Sykes' History of Persia Vol 2 (pdf) - Heritage Institute

THE SELJUK TURKS 115
Some ten years later they were rebuilt, but Christendom
had meanwhile been stirred to its depths, and from that
time the crusades became inevitable, although eighty years
were to elapse before the movement gained sufficient
strength
for action.
The First Crusade, A.D. 1095-1099. Perhaps the
first reply to the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre was
given in the island of Sardinia, which was wrested by the
Pisans from Islam in 1016. In 1060 the Norman conquest
of Sicily from the Arabs, which took thirty years
to accomplish, began, and this
may
to some extent be
regarded as a crusade. In A.D. 1095 Ppe Urban II.
delivered a memorable address at Clermont, telling
his
hearers how the cries from threatened Constantinople and
oppressed Jerusalem were ringing in his ears, and that it
would take two months to traverse the lands which the
"accursed Persian race" 1 had won from the Empire of
the East. The effect was instantaneous on minds already
prepared, and cries of Deus le volt, Deus " le volt, God
wills it,
God wills it," went up from the mighty host,
which was now moved against Islam as it had never been
moved before. Crosses were distributed and Christendom,
stirred by wandering preachers such as Peter the Hermit
who carried the theme of Urban's sermon far and wide,
>repared
for the Crusades.
The Defeat of the First Army by the Seljuks. As might
expected, the first raw levies which marched across
Europe, massacring the Jews and generally robbing and
)illaging, reached Constantinople in very small numbers,
'he
Emperor Alexius advised them to await the arrival
>f the organized armies ;
in the meanwhile, dreading
their lawlessness, he transported them to Asia and sent
them supplies by
sea. The German section of these
Crusaders made a raid towards Nicaea on the Sea of
Marmora, but they were surrounded and captured by
Kilij-Arslan Baud, the reigning Seljuk of Rum ;
the
same Prince also surprised and cut to pieces the main
body of the undisciplined mob, with the exception of a
1
The appeal of the Byzantine Emperor for armed help was actually due to
conquests by the Seljuk Turks, here erroneously termed Persians. It was intended to
use the western troops to recover Asia Minor for Byzantium.