The Great Betrayal by Ernie Bradshaw: The Crusades Suck

As a subject, The Crusades have long tickled my interest. As presented in school, The Crusades were more like an adventure story. Righteous Europeans heading off on a noble mission. Not being overly Christian—my family attended a godless Unitarian church—I didn’t thrill so much to the Manichaean battle. I accepted the Christians as the home team but wasn’t invested beyond that.

Saladin gave the Saracens a noble Robert E Lee hero to post against our Grant-like Richard the Lionhearted. And Richard brought in Robin Hood (or vice versa), so it all became fanciful backdrop to nifty stories rather than the overweening imperialism and schismatic crap that sat at the core of The Crusades. And don’t forget that Richard cost the home team a literal kingly ransom because he got captured.

Even as a child, I saw how addle-pated these enterprises were. The powers that be kept sending out mobs of almost organized mayhem, often under the leadership of visionary klutzes. The idea of a Children’s Crusade, for one, hardly seemed real.

These ramblings of mine came after reading The Great Betrayal by Ernie Bradford. It concerns the Fourth Crusade. That one was meant to free Jerusalem from Muslim control by kicking the butt of the sultanate in Egypt and Syria. The Pope said this was okay. To accomplish this fine deed of geopolitical machinations, you needed first of all ambitious nobles. Several were found, ready for glory.

Around these elite humans were gathered all those second, third, and fourth scions born of rich degree who lacked inheritance because first son got it all. Spoiling for spoils, you could say. An army of nobodies and battlefield fodder walked along amidst the stately horses, supple pawns of the game.

To reach Syria required ships. Who were the shipbuilders in the early 13th century? The Venetians, vested in commerce and trade. Who powered this merchant machine. The doge. Specifically one yclept Dandolo. To squeeze it to its simplest, Dandolo made a deal. The Crusaders got transportation and Venetian military might. Venice got the expectation of a huge payment and, oh by the way, a diversion from the Western front. This served Venice in two ways. The Eastern market remained open for Venice. To the West, a crucial trade impediment was removed. The Crusaders brought with them a thin excuse for a pretender to the BIzantine crown. The puppet would help make the Western trade sluice ever the more slick.

Constantinople had reached the effete stage of empire at this time, ripe for the Crusaders to pluck. In the space of about two years the city was burned twice and thoroughly sacked. Land grabs in the region ensured centuries of unrest, to put it mildly. Schism of the best.

I remember how mention of further Crusades had an and so forth air and were not offered in detail. I don’t know how many official Crusades erupted thru history. Some never got the moniker but you can surely place WWI on the list. And on it goes.

Having read this book makes me no scholar on the subject. You see the familiar patterns, tho. We are living them. The well-paid puppet in the White House constitutes just one more repetition of the greedy mantra. The power of making schism... The Crusades suck.