Is there proof?
“This is the inscription that was written: 'mene, mene, tekel, parsin'. Here is what these words mean: God has numbered the days: You have been weighed on the scales: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
Good post. I have read quite a bit about the history of the Byzantine Empire. Most christians are completely unaware of the great service in defense of the Church the Empire did thorughout the centuries. That said, the Battle of Manzikert probably sealed the fate of the Empire more than anything. With the loss of Antolia or Asia Minor the Byzantine Empire was soon regulated to a secondary power next to the Turks (Seljuk then Ottoman with Timerlane having savaged the later). Anatolia was the heartland of the Empire and with its loss the Empire began to rely on more and more mercenaries. It was a waiting game for the Turks to regain their strength in the face of Byzantine political instability and incompetence of the era. Essentially the migration of the Turks into Asia Minor went unopposed for almost 30 years as a direct result of the political instability in Constantinople resulting from the fallout of Manzikert. By the time the fourth crusade came around the Byzantine Empire was a shell of former self. What the Fourth Crusade did manage was to cement the rift between East and West that still exists to this day.If you REALLY enjoy history, I highly recommend this podcast
The History of Byzantium
The Sack of Constantinople exacerbated the decline of the Byzantine Empire. It was already weakened by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century after the battle of Manzikert and the subsequent loss of Anatolia (the central highlands of Turkey) so that the Byzantine empire was contained to the western and northern coasts of Turkey by the time the Fourth Crusade reached Constantinople 120 years later.
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Ultimately the Ottomans won because they had superior military technology (gunpowder cannons), and that wouldn't have changed with or without the Fourth Crusade.
Wut?The Ottoman Empire didn't exist at the time of the first crusade...
The first crusade was responding to the growing incursions of the Seljuks. Wait, what? How did Turks, not Arabs, become the vanguard of Islam? To understand that you have to not only look at internal politics of the Islamic caliphates but much further east to central Asia and the fringes of China. Studying the history of Arab-Islamic empire(s) is kind of like looking at the Roman empire on fast forward. They expand very quickly, and then start to fragment, and then the "barbarians" they used as slaves and mercenaries started learning their tricks and taking over. In this case the Turks are roughly comparable to the Germans. But just like the Arab states declined, so too the Seljuks had plenty of problems, a lot of them internal.
So simply explaining the fall of Constantinople as the result of "the militant spread of Islam" doesn't really explain anything.
The thread is primarily about the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 though the OP did not explicitly state as much. The First Crusade I would agree with you. The Fourth I would not. I would also agree that pointing to one event as to being the sole cause (the sack of Constantinople) of the effect (collapse of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire) is pretty suspect indeed. It didn’t have to happen the way it did. That sense of inevitability is because we are looking backwards in time with the benefit of foreknowledge of what will take place. Add to that almost romanticizing of the Byzantine Empire by modern believers one gets to such conclusions. I can understand why since I have stood in the nave of the Hagia Sophia in absolute awe. Even with all the scaffolding.My point is that the Islamic world was highly fragmented at the time of the First Crusade. The Seljuks were even divided amongst themselves. It's not like there was a concerted jihad against the Byzantine empire. Before the Turks ever reached Byzantine territory they were gobbling up Iranian and Arab states, and the Arabs viewed them as upstart barbarians and invaders. Just because they shared the same religion did not unite them politically. The Seljuks were simply waging another one of many wars of expansion against the Byzantines. Muslim rulers at the time regarded the concept of jihad as belonging to the glorious early days of Islam, as well as the end times. In the present they were concerned with simply preserving their states; the idea of jihad came to be regarded as anachronistic and a dangerous and destabilizing diversion of men and resources. Only after the first crusade did a serious idea of Islamic unity against the Christian world gradually begin to form and even then it was pretty shaky.
So the idea that there was this unstoppable tide of Islamic invasion necessitating the crusades doesn't make any sense.