Intrigue and wonderful vision. How Antioch was conquered. Crusade - The Tough We Didn't See

Look at the maps of military operations, at the bold arrows of military operations, at the blots of areas of deployment of units and subunits, at the combs of positions and flags of headquarters. Take a look at thousands of names of settlements. Big and small. In the steppes, mountains, forests, on the coasts of lakes and seas. Strain your inner vision, and you will see how locusts in uniforms fill cities, settle in villages and hamlets, reach the most remote villages and everywhere leave behind the tortured bodies and devastated souls of raped women.

Neither army brothels, nor local prostitutes, nor front-line girlfriends are able to replace the ritual of violence for a soldier. He does not feel the need for physical love, but a thirst for destruction and unlimited power.

“There are many prostitutes in the fascist convoys serving German officers. In the evenings, Nazi officers from the front arrive at the convoys, and drunken orgies begin. Often Hitler’s thugs bring local women here and rape them...”

It's hard to say what goes on in a soldier's head when he turns into a rapist. Inexplicable, satanic, terrible things happen in the mind.

Only WAR can know about this.

A dark and incomprehensible story is connected with the name of the holder of the Order of Courage, Colonel Yu.D. Budanov, who, while fighting in Chechnya, arrested an 18-year-old girl in the village of Tangi-Chu and during interrogation allegedly raped and strangled her. At least, they remained alone for more than an hour, after which the Chechen woman was found naked and dead.

The scandal shook the country for almost a whole year and did not leave the pages of newspapers and television screens.

“Budanov stated during the investigation: he had information that the sniper was the mother of a young Chechen woman, and he wanted to find out where she was hiding. The girl threatened him in response, began screaming, biting, and reached for his gun. In the struggle, he tore her jacket and bra. And then he grabbed her by the throat. The colonel was drunk and admitted that he committed the murder in a state of passion. He denied the rape."

As the examination showed, the stress disorder was indeed the result of three shell shocks. Hence the inappropriate behavior, twilight state and inability to control oneself. Therefore, at the time of the crime, the colonel was in a state of passion.

Budanov was thoroughly examined. In such cases, the person undergoes special testing.

So-called clinical conversations are held with the subject about his past, about past illnesses. They do tests for aggressiveness. The patient is shown about 20 pictures of ambiguous content (two are kissing, one is peeping...). Used for diagnostics special devices. For example, nuclear magnetic resonance, which identifies affected brain cells.

The rape charge was eventually dropped.

Feedback from the population in the press was very diverse, ranging from the paradoxical proposal to erect a monument to the colonel and award the title of Hero of Russia to the bloodthirsty verdict: “He deserves capital punishment!”

But, in my opinion, the person who came closest to the truth was a resident of the Sverdlovsk region, Lidia K.: “My son was killed by a sniper in Chechnya. I don't want revenge. But I consider it a mockery to try a man who was sent to war, but is judged by the standards of peaceful conditions.”

“Yes, Dmitrich’s “tower” has collapsed,” Budanov’s subordinates said gloomily. “Sit here for six months without leaving, look at the heads shot by the same snipers - you’ll climb like a cow!”

Throughout human history, women have been subjected to violence during combat. “The history of mass rape is at the same time the history of massacres and pogroms. They raped people at all times and in all wars. Men have always gratified their hatred on the weakest members of human society in order to enjoy the easily accessible triumph of a sense of superiority.”

From ancient times to modern times, victorious soldiers considered rape to be their inalienable right, something of a reward.

The words of the call for an assault that have become popular: “There is wine and women in the fortress!” best characterizes the attitude towards women in war.

Alas, it was precisely these words (or the stimulus that was embodied in them) that often forced discouraged soldiers to perform miracles of courage and heroism. “The body of a dishonored woman became a ceremonial battlefield, a parade ground for the parade of victors.”

Women were simply raped, and raped to death. They raped and then killed. Or they killed first and then raped. Sometimes they were raped during the victim's death throes.

They were raped by soldiers with the Order of the Legion of Honor and St. George's bows, with Iron Crosses and medals "For Courage".

Already in the Bible (in the Book of Judges) it talks about the abduction of women, which meant mass rape.

During the next civil war Israelites with the Benjamites, the Israelites, as was their custom, struck everyone “with the sword, both the people in the city, and the cattle, and everything that was encountered, and they burned all the cities that were on the way with fire.” And having killed all the Benjamite women, the Israelites in return decided to gift their defeated compatriots with trophy virgins and sent an entire expedition to Jabesh-gilead specifically for this purpose. “And the congregation sent there twelve thousand men, mighty men, and gave them command, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the sword, both the women and the children. And this is what you do: consign every man and every woman who has known a man’s bed to the curse. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabez-gilead four hundred virgins who had not known a man's bed, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. And the whole congregation sent to speak with the sons of Benjamin, who was in the rock of Rimmon, and declared peace to them. Then the sons of Benjamin returned and gave them wives which they had left alive from the women of Jabesh-gilead; but it turned out that this was not enough.”

The Israelites then recommended to their former enemies that on the Feast of the Lord they should raid Shiloh, “which is north of Bethel and east of the road leading from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebhonah. And they commanded the children of Benjamin and said, Go and sit in the vineyards. And see, when the maidens of Shiloh come out to dance in round dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each of you take a wife from the maidens of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. And when their fathers or their brothers come with a complaint to us, we will say to them: “Forgive us for them; for we did not take a wife for each of them in the war, neither did you give them one; Now it’s their own fault.” The sons of Benjamin did so, and took wives according to their number from those who were in the dance, whom they kidnapped, and they went and returned to their inheritance, and built cities, and began to live in them.”

The oldest literary evidence in Europe about rape in war is in Homer's Iliad. The Greek commander Agamemnon, who led the siege of Troy, tried to convince his hero Achilles to continue the fight with the promise that after victory he would send to Achilles’ harem all the women of the island of Lesbos and the city of Troy, who would be “the most beautiful after Helen.”

When the Vandals burst into Rome in 455, for fourteen days they not only robbed, set fire and killed the inhabitants, but also staged the first mass hunt in history for women with the aim of raping them. Then this practice began to be repeated more and more often. Before the Vandals, “civilized” peoples tried to save the most attractive captives and virgins in order to sell them to slave traders as profitably as possible.

“There is also a scary discovery in Kyiv. Part of the layer of the death of the city is a potter's semi-dugout, in one half of which there was a workshop, in the other, separated by a stove, there was a residential part.

At the entrance to the dugout there are two people lying: a man of medium height with a slight Mongoloid appearance, wearing a helmet typical of the steppe dwellers, with a crooked saber. And tall, without armor, with an axe. On the floor of the workshop is the skeleton of a young woman in a crucified position; two daggers are driven into the hands of the skeleton, the blades of which go deep into the earthen floor. And on the stove, in another “room” - the skeletons of children four and five years old... While... the Mongols were killing their father and raping their mother, the children climbed onto the stove...”

In 1097, a detachment of Byzantine troops joined the army of the crusaders of the First Crusade. Quite a special squad. The fact is that the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Komnenos, having received a letter from Pope Urban III, began to call for volunteers to stand under the banners of the liberators of the Holy Sepulcher, luring them with the opportunity to rape conquered women with impunity during the campaign. And the Byzantines willingly went to war.

However, a woman as a prey at all times attracted all kinds of adventurers, pirates, conquistadors, vagabonds and outcasts to war, who were ready to risk their lives, and in return, in addition to enrichment as a result of robberies, they took advantage of the women of the vanquished.

For such people, rape became something like a drug, a manic addiction.

The horror after the storming of Constantinople on April 12, 1204 during the Fourth Crusade was indescribable. “The sack of the city has no parallel in history,” writes the English historian Stephen Rankman. He reports how the crusaders rampaged through the city for three days: “The French and Flemings were seized by a wild impulse of destruction and broke away from their occupation only to rape and kill.”

However, when the Turks captured the city in 1453, the picture repeated itself. Rankman describes how attractive young girls and Nice boys, who tried to find protection in the St. Sophia Cathedral, were sent by the Turks to their military camp.

During the Third Period of the Italian Wars 1521–1559. “The army slowly advanced through Namburg, Coburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg to Augsburg. At the same time, the Spaniards “managed things badly.” Along the entire route along which the emperor (Charles V, who was both the German Kaiser and the Spanish king) passed, lay many dead bodies. The Spaniards treated women and girls just as poorly, sparing none of them. From Bamberg they took 400 women with them to Nuremberg and, having dishonored them, drove them away. At present it is hardly possible to convey all the horrific details of their atrocities. But Bartholomew Zastrow, the envoy of the Pomeranian dukes under Charles V, talks about them with great composure. “Isn’t this a naughty nation?...”

Of course - naughty if the women were only driven away after the rape, and not chopped into pieces and hung on the branches of roadside trees. This means that women and girls were not treated as badly as those whose bodies were seen by the emperor passing by.

And if the details of the atrocities have reached our time in a very meager presentation, then let us pay attention to another aspect. Why was there a need to dishonor someone if the army was followed by whole herds of “corrupt women” who easily served the soldiers for literally pennies (and the soldiers had money)?

A terrible fate befell women in the Thirty Years' War. In 1631, the troops of the Bavarian field marshal and generalissimo Count Johann Tilly and the cavalry of the imperial general G.G. Pappenheim captured the Saxon capital of Magdeburg and carried out a terrible massacre there. Of the thirty thousand inhabitants of the city, only about ten thousand people, mostly women, survived. Most of them were driven into a military camp by Catholic troops for mass rape.

This is a manifestation of the thirst for violence, which has nothing to do with the satisfaction of sexual needs.

In the “Charter of the Sea” of Peter the Great, in chapter 16 of the fifth book, the death penalty or exile to the galleys is provided for those who “rape the female sex.” But this applied to peacetime conditions. Try to keep the soldiers in the war!

And did Peter’s grenadiers and dragoons really stand on ceremony in Noteburg and Narva?

Descriptions have been preserved of how, during the storming of Warsaw in 1794, Russian soldiers raped and killed Polish Catholic nuns.

Documents from 1812 tell of how “girls as young as ten were raped in the streets.” Fleeing from the French, young women smeared their faces with soot and dressed in rags, trying to look as unattractive as possible and thereby save themselves from dishonor. But, as you know, “feminine nature cannot be hidden.” There are known cases of Muscovites throwing themselves from bridges to avoid rape.

Arnold Toynbee, later a world-famous English historian, published two books in 1927 about the atrocities of German soldiers in Belgium and France at the beginning of the First World War: apparently with the approval of his officers, although without their orders, German soldiers A huge number of girls and women were raped and placed in front-line or stage brothels.

In the 1930s, the Japanese committed atrocities in China. An example is the unprecedented rape of women in the Chinese city of Nanjing in 1936.

Here is the testimony of a Chinese woman, Wong Peng Jie, who was fifteen years old when the Japanese occupied the city:

“My father, sister and I had already been relocated to a house located in a refugee zone in which there were more than 500 people. I often saw Japanese men coming and looking for women. Once a woman was raped right in the yard. It was at night, and we all heard her screaming heart-rendingly. But when the Japanese left, we never found her, apparently they took her with them. None of those they took away on trucks returned. Only one managed to get home after being raped by the Japanese. The girl told me that the Japanese rape everyone many times. Once it happened: a woman was raped, and then the Japanese began to poke reed stalks into her vagina, and she died from this. I hid every time a Japanese approached the house - that’s the only reason they didn’t catch me.”

During the first month of the occupation of Nanjing alone, Japanese troops brutally raped 20,000 city women, and in total, before 1945, more than two hundred thousand women were raped here.

Accounts from women who were brought forward by prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials document numerous rapes in the occupied areas during World War II. There are certificates of use sexual violence towards Jewish women by security personnel in concentration camps.

However, the allies managed to take “revenge.”

Thus, in early 1945, French soldiers raped thousands of German women upon entering Baden-Württemberg.

IN American army There were 971 convictions for rape during the Second World War. “There is no doubt that many rapes went unreported because no official investigation was carried out into the misconduct of the Allied armies.”

I think that two more zeros can be safely added to the number 971.

Although the U.S. military criminal code carries harsh penalties, rape was for the most part tolerated by commanders. In Vietnam, the American command also turned a blind eye to “incidents with Viet Cong women.”

One of the US Marines explained the motives for rape during the Vietnam War: “When we searched people, the women had to take off all their clothes, and under the pretext that it was necessary to make sure that they did not hide anything else.” where, men used their penises. It was rape."

Do not rush to be indignant at this “naive” explanation of the Marine: “... you need to make sure... the men used...” Better listen to the memories of one of our “Afghans.”

“When leaving Jalalabad, in the town of Samarkhel, a truck was fired at from the window of a small shop. With machine guns at the ready, they jumped into this lousy little shop and in the back room, behind the counter, they found an Afghan girl and a door to the courtyard. In the courtyard were a kebab seller and a Hazara water-carrier. They paid in full for the murdered man. It turns out that a person can fit twenty-two kebabs, but the last one needs to be pushed in with a skewer, and only then does the person with the kebab in his throat die. But the water-carrier was lucky; he was immediately killed by machine-gun fire. But it was a girl who shot, she had a pistol, it was so beautiful, she hid it in her panties, she was a bitch...”

It is not difficult to imagine the fate of this Afghan woman, if the search was carried out in her underpants. Perhaps there was no sexual intercourse as such at that moment. Fury already gave me an excess of adrenaline. But kebabs can be rammed into a person’s throat not only...

At the same time, I involuntarily recall one document from the times of the Great Patriotic War. His friend Ebalt writes to the German lieutenant:

“It was much easier in Paris. Do you remember those honey days? The Russians turned out to be devils. I have to tie it up. At first I liked this fuss, but now that I’m all bitten and scratched, I do it easier - a gun to my head, this cools the ardor. Recently, a Russian girl blew herself and Chief Lieutenant Gross up with a grenade. Now we strip them naked, search them, and then... After all that, they disappear without a trace.”

The occupiers immediately noticed that “the Russians turned out to be devils.”

“Among the reasons for the defeat of fascist troops on the territory of our country (along with severe frosts), German historians seriously name the virginity of Soviet girls. The invaders were amazed that almost all of them turned out to be innocent. For the fascists, this was an indicator of the high moral principles of society.

The Germans had already walked all over Europe (where many pliable women easily satisfied the sexual desire of the invaders) and understood: it would not be so easy to conquer people with a core, morally strong.”

I don’t know how the German command obtained statistics about the victims’ virginity. Either it obliged the soldiers to report, or this was done by the censorship of military field mail, which “combed” soldiers’ letters, after which, with German accuracy, they compiled a classification of those raped for the higher authorities of the Imperial Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Alfred Rosenberg. Perhaps these were special teams engaged in studying the virginity and temperament of future slaves of the Reich (which is quite possible after the creation by the fascists of the magical society "Thule" and the whole system of research institutes "Ananerbe", breeding a special breed of Aryan bees, sending expeditions around the world to searches for amulets and pagan artifacts, etc.).

In any case, it's disgusting.

But the story of mass rape in war did not end with World War II. Wherever another armed conflict flared up, be it in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, military violence gave rise to violence against women.

In 1971, the most notorious was the widespread rape that took place during the Pakistani invasion of Bangladesh. During this armed conflict, Punjabis raped between 200,000 and 300,000 women!

In the late 80s - early 90s of the 20th century, a civil war broke out in Sudan. The black Nubian population was attacked by the Muslim Arabs of General Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The Sudanese government called it counter-insurgency.

African Rights co-chairman Alex de Waal said at the time: “What the Nubians endure is remarkably similar to the brutal treatment of black slaves in 19th-century America: forced labor, broken families, sexual coercion.”

Most likely, Mr. de Waal expressed himself quite softly and diplomatically. This “sexual coercion” can be seen in the case of its victim, Abuk Maru Kir, a resident of Nyamlell village in South Sudan. “Leaving behind 80 corpses, the soldiers herded the surviving residents into a column. Abuk was then horrified to hear the screams of her sister and other women as they were dragged into the bushes. Soon they took her too. After she was raped by a third person, Abuk lost consciousness.”

Government soldiers turned black women and girls into concubines. Any child born from such a “marriage” was considered an Arab. One 17-year-old Nubian girl who escaped slavery told an investigator from African Rights that she was raped for a hundred nights (!) in a row.

Women were treated mercilessly in Kuwait and by Iraqis during the 1990 Gulf War. It is estimated that more than five thousand women were raped here. Most of the victims were then kicked out of the house by their husbands.

It is documented that mercenaries from the Middle East and Afghanistan raped women in Chechnya, since the local population was alien to them.

The soldiers raped not only spontaneously, satisfying their ferocity. In the 20th century, rape began to be resorted to as a means of terrorizing civilians.

A terrible mark was left behind by the troops of General Chiang Kai-shek in 1927 in Shanghai. They received orders not only to deal with the soldiers of the communist army, but also to rape and kill their women.

A French prosecutor presented materials in Nuremberg about mass rapes that were used as retribution for the operations of the French Resistance. This proves that in some cases rape was used to achieve military-political goals.

And on Eastern Front during the Second World War " German troops systematically carried out mass executions of civilians, women were raped, and their naked, mutilated bodies were exposed to the surviving townspeople.” To intimidate.

When approaching Stalingrad, German planes, along with bombs, bombarded the city with leaflets: “Stalingrad ladies, get your dimples ready!”

At the end of the war Soviet troops got the opportunity to bring down their hatred on Germany.

As Viktor Suvorov wrote in his acclaimed “Icebreaker”:

“The battalion drinks bitter vodka before entering battle. Good news: they were allowed to take trophies, they were allowed to rob. The commissioner shouts. Hoarse. Ilya Ehrenburg quotes: Let's break the pride of the arrogant German people!

The black pea coats laugh: how are we going to break our pride, by total rape?

Didn't all this happen? (...)

No, it happened! True, not in forty-one - in forty-five. Then they allowed the Soviet soldier to rob, calling it “taking trophies.” And they ordered to “break German pride...”

I know that many people treat V. Suvorov’s books with a fair amount of skepticism, and therefore I do not overuse his quotation. But there is ample evidence of an attack Soviet soldiers in 1945 on women in areas of East Germany, and especially in Berlin, which became the “city of women.”

You don't have to trust the fascists. But it’s hard not to believe eyewitnesses from among the liberators.

“...The headquarters has its own worries, the battle continues. But the city corrupts the soldiers: trophies, women, drinking bouts.

We are told that the division commander, Colonel Smirnov, personally shot one lieutenant, who from among his soldiers formed a line towards one German woman who was lying in the gateway...” (Description of the situation in Allenstein (East Prussia) after the entry of the Soviet Army at the end of January 1945, made by Lev Kopelev.)

Whatever they say, the female part of fascist Germany fully tried on the fate of the conquered nation.

Another veteran, who went through the war from the Kursk Bulge to Berlin, admits: “...Under fire, during attacks, I had no thought about it. (...) But in Germany our brother did not stand on ceremony. By the way, the German women did not resist at all.”

Cherepovets historian Valery Veprinsky noted:

“When our troops entered German territory, at first the command secretly allowed the soldiers to “satisfy their sexual hunger” - the winners are not judged. One acquaintance admitted to me that he and a friend were passing through an empty German village, went into a house to take something valuable and, finding an old woman there, raped her. But soon an order for looting came out. “The peaceful German population is not our enemy,” the command carried out explanatory work. And a certain Cherepovka resident, the liberator of Europe from the brown plague, thundered in “Magadan, the second Sochi” after the German Frau reported violence to the commandant’s office...”

After the order for looting, emboldened German women began to come with allegations of rape. There were many of these statements.

This led to new tragedies. Even in peacetime, it is not easy to prove the fact of rape: surveys, examinations, evidence. And what can we talk about during the war!

Perhaps many of the revenge brought false accusations against our soldiers.

But for me personally, the most truthful are the diaries of German girls, exhausted by fear and already far from any ideology and propaganda.

Diary entries of 17-year-old Berlin resident Lily G. about the capture of Berlin from 15.04. to 05/10/1945

“28.04. The fourth shell hit our house.

29.04. Our house has already been hit about 20 times. Cooking is very difficult due to the constant danger to life if you leave the basement.

30.04. When the bomb hit, I was with Frau Behrendt upstairs on the stairs in the basement. The Russians are already here. They are completely drunk. They rape you at night. I'm gone, mom is gone. Some 5–20 times.

1.05. Russians come and go. All the watches are gone. The horses lie in the yard on our beds. The basement collapsed. We are hiding at Stubenrauchstrasse 33.

2.05. The first night is quiet. After hell we found ourselves in heaven. They cried when they found it blooming lilac in the courtyard. All radios must be returned.

3.05. Still on Stubenrauchstrasse. I can’t go near the windows so the Russians don’t see me! There are rapes all around, they say.

4.05. No news from my father on Derfflingerstrasse.

5.05. Back to the Kaiserallee. Mess!

6.05. Our house was hit 21 times. We spent the whole day cleaning up and packing. Storm at night. Out of fear that the Russians would come, I crawled under the bed. But the house was shaking so much from the holes.”

But the worst thing seems to be the fate of women in civil wars. In the fight against an external enemy, at least some clarity is maintained: there are strangers, it is better not to fall into their hands, here there are our own, who will protect and will not offend. In a civil war, a woman, as a rule, becomes prey to both sides.

In 1917, the Bolsheviks, intoxicated by freedom, having misinterpreted it, clearly went too far with their projects of nationalization (or “socialization”) of women.

Here is a document drawn up on June 25, 1919 in the city of Ekaterinodar, after the White Guard units entered it.

“In the city of Ekaterinodar, in the spring of 1918, the Bolsheviks issued a decree, published in the Izvestia of the Council and pasted on poles, according to which girls aged 16 to 25 years were subject to “socialization,” and those wishing to take advantage of this decree had to apply to the appropriate revolutionary institutions. The initiator of this “socialization” was the Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Bronstein. He also issued “mandates” for this “socialization”. The same mandates were issued by the subordinate commander of the Bolshevik cavalry detachment Kobzyrev, the commander-in-chief Ivashchev, as well as other Soviet authorities, and the mandates were stamped by the headquarters of the “revolutionary troops of the North Caucasus Soviet Republic.” Mandates were issued both in the name of the Red Army soldiers and in the name of Soviet commanders, for example, in the name of Karaseev, the commandant of the palace in which Bronstein lived: under this mandate the right to “socialize” 10 girls was granted. Sample mandate:

Mandate. The bearer of this, Comrade Karaseev, is given the right to socialize in the city of Yekaterinodar 10 souls of girls aged from 16 to 20 years, whom Comrade Karaseev points out.
(Commander-in-Chief Ivashchev.)

On the basis of such mandates, the Red Army captured more than 60 girls - young and beautiful, mainly from the bourgeoisie and local students educational institutions. Some of them were captured during a raid organized by the Red Army in the City Garden, and four of them were raped there, in one of the houses. Others, about 25 souls, were taken to the Palace of the Military Ataman to Bronstein, and the rest to the Old Commercial Hotel to Kobzyrev and to the Bristol Hotel to the sailors, where they were raped. Some of those arrested were then released - this is how a girl was released, raped by the head of the Bolshevik criminal investigation police, Prokofiev, while others were taken away by the departing detachments of Red Army soldiers, and their fate remained unclear. Finally, some, after various kinds of cruel torture, were killed and thrown into the Kuban and Karasun rivers. So, for example, a 5th grade student in one of the Ekaterinodar gymnasiums was raped for twelve days by a whole group of Red Army soldiers, then the Bolsheviks tied her to a tree and burned her with fire, and finally shot her.

This material was obtained by a Special Commission in compliance with the requirements of the Charter of Criminal Procedure.”

However, the “White Guard” did not lag behind the Bolsheviks in this regard.

To paraphrase famous saying, one could say: “the reds will come and rape, the whites will come and rape too.” (For example, young girls from cities and nearby villages were usually brought to the train of the ataman-general Annenkov standing at the railway station, raped, and then immediately shot.)

Another form of rape in war was the sexual exploitation of women for the army or in the sex industry.

The author of The Shadow Side of Sex, Roy Escapa, wrote about how in 1971, Pakistani soldiers kidnapped school-age Bengali girls and took them to army headquarters, stripping them naked so that they could not escape. They were also used to film pornographic films.

“During the military operations in Kosovo (1999), women were caught and forcibly kept in underground dens. They were used by American soldiers and former fighters " Liberation Army Kosovo,” and then the concubines were killed and sent “to the organs.” They killed carefully so that these same organs were not damaged. And “they didn’t put me on needles, and they didn’t give me a lot of alcohol, so as not to damage the liver and other organs,” says Vera K, a girl who miraculously escaped. During police raids, such slave brothels were raided. In the rays of police flashlights, a terrible picture appears: in completely inhuman conditions - two at a time on narrow beds and on stale linen, or even just on pushed chairs, in tiny shabby rooms behind curtains - “girls” are being kept, who have long looked nothing like girls. Drunk, smoke-stained, exhausted, unwashed, with empty eyes, afraid of everything - they are no longer even fit for organs. Such people work out their tasks and disappear without a trace. Having finally realized that they can now be released, one of them says: “Why?” Where should I go now? It will only get worse... It’s better to die here.” The voice with which she says this is already dead.”

During World War II, the forced consignment of women to brothels was commonplace. "War feeds war." In this case, she fed herself with women's bodies.

“In Vitebsk, for example, the field commandant ordered girls aged 14 to 25 to report to the commandant’s office, ostensibly to be assigned to work. In fact, the youngest and most attractive of them were sent by force of arms to houses of brothel.”

“In the city of Smolensk, the German command opened a brothel for officers in one of the hotels, into which hundreds of girls and women were driven; they were dragged by the arms, by the hair, mercilessly dragged along the pavement.”

A teacher in the village of Rozhdestveno, Trofimova, says: “All our women were driven to school and a brothel was set up there. Officers came there and raped women and girls at gunpoint. 5 officers collectively raped the collective farmer T. in the presence of her two daughters.”

Brest resident G.Ya. Pestruzhitskaya spoke about the events at the Spartak stadium, where the local population was herded: “Every night drunken fascists burst into the stadium and forcibly took away young women. Over two nights, German soldiers took away more than 70 women, who then disappeared without a trace..."

“In the Ukrainian village of Borodaevka, Dnepropetrovsk region, the Nazis raped all the women and girls. In the village of Berezovka, Smolensk region, drunken German soldiers raped and took away all the women and girls aged 16 to 30.”

“The 15-year-old girl Maria Shch., the daughter of a collective farmer from the village of Bely Rast, was stripped naked by the Nazis and taken along the street, entering all the houses where German soldiers were located.”

Brothels for guard soldiers existed at concentration camps. Women were recruited only from among prisoners.

And although the living conditions there were somewhat better, in fact it was just a continuation of the torture. The soldiers, maddened by daily executions, took out their mental disorders on the silent, foreign-language prisoners. And there were no bouncers and “mothers”, usual for such establishments, ready to stand up for the tortured woman. Such brothels turned into testing grounds for all kinds of vices, perversions and manifestations of complexes.

Contraception methods were not used, as in brothels with German staff. Prisoners were cheap material. “When pregnancy was discovered, the women were immediately destroyed.” They were replaced with new ones.

One of the worst brothels was at the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp. The average "service life" was three weeks. It was believed that during this time a woman would neither get sick nor become pregnant. And then - the gas chamber. During the four years of Ravensbrück's existence, more than 4 thousand women were killed in this way.

I would like to end this chapter with a quote from E. Remarque’s book “The Spark of Life”.

“We can’t think about the past, Ruth,” he said with a slight hint of impatience in his voice. - Otherwise, how will we be able to live at all?

I don't even think about the past.

Why are you crying then?

Ruth Holland wiped the tears from her eyes with her fists.

Do you want to know why I wasn't sent to gas chamber? - she suddenly asked.

Bucher vaguely felt that something would now be revealed that it would be better for him not to know about at all.

“You don’t have to tell me about this,” he said hastily. - But you can say it if you want. It doesn't change anything anyway.

This changes something. I was seventeen. And then I wasn’t as scary as I am now. That's why they left me alive.

Yes,” said Bucher, still not understanding anything.

He looked at her. For the first time, he suddenly noticed that her eyes were gray and somehow very clean and transparent. He had never seen such a look from her before.

Don't you understand what this means? - she asked.

They kept me alive because they needed women. Young women for the soldiers. And for the Ukrainians too, who fought alongside the Germans. Do you understand now?

Bucher sat as if stunned. Ruth didn't take her eyes off him.

And they did this to you? - he asked finally. He didn't look at her.

Yes. They did this to me. - She didn't cry anymore.

It is not true.

This is true.

That's not what I mean. I mean, you didn't want this.

A bitter laugh escaped her throat.

There's no difference.

Now Bucher raised his eyes to her. It seemed that all expression had faded from her face, but that is why it turned into such a mask of pain that he suddenly felt and understood what he had only heard before: she told the truth. And he felt that the truth was tearing his insides with its claws, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it yet, in that first second he wanted only one thing: that there wouldn’t be such torment in that face.

This is not true, he said. - You didn't want this. You weren't there. You didn't do this.

Her gaze returned from the void.

This is true. And this cannot be forgotten.

None of us are given the ability to know what can be forgotten and what cannot be forgotten. We have a lot to forget. And to many..."

In my opinion, this is the best answer to the question of whether a monument to raped women is needed.

I want to talk about one of the most ambitious and ambitious films of its time - " Crusade".

The Crusades are very fertile ground for cinema, but this topic is very rarely addressed. Hollywood is afraid of offending Muslims (or Jews and Christians) and the most that the viewer can count on is all sorts of politically correct shit, such as Kingdom of Heaven (2005) by Ridley Scott.
But all this could change back in 1993, when Paul Verhoeven, a talented and fearless director who was never afraid of controversial and risky topics, took up the matter. Being a big fan of this historical period, Verhoeven knew a lot about the Crusades and wanted to show their true essence on the big screen, giving the viewer a feel for the morals of the Middle Ages.

The script was assigned to Valon Greene, the man who wrote The Wild Bunch (1969), Sorcerer (1977), WarGames (1983) and other films.
What do you think will happen if you cross the talents of Green, who gave us The Wild Bunch (1969), and Verhoeven, who loves blood and dismemberment? The result is Crusade - perhaps one of the bloodiest films of its time.
To say that this film is cruel means don't say anything. The level of violence is off the scale even by Verhoeven's standards! This was a real Game Of Thrones of its time - the script constantly mentions rape, dirt and other joys of the Middle Ages. At the same time, Valon Green is well read, understands the material, and reading his prose is a pleasure.

At that time, Verhoeven had three major hits under his belt and there were no signs of trouble: the script was ready, and the sets were already being built in Spain.
At the very last moment, Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger held a meeting with the producers, who demanded guarantees from the director that the budget would not exceed the 100 million mark. Verhoeven exploded: “What do you mean guarantees? There are no guarantees! I can’t control God, how can I guarantee you anything? This is absurd!”
Arnold describes the events this way: "I kicked him under the table to shut him up, but he wouldn't stop. That was the end of the movie. Paul was always trying to be honest, but you can be a little more selective about when to be honest and when to just be honest." moving forward with the project. It was a real shame."

As a result, Carolco Pictures studio stopped filming and decided to invest money in... attention... Cuttrhoat Island (1995)!!! I hope the people who made this decision burn in hell. Cutthroat Island bankrupted the studio, becoming one of the biggest failures in film history.

Below is a retelling of the plot.
The script was actively circulating on the Internet for a while, but for several years now all the links have been dead. I miraculously found it on sale for $18 on Lulu.

The film opens with the robbery of an abbey in France in 1095.
Hagen (Schwarzenegger) sneaks into the monastery under cover of darkness, while the abbot of the monastery is having fun with two servant boys in his chambers. Hagen is caught red-handed and sent to prison. The abbot sends for Count Emmich, who rapes a fifteen-year-old girl in a barrel of grapes. Having finished the rape, he concludes: “I pronounce this harvest well-seasoned.”
It turns out that Hagen is Emmich's illegitimate half-brother, to whom his father bequeathed half of his fortune. The abbot knows about this secret will and forces Emmich to give him a quarter of his possessions in exchange for Hagen's death sentence.
Hagen is sentenced to hanging, but by a lucky coincidence, Pope Urban II comes to the monastery and gathers people for the Crusade. After the pope's fiery speech about how Muslims are raping nuns and oppressing Christians in Jerusalem, Hagen feels that this is his chance to stay alive.
At night, Hagen uses a lamp to heat the shackles in which he is shackled and burns a cross on his back. His cellmate Ari, who was in Samaria, tells him about the Life-Giving Cross and the relics of John the Baptist. In the morning, Hagen bares his back and talks about how he had a vision that he was a knight who swore allegiance to the Pope in the battle for Jerusalem. Having told other details of his dream, Hagen receives a pardon and becomes the mascot of this Crusade. He is placed under the command of Emmich, who still wants the death of his illegitimate relative.

On the way to Jerusalem, Emmich and his henchmen attack Jewish newlyweds who find themselves in the way of the crusaders. Emmich wants to rape the girl right in front of the groom, but Hagen stands up for them and permanently disfigures Emmich's face, crushing his jaw with an ax.
The degree of hatred between the brothers increases even more, but instead of simply killing Hagen, Emmich decides to make him suffer: in the port he sells Hagen and Ari into slavery to Barbary pirates. What follows is a colorful scene of boarding the ship. Having been captured, Ari, exposing his genital organ and remembering a few words in Arabic, convinces the invaders that he is a Muslim who completed the hajj to Mecca and was captured by the crusaders.
Meanwhile, an unenviable fate awaits Hagen: his friend is castrated right before his eyes (a truly terrible scene). Ari appears at the very last moment and saves Hagen, ransoming him from the savage surgeon. It turns out that Uncle Ari is an adviser to Prince Ibn Khaldun, who rules in Jerusalem, and now Hagen will be part of his personal guard. There is no choice - either slavery or service with a Muslim. The only chance to escape is to wait until the city is besieged by the Crusaders.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Hagen learns the truth - there is no persecution of Christians. Jews, Muslims and Christians live in peace and can freely practice their religion. There in Jerusalem, Hagen falls in love with Leila, the daughter of Ibn Khaldun. Leila protects her virginity and therefore indirectly enjoys Hagen's body by sending him her servant.

Hagen finds Jarvat, kidnaps Leila, but is captured by Emmich's people, who, according to the good old tradition, want to rape her. Fortunately, Leila miraculously manages to escape, although she is again captured by Jarvat, and Hagen is sent to Emmich, to the crusader camp. There is complete debauchery and disorganization in the camp, and soon they are attacked by Muslims, led by Ibn Khaldun.
Hagen, having gained fame as a seer and talisman of the Crusade, inspires his fellows to victory in a very beautiful and poetic scene: the setting sun projects his silhouette - in black armor, killing crowds of Muslims - onto a thick wall of smoke. He thrusts his two-handed sword into the back of one of the fighters and the sword becomes like a cross, washed by the sunset light... The crusaders, seeing a sign from above in this murder, begin to gain victory and soon put the Muslims to flight.

What follows is a large-scale scene of the storming of Jerusalem, but Hagen does not participate in it: at night, with the help of Ari, he sneaks into the city in search of Leila. Jarvat holds her captive and Hagen tries to kill him, but their duel is interrupted by a shell hitting the castle wall. Ari, Hagen and Leila take to the streets of fallen Jerusalem.
- Death to the jews! - the crusaders shout, killing women and children.
- The Jews killed our Savior! Kill them! Destroy the name of Israel! - some hermit monk echoes them.
There is carnage in the streets.
It turns out that Ari is Jewish. In the crowd he sees his uncle Yakub and rushes to his aid. In the chaos and under the pressure of a huge mass of people, Ari finds himself locked in a synagogue, which is burned by the crusaders. Along with the synagogue, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher with the Life-Giving Cross is also burning. Hagen rushes in, places the cross on his back and, like Christ, leaves the temple engulfed in flames. The crusaders and ordinary people are fascinated by this spectacle, they kneel down and begin to pray. Hagen understands that a person possessing the Cross will enjoy enormous power and instructs the monks to hide it from prying eyes.

The time comes for the final duel with Emmich and Hagen literally cuts his enemy in half.
Seeing the reputation Hagen has gained, knight Godfrey invites him to swear allegiance to himself, but Hagen, disappointed and disgusted by this whole mess, refuses and leaves with Leila to the farm to lead a quiet and peaceful life.

The script ends with the caption: “Even under torture, the monks of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher refused to name the location of the Life-Giving Cross. It was never found.”

As we can see, this was a real Verhoeven - provocative, uncompromising and very cruel. The genre of historical adventure film skillfully incorporates a double bottom, although in my opinion Verhoeven went too far with “good” Muslims and “bad” Christians. We must not forget that Jews and Christians in Jerusalem were subjected to severe persecution: they could profess their faith, but at the same time their rights were infringed on literally at every step. In Muslim countries, people of other faiths always have the same fate: they are tolerated until a certain point.

History knows no subjunctive mood and the original film is now forever lost to the public. We have lost potentially one of best films 90s. In the end, everyone lost: Verhoeven, Schwarzenegger, the idiot producers and, of course, the audience.

Personally, I put this picture on a par with another unrealized masterpiece - Jodorowsky's Dune.

On the other hand, everything is not so bad and hopeless. The script has not lost its relevance and is so well written that there are still rumors about reviving the project. Who knows, maybe we'll see this film adaptation someday.
Although the original combo - Verhoeven + Schwarzenegger - still cannot be surpassed by anyone.

Probably everyone has heard and read about the Crusades. For most people, this concept is associated with romance, albeit somewhat brutal, with Richard the Lionheart and Pushkin’s poem about the “poor knight.” There was, of course, blood and sacrifices; war is war. This is what most modern people think. However, in the history of the Crusades there are facts that can not only surprise, but also shock anyone.

Fact No. 1. The Crusaders were cannibals!

In 1098, during the siege of the Syrian fortress of Maara, the knights from Europe were very hungry: the siege lasted two months, and was preceded by a difficult march through the desert. When the Muslims finally surrendered - on the condition that the victors would spare the city's inhabitants - the Crusaders entered the city, but did not find the abundance they expected. A monstrous massacre began. And after that - no less monstrous feasts. Chronicler Ralph Cohen wrote: “Some people said that, limited in food, they had to boil adult Muslims in cauldrons and skewer children and roast them.” Another chronicler Fulcher of Chartres reported: “With a shudder I can say that many of our people, pursued by an insane feeling of hunger, cut off pieces of buttocks from already killed Saracens, fried them on the fire and, without waiting until they were sufficiently fried, devoured them with a slurping sound, as if savages." And finally, Albert of Aachen was surprised that the crusaders did not limit themselves to eating the corpses of Saracens, but “even ate dogs.”

Fact No. 2. There were children among the crusaders.

There were nine crusades in total. The fourth ended in 1204, the fifth began in 1217. But between them there was another, probably the most tragic of all - the children's crusade. It all started with the fact that Jesus Christ allegedly appeared to a certain teenager Stephen from Cloix. He ordered the boy to lead the crusade and liberate the Holy Sepulcher without weapons, but solely by the power of prayer and the purity of young souls. Stefan began to preach and thousands of teenagers and children from all over France and then Germany followed him. According to contemporaries, Stephen's sermon attracted more than 30,000 people. This entire horde not only prayed, but also stole along the way in order to somehow get food. Having somehow reached Marseille, and it must be taken into account that children from Germany had to overcome the Alps with incredible difficulties, the young crusaders were faced with the need to get transport. Finally, two local merchants provided them with 7 ships. The teenagers boarded these galleys, sailed away, and no one has seen them since. Years later, certain monks who were on this campaign appeared in Europe. They said that the ships took the children straight to Algeria, where Muslim slave traders were already waiting for them, with whom merchants from Marseilles entered into a conspiracy.

Fact No. 3. There were women among the crusaders.

Yes, yes, many beautiful ladies, as well as simple townswomen and peasant women, went overseas to participate in the reconquest of Jerusalem, experience adventure and see distant countries. Most of them, of course, also performed female roles during a military campaign. Noble ladies inspired the warriors and healed their wounds, while the rest washed clothes and prepared food. However, among women there were also those who put a cross on themselves and fought side by side with men. The most famous Amazon during the Crusades was Ita of Austria. The beautiful margravine in 1101, as part of the South German knightly army, overcame Asia Minor- During this campaign, the crusaders were exhausted from hunger and thirst - and were ambushed. In this skirmish near the city of Heraclea, she died. According to one version, the brave beauty did not die, but was captured and sold to a harem in Khorasan. In addition, the Arabs talked about an unusual military detachment that was captured. The Saracens were amazed to find that they were women. Captives were sold into slavery to elderly Muslim women to provide protection from attacks on their chastity.

Fact No. 4. The Crusaders fought against Christians.

Devout Catholics, who dreamed of conquering Jerusalem from the infidels, did not consider the Orthodox Christians to be “correct” Christians, and behaved in the territory Byzantine Empire, as among Muslims. The Fourth Crusade ended with the sack of Constantinople and the removal of a colossal amount of valuables and relics from there to Europe. The Greek chronicler Nikita Choniates wrote this: “It is not that what amazes us is that they robbed things, but that they threw down the holy icons of Christ and his saints to the ground, trampled them underfoot, and if they found any decoration on them, they tore it off like at random, and the icons themselves were taken out to crossroads to be trampled upon by passers-by or used instead of fuel when cooking food.”

Fact No. 5. There were defectors among the crusaders.

There are cowards and traitors in any war. In the Battle of Khotyn in 1187, which became one of the main disasters of the knightly army during the Third Crusade, six knights from the army of the Count of Tripoli went over to Saladin’s side. As the chronicle reports, they told Saladin about the desperate situation in which the crusader army, tormented by thirst and tired from the long march, was in, and encouraged him to attack as soon as possible. What was the further fate of these people is unknown. It can be assumed that it was not particularly good - Saladin did not favor traitors.

Fact No. 6. The Crusaders fought not only in Asia, but also in Europe.

The First Crusade began, inspired by the words of Pope Urban II, who called for killing not only Muslims, but also everyone who professes a non-Catholic religion. Some of the knights understood these words very differently, and in 1096 the army of German crusaders moved in the opposite direction from Jerusalem - through the Rhine valley to the north. Here they carried out a bloody massacre of Jews in Mainz, Cologne and other German cities. This was the first case of mass persecution of Jews in Europe. But the crusaders were not limited to Jews. In the 13th century, they carried out a number of military operations in the Baltic states, whose population professed ancient pagan cults. Finns, Karelians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Curonians and other tribes became targets real hunt from the soldiers of Christ. They did not ignore the principalities of northern Rus', considering the Orthodox to be as infidel as pagans, Jews and Muslims. These campaigns in the Baltic states later became known as the Northern Crusades.

Fact No. 7. The Crusaders still exist today.

The knights went on their first crusade inspired by the call “Dieu le veut!” (God wants it that way!). These words became the motto of the Jerusalem Order of the Holy Sepulcher, established in 1099. Unlike many other orders of knighthood, this one still exists today. Its members include representatives of royal families, successful businessmen and scientists. Among famous people- members of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher can remember the composer Franz Liszt, the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and the Hollywood director John Furrow. There are brothers of this knightly order in Russia. In total, there are currently 28,000 members of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher in the world.

Now people associate the Middle Ages with fires, unsanitary conditions and bloody palace intrigues. If you remember the Crusades, then a common person unless he thinks about religious wars that violate Christian commandments. However, the history of that era and the crusades themselves is rich in various meanings, life experiences, examples of both meanness and courage.

Today we talk about the events that happened 920 years ago, in 1097, when the crusader army besieged the ancient city of Antioch-on-Orontes. The city seemed impregnable, and its eight-month siege almost led to the failure of everything. First Crusade.

Getting to know the East

The First Crusade became a very important cultural phenomenon. The European West, in fact, for the first time became acquainted with the amazing East, where the way of life, public order and culture in general were significantly different from the West. So, despite the selfish goals of most of the leaders of the crusade, there was no limit to the admiration and surprise of its participants.

The walls of Antioch, built over centuries, appeared in all their grandeur before the Crusaders in October 1097. An ancient trading city whose history dates back to approximately the 4th century BC. e. and where the followers of the teachings of Christ began to be called Christians for the first time, was located on the left bank of the Orontes River (on the site of the modern Turkish city of Antakya). During the era of Roman rule, Antioch was the fourth largest city in the empire, and during the Byzantine period - second after Constantinople. From 637 to 968, Antioch was in Muslim hands until Byzantium regained it. However, in 1084 the city again fell to the Muslims.

The height of the fortress walls of Antioch was 25 meters, which almost completely excluded the possibility of using assault ladders. The width of the walls was such that a team of four horses could drive along them. In addition, the walls were guarded by 450 watchtowers, and the mountains against which the walls rested did not allow the city to be completely blocked. However, by the time the Crusades began, Antioch was no longer the same. Wealthy Christian residents left the city because Muslims oppressed the Christian population if they refused to convert to Islam. As a result, Antioch lost its status as a significant trading point. Most of the houses were empty; of the many city gates, only five were operational. These circumstances somewhat simplified the task for the crusaders, but they did not dare to attack, resorting to the good old method - a siege.

Intrigue, hunger, looting

Overall, the Crusader leaders showed themselves to be poor strategists, resting after two years of continuous campaigning and fighting. Provisions were not calculated in case of a long siege, which is why famine soon began, many died, others looted, some did not hesitate to plunder even settlements where Christians lived. Individual noble knights began to leave the crusader army, withdrawing their troops. This affected the combat power of the besiegers. The siege dragged on, partly because the actions of the commanders were uncoordinated; many “pulled the blanket” on themselves, wanting to gain the laurels of the liberator of the ancient city. And this despite the agreement with the Byzantine basileus (emperor) Alexios I Komnenos that Antioch would return to the Byzantine Empire.

It has come quite Cold winter, then spring 1098. In May, the crusaders received news that the huge army of Emir Kerboga was moving to help the besieged. The siege would probably have had to be lifted if not for the betrayal. Prince Bohemond of Tarentum (who most wanted to get Antioch into his possession), even before the news of Kerboga's army, managed to come to an agreement with Firuz - either the commander or the gunsmith of the guards of the Antioch tower of the Two Sisters. Firuz, an Armenian, a Christian by birth, who was forced to convert to Islam, was ready to help several crusaders penetrate the tower for a large sum of money so that they would open the gates for their troops. The military council of the crusaders suspected Bohemond's intention to break the oath given to the Byzantine basileus, and refused the proposal of the Tarentine prince under the pretext that it was unworthy of a knight to resort to the tricks and deceit characteristic of women. But soon news of the approach of large enemy forces forced the leaders of the crusaders to launch an assault precisely according to Bohemond’s plan.

Key to Victory

On the night of June 2-3, 1098, the crusaders, brutalized by a tiring siege, hunger and other hardships, burst into the city. A merciless bloody massacre began, in which, in addition to the defenders of Antioch, at least 10 thousand inhabitants died. By the evening of June 3, the entire city was under the control of the crusaders, except for the citadel (it continued to defend itself), located in its southern part. The victory was celebrated with feasts and entertainment.

But the joy was soon overshadowed. Just two days later, Kerboga’s army finally approached the city and besieged it. Now the crusaders found themselves in the same position as the previous masters of Antioch. Only the position of the knightly troops was much less enviable. During the eight months that the inhabitants of Antioch were under siege, they ate almost all the provisions, and the hungry crusaders, in the first days of their rule in the city, finished off the rest. And there was nowhere for them to expect help; moreover, a significant part of the soldiers left the city soon after the successful assault. In addition, it was necessary to constantly repel attacks by the defenders of the citadel, the garrison of which was regularly replenished with reinforcements from Kerboga’s army. The starving crusaders began to eat leather belts, harnesses, tree bark... In the end, exhausted by hunger, they became completely indifferent to their future fate and only remained in constant prayer. It was as if the city had become a huge chapel.

On June 10, a poor monk from Marseille, Pierre Barthelemy, who took part in the crusade, told the army about the vision. The Apostle Andrew himself allegedly appeared to him and told him that the greatest relic, the spear of Longinus, was buried in the Antioch Church of St. Peter. And if the crusaders find him, they will be granted victory.

According to the Gospel, a Roman legionnaire pierced the side of Christ crucified on the cross with his spear to check whether He was dead. Bishop Adhemar, the legate of the Pope, who acted as the spiritual leader of the crusade, had already seen the spear of Longinus in Constantinople, but kept silent about his skeptical attitude towards the monk’s story, seeing the flash of hope in the eyes of the crusader army. In St. Peter's Cathedral, the slabs were raised, the ground was dug up and... A piece of iron was found that resembled a fragment of a spear tip. Happiness knew no bounds! Count Raymond of Toulouse immediately declared divine evidence of the impending victory.

On June 28, ready for battle, having removed their heavy armor from weakness, and practically without cavalry, the crusaders left the city and lined up in 12 detachments, stretching out in battle formation for a distance of one hour north of Antioch. Trumpets sounded, a spear was carried in front of the army, standard bearers opened the procession. Kerboga's army outnumbered them threefold (it is difficult to name the exact number, since the data is contradictory; there were probably about 25 thousand crusaders, about 75 thousand Muslims), they were well-fed and full of strength.

Kerboga decided that he could easily defeat the enemy, striking with all his might. He gave the order to feign a retreat in order to draw the crusader army into a more difficult terrain for battle. His warriors set fire to the grass behind them, and the archers, dispersing across the neighboring hills, showered the enemy with a hail of arrows. But the inspired crusaders could not be stopped. Matthew of Edessa, an Armenian historian and chronicler of the 12th century, wrote: “... the Christian army rushed together towards the foreigners, like fire that sparkles in the sky and burns the mountains.” Many soldiers later recalled that between their ranks they saw St. George the Victorious, St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki, and St. Mauritius, galloping on horses.

The battle itself was short when the crusaders finally caught up with Kerboga's troops. It was described by the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi (c. 1070-1160): “... extremely weakened, they went on the offensive against the troops of Islam, which were very strong and numerous... The advanced cavalry detachments fled, and many militias and volunteers were put to the sword who joined the ranks of fighters for the faith, burning with the desire to protect Muslims.” Human courage had never known anything like this before, and the loot of the crusaders was so enormous that it took several days to move everything to the city.

Selected places from the long history of the Crusades. Who advised the knights to go on a campaign against Jerusalem? Did women and children participate in the campaigns? What are the crusaders doing now?

Peter's idea

The knights were inspired to sew crosses on their clothes and fight in hot distant lands for the Holy Sepulcher by two people. The first person to come up with this brilliant idea was the former military man who became a hermit monk, Peter of Amiens. Allegedly, he visited Jerusalem, saw how Christian brothers were being insulted there, returned home and sounded the alarm. Peter walked around the cities, gathered crowds of people and beautifully proved to them that it was necessary to return the Holy Sepulcher, free the Christians, and erase the Turks into medieval radioactive ashes. Due to the lack of decent entertainment, media and the Internet, citizens listened to Peter with their mouths open. The image of a foolish beggar preacher had a very strong effect on those around him and soon Peter became a real “star”. People came in crowds to touch him, take a piece of his clothing or a lock of hair as a souvenir, attributed healing properties to him and were ready to do whatever he said.

For dad!

Then Pope Urban II came into the game, who realized that Peter and his supporters could be used very profitably. According to another version, it was the other way around, that is, first the Pope thought of the campaigns, and then Peter of Amiens supported him and began to work with the population. Officially, Urban II is considered the main inspirer of the Crusades. Having estimated how much wealth could be taken from the Holy Land and reflecting on ways to increase his shaky rating, on November 27, 1095, the pope made a fiery speech in the city of Clermont in France about the need to send troops to the Holy Land and forcefully wrest it from the tenacious clutches of the infidels.

God wants it this way

To make people more willing to go on a hike, the pope promised everyone participating the immediate remission of all ordinary sins, as well as the remission of mortal sins at a significant discount, forgiveness of all debts, a 100% guarantee of going to heaven, the Christian equivalent of 72 virgins, and he promised gold and diamonds, which can be obtained in the Holy Land. The people, as well as high-ranking priests and statesmen, liked the idea, the crowd shouted “Deus vult” (“God wants it this way”) several times and began to prepare for the campaign, which was scheduled for August 15, 1096.

The worst trip

The most ardent followers of Peter could not wait for August 1096; they could not wait to begin cutting a path with their father’s sword to the treasures of the Holy Land and at the same time free their fellow Christians. The poorest and most sinful organized themselves and moved towards the Holy Sepulcher. Many of them had neither weapons nor armor. It is said that approximately 30 thousand people were the first to march, most of them poor peasants. The newly-minted crusaders took their families with them (that is, wives, children and old people also went to return the Holy Sepulcher) so as not to miss their relatives on the road. Not everyone was able to stock up on enough food. The fact is that in the crusading turmoil, prices for what was needed for the campaign skyrocketed, so even purchasing the medieval version of doshirak was very difficult. Local residents of the countries that the crusading peasants met along the way were reluctant to share food, which led to armed conflicts. The first major battle contact with the enemy cost the lives of half of the detachment; children and women were captured and sold into slavery in Asian bazaars. Literally several dozen people reached the place. Peter, who led the "peasants' crusade", survived and joined the first official crusade. By the way, when the crusaders went to the Holy Land, the cross was sewn on their chest, and when they returned, they sewed it on their back.

Children's Crusade

Children did not remain aloof from papal propaganda, and messengers of God began to appear throughout Europe. God supposedly whispered to the boys that they had the honor of leading their peers and going to reconquer Jerusalem. Rumors about miracles performed by the chosen ones did their job, and peers of the newly-minted miracle workers ran away from home and gathered in detachments. The true inspirers of these young crusaders were slave traders who hoped to sell a large batch of European children in oriental bazaars. Actually, those who did not die on the road were loaded onto slave traders' ships. The troops of many thousands, led by the boy Nikolai (he was no more than 10 years old), who promised to reach the Holy Land “by sea as well as by land”, having lost half on the road, reached the Italian port of Brindisi, but they were not allowed further to certain death by one adequate local bishop. Then the fanatical children went to the Pope asking him to bless them for the sacred massacre. Dad advised them to wait until they came of age. Even by the standards of the Middle Ages, the children's crusades were game. By the way, it is believed that the participants in the campaign were not exactly children, but young men and teenagers, but this does not make the fact any less wild.

Hunger is not a thing

The First Crusade, the siege of the Syrian fortress of Maara, the crusaders are besieging it with all their might, the food has long since run out, there is desert everywhere you look. and so the Muslims surrender, albeit on the condition that the knights leave the inhabitants of the city alive. The crusaders enter the city in the hope of having a hearty meal, but it turns out that the Syrians have also been sitting without supplies for a long time. The Christians, completely maddened by hunger and disappointment, begin to catch and roast the enemies whom they had recently promised to spare. Chroniclers of the first crusade describe terrible scenes of cannibalism, and Albert of Aachen writes that even dogs were used up: “The crusaders did not limit themselves to eating only killed Turks and Saracens, they even ate dogs.”

He will die by the sword

The crusaders tried to shed light on their true religion not only on Muslims, but also on everyone who came to hand. The Pope generally spoke rather vaguely in his famous speech about enemies. For example, he hinted that it would be good to introduce Catholicism with the sword in lands where they profess any other religion, and at the same time eliminate pagans, Jews, and Orthodox Christians. They say that God approves of this matter. So in 1096, the crusaders deviated from the route and carried out massacres of Jews in the cities of Germany. And from 1198 to 1411, the crusaders attacked the pagan Slavic and Finnish tribes. In 1240, the knights-crusaders of the Livonian Order moved to Pskov and Novgorod, but, as is known, Alexander Nevsky prevented them from subjugating Rus' to the Pope, defeating them at Lake Peipsi in 1242.

Modern Crusaders

The Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem still exists. That is, the crusaders roam among us. The order dates back to 1099. The main goal of the order is to support Catholics in the Holy Land. For example, with funds from the order they are building Catholic churches, schools, hospitals. At one time, the Hungarian composer Liszt, the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Adenauer, and the kings and queens of many European countries were members of the order. The Crusaders even have their own website and headquarters in Rome in the Palazzo della Rovere. To become a crusader you must receive the Order of Merit of the Jerusalem Order of the Holy Sepulcher. It is awarded to people of impeccable moral character who are involved in charity. The motto of the Order is "Deus vult".