The Crusades were justified

Thank you for accepting! I will now post my initial argument as to why the Crusades were unjustified, broken down into the following categories: 1. Unprovoked attack 2. False propaganda 3. Selfish motivation 4. Mass genocide1. Unprovoked attack Some right-wing Christians claim that the Crusades were defensive wars. No serious medieval historian believes this to be the case, and I will explain why. First of all, it's true that the Muslims conquered vast tracts of land from the Byzantine (Roman) Empire in the early conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, including Syria, Egypt, and modern-day Israel. However, the Romans conquered much of these territories centuries before from other empires and local kingdoms, in conflicts such as the Roman-Seleucid War and Third Mithridatic War. I won't defend the Muslims for their aggressive expansionism, but the Romans were little better. Over four hundred years had passed since Muslims conquered the Holy Land. Christendom wasn't any major danger by the time the Crusades began. While the Byzantines and Arabs had been warring around Asia Minor for generations, there was no united Islamic force striving to conquer Rome. Just periods of peace and conflict, as all rival empires in history are prone to. There were fractured Muslim states and dynasties spread all over the Near East and Iberia, each with a separate agenda. This made the massive, united onslaught that began in the 1090s all the more aggressive and unprovoked. Why would the Western powers suddenly decide to wrest control of their lost territory four centuries after it had been taken by their enemies? Ask Pope Urban II who called for the First Crusade, starting it almost solitarily. Whatever his reasons, his message was manipulative and ill-informed, as I will soon explain. 2. False propaganda Pope Urban II's speech calling for a Crusade contained some strong rhetoric about the Muslims that was, in fact, completely made up. Of the Turks controlling Anatolia, he said that they "were slaughtering and capturing many [Greeks], destroying churches and laying waste to the kingdom of God." He asserted that Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land were being abused and exploited with illegal taxes, and those unable to pay were subject to the following torture: "...they stretch asunder the coverings of all the intestines after ripping open their stomachs with a blade and reveal with horrible mutilation whatever nature keeps secret." Of course, there is no reason to believe that the Muslims did such horrible things, and we don't know if the Pope actually believed them or made up those lies to manipulate the populace. This incendiary imagery encouraged even the lowliest peasant to march east and help their Christian brothers and sisters, and they did - in the tens of thousands. 3. Selfish motivation Nearly every Crusade was an expedition to the "Holy Land" of the Levant to either conquer or defend certain sacred cities from the Muslims. So were the Crusaders pilgrims of selfless piety, yearning to spread the loving message of Jesus to cities such as Antioch and Jerusalem? No, and that's almost comical to suggest. The Crusaders viewed the Muslims as subhuman savages, committing some decidedly un-Christian atrocities against them (which I will discuss later), showing that their faith was rooted in burning hatred rather than any form of mercy. While some Crusader princes, such as Godfrey of Bouillon, showed honor and humility, most of these leaders were corrupt and ambitious. All they cared about was gaining land, wealth, titles, and fame. Take Tancred of Hauteville and Baldwin II of Bourg, two nobles who were so obsessed with ruling the county of Edessa that they gathered armies and fought a battle for control of the territory [1]. They sent thousands of men to their deaths in a petty struggle over land rights. And neither of them were condemned. How is this justifiable? 4. Mass genocide And now to the last and most potent reason why the Crusades weren't justified - the genocides. I know this is a strong term, but it fits. Killing enemy soldiers while on a battlefield or during a siege is a far different matter, but the Crusaders were known to indulge in bloodthirsty acts of wanton violence against innocent men, women, and children long after their cities had been surrendered. The siege of Jerusalem, perhaps the most famous battle in all the Crusades due to its resounding success, ended with a horrific massacre and bloodbath of nearly every civilian inside, Muslim or not. Firsthand accounts don't try to hide it; they saw the mass murder as an act of heroism, a righteous cleansing of the foul infidels from hallowed ground. As I hinted last paragraph, Crusader violence wasn't only directed at Muslims. In the People's Crusade of 1096, which predated even the First, thousands of Jews were slaughtered in the Rhineland and Worms, since they were seen as the enemies of Christendom. David Nirenberg, an obviously Jewish historian, said that these killings "occupy a significant place in modern Jewish historiography and are often presented as the first instance of an antisemitism that would henceforth never be forgotten and whose climax was the Holocaust." Finally, Christians went at war with other Christians. Aside from the minor infighting between nobles I mentioned earlier, not a single Muslim was killed during the Fourth Crusade. Instead, the barbaric Crusaders passing through Constantinople noticed that it was going through some political turmoil, and they siezed the opportunity to invade the city and eventually capture it. They raped and killed the local Greek Christians for three days, looting and stealing, destroying art that had been around since the golden age of Rome [2]. The Crusades resulted in nothing but destruction, for both sides. They began as a calculated political move, not an epic quest for redemption. While I can't offer my full support to either of the two belligerents, the Arabs and Turks at least tolerated Christian and Jewish presence in their lands. The killings committed by the Crusaders were acts of terrorism, not heroism. Art was desecrated, innocent blood spilled, and the light of Byzantium extinguished. The mission of western Christendom to reclaim the Holy Land was a catastrophic failure, and it was never justified in the first place. I will now allow Pro to present his opening argument. SOURCES: 1. https://www.britannica.com... 2. https://www.britannica.com... 3. Asbridge, Thomas S. The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land. New York: Ecco, 2010. Print.