American Civil War and Story of the Crusades.

American Civil War and Story of the Crusades.

As a non resident alien in U.S. and non Christian, these two wars are the most difficult ones to understand since my high school world history class. Seeing myself as a practical person, I cannot get the idea of commencing wars on the pursuit of other people's "freedom" or "God's request" (during history class, I heard these two were main reasons why they commenced these wars).

For the American Civil War,IMO, I finally understand the true nature of this one. This understanding comes after taking a class (American Legal History) and getting to know the concept of "Federalism" and the conflict between the "Union" and the "Confederacy" (one big nation with a powerful government vs patchworks of more independent states).

However, the Crusaders (and their wars against Muslims) are still hard to understand. Are these wars are all about religions or lands of opportunity?

Emperor Frederick II (one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors) who could recover the holy land by the treaty with Al-Kamil, the ruler of Egypt was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. That's because he was regarded as being unloyal to Pope Gregory IX's opinion (Jerusalem must be retaken on Christians' blood not on the treaty with non-believers).

On the other hand, King Louis IX of France, who sacrificed most of his soldiers during the Seventh Crusade and later resulted in the collapse of all Christian Forces in Mid East, became a Saint after all his unsuccessful military campaign. Her voluntary move to the Crusade itself made him loyal to his calling under the Pope's opinion.

Which one was a better ruler to his people during that time? Which one was a "true servant" to God? These are two different questions which had been regarded as same one for very long time.

After seeing the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" these two war concepts haunted me and are partially solved.

p.s. For the record, the movie's background precedes these two Crusades. It dramatizes the first collapse of Jerusalem.