THE WORLD’S OLDEST WAR

Marcus Aurelius – Hapsburg Palace, Vienna

Vienna, Austria.  This is a particularly apt place to discuss the world’s oldest war.  It’s been continuously running for almost 14 centuries, and it’s getting worse today.

First, however, let us note that Vienna has more history, beauty, charm, class, and friendly people than just about any city in Europe.  It leaves Paris in the dust.

Just one example.  Vienna was founded by the Romans as Vindobona in 15 BC on the south bank of the Danube.  On March 17, 180 AD, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius was in his ornate tent in the center of the Vindobona fortress, having just won a victory over marauding Germanic tribes.

For many centuries, the street in Vienna along the traditional location of that tent has been called Schwertgasse – Sword Street.  That’s because on that day in 180, the Emperor’s son, Commodus, murdered his father with a sword thrust.  In the movie, Gladiator, Commodus smothers him – but nonetheless, the movie depicts real history.

Aurelius to this day is revered by Austrians.  That’s why there’s a huge statue of him in the courtyard of the Hapsburg Palace or Hofburg in the center of Vienna.

For the next thousand years, the people south of the Danube adopted and lived by Christianity, oblivious to the war that had emerged in the Middle East, Asia Minor, North Africa, and Spain between their fellow Christians and people calling themselves Moslems.

Finally in 1099, the Moslem threat to Christianity became intolerable, and the Pope declared a Crusade to reconquer the Holy Lands of Christianity’s origin that had been seized by the infidels of Islam.  [Note:  you can read the history of all eight Crusades in The Real Crusaders, TTP 2005, republished February 2015).

Since 976, the Babenberg family had created and ruled the Duchy of Austria.  They joined in the Crusades, but got into a bitter feud during the Third Crusade with the English King, Richard the Lion-heart.  Thus the Austrians captured Richard on his way back to England and imprisoned him for ransom in Dürnstein Castle above the Danube just north of Vienna.  The ruins are a dramatic sight from the river:

Dürnstein Castle

In 1258, the Mongols – the real crusaders – wiped out Baghdad, the seat of Arab power.  For 700 years until their ruling families were made fabulously wealthy with Western oil money in the late 20^th century, Arabs never amounted to anything in history.  In their place, a new Moslem threat to Christendom arose:  the Ottoman Turks.

You can read of their rise to power in Asia Minor Part One (May 2007).  The total collapse of Christianity in the Middle East came with the Turks’ sacking of Constantinople in 1453.  They proceeded to conquer all the Balkans and by the 1520s were surging towards Vienna.

487 years ago this month, in 1529, the Turks of Suleiman the Magnificent were at the gates of Vienna.  With Vienna sacked, all of Europe lay before the conquering hordes of Islam.  The Viennese called on a 70 year-old warhorse named Count Nikas Graf Salm to defend the city.  He succeeded.  By mid-October, Suleiman retreated.  Count Salm had won the Siege of Vienna and saved Western Civilization.

Count Niklas Graf Salm

154 years later, the Turks were back, more dangerous and more determined than ever to conquer Christian Europe.  Vienna lay in their way.  This time it was a Polish King, Jan Sobieski, who came to the rescue.  His story is told in Victory Over Jihad Day (September 2007).  Sobieski is one of the greatest heroes in the history of our civilization.

Jan Sobieski

The point to all of this is that for centuries, the Turks were the gravest threat to Western Civilization – and, after being quiescent for 300 years, are once again.

We focus on the Arabs of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the Shia Mullahs of Iran, the Pushtun Taliban of Afghanistan, primarily for their sponsorship of a terrorist Jihad against us.  But the pinpricks of terrorism – some Moslem crazy knifing someone or killing a few people by blowing themselves up – as horribly tragic they are for those involved, are not the threat to our civilizational existence.

The Islamist leader of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, understands this.  He knows the way to defeat the West for Islam is to flood the West with Moslems.  He knows the weaknesses of the West, he smells it like a shark smells blood in the water.

In this ancient war between Islam and Christianity, between the Ottomans and the West, he has allies – useful idiots like Angela Merkel of Germany, and sadists like the current President of the United States who hates his country and wants to ruin it.

We are fast reaching a climax in the world’s oldest war.  We have had climaxes before, victories on their side like in 1453, victories on ours like in 1683.  Whose victory it will be regarding the one fast approaching will be determined in large part on November 8.

It is becoming clear now that Donald Trump is not a phenomenon in isolation.  The Brits voting for Brexit, Geert Wilders about to become leader of the Netherlands, the AfD Party winning more and more elections in Germany, the Freedom Party of Norbert Hofer about to run the government right here in Austria – Trump is part of all of this and more.

The elites in the EU and the US cannot believe this is happening.  Hillary is dumbfounded that she’s not leading by 50 points.  They are oblivious to the rebellion against them, to people rising up to defend at last their countries and their civilization.

The elites’ obliviousness is why I believe they are going to lose.  They may win because they will stop at nothing to win, including massive voter fraud and much worse.  But we are at a climax of history now, so no matter what they do, they may be swept away.

The world’s oldest war will continue.  If our side carries the day now, the other side will be dormant, but some day it will rise again.  That is for the future.  Right now, we need to win or we will lose our birthright.  We must commit to victory.