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The Three Main Goals Of The Crusades

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The Crusades were a series of holy wars that were fought between Muslims and Christians and the main goal of these wars were to recover Jerusalem. The Christians wanted it because it is where they believe that Jesus was born, the Muslims wanted it because it is where they believe prophet Muhammed rose up to heaven. There were three main Crusades (first, second, and third crusade)
The first crusade lasted from 1096 to 1099. In 1095, the Pope declared war against the Muslims. Then in 1096 troops from France, Germany and Italy fought. The reason for this was to take back the holy land of Jerusalem. The person who was responsible of leading this journey was Duke Godfrey. Duke Godfrey was a very religious man, an example of his religiousness was …show more content…

By this time most of the crusaders had left to go home, and those who remained ad built four settlements. The purpose of these four settlements were to guard and govern conquered territory. These Crusader states were Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli. However, the Muslim forces began gaining ground around 1130, and in 1144 Zangi who was the Seljuk general captured Edessa (northern Crusader states. By this time Pope Eugene III called for a second crusade, his call was answered by King Louis VIII and his wife Eleanor. Louis was a very religious man and he wanted to honor the first crusaders and his goal was to take the cross and expand the Crusader kingdoms. Unfortunately, Louis had very little military experience, but he still set out with more than 30,000 crusaders to recapture the holy land. This journey took five months because they traveled through France to Asia Minor. This wasn’t a good strategy because by doing this they would pass through Turkish lands and therefore put themselves in danger. The Turks took advantage of this situation by attacking Louis’s group (there were two groups traveling). Louis and his wife were able to survive but there were thousands of crusaders that were killed. Louis decided that best approach would be to abandon his army to look for a new route. His original route was Edessa but he took the way of Damascus (Palestine) because it was closer to Jerusalem. Nur Al-Din who was the son of Zangi (Turkish General), went to unite all of the Muslims in preparation for the war. Even though Nur Al-Din was determined to take back Jerusalem it was Louis who made the first move in 1148. Nur Al-Din had a choice to take Damascus and if he did so he would have more power, (Aleppo and Damascus were the eastern part of the Crusader states. The results of the battle was that there were thousands of Muslims that were dead, the Damascus ruler begged Nur Al-Din to send his army. Louis had to make a

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