The Glory of the Crusades

by Steve Weidenkopf

  The allied relief army assembled in the Viennese woods, and appointed Sobieski supreme commander. They marched together toward Vienna, drawing near on September 9. Their scouts confirmed the unthinkable: The Turks had not secured the approaches to the city. In fact, they had not even posted sentries to warn Kara Mustapha of the approach of the relief army. It was a foolish and deadly mistake by the grand vizier, who was focused solely on his siege.

  Sobieski developed his battle plan and prepared to attack the Ottomans using the high ground of Kahlenberg Mountain on the outskirts of Vienna. The battle began on September 11, 1683 as Kara Mustapha ordered his troops to attack the Christian forces in the hopes of disrupting their positioning maneuvers.

  Fighting was intense, and the unseasonal heat of the day increased the suffering of the soldiers. Both sides were so exhausted by midday that they stopped fighting to regroup and rest. Fighting resumed and continued through the day until about five o’clock in the evening when Sobieski unleashed his famed Winged Hussars for a cavalry charge that demolished the Ottoman line. The rout was complete, and the Ottoman army fell into disarray. Kara Mustapha was captured, and later executed on December 25.664

  Polish troops were first into the city and were greeted with cheers and prayers of thanksgiving by the beleaguered defenders.

  Sobieski sent a victory message to Pope Innocent XI that echoed the report of Charles V after his defeat of a Protestant army at the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547: “We came, we saw, God conquered.”665 The pope credited the Christian victory over the Ottomans and the salvation of the city to the intercession of the Blessed Mother, and established the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary as a result.666 Truly, the day of Vienna’s salvation, September 11, 1683, “ought to be among the most famous in history.”667 It was the high-water mark of Islamic incursion into the Christian West.

  The Ottoman campaign to capture the gateway to Europe and destroy Christendom was a risky operation. Its success would have ensured Ottoman hegemony over Eastern Europe and opened up the approaches to Western Europe. Instead, its failure began the empire’s decline and ruin. Through the intercession of the Blessed Mother and the military genius of the Polish king Jan Sobieski, Christendom was saved. But the price was high. 50,000 Christian soldiers and civilians were killed during the siege of the great city of Vienna, and another 500,000 were killed as a result of the Turkish marches through Hapsburg lands.668

  From its beginning Islam had been a violent, imperialistic movement bent on conquest. Muslim armies throughout Islamic history had proved the better of their opponents in significant clashes, which helped to spread the beliefs of Mohammed. At the end of the seventeenth century, however, a Muslim army finally met its match, and its defeat stopped the advance of the Ottoman Empire. The Hapsburgs would rally from the great victory at Vienna and begin the long process of liberating the Balkans from Ottoman rule. In two more centuries, the Ottoman Empire was the “sick man of Europe”—an empire in name only. The Turks allied with the Kaiser in the First World War, declaring their participation a jihad in the name of Allah, but they chose the wrong side, and in 1918 the victorious Allied powers finally disbanded the Ottoman Empire with the sweep of a pen.669

  574 A speech at the Congress of Mantua to rally Western warriors to fight the Ottoman Turks after the sack and conquest of Constantinople. Pius II in Franz Babinger, Mehmet the Conqueror and His Time 170–171, in Roger Crowley, 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West (New York: 2005), 242.

  575 Jérome Maurand, Itinénraire de J. Maurand d’Antibes à Constantinople (1544) (Paris: 1901), 67–69, in Roger Crowley, Empires of the Sea—The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World (New York: Random House, 2009), 68.

  576 12,000 of the 22,000 inhabitants were killed during the invasion. Crowley, 1453, 241.

  577 Giovanni Laggetto, Historia della guerra di Otranto del 1480, in Matthew E. Bunson, “How the 800 Martyrs of Otranto Saved Rome,” This Rock (Catholic Answers), vol. 19, Number 6, July 2008. http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/how-the-800-martyrs-of-otranto-saved-rome. Accessed January 20, 2014.

  578 Saverio de Marco, Compendiosa istoria degli ottocento martiri otrantini, in Bunson, “How the 800 Martyrs of Otranto Saved Rome.”

  579 Norman Housley, “Pope Pius II and Crusading,” Crusades, vol. 11, The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012), 245.

  580 Crowley, 1453, 44.

  581 Ibid., 42.

  582 Tyerman, God’s War, 863.

  583 Doukas, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. 5 (Paris: 1870), 247–248, in Crowley, 1453, 90.

  584 Crowley, 1453, 93–94.

  585 Ibid., 94

  586 Ibid.

  587 Ibid., 116.

  588 Crowley, 1453, 67.

  589 Ibid., 116.

  590 Total number of guns and shots per day from Crowley, 1453, 112, 118.

  591 Nestor-Iskander, The Tale of Constantinople, 49, in Crowley, 1453, 161.

  592 The core of the Ottoman army was the fearsome “Janissary” troops who were personally loyal to the sultan. Janissaries were taken from the Ottoman system of “boy tribute,” which required Christian parents in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe to hand over their male children between six and twenty years of age to Muslim authorities. These male tributes were sent to the sultan’s court where they were forcibly converted to Islam and educated. Some of the tributes were chosen for a civil service career path, and served as government officials throughout the Ottoman Empire. Others became Janissaries and were sent to military schools where they learned the art of personal combat and military science. Originally, the tributes were not allowed to marry or own property because their lives were totally dedicated to the sultan’s service. In the history of the Ottoman Empire upwards of a million Christian boys were forcibly removed from their homes and compelled to serve the sultan. The system of “boy tributes” was not officially abolished until 1848. Diane Moczar, Islam at the Gates—How Christendom Defeated the Ottoman Turks (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2008), 40.

  593 Crowley, 1453, 211.

  594 Leonard of Chios, De Capta a Mehemethe II Constantinopoli, 44, in Crowley, 1453, 177.

  595 Crowley, 1453, 215.

  596 Carroll, The Glory of Christendom, 568.

  597 Ibid.

  598 Crowley, 1453, 220.

  599 Although recent reports indicate a movement in Istanbul to return the space to a mosque.

  600 Number of killed, see Tyerman, God’s War, 864. Number seized and enslaved, see Crowley, 1453, 233, 235.

  601 Referred to by the Greeks as polis or “the city,” and when going to the city they said “eis tin polin”; it is possible the Ottomans heard “Istanbul,” giving the conquered city its new name. Crowley, 1453, 30. It is also recorded that Mehmet called the city “Islambol” meaning “full of Islam.” Crowley, 1453, 237.

  602 Norman Housley, “Pope Pius II and Crusading,” 245.

  603 Pius II in Franz Babinger, Mehmet the Conqueror and His Time, 170–171, in Crowley, 1453, 242.

  604 Moczar, Islam at the Gates, 90.

  605 Ludwig von Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. III (St. Louis: 1895–1935), 326, in Carroll, The Glory of Christendom, 583.

  606 Pii II Orations, 3:117, in Housley, “Pope Pius II and Crusading,” 234.

  607 Housley, “Pope Pius II and Crusading,” 246.

  608 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 4.

  609 Ibid., xvi.

  610 Tim Pickles, Malta 1565—Last Battle of the Crusades (New York: Osprey Publishing, 1998), 14.

  611 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 90.

  612 Numbers of troops from Pickles, Malta 1565, 23. Number of artillery pieces from Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 95–96.

  613 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 111.

  614 Ernle Bradford, The Great Siege (New York: 1961), 43, in Warren H. Carroll, The Cleav
ing of Christendom—vol. IV in A History of Christendom (Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 2000), 824.

  615 Warren H. Carroll and Anne W. Carroll, The Crisis of Christendom—vol. VI in A History of Christendom (Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 2013), 824.

  616 Bradford, The Great Siege, 18, in Carroll, The Crisis of Christendom, 824.

  617 Pickles, Malta 1565, 64.

  618 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 95.

  619 Ibid., 113.

  620 Ibid., 123.

  621 Ibid., 115.

  622 Seward, The Monks of War, 283.

  623 Ibid.

  624 Pickles, Malta 1565, 45.

  625 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 139.

  626 Ibid., 142.

  627 Bradford, The Great Siege, 123, in Carroll, The Crisis of Christendom, 827.

  628 Seward, The Monks of War, 284; Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 140.

  629 Seward, The Monks of War, 286.

  630 Francisco Balbi Di Correggio, The Siege of Malta, 1565, trans. Ernle Bradford (Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press, 2005), 144.

  631 Vertot, Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem, vol. IV, 51, in Seward, The Monks of War, 286.

  632 Francisco Balbi, The Siege of Malta, 144.

  633 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 176.

  634 Ibid., 185.

  635 Number of knights killed from Moczar, Islam at the Gates, 157. Number of Maltese killed from Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 185.

  636 Balbi, The Siege of Malta, 189.

  637 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 196.

  638 The best image of galley warfare comes from the 1959 movie Ben Hur, starring Charlton Heston. Although that movie was set in the time of the Roman Empire, the sixteenth-century Mediterranean oared galley was not much different from the Roman vessels portrayed in the movie.

  639 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 77.

  640 Ibrahim Pecevi, Pecevi Tarihi, vol. 1 (Ankara: 1981), 310–311, in Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 234.

  641 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 232.

  642 Jack Beeching, The Galleys at Lepanto (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982), 216. Cervantes would recall the Battle of Lepanto in his most famous work, Don Quixote, when he wrote, “Those Christians who died there were even happier than those who remained alive and victorious.” In Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture (New York: Anchor Books, 2001), 253.

  643 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 256.

  644 P. de Bourdeille de Brantome, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3 ed. L. Lalanne, (Paris: 1864), 125, in Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 256.

  645 G.K. Chesterton, Lepanto, ed. Dale Ahlquist (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 62.

  646 For the amount of time it took to form up see Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 257.

  647 Crowley, Empires of the Sea, 264.

  648 Ibid., 274.

  649 Ibid., 260.

  650 Ibid., 276.

  651 Moczar, Islam at the Gates, 192.

  652 G.K. Chesterton, Lepanto, ed. Dale Ahlquist, 79 & 88.

  653 Lepanto, 88, ed. Dale Ahlquist—from On the Place of Chesterton, 78.

  654 John Stoye, The Siege of Vienna—The Last Great Trial Between the Cross and Crescent (New York: Pegasus Books, 2006), 27.

  655 Ibid., 28.

  656 Moczar, Islam at the Gates, 200.

  657 Ibid.

  658 Simon Millar, Vienna 1683—Christian Europe Repels the Ottomans (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2008), 44.

  659 Stoye, The Siege of Vienna, 108.

  660 Millar, Vienna 1683, 17.

  661 Stoye, The Siege of Vienna, 131.

  662 Ibid., 138.

  663 Millar, Vienna 1683, 93. These small pastries acquired the name croissant for their crescent shape, and are usually associated with France, but their origin stems from the siege of Vienna and so they are rightfully considered Austrian. Legend has it that the French adopted the tasty pastry when Marie Antoinette, who was born in Vienna, brought the item with her to France.

  664 Millar, Vienna 1683, 89.

  665 L. Pukianiec, Sobieski a Stolica Apostolska na tle wojny z Turcja (1683–1684) (Vilna: 1937), 1, in Stoye, The Siege of Vienna, 174. Charles V’s quote was adopted from Julius Caesar’s famous phrase, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

  666 Moczar, Islam at the Gates, 207.

  667 Belloc, The Great Heresies, 71. It is interesting that two great Ottoman defeats occurred on September 11: Malta in 1565 and Vienna in 1683. I believe that Osama bin Laden was aware of the significance of these dates and specifically choose that day for his attacks on the United States.

  668 Stoye, The Siege of Vienna, 194.

  669 For the Turks’ declaring World War I a jihad, see Housley, Contesting the Crusades, 157.

  10

  The Crusades and the Modern World

  Lord, take me from wars between Christians in which I have spent much of my life; let me die in your service so I may share your kingdom in Paradise.

  Josserand of Brancion670

  I have decided to kill Pope John Paul II, supreme commander of the Crusades.

  Mehmet Ali Agca671

  The Crusading movement was launched by the papacy, and its fate remained intertwined with that of the Roman pontiffs. As their role in European politics changed, so too did the movement’s. As Western Europe moved toward the modern world, secular rulers became more independent, and focused more on internal policies.

  The scandal of the Avignon papacy and the Great Western Schism in the fourteenth century severely weakened the papacy, which the Protestant Revolution then completely undermined in the sixteenth. As the pope’s ability to influence Western secular rulers declined, so too did the Crusading movement. Warfare became the province of secular rulers who marshaled their forces solely for personal and national aims rather than for the good of Christ, the Church, and Christendom. Although there were moments of unity during the fight against the Ottoman Turks, the overall response was limited. All in Christendom reveled in the glory of victory, but few endeavored to sacrifice to achieve it.

  The Crusades did not end because modern man saw the folly of the campaigns, as Enlightenment thinkers and modern critics suppose. Indeed, the Crusades remained extremely popular. Both rulers and subjects continued to like the idea of the Crusades, but over time their desire to plan, spend resources, and actually take the cross gave way to other priorities. Ultimately, “the Crusade did not disappear from European culture because it was discredited but because the religious and social value systems that had sustained it were abandoned.”672

  Why Islam Hates the West

  Myths about the Crusades began during the sixteenth century, as Protestant revolutionaries attacked what they viewed as papal campaigns designed to increase the wealth of the Church. The creation of myths about the Crusades continued throughout the time of the Enlightenment until the present day, when the most prevalent myth concerns the Crusades and Islam. Arab nationalists and Islamic terrorists use the Crusades as propaganda to produce recruits for jihad against the West; Western intellectuals use it to attack the Church. Both groups profit by fostering the falsehood that the Crusades are the source of the modern-day tension between Islam and the West.

  Those who embrace this myth believe that the Crusades have long been remembered in the Islamic world. Akbar Ahmed, chair of the Ibn Khaldun Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C., summed up this claim when he commented, “The Crusades created a historical memory which is with us today—the memory of a long European onslaught.”673 Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun and self-described “freelance monotheist,” asserts that the Crusades are “one of the direct causes of the conflict in the Middle East today.”674

  The historical reality is far removed from the picture painted by Ahmed, Armstrong, and their supporters. The Crusades were largely ignored as an important part of Islamic history soon after the fall of Acre in 1291, and were then forgotten in the Islamic world until the late nineteenth century, only receiving prominen
t attention in the twentieth.

  A “Remembered” History

  The Arabic word for the Crusades, harb al-salib, was introduced in the mid-nineteenth century, and in 1899 the first Arabic history of the Crusades was written by the Egyptian Ali al-Hariri.675 It was a time when the Ottomans were forced to recognize the independence of most of their former Eastern European territory. Seeking to find a rationale for the disintegration of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire, al-Hairi, in his book, placed blame not on the internal failings of the sultans and their policies, but rather on the historical “boogeyman” of the Crusades.676

  It is easy to understand why for hundreds of years Muslims did not remember the Crusades, since they represented a small and insignificant portion of Islamic history. The Holy City of Jerusalem was only in Christian hands for eighty-eight years (from 1099–1187), and the Crusader States survived for less than two centuries. The goal of the Crusades—the permanent liberation of Jerusalem and recovery of ancient Christian territory—was not successful, and therefore Islamic historians neglected the Crusades.

  The modern Islamic attitude toward the Crusades began in the twentieth century as a reconstructed memory of these events and was presented to Muslim communities that had been impacted by European colonialism. Ironically, then, it was the European colonial powers—especially the “nineteenth-century French vision of the Crusades as proto-colonizing expeditions”677—that laid the foundation for the modern Muslim interpretation of the movement. Through Western colonization, Enlightenment intellectuals from the very nations that once took the cross birthed the modern Arab re-remembering of the Crusades.

  Arab nationalists thus used the Crusades as a scapegoat for the ills in the twentieth-century Islamic world. The Crusades were presented as the first European colonial efforts, and modern Middle Eastern poverty, corruption, and violence were blamed on these initial European “invasions.” The modern state of Israel was likened to the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, a foreign presence in the midst of Islam. Cultural traditions rooted in this false narrative of the Crusades were reinforced through education in Muslim schools, as “generations of Arab school children have been taught that the Crusades were a clear case of good versus evil,” and the myth that “rapacious and zealous Crusaders swept into a peaceful and sophisticated Muslim world leaving carnage and destruction in their wake” was reinforced.678