Few
volunteers were forthcoming, and his own energies were diverted to another
channel by the outbreak of the War of Investitures. It was left for Urban II to
revive Gregory's project, in another and more popular form, at a moment when Henry
IV seemed a beaten and a broken man, and the unity of the Seljuk power had been
shattered by the death of Malik Shah. In reality the danger from the Turks was
then a thing of the past; but, even if Urban was correctly informed of their
weakness, it needed little knowledge of history to warn him that one aggressive
movement of Islam only died away to be succeeded by another. Like Gregory, he
desired to strengthen the Eastern Empire; but his plan was new - to found a Latin
state in Palestine for the defence of Jerusalem and the south-east Mediterranean.
As with the First Crusade, so with the Second and the Third; each was a
response to new victories of Mohammedan princes. The Second Crusade (1147) was
proclaimed in consequence of the fall of Edessa, the north-east outpost of the
Latin Kingdom. The Third (1189) was designed to recover Jerusalem and to
cripple the sultanate of Egypt, which, under Saladin, seemed on the eve of
absorbing not only Syria, but also Asia Minor and the Euphrates valley. The
signal failure of an expedition for which armies were raised by the Emperor,
the Kings of France and England, and many lesser princes, left the power of
Egypt an object of almost superstitious awe. The Fifth Crusade (1217) and the Seventh
(1248) expended their best energies in fruitless and disastrous descents on the
Nile Delta.
