First Crusader: Byzantium's Holy Wars

by Geoffrey Regan

The word 'Crusades' has traditionally referred to the wars fought after the late eleventh century to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims. Reagan argues that they actually began in the seventh century with the conquest by the Persians of the Byzantine Empire. In retaliation, the emperor Heraclius used Christian propaganda to turn the war into the first crusade. Coincidentally, Heraclius's career was unfolding at the same time as that of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. No sooner had Heraclius overthrown the power of Persia and regained the Holy Land, than he lost it to the irresistably strong Arabs. First Crusader is an entertaining and challenging reinterpretation of The Crusades.

Genres: History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 25, 2002

About the author

Geoffrey Regan is an English military historian, former senior school teacher and broadcaster.

Reviews

[Anatolikon · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is simply a travesty. I have to give Regan credit in his crafting of the narrative, however. He writes extremely well, but this is also one of the book's failings. In order to reach the level of engagement of the historical novel that this book does at times, he is forced to simply invent scenarios and the feelings of characters which go far beyond what we can do with the available source material. For example, Regan notes that Herakleios personally wanted to kill Phokas when the latter was brought to him during the usurpation, and that through this he was forced to grit his teeth (p. 55). The source material does not have this level of detail here, and while such things are fine for an historical novel, that is not what Regan set out to write.

This work is not purely descriptive. Regan clearly set out to argue that the Byzantines did have a concept of holy war, a topic contested in the scholarship. This is evident from his large quotation of Tia Kolbaba's work at the beginning of the book, as she wrote an important article on the topic. Dr. Kolbaba can rest assured that her thesis still stands in the light of Regan's book, because not only is his attempt to disprove it rather feeble, there are so many basic factual accuracies in this book that it even makes bad popular history. On p. 73, he uses the terms 'themata' and 'tagmata' with Herakleios. This is simply wrong. Although our first use of the term 'themata' appears in an entry by Theophanes Confessor in Herakleios' reign, this very may well be the use of later terminology for a period where it does not belong. The tagmata, on the other hand, were created by Constantine V in the eighth century. Regan claims that the Sassanids abutted the Chinese in the east (p. 41); this is not the case, and there is a long way between China and Sassanid Iran at all points in Sassanid Persian history. He also claims that Herakleios brought about the fall of the Sassanid dynasty (p. 126). This is not the case, as they would be overthrown by the Arabs in the decade and a half after Herakleios' victory. When he discusses the Arab conquest of Egypt, Regan uses extremely old scholarship. When bringing up Herakleios' new silver hexagram and the inscription on it (p. 71) he completely mistranslates it. On p. 195 he places Justinian's general Belisarius in the fifth century and not the sixth. Belisarius may have been born towards the end of the fifth century, but his entire career was firmly located in the sixth. On p. 33-4, Regan argues that the death and resurrection of Jesus only became fundamental part of early Christianity in the fourth century, which strongly suggests that he has never read either the Gospels nor any early Christian works. These constant mistakes serve to seriously undermine the integrity of this book.

When it comes to attempting to prove his thesis, Regan continues to falter by twisting and ignoring evidence to support his claims. He tries extremely hard to demonstrate that the wars of Herakleios are a holy war, but the support for this is so feeble that it falters. He argues that in 622 Herakleios was forced to turn to God and this led to the outbreak of holy war. Regan criticizes modern scholars for refusing to call a crusade a crusade. He claims that they are unable to see the forest for the trees, but it seems that Regan is unaware of the fact that the sources he's using are mostly late, and all are extremely tainted by the propaganda of the regime. As Regan himself notes later for his section John I Tzimiskes, propaganda does not make a holy war. Admittedly, Walter Kaegi's Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium was not available when Regan was writing this book, but even a reading of the sources suggests Herakleios' constant desire to make peace. If this was a holy war bent on the destruction of the enemy, why was Herakleios so eager to end it, even with an unfavourable peace?

I could go on, but that would lengthen an already lengthy review. This is one of the worst pieces of popular history that I have ever read. It is full of inaccuracies, questionable writing for such a work, and it flounders when attempting to support its thesis. First Crusader is a terrible book that cannot be recommended.

[Gordon Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this was the kind of history book that delivers fact with the readability of fiction. The facts were well conveyed and plentiful but it was the author's narrative that took me along on Emperor Heraclius' ascension to the purple of Byzantium and subsequent epic wars.

The author's argument that Heraclius' wars with the burgeoning Arabian peoples, recently united by Islam, were in effect the first of the crusades is compelling, highlighting Christianity's firm grip on the hearts of the Byzantine people and the emperor's use of this devotion.

The difficulties the empire faced in his time are laid bare in the text and this serves to magnify the intriguing mix of shrewdness and at times almost classical heroism in Heraclius' actions.

Well worth a read (though hard to get a hold of).

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

πολύ καλή έρευνα με σημαντικές πληροφορίες....

[Ryan Mccormick · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was reading it I really enjoyed the book as the author does an excellent job of weaving history into a narrative. However, upon reading critical reviews of the work, it appears that the thesis is pretty flawed. Throughout the book I found myself wondering how on earth Regan could have gleaned certain details from the primary sources (for example he likes to talk about the emotions going through some of the leaders minds -- pure speculation). Despite these flaw, it is a very readable history the reader about the chronology of the period. Though I am not informed enough on the primary sources to make a judgement on the thesis, it does bring about a good point that the Byzantines had been fighting to defend their religion for hundreds of years before the Crusades. Though it appears that these wars were basically never Crusades in the Latin sense of the word (there is pretty conflicting evidence in the book about the sanctity of killing in the Byzantine Wars, the primary facet of the Latin Crusades), he argues that they were still holy wars in some sense. Most of the scholarly reviews I have read criticize this work as popular history that is rather inaccurate in its history and overreaching in its thesis. I would tend to agree with these claims. I gave this book a 3/5 still because I found the narrative quite compelling and I enjoyed it at the time.

Conclusion: Read this book with a grain of salt. It is largely considered "popular history" by scholars and seems to be inaccurate at times. Despite this, it has a very compelling narrative, though it achieves this at the expense of showing the true complexity of situations.

[Steven Raszewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and informative.