The ummah that was never there

[kılıç_mehmet]

When I get the chance I'll dig you up a list of religious warfare in the west.

You do know that before the Crusaders ever got to the East they used the Jews along the way as a warm up block, right?

Well, I don't think that the jews have provided them with the good scrap they got as they were trying to pass through the death trap called anatolia.
However, the actual reason why those people went on the crusade had more economical and political grounds:
Economically, Europe was really going through hard times. Death, disease, famine and wars left the people in a state where they were ready to fight with their heads between their arms. The promises of heaven and all were all like bonuses to the riches they were promised in the lands to the east that were under the rule of the saracens, who also controlled the trade from the silk road, and the Turkish tribes that just got there were doing what they did best. Raiding, looting and cutting off trade routs, even to other moslem nations, sometimes.

And the Byzantine empire had just lost a major battle against the Turk in Manzikert, as the Byzantines were like the only buffer region between the frank to the west, and the saracen to the east. Without it, they would be vulnerable. So the pope decided to send reinforcements, and they would cut a path through anatolia to the holy lands, all while dealing blows to the saracen kingdoms along the way.
However, it didn't really go well as they thought it would.
The people they took with them were generally peasantry folk, who were already hungry, had to provide for their own gear, and were ruled over by some hotshot feudal knight who did not even answer to a king most of the time.
So they helped themselves along the road, not just only attacking the richer jews, but also christian villages from which they drew their nourishment.

In all, they finally reached constantinople.
The Sultan Khan of the Seljuk turks thought that this was just another people's crusade like the one before, and did not organize an army to fight it. He lost three cities to the crusaders, but thought that the best way to fight them was not to engage them at all, and retreated, burning everything, poisoning wells, and conducting small raids on crusader supply routes and etc.
By the time the crusaders reached the holy city, they were already exhausted, and the peasant army was completely destroyed/captured.
The knights, thanks to their skills were to capture the city, and set up a few other christian kingdoms around the place. However, it did not last long.