **** about history.

By the way, after the Turks finally did take Constantinople, they twice marched on Vienna--and were twice defeated. You don't know that the hell you're talking about--but then, you never do.

You should never have gotten me started. When the crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099, ostensibly to "protect" the Christians of the middle east, they slaughtered thousands of inhabitants--Muslim, Jews and Christians.

Sure I do not................

However it was Muslim forces who threaten Constantinople that trigger the start of the Crusades no matter how serous you claim they took the religion.

You mean that after Europe had a few hundreds years longer to recover from the fall of the Western Roman empire thanks to the existed of the Eastern Roman Empire acting as a shield and road block they was able to defeat the Turks invasion of Europe?

They didn't threaten Constantinople. They invaded Anatolia. When the Seljuk Turks first arrived from the East, they attempted to invade Anatolia, and were driven back by Imperial troops> That's when they headed south and took Baghdad. They became Muslim because if was convenient to invoke the Caliphate, which was a puppet for them. It was the the descendants and followers of Osman Gazi who first seriously threatened Constantinople. In Arabic, his name was rendered Uttuman, and the French called him Ottoman--hence the Ottoman Empire. Osman's father had come from Turkmenistan, fleeing the Mongol invasion. He established his tribe in north central Anatolia in the Seljuk principality of Rum (a corruption of Roman). Osman declared his independence from the Seljuk in 1299--two centuries after Jerusalem was taken during the First Crusade.

As always, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

No, i don't. Charles Martel stopped the Muslim Arabs and Berbers at Tours in 732. No serious attempt to invade continental Europe occurred again until after the rise of the Osmanli, or Ottoman Turks--and that was more than 600 years later. The Turks were every bit as fragmented and given to internecine warfare as the Europeans were, until the rise of the Osmanli Turks. Hell, the Muslims couldn't even conquer all of Iberia after their invasion. Ostensibly the troops of the Emir of Antioch, they were no more loved by the Berbers than by the Visigoths and Vandals. They were constantly obliged to stop their campaigning in Iberia and France to put down revolts by the Berbers of North Africa.

You seem to see some monstrous Muslim monolith--no such critter existed.

Strange as that how I feel about you.............no that is not right it is not that you do not know the truth is just that you are willing to try to spin it to made the victims of aggression into the aggressors.

Kind of reminding me of the Nazis claims that the Poles attacked a German radio station.

None of it sinks in with you. History is not a linear progression of Great Events in which the Innocent are the victims of the Forces of Evil. Christian or Muslim, the people involved were motivated by the prospect of personal gain. In the Iberian peninsula, Christians fought for Muslims, if the money was right, and Muslims fought for Christians, if the money was right.

The point, which i'm sure elludes you because you've lost the thread here, is that peoples' motives are venal and self-interested. Those who went on crusade, and who stuck it out, were seeking, land, wealth, salvation or personal glory. None of it was about a monumental battle of good and evil.

LOL self interested also means getting into a heaven with females sexual angels/beings/houris willing to take care of your ever desires and in order to do so you need to help spread the faith of Islam by the sword.

You have a shallow, simple-minded view of things based on casuistry. Your view of history is straight out of a comic book. Conversing with you is a waste of time.

Sorry dear I am more then aware there are a millions factors in any major historic event however that does not mean that you can not picked out the most important factors.

Nor does that mean that we should allow people to blow smoke in trying to confused the issues by throwing in those minor issues in a manner design to mislead.

An you do love to try to mislead in my opinion.

Nothing new there then.

Nazis block the entrance and sing outside a Woolworth store in Berlin 1933 because they claim the family has Jewish roots-

The cost of going to war, and the object of going to war are not "minor issues." They are the main issues. Neither the French leaders of crusades, nor the Turkish leaders of the attempt to conquer the Empire went to war for pie in the sky by and by when you die. It is enormously expensive to assemble an army and make war. Most of the cost has to be paid up front. The object of those who assemble armies and make war is to recoup their costs, and profit from the endeavor. You're the one who is blowing smoke, because of your shallow attitude and your ignorance. Basically, you just argue for argument's sake. I doubt if you even recall how this line of discussion started.

I don't see how that matters. The end result was still a bunch of Muslims invading the Byzantine Empire.

There were two triggers for the Crusades I believe. One was all the Muslims invading the Byzantine Empire, and the other was the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

Don't be ridiculous there is nothing like this going on here.

He's not even correct if one changes the phrase as you suggest.

Sorry even the leaders can be true believers in their religions as irrational as that seems to an atheist such as myself it happen to be true.

If there is any "incredible injustices" being committed against Arabs anywhere other than Israel (and for the record, I don't concede that to be the case), it is assured that it is by other Arabs: i.e. Syria, Iraq, Egypt etc.This is not unique to Arabs. Generally speaking, people are more at risk from their own kind; their own governments than from outsiders.

I see you're changing your story now. You're also ignoring that the crusaders plundered Hungary, plundered the Empire, ignored the Turks in Anatolia, and then marched into Syria and Palestine to carve out fiefs for themselves. You also continue to portray Muslims as a part of some monolithic threat to Europe. There's just no basis in fact for that claim. Like Bill, you want to suggest that the Turks were motivated by a rabid desire to spread Islam at the point of the sword because they were all religious fanatics, while poor, innocent christians were just defending themselves.

I outgrew fairy tales a long time ago.