Title: Why were the Crusades unsuccessful? - Quora
Headings: Why were the Crusades unsuccessful?
Why were the Crusades unsuccessful?
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Content: Thousands of people went on crusade for a multitude of different reasons. If you judge by their motivation then some were and some weren’t. Historians have identified broad themes of motivations for both the ‘big players’, as it were, and the individuals who went. Byzantine Motivations
The First Crusade (1095-1099) was initiated partly by the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) sending an envoy to Rome requesting troops to aid in his war of re-conquest against the Seljuk Turks. It’s likely he was hoping for a few hundred or couple of thousand Latin knights as mercenaries, but instead a 35,000 strong rabble showed up looting local Christian villages and being a general nuisance. Having said that, this crusading army progressed through Anatolia down to Jerusalem and in their wake Alexios regained control of important cities such as Nikea. From this perspective, the First Crusade was a moderate success for him. However, if we fast-forward in time, it is widely considered that the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) completely crippled the Byzantine Empire and led to the collapse of Constantinople in 1453 becoming a when rather than an if. So long-term, the crusades were unsuccessful for the Byzantines as they led to the destruction of their empire rather than the restoration of it. Papal Motivations
The First Crusade was initiated in Western Europe by Pope Urban II (1088-1099).