ABSTRACT

The First Crusade in its inception had been a religious war for the recovery of the Holy Places of Jerusalem. The offensive of the Western Christians against the Eastern Moslems had been successful; the task they had before them was to defend what they had won. So far it seems a normal part of the ordinary story of Christianity versus Islam, of conquest and reconquest. The Greeks wanted to recover Syria, the Fatimites to recover Palestine, the Seljuks to recover both Syria and Palestine. Naturally there was no co-operation between them; and the lack of unity among their foes was still one of the chief assets of the Westerners. On the other hand, their own lack of unity was their most serious cause of weakness. And where they were at one, in their aggressive Westernism, which was evinced both ecclesiastically and politically, they only widened the breach with their Eastern co-religionists.