Elberhard: But of course, Dieter von Essen - I see now you are right. We must legislate amorality! We must let our generals run freely around, exterminating at will like beasts! Damn it, man - why stay in Outremer and serve the cross? Go further east and find some of those @#$%^&!!!ing Mongols to serve. I think you would find their way of warfare more to your taste!
It is not a matter of requiring a piece of paper to show our moral superiority over the Byzantines. It is a matter of being moral. If we slaughter civilians - unarmed men, women and children - then we are are committing a crime so foul, where we stand in relation to the Byzantines, the Mongols or anyone else is irrelevant. We are going to hell, whether alone or in their company.
Jan von Hamburg only failed in 1260 because the flower of chivalry was waning in the Reich. I had hoped that the blood and chaos of the cataclysm might bring us back on a more righteous and ordered path. Luther and I reached an accommodation that we believed could satisfy both those like him who earnestly desire the anhilation of Byzantim and those like myself who are keen that we observe the most minimum standard of decency. If we all wish to run off like wolves, and fight our own little wars, then we are not a united Reich that aspires to lead Christiandom. We are just a gaggle of self-serving warlords.
As for Fritz's absurd statement that Jan von Hamburg came back to the Reich because he wanted to kill Germans, Jan came back to uphold the rule of law. Suppose villains comes into your neighbour's house and try to kill him, to steal his possessions. Would you do your duty and come to your neighbour's aid? If yes, then beware! For Fritz von Kastilien would accuse you of just wanting to kill Germans! Jan started no war. War was started by Hummel and then by Dietrich. Jan marched only to defend the rightful Duke of Swabia.
And for all his attempted re-invention of history, Fritz also knows that the war with Byzantium was started by the sack of Constantinople - painful as admitting that culpability may be to many here. Much easier to forget about history, to blame outside "corruption", to defame the dead, even to malign our own Kaisers than to accept that we too are not without sin.
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