Who won the Crusades?

by antiquihostis
Madaboe

The crusades shouldn't be seen as a single war with a single winner or loser. I assume you mean the crusades for the holy land including.

Before the first official, or princes crusade, there was a peoples crusade which was a mob of christians led by peter the Hermit. This was a complete disaster. They attacked Jews all over Europe before departing to the Byzantine Empire while sacking Hungarian and Byzantine lands they traveled through. The emperor shipped them over to Anatolia. They had some initial succes but when the Seljuk (Turkish) armies came they were routed and the crusade ended.

The initial princes crusade was a clear victory for the crusaders. Knights from France, Italy and Germany united in constantinopel. After they some of Anatolia they traveled to the Levant(Syrian coast, libanon, Palestina and Isradl. they took Jerusalem, and a large part of the surrounding areas and created 4 crusader states, one of which was Jerusalem. This succes was predominantly because the Muslims had no counter to the heavily armed knights and thought the crusaders were another band of peasants like the Peoples crusades.

After these gains in the holy land the pope called for a second crusade in 1144(300 years before the last crusade) to retake Edessa which had recently fallen. They diverted the Crusade to Damascus because it was the preffered target of the King of Jerusalem and the Knights Templar. The seige failed after Nur-Ad Din's army relieved the crusaders and cut them of from their food supply.

In 1187 Saladin retook Jerusalem after the kingdom was heavily damaged by internal disputes. This triggered the third crusade, this is the most damous with figures as Saladin and Richard of England. The crusader army had almost 50.000 men and took major cities in the Levant, but failed to take Jerusalem.

There have been countless other crusades both in Iberia, Eastern Europe and Northern Germany. The final crusade for the holy land was in 1270 during the 9th crusade which, like many others failed. The Crusades in Iberia, the reconquista, ended with the fall of Granada during the 1500 centuries just like the crusade of Varna which ended in 1444 because the Ottomans defeated the eastern european crusaders. Soon there after the last remnant of the Roman Empire fell to the Ottomans after the siege of Constantinopel in 1453.

The crusades are an enormous subject with interesting stories from Charlemagne to the start of the renaissance after the fall of Constantinopel. Another interresting crusade would be the 4th crusade which is the most disastrous for Christianity. The crusaders bought ships from Venice and sacced a christian ciity for the venicd because they couldn't pay for the fleed. After this the crusaders were excommunicated by the pope. After this they helped a byzantine claiment to the throne to get money. They sacked the biggest city in the Christian world because they wouldn't pay and set up a crusader state in the region. Byzantium never fully recovered and fell to the Ottomans.

Everything considered, the crusades could be considered a disaster because they failed to take the holy land and doomed the Byzantine empire, or it could be considered a succes as they took the holy land and held it for decades. The aftermath was enormous as Muslim knowledge, as well as roman knowledge the Muslims saved came to europe and the fall of constantinopel which kickstarted the Renaissance.

There have been countless books and films about all sort of crusades and it isn't possible to tell everything in one post but I highly recommend to read further into it or watch movies about it because it is an interesting period with intruige and it is everything you think of when you think about the medieval times.