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There were seven Crusades in all, dating from 1095 to 1291, with the First Crusade being the most successful from a military point of view. The First Crusade was an attempt to re-capture Jerusalem. Christians had paid pilgrimage to the Holy Land since the time of Constantine. After Jerusalem had been captured by the Saljuk Turks in 1076, any Christian who wanted to pay a pilgrimage to the city faced a very hard time with the Moslem soldiers makin...

Jerusalem Conquered 1099 (The First Crusade) In January, the First Crusade under Raymond IV of Toulouse, Robert of Normandy, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert of Flanders and Tancred of Taranto began the long march south from the rolling point of Antioch. By June, the Christian Army of 12,000 knights and 11,000 foot soldiers reached Jerusalem. The city was held by a Moslem garrison under the caliph Al-Mustali of Cairo since the displacement of the...

After the fall of Jerusalem, there was no one left save the conquerors. The massacre had taken the lives of all the Jews, many having been burned in the synagogue where they had taken refuge. All the Moslems were dead. Any Christian pilgrims had been expelled before the siege had begun. The Moslems would never forget or forgive the behavior of the Crusaders. Jerusalem was a Holy City to them as much as it was to the Christians. With sacred shrine...