The Battle of Nicaea, the first (telling) encounter between Crusaders and Turks. Thu May 20, 2021
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Today in history, May 20, 1097, witnessed the first battle between Western Crusaders and Muslim Turks: the siege of Nicaea. Context: In the years following the decisive Battle of Manzikert (1071), which saw the Seljuk Turks defeat the Eastern Roman Empire and conquer that ancient bastion of Christianity, Anatolia (modern day Turkey), mindboggling atrocities were committed. Whether an anonymous Georgian chronicler tells of how “holy churches served as stables for their horses,” the “priests were immolated during the Holy Communion itself,” the “virgins defiled, the youths circumcised, and the infants taken away,” or whether Anna Comnena, the princess at Constantinople, tells of how “cities were obliterated, lands were plundered, and the whole of Anatolia was stained with Christia