After hearing Pope Urban the seconds request for western christians, Peter, also known as Peter the Hermit, decided why wait to start the crusades when they should go attack now. Peter than rallied up an army that was filled with "inexperienced nobles and peasants" along with a few retired knights to fight, which will later be called the People's Crusades" as the army was made up off common folks. This started off the crusades to a horrible start in which Peter's large army was cut down to a mere few thousands making this the first failure of the Christians. Adding to the previous example, the journey to Jerusalem was not a an easy task. As tens of thousands Christians started off in 1096, but by the time they had reached to Jerusalem only about one in ten Christians arrived and three or four in ten survived the journey. While every attack it is expected to suffer some casualties, the Christians experienced severe casualties as three to four Christians out of ten died and the rest of the six to five out of ten deserted the crusades all together. Making this one of the Christian’s biggest failures of the First Crusades. What was the Muslims biggest failure, also turned out be their biggest success that came out from the First Crusades. As the Christians came out victorious in the First Crusades, the Muslims of …show more content…
Petter had lead the first wave of crusaders without any instructions to take back Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Throughout the crusade Peter’s army took what they pleased from nearby kingdoms and often killed whoever was in them. This adds on to the failure as these kingdoms were allies and Christians. To add on at the end of the People’s Crusades, most of Peter’s army had died due to the powerful force of the Muslim army. Which is what people argue is an absolute failure. However, while the People’s Crusade was a failure in what it was originally sent out to accomplish, the People’s Crusade was able to allow for further success to happen throughout the First Crusades. In J. Arthur McFall’s article, McFall shows how “ When Kilij Arslan saw how easily his army had annihilated the Franks [Christians] invaders, at a cost of only minor casualties, he began to feel that there was nothing to fear from the Europeans”. Kilij Arslan believing that the People’s crusade nor any other crusaders were a threat allowed for the Christians to take over Nicea and when Kilij finally sent a small group of soldiers to take on the crusaders, they were meet with a much more powerful army than they had expected allowing for the Christians to become successful as well as making the People’s Crusades an unexpected