The First Crusade Research Paper. The First Crusade was held only to satisfy the desire of Christians to reconquer the center of the Christian faith, Jerusalem, which has been controlled by the Muslim nation for more than 400 years. This military campaign was followed by grave cruelty and harsh actions against Muslims which cannot be justified except by religious and material interests. On 18 May 1906 the crusader army under the command of the Emicho of Flonheim reached the walls of Mainz and asked to open the city gates. After three days of invasions, the archbishop of the city opened the gates and the knights entered the city, starting to attack the Jewish quarter. Within days the entire Jewish diaspora of the city of Mainz was buried in this bloody massacre: Mainz had the largest Jewish quarter in Europe with a population of over 1000 people (counting the fact that almost every other city in medieval Europe had a population of more than 5000 citizens). All symbols of the Jewish faith were destroyed, the synagogue in which the annual meetings of the leaders of the Jewish faith were held was set on fire. The same fate befell cities such as Ruan, Reims, Trier, Prague, Metz and others. The Crusades began with military campaigns and massive robberies, which were not the main purpose. Eventually, robberies were commonplace for the knights, and Jews were killed for the ridiculous reason like "Their grandfathers crucified Jesus." The same Emicho of Flonheim robbed several churches before starting his military campaign towards Jerusalem. Other leaders of the First Crusade such as Godfrey of Bouillon and the Duke of Lower Lorraine regularly devastated monasteries in their own world... middle of paper... the rest were enslaved. The Crusaders killed everyone they saw, no matter if a person was Muslim, Jewish or Christian. All the squares of the city of Antioch were filled with corpses. Jerusalem was the main and last destination for the crusaders, the city was protected only by an army of a thousand soldiers, so the city quickly fell into ruin. On July 7, 1099 the knights reached the city, but on the 15th they already captured it. The entire Jewish diaspora was also killed, all gathered in the great synagogue, where the crusaders burned them along with the church itself. Nearly 10,000 Muslims were killed in the Dome of the Rock. Sometimes the killings were stopped with prayers, then the crusaders continued their "holy" massacre. The First Crusade ended with the same thing it began, and the same thing it originally was: with massacres and massacres..