Also hidden in the Pope’s mind at Clermont must have been the hope of reconciliation between the Eastern and Western Churches. The Pope is reported to have been pleased that Alexius came to him for help, rather than the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany. Therefore to some extent the crusade was a success because it highlighted his victory in the investiture contest. On the other hand, however, the Crusade failed to regain good communication between the Greeks and the Latins, the moment the crusade left Byzantine territory the Greeks cut the vital supplies that the crusade relied on, however this may have come under the influence of western propaganda, over the last centuries.
Another of Urban II hidden plans with the Crusade was to stop Christians fighting Christians, particularly in France, the huge number of people who took up the Cross surely speak to the success to this plan as there are few recorded incidents of fighting between Western Christians in France during the crusade. There were several incidents however which make this much less successful, firstly was Baldwin of Boulogne’s capture of Edessa, another Christian city, and secondly was the huge arguments raging between the crusades leaders. Urban had hoped that by giving the Franks a common enemy, he might cut down on the number of Christians fighting Christians and to most eyes this was a resounding success.
One of the main themes of the accounts of the Sermon at Clermont is the idea of Jerusalem, admittedly Fulcher of Chartres has left this out of his account, and it may be that the idea of Jerusalem was much less powerful than the holiness of the Crusade, however it has also been noted that Fulcher was not at Jerusalem so may have left it out in an attempt to hide his disappointment at not being at this momentous event. Jerusalem is one of the greatest successes of the Crusade, its timely capture and the holiness before the assault surely speak for themselves proving that the capture of Jerusalem was a resounding success for the crusade. Jerusalem stood for everything the Crusade had shown, piety, bravery, brutality, quarrelling, and luck. Urban cannot have hoped for anything more, despite quarrels between Raymond of Toulouse and the other crusade leaders, when it came to it, all fought side by side under one banner against a common enemy and won. They had been very fortunate in the timely arrival of a fleet of Ships at Jaffa carrying the equipment needed to build siege equipment, and to the crusaders it must have seemed like God was on their side. They managed to capture the city before the Fatamid army arrived, and had given a great display of their piety by marching around the walls, without armour, with the risk that the Muslims would sally out and attack them unarmed. The crusade brutally killed all the inhabitants and restored Jerusalem to its so called rightful owner.
The First wave of the Crusade however can hardly be called a success. 60,000 peasants set of to Byzantium from France in the early summer of 1096. Led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Sansavoir, they caused havoc across Europe and in a desperate attempt to be rid of them Alexius was forced to ship them over the Bosphorus into Asia Minor where they camped at civitot, hear they ignored his advice to wait for the rest of the crusade and decided to head into Asia Minor towards Nicaea on a raiding party, hear they showed a complete lack of discipline and were massacred in their captured castle at Xerigordon, most were killed or given the option to convert, the army was split into two parts the French who had remained in Civitot marched towards Nicaea however they were ambushed and only a few make it back to Byzantium. The people’s crusade showed complete failure, there was failure with the discipline of the army, as well as amongst the leadership, they were ill disciplined, poorly led and failed to listen to advice, ultimately they were all massacred and achieved none of the initial objectives of the crusade, thus deeming the first wave of the crusade a failure.
The third wave of the crusade was an equal failure, it was made up of three different crusading expeditions, that were formed after the fall of Jerusalem, this is useful to scholars as it shows that the crusading ideal was still defiantly alive in the west, this is possibly because people in the west now wanted to be part of this momentous part of History, or may be because of the religious benefits crusaders were rewarded with; this is likely to have been Urbans promise of the forgiveness of sins for those who went to the East to fight, and is a common feature of all four of the accounts of Urbans Sermon: ‘‘You should know, moreover, that if any men among you go there not because they desire earthly profit but only for the salvation of their souls and the liberation of the Church, we ….relieve them of all penance imposed on their sins.’(Riley-Smith, Crusades, pp. 38-9). The third wave is also useful as it emphasised that the Franks victories were more than just better men, and leaders, one of these expeditions was under the command of Raymond of Toulouse, and these men were as well trained as any of the others in the second wave, however they we all defeated thus indicating to historians that there must have been a further reason for their lose. .
In conclusion, it is still difficult to say to what extent the First Crusade was successful, In comparison to the later crusades; it was by far the most successful, in the sense that it achieved all of its military objective, although some of them were prolonged. In doing this it also won several difficult battles, particularly outside Antioch and at Dorylaeum, where victory was achieved against the odds. The Crusade was also successful in supporting the Byzantines and helping them regains control of there key areas of Asia minor, and stopping the ‘persecution’ of Christians in the East. It showed the power of the Papacy, not only within Christendom, but throughout the known world, and united the Christians under a common banner against a common enemy. On the other hand the crusade was not so successful; it failed to reconcile the western and eastern Churches, and in some cases decreased relations, the crusade showed up the bad leadership of the western leaders through their inability to cooperate with each other and make quick correct decisions, the way the armies were set out at Jerusalem is the result of this embarrassing lack of command. The First and Third waves of the Crusade were complete failures, and the huge loss of men, women, and children during the crusade, make the success of the crusade very questionable.
