Tea at Trianon: The Crusades: The Lies, The Truth, and What Really Happened

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, August 10, 2025

The Crusades: The Lies, The Truth, and What Really Happened

From The Narrow Path:

Most people think the Crusades were a spontaneous outburst of medieval aggression - angry Christians charging into peaceful Muslim lands out of religious hysteria. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Crusades were not the beginning of a conflict. They were a response - and a very, very late one at that. To understand the Crusades, we must first rewind the clock. Not by a few years. Not by a few decades. But by centuries and most importantly, we have to understand Islam. So lets go back - not to the First Crusade in 1095, but to the very founding of Christendom’s most enduring enemy: Islam.
Islam did not begin as a peaceful spiritual awakening - it began with a sword in hand.
The Prophet Muhammad openly declared:
“I have been commanded to wage war against mankind until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger. If they do so, their blood and property are protected.” [^1]
This was not metaphor. When persuasion failed, coercion followed. Muhammad, a merchant, claimed he had been visited by the angel Gabriel (Jibril) and called to deliver Allah’s commands. The result was not just a faith - it was an empire built on submission (Islam literally means “submission”), and “Muslim” means “one who submits.”
By 610, Muhammad began preaching to the polytheistic Quraysh in Mecca. After over a decade of minimal success - just over a hundred followers - he was driven out in 622. But in Medina, he found power. And with power came violence. He launched raids, seized spoils, and began his conquest of Arabia.
“I have been made victorious through terror.” [^2]
Islamic conversion spread not by philosophical debate, but by ultimatum: accept Islam, or face the sword. “Fight them until they testify there is no god but Allah,” Muhammad told his followers [^3]. Spoils of war, women, slaves, land - these were promised to the faithful.
In the decade following his exile, Muhammad conducted or ordered no fewer than nine military campaigns a year [^4]. By 630, he marched into Mecca at the head of 10,000 men. The city that once rejected him now surrendered.
When the Quraysh leader Abu Sufyan hesitated, he was told to proclaim the shahada - “there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet” - or be killed on the spot. He obeyed [^5]. (Read more.)