The 1st Crusade Campaign is the first in a Trilogy of Campaigns, called The Crusades, related to the Western Christian nations & the Byzantine Empire, attempting to recover Anatolia & secure Jerusalem & the Holy Land from Islamic rule
The other two Campaigns in this Series will be the 2nd Crusade & the 3rd Crusade, the latter led by King Richard I of England

This 1st Crusade Campaign will cover 4 years of campaigning & will cover an 12 month real time period

The First Crusade was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported & at times directed by the Latin Church. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Islamic rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Turkish Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, & the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II, supported the Byzantine request for military assistance & also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem

This request was met with an enthusiastic popular response across all social classes in western Europe. Mobs of predominantly poor Christians numbering in the thousands, led by Peter the Hermit, a French priest, were the first to respond. What has become known as the Peoples Crusade passed through Germany & indulged in wide-ranging anti-Jewish activities, including the Rhineland massacres. On leaving Byzantine-controlled territory in Anatolia, they were annihilated in a Turkish ambush led by the Seljuk Sultan Kilij Arslan I at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096

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This then will be the world you will step into in September 1096AD


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