time recovered Jerusalem by a treaty, but in 1224 A.D. the Holy City became again a possession of the End of the Moslems. They have never since relinquished crusades it. Acre, the last Christian post in Syria, fell in 1291 A.D., and with this event the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem ceased to exist. The Hospitalers, or Knights of St. John, still kept possession of the important islands of Cyprus and Rhodes, which long served as a barrier to Moslem expansion over the Mediterranean.

174. Results of the Crusades

The crusades, judged by what they set out to accomplish, must be accounted an inglorious failure. After two hundred years of conflict, after a vast expenditure of wealth Failure of and human lives, the Holy Land remained in the crusades Moslem hands. It is true that the First Crusade did help, by the conquest of Syria, to check the advance of the Turks toward Constantinople. But even this benefit was more than undone by the weakening of the Roman Empire in the East as a result of the Fourth Crusade.

failed

Of the many reasons for the failure of the crusades, three require special consideration. In the first place, there was the inability of eastern and western Europe to coöp- Why the erate in supporting the holy wars. A united crusades Christendom might well have been invincible. But the bitter antagonism between the Greek and Roman churches 1 effectually prevented all unity of action. The emperors at Constantinople, after the First Crusade, rarely assisted the crusaders and often secretly hindered them. In the second place, the lack of sea-power, as seen in the earlier crusades, worked against their success. Instead of being able to go by water directly to Syria, it was necessary to follow the long, overland route from France or Germany through Hungary, Bulgaria, the territory of the Roman Empire in the East, and the deserts and mountains of Asia Minor. The armies that reached their destination after this toilsome march were in no condition

1 See pages 362–363.