Deja vù All Over Gain: The Loss of the Eastern Roman Empire

Since the death of Muhammad in 632 AD the Muslim Turks have been gobbling up territory like the current ISIS conquest; much like the old video game of Pacman.  Muhammad was ruthless, killing all who opposed him. One of his first atrocities was the murder of the remaining Jews in Medina in 627, a few years before his death.  From there the Muslim Empire expanded throughout the Near East, as it was known then, all the way to Russia, North Africa, the Balkans and parts of Europe, including most of Spain, Sicily and Southern Italy.  In 1453 they conquered Constantinople, the seat of Christianity and capital of The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire). The Muslim Turk empire was known as the Ottoman Empire.

Where were the Europeans while the Turks conquered half of the world?  They were all sitting on their hands, thinking it did not concern them.  Sounds familiar today too.  The Europeans paid the price for their inaction:  They had to fight the Muslim Turks for the next thousand years.  Recall that Vienna was besieged by the Turks, not once but twice, in 1529 and in 1683.  Recall the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Muslim Ottoman Empire ruled half of the world until World War I.

The Ottoman Turks were defeated in World War I.  The West had their opportunity to get all the territories they lost to the Turks but they failed to do it.  The decisions made by the victorious allies at the end of World War I was nothing short of disastrous, if not laughable.  Not one decision made any sense.  Let's look at their decision to give the City of Smyrna to the Greeks.  A third grader could have told you that this was a very bad idea.  The Greeks and the Turks hate each other with such a passion that no good was going to come out of it.  Indeed, this was what happened.  The Greeks, trying to regain territories lost to the Turks in the past invaded the interior of Turkey but were defeated by the Turks.  Two fine books recount this story very well in fine detail.  Paradise Lost, Smyrna 1922 and The Great Fire.  The Greeks, in turn, were stabbed in the back by their European friends such as Italy who gave the Turks weapons.   France and Britain both refused to help the Greeks.  Had the Europeans cooperated in this matter, the world map would look very different today.

Talking about bad decisions by the victories allies after World War I, consider what they did in redrawing the map of the Middle East.  Can you say, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, just to name a few.  We are still paying the price of these bone-headed decisions made after World War I. This map looks like it was drawn by elementary school children, without regard for any facts, such as ethnic identities for the Kurds, Shiites or Sunni Muslims.  We're now paying a heavy price for these mistakes.  What is even more worrisome is that we have not learned from our mistakes.  The Europeans are still clueless about their threat.  I suppose that they will not wake up until the hordes are at their doors.

Divided We Fall

When it comes to the conflict between Christians and Muslims the lack of any cooperation among Christians stands out.  A few examples:

1.  The Byzantine Empire falls to the Muslim Turks in 1453.   The Byzantine Empire was the eastern half of the Roman Empire.  After the fall of Rome around 460 AD, the eastern empire continued and prospered until its defeat by the Muslim Turks in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople.  The Muslims had been on the march, conquering surrounding territory ever since the death of Muhammad in 632 AD.

After the Christian schism  between the Roman church and the Greek church in 1054 AD the Roman and Greek (Byzantine) churches became enemies and have never reconciled to this day.  Nothing could have been more tragic in the history of Christendom.   This is the equivalent of a family divided.   In 1453 total victory arrived for the Muslims with the conquest and destruction of Constantinople, the seat of Christianity for 1300 years.  No Christian country in Europe offered any help.   Only seven hundred private soldiers from Genoa, Italy, led by Giovanni Giustiniani, a brilliant siege commander, came to aid Constantinople; they fought valiantly against overwhelming odds until they were overrun by the superior Turkish forces.  The Muslims did not stop with the Byzantine Empire; eventually they reached to gates of Vienna Austria in 1529 in their thirst for territory. The Europeans failed to see that the loss of the Byzantine Empire was not just a loss of territory but a religious defeat that would continue to harass them to this day.  We're still paying the cost of the loss of the Byzantine Empire today.  Lars Brownworth, in his book, Lost to the West, tells the story of the fall of the Byzantine Empire.

Some say that "war is not the answer."  The Europeans believed this and did nothing, but war continues to be waged upon Christians to this day without ceasing.  There are those who see a mountain and refuse to recognize it.  This is what most Christians are doing today when it comes to their Muslim opponents.

2.  At the end of World War I, the European allies, which included Britain, France, Italy, and Greece defeated the Ottoman Turks and Germany.  After 500 years, the Europeans had a chance to reverse all the Muslim advances of territory conquered by the Muslims.    When the victorious allies of WW I sat down to decide what to do with the defeated Ottoman Turks, they squabbled and could not come up with a cogent decision.  Finally, they acted - they decided to let Greece occupy Smyrna, a coastal city in Turkey - called Izmir today.  The Greeks, desiring to re-occupy their Byzantine land lost in 1453, moved out and occupied a large portion of Turkey.  They blundered militarily very badly and were crushed by the Turks, who took horrific revenge on anyone not of Turkish descent; committing unspeakable atrocities, including the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians.  No one knows of the atrocities committed by the Turks after the end of WW I.  We've heard of the Armenian genocide but not anything else.  I will review the book Paradise Lost, Smyrna 1922 in a later post.  This book details the Turkish atrocities in Turkey after they defeated the Greeks.

3.  Today, we still face a hostile Muslim foe.  The difference today is that it is not one country against another, but a fanatical part of Islam, in the name of Al Qaeda, Jihad and many others who still fight against the infidel, non-Muslims.  This war exploded on 9/11/2001 when Muslim terrorists attacked and murdered 3,000 Americans who were busy working at their desk in New York City.  Whereas before armies would attack and overrun territories, today the Muslim terrorists attack innocent people wherever they are. and murder them at will.  Muslim terrorists also attack other Muslims they disagree with such and they do in Pakistan and Iraq.