Second Third and Fourth Crusades I Second Crusade A After the First Crusade The Byzantine Emperor did not recognize the crusader states set up in the aftermath of the First Crusade and the crusaders typically did not recognize the legitimacy of the Byzantines at all A number of border wars were fought between the various Crusader States and the Byzantine Empire Most were usually fought to a draw only to re emerge a few years later Despite the success of the First Crusade many Western Europeans failed to see the importance of the crusades and the maintenance of the crusader states or even the importance of the Byzantine Empire Various pope s tried to rekindle the crusading spirit a number of times in the half century after the First Crusade however they did not have much success The few armies that actually left Europe typically ended in disaster or were diverted to fight the Byzantines or used to settle squabbles in Europe To say the least the motivation and response to crusading failed to reach the same levels as it had in 1095 until Christmas Day 1144 B Fall of Edessa As we have discussed the results of the First Crusade were quite dramatic The crusaders took Antioch and Jerusalem and in the aftermath of the crusade they set up a number of Crusader States Edessa founded by Baldwin of Boulogne was the first crusader state established by Christians in the Holy Land It was also the most northerly state least populated by Christians and generally considered the weakest of the all the crusader states Because of its weak defenses geographic location and lack of a strong army Edesssa was constantly plagued by the threat of attack or outright attack by various Muslim groups in Anatolia To make matters worse the rulers of Edessa did not get along with any of their neighbors The leaders of Edessa constantly quarreled with the King of Jerusalem Count of Antioch and the Prince of Tripoli Edessa s relations with the Byzantine Empire were even worse Baldwin was defeated several times by different Muslim groups and was imprisoned twice by his enemies once in 1104 and again in 1122 By the 1130s Edessa was completely isolated and it was only a matter of time before the county of Edessa entered a war that it could not recover from Eventually a major Turkish invasion occurred in 1144 and Edessa fell on Christmas Day 1144 C Major Leaders King Louis VII and Conrad III The response to call for a Second Crusade was certainly buttressed by the fact that two of the three most powerful kings in Europe agreed not only to support the Second Crusade but they agreed to finance and lead the expedition to the East Louis VII was able to provide a large contingent of knights and thousands of foot soldiers from France Flanders Normandy and England Conrad III provided hundreds of knights from Southern Germany and Northern Italy along with a large contingent of foot soldiers Both armies were battered on their voyage to Jerusalem By the time Louis and Conrad got to Jerusalem there armies barely resembled a fighting force Despite this they still wanted to fight and eventually called for a great military council D Results Council of Acre This was a meeting war council convened to decide where who the Europeans should attack The initial goal of the second crusade was to retake Edessa but by this point that county had basically been conceded to the Seljuk Turks and the Byzantines Although different options were available King Baldwin III of Jerusalem and the Knights Templar coveted Damascus The only problem with this decision was that the leader of Damascus was allied with the Crusaders against the Seljuk Turks It was decided after some wrangling and horse trading that the crusader army would attack Damascus To make a long story short the crusader army was eventually routed at the gates of Damascus To make matters worse even though they gave up on Damascus the Turkish defenders of the city did not give up on the crusaders The followed the crusader army all the way back to Jerusalem and inflicted an enormous number of casualties on the beleaguered army Some scholars say the Turkish attack was retribution for what had occurred in Jerusalem after the first crusade Second Crusade was a total failure II Third Crusade A Fallout from the 2nd Crusade After the disastrous showing of the crusaders during the second crusade there were many in Europe that believed the crusading movement to be dead If the great kings and emperors of Europe could not support and extend the crusader states in the Holy Land then it seemed as if the entire enterprise was doomed To say the least motivations for crusading sank to an all time low after remnants of the armies of the 2nd crusade returned home beaten and battered B The only good news for the crusader states was the fact that the Zengi dynasty had turned its focus away from the Levant for the time being and focused solely on defeating the Muslim rulers of Egypt While this was only a temporary reprieve for the crusader states the leaders of Europe pointed to the Turkish lack of interest in the Levant as a reason not to go on crusade They rationalized that without a clear and present adversary the crusader states should be able to defend themselves and prosper C After the failure of the 2nd crusade the Zengi dynasty began to consolidate its many gains in the Muslim world Nur ad Din the Turkish ruler controlled Damascus and most of Syria He then set his sights on taking out the Fatimids that controlled Egypt The Fatimids and the King of Jerusalem Almaric I of Jerusalem had signed a military alliance after the 2nd crusade When Nur ad Din sent his most experienced commander and a large army to Egypt the Fatmids invoked their alliance with Almaric I Accompanying the Turkish army into Egypt was a 13 year boy known as Saladin Almaric adhered to the treaty and sent a large army to support the Fatmids however after some initial success things started to go downhill for Fatmids and the Christian forces D The combined Egyptian Christian forces pushed Nur ad Din to Alexandria where it looked as if the Turks were going to be routed however Almaric broke his treaty with the Fatmids and actually attacked the Egyptian armies Almaric wanted Egypt for himself Almaric besieged Cairo however he soon faced a large and well trained combined Turkish and Egyptian force Almaric eventually retreated out of Egypt but the story does not end there The Fatimids were removed from power by the Turkish forces and the Turks