History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12)

Collection of Vases, Modelled and Painted In the Grand Temple Philae Island
EGYPT DURING THE CRUSADES—RISE OF THE OTTOMAN POWER—NAPOLEON IN EGYPT—THE RULE OP THE KHEDIVES—DISCOVERING THE SOURCE OF THE NILE—ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH AND DISCOVERY.
Spread of Muhammedanism—Spirit of the Crusades—The Fati-mite Caliphs—Saladin’s brilliant reign—Capture of Damietta—Conquests of Beybars—Mamluks in power—Wars with Cyprus—Turkish misrule—Napoleon invades Egypt—Battle of the Pyramids—Policy of conciliation—Nelson destroys the French fleet—Napoleon in Syria—Battle at Mount Carmel—Napoleon returns to France—Negotiations for surrender—Kléber assassinated—French army surrenders—Rise of Mehemet Ali-Massacre of the Mamluks—Egyptian army reorganized—Ibrahim Pasha in Greece—Battle of Navarino-Revolt against Turkey-Character of Mehemet Ali—Reforms under his Rule—Ismail Pasha made Khedive—Financial difficulties of Egypt—England and France assume control—Tewfik Pasha becomes Khedive—Revolt of Arabi Pasha—The Mahdist insurrection—Death of General Gordon—Kitchener’s campaign against the Dervishes—Prosperity of Egypt under English control—Abbas Pasha becomes Khedive—Education, courts, and government of modern Egypt—The Nile; its valley, branches, and delta—Ancient irrigation systems—The Suez Canal, its inception and completion—The great dam at Aswan—Ancient search for the sources of the Nile—Modern discoveries in Central Africa—The Hieroglyphs—Origin of the alphabet—Egyptian literature—Mariettas discoveries—The German Egyptologists—Jeremiah verified—Maspero, Naville, and Petrie—Palæolithic man—Egyptian record of Israel—Egypt Exploration Fund—The royal tombs at Abydos—Chronology of the early kings—Steles, pottery, and jewelry-The temples of Abydos—Seals, statuettes, and ceramics.
The Ideal of the Crusader: Saladin’s Campaign: Richard I. in Palestine: Siege of Damietta: St. Louis in Egypt: The Mamluks: Beybars’ Policy.
The traditional history of the Christian Church has generally maintained that the Crusades were due solely to religious influence and sprang from ideal and moral motives: those hundreds of thousands of warriors who went out to the East were religious enthusiasts, prompted by the pious longings of their hearts, and Peter the Hermit, it was claimed, had received a divine message to call Christendom to arms, to preach a Crusade against the unbelievers and take possession of the Holy Sepulchre. That such ideal reasons should be attributed to a war like the Crusades, of a wide and far-reaching influence on the political and intellectual development of mediæval Europe, is not at all surprising. In the history of humanity there have been few wars in which the combatants on both sides were not convinced that they had drawn their swords for some noble purpose, for the cause of right and justice. That the motives prompting the vast display of arms witnessed during the Crusades, that the wanderings of those crowds to the East during two centuries, and the cruelties committed by the saintly warriors on their way to the Holy Sepulchre, should be attributed exclusively to ideal and religious sources is therefore quite natural. It is not to be denied that there was a religious factor in the Crusades; but that the religious motive was not the sole incentive has now been agreed upon by impartial historians; and in so far as the motives animating the Crusaders were religious motives, we are to look to powerful influences which gradually made themselves felt from without the ecclesiastical organisations. It was by no means a movement which the Church alone had called into being. On the contrary, only when the movement had grown ripe did Gregory VII. hasten to take steps to enable the Church to control it. The idea of a Crusade for the glory of religion had not sprung from the tenets of Christianity; it was given to mediaeval Europe by the Muhammedans.