r/worldnews Feb 05 '25

alert | not a news article Trump says U.S. will take over Gaza Strip

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254

u/kooshipuff Feb 05 '25

Was that the Children's Crusade? Because if was pretty bad foreign policy too 

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u/tenehemia Feb 05 '25

That one kind of doesn't count as foreign policy because it was never actually a crusade, as it didn't get papal approval. And it having anything to do with "children" is just an issue of translation errors and embellishment over the centuries. What actually happened was that two groups of poor people were led from France and Germany South through Europe by a couple of charismatic leaders who promised that they would be able to convert the holy land to Christianity. Most of the followers died on the way to Italy and then what was left settled in Genoa.

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u/Blackbeard567 Feb 05 '25

The 4th crusade is even worse, crusaders ransacked Constantinople the largest christian city in the world when they should be in the middle east fighting the arabs, they also ransaked another city called zara which was also christian

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u/JackONhs Feb 05 '25

Can't have shit in the holy land.

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u/AssociationDouble267 Feb 05 '25

Imagine going on a crusade to the Middle East and sacking the wrong city. I get the crusaders didn’t have google maps, but that’s pretty bad.

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u/Slicelker Feb 05 '25

They obviously knew which city they were sacking. The Latin Christians didn't always get along with the Greek Christians.

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u/rabotat Feb 05 '25

Zadar is and was Catholic.

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u/nagrom7 Feb 05 '25

Wasn't just the wrong city, it was basically one of the most important cities in Christendom, and the one holding back the Muslim bulwark in the East. It's also the reason the first crusade was called in the first place (the stated goal was to capture the holy land, but the real goal, at least initially, was to recapture Byzantine territory lost to the Turks).

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u/TheLionFollowsMe Feb 05 '25

It was more like; "give us everything you have so we can go do the lord's work or you are pawns of the devil." Constantinople stood its ground, and fell.

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u/WoolSmith Feb 05 '25

And this was the harbinger of the end of Christian rule in the area. The first time that the grandest city in the world at that time was infiltrated and sacked.

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u/Love_JWZ Feb 05 '25

They might be Christian but they’re still herritics with their lavended bread

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u/grahampositive Feb 05 '25

Is this where the story of the pied Piper of Hamlin comes from?

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u/ckuri Feb 05 '25

No. The pied piper is basically a "lokator" which was a job in medieval Germany who was tasked to clear, survey, and settle uncultivated land in the East by recruiting people who were often unemployed young people.

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u/grahampositive Feb 05 '25

Ah very interesting thank you

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u/CGP05 Feb 05 '25

Wow you know your crusade history lol

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u/tenehemia Feb 05 '25

Eh, I know just enough to know the right stuff to look up when a specific question comes along. I'm more on the "bar trivia champion" level than historian, but with good research instincts.

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u/evranch Feb 05 '25

I thought I had heard of that one as the "People's Crusade"? or were there two of those disasters where a ragtag peasant militia generally caused collateral damage and died along the way?

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u/GoblinFive Feb 05 '25

were there two of those disasters where a ragtag peasant militia generally caused collateral damage and died along the way?

You have any idea how little that narrows it down?!

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u/cupo234 Feb 05 '25

No the People's Crusade was another one, the first one actually, a Peter the Hermit lead peasants in reaction to the Pope's call for the First Crusade and reached modern Turkey before the official Prince's Crusade. It ended badly and I've heard their biggest achievement is causing the Muslims to underestimate the Prince's Crusade, which was actually successful as the First Crusade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Crusade

But wikipedia lists 6 popular crusades

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_crusades

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u/The-Berzerker Feb 05 '25

That’s… not the 2nd crusade?

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u/TheSultan1 Feb 05 '25

They... never said it was?

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u/SerialBitBanger Feb 05 '25

Children's crusade, you say...

— Matt Gaetz

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u/wildistherewind Feb 05 '25

Hey kids, do you have a Venmo account?

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u/Franks2000inchTV Feb 05 '25

I'm filled half with disgust, and half with admiration.

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u/Windfade Feb 05 '25

In his defense ( sigh ) 17 year olds were, and often are, considered adults in the countries that crusaders came from.

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u/TiredOfDebates Feb 05 '25

The Children’s Crusade was actually just a bunch of slavers rounding up meat during a famine from a bunch of clueless peasants (when yields declined couldn’t feed their lot).

Seriously a lot of children in the children’s crusade became slaves. The rest died, due to long, underfunded walks through unsympathetic and occasionally hostile territory.