Letter: Heroes and villains

Sir: I must take issue with Robert Fisk's assertion (3 December) that the Crusades were "the greatest act of ethnic cleansing and barbarism in the Middle East in a thousand years". In point of fact they were episodes in the "long war" between Islam and Christendom which started with the Arab / Islamic conquest of much of the Mediterranean World in the seventh century, and ended with the defeat of the Ottoman / Islamic army before the walls of Vienna at the end of the 17th century. For much of that period, Christendom was on the defensive against triumphalist and proselytising Islamic powers - and both sides were capable of heroism and barbarity in equal measure.

R S FOSTER

Sheffield