'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
Crusading Warfare in the East, 1099-1187
My guest for this episode is Dr. Nicholas Morton, whom you may remember from our first episode about the Mongols. Today Nick and I will be talking about crusading warfare, in particular, about the military activities and challenges faced by the Crusader States established in the Levant by the First Crusade. Among the topics we will discussing are the different approaches to warfare practiced by the European Crusaders and their Turkish and Fatimid adversaries; how the crusaders and the leaders of the Latin Crusader states adjusted--or failed to adjust--to the novel challenges presented by warfare in the Middle East; why the First Crusade succeeded while the others failed; and whether, militarily, the Crusader states were doomed from the start.
Recommended reading:
Nicholas Morton. The Crusader States & Their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187. Oxford University Press, 2020.
R.C. Smail. Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 1995 (originally published 1956)
Christopher Marshall. Warfare in the Latin East, 1192-1291. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
John France. Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
John France. Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades: 1000-1300. Cornell University Press, 1999.
David Nicolle. Crusader Warfare Volume I: Byzantium, Western Europe and the Battle for the Holy Land. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2007.
David Nicolle. Crusader Warfare Volume II: Muslims, Mongols and the Struggle Against the Crusades. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2007.
John Gillingham, “Richard I and the Science of Warfare” - from War and Government: Essays in Honour of J.O. Prestwich (1984); "William the Bastard at War," in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. c. Harper-Bill, C. Holdsworth, and J. Nelson (1989); "War and Chivalry in the History of William the Marshal." Thirteenth Century England v.2 (1991); "'Up with Orthodoxy': In Defense of Vegetian Strategy." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 2 (2004): 21-41."
Clifford Rogers. "The Vegetian 'Science of Warfare' in the Middle Ages." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1 (2002): 1-19.
Stephen Morillo. "Battle-Seeking: The Contexts and Limits of Vegetian Strategy." Journal of Medieval Military History, vol. 1 (2002): 149-58.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
welcome to the podcast. Tis but a scratch, fact and fiction about the Middle Ages. I'm your host, Professor Richard Abels. Today I'll be talking about crusading warfare with my special guest, Professor Nicholas Martin, of Nottingham Trent University in the UK. I'm so delighted to have back on the podcast, Dr. Nicholas board. Now you must remember, Nick, from his really wonderful episode about the Mongols. And Nick, who is his specialty is actually the Crusader States and the Latin East in the High Middle Ages, he's come back to talk to us about a subject which I think he probably knows more about it than anybody I know, with the possible exception of John France, and that is crusading warfare. So Nick, welcome back. I'm going to start by just asking you, How did you get interested in the Crusades? And how did you get interested in military history of the Crusades?
Nicholas Morton:Sure. Firstly, thank you so much for having back up the the podcast, Richard, it's great to be here. Yeah. So I suppose my interest in the Crusades, if you want to trace it far enough back is being dragged around castles in the rain by my parents, as a child, I suppose is a core, the root of it all. And then the books that you read as a child of castles and knights and things like that. But in terms of the actual crusades, I studied the Crusades with Jonathan Phillips at Royal Holloway University. And I had, I came into it with several questions. The first one was thinking about it from a Christian perspective. Yeah. I thought Jesus said you're supposed to love your enemies and do good to those that hates you. So Where's, where's the holy war coming from? Well, and the whole sort of beating your spears into plowshares rather than your plowshares into spears. But yeah.
Richard Abels:Very muscular form of Christianity, isn't it? Or
Nicholas Morton:Quite so. So part of it was theological. But also, I was interested from a military perspective, because I realized very early on that we're talking about multiple military cultures operating in close proximity. Yes, you've got the Byzantines Empire, which is essentially the direct line continuation of Eastern Roman Empire. You've got the Seljuk Turks, bringing traditions from the Central Asian steppe region, and the Mongols doing the same thing too. You've got many forms of Muslim warfare, depending on whether they're drawing upon Persian traditions or Bedouin traditions or Fatimid traditions. And then you've got Armenian, Armenian armies, and George knows, I probably missed a few out too. But what happens when they meet? And what do they learn from each other? And what does that look encounter look like? And what how do they perceive each other? It's that encounter and that willingness to learn or not? These are the questions are brought to, to the table here. And you've already mentioned John France, really. And yeah, he was certainly an inspiration, because he was interested not just in the Crusaders themselves, but in all the cultures tried to really get to grips with the cultures, or all the various societies involved in the many wars, spanning the Middle East in this era. So in many ways, these were these are the triggers for me to want to find out more.
Richard Abels:The military history of the Crusades hasn't been ignored by any means. But in my opinion, it has received less serious academic attention than their religious and political aspects. The campaign's of the number of crusades, of course have been recounted in numerous general histories, but often without real analysis and the military activities of the rulers of the Latin states, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the county of Tripoli, have been virtually ignored, except in their relationship to the numbered crusades. There are exceptions are sea snails classic crusading warfare 1097 to 1193, published in 1956, his student Christopher marshals warfare in the lack nice 1192 to 1291, published in 1992, and John Francis victory in the Eastern Military History of the First Crusade, published in 1994. But I don't think that military history per se, has received the attention that it merits considering the challenges the military challenges presented by crusading. And in part I think that has to do with the eclipse of military history within the larger discipline, academic discipline of history. It may come as a surprise to our listeners, but Military History was at least when I was a grad in graduate school in the 1970s, the black sheep of the larger discipline of history. By the 1960s. Military History, although it remained a staple of popular history had fallen into disrepute with academics. This was in part I think, because of the horrors of the two World Wars had called into question both the historical value and morality of battle narratives that seemed to glorify warfare and pot because of an ideological shift to the left of the dominant political culture and academe. Propelled in the US by student opposition to the Vietnam War. The new military history attempted to restore academic respectability to the field by aligning it with data driven social and economic history, traditional military history, it focused on battles and campaigns, much of it was written by retired military officers to illustrate what they believed to be the unchanging tenets of military science. Their focus was on battle tactics and strategy. The new military history, in contrast, studied subjects like the recruitment, organization, and economic maintenance of armed forces, the relationship between those forces and society as a whole and the impact of warfare upon civilian populations. The only facet of military history which did not seem to interest historians of this school was actual warfighting, this they left to the traditionals. The Divide was a bitter one traditionalist denied that war in society studies was real military history. While some of the most strident and outspoken representatives of the new military history, dismiss traditionalist as married war enthusiasts, rather than serious historians. I was wondering if you ever had reservations about being labeled a military historian? I know I did. That's
Nicholas Morton:the interesting question. Yes, no, you're right. The funny thing is that when you talk to people about the history of the Crusades, particularly if you ask people who aren't military historians, the one topic they'll say that has been overdone, has been researched to the point of exhaustion is military history. When you actually look at the Military History of the Crusades, there's surprisingly little there. Yes. It's that dichotomy, really, which is astonishing. Now, did I have reservations about becoming a military historian, for myself purely in terms of my own interests? No. Military History, in my view, is every bit as complex as challenging and demanding and rigorous as any other form of history. Now, of course, there are works of military history that aren't as rigorous. But that's not to say that the entire field has to be that way. My only my reservation was more was more rooted in, in the perception of it. I didn't know what other people would make of make of it. If I overtly adopted a more military dimension to my research, because I'm afraid I do see, what's the word is stigma too strong a word. There is an
Richard Abels:though and I myself, I spent by early years as historian denying that I was a military historian. And it was basically the job market and being hired at the Naval Academy, as a pre modern military historian that allowed me to embrace that title.
Nicholas Morton:Yeah. And in my previous career, in the earliest stages of my career, I started off looking at institutional history, the Teutonic Knights, I then moved on to cross cultural perceptions of other societies, whoever that who has perceptions, though those those may be. And so looking at alterity, and models like that. And so that's behind my book, encountering Islam on the First Crusade. And so the point I'm making is I've, I've already gone through several sub fields in the broader umbrella, as it were of Crusader studies. But I felt very strongly that military history needed more research. And there were several reasons for that. But number one was just how much material there is on military history, not just in Frankish, or Latin sources, but in Eastern Christian, Arabic and Greek sources, as well as many others. There's so much material, and it really hasn't been used. And you're right. Historians have tended not always to focus on big battles, because why wouldn't you yet, but at the same time, what I wanted to do is I didn't want to exclude the big battles and have some kind of response to people who said it big battles. I wanted to try and put the whole thing together. And so I wanted to create a data driven study, in which every single military encounter from the smallest raid to the biggest Siege is included, in part so I can extract from that meaningful patterns about the development and movement of conflict and their evolution over time. But also because I was aware that once pooled that data could include a lot of meaningful material that can shed light on a lot of other things, such as the cross cultural exchange of ideas or tactics. Now, yes, these things are military, but there's that that also has a bearing on lots of other topics connected to it. And I was interested, for example, in how frequently individual kings or princes or other rulers go on campaign and how often they lead those campaigns themselves. And what we can then learn from that data about them as individuals, demos, rulers, about the pace and balance of the conflict as it develops over time. So it's trying to think about meaningful ways to use data that's been pulled together as much as we can, of course, we can't possibly claim to have got every single military encounter that actually ever happened. But we can do the best we can, and then see what we can what we can get from that. And that really was the thought behind my own research.
Richard Abels:Well, I want to give a plug for your book, The Crusader States and your neighbors, a military history 1099 to 1187. Oxford University Press 2020. I think it's a model of military history. First of all, their research and it is exhaustive, you mind the sources, both the Latin, and Eastern sources, compile all the major and minor military activity, skirmishes, sieges, battle, grades, rebellions. And, frankly, as a medieval military historian, who's studied the Crusades, I was surprised at how much I didn't know about the military activities of the Crusader States. The comprehensive research underlying your book is a solid foundation for the important point you make about the nature of crusading warfare and the lubok, during the first century of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, both in terms of adaptations to new conditions of warfare, and perhaps most interestingly, at least to me, resistance to change by the rulers of Lutra mir.
Nicholas Morton:Well, thank you very much for that. That's very kind of you. But you mentioned the conservatism of armies in this era, and that there is a there is a finding, yeah, they do adapt, they do change a bit over time, they do work out ways of hazard out the Turkish, like cavalry commanders work out ways of doing things and Frankish knights workout way of dealing with Turkish like cavalry. But I think there is a conservatism underneath all of this. I was expecting to find more innovation than I found. And I found some but not much. And I think that it's very easy in an age where changing technology is changing approaches to all sorts of things, not merely in military life, but in all sorts of things. We are accustomed to changing our ways of doing things. And I think what we're looking at is here as a downward pressure of ingrained tradition, this is how we do it. We've always done it this way. We've always we always will do it this way. That's it. Now,
Richard Abels:I think partly it's because the military doctrines, and the organization military organization is so ingrained in the social system. Yeah, that to do to do any kind of fundamental innovation would be threatening that social structure. I think
Nicholas Morton:so. Yeah. And and that that routing in society is so important that things begin to make sense. Once you begin to sort of trace those lines back I think, you can, you can work out new strategies, you can work out that if you lead, if you lead your Frankish pursuers through marshland, that as a as a, as a Turkish Commander, your light cavalry can probably negotiate the marsh and then the Frankish cavalry will sink. So yes, you can, you can devise things like that, but to fundamentally change the way in which you fight and operate. It's much harder. I mean, the Franks adopts Turco poles, to provide them with a light light cavalry wing, but that's really sort of bolted on to what is really quite a conventional way of fighting. They probably do become more disciplined. But ultimately, it's the army doesn't look that Burke so very dissimilar in the way it fights at the end of the period. It doesn't the beginning, which
Richard Abels:sort of which surprised me tell you the truth. I was expecting more innovation, more change. To appreciate crusading warfare. I think it's important that we begin with a picture of what warfare was like in Western Europe on the eve of the First Crusade in 1097. And it's probably not what most of our listeners imagine. Large scale battles with knights on horseback charging one another with couch Lance's which is a staple of movies. We're extremely Rare. The most common military activities of this era were raiding and sieges, armies were small, and although led by nobles on horseback, consisted mainly of foot soldiers. The British historian John Gillingham explained the rationale behind this using the career of King Richard the first of England, Richard the lion, as a model Gillingham argued that there was not only an art of war in the 12th century, but a science of war. This strategy was shaped by logistical considerations and military typography that is, by limited agricultural production, seasonal warfare and fortified strong point studying the landscape Gillingham posited that the basic offensive military doctrine of commanders in the 11th through 14th centuries, focused on two interrelated military activities ravaging and siege, prudent military commanders avoided battle, because the risks were greatest, and the rewards of a victory were questionable, as conquest of territory dependent upon Securi castles and walled cities. Instead of seeking battle. The offensive strategy was to cross into enemy territory and to make immediately begin looting villages, destroying Mills, burning fields, and seizing cattle and captains for ransom. By doing this, the commander would feed his own troops, since war needed to pay for itself and deprive the enemy of provisions and resources as well as demoralizing them. Once they had ravaged the countryside. The invading army would then turn to the chore of besieging and taking the enemy's castles and fortified towns, since possession of castles and strong points were the only way to take and hold territory. The invader, as I said, avoided engaging the enemy in a pitch battle, unless circumstances was so favorable, that victory was all but guaranteed. A risk always remained. However, since medieval kings and commanders slept from the front and were vulnerable to being captured or killed, which, as in chess, meant that the game was over. In short, medieval warfare. According to Gilligan most resembled Sherman's March to the Sea. defensive strategy was the mirror image. Upon receiving news of an invasion. The defending general would order the garrisoning and provisioning of the major castles and world cities. He would reserve a portion of his voices for a field army that would shadow but avoid engaging the enemy in battle. Because of the threat posed by this field army, the invaders could not then out into small raiding bodies, which limited the damage they could do. The shadowing lobby could also relieve sieges, catching the procedure between the garrison forces within the castle and the relief army coming to his rescue. What the defenders had on their side was time, warfare was limited to the harvest seasons when an invading army might be able to find sufficient food and resources to campaign on. Once the season was over, and food became scarce, the invader had to retire. This often was followed in the next campaigning season, by a counter incursion into the territory of the erstwhile invader, during which the roles of the attacker and defender were reversed. In this type of warfare foot soldiers were essential. This is not to say that knights and mounted sergeants were important. A force of armored men and horseback was needed to threaten to defend against a possible battle, and a battles were rear small scale skirmishes were common. Mounted men also redeemed for recon, and recon was a standard military activity in this period. Knights also led these armies military leadership was a prerogative of the nobility, as a chain of command reflected the social and political hierarchy. But if knights possessed higher social and economic status than footsoldiers, nonetheless, the labor intensive activities of ravaging, pillaging and laying siege required foot soldiers in mass numbers, which is why foot soldiers always greatly outnumbered men on horseback, in medieval armies, sometimes as much as 10 to one because this approach to warfare follow the maxims of the late Roman military Magnus Vyas, whose de re military was widely known in the Middle Ages. Gillingham term this, the KT and strategy. Now not all medieval military historians agree completely with Gillingham. My friend and colleague Clifford Rogers, who teaches at West Point has forcefully argued that King Edward the third of England and his son Edward, the Black Prince, actively sought battle and that at least in the 14th century, the commander of the side pursuing aggressive war aims typically wanted battle, though he concedes that defenders typically avoided battle. Another friend and colleague Steven Grillo of Wabash College, while generally accepting Gillingham thesis considers the cultural imperatives that lead Submittable military commanders to seek or accept battle. Despite the risks. Both Rogers and Marilla will observe that honor might dictate battle, even if a quote unquote, objective military analysis of the situation wouldn't honor and prestige where political and social capital among the medieval military elite, a Fabian strategy of battle avoidance and attrition might prove effective militarily, but could undermine a kings or count standing among the nobility, especially if it involves the ravaging of the nobility slants, as Marilla nicely put it warfare is not just politics by other means, as Clausewitz said, it is also culture and the aristocratic culture of the High Middle Ages placed a premium on honor and prowess. Gillingham fully persuaded me that King Richard the Lionheart did not seek battle, he only fought at most three or four battles, but when battle was forced upon him, as it was during the Third Crusade or soothe, Richard personally led the charge of his knights into the ranks of the enemy. He was after all, Richard the Lionheart. But the dominance of Gilling Hans views, I think, is reflected by the name adopted by the professional Society for the Study of medieval military history, de Ray military. And I'm basically persuaded that Gillingham is right, at least as refined by Murillo. But if the leaders of the First Crusade and the Second Crusade had this idea of warfare, the question is, how was it changed by their experiences in fighting against Turks in the Middle East?
Nicholas Morton:Will process best fight if I offer Mueller a past but as sort of comparison to the situation in the Middle East? Yeah, same period. Because yeah, so that there's Gilliam's theory, which pertains mostly to Western Christendom, but it's a little different in the Middle East because I mean, just just to focus on the encounter between Frankish armies and Turkish armies, Frankish armies, mostly infantry, quite heavily armored, increasing use of ballistic weapons, small but powerful formations of heavy cavalry with the most elite, Chevron's being those of the military orders. And then, in addition to that, formations of light cavalry Turco poles, broadly speaking, that's your Frankish army. And then you have on you have Turkish armies normally formed around a ruler, often the ruler of Damascus or Aleppo is Asgar, their personal following, supported by formations of Turkman, like cavalry, who are often hired, and often the local adath, or civic militias, who then have provided the cavalry or infantry to support that force, but for the most part, it's primarily or even a holier amounted force. This is very crudely the encounter. And, yeah, we're told by those that may have been monkeyed, who is well versed in Frankish, millet tactics, that the Franks are the most cautious people in war, which is an interesting statement. But I think the disincentives from fighting battles for the Franks, at least are higher in the Middle East than they are in western Christendom. Because they are built trying to build big armies on a narrow population, they cannot afford to take losses. And as I think it's the chronicle of the wild says in the 13th century, the Kingdom of Jerusalem actually bears a closer resemblance to a barony rather than a kingdom. It's so small, and the northern Crusader States are smaller. So they've got no territory to play with. It's not like they can retreat and fight a battle deeper inside their territory. They have to fight it on the frontier, because they can't afford to lose territory. So if they lose, they lose big if they win. Let's say they've won a battle against the Emir of Damascus. Their opponents are mounted and so their opponents will be able to clear clear away from the battlefield very quickly, pursued by infantry and chain males. So aside from the actual casualties taken in close combat, the area of drum because his troops will probably have to get to safety and for the most part very quickly, and then reform. And so the incentives for advancing given you're fighting a highly immobile enemy, who can adapt to defeat and then come back very quickly, you're not going to gain very much. Whereas of course, if a Frankish Field Army is defeated, particular was defeated badly, you could have to wait for the next, the next arrival of a convoy from Western Christendom or even the next crusaders in the case of her team for reinforcements. So there are very strong disincentives for fighting battles and very strong incentives for avoiding them. If you're a Frankish. Commander. For a Turkish commodity, by contrast, there are strong incentives for doing so. But one of the points are
Richard Abels:shown in your book, that although they have all these disincentives that they actually do, the Frankish commanders actually do engage in battles. They haven't seen I ever expected divide.
Nicholas Morton:Yeah, not astonishing number. And they tend to and the Turks and the Franks tend to win and lose at about a rate of 5050. Yes, they would, as many as they lose. And that's Paul's pretty much consistent from the start to the end of the period. The only civilization the Franks are consistently successful against is the Fatimids of Egypt. But the basic point is that it's partly because the Franks have nowhere to retreat that they have to fight. So if they're invaded, they will typically cluster their army around a strong point. And in doing so, they're offering the strongest possible disincentive for their opponent to seek battle because an army flanked by a fortification isn't a very strong location. If their opponent's still wants to give battle at that point, they're going to have to fight there's, there's nothing else they can do. They could arguably take refuge in the castle, but they haven't got the kind of territory to, to spend in that way. They're going to have to fight whether they like it or not. So I think forced battles are a very common feature of the Warcraft of the Crusader States battles, which Frankish commanders didn't really want to fight, but which they had no option to fight because they've got nowhere else to go. Our
Richard Abels:listeners probably don't have a really good sense of what the Latin states were. So can you just simply explain what the Latin states were where they were?
Nicholas Morton:Sure. So the greatest extent the Kingdom of Jerusalem began at roughly Beirut, which is in modern day Lebanon, in the north, and then you can trace that border all the way down to the edges of the Sinai desert in the south. And then out to the east, the Kingdom of Jerusalem would have extended to cover much of what's they'd be modern day Jordan. And that in the Northeast, the northern area around the Sea of Galilee, Lake Tiberius, those would be the sort of the main sort of points as it were the compass when it comes to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And above that, you've got the county of Tripoli, which would embrace much of modern day northern Lebanon. And then the coastal part of southwestern Syria, looking into the homeless gap, which is a gap in the big mountain range that runs parallel to the coast, there's a big gap and it called the homeless gap. And there are some big fortresses there that practice a value over and above that the coastal strip then continues from or that gets Tortosa. over the border there changes a little bit, which is then the beginnings of the Principality of Antioch, which then controls that coastal strip up towards the big port of latter care. And then beyond that, St. Simeon, which is the port for Antioch itself. And Antioch extends up to the Amandus mountains on the other side of which you have Saudi Syrian Armenia, which the Antioch sometimes will sometimes didn't. And then extending east, there's a very fluctuating frontier zone facing Aleppo, which is two days march to the east of Antioch, and the ball of air can go one way or the other. A great deal during this period. Sometimes, the N top antiochene is a pressing right up against Aleppo, and sometimes the weapons are pressing right up against Antioch to the northeast, you have the hardest to define. Crusader States largely because we have so little information about it, which is the county that which is the County of Edessa centered on Edessa itself, embracing a quite a large area of territory around it, including cities like tel Bashir, among others, but that's quite hard one to pin down because the geography of it moves a lot. And we don't actually have much data on exactly where the frontier lay. What
Richard Abels:is the relationship? What was the relationship between the Principality of Antioch the county of Tripoli and the Kingdom of Jerusalem?
Nicholas Morton:Well, it reminds me a little bit of a quote I heard in a political satire series called yes minister, which is sort of which goes like this. It We'd all hang together, we'll all hang separately. I think that that is an ethos, I think to put it more elegantly. The chronicler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem or one of them called William of Tyre, constantly repeats, it repeats an adage from Horace, the classical author, where he says, if your neighbor's house is on fire, your own house is in danger. So I think underpinning everything they do is a sense that if they don't support each other, at least, to some degree, they will all fall separately. And that's just going to happen so that that fear that if they don't work together, they will suffer for it. That's very prevalent. It gets voiced in various contexts throughout the history of the Crusader States. Nevertheless, there are rivalries too. And in the early years, it served as rivalries over conquest. And you can see Antioch and Jerusalem both driving very hard at their frontiers trying to conquer as much land as possible. Tripoli in the middle, tried to stake its own claims and territories, it feels it has a right to Tripoli always has its eyes on Homs, or sometimes hammer. It never takes either, but it's constantly looking at them as possible targets. And so it's about the various areas demarcating relative to each other in in negotiation with each other, where they feel they have a right to conquer and probably get acknowledgment from the other rulers as well. So that creates lines of friction. There's various other disputes, too. So Antioch for a long period in the early part of its history, felt it had a claim to the county of Odessa, it so felt very strenuously that it shouldn't. And that too, could lead to some extraordinary conflict as well in 1108, where you have to Wytheville claimants, Turkish rival claimants for Aleppo, and two rival claimants for a DESA. And they realized that on the principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend that they have potential allies here. And so you get a battle where you've got one claimant for Aleppo, one client for Odessa on one side, and the other two on the other side, and they fight a big battle. So it can create some extraordinary alliances, but tensions over hegemony and who has greater authority over who that can be another cause of conflict. And similar similar things true with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the county of Tripoli, county Tripoli tends to operate in Jerusalem's orbit. And for a time Raman the third of Tripoli moving towards the end of our period felt that he had rights over the kingdom of Jerusalem. He, I think he felt very strongly he could be King of Jerusalem. And when he was denied his claim when rivals got into power, he famously made a treaty with Saladin which made him very unpopular in the region, at least with other Franks in the area. So there could be rivalries, but for the most part, it's a fairly established, it's a famous tautology of all Frankish rulers, they realize they have to work together this is understood,
Richard Abels:what is the political situation among the Muslim states of this region?
Nicholas Morton:Sure. So when the First Crusade arrived, the Middle East is already a war zone, as specifically the region with regional become the kingdom of Jerusalem. And the two main two main powers at war, are the fact that empire Shia Muslim empire in Egypt, which holds territory up to but not including Jerusalem, and then to the northeast, you have the Seljuk Turks, who conquered much of northern Syria in the 1070s. And as you've quite rightly pointed out, there's only a few couple of decades of for the Crusader wives itself, and Jerusalem itself area around Jerusalem and up to an including Damascus and parts of a coastal strip. There are a war zone between the Fatimids and the Seljuks. And then, during the First Crusade, the First Crusade has worked this out, or I think they're probably told it by Alexius Comnenus. That's the Byzantines emperor. And so they make overtures to the factories very early on for a military alliance against the Seljuks. And the Fatimids are open to this. And negotiations go on for well over a year to try and hammer out some kind of deal negotiations collapsed. But it's interesting to see that they're doing that because the phasmids want to secure an ally against the Seljuk Turks who for them, at least are their long standing opponent. But when the when the negotiations break down, and the Crusaders conquer and brutally conduct brutal massacres in Jerusalem itself, that the possibility of that alliance just disappears. And the Pharisees look far more to making alliances with the Seljuk Turks in a way they never had previously. Because their perception of where the threats lie to them changed dramatically. So that changes the constellation of alliances further north. You've got to hear and sticking to the early period, you've got to Seljuk governors In Damascus, and Aleppo, and then the broader Seljuk Empire, which spans all the way up to the steppe borders in Afghanistan and that sort of regions, it's huge.
Richard Abels:I think it's worth noting that with the exception of the Fatimid caliphate, that this warfare is between two newcomers to the region, the Crusaders, who established the Crusader States, and only a couple of decades before them, the Seljuk Turks, who conquered who conquered Byzantine Anatolia, and the Arab dominated Near East, and although the Seljuk Empire was enormous in size, and in manpower resources, one of the advantages that helps explain the success of the First Crusade was the constant rivalry and infighting of the local governors who represented the Seljuk Sultan, as well as the lack of an established principle of succession. In this alternate
Nicholas Morton:all Celtic empires consumed by infighting as a huge civil war over who's going to be the next Sultan. And when in 1105, the Seljuks do finally settle on their necks Sultan, Sultan, Mohammed a few years later, they send armies into the Middle East to try and deal with the Franks. And what's interesting is just how little support particularly some of their later campaigns they get from local Turkish rulers, because the local Turkish rulers will Yes, they might like the idea of receiving assistance to fight the Franks. But they're not going to feel enthusiastic about that assistance. If the Seljuk Sultan uses his armies, to then force them into a much tougher form of obedience, they've been used to go independent for decades, they don't have stopped answering orders at or worse still being replaced. And so there are instances where actually you've got local Turkish rulers, siding, or at least remaining neutral, when the Franks are fighting these big armies from the Seljuk Sultanate. So I could give plenty of examples from the later period too, but my point is that there are various lines of tension. And these lines of tension can create some very interesting cross cultural alliances and different constellations of alliances throughout the throughout the period.
Richard Abels:It actually sounds not all that dissimilar from the Mongol Empire, and the internal fighting that you had with the different cognates.
Nicholas Morton:Certainly no longer empires later history. Yeah, perhaps. Yeah. One of the things
Richard Abels:that's always interested me is that if you're looking at the Military History of the Crusades, the only really fully successful crusade was the first. It's an argument for perhaps Frederick, the Second Crusade being fully successful. After all, he does recover Jerusalem to Christian control, although he does it through diplomacy, rather than military action, right? Yeah. But the First Crusade is successful, and it overcomes enormous difficulties. Okay, why is the First Crusade successful? And he wanted to talk a little bit about the difficulties that it overcame.
Nicholas Morton:This is something that, yeah, it sticks out, doesn't it? Because really, if you view it purely from a military perspective, in many ways, the first crusades got the harder job. It's got to match the 1000s of miles, sporadically supported by the Byzantines empire and others into territory where there is no friendly outpost from their perspective. And they've got to take hold, and then they seek ultimately to consolidate and expand cities that are well over 1000 miles from the nearest source of help. That is a very difficult task, and they're doing it. Yes, the Seljuk Empire is in a state of civil war, but every major governor in the Seljuk empire in its western districts throws a field army at the First Crusade. So there's still plenty of resistance and the Seljuks have got several decades worth of almost unbroken success to draw upon when confronting the First Crusade. By contrast, the Second Crusade is just got to get to the Crusader States and the Third Crusade? Well, obviously, the situation has deteriorated from the Crusaders perspective by the Third Crusade, but they still have places they can go to and regroup in the Middle East. So it does go. It does, as you say, raised the question of why was it successful? And this isn't my argument, but I think it's probably true. I think that it helps the First Crusade from a military perspective that many of the people going on crusade. We're not kings, because there counts the leading nobles. But many of these people have burned their bridges to go on crusade and some of the most aggressive commanders numerous able commanders, either have nothing to go back to my Godfrey of Breon, who sold his lands in order to go on crusade so he's not going back. It's going to work. Well that's it. And then Berman Toronto who does have some does have plans to go back to, but they don't even nearly match his enormous ambitions. So he too, wants to turn this into something he can really translate into his own territory. And he does. So I think there is something very important about the fact that you have these commanders who have either burned their bridges or have little to go back to their they'll determine they're going to do something with this, as opposed to perhaps kings who have to be mindful that whilst they are on crusade, they do have to make sure that their position their person, and indeed their kingdoms back home, are okay. They can't afford to take such big risks. They've got to be able to get through this in such a way that they can return home, both alive and to a Kingdom that's willing to welcome them. That's that that changes the dynamic and I can't help suspecting that that makes them a little bit more risk averse.
Richard Abels:I'm not sure if they would describe Richard the Lionheart on crusade is risk averse, at least in terms of his personal safety. But it's absolutely true that he returns to England or at least tries to return to England because of news that his kingdom is threatened by the ambitions of his brother John, and John's alliance with his greatest enemy, King Philip Augustus of France, Richard had no intention of spending the rest of his life in Ultra mayor.
Nicholas Morton:But having said that, in the Third Crusade, you do have Frederick the first of Germany, who conducts what could be described as one of the most successful military crossings of Anatolia, the famous graveyard of armies of any commander, including the First Crusade, the First Crusade armies, led by people like Godfrey have we are in Beaumont, and what would have normally Yeah, they managed across Anatolia, but plenty of the armies of the First Crusade didn't most notably Peter the Hermit. But Frederick the first does it very effectively, his army only falls apart, once it's reached trendy territory because he falls off his horse and has a heart attack in a in a snow melt river. So in terms of a military operation, it doesn't achieve its goals. And yet the hard part of the journey has been negotiated already by Frederick. So with
Richard Abels:that also emphasizes the importance of the commander in a medieval army, you have a very large army, probably the largest of those crusading armies. And it's been very successful, in part because of the unity of command, which is really rare for at least the numbered crusades, but Frederick dies. Yeah. And the army doesn't totally disintegrate. But it fragments. Yeah, Frederick
Nicholas Morton:tukar. Swabia does what he can he can't hold it. He can't hold the army together satisfactorily. And it does seem to have broken up. Yeah. But this business are targeting commanders is interesting because this this, this, this is the case of only when a Frankish commander is either captured or or dies or killed. It's also the case the other way around. And notably, one of the reasons why the Kingdom of Jerusalem is so successful in its early years against the Ottoman Empire. And this is a bit of a generalization, but not much. What they often do is to march out at night, when they're still a long way away from the Fatimid encampment travel a long ways 10s of miles in some cases, until they are very close to the Fatimid encampment, then just before dawn breaks, they'll close to within a few 100 meters. And as soon as they as soon as they get line of sight. They charged before the Fatimids can fall. And this time and again, they this is how they defeat Fatimid armies. And it's it's quite striking. And it's a response to the fact that the Franks have so few troops, but they do have heavy cavalry that can have enormous impact against the fact that the factories have an enormous army. And they've got to try and work out in that asymmetric context, how they're going to win a battle against what is really a vastly superior opponent.
Richard Abels:We shouldn't discount the religious motivation of the leaders and the rank and file of the armies of the First Crusade as key factors in its ultimate success. I know that a lot of people are skeptical about this, but the researcher Jonathan Rodney Smith and his students have demonstrated, at least to my satisfaction, that the main motivation of those who joined the first crusades was the promise of the remission of the penalty of sin, the desire to rescue fellow Christians from the oppression of those whom they thought of as pagans, and the opportunity to win glory in the service of Christ. I think that many went with the expectation that they would acquire wealth through booty and land. But that was because the Lord God is a good lord and good Lords reward their faithful followers. The role played by the discovery of the holy lands of Antioch in inspiring a starving crew Sending army to Saudi out from the city to meet and defeat a much larger Turkish relief force is striking. Yeah. So there is that religious belief. And I think that the failure of the Second Crusade creates a real crisis of faith. What did we do wrong, that we were not given victory? And that, you know, because this is an age in which victory and defeat is not just simply a matter of material? It's a matter of spiritual judgment, divine judgments as well.
Nicholas Morton:Yeah, no, absolutely. And certainly after the Second Crusade, there is an attempt to raise a new kusini almost immediately afterwards. But when a council is called no one turns up. So. So that will fit that very well. Just thinking about the question, you're asked about why Simon crusades achieve their military goals. And some don't, though, I do think that religious motivation, that sense of fervor, which is so evident, in crusade against drives many of the events. I think that's pretty consistent, though, across the big crusade and some of the smaller ones too. If that fervor is a given, yes. Why? Why the results, so different, but it the from a purely military and logistical perspective, the undertaking of going on crusade, for a commander Pacific Alliance, you have virtually no experience, or fighting in the Middle East, even if, as they do in the later crusades, they can call upon the expertise of Templars or hospitals who have who can provide real time experience and knowledge of the exceed or the exigencies of fighting in the region. It's an it's a colossally different difficult undertaking, and also one that so so very different from the conventional ways in which war is fought in western Christendom at this time, it's a very different kind of undertaking.
Richard Abels:So we have the First Crusade, establishing what is called neutral mayor in Europe, these Latin Crusader States, which initially are a narrow ribbon of land, and cities along the coast of the Levant, from Syria down to southern Israel. And the leaders, the Crusader States spend the next couple of decades trying to expand. Yeah, out from the coast, right. Yeah. Why are they so successful in establishing control over coastal cities, but they're much less successful in being able to expand out eastward into the countryside? Yeah, great
Nicholas Morton:question. There's a number of factors here. The first is to in the wake of the First Crusade, the veterans of the First Crusade who stick around, and the sheer sheer amount of experience they've built up and their familiarity with working with each other and coordinating their activities after years of war. That's got to go some way to giving them a cutting edge. And I, I forget which chronicle it is, but there's one political from the Kingdom of England. I think that that talks about just how effective veterans of the First Crusade were in the wars of Normandy. I think I've probably got that wrong. But the point is that the point is that the First Crusade has produced a highly experienced warrior to a level that hasn't been seen before. So that will go somewhere to explain it. The disarray within the Seljuk Empire will go some way to explaining it. The sense of fear generated by the First Crusade, given its ongoing advance, we'll provide some explanation. But in terms of why that expansion stops and why they have so much difficulty striking in land, the one of the reasons they're so successful on the coast is because the Italian cities, various pieces in our they supply fleets, which can help to blockade these coastal cities. And of course, some of their ships can be broken up and turned into siege towers and other weapons which can help to get inside the walls. It's always astonishes me how bad they are at siege craft, away from the coast. They are very rarely achieved any successful sieges at all. Sometimes they just sit outside of city and hope it'll capitulate, which it doesn't. And occasionally they try and build a Siege Tower but siege towers are difficult in areas where there's not many large trees to make into suitable timber. Now, obviously the Middle East is not all desert as Hollywood would have us believe. It has areas of sort of Mediterranean scrub like topography and it has some small forests but the big corner posts that you need to build a Siege Tower. That kind of timber is rare. There's some timber like that in the north, particularly in the forested amount of mountains and in the soil. You see an Armenian region, and of course there's a famous cedars of Lebanon, but there aren't many forests can provide that kind of timber, and the Franks don't really adapt. They occasionally call upon miners. I suspect they may have recruited some from Armenia. There's one mentioned in the German crusade of 1197 to them, using silver miners from the hearts mountains. But that's not something that those aren't specialists they can call upon very frequently. But there's not much adaptation and in fact, Siege towers don't cut it, where you can't access decent timber. And the only reason they got into Jerusalem with siege towers is because when the Fatimids besieged Jerusalem the previous year, what someone in the army who was tasked with dealing with the timber permitted to deal with a large stockpile of timber which the Crusaders then found, so I wouldn't want to be that particular official when they returned to sit to report what had happened, but, but again, it highlights timber the problem and they don't really try anything else. stone
Richard Abels:throwing artillery trade, O'Shea's and catapults are a big thing in Siege craft in Western Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries, why aren't they effective?
Nicholas Morton:Sure, there's been some great work on this done by Mike Thornton recently, fabulous study on on the artillery used during this era. And he points out that counterweight traveling shows which are the heavier variants. They they seem to appear roughly at the same time in both Saturday and as armies and the armies of the Crusader States. But he also makes the point that these these catapults can't destroy fully formed castle walls, they might be able to knock down damaged walls or perhaps walls that need a bit of maintenance, they might be able to knock down crenellations or destroy buildings behind the walls, but they won't get you through the walls. I've been collecting references on this occasionally, people seem to think that catapults could get through walls, but I can't help thinking these would have been very much thinner ones, the big walls being constructed by the late 20th century by both the IU bids, and the Franks wouldn't be able to resist this. So catapults help both from an IU bid and a crusader perspective. But they won't do the job. But they actually seem to work better, I think in the Ayyubid or Turkish approach to siege craft. And that's very different. That is to create an enormous barrage at the start of the siege 1000s of archers, catapults, fleeing stones, and that barrage is to create suppressing fire, that will just clear the battlements, push people back from the arrow slits, persuade the siege engineers in defending war machines to clear out so that the returning barrage is as soon as possible. Now, of course, in that initial assault, the casualties amongst the preceding archers would be enormously high. But if you can get to that suppression point, that's the moment where the miners come in, begin work at the at the foot of the wall of the castle they're trying to get into, under they go, pop up the wall, burn them, burn the mind, clear out what comes down, and then go the assault troops. And that approach is so much more effective than frankly, Siege craft. There are plenty of occasions where our ubit or Turkish armies get through walls get into cities or, or through castle walls in a matter of days, where he'll even be able to build a Siege Tower in less than about a month. So it's it's an ongoing conclusion really about Frankish Warcraft in this era, when set against the walk off of both Turkish forces or human forces. They're incredibly slow. They're slow on campaign, they're slow to beseech that they're heavily armored. They've got lots of infantry, they can't advance or retreat fast enough. They can win battles with their armies, and they can build big castles. But actually, from a mobility perspective, they lose almost every time.
Richard Abels:And castles are essential for controlling territory, right? Yeah,
Nicholas Morton:they help. Of course, they're not like the Great Wall of China. They're not they're not a total perimeter defense. But at the same time, it is remarkable just how reluctant armies are to advance past a castle. There's nothing physically stopping them. If the castle is on the hill, you can, you can pass it in the valley because a castle can't physically command much more than a bow shot from its walls or Easter, February a shot from its walls. So you can bypass it, armies don't. And I think you're right. In order to hold the territory, you've got to take the castles and most people will take the castle. The only people who do tend to bypass castles are predominantly nomadic attackers for whom castles are not nearly as important often what they're looking for is either plunder or grazing, and that may well be separate from the castle. So in a sense, the strategic logic of that defensive line wouldn't work nearly so well in those contexts. There'd be
Richard Abels:a sense of of the size of the armies that we're talking about.
Nicholas Morton:Sure. So my estimate would go something like this. In the wake of the First Crusade, we're talking about the Kingdom of Jerusalem army starting at about the high hundreds rising to about the mid 1000s, by the 1110s. On armies tend to remain small ish into the mid 20th century into sort of the low 1000s. But I think to some degree, that's because they don't actually need to fight wars with bigger armies. When Saladin starts to produce bigger armies in 1170s 1180s, the Kingdom of Jerusalem as armies suddenly jump in size. I don't think it's because they suddenly became richer, and it's because they're suddenly digging deeper in order to raise bigger armies because they have to, to meet Saladin on an equal footing. So armies condensed swoop up into five figures, with the outermost extent being the 1183 campaign against the 87 campaign against Selden. We're talking about numbers of about 20,000 Troops,
Richard Abels:how many nights would be in an army of 20,000 1200 to 1300. And then you would have sergeants mounted sergeants.
Nicholas Morton:Yeah,
Richard Abels:what are the things that always puzzled me? I know who the Knights are. I mean, the Knights are nobility. The Knights are also from the military orders, who are the foot soldiers,
Nicholas Morton:but soldiers can be from a number of groups. There's a large, a very large market for mercenaries. In the Middle East in this era, lots of people hire mercenaries of various kinds, but I suspect many of the infantry would come from the burger classes in the big cities. For the kingdom of Jerusalem, particularly. There's references to Armenian footsoldiers further north, the Italian cities will often supply troops, those could well be infantry as well. And many of those arriving by ship would also be an infantry given the costs involved in bringing horses so pilgrim warriors would often fight on foot, though not exclusively. So I guessing these would be the kinds of sources of soldiers particularly urban militias, I'd have thought, but also it's in the 13th century, there's attacks on incoming ships where each incoming ship has to pay a fee of two crossbows. Oh, and I suspect that's when the crossbow is the Frankish infantry weapon power acts are laws in this era. Even the Mongols say that they're afraid of Frankish crossbows. So clearly, they want to maximise on that strength, so they equip their forces with crossbows as widely as possible. And of course, both the use of the crossbow is almost exclusively an infantry weapon. And that too, demands considerable expertise. So I suspect that ambitious infantry warrior, looking to ways in the world, the obvious route would be to become a knight if that's possible. But actually, it's probably more practical and probably a better skill set match for them to become an expert Crossbowman, who are also very well respected and paid, which
Richard Abels:actually brings up one of the things I find most interesting is, is how integrated these crusading on these became with infantry supporting the cavalry, and protecting the cavalry. Because much of the military activity is in fact, what we would call fighting marches. Yeah. Most famous example I think of the Art of Fighting marches. The is Richard the first, Richard the lion hawks march from acre to Jaffa. Yeah, Richard Tommy marches 83 miles in 19 days, under constant harassment by solid Dean's forces. It's a very slow movement. It's very careful movements along the coast. And it's one in which his cavalry is placed inside of the infantry column, so that the infantry can protect both the knights and the especially their horses, and also the baggage trade as it comes down the coast. And it works as an integrated fighting force. Yeah,
Nicholas Morton:this is absolutely classic for the Crusader States. They fight this way all the time. It's a response to Turkish like cavalry tactics, where they have to keep keep themselves in a consolidated group with their logistics as protected as possible. Otherwise, individual contingents or wagons will be picked off one by one. So it's, it's a sort of armored, advanced position, and it works tremendously well for the Franks. There's only one occasion there's two occasions in the history of the Crusader States when a fighting mod is actually defeated, but the vast majority of them get through to their target. But I've often wondered about this because Richard's got no experience of fighting for fighting marches. But but the Templars in his immediate entourage do? Yes, and there are several moments there are several key moments in the battles right Should fights where he's doing things he's never done before. But actually, those are absolutely classic for the Crusader States. And I wonder if either it's a Templar or hospitalar, running his campaign for him, or at the very least, Richard has had the wisdom to realize he's not an expert. Here they are, he should be listening to them.
Richard Abels:It's a brilliant campaign. It's a brilliant campaign. I mean, he, he stops and the coast, he brings in reinforcements, takes away, wounded soldiers, brings in supplies, and just carefully marches down and resists fighting battles, until he's pretty much forced into one at our soothe. And having won that battle. He continues on to Java. It shows Richard to be a cautious and careful military commander rather than the impetuous warrior that popular fiction and movies presented as,
Nicholas Morton:but isn't that true of most effective military commanders? Yes,
Richard Abels:it really is. The one thing that I found also interesting about that, because it is cultural, is that when the battle of Vasu does break out, and even if we go by the the sauces and buzzy, it's really because because the military orders finally have had it with getting their voices killed and getting attacked. And they just simply charge and then Richard says, Okay, let's go for it. Richard fights from the front. And he exposes himself to the possibility of being killed. I think he has that real choice.
Nicholas Morton:Well, and of course, that's a possibility that sort of eight years later, comes home to roost when he exactly, yes,
Richard Abels:it's an example of both how a cautious military commander like Richard, and he really is careful and cautious. But nonetheless, there are cultural necessities that would force even a very cautious commander to expose himself to the dangers, because without that he can't really have the credibility to command.
Nicholas Morton:Certainly, Richard is acutely aware that he's leading an army army, which has not reconciled to his rule, and many of them don't like him. Yes, that may have provided him with a strong incentive to set an example. But to be honest, he still acts that way in western Christendom as well. And if memory serves me seldom is not impressed by this because it's it's dangerous. Its place. If we've already said if the commander goes down, the Army goes down. And so it's an enormous risk. Okay,
Richard Abels:this is a terrible analogy, but I'm gonna make it anyway. The Crusader States were like a patient with leprosy. They kept on losing pots, until eventually, by 1291, they went down to a single city acre, and that was the Latin east. Do you think that this was inevitable militarily?
Nicholas Morton:I've gone back and forth on this question. And I think in separate publications, I've argued the case going both ways. Get the right that way. Exactly. I can't be waiting. Because it is something that is a tricky one. And of course, we're playing with alternative history here. So we'll never actually know. But I think that the point that I have come down to in the in in more recent years, is this, that the nomadic step approach to warfare is so much more effective than the agriculturally based approach to warfare. Step armies can step armies that have a, whether that's the Mongols, or the Seljuk Turks, who of course, adopt elements of warfare from the Islamic societies that they conquer these approaches to war, that they're faster, they're harder hitting that about their experience and their expertise in warfare is culturally derived. They're raised with it, they're raised to shoot and right. They don't have logistics. Often. Often they bring their herds with them later armies do, but nonetheless, they can survive with minimal logistics. And compared to that heavy knights, requiring half a dozen squires each, and several horses that require farriers and all the infrastructure that goes with that endless wagon trains that nomadic armies can easily cut. And it's worth considering as well that the Mongol Empire span from the Pacific seaboard the borders of Hungary, the Seljuk Empire spanned from the frontiers of Central Asia to the Mediterranean. These are massive empires. The Crusader States, on the other hand, is just a sliver of land on the eastern Mediterranean. And yet it's still considered to be a successful venture the First Crusade at least viewed from a military perspective, but compared to the soldier called Hmong, Mongol conquest, it's it's almost irrelevant. And I think it is worth pointing out that this Step armies and step cultures of this era are supremely better equipped for conquest than those typically of agricultural societies, including Western Christendom,
Richard Abels:I know that you have to leave to pick up your child at school. So just one last question, how much world did religion end up playing not with the Crusaders who are coming from Europe, in these waves of crusades, but how much role did religion play in the thinking and the policies of the prince of Antioch, the count of Tripoli, the kings of Jerusalem, when in their dealings with their Islamic neighbors. So
Nicholas Morton:something that I've come to realize by reading architectural and archaeological reports, is just how expensive it is to build even a single church in the United States. Just one medium sized church I worked out cost as much as supporting 300 nights for a year. Wow, one medium sized church, and they're building 10s, possibly hundreds of these things. And as before we move on to the castle walls, the harbor said all the other stuff they're building, they're building a lot of religious buildings, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself is a really big ticket item. And that's not the only really big church they're building. There are huge cathedrals being constructed to so the expenditure being lavished on churches is immense. And this is a time when the commanders of the Crusader States are constantly complaining about a lack of money for troops. So my point is that the only reason I can think of that is that they are impelled by a very powerful sense of religious purpose. Otherwise, I don't see why they would have diverted so much money to the construction of churches when the army is crying out for additional troops supported by cash.
Richard Abels:So nonetheless, they will make treaties with their Turkish neighbors.
Nicholas Morton:Yeah, I think this is the point. I think they are driven by a very powerful sense of religious zeal and purpose, but that religious zeal and purpose does not mandate that they therefore have to treat their the Muslim neighbors as adversaries in their efforts and desire to conquer, maintain and later reconquer the holy places. They're fully prepared to work with any culture that can offer them support or don't see it from the sources at least has been a problem for them. The idea of ally across across cultural or religious lines, if it supports their broader ambitions, they'll do it. And the same thing.
Richard Abels:It's actually pretty interesting. It's one of the reasons why the European crusaders who came in sometimes were appalled by the leaders and the people that they met in a neutral manner the Christians, because they seem to have gone native, they they seem to have become soft Orientalizing. That
Nicholas Morton:was certainly that that's that accusation appears in many sources that the Eastern Franks have have become less vigorous in their execution of arms or something like that. But actually, if you look at some of their campaigning history, so take the Hatim campaign, I forget who said this, but it was a good point. The Franks fight for two days in the blazing sun with responding to orders until the last few last couple of hours. That requires a lot of staying power. So I don't I don't think that accusation, at least from a military perspective holds much water.
Richard Abels:And I think that's it. That's the last word for today. Thank you so much for being on the podcast to get this was fascinating. And I hope that we can have you again, perhaps to come and talk about the hot teen campaign. Well, that's it for today. And I hope that you'll come back to join us for our next episode. Bye for now.
