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Crusade in Europe is a book of wartime memoirs by General Dwight D. Eisenhower published by Doubleday in 1948. Maps were provided by Rafael Palacios. Crusade in Europe is a personal account by one of the senior military figures of World War II.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1948
Jun 17, 2024 · The Crusades were organized by western European Christians after centuries of Muslim wars of expansion. Their primary objectives were to stop the expansion of Muslim states, to reclaim for Christianity the Holy Land in the Middle East, and to recapture territories that had formerly been Christian.
- There were at least eight Crusades. The First Crusade lasted from 1096 to 1099. The Second Crusade began in 1147 and ended in 1149. The Third Crusa...
- The First Crusade was led by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Godrey of Bouillon, Hugh of Vermandois, Bohemond of Otranto, and Robert of Flanders, and the...
- The First Crusade, called in response to a request for help from the Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus, was astonishingly successful. The Crusader...
- The Crusades slowed the advance of Islamic power and may have prevented western Europe from falling under Muslim suzerainty. The Crusader states ex...
- What Were The Crusades?
- When Were The Crusades?
- The First Crusade
- The Fall of Jerusalem
- The Second Crusade
- The Third Crusade
- The Fourth Crusade
- Final Crusades
- The Mamluks
- The Last Crusade
By the end of the 11th century, Western Europe had emerged as a significant power in its own right, though it still lagged behind other Mediterranean civilizations, such as the Byzantine Empire (formerly the eastern half of the Roman Empire) and the Islamic Empire of the Middle East and North Africa. However, Byzantium had lost considerable territo...
In November 1095, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, the Pope called on Western Christians to take up arms to aid the Byzantines and recapture the Holy Land from Muslim control. This marked the beginning of the Crusades. Pope Urban’s plea was met with a tremendous response, both among the military elite as well as ordinary citizens. Tho...
Four armies of Crusaders were formed from troops of different Western European regions, led by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Godfrey of Bouillon, Hugh of Vermandois and Bohemond of Taranto (with his nephew Tancred). These groups departed for Byzantium in August 1096. A less organized band of knights and commoners known as the “People’s Crusade” set off ...
Despite deteriorating relations between the Crusaders and Byzantine leaders, the combined force continued its march through Anatolia, capturing the great Syrian city of Antioch in June 1098. After various internal struggles over control of Antioch, the Crusaders began their march toward Jerusalem, then occupied by Egyptian Fatimids (who as Shi’ite ...
Having achieved their goal in an unexpectedly short period of time after the First Crusade, many of the Crusaders departed for home. To govern the conquered territory, those who remained established four large western settlements, or Crusader states, in Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli. Guarded by formidable castles, the Crusader states retai...
After numerous attempts by the Crusaders of Jerusalem to capture Egypt, Nur al-Din’s forces (led by the general Shirkuh and his nephew, Saladin) seized Cairo in 1169 and forced the Crusader army to evacuate. Upon Shirkuh’s subsequent death, Saladin assumed control and began a campaign of conquests that accelerated after Nur al-Din’s death in 1174. ...
Though Pope Innocent III called for a new Crusade in 1198, power struggles within and between Europe and Byzantium drove the Crusaders to divert their mission in order to topple the reigning Byzantine emperor, Alexius III, in favor of his nephew, who became Alexius IV in mid-1203. The new emperor’s attempts to submit the Byzantine church to Rome wa...
Throughout the remainder of the 13th century, a variety of Crusades aimed not so much to topple Muslim forces in the Holy Land but to combat any and all groups seen as enemies of the Christian faith. The Albigensian Crusade (1208-29) aimed to root out the heretical Cathari or Albigensian sect of Christianityin France, while the Baltic Crusades (121...
As the Crusaders struggled, a new dynasty, known as the Mamluks, descended from former slaves of the Islamic Empire, took power in Egypt. In 1260, Mamluk forces in Palestine managed to halt the advance of the Mongols, an invading force led by Genghis Khanand his descendants, which had emerged as a potential ally for the Christians in the region. Un...
In 1291, one of the only remaining Crusader cities, Acre, fell to the Muslim Mamluks. Many historians believe this defeat marked the end of the Crusader States and the Crusades themselves. Though the Church organized minor Crusades with limited goals after 1291—mainly military campaigns aimed at pushing Muslims from conquered territory, or conqueri...
Jul 2, 1997 · Crusade in Europe tells the complete story of the war as Eisenhower planned and lived it. Through his eyes, the enormous scope and drama of the war―strategy, battles, moments of fateful decision―become fully illuminated in all their fateful glory.
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- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Dwight David Eisenhower
- 1948
Mar 3, 2020 · The title ‘Crusade in Europe’ is a slight misnomer, for the story starts where it should, with the high-risk landings in Morocco and Algeria of the first American force to cross the Atlantic, the men being as green as most of their generals, including Supreme Commander Ike.
Oct 12, 2018 · The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between 1095 and 1270, as well as many more unofficial ones.
Crusade in Europe tells the complete story of the war as he planned and executed it. Through Eisenhower’s eyes the enormous scope and drama of the war–strategy, battles, moments of great decision–become fully illuminated in all their fateful glory.
