Historians call the Seljuks a dynasty of Central Asian origin, which reigned in the territory from the Amu Darya to the Mediterranean Sea during the 11th century. It is also the name of the union of Turkic, originally nomadic tribes, which are the main ancestors of modern Turks and Azerbaijanis. It was their invasion that is believed to have been the main reason for the Crusades.
As the old saying goes, even a hare cornered becomes dangerous. A number of allied Turkic clans under the leadership of Prince Togrul-bek of the Seljuk family, in the 1020s, were defeated in a long-term internecine war. They no longer wanted to fight with the Oghuz brothers, and decided to cross the Amu Darya in order to enter the service of the Afghan Ghaznavid dynasty. However, they refused them such an offer, after which they immediately attacked. But after the crushing victory, the Seljuks decided to go not to the east, but to the west… they certainly were not hares.
Khorasan was conquered in the 1040s. In the 1050s, the whole of Iran. In the 1060s, the Seljuks raided and conquered the Caucasus, attacked Egyptian possessions in Syria and Palestine, and invaded Byzantine territories in Anatolia. They do this as if at the behest of the Abbasid sultan in Baghdad, to whom, however, no one really obeyed.
The Holy Land was still predominantly Christian at that time. Due to the climatic changes of the early Middle Ages, it was relatively deserted and quite poor, and the Muslim population gravitated towards Egypt and Syria. However, the region was of great commercial importance, as there were many important ports here.
Politically, the local princes were subordinate to the Egyptians – the Fatimid Caliphate was very multinational and quite tolerant. Nevertheless, for purely feudal reasons, Palestine rebelled throughout the early 11th century. Strategically, it was a suitcase without a handle – you could get a little out of it, but what good would it do? The route to Syria and Iraq passed through these lands – the real centers of power, and it was impossible to concede them in any way.
The locals have been playing robber Cossacks with the Egyptians for half a century. But the Seljuks immediately after their arrival in the region began to attack the nominal Fatimid possessions, although so far without the goal of conquering them. When the founder of the empire, Togrul bek, decided to make a campaign here in the early 1060s, the nomadic Turkmen told him that there was no food or fodder here, and the country was destroyed. After that, they migrated to the Azerbaijani steppes. They considered their formal duty to the Caliph of Baghdad, who sent them against the Egyptians, fulfilled and overfulfilled.
Nevertheless, the next rulers of the Seljuk Empire continued their attacks and exhausted the enemy with sudden but local raids, which formed the basis of the Turkic military doctrine. At the junction of the 1060s and 1070s, they captured Syria and Palestine right up to the city of Jerusalem. Basically, this was achieved thanks to the tactics of the «small war», little familiar to the Egyptians.
But in the following decades, the throne under the Seljuk padishahs was shaken. Representatives of the royal family and nomadic clans who believed in their generous promises began to share the generous spoils – Syria, Asia Minor, Iraq and Iran. And the «suitcase without a handle» was forgotten for the time being. Thanks to this, the stubborn Egyptians managed to reconquer Palestine in the early 1090s.
At that time, Rome, which was the center of the Catholic world, began to receive information about violence and looting against pilgrims and Christian churches in the Holy Land. In 1095, the next Byzantine embassy arrived to the Pope, and Urban II declared the first crusade.
Here it must be understood that the prudent Fatimids, with their huge and influential Christian population, were tolerant, like most modern Muslim dynasties. As for the Seljuks, at the time of their arrival in the Middle East they were still, in a way, barbarians.
Many were not Muslims at that time, and those who had already converted were very far from observing at least the basic pillars of the faith. It is difficult to blame them for this, because since the exodus of the Seljuks from the Great Steppe, only one generation has changed. They are best compared to the Germanic tribes that crushed Western Rome. The vandals became federates in Spain, crossed to Africa via Gibraltar, and then attacked the eternal city, staging an unprecedented rout there. They simply did not have time to civilize after coming to Roman lands.
Besides, all historians forget one important point. Before the start of the Crusades, Palestine experienced decades of feudal wars and uprisings, and after that it was conquered two consecutive times. Even with the observance of the norms of humanity at that time, this meant that a significant part of the young able-bodied population went to heaven ahead of time.
And in the conditions of the Middle Ages, a decrease in the number of men means only one thing – an imminent and inevitable famine. It was impossible to restore their former numbers quickly. This is where the legs of reports of the robbery of pilgrims grow from. At that time, there was not enough food even for the locals, and even more so for the warring parties. The conquest of the same territory twice in the course of several decades meant only one thing: it was stripped to the last thread. That is why, for objective reasons, both pilgrims and ancient temples got it.
Nevertheless, the more real reason for the long-term wars of Christians with the Islamic world was not the loss of the Holy Land or the oppression of pilgrims as such. People have long since come to terms with the first, and there was enough of the second in Europe itself. The most important thing was that in the 1070s-1090s, the Seljuks took away from Byzantium its provinces in Asia Minor, depriving the Greek Empire of any opportunity to defend itself. Given their speed, Muslims should have been expected on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea.
Anyway, after some delays and looting of European Jews, the Western chivalry marched. But in 1092, the Seljuk sultan Melik Shah died, after which his brother and four sons began to selflessly divide the empire. For the next two decades, none of them thought about war with the Europeans. Just for trivial economic reasons: the indigenous Muslim lands and Central Anatolia were much richer than some Holy Land.
As for the Egyptian army, it was distracted by uprisings in the country of the pyramids itself – after all, the Fatimid state was very, very fragile because of its support for Shiism. And as a result, the unfortunate Palestine was once again left to itself. Given the decades of wars, the local feudal lords had no way to resist. And the Europeans, in fact, fought only with non–combatants concerned for their fate — both Muslims, Jews and Christians.
For several decades, the unopposed crusaders managed to set up a bunch of castles, dig in well in Palestine and were ready to go on the offensive. In 1118, the Italian Norman Roger of Salerno, at that time the former regent of the principality of Antioch, broke off a long-term and very fruitful alliance with the Seljuk princes. For the first time in hundreds of years, Christians crossed to the eastern bank of the Euphrates and attacked a small Muslim town.
Prominent Turkmen leader Il-Ghazi, who owned Northern Iraq and part of Syria, decided to support the Emir of Damascus, his military ally and neighbor, and brought his own troops to help. His soldiers went on the attack without waiting for the allies, and the mobile Turkic cavalry defeated the heavy Christian army of spearmen, crossbowmen, knights and mounted sergeants. According to Muslim historians, after the battle, the knights’ bodies and their fallen horses looked more like hedgehogs.
The Muslims went ahead and besieged Antioch, one of the capitals of the Crusader states. But Il-Ghazi began to indulge in drunkenness and failed the campaign. Therefore, a systematic attack on Western Christians in Palestine took place several decades later.
Ironically, the final expulsion of the Crusaders was due not to the Seljuks, who were in deep decline at that time, but to the Egyptians. However, in order to face the cavalry cavalry on equal terms, they had to adopt Turkic cavalry tactics and form their army of Ghulam slaves. By that time, the Turkic dynasty had long ruled in Egypt, and its troops consisted of Turks and Caucasians.