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First Crusader: Byzantium's Holy Wars

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Regan's book writes in a style that is easy to understand and even fun to read. This was the first book I read dealing with the Byzantine Empire, it was good enough to warrant a topic switch in my major from Medieval studies, to Byzantine studies. Regan's book makes a clear cut and convincing case for emperor Heraclius of Byzantium, as the First Crusader. Though the book does not contain enough detail for my taste, it was still a captivating and informative read. This should be considered an informative introductory to the study of the Byzantine Empire.

REVIEWED BY SMITH HEMPSTONE ...

When it comes to warrior-kings, the Byzantine emperor Heraclitus, who ruled Constantinople from 610 to 641 A.D., was in a league by himself. Few have risen so fast, and achieved so much in such a short time, only to lose all at the end.
Indeed, in "First Crusader: Byzantium's Holy Wars," the British historian Geoffrey Regan makes a convincing case that the wars of Heraclitus against the Sasanian Persians (622-628 A.D.) should rank as the first crusade rather than that from the West called by Pope Urban in 1095. Heraclitus smashed the Persian empire, recovering the flags and standards lost by 100 Byzantine armies over the centuries, regained the lost colonies of Syria, Palestine and Egypt, sacked a dozen great cities, brought back the True Cross from Persia and rebuilt the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre.
Whether you call the wars of the Christian Byzantines against the fire-worshipping Zoroastrian Persians crusades, or something else, the heroics of Heraclitus, who personally led his troops in battle and fought in single combat the champions of many enemy armies, had the effect of prolonging the life of the Eastern Roman empire for several centuries, delaying the Moslem advance into the Balkans by hundreds of years.
Both his personal life and his military successes combined to weaken Heraclitus toward the end of his reign. His popular first wife, Fabia-Eudokia, died in 612 A.D., leaving the emperor with only one male heir, not nearly enough to guarantee the succession. So Heraclitus married his beautiful and able niece, Martina, daughter of his sister, Maria. Although incestuous unions were not that unusual in those days, they were forbidden. But a significant group of the Byzantine establishment regarded the deaths of four of her disabled children as God's judgement on Martina, blaming her for defeats at the hands of the Moslem Arabs.
When Heraclitus died horribly of "dropsy" (cancer) this was taken as yet another sign of divine displeasure. The fates of Martina and her surviving sons: Martina's tongue was split and she was exiled to Rhodes with her eldest son, who had his nose cut off. Of her three other sons, two had their noses cut off and the youngest was castrated.
Like many another political leader, Heraclitus wanted to have both chariots and wine, and his wars proved ruinously expensive. Syria and Palestine had been regained but were denuded of their populations, their fields lay fallow and returned little revenue. Egypt was about to fall to Mohammed's desert Bedouin breaking out from Arabia.
The Orthodox Church, through the influence of Heraclitus' great friend and supporter, the Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, had floated huge loans to pay for the wars. But now, except in distant Egypt, the wars were over and the church wanted its money back.
Heraclitus paid up, but only at the cost of his planned reform of the army and the civil service. Alexandria soon fell to the Moslems and much of Syria followed. By 674 A.D. the Moslem jihad had carried them to the gates of Constantinople. In desperation, the Byzantines fell back on their secret weapon: "Greek fire," a highly flammable mixture of tar, resin, sandarac and powdered sulphur mixed with dolphin and goat fat. It was ignited after passing through a hose and could not be put out with water. The Byzantine garrison of Constantinople used this primitive napalm to great effect against the Arab fleet and the wooden siege machines of the Moslems.
Their effective use of "Greek fire" and the arrival of Bulgar reinforcements and their King Tervel, resulted in over 20,000 Moslems killed. The Arabs abandoned the siege in 718 A.D., and the city was to block the Moslem invasion of Eastern Europe for another 700 years.
The millennium of Christ's death in 1033 A.D. triggered a wave of religious fervor that engulfed all Western Europe. What had been mere acts of faith evolved into a series of crusades whose objective was nothing less than the conquest of the Holy Land and its restoration to Christian rule.
What distinguished the Western crusaders from the earlier pilgrims was that by their acts they earned indulgences from the pope. These guaranteed protection of his family, lands and assets during his absence and granted the remission of sins should the crusader die in battle, with immediate entry into Paradise. In an age of faith, this was of no little consequence.
Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. and by the Persians in 614 A.D. The Moslem Arabs had captured it in 638 A.D. In 1099 A.D. it was invested by the Western Crusaders and fell in a bloody massacre. After all the Moslems were dead and most of the Crusaders had sailed back to Europe, just 300 Christian knights and 2,000 infantry remained in the smoking ruins.
While Byzantium remained, it did so only as a shadow of its former days of greatness under Hiraclitus. Christian communities in the Near East could no longer expect help from Constantinople, which was to fall to the Ottoman Turks. As the gap grew greater between Latin Christianity and the Orthodox Church, Islam was rent by the division between Sunni and Shia and defeated in France and Hungary. It was not a time for greatness.

This book could really have been great. It had the potential. But Regan's books always seem to be a little too populist and not enough factual for me. This book is an entertaining read but that's it. His central premise, that Heraclius was the first crusader, is flawed. Aside from the fact that a crusading movement didn't develop until the 12th Century the Emperor's 'crusades' lack key features of the later wars. They didn't include indulgences and they didn't have pilgrims. While calling it a holy war is closer to the mark a holy war is not a synonym for a crusade. After all jihad and crusade are both holy wars and yet they are completely different. By flat out refusing to distinguish between the term 'holy war' and 'crusade' Regan is demonstrating the complete lack of nuance that I dislike in his works. He actually goes so far as to compare academics who deny the term 'crusade' to the Byzantines to the Catholic church which "assert[ed] its supremacy over Greek Orthodoxy." By making that comparison he rather misses the point. He also avoids the problems inherent in defining what a crusade is and adopts one scholar (Dr. Kolbaba)'s opinion thus avoiding what is still a much debated question. Her definition seems to be Populist in nature which is a popular definition although more evident in non-Academic writings than Academic ones. Not to deride it since there have been several respectable scholars who have argued for it but it is far from being the most common or accepted one. The Populist definition of a crusade requires great popular enthusiasm and eschatological beliefs. Since the Traditionalist and Pluralist definitions exclude the Heraclian campaigns it's obvious why he chose the view he did but it is rather deceptive.

So now to the history. As is to be expected it is rather superficial. Regan never really gets into what Byzantine society was like or how they fought wars. For all its problems Walter Kaegi's book Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium is more detailed in every way. Amongst other things the last 50 pages of this book are devoted to what happened after Heraclius right up to the First Crusade while Kaegi's entire book is devoted to the man. Kaegi also delves a bit into the psychology of the man and the many cruel things which he had to do in order to acquire and maintain his throne. Regan's Heraclius is a saint. As usual he has fallen in love with his subject and is all but oblivious to his faults. A major plus for Regan's book though is the illustrations and photographs. Nineveh is in Iraq which is a country I am unlikely to visit for quite some time so his photos are essential. It is also the only book on Heraclius that is casually readable. Kaegi's book is dense and often well-nigh incomprehensible. This book for all its faults is written in an easy style and is an entertaining read. Those who hunger for more as I often do after reading one of Regan's books can go to Kaegi and try to piece together what he's saying. Despite the generally negative tone of this review the book isn't bad, just disappointing. Anyone looking for a light read that will teach them about an era that is generally ignored should seek out this book. There is depressingly little popular history on the Byzantines and what little there is tends to be summaries of the Empire's history as a whole. Just remember that things weren't as clean and clear-cut as Regan makes out.

After 700 years of intermittent hostilities between Rome and Persia, the Cold War of the ancient world again turned hot. The murder of the Emperor Maurice by the usurper Phocas gave the Persians the excuse to strike. In an age where the idea of religion has retreated on the whole in the Western world, if not evaporated entirely one of the first difficulties any historian is to portray a mind-set where it was central not only to the protagonists, but the society they lived in and informed everything they did
Regan manages to tie together the political background and the religious framework to tell the cataclysmic story of the 7th century Middle East as Heraclius wrested control of the Byzantine Empire back as it as disintegrating under Persian and Slavic attack, reorganising it and holding it together long enough to strike back destroying the Sassanid Empire. Then, losing it to the armies of Islam as they erupted from the desert, taking advantage of a war-weary, devastated world and a generation who had grown up not knowing Byzantine overlordship and who bitterly resented its attempts to reassert fiscal and religious control.
He explores the struggle Heraclius faced with the development of the idea of the struggle between good and evil in the temporal sphere as an armed struggle between the forces of light nd dark against the Zoroastrian Persians and the initial confusion over Islam, regarded as a heresy, which may be why they took so long to get to grips with it mentally.
Like so much else in Dark Age Europe, the idea of crusade had its roots in the East, 450 years before Urban II's preaching. Interestingly enough as well, an idea that Islam capitalised on when it suited them in their expansion as it wasn't love and reason that took them from the Atlantic to Central Asia in less than a hundred years.
A useful potted history of Byzantium up to the 11th century that shows its struggles in an ideological as well as a military light.

This book reminds us that Christian crusades to liberate Jerusalem's holy places long predate the so-called First Crusade of the eleventh century. More than four hundred years earlier, the Byzantine Empire used Christian themes in its struggles against threats from the East. Regan is particularly effective in describing the campaigns of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, who regained Jerusalem from the Persians. Regan follows the story through the era of Islamic expansion, the Turkish conquests, and the first Western Crusade. Among other things, readers will discover the original Church of the Holy Sepulcher built by Constantine, much more impressive than the current version. Like the Jewish Temple, it was destroyed by invaders. The book, written in an accessible style, includes black and white photographs and some basic maps.

Geoffrey Regan's books are entertaining. Read his Military blunders 1&2, which by the way were much better books than this one. He wishes to elaborate on the first true crusader, Heraclius but starts off with his typical satire, related to the times of Constantine's father and the birth of Byzantium. The early history of Byzantium was unnecessary. He could have written more on Heraclius himself. The lack of description of key battles and undertakings do not do justice to a man who deserves more. There are a couple of interesting pictures. On the good aspect of the book. One gets to read a bit of interesting history and legends. The author uses good judgement to question the authenticity of the True Cross and the Holy Sepulchre. Overall i'd say its a good book to keep but i wont recommend buying the hardback version.