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Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
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Howell Forgy (1908-1983)
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One of the Ten Commandments clearly stated "Thou shalt
not kill". This could be interpreted in a number of ways
so that in practice it was not applied to those of whom the
Church did not approve. Sometimes this was done by claiming
that people were not really human (congenitally deformed children,
non-Europeans, non-Christians, etc). Sometimes it was done by
citing contradictory biblical injunctions (e.g. for Old Testament
crimes). But what about warfare? How has the Church dealt with
the problem of killing in war?
The question about taking part in war was straightforward to
early Christians. In the earliest days of Christianity, they
refused to serve as soldiers. Until AD 175 there was not a single
Christian prepared to defend the Roman Empire. When Christians
did appear amongst the ranks, Church leaders like Tertullian
encouraged them to desert. In the fourth century the official
line softened. St Basil thought that soldiers who killed in
battle should refrain from taking Communion for three years
as a sign of repentance. After the Empire became Christian,
the prevailing view changed completely. By 416 only
Christians were allowed to enlist. Soon the Imperial army was
manned entirely by Christians. By the middle of the ninth century
Pope Leo IV was confidently declaring that anyone dying in battle
for the defence of the Church would receive a heavenly reward*.
A few years later another pope was ranking those who fell in
a holy war along with the martyrs*.
Soon, anyone who doubted the propriety of Christians killing
non-Christians, or even killing other Christians, was liable
to be executed for heresy or blasphemy.
Now there was no question that Christians were allowed to kill
in battle, but what about killing prisoners? Reference was made
to the Bible. Time and time again God had authorised killing,
not only in the heat of battle but also afterwards. God not
merely authorised the slaying of prisoners but also on occasion
demanded it. Clearly the sixth commandment did not apply to
God"s enemies, even if they were Christians, women, helpless
prisoners, or all three. Countless Christian armies have been
responsible for the massacre of captives: men, women and children
alike, a record that Christian armies have sustained into recent
times. When these massacres had to be explained away, they were
invariably justified by reference to God"s own proclivities
as set out in the Old Testament.
With few exceptions, notably Quakers and Jehovah"s Witnesses
, all of the mainstream Churches have an embarrassing record
of bloodshed, which we will now look at in a little more detail.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they
do it from religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées
The concept of a just or holy war is an ancient
one. The Jews used the concept, and it was probably from them
that Christians and Muslims adopted it. All three principal
monotheistic religions still accept the idea and continue to
use it. For Jews it is a kherem , for Muslims it is
a jihad, and for Christians a crusade.
The concept of a crusade was developed in the eleventh century
as a result of organised Christian forces fighting Muslims in
Sicily and Spain. The best known crusades were a series of military
expeditions promoted by the papacy during the Middle Ages, aimed
at taking the Holy Land for Christendom. The Holy Land had been
in the hands of the Muslims since 638, and it was against them
that the crusades were, at least nominally, directed. Desire
for adventure, conquest and plunder seems to have been at least
as influential in attracting Christians to the cause as any
desire to restore Christ"s supposed patrimony.
The Church regarded crusaders as military pilgrims. They took
vows and were rewarded with privileges of protection for their
property at home. Any legal proceedings against them were suspended.
Another major inducement was the offer of indulgences for the
remission of sin. Knights were especially attracted by what
were effectively Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free cards allowing them to
commit any sins throughout the rest of their lives without incurring
liability in this or the next world. During the Crusades the
Western Church developed new types of holy warrior. These were
military monks such as the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar.
They were literally both soldiers and monks, and took vows for
both callings, fulfilling their holy duties by killing God"s
enemies. Originally they followed the rule of St Benedict.
Nine crusades are generally recognised, although there were
many others. Many of them collapsed before they got out of Christendom.
Some, such as the Children"s Crusade, are now disowned
as crusades. Others were directed not against Muslims but fellow
Christians in Europe, the Church at Constantinople, Christian
emperors and kings, sects who rejected the Roman Church, even
powerful Italian families hostile to the pope of the day.
The First Crusade The First Crusade was planned
by Pope Urban II and more than 200 bishops at the Council of
Clermont. It was preached by Urban between 1095 and 1099. He
assured his listeners that God himself wanted them to encourage
men of all ranks, rich and poor, to go and exterminate Muslims.
He said that Christ commanded it. Even robbers, he said, should
now become soldiers of Christ*.
Assured that God wanted them to participate in a holy war, masses
pressed forward to take the crusaders" oath. They looked
forward to a guaranteed place in Heaven for themselves and to
an assured victory for their divinely endorsed army. The pope
did not appoint a secular military supreme commander, only a
spiritual one, the Bishop of Le Puy. Initial expeditions were
led by two churchmen, Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless.
Peter was a monk from Amiens, whose credentials were a letter
written by God and delivered to him by Jesus. He assured his
followers that death in the Crusades provided an automatic passport
to Heaven.
One German contingent in the Rhine valley was granted a further
sign from God. He sent them an enchanted goose to follow. It
led them to Jewish neighbourhoods of Spier, where they took
the divine hint and massacred the inhabitants. Similar massacres
followed at Worms, Mainz, Metz , Prague, Ratisbon and other
cities. These pogroms completed, Peter the Hermit"s army
marched through Hungary towards Turkey. On the way they killed
4,000 Christians in Zemun (present day Semlin) , pillaged Belgrade,
and set fire to the towns around Niš. They thieved and
murdered all the way to Constantinople, by which time only about
a third of the initial force remained. The Emperor was astonished.
He had asked for trained mercenaries, but what arrived was a
murderous rabble. To minimise the risks of danger to his own
city he allowed the crusaders to proceed. Once across the Bosphorus,
they continued as before. Marching beyond Nicæa, a French
contingent ravaged the countryside. They looted property, and
robbed, tortured, raped and murdered the mainly Christian inhabitants
of the country, reportedly roasting babies on spits*.
Some 6,000 German crusaders, including bishops and priests,
jealous of the French success, tried to emulate it. However,
this time an army of Turks arrived and chopped the holy crusaders
to pieces. Survivors were given the chance to save their lives
by converting to Islam, which some did, including their leader
Rainauld, setting a precedent for many future crusaders*.
The principal expedition that followed was more organised,
although crusaders continued to threaten their Christian allies
in Constantinople on the way. The Christian Emperor was shocked
to find his capital under attack by Western Christians in Holy
Week*. He developed a technique
for bringing the barbarian Westerners under control by speedily
processing batches of them as they arrived. His technique was
to induce them to swear fealty to him, then swiftly move them
across the Bosphorus before the next batch arrived. On the far
side of the water their massed forces were no threat to the
city. Apart from further devastating the countryside they could
do little but prepare for their first encounter with their non-Christian
enemies.
  Sieges
were laid to a series of Muslim cities. Crusaders had little
respect for their enemies and enjoyed catapulting the severed
heads of fallen Moslem warriers into besieged cities. After
a victory near Antioch, crusaders brought severed heads back
to the besieged city. Hundreds of these heads were shot into
the city, and hundreds more impaled on stakes in front of the
city walls. A crusader bishop called it a joyful spectacle for
the people of God. When Muslims crept out of the city at night
to bury their dead the Christians left them alone. Then in the
morning the Christians returned, and dug up the corpses to steal
gold and silver ornaments*.
When the crusaders took Antioch in 1098 they slaughtered the
inhabitants. Later the Christians were in turn besieged by Muslim
reinforcements. The crusaders broke out, putting the Muslim
army to flight and capturing their women. The chronicler Fulcher
of Chartres was proud to record that on this occasion nothing
evil (i.e. sexual) had happened, although the women had been
murdered in their tents, pierced through the belly by lances.
Time and time again Muslims who surrendered were killed or sold
into slavery. This treatment was applied to combatants and citizens
alike: women, children, the old, the infirm – anyone and
everyone. At Albara the population was totally extirpated, the
town then being resettled with Christians, and the mosque converted
into a church. Often, the Christians offered to spare those
who capitulated, but it was an unwise Muslim who accepted such
a promise. A popular technique was to promise protection to
all who took refuge in a particular building within the besieged
city. Then after the battle, the Christians had an easy time:
the men could be massacred and the women and children sold into
slavery without having to carry out searches. Clerics justified
this by claiming that Christians were not bound by promises
made to infidels, even if sworn in the name of God. At Maarat
an-Numan the pattern was repeated. The slaughter continued for
three days, both Christian and Muslim accounts agreeing on the
main points, although each has its own details. The Christian
account describes how the Muslims" bodies were dismembered.
Some were cut open to find hidden treasure, while others were
cut up to eat*. The Muslim
account mentions that over 100,000 were killed.
When the crusaders captured Jerusalem on the 14 th July 1099,
they massacred the inhabitants, Jews and Muslims alike, men,
women and children. The killing continued all night and into
the next day. Jews who took refuge in their synagogue were burned
alive. Muslims sought refuge in the al-Aqsa mosque under the
protection of a Christian banner. In the morning crusaders forced
an entry and massacred them all, 70,000 according to an Arab
historian, including a large number of scholars. The Temple
of Solomon was so full of blood that it came up to the horses"
bridles. The chronicler Raymond of Aguiliers described it as
a just and wonderful judgement of God*.
Even before the killing was over the crusaders went to the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre "rejoicing and weeping for joy"
to thank God for his assistance. Muslim prisoners were decapitated,
shot with arrows, forced to jump from high towers, or burned.
Some were tortured first. Neither was this an isolated incident.
It was wholly typical. When the crusaders took Caesarea in 1101,
many citizens fled to the Great Mosque and begged the Christians
for mercy. At the end of the butchery the floor was a lake of
blood. In the whole city only a few girls and infants survived.
Soon afterwards, there was a similar massacre at Beirut. Such
barbarity shocked the Eastern world and left an impression of
the Christian West that has still not been forgotten in the
third millennium.
By 1101 reinforcements were on the way, under the command of
the Archbishop of Milan, to support the Frankish crusaders already
in the Holy Land. Mainly Lombards, the new troops lived up to
the record of their French and German predecessors, robbing
and killing Christians on the way, and blaming the Byzantine
Emperor for the consequences of their own shortcomings. At the
first engagement with the enemy they fled in panic leaving their
women and children behind to be killed or sold in slave markets.
As Sir Steven Runciman, a leading historian of the period says:
the Byzantines were "shocked and angered by the stupidity,
the ingratitude and the dishonesty of the crusaders"*.
They also questioned the crusaders" loyalty to their Byzantine
allies. The crusaders had purportedly gone to help Byzantium,
and had sworn to restore to the Emperor any of his territory
that they recaptured, but not a single one ever did so.
Indeed, Eastern Christians were regarded as enemies as much
as the Muslims.
Fired by the success of the crusade against the Muslims, Pope
Paschal II (the successor to Urban II) gave his blessing in
1105 to a holy war against his fellow Christians in the East.
Preached by a papal legate, the new crusade sought to subjugate
the Eastern Empire to Rome. This was unprecedented treachery
and undisguised imperialism. For the time being such perfidy
got the crusaders nowhere.
The Second Crusade Pope Eugene III proclaimed
The Second Crusade in 1145. It was preached by St Bernard, a
leading Cistercian theologian who declared that "The Christian
glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself
is glorified". He also pointed out that anyone who kills
an unbeliever does not commit homicide but malicide*;
in other words they kill not a man but an evil. He knew how
to sell a crusade to believers. His spiel was reminiscent of
that of a high-pressure salesman selling to credulous punters:
But to those of you who are merchants, men quick to seek
a bargain, let me point out the advantages of this great opportunity.
Do not miss them. Take up the sign of the cross and you will
find indulgence for all sins that you humbly confess. The
cost is small, the reward is great…*
The Second Crusade was led by the greatest potentates in western
Europe: King Louis VII of France and the German Emperor Conrad
III. Once again churchmen promoted anti-Semitism in Germany
and France. Without the aid of a single enchanted goose the
crusaders once again found unbelievers in their midst. Inspired
by a Cistercian monk, they massacred Jews throughout the Rhineland
– notably in Cologne, Mainz, Worms, Spier and Strasbourg.
The initial object of the Second Crusade was to recapture Edessa
(in what is now eastern Turkey), which had fallen to the Muslims
in 1144. Initial contingents were led by military commanders
like the bishops of Metz and Toul. On the way, travelling by
sea, the crusaders besieged Lisbon, which at that time was a
Muslim city. After four months the garrison surrendered, having
been promised their lives and their property if they capitulated.
They did capitulate and were then massacred. Only about a fifth
of the original crusader force got as far as Syria, where the
real crusade started. It proved a failure, at least partially
because tactical targets were selected for religious rather
than military reasons. A military tactician might have gone
for Aleppo, but the crusade leaders agreed on mounting an attack
on Damascus, apparently because they recognised its name as
biblical. The leaders argued amongst themselves until the crusade
collapsed in 1149, having failed to take either Edessa or Damascus.
The whole thing had been a disaster. As Runciman put it:
…when it reached its ignominious end in the weary
retreat from Damascus, all that it had achieved had been to
embitter relations between the Western Christians and the
Byzantines almost to breaking-point, to sow suspicions between
the newly-come Crusaders and the Franks resident in the East,
to separate the western Frankish princes from each other,
to draw the Muslims closer together, and to do deadly damage
to the reputation of the Franks for military prowess*.
The Muslim Turks extended their rule to Egypt soon afterwards.
St Bernard had been promised a victory by God, but instead of
this he had provided a complete disaster. Bernard and his supporters
tried hard to work out why God"s purpose had been so badly
frustrated. Perhaps the best solution was that the outcome had
been a great success after all, because it had transferred so
many Christian warriors from God"s earthly army to his
heavenly one. Not everyone was convinced. Meanwhile the Christian
forces resident in the East accommodated themselves to the realities
of Eastern life. Eventually they would come to terms with the
fact that until their arrival Muslims, Jews and Christians had
lived together in amity. Resident Christians often preferred
their old Muslim masters to their new Christian ones.
Muslim captives who chose to convert to Christianity rather
than die were allowed to, but only if there were no further
monetary complications. When Cairo offered 60,000 dinars to
the Templars for the return of a putative convert, his Christian
instruction was promptly suspended and he was sent in chains
to Cairo to be mutilated and hanged. Such incidents brought
little glory to either side, but it is fair to say that Muslim
princes generally conducted themselves with a degree of honour
and chivalry lacking amongst the Christians.
Jerusalem Retaken In 1187,
almost 90 years after it had been captured by the Christian
army of the First Crusade, Jerusalem was retaken by the Muslim
warrior Saladin (c.1137-1193). Originating from Tikrit in modern-day
Iraq, Saladin had first demonstrated his military prowess in
the 1160s in campaigns against crusaders in Palestine. Succeeding
his uncle as a vizier in Egypt, he conquered Egypt in 1175 and
then set about improving that country"s economy and military
strength. Following further campaigns in Syria and Mesopotamia,
in 1186 he proclaimed a jihad that led to his capturing
Jerusalem for the Muslims in the following year.
In addition to his abilities as a military leader, Saladin
is renowned for his chivalry and merciful nature. It is known,
for example, that in his struggles against the crusaders, he
provided medical assistance on the battlefield to the wounded
of both sides, and even allowed Christian physicians to visit
Christian prisoners. Once the battle to retake Jerusalem was
over, no one was killed or injured, and not a building was looted.
The captives were permitted to ransom themselves, and those
who could afford to do so ransomed their vassals as well. Many
thousands could not afford their ransom and were held to be
sold as slaves. The military monks, who could have used their
vast wealth to save their fellow Christians from slavery, declined
to do so. The head of the Church, the patriarch Heraclius, and
his clerics looked after themselves. The Muslims saw Heraclius
pay his ten dinars for his own ransom and leave the city bowed
with the weight of the gold that he was carrying, followed by
carts laden with other valuables. As the prisoners who had not
been ransomed were led off to a life of slavery, Saladin"s
brother Malik al-Adil took pity. He asked his brother for 1,000
of them as a reward for his services, and when he was granted
them he immediately gave them their liberty. This triggered
further generosity amongst the victorious commanders, culminating
in Saladin offering gifts from his own treasury to the Christian
widows and orphans. As a contemporary historian has remarked,
"His mercy and kindness were in strange contrast to the
deeds of the Christian conquerors of the First Crusade"*.
In contrast to the generally honourable behaviour of the Muslims,
the Christians repeatedly made promises under oath and them
reneged upon them, often with the encouragement of the priesthood.
In 1188 the King of Jerusalem, Guy, who had been captured by
Saladin, was released. Guy had solemnly sworn that he would
leave the country and never again take arms against the Muslims.
Immediately, a cleric was found to release him from his oath.
Despite this sort of behaviour, Muslim leaders generally stuck
to their own promises. They were rather bemused by the cynical
behaviour of the Western Christians. Often the cynicism worked
to the Muslims" advantage. For example, Saladin was pleasantly
surprised to find that Italian city states were prepared to
sell him high quality weapons to be used against crusaders.
When the Emperor in Constantinople heard of the Muslim victory,
he sent an embassy to congratulate its leaders. Eastern Christians
had already generally allied themselves with the Muslims, regarding
them as fairer and more civilised rulers than the followers
of the Church of Rome. Now they asked to stay in Jerusalem,
were allowed to do so, and gave "prodigious service"
to their new masters.
The Third Crusade After the loss of Jerusalem,
a Third Crusade was preached by Pope Gregory VIII. It was jointly
led by Frederick Barbarossa, Philip of France, and Richard I
of England (The Lionheart). The Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin,
went along too. Richard had been crowned on 3 rd September in
1189 with crusading fervour already in the air. English Christians
emulated their continental co-religionists, and took to murdering
Jews, starting with those who had come to offer presents to
their new king. This sparked further persecutions throughout
the country, most notably in York. Soon the crusaders, including
those who had engaged in the murder of Jews, departed for the
East along with their continental co-religionists. Frederick
Barbarossa died on the way, an event that mystified the crusaders,
but which Muslims immediately recognised as a miracle wrought
by God for the one true faith. Philip and Richard squabbled
and attempted to bribe each other"s armies to change allegiance
(three gold pieces per month for English knights who joined
Philip: four for French knights who joined Richard).
Eventually, Philip gave up and went home. Richard went on to
capture Acre in 1191. Saladin was unable to pay for the release
of the survivors quickly enough, so Richard ordered the massacre
of his 2,700 captives, many of them women and children. They
waited in line, each watching the one in front have their throat
slit. Wives were slaughtered at the side of their husbands,
children at the side of their parents while bishops blessed
the proceedings. Corpses were then cut open in the hope of finding
swallowed jewels.
Richard found further success difficult to come by, and a truce
was made with Saladin, although Richard felt free to break it
when it suited him. Despite Richard"s behaviour, Saladin
continued to treat him with respect when they met on the battlefield,
apparently because Richard"s fighting prowess impressed
him. When Richard"s horse fell, wounded in battle outside
Jaffa in August 1192, Saladin sent a groom through the mêlée
with fresh mounts for him. The Lionheart"s treatment by
his Muslim enemy contrasted with his treatment by his own Christian
allies. On his way home later that year Richard was captured
and imprisoned by a fellow crusader, Leopold, Duke of Austria.
He was eventually released on payment of the Christian sum of
150,000 marks (£100,000), literally a king"s ransom.
The Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade was
preached by Pope Innocent III and lasted from 1202 to 1204.
Although intended to regain the Holy Land from the Muslims by
way of Egypt, the crusade was hijacked by the Venetians and
directed against the Christian cities of Zara and then Constantinople,
which offered a softer target and richer pickings. Constantinople
was taken, the Emperor deposed, and Baldwin of Flanders was
set up in his place. The victorious crusaders amused themselves
in the usual way, even though this was the capital of Christendom.
As well as the standard bout of destruction, the men of the
cross desecrated imperial tombs, plundered churches, stole holy
relics, wrecked houses, vandalised libraries, destroyed whatever
loot they could not carry, raped nuns, and murdered at will.
They also set a prostitute on the patriarch"s throne in
Sancta Sophia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom, the greatest Church
in Christendom. Later a Latin (i.e. Roman Catholic) patriarch
was installed, and the Venetians shipped off the remaining treasures
to their own city, where some of them remain to this day. We
have sympathetic accounts of these events, including one of
an Abbot threatening to kill an Orthodox priest if he did not
hand over a stash of “powerful” relics*.
The Eastern Churches still harbour bitter resentment about the
behaviour of Western Christians during this time. Here is a
modern Orthodox bishop on the subject:
Eastern Christendom has never forgotten those three appalling
days of pillage. "Even the Saracens are merciful and
kind," protested Nicetas Choniates [a contemporary historian],
"compared with these men who bear the Cross of Christ
on their shoulders". What shocked the Greeks more than
anything was the wanton and systematic sacrilege of the Crusaders.
How could men who had specially dedicated themselves to God"s
service treat the things of God in such a way? As the Byzantines
watched the Crusaders tear to pieces the altar and icon screen
in the Church of the Holy Wisdom, and set prostitutes on the
Patriarch"s throne, they must have felt that those who
did such things were not Christians in the same sense as themselves*.
The Western Church saw nothing wrong with its conduct. It is
true that the Pope was initially irritated by the crusade having
been diverted to attack Zara. But His Holiness was soon reconciled
by a victory in his name over the Emperor, and any pretence
that the crusade was ever intended to fight the infidel was
abandoned. A papal legate, Peter of Saint-Marcel, issued a decree
absolving the crusaders from having to proceed further to fight
the Muslims. The new Emperor in Constantinople, Baldwin, wrote
to the Pope about the sack of the city as "a miracle that
God had wrought". The Pope rejoiced in the Lord and gave
his approval without reserve*.
Modern historians tend to take a different view. As Sir Steven
Runciman put it "There was never a greater crime against
humanity than the Fourth Crusade"*.
In 1208 Pope Innocent III launched crusades against the Cathars
in southern France, and in 1211 against Muslims in Spain, but
it was difficult to raise interest in expeditions to the more
distant and dangerous Holy Land. The year 1212 saw the so-called
Children"s Crusade. This crusade was preached by a French
shepherd boy aged around 12, inspired by a vision of Christ.
Christ gave him a letter for the King of France, and despite
the King"s indifference, the boy succeeded in rousing 30,000
recruits, none over the age of 12. The crusader children were
blessed by priests and marched off to Marseilles. The idea was
that God would protect them and supply them with suitable fighting
skills. He would even part the sea so that they could walk from
Marseilles to the Holy Land. But God declined to perform his
promised miracle at Marseilles. Instead two men, monks according
to one tradition, Hugh the Iron and William the Pig according
to another, offered the children ships free of charge to take
them to their destination. Most accepted, embarked, and were
promptly sold as slaves to African Muslims. This was not an
isolated incident. Roman Catholic traders were engaged in an
established commerce involving the sale of young boys to Muslim
rulers*.
Some 40,000 German children also set out on the crusade, but
God declined to perform his promised miracle for them either.
How many ever arrived to fight, if any at all, is not known.
Few ever returned home.
Meanwhile in the Holy Land the resident Christians were becoming
ever more accustomed to Eastern life. They wore robes and turbans,
ate Eastern food, married Eastern women and learned Eastern
medicine. Alliances were made between powerful rulers, often
irrespective of religion. Christians accepted Muslims as their
feudal Lords and Muslims accepted Christians as theirs.
The Fifth Crusade This crusade was preached
by Pope Innocent III but undertaken in the reign of Pope Honorius
III. It was led by Cardinal Pelagius of Lucia and lasted from
1217 to 1221. Although ultimately intended to recover Jerusalem,
the main force was initially directed against Egypt. Damietta
(a Mediterranean port on the Nile delta) was besieged. Saladin
proposed a deal. He would cede Jerusalem, all central Palestine,
and Galilee if the crusaders would spare Damietta. Pelagius
rejected this offer, against military advice.
Damietta duly fell to the Christians. The surviving inhabitants
were sold into slavery, and their children handed over to the
Christian priests to be baptised and trained into the service
of the Church. But Saladin soon recovered Damietta by force.
The Christian campaign had been another failure, undermined
by a combination of personal and national jealousies along with
the lack of strategic insight on the part of Cardinal Pelagius,
a man who has been described as "an ignorant and obstinate
fanatic". As the defeated Christians sailed off, stories
of their atrocities triggered a wave of persecution of Christians
communities in Egypt, which until then had happily coexisted
with their Muslim masters for centuries.
The Sixth Crusade The Sixth Crusade was proposed
by Pope Gregory IX, but found few takers, previous crusades
having proved such failures. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick
II organised his own crusade while under sentence of excommunication,
and pursued it between 1222 and 1229. Despite the Pope"s
machinations and much to his embarrassment Frederick"s
military and strategic skill led to a negotiated settlement
under which Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem came under Christian
control. On his return to Europe the victorious Frederick crushed
the papal forces that had been sent to destroy him, and the
Pope had no choice but to lift the sentence of excommunication.
The Seventh Crusade The Seventh Crusade lasted
from 1248 to 1254. It was initiated under Pope Innocent IV,
Jerusalem having been lost to the Muslims again in 1244. It
was led by King Louis IX of France ( St Louis) who started by
attacking Egypt. Once again Damietta was captured, and once
again the Sultan offered to exchange it for Jerusalem. Once
again the offer was rejected, and once again the Muslims won
Damietta back by force of arms. Louis himself was captured and
had to be ransomed for 400,000 bezants (gold coins). After his
release he went to the Holy Land but failed to recover the holy
cities, and so gave up and went home.
Innocent"s successor, Pope Alexander IV, tried to organise
yet another crusade, this time against the Mongols, but he was
unsuccessful. Had he had a better grasp of strategy he might
instead have allied Western Christendom with the Asian powers.
Nestorian Christianity was still influential in Asia, and the
Mongols might easily have become allies, some of their leaders
having already been baptised. Western and Eastern forces combined
could have overcome the forces of Islam. In 1254 the Great Khan
Mongka, whose mother had been a Nestorian Christian, had offered
to recover Jerusalem for the Christians, if they would co-operate.
But European Christians were unwilling to co-operate with each
other, much less a remote and unknown semi-heathen whose mother
had been a heretic. In time the victorious Mongols would themselves
convert to Islam and spread their new religion throughout Asia,
eclipsing Christianity from the Levant to the Far East.
The Eighth Crusade The Eighth Crusade was
proposed by Pope Gregory X, but not organised until a later
reign. It lasted only from 1270 to 1271, and was initially led
once again by St Louis. An English contingent was made up largely
of men who needed to hold on to lands they had taken by force
in the baronial wars of the 1260s. By joining a crusade they
were assured of the protection of the Church, and thus able
to keep their newly acquired property. The project was another
failure. It collapsed after Louis died of disease while attacking
Carthage (modern Tunis).
The Ninth Crusade The Ninth Crusade continued
St Louis"s Eighth Crusade. It was led by Prince Edward,
the future English King Edward I, between 1271 and 1272. Edward
reached the Holy Land and was mystified by what he found. The
Venetians were supplying the Sultan with all the timber and
metal he needed to manufacture his armaments, while the Genoese
controlled the Egyptian slave trade. Like Edward, new arrivals
were generally surprised by the realities of life in the East.
Italian city states jostled with each other for trade with Christians
and Muslims without distinction. Senior churchmen paralysed
strategic military initiatives. Noble families argued and betrayed
each other without compunction. So did the representatives of
European nation states, jealous of each other"s favour
or success. Members of the Eastern and Western Churches bickered
continuously. Military Orders squabbled with each other and
subverted military expeditions when they threatened their own
commercial interests. The Knights Templar created the first
true multinational banking corporation serving Christians and
Muslims alike, while Muslim Assassins continued to pay homage
to the Hospitallers. Native Christians resented their supposed
saviours from the West, and would have preferred life under
Byzantine or Muslim rulers. Edward got nowhere in such a milieu,
so alien to his preconceptions. Like earlier crusades, this
one fizzled out, a total failure.
Civil wars in the remaining Christian territories in the East
hastened the end of the crusading period in the Holy Land. Christian
princes burned each other"s castles and besieged each other
in their strongholds. Western Christians were regarded as barbarians
by almost everyone. They were likely to kill anyone on a whim,
whether Muslim, Jew or Christian. In 1290 newly arrived Italian
crusaders went on a Muslim-killing spree in Acre, but since
they assumed that any man with a beard was a Muslim, they murdered
many Christians as well. The Italians seem to have been even
worse than most of their fellow crusaders:
…the Italians, with their arrogance, their rivalries
and the cynicism of their policy, caused irremediable harm.
They would hold aloof from vital campaigns and openly parade
the disunity of Christendom. They supplied the Muslims with
essential war-material. They would riot and fight each other
in the streets of the cities*.
Further Crusades In 1297 Pope Boniface VIII
preached a crusade against the Colonnas, a powerful Italian
family that regarded the papacy almost as its hereditary possession,
and that felt free to take papal treasure at will, even when
the papacy was temporarily out of its control. The crusade was
announced, complete with indulgences, but Colonna forces captured
the Pope. Although he was rescued, he died a month later, a
broken man. New crusades against the Turks were proposed by
a number of fourteenth century popes, but they never got started.
Benedict XII , Innocent VI , Urban V and Gregory XI all proposed
them, and Urban even got as far as proclaiming his in 1363,
but nothing ever came of it.
King Peter I of Cyprus organised his own crusade, which attacked
and took Alexandria in 1365. The subsequent massacres followed
traditional lines of Jerusalem in 1099 and Constantinople in
1204. Crusaders massacred native Christians indiscriminately
along with Jews and Muslims. Some 5,000 survivors, representing
all three religions, were sold into slavery. European triumphalism
over this victory soon waned. Muslim bitterness was revived,
Venetian merchants were almost ruined, the spice and silk trades
dried up, pilgrims" access to the Holy Land was imperilled,
and native Eastern Christians were persecuted once more. Christendom
became alarmed at what might happen next. Providentially, Peter
was assassinated in 1369, and a peace treaty was signed the
following year.
In the fifteenth century, Pope Martin V organised an unsuccessful
crusade against the Hussites, a Christian sect in Bohemia. Pope
Eugene IV tried to organise another crusade to recover the Holy
Land, but it was a failure. A few years later Cardinal Cesarini
persuaded the King of Hungary to support another crusade against
the Turks. A ten-year truce was in place, but the Cardinal gave
assurances that an oath sworn to a Muslim was invalid. Battle
was joined at Varni in Bulgaria, in 1444, where the Christian
forces were roundly defeated, leaving Cardinal Cesarini amongst
the dead. The annihilation opened up central Europe to the Muslims
and further weakened Constantinople.
In 1453 the Turks finally sacked Constantinople, news of which
terrified European leaders. Pope Nicholas V tried to organise
a crusade to recover the city, but it was yet another failure.
Pope Callistus III did manage to organise one, funded by the
sale of indulgences, but it was diverted and finished up attacking
Genoa. Pope Pius II was so keen to revive the Crusades that
he went himself, but hardly anyone else could be coerced into
going with him. He waited near the coast at Ancona in the summer
of 1464, hoping for others to turn up. His attendants concealed
the fact that no supporting armies were on the way, and drew
the curtains of his litter so that he should not see the desertions
from his own fleet. When a few Venetian galleys hove into sight
His Holiness died, apparently of excitement, and the crusade
was promptly abandoned. Over the next three centuries, several
further attempts were made at organising a crusade, but nothing
came of them.
Repercussions The object of the crusades had
been to save Eastern Christendom from the Muslims. They were
undertaken with God"s encouragement, support and promise
of victory. When they ended they had proved a disastrous failure.
The whole of Eastern Christendom was under Muslim rule. The
Crusades, especially the later ones, had been characterised
by partisan self-interest, short-sighted pettiness, internal
squabbles, strategic mismanagement, poor military leadership,
bigotry, barbarism, corruption and dishonour. The implications
were wide-ranging. The popes had succeeded in ruining the emperors
of both East and West, while strengthening and unifying disparate
Muslim enemies. The greatest Church in Christendom, Sancta Sophia,
was now a mosque. Many Eastern Churches, which had always enjoyed
toleration under Muslim rulers, now suffered persecution and
decline. The schism between East and West, which might have
been healed by allies in war, was instead made permanent. Asia
was lost to Christianity and was soon to convert wholesale to
Islam. The balance of world power had shifted irrevocably. The
death toll of these expeditions will never be known accurately
for either side, but it is certain that it numbered hundreds
of thousands, and possibly millions. Most of the dead were Christians.
In fact Christian forces themselves may have killed as many
Christians and Jews as they did Muslims.
Both sides fought fiercely, not to say barbarously. Christian
virtues such as mercy and cheek-turning had been almost totally
absent throughout, at least on the Christian side. At the end
of it all nothing positive had been achieved. Before the crusades,
Muslims had established a great reputation for tolerance. Now
that they had suffered Christian atrocities and perfidy, they
had become fanatical in defence of their religion. As Runciman
wrote of the slaughter at Jerusalem during the First Crusade:
"It was this bloodthirsty proof of Christian fanaticism
that recreated the fanaticism of Islam"*.
Muslim respect for Eastern Christians was superseded by hatred
and contempt for Western ones.
The bitterness that was generated between the Christian West
and the Muslim Levant was so great that its effects rumbled
down the centuries and echo to the present day. Across many
Eastern countries the word for a western foreigner is ferenghi,
a corruption of Frank, and an echo of the fact that crusaders
were usually referred to as Franks in the Middle Ages –
but this is far from the most serious reverberation from the
crusades.
In the nineteenth century the Crimean War was triggered by
Holy Russia declaring itself protector of Christians in Ottoman
lands, establishing itself as the successor of Constantinople.
Moscow even called itself the Third Rome, i.e. the third capital
of the Empire. Among others the new Rome sought to protect the
Armenians, the victims (as well as the perpetrators) of numerous
atrocities over the centuries. In 1915 Christian Armenians rebelled
against the Turks and massacred Muslims. At Van alone they were
reported to have killed 30,000. Over the next five years, hundreds
of thousands died. According to some the victims were mainly
Christians, according to others they were mainly Muslim. Such
killing has continued into recent times. In 1988 Christians
and Muslims started killing each other again, this time over
the enclave of Ngorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
In the 1980s and 90s Christian-Muslim fighting broke out in
Africa, notably in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. It happened
in Europe as well – in Bosnia and Kosovo. Christian forces
were also heavily involved in the civil war in the Lebanon.
Arguably, the most brutal incident during the whole war was
perpetrated by Christians against Muslim refugees. In 1982 hundreds
of men, women and children were massacred by Christian troops
in the refugee camps in Sabra and Chatila. It was like the original
crusades all over again, except with machine guns. Maronite
Christians, who are in communion with Rome, still emulate the
behaviour of their crusader forbears. When General Michel Aoun
launched a Christian offensive in March 1989 against Syrians
in the Lebanon, he explicitly called it a "crusade".
Some Muslim fighters in the Lebanon call themselves Salabeyen
after Saladin"s men who fought the crusaders.
There are many other echoes of the Crusades – louder
in the East than in the West. Many in the Middle East are familiar
with the story of the French General Henri Gouraud. After marching
into Damascus in July 1920 he is reported to have kicked Saladin's
tomb and said: "The Crusades have ended now! Awake Saladin,
we have returned! My presence here consecrates the victory of
the Cross over the Crescent.". Many Muslims regarded the
Anglo-French Suez expedition of 1956 as another attempted repeat
of crusader victories in 1191. The Palestine Liberation Organisation
regards Israel as the West"s new crusader State. Two of
the PLO"s divisions are named after the sites of Muslim
victories over the Christian crusaders (Hattin and Ayn Julat).
Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, described
his victim in a letter as the "supreme commander of the
Crusades"*. During
the Gulf war of 1991, Saddam Hussein was guaranteed massive
public support in many Muslim countries by likening the Western
offensive to a Christian crusade, and implicitly likening himself
to Saladin - that other famous native of Tikrit.
Following terrorist actions against the USA in 2001, President
George W. Bush characterised America"s response by remarking
that "this crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take
a while" – thus opening up the whole issue of the
crusades again. Although the reference passed almost unnoticed
among Americans, it sounded to many Muslims like a call for
a holy war against Islam. In 2010 it was revealed that the US
were using gun sights produced by Trijicon Inc, a Michigan arms
company. These sights were stamped with biblical references
and widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan. The practice had been
started by the firm's founder, a devout Christian*.
Most people in countries such as the USA and UK are still unaware
of how sensitive the whole issue still is in the Muslim world.
Not so in Spain, where it is widely known that the train bombings
of 2004 were carried out in retribution for Spain"s part
in the war in Iraq as well as the reconquista – the fifteenth
century Christian crusade against the moors of Iberia.
The crusaders" cross is still remembered by Muslims and
it is for this reason that any symbol in the form of a red cross
is not acceptable in Muslim countries, even if it has no connection
with the crusaders" cross. The organisation generally known
in the west as the Red Cross is to Muslims known as the Red
Crescent. Nor is this the only symbolic reminder: Western swords
are still made in the shape of a cross, just as scimitars are
still made in the shape of a crescent.
We are always making God our accomplice, that we may legalise
our own iniquities. Every successful massacre is consecrated
by a Te Deum, and the clergy have never been wanting in benedictions
for any victorious enormity.
Henri-Fréderic Amiel (1821-1881), Journal
 It
is not only God himself who takes part in war. The word host,
as in the phrase heavenly host, means army. God is
Lord of hosts, Commander-in-Chief of heavenly armies.
Sometimes members of these armies, saints and angels, join earthly
battles on the divinely endorsed side. Such heavenly forces
joined the Christian forces to kill the Emperor Julian. Later,
they joined the Crusades, and they joined numerous European
wars. They even turned up during World War I. The "Angel
of Mons", for example, took an active part in offensives,
and spent the rest of its time looking after the dead abandoned
in no-man"s-land.
The Angel of Mons seems to have been Protestant. Roman Catholics
had their own army of heavenly saints, including warrior patron
saints. St Martin of Tours is the patron saint of soldiers,
St Maurice of armies, and St Michael of battle. The Artillery
has its own patron saint, St Barbara, and there are many others.
Even arms dealers have their own patron saint, St Adrian of
Nicomedia. The Virgin Mary also takes a keen interest in war,
invariably supporting the Roman Catholic side. She was occasionally
seen cheering on the crusaders. She still holds a number of
military honours and titles, awarded for her help in war. A
couple of years after the defeat of the Turks at the battle
of Lapanto in 1571, she was awarded the title Our Lady of
Victory by Pope Pius V. He said that the battle had been
given to God"s side because of the intercession of Mary,
obtained by the use of rosaries. She also delivered victory
in the Spanish Civil War, and it was for this help that Franco
promoted her to field rank in the Spanish army.
Victories were easy to attribute to God, but defeats were more
problematical. The Crusades had raised serious questions about
God"s reliability. These holy wars were inspired by God
and had been promised his full support. When they had pressed
forward to take the crusaders" oath during the First Crusade,
volunteers had shouted Dieu le veult ("God wills
it"). The Pope told them that God had put these words into
their mouths. Deus le volt, a more international version
of the phrase, became the crusaders" war cry.
When the Crusades failed, Christians started to wonder why
it was that God had inspired them to win back the Holy Land
with visions and miraculous signs, and then frustrated them
at every turn. On occasion God had even sent earthquakes to
destroy Christian defences. In the early days clerics had deduced
that Christian failures were divine punishments for crusaders"
crimes and vices, but St Louis had been regarded as an ideal
Christian yet got nowhere as a crusader. By contrast, the Emperor
Frederick, one of the few successes, was an enemy of the Pope
and was widely believed to be an atheist.
Was it possible that God had changed his mind? Some crusaders
had defected to the enemy and converted to Islam. How could
that be explained? Was it possible that God had never been behind
these Christian exploits in the first place? Again, why were
so many crusaders allowed to die in such distressing circumstances,
and for nothing? And why did the all-seeing deity allow the
survivors to introduce the Black Death to Christian Europe on
their return? Many aspects of the Crusades encouraged scepticism.
The spread of humanism in Italy was largely a response to the
enormities and disasters of the Crusades, and especially to
the Fourth Crusade.
Similar problems arose every time a Christian army lost a battle,
which happened around 50 per cent of the time when Christians
fought non-Christians, and 100 per cent of the time when Christians
fought their fellow Christians. Victorious Christians always
knew who to thank, but defeated ones needed someone to blame.
Like other Christian nations the English knew that God was on
their side. Shakespeare"s "cry God for Harry, England
and saint George" represented a common view that the trio
of king, country and national saint were all God"s personal
friends. Why else should the English have won at the battle
of Crécy except that God wanted them to win? Throughout
the Hundred Years" War the victors attributed every victory
to the hand of God. The losers sometimes wondered if the victors
were right, but generally found alternative explanations. Since
it could be taken for granted that God was on their side, it
was an easy step to deduce that the Devil was on the side of
their enemies. So it was that one side imagined Joan of Arc
to be an agent of God, while the other imagined her to be an
agent of Satan. When her side was losing, the Church had her
burned as a heretic transvestite, and when her side fared better
the same Church posthumously rehabilitated her and later made
her a saint.
Christians invariably saw themselves as God"s agents,
helping him to do what he (and they) wanted to do here on Earth.
They informed God about the activities of their rivals, so that
these rivals could be punished. The opening lines of the bull
of excommunication against Martin Luther read: "Arise,
O Lord, and judge thy cause. A wild boar hath invaded thy vineyard".
Luther was equally secure in the knowledge that God had invited
him into the vineyard to help cultivate it. For centuries to
come Roman Catholics believed God to be on their side against
the Protestants, while the Protestants believed him to be on
their side against the Catholics.
The commanders of the Spanish Armada were no less certain of
God"s favour than their English counterparts. The winds
that helped defeat the Spanish were attributed by the English
to God: "The Lord blew, and they were scattered",
and they thanked God for his help. This help proved that he
approved not only of England but also of its new Protestant
Church. The Spanish view was not, however, that they themselves
must have been on the wrong side after all, and that they should
convert to Protestantism. Like other forces inspired by God,
they were initially disconcerted when they lost, but it did
not take long to find an explanation. God was merely providing
a temporary setback to punish them for lack of faith and zeal.
It has always been clear enough to Quakers that God does not
approve of war and is not partisan in earthly disputes. Almost
all other Christians over the centuries have taken a different
view. Each faction has been convinced that it had God on its
side. Like Roman Catholics and moderate Protestants, Cromwell
and his army of Puritans, Presbyterians and other dissenters
had no doubt at all that God was on their side. They carried
bibles, sang hymns, and said prayers before battle. Their victories
were attributed to God. After one battle Cromwell noted of their
defeated Christian enemies that "God made them as stubble
to our swords". But his successors were much less willing
to explain the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 using the
same sort of reasoning. Had God changed sides? Or had he just
lost interest? The sad incomprehension of 1,000 losing generals
is summed up by Louis XIV"s plaintive question after his
defeat at Blenheim: "How could God do this to me after
all I have done for him?"*.
Churchmen still have no doubt that God plays an active role
in war, until they find themselves on the losing side, in which
case it is rare to hear them acclaiming God"s part in their
defeat. One way to avoid this problem is to adopt a new position,
which became acceptable in the twentieth century, that God approves
of peace rather than war. Yet this position can also prove embarrassing.
In 1938 Neville Chamberlain returned from his meeting with Hitler
in Munich to declare "peace in our time". The then
Archbishop of Canterbury explained this as an answer to the
great volume of prayer that had been rising to God. God, he
said, had saved us from war. He did not mention the fact that
the volume was not quite high enough to save the Czechs from
war. Nor did he mention that it was not going to be sufficient
to prevent a world war the following year. More curiously still,
God revealed an entirely different picture to senior European
Roman Catholic clerics. In Austria, for example, the arrival
of Hitler"s army was hailed as the work of divine providence.
God still helps one side or another in wars backed or conducted
by less sophisticated theologians. The departure of the British
soldiers from Cyprus was hailed as God"s will by Orthodox
priests, although the subsequent arrival of Turkish soldiers
for some reason was not hailed as God"s will. God also
takes sides in coups d"état. General Rabuka, a Methodist
acting under instructions from God, led a coup in Fiji in the
1980s. His government disenfranchised those of Indian descent
and introduced wholesome new Christian laws about the Sabbath.
One of his stated aims was to convert Hindus. God not only takes
sides in coups, he also plays an active part in them, on whichever
side he considers the more Christian. He was responsible for
helping to put down an attempted coup against the government
of the Philippines, according to the leader of that country"s
Catholic community, Cardinal Sinn, speaking on 8 th December
1989.
The old problems have still not gone away, and churchmen still
have to explain to grieving widows and orphans why God incited
a war in which he assured victory, but failed to keep his word,
and instead arranged for men to be killed for nothing, leaving
countless grieving mothers, widows and orphans. The problem
is the same as that 1,000 years ago, and so is the solution.
Speaking in St Patrick"s Cathedral in New York in 1950
Monsignor William Green assured those whose sons had died in
the Korean War that death in battle was part of God"s plan
for populating the kingdom of Heaven*,
the same explanation as that given for the debacle of the Crusades.
God is always on the side of the big battalions.
Attributed to Henri de la Tour d"Auvergne, Viscomte de
Turenne (1611-1675)
 Since
God condoned and encouraged war, and participated in it himself,
it was natural that his Churches should do the same. For many
centuries the clergy played an active part in war, a fact of
which we are reminded by the chess piece known in English as
a bishop. Junior clergy, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, popes
and patriarchs all took an active part in warfare.
Until the Middle Ages Christians waged war mainly to convert
by force the people they considered heathens. During the Middle
Ages they concentrated on Muslims, with a few European excursions
to slaughter Jews, dissident Christians and political enemies
of the Church. By the fifteenth century the Church was powerful
enough to become more ambitious. Pope Nicholas V, in his bull
Romanus Pontifex (1452) declared war on all non-Christians
throughout the world, not merely sanctioning but actively promoting
conquest, colonisation and exploitation of non-Christians peoples
and their lands.
Countless clergymen had been crusaders. Senior clerics led
armies into battle with varying degrees of success. Pope Leo
IX led his army against marauding forces in southern Italy in
1053 but fared badly. Pope Julius II, on the other hand, was
acknowledged to be a better soldier than a theologian. A keen
military strategist, he had no qualms about donning armour and
fighting on behalf of God and the Papal States. Known as Il
Terribile he led a number of victories in the Italian wars
of the early sixteenth century. He sent Christopher Bainbridge,
Archbishop of York, to lead a military expedition against Ferrara
in 1511.
Because the Church maintained that it should not be responsible
for shedding blood, clerical warriors favoured weapons that
battered rather than pierced flesh. Thus, for centuries the
mace was the favourite ecclesiastical mode of killing in battle.
Apart from this small qualm, churchmen had no doubts about the
propriety of killing. Senior clerics would ride up and down
the battle lines before the fighting started, wearing their
ecclesiastical robes, often holding holy relics, giving blessing
and absolution. When the Anglican Church was established, the
37 th of the 39 Articles expressly stated that it is lawful
for Christian men to wear weapons and serve in wars.
Some clerics are remembered mainly for their war records. Robert
of Geneva, a cardinal and papal legate, was one. He is most
notable for his part in the papacy"s battle against Florence.
At Cesena in 1377 he persuaded the locals to lay down their
arms with promises of mercy. When they did he sent in his mercenaries
to kill them – 8,000 men, women and children. This was
not untypical. Thousands of Waldensian Protestants in Calabria
were massacred by Roman Catholic troops in 1560 under Grand
Inquisitor Michele Ghislieri, later Pope Pius V, and now a saint.
Prisoners of war could not expect mercy and were frequently
tortured or murdered. As a boy of eight, Erasmus had witnessed
200 prisoners broken on the wheel outside the gates of Utrecht
on the orders of the city"s bishop. Again, this was far
from exceptional. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
characterised by numerous religious wars in Europe. With a single
respite, such wars were endemic from the 1520s until 1648.
Zwingly, the famous reformer, died in the Battle of Kappel
in 1531, trying to force Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland
to become Protestant ones. Some wars, such as the Bishops"
Wars, which started in 1639, boast ecclesiastical titles
reflecting the issue being disputed, in this case the validity
of the episcopacy. European nations divided on sectarian lines
on every conceivable issue. The
Thirty Years" War was typical. In 1618 the Habsburg Emperor
Ferdinand II decided to eradicate Protestantism in Bohemia.
His Roman Catholic army fought and routed a Protestant one,
and started to extirpate the Protestant population. The King
of Denmark, Christian IV, sent another Protestant army, which
was joined by German Lutherans and Calvinists. It too was defeated
and the massacres resumed. Now the King of Sweden, Gustavus
Adolphus, led yet another Protestant army into battle. It enjoyed
great success until Gustavus was killed. On both sides the slaughter
continued at a rate that Europe had never seen before. Eventually,
for political reasons, France joined in on the side of the Protestants,
although France was still persecuting its own Protestant population.
After 30 years of fighting, a settlement was concluded in 1648
at the Peace of Westphalia. The population was so reduced that
there were not enough people left to rebuild the towns, resume
trade, or even plant the fields. Estimates of the numbers killed
vary from a tenth to over half of the population. The truth
lies somewhere between the two, but whatever the exact proportion
it is certain that millions died and millions were orphaned
by Christian forces in the name of God.
Churches were always ready to affirm God"s support for
causes, however disreputable they might now appear. The clearances
of the Scottish highlands in the eighteenth century were assisted
by churchmen. Scottish ministers threatened their flocks with
eternal hellfire if they did not follow instructions to abandon
their homes to make way for sheep. On the other side of the
Atlantic, the extirpation of entire tribes of Native Americans
was hailed as the will of God. In the Far East, God was seen
to be behind the First Opium war of 1839-42. He may or may not
have cared about opening up the opium trade within China, but
missionaries were certain that he wanted them to have access
to the country, and he had done this by giving victory to the
Christian forces. Some wars have been prolonged unnecessarily
by Christian Churches. For example Southern clergymen prolonged
the American Civil War long after the Confederates had any hope
of winning. Clergymen simply could not accept that God could
let them lose. God"s unfulfilled promises delivered through
the Southern Churches contributed significantly to the approximately
600,000 killed and one million injured.
Killing rates had by then been increased by an invention of
a clergymen following in the ancient Christian tradition of
clerical military engineers. The percussion cap was patented
by the Rev. A. J. Forsyth of Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
in 1807. Forsyth was principally interested in killing animals.
He had noticed that sitting birds would startle when smoke from
the powder pan of his flintlock shotgun give them warning of
the shot. His invention of a new firing mechanism deprived the
birds of their early warning so made it easier to kill them.
The last senior churchman to take part in war was Leonidas
Polk, Bishop of Louisiana, who enlisted in the Confederate army
with rank of Major General during the American Civil War. More
junior clergy continued to fight for longer, even when they
were technically prohibited from doing so, into the twentieth
century. Despite the provisions of canon law, Christian priests
and ministers enlisted in order to fight in World War I. Almost
80,000 priests enlisted from the Roman Catholic Church alone.
When the USA joined in the war on the side of the allies, American
priests and ministers affirmed that the Kaiser was not a Christian,
that his empire was blasphemous, that the war was a holy war,
that God had summoned the American people to join it, that the
German people deserved to be exterminated, that Jesus himself
would have joined the American army, and that conscientious
objectors could not be true Christians*.
In Europe, clergymen preached in support of the war, and those
who chose not to enlist were sent white feathers by their righteous
Christian neighbours just as, centuries before, those who failed
to enlist for the Crusades had been sent distaffs or knitting
needles. Despite what American clergymen said about the Kaiser,
the three European emperors involved in World War I were all
devout Christians. So were their most hawkish senior ministers.
The only opposition to that war came from Quakers and freethinkers.
Atheists like Bertrand Russell were imprisoned for campaigning
for peace and suffered in other ways (Russell for example was
deprived of his lectureship at Trinity College, Cambridge ).
In more recent wars the Churches have maintained their records.
The majority of mainstream Churches in World War II informed
their followers that God was on their side (even when members
of the same denomination fought on opposite sides). In Germany
all the main denominations collaborated with the Nazi war effort:
Roman Catholic, Protestant and nonconformist alike. Nazi atrocities
were carried out almost entirely by Christians – roughly
two-thirds Protestant, one third Roman Catholic. Only Jehovah"s
Witnesses denounced Nazism as totally evil, refused conscription,
and took the consequences. By contrast, in the whole of the
Third Reich, only seven Roman Catholics refused conscription*.
Since World War II, Christians have continued to fight and
kill each other. Christian factions in the Lebanon killed not
only Muslims but also members of rival Christian factions. In
the Balkans, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholic
Christians have been killing each other for centuries. An American
cardinal (Spellman) could be relied on to confirm that the USA"s
war against Vietnam was a war in support of the Christian faith.
The fighting between Orthodox Serbs and Roman Catholic Croats
in former Yugoslavia during the 1990s was only a coda to similar
atrocities in the past. The sectarian violence that has persisted
in Northern Ireland since 1968 is another coda, this time to
the religious wars conducted throughout Europe in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. In all there have been thousands of
murders since the troubles started in Northern Ireland. Sometimes
the murders are carried out in churches. Claims that these murders
are purely political are undermined by the fact that no one
except the devout are involved. All of the murderers caught
have been staunch Roman Catholics or staunch Protestants, as
are all of the spokesmen for the two sides. In other parts of
the world, where the public spotlight is dim, one Church or
another is likely to sanction sectarian killing, and sometimes
to join in. Roman Catholics, including many priests and nuns,
were for example implicated in the widespread massacres in Rwanda
in 1994*. As one Nairobi
based journalist comments:
When I think of the Vatican"s record in Africa, I think
of its failure to acknowledge what really happened in Rwanda,
where priests and nuns not only led death squads to Tutsi
refugees cowering in their churches, but provided the petrol
to burn them alive, took part in the shootings and raped survivors.
Rwanda was Africa"s most devout Catholic nation, and
the role the church played in condoning and fostering the
Hutu extremism that climaxed in genocide is as shameful as
its collaboration with the Nazis.*
Belgian priests have been implicated in encouraging killings
for generations. Father Guy Theunis, of the Roman Catholic Order
of the White Fathers, was just the most recent Belgian to be
charged with crimes against humanity for his role in encouraging
the 1994 Rwandan genocide*.
Rwandan priests and nuns were convicted for their parts in the
massacres.
All of the main Churches have a poor record with respect to
warfare. All have supported their own wars and massacres, and
all have lent support to national wars. The injured were generally
left to die, either of their wounds, or at the hands of their
captors. Few Christians thought of aiding the wounded or of
protecting non-combatants. After all, wars and suffering were
ordained by God. In the nineteenth century people outside the
Christian mainstream made the first significant efforts to prevent
wars or minimise related suffering. Henri Dunant (1828-1910),
a Swiss freethinker and anticlerical philanthropist, was responsible
for founding the International Committee of the Red Cross and
for the Geneva Convention held in 1864. Dunant"s inspiration
was the suffering he had seen on the battlefield at Solferino
in 1859. Christians had been accustomed to such sights for centuries,
but few had done anything practical about it, and none had done
anything as significant as Dunant. Indeed it not easy to think
of any mainstream Christian who made a contribution as significant
as the Muslim leader, Saladin, 700 years earlier.
Conscientious objection to war is another phenomenon from outside
mainstream Christianity. St Augustine had said that war could
be waged if it was waged by the command of God. Christians had
interpreted this as a right to wage war on behalf of God. Soon
the right became a duty. Thus it was positively sinful not
to participate in a war on God"s behalf. So it was that
that the concept of conscientious objection to war could not
be tolerated. It amounted to setting one"s own conscience
above that of God. This was still the prevailing orthodoxy at
the beginning of the twentieth century. Before World War I the
National Secular Society and other freethinking individuals
opposed compulsory military training in secondary schools. During
the war they fought for the rights of conscientious objectors.
For such positions they were roundly condemned by the mainstream
Churches. The only significant support from any religious group
came from the Quakers. The idea of creating a world where war
would be impossible was another non-Christian ambition. It might
have been idealist, but at least it led to some action. Atheists
like H. G. Wells and Gilbert Murray worked for a world parliament
as a way to reduce or eliminate war. Their efforts culminated
in the League of Nations (1919) and its replacement, the United
Nations (1945).
For many non-Christians the idea that any god might condone
or participate in any war is absurd. The emerging mainstream
Christian view of war concurs. A few small heretical sects have
also held this view consistently from early times. The Quakers
have held this view since their founding in the seventeenth
century and the Jehovah"s Witnesses since their founding
in the nineteenth century, but for all other Christians it is
novel, and has been adopted only since it became the prevailing
secular view. Not all Christians have yet decamped and joined
the secular ranks. In the second half of the twentieth century
a number of studies have been carried out into attitudes towards
war, especially in the USA. What they reveal is fairly consistent.
Roman Catholics and Protestants are more accepting of war than
average, while atheists are not only less accepting of it, but
also more likely to be actively opposed to it*.
Religious wars – crudades as much as Jihads – are
particularly repellent to non-believers. For atheists, religious
wars are just exercises in murder intended to establish which
side has the more effective imaginary friend.
The whole Christian movement remains full of military allusions:
Church Militant, Soldiers of Christ, Salvation
Army, Church Lad"s Brigade, Crusade,
etc. Christian Churches continues to explicitly “wage
war” on unbelievers. Anyone one who voices public criticism
of Christianity can expect to receive communications from devout
Christian foot soldiers assuring them that they will burn in
hell for all eternity, and threatening personally to accelerate
the entry process. No Church ever seems to do anything to stop
their foot soldiers making such death threats, and why should
they? After all Jesus himself promised imminent and ever-lasting
hell-fire to unbelievers.
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