When Turks helped Greeks save Greece from Normans...

**~~kundur~~** · 08-02-2020, 07:57 PM

Over the last years, a new generation of British historians have developed a new approach regarding the Crusades history.

The classical Catholic narrative was... you know... Nasty Turks overran Asia Minor after 1071 and innocent helpless Greeks had asked their Catholic friends some help.

British historians (Frankopan, etc) argue about that Catholic supremacist narrative and tell that the Crusades were a Catholic action, not primarily against Turks or the Muslims, but mainly aiming at wiping out Orthodoxy.

Actually, Byzantines were hiring both Turks and Normans in their armies as mercenaries. And since after 1050, the Catholic Normans started to sweep across Byzantine possessions in Italy, then Albania, the Greeks felt the urgent need to CALL TURKS FOR HELP. Actually it seems like thousands of Turks joined Byzantine forces and helped push Normans out of Greece at Larissa Battle.

British historians explain that after Suleyman's death, Seljuks of Anatolia who were in good terms with Greeks, stopped being under 'control' of the Byzantine emperor. And since Turks had pushed as west as to until Nicea, Greeks thought that Turks needed some corrections and asked Rome for some mercenaries.
But what Greeks got was an entire Crusading army, aiming at operating conquest for Latindom and which ultimately did not help Greeks recover their losses. A movement that shall finally aim at destroying the Orthodox in 1204.

**Crn Volk** · 08-03-2020, 12:43 AM

How kind of them

**~~kundur~~** · 08-03-2020, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by Crn Volk

How kind of them

Sure. Without those 7.000 Turks sent by Suleyman and fighting for Byzantines, Greeks could have never dislodged Normans from Greece, Albania, Macedonia.

Anyway, the new British approach is important in the sense that Catholics were putting all the blame on Turks and hiding their vicious activities and intentions on Greeks/Orthodox. They were calling on unity against the Turks. Now, people know the true history. Turks were just a pretext for the Vatican onslaught to finish off the Orthodox.