The Last Crusades
Archer, T. A. / Monro, Dana Carlton / Pears, Edwin
The final attempts by European forces to capture Jerusalem and dominate the Holy Land
The strategy of the Fourth Crusade (1202-04) was to first defeat the Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate-the most powerful Muslim force. However, the Christian cause quickly became corrupted when it laid siege to and sacked the Christian city of Zara in Croatia (1202) before advancing on and sacking Byzantine Constantinople and partitioning the empire. Only a handfu...