First Crusades Dbq

The end of the 11th century was the beginning of the first campaign called Crusade, which was later followed by other crusades. It was a period of great fighting for the lands and religious ideologies between Christians and Muslims. In other words it was a period of big changes, when thousands of peasants and soldiers died and a lot of towns were devastated. The first crusade was the biggest movement of Christians to Holy land. In comparison with other campaigns it was the most successful. Different factors such as military strength, weakness of the opponent and religious motives played a key role in supporting Christians to establish global dominance. During the First Crusade, Christians had very strong military and strong leaders, which
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The speech of Urban II at Clermont in 1095 was the special moment, when he promised and guaranteed that any person who will join to the campaign would get Holy land and place in heaven. At that time believe in God and Holy land was very popular, so Urban II mostly affected on moral of the people. The effect was stunning; people from all parts of Western Europe started to think that moving to Jerusalem is their duty. Actually the main purpose of Urban II was to unite all Christians in Europe and to achieve his aim completely he reminded people that their lands are poor, while Muslims live in Holy lands under good conditions. Citizens were now strongly motivated and ready to invade irreligious opponents. They thought that Jerusalem was their spiritual home and they need to protect it. Their morale was so strong, so that they didn’t fear death. Different battles may prove their morale strength. For example battle of Dorel against the Turks and Seljuk on 1 July 1097, when a small amount of crusaders won a crushing victory over many thousands of Muslims. Obviously Urban II was important figure during the First Crusade. He knew how to persuade people, so that they believed that he was right. That is why morale was a strong weapon of Christians, which was very useful to achieve their goal. Interestingly some historians like John Ward said that the First Crusade and following campaigns is a “movement of violent white supremacist colonialism”. According to this view, Christians look as expansionist aggressors, while Muslims are victims. But there are also opposite views, which state that movement to Holy lands is a defensive action to protect Christians from irreligious