Deus Vult!
On this day in 1099, the Christians triumphed in the Battle of Ascalon, thus ending the First Crusade.

The First Crusade must appear particularly baffling to the modernist mind. Where else in human history can you find a similar example of so many people marching so far from home for no good strategic or material gain at all? I'm pleased more and more historians are moving away from the tired narrative of "Greedy, warlike Christians attacked the peace-loving, progressive Muslims for no good reason at all."

That reminds me. Edward Gibbon and Friedrich Nietzsche blamed the fall of the Roman empire on the effeminate, peace-loving Christians (and more than a few people have commented on this blog that Catholic Just War doctrine as applied to most American wars is suicidally pacifistic.) Yet it's often the case that the same people who nod their heads in agreement with Gibbon and Nietzsche will, in the next debate, argue that the Crusades proves how bloody-minded and violent Christianity really is.

I would argue there hasn't been a purely "religious war" in the West since the Late Middle Ages. Religion has played a part in some wars since then, but it's almost never been the driving motivation. Even in the Thirty Years War, Catholic France allied herself with Protestants for what? Why did so many Christian kingdoms not come to the aid of their fellow Christians in the struggle against the Ottoman Turks? Reasons of State, or money, or political grudges, take your pick. People who say "Religious wars have killed more people, blah blah blah" are not making a serious judgment of historical reality, but rather are making a polemical statement about their prejudice against religion.