The Glory of the Crusades (42 page)

616
Bradford,
The Great Siege
, 18, in Carroll,
The Crisis of Christendom
, 824.

617
Pickles,
Malta 1565
, 64.

618
Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 95.

619
Ibid., 113.

620
Ibid., 123.

621
Ibid., 115.

622
Seward,
The Monks of War
, 283.

623
Ibid.

624
Pickles,
Malta 1565
, 45.

625
Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 139.

626
Ibid., 142.

627
Bradford,
The Great Siege
, 123, in Carroll,
The Crisis of Christendom
, 827.

628
Seward,
The Monks of War
, 284; Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 140.

629
Seward,
The Monks of War
, 286.

630
Francisco Balbi Di Correggio,
The Siege of Malta, 1565
, trans. Ernle Bradford (Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press, 2005), 144.

631
Vertot,
Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem
, vol. IV, 51, in Seward,
The Monks of War
, 286.

632
Francisco Balbi,
The Siege of Malta
, 144.

633
Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 176.

634
Ibid., 185.

635
Number of knights killed from Moczar,
Islam at the Gates
, 157. Number of Maltese killed from Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 185.

636
Balbi,
The Siege of Malta
, 189.

637
Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 196.

638
The best image of galley warfare comes from the 1959 movie
Ben Hur,
starring Charlton Heston. Although that movie was set in the time of the Roman Empire, the sixteenth-century Mediterranean oared galley was not much different from the Roman vessels portrayed in the movie.

639
Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 77.

640
Ibrahim Pecevi,
Pecevi Tarihi
, vol. 1 (Ankara: 1981), 310–311, in Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 234.

641
Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 232.

642
Jack Beeching,
The Galleys at Lepanto
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982), 216. Cervantes would recall the Battle of Lepanto in his most famous work,
Don Quixote
, when he wrote, “Those Christians who died there were even happier than those who remained alive and victorious.” In Victor Davis Hanson,
Carnage and Culture
(New York: Anchor Books, 2001), 253.

643
Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 256.

644
P. de Bourdeille de Brantome,
Oeuvres complètes
, vol. 3 ed. L. Lalanne, (Paris: 1864), 125, in Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 256.

645
G.K. Chesterton,
Lepanto
, ed. Dale Ahlquist (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 62.

646
For the amount of time it took to form up see Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 257.

647
Crowley,
Empires of the Sea
, 264.

648
Ibid., 274.

649
Ibid., 260.

650
Ibid., 276.

651
Moczar,
Islam at the Gates
, 192.

652
G.K. Chesterton,
Lepanto
, ed. Dale Ahlquist, 79 & 88.

653
Lepanto
, 88, ed. Dale Ahlquist—from
On the Place of Chesterton
, 78.

654
John Stoye,
The Siege of Vienna—The Last Great Trial Between the Cross and Crescent
(New York: Pegasus Books, 2006), 27.

655
Ibid., 28.

656
Moczar,
Islam at the Gates
, 200.

657
Ibid.

658
Simon Millar,
Vienna 1683—Christian Europe Repels the Ottomans
(New York: Osprey Publishing, 2008), 44.

659
Stoye,
The Siege of Vienna
, 108.

660
Millar,
Vienna 1683
, 17.

661
Stoye,
The Siege of Vienna
, 131.

662
Ibid., 138.

663
Millar,
Vienna 1683
, 93. These small pastries acquired the name
croissant
for their crescent shape, and are usually associated with France, but their origin stems from the siege of Vienna and so they are rightfully considered Austrian. Legend has it that the French adopted the tasty pastry when Marie Antoinette, who was born in Vienna, brought the item with her to France.

664
Millar,
Vienna 1683
, 89.

665
L. Pukianiec,
Sobieski a Stolica Apostolska na tle wojny z Turcja
(1683–1684)
(Vilna: 1937), 1, in Stoye,
The Siege of Vienna
, 174. Charles V’s quote was adopted from Julius Caesar’s famous phrase, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

666
Moczar,
Islam at the Gates
, 207.

667
Belloc,
The Great Heresies
, 71. It is interesting that two great Ottoman defeats occurred on September 11: Malta in 1565 and Vienna in 1683. I believe that Osama bin Laden was aware of the significance of these dates and specifically choose that day for his attacks on the United States.

668
Stoye,
The Siege of Vienna
, 194.

669
For the Turks’ declaring World War I a
jihad
, see Housley,
Contesting the Crusades
, 157.

10

The Crusades and the Modern World

Lord, take me from wars between Christians in which I have spent much of my life; let me die in your service so I may share your kingdom in Paradise.

Josserand of Brancion
670

I have decided to kill Pope John Paul II, supreme commander of the Crusades.

Mehmet Ali Agca
671

The Crusading movement was launched by the papacy, and its fate remained intertwined with that of the Roman pontiffs. As their role in European politics changed, so too did the movement’s. As Western Europe moved toward the modern world, secular rulers became more independent, and focused more on internal policies.

The scandal of the Avignon papacy and the Great Western Schism in the fourteenth century severely weakened the papacy, which the Protestant Revolution then completely undermined in the sixteenth. As the pope’s ability to influence Western secular rulers declined, so too did the Crusading movement. Warfare became the province of secular rulers who marshaled their forces solely for personal and national aims rather than for the good of Christ, the Church, and Christendom. Although there were moments of unity during the fight against the Ottoman Turks, the overall response was limited. All in Christendom reveled in the glory of victory, but few endeavored to sacrifice to achieve it.

The Crusades did not end because modern man saw the folly of the campaigns, as Enlightenment thinkers and modern critics suppose. Indeed, the Crusades remained extremely popular. Both rulers and subjects continued to like the idea of the Crusades, but over time their desire to plan, spend resources, and actually take the cross gave way to other priorities. Ultimately, “the Crusade did not disappear from European culture because it was discredited but because the religious and social value systems that had sustained it were abandoned.”
672

Why Islam Hates the West

Myths about the Crusades began during the sixteenth century, as Protestant revolutionaries attacked what they viewed as papal campaigns designed to increase the wealth of the Church. The creation of myths about the Crusades continued throughout the time of the Enlightenment until the present day, when the most prevalent myth concerns the Crusades and Islam. Arab nationalists and Islamic terrorists use the Crusades as propaganda to produce recruits for
jihad
against the West; Western intellectuals use it to attack the Church. Both groups profit by fostering the falsehood that the Crusades are the source of the modern-day tension between Islam and the West.