“In August 718 Maslama lifted the siege and withdrew what was left of the Muslim army and fleet, having suffered a major defeat. More than 700 years would pass before another Muslim army mounted a serious attack on Constantinople.”
---
“Manzikert was perhaps the most decisive disaster in Byzantine history, being ever after referred to by the empire’s chroniclers as ‘the dreadful day’. The Byzantine empire was to survive in an increasingly shrunken form for almost another four centuries, experiencing several periods of apparent revival, but the defeat at Manzikert led to the most important disruption of the Byzantine state since the Arab invasions of the seventh century.”
----
“After 1071 Jerusalem was held by the Seljuk Turks, only to be regained by the Fatimids a year before the crusaders reached its walls in 1099.”
---
“The papacy had been growing in power during the eleventh century and the popes had already been involved in organizing holy war against the Muslims in Spain. When Pope Urban ii issued his call for an expedition to the east in 1095, he no doubt hoped it would be an orderly affair under papal control. Like the Byzantines, the pope was probably surprised by “the movement that was actually created. One aim of the Church was to stop knights fighting each other in western Europe. Christians, like Muslims, had a basic belief that co-religionists should not fight each other, although in reality this was a frequent occurrence. The knights were to redirect their warlike energies against the infidel in the east, religious motives mingling with a secular desire to win new lands for themselves.
Such a desire should not be confused with a wish to convert the inhabitants of those lands. The Crusades were not an attempt at the mass conversion of Muslims into Christians.
Unlike the Muslim jihad, the aims of the crusaders were essentially limited. They wished to liberate and defend the Christian holy sites in Palestine, not to engage in a holy war with universal-ist aims. That the First Crusade has been associated with such apocalyptic aims is due to the fervent popular response it evoked.”
---
“Fervent Christians would assign their success to God’s
Unlike the Muslim jihad, the aims of the crusaders were essentially limited. They wished to liberate and defend the Christian holy sites in Palestine, not to engage in a holy war with universal-ist aims. That the First Crusade has been associated with such apocalyptic aims is due to the fervent popular response it evoked.”
---
“Fervent Christians would assign their success to God’s
favour, but the reality would seem to be that Muslim disunity as a consequence of the collapse of the Seljuk Turk empire gave the western Christians their chance to advance deep into Muslim territory and take Jerusalem.”
---
“The arrival of the Ottoman Turks in Europe caused no major concern among the Christians. The Muslim states of Anatolia that had provoked a Christian reaction were Aydin and Menteshe in the south-west of the region. This was because they had developed navies that preyed on Christian shipping and challenged Christian command of the sea, one of the few advantages that remained to them in the Christian–Muslim struggle after the fall of Outremer.”
---
“After some initial success, the knights were surrounded and defeated and the rest of the crusader army fled, with the Turks in hot pursuit. King Sigismund escaped to a Venetian ship in the Danube and took the long way home to Hungary via Constantinople. As the Venetian ships passed through the Dardanelles, the Turks displayed the noble prisoners taken at Nicopolis on the beach at Gallipoli.”
---
“The arrival of the Ottoman Turks in Europe caused no major concern among the Christians. The Muslim states of Anatolia that had provoked a Christian reaction were Aydin and Menteshe in the south-west of the region. This was because they had developed navies that preyed on Christian shipping and challenged Christian command of the sea, one of the few advantages that remained to them in the Christian–Muslim struggle after the fall of Outremer.”
---
“After some initial success, the knights were surrounded and defeated and the rest of the crusader army fled, with the Turks in hot pursuit. King Sigismund escaped to a Venetian ship in the Danube and took the long way home to Hungary via Constantinople. As the Venetian ships passed through the Dardanelles, the Turks displayed the noble prisoners taken at Nicopolis on the beach at Gallipoli.”
---
“Just as the Arabs had seen their spectacular conquests after the death of the Prophet as a sign of God’s approval of Islam, so Europeans in the nineteenth century saw their economic and military dominance as proof of God’s support of Christianity.”
---
“As European imperialism spread across the globe, Muslims were among its principal victims. They could never accept that European success had anything to do with the superiority of the Christian religion. Yet Christianity benefited enormously from the spread of European power and influence. The nineteenth century saw an expansion of Christianity on a scale not seen since apostolic times, with Christian missionary work spreading around the world. For centuries Islam had been slowly moving southwards in Africa making converts. Now it was challenged by a wave of Christian missionaries, whose spiritual message was reinforced by European traders and European gunboats.”
---
“More than 200,000 North African troops served in Europe for France during the war and most were Muslims. Similarly, Muslims made up a significant part of the army of British India and many would fight against the Turks in the Middle East”
“Just as the Arabs had seen their spectacular conquests after the death of the Prophet as a sign of God’s approval of Islam, so Europeans in the nineteenth century saw their economic and military dominance as proof of God’s support of Christianity.”
---
“As European imperialism spread across the globe, Muslims were among its principal victims. They could never accept that European success had anything to do with the superiority of the Christian religion. Yet Christianity benefited enormously from the spread of European power and influence. The nineteenth century saw an expansion of Christianity on a scale not seen since apostolic times, with Christian missionary work spreading around the world. For centuries Islam had been slowly moving southwards in Africa making converts. Now it was challenged by a wave of Christian missionaries, whose spiritual message was reinforced by European traders and European gunboats.”
---
“More than 200,000 North African troops served in Europe for France during the war and most were Muslims. Similarly, Muslims made up a significant part of the army of British India and many would fight against the Turks in the Middle East”
---
“The successful defence cost the Turks more than 300,000 casualties, but the losses of the defeated British and French were only a little smaller at 250,000 casualties.
The Turkish victory at Gallipoli came as a shock to the allied powers. Further shocks were administered when a British army advancing in Iraq during 1916 was captured at Kut, and the first British attempts to invade Palestine from Egypt were repulsed at Gaza in early 1917. The British now decided to take their Turkish enemy more seriously. Careful preparations were made and large forces assembled for new attacks in Iraq and Palestine during 1917. General Maude took Baghdad in March 1917, and after turning the Gaza position at the battle of Beersheba in September 1917 General Allenby’s army went on to take Jerusalem before Christmas.
East of the River Jordan, Allenby’s efforts were assisted by Arab forces that had come north from Hejaz and captured Aqaba on the way. With the Arabs were a number of British army officers, including T. E. Lawrence, better known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. However, the Arab leaders were angered when details of a secret “Anglo-French plan to divide up the Middle East between those powers was made public. The Arabs were similarly antagonised by the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, which favoured the creation of a national home for the Jews in Palestine, but they still continued to assist the British in the war against the Turks.”
“The successful defence cost the Turks more than 300,000 casualties, but the losses of the defeated British and French were only a little smaller at 250,000 casualties.
The Turkish victory at Gallipoli came as a shock to the allied powers. Further shocks were administered when a British army advancing in Iraq during 1916 was captured at Kut, and the first British attempts to invade Palestine from Egypt were repulsed at Gaza in early 1917. The British now decided to take their Turkish enemy more seriously. Careful preparations were made and large forces assembled for new attacks in Iraq and Palestine during 1917. General Maude took Baghdad in March 1917, and after turning the Gaza position at the battle of Beersheba in September 1917 General Allenby’s army went on to take Jerusalem before Christmas.
East of the River Jordan, Allenby’s efforts were assisted by Arab forces that had come north from Hejaz and captured Aqaba on the way. With the Arabs were a number of British army officers, including T. E. Lawrence, better known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. However, the Arab leaders were angered when details of a secret “Anglo-French plan to divide up the Middle East between those powers was made public. The Arabs were similarly antagonised by the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, which favoured the creation of a national home for the Jews in Palestine, but they still continued to assist the British in the war against the Turks.”
---
“Whatever its shortcomings, the Ottoman empire had been the last great Muslim power in the world, while its sultan’s role as caliph provided a religious figurehead for all Muslims. With the disappearance of the Ottomans, many Muslims felt disoriented”
---
“By the 1930s it was becoming clear that if Muslims wanted to have any success in undermining European imperialist domination, they would have to forget the methods of Abd el- Krim and follow the secular, nationalist policies that Ataturk had used so successfully in modernizing Turkey.”
----
“Once the Islamic world had hemmed Christendom into a small peninsula of Eurasia; now the Christians had outflanked the Muslims and broken out into the wider world.
“Whatever its shortcomings, the Ottoman empire had been the last great Muslim power in the world, while its sultan’s role as caliph provided a religious figurehead for all Muslims. With the disappearance of the Ottomans, many Muslims felt disoriented”
---
“By the 1930s it was becoming clear that if Muslims wanted to have any success in undermining European imperialist domination, they would have to forget the methods of Abd el- Krim and follow the secular, nationalist policies that Ataturk had used so successfully in modernizing Turkey.”
----
“Once the Islamic world had hemmed Christendom into a small peninsula of Eurasia; now the Christians had outflanked the Muslims and broken out into the wider world.
Yet the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals were not greatly concerned about their naval weakness. They were primarily land powers, and their large and formidable armies still appeared to have the advantage over Christian forces. All this began to change during the seventeenth century as Christian European armies grew in size, discipline and technological sophistication. Ottoman military decline was marked by a loss of leadership, few sultans after 1600 commanding their armies in the field; by growing disunity within the empire; by the undermining of discipline among the janissaries and other household troops; and by a growing reluctance to adopt the new military methods and equipment of the West. Christian armies became stronger and more efficient, while Muslim military power dwindled. Although Muslim armies were still large and their soldiers often recklessly brave, it was not enough.
Increasingly, the Muslims knew how to die but not how to win.” ---
“The Muslim failure to adapt to military modernity is
Increasingly, the Muslims knew how to die but not how to win.” ---
“The Muslim failure to adapt to military modernity is
high-lighted by the differing fortunes of Russia and the Ottoman empire. In 1600 Moscow seemed to envoys from western Europe almost as Asiatic a capital as Constantinople, but the Russians were to show a greater determination than the Ottomans in adopting European methods, particularly in military
affairs. Czar Peter the Great destroyed the steltsi, the old reactionary military elite of Muscovy, in 1698; the Ottoman sultan did not crush the janissaries, his reactionary military elite, until 1826. The Russians brought in European military and naval advisers and adopted the latest European military technology.”
---
“The four military factors of leadership, unity, discipline and technology were most successfully brought together in the Muslim world by the Ottoman Turks between 1300 and 1600, producing the greatest threat to Christendom since the Arab conquests. For ten generations almost every Ottoman ruler had significant leadership qualities that were not only deployed to wage jihad against the Christians, but also to impose unity
affairs. Czar Peter the Great destroyed the steltsi, the old reactionary military elite of Muscovy, in 1698; the Ottoman sultan did not crush the janissaries, his reactionary military elite, until 1826. The Russians brought in European military and naval advisers and adopted the latest European military technology.”
---
“The four military factors of leadership, unity, discipline and technology were most successfully brought together in the Muslim world by the Ottoman Turks between 1300 and 1600, producing the greatest threat to Christendom since the Arab conquests. For ten generations almost every Ottoman ruler had significant leadership qualities that were not only deployed to wage jihad against the Christians, but also to impose unity
throughout the growing Ottoman empire. The Ottomans also brought the disciplined Muslim slave army to its highest peak in their elite household troops, above all the janissaries. The origins of permanent royal armies in Christian Europe are to be found in the late fifteenth century, but the Ottomans laid the foundations of such a force a century earlier and had largely created one by the time they took Constantinople in 1453. The Ottomans also proved willing to adopt the latest military technology, quickly taking up gunpowder weapons, including siege guns, field artillery and handguns.
Although primarily a land power, the Ottomans also built up a navy and by 1500 it was successfully challenging Christian power in the Mediterranean”
---
“Despite the past pretensions of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, there is no Muslim state powerful enough to act as overall leader of the Muslim world on the Ottoman model. There is certainly no Muslim state today that can deploy the sort of military power that the Ottoman empire wielded in its prime. In terms of conventional warfare any future Christian– Muslim conflict will be no contest. The military domination of
Although primarily a land power, the Ottomans also built up a navy and by 1500 it was successfully challenging Christian power in the Mediterranean”
---
“Despite the past pretensions of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, there is no Muslim state powerful enough to act as overall leader of the Muslim world on the Ottoman model. There is certainly no Muslim state today that can deploy the sort of military power that the Ottoman empire wielded in its prime. In terms of conventional warfare any future Christian– Muslim conflict will be no contest. The military domination of
the usa on land, on sea and in the air is at the present time unassailable. It is for that reason that the emerging conflict has become increasingly concentrated on guerrilla warfare and terrorism, warfare in which the political dimension is as important as the military.”
---
“At a time when the military superiority of the West -meaning chiefly the USA- over the Muslim world has never been greater, Western countries feel insecure in the face of the activities of Islamic terrorists who make up only a tiny minority of the world’s Muslim population. In all the long centuries of Christian–Muslim conflict, never has the military imbalance between the two sides been greater, yet the dominant West can apparently derive no comfort from that fact.”
---
“Born in the Afghan war against Soviet invaders, when, ironically, it was supported by the USA, the international Islamic fundamentalist resistance movement has continued its struggle on battlefields as far apart as Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya and Somalia. The terrorist attacks in the usa on 11 September 2001 exploited the open nature of Western society by delivering a blow to the very heart of the world’s last
---
“At a time when the military superiority of the West -meaning chiefly the USA- over the Muslim world has never been greater, Western countries feel insecure in the face of the activities of Islamic terrorists who make up only a tiny minority of the world’s Muslim population. In all the long centuries of Christian–Muslim conflict, never has the military imbalance between the two sides been greater, yet the dominant West can apparently derive no comfort from that fact.”
---
“Born in the Afghan war against Soviet invaders, when, ironically, it was supported by the USA, the international Islamic fundamentalist resistance movement has continued its struggle on battlefields as far apart as Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya and Somalia. The terrorist attacks in the usa on 11 September 2001 exploited the open nature of Western society by delivering a blow to the very heart of the world’s last
superpower.”
