What if~The Crusades never happened?

Eventhough we still have holy wars today, but none of them are as prevalent, or as bloody and deadly as the Crusades. Now there are a lot of interpretations with the Crusades.

Some people would say that they were a force of noble knights bearing the Christian cross that were fighting off the invading Muslims, some would say that they were overzealous warriors who killed non-Christian civilians, others would say that they were warriors on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Jerusalem. But whatever the interpretation, one thing is for sure is that the Crusades would shape Europe's history for the next 300 years.

So, what if the Crusades never happened? How would Europe's history have ended up? Well, this is what this page will try to cover. But first, some historical context, just scroll down to the "What if?" part of the page if you want to just read the alternate scenario.

## Real History

By the 11th century the Seljuk Turks (a ban of Muslim warriors) invaded what was known as the Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire and the last remnant of the once mighty Roman Empire) as they also conquered Anatolia and Asia Minor (which make up modern-day Turkey). This is when the Byzantine Emperor called on the Pope for assistance.

This is when Pope Urban the 2nd declared a holy war against the invading Seljuk Turks, and in 1096 the 1st Crusade (consisting of 100,000 soldiers) began to march off to the middle east to help the Byzantines and to defeat the Seljuk Turks, the Crusades that would aid the Byzantines would get immediate penance of sins as long they bore the cross, they also invaded the holy city of Jerusalem, this crusade would go on for around 3 years until the Crusades would defeat the Seljuk Turks and created Christian kingdoms in the area including in the kingdoms of Antioch and Edessa. Over a few decades. the Islamic Turks would invade the kingdom of Edessa in 1146 and this is when Pope Eugene the 3rd would call for a 2nd crusade which didn't go too well for the Crusaders as most died in the 3 years of fighting in the middle east. In 1189 there was a 3rd Crusade and it was only a bit more successful then the 2nd, though fighting would go on for another 3 years, it didn't stop until British King Richard The Lionheart made peace with the Turk leader Saladin.

By the turn of the 13th century (in 1202) Pope Innocent the 3rd would declare a 4th Crusade and this time, the target was Egypt; the new Islamic capital, though the Crusaders would approach Venice where the people would build ships for the Crusaders to sail to Egypt, but they would never reach Egypt as they weren't promised the money they were supposed to be paid while on this conquest.

Instead they would invade the town of Zara where the Crusades would slaughter Christian civilians, Pope Innocent the 3rd didn't really like this one bit, and he had the Crusading army excommunicated. Then the excommunicated army were then given a job by the Byzantine Prince (who wishes to overthrow the Byzantine Emperor) had promised to pay the debts of the Crusaders if they help him overthrow the emperor, so the Crusaders went to Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and in 1202 they succeeded in overthrowing the rival emperor and have their emperor ascend to the throne, but then he was overthrown by another Emperor who didn't wish to pay the debt of the Crusaders.

The Crusaders didn't like this and decided to lay siege to the biggest Christian city in the world at the time. The Crusaders would rape, pillage, murder and even burn Churches and shops. The 4th Crusade would damage Constantinople basically beyond repair.

Throughout the rest of the middle ages, there would be more Crusades as they would not just retake the Holyland, but also go after other areas of Islamic power such as Tunisia, but soon the Crusades would not just be against Muslims, but any enemy of the Catholic Church, and so Crusades were sent to the Baltic and Scandinavian regions raiding and trying to get the Pagan factions to convert to Christianity. Eventually, the Crusades would become less and less effective fending off the Islamic Turks and thus the Ottoman Turks would conquer the Byzantine Empire and most of Southern Europe.

## What if?

Now, here comes your favorite question. What if the Crusades never happened? How would this change Europe and the Middle East?

With no Crusades, it is possible that middle age Europe would not see peace as even before the Crusades the kings and emperors of Europe were fighting against one another for dominance instead of unifying together to fight a common enemy. In fact, Christianity and Catholicism may be less prevalent in this alternate reality.

Europe would also find it difficult to recover from the dark ages, so this means we may not see a Renaissance in this alternate reality. In our reality, and though the Crusades were quite bad in their own way, but it also brought along many different cultures from other parts of the world namely the Arabian and Byzantine empires, and without Christian Kingdoms in the Middle East, Venice might not become a powerful trade city in middle age Europe.

The Reconqusita would still happen in this alternate reality, but without the Crusades it would be a much harder and would take much longer for the Portuguese and Spanish to push out the Islamic Moors.

However, it isn't all doom & gloom. Without the Crusades, there might be a better relationship between Christianity and Islam. Though, the Church would still send soldiers to defend the Byzantines, but not call for a holy war, and there's also a possibility that Islam might not expand into Europe like in our reality.

What would definitely be better is the relations between Christians and the Jewish People. During the first Crusade, there were a slaughter of Jewish People in places like France and Germany, there were even anti-semitic laws in some of these kingdoms as well, despite the Pope pleading to the Knights to not commit these atrocities, this didn't stop them.

In our reality, there was a rift between Christianity and Orthodoxy, Pope Urban the 2nd was hoping that the Byzantines would convert back to Catholicism and one of the reasons why he called for a Crusade, however the Crusades made relations between the 2 religions that much worse.

In this alternate reality with no Crusades, it is possible that the Byzantines would convert to Catholicism, but that's not so say that it would absolutely happen, but with no Crusades unification might be easier. If this were to happen the history of eastern Europe would be effectively different. The division between the 2 churches not only divided Europe religiously, but also culturally.

Removing the Crusades from history would change the history of Europe in ways that is impossible to predict. As said before, the Crusades might have been bad but it was also crucial to get Europe out of the Dark Ages, it also got Europe to explore the rich cultures of other Empires in the Middle East despite developing rifts between religions.

That'll do it for this page. Don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis as well. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.