——
A.D. 1188-1192.
Whilst the crusade was being preached in Europe, Saladin was following up the course of his victories. The battle of Tiberias and the taking of Jerusalem had created so general a terror, that the inhabitants of the Holy Land were persuaded it was useless to endeavour to resist the army of the Saracens. Amid this consternation, one city alone defied and checked all the united forces of the new conqueror of the East. Saladin was exceedingly anxious for the conquest of Tyre, and had twice collected both his fleets and his armies to attack it. But the inhabitants had sworn to die rather than surrender to the Mussulmans; which noble determination was the work of Conrad, who had recently arrived in the city, and appeared to have been sent by Heaven to save it.
Conrad, son of the marquis of Montferrat, bore a name renowned throughout the West, and the fame of his exploits had preceded him into Asia. In his earliest youth he had distinguished himself in the war of the Holy See against the emperor of Germany. A passion for glory and a love of adventure then led him to Constantinople, where he suppressed a sedition which threatened the imperial throne, and killed the leader of the rebels on the field of battle. The sister of Isaac Angelus and the title of Cæsar were the reward of his courage and his services; but his restless character would not allow him to enjoy his good fortune long. Whilst surrounded by peaceful grandeur, he was roused by the fame of the holy war, and, heedless of the tenderness of a bride, or the gratitude of an emperor, he hastened into Palestine. Conrad reached the coast of Phœnicia a few days after the battle of Tiberias. At the moment of his arrival, the city of Tyre had named deputies to demand a capitulation of Saladin; but his presence revived the courage of the besieged, and changed the face of everything. He caused himself to be made commander, he widened the ditches, and repaired the fortifications; and the inhabitants of Tyre, attacked by sea and land, becoming all at once invincible warriors under his orders, were able to contend with the fleets and armies of the Saracens.
The old marquis of Montferrat, the father of Conrad, who had left his peaceful states to visit the Holy Land, was present at the battle of Tiberias. Made prisoner by the Mussulmans, he languished in the prisons of Damascus, until his children might be able to deliver him or purchase his liberty.
Saladin sent for him to his army, and promised the brave Conrad to restore his father, and grant him rich possessions in Syria, if he would open the gates of Tyre to him. He threatened at the same time to place the old marquis before the front rank of the Saracens, and expose him to all the arrows of the besieged. Conrad haughtily replied that he despised the gifts of infidels, and that the life of his father was less dear to him than the cause of the Christians. He added that nothing should stop his exertions, and that if the Saracens were so barbarous as to sacrifice an old man who had surrendered himself upon the word of Saladin, he should take glory from being descended from a martyr. After this reply the Saracens renewed their attacks, and the Tyrians continued to defend themselves bravely. The Hospitallers, the Templars, and the bravest of the warriors that were still in Palestine, repaired to Tyre to take part in this glorious defence. Among the Franks who distinguished themselves by their valour, no one was more remarkable than a Spanish gentleman, known in history by the name of The Green Knight. Alone, say the old chronicles, he repulsed and dispersed whole battalions of the enemy; he fought several times in single combat, always overcoming the most intrepid of the Mussulmans, and creating in Saladin the strongest admiration for his courage and his feats of arms.
The city did not contain a single citizen that was not an active combatant; the children even were so many soldiers, and the women animated the warriors by their presence and their applause. On board the ships, under the walls, battles were continually fought; and the Saracens, on all occasions, again met with the Christian heroes that had so often inspired them with fear.
Saladin, despairing of taking Tyre, resolved to raise the siege, and attack Tripoli; but was not more successful in this new enterprise. William, king of Sicily, upon being informed of the disasters in Palestine, sent assistance to the Christians. Admiral Margarit, whose talents and victories had procured for him the surname of King of the Sea and the New Neptune, arrived on the coast of Syria with fifty galleys, three hundred knights, and five hundred foot-soldiers. The Sicilian warriors hastened to the defence of Tripoli, and, commanded by the Green Knight, who had so eminently distinguished himself at the siege of Tyre, forced Saladin to abandon his undertaking.
The city and country of Tripoli, since the death of Raymond, had belonged to Bohemond, prince of Antioch. Saladin, exasperated by his double disappointment, laid waste the banks of the Orontes, and forced Bohemond to purchase a truce of eight months. The Mussulmans then took possession of Tortosa and some castles built on the heights of Libanus. The fortress of Carac, from which had issued the war so fatal to the Christians, defended itself during a whole year against a Mussulman army. The besieged, destitute of all succour, and a prey to every kind of evil and privation, carried resignation and bravery to perfect heroism. “Before they would surrender,” says the continuator of William of Tyre, “they sold their wives and children to the Saracens, and there remained not an animal in the castle of which they could make food.” They were at length, however, forced to yield to Saladin; the sultan granting them their lives and their liberty, and restoring to them their wives and children, whom a barbarous heroism had condemned to slavery.
Throughout his conquests, Saladin still kept Guy de Lusignan in chains; but when he became master of Carac and the greater part of Palestine, he at length set the unfortunate king of Jerusalem free, after having made him swear upon the Gospel to renounce his kingdom for ever, and to return to Europe. This promise, extorted by force, could not be regarded as binding in a war in which fanaticism set at nought the power of an oath, on the one side or the other. Saladin himself never entertained an idea that Guy would keep his word; and if he consented to liberate him, it was doubtless from the fear that a more able prince would be chosen in his place, and from the hope that his presence would bring discord among the Christians.
Guy was scarcely released from captivity, when he made his bishops annul the oath he had taken, and sought earnestly for an opportunity of reconstructing a throne upon which fortune had for a moment placed him. He presented himself in vain before Tyre; that city had given itself up to Conrad, and would not acknowledge as king a prince who had not been able to defend his own states. The king of Jerusalem wandered for a long time about his own kingdom, accompanied by a few faithful attendants, and at length resolved to undertake some enterprise that should draw attention, and unite under his banners the warriors who flocked from all parts of Europe to the assistance of the Holy Land.
Guy laid siege to Ptolemaïs, which had surrendered to Saladin a few days after the battle of Tiberias. This city, which historians call by turns Acca, Accon, and Acre, was built at the western extremity of a vast plain. The Mediterranean bathed its walls; it attracted, by the commodiousness of its port, the navigators of Europe and Asia, and deserved to reign over the seas with the city of Tyre, which was situated not far from it. Deep ditches surrounded the walls on the land side; and, at equal distances, formidable towers had been built, among which was conspicuous The Cursed Tower, which dominated over the city and the plain. A dyke, built of stone, closed the part towards the south, terminated by a fortress, erected upon an isolated rock in the midst of the waves.
The plain of Ptolemaïs is bounded on the north by Mount Saron, which the Latins called Scala Tyrorum,—the ladders of the Tyrians; on the east by the mountains of Galilee; and on the south by Mount Carmel, which stretches into the sea. The plain is intersected towards the city by two hills,—the Turon, or the Mountain of the Worshipper, and the Mahameria, or the Hill of the Prophet. Several rivers or torrents descend from Mount Saron or from the mountains of Galilee, and flow impetuously into the sea at a short distance from Ptolemaïs. The most considerable of these torrents is the Belus, which discharges itself to the south of the city. In the rainy season it overflows its banks, and forms around it marshes covered with rushes and reeds. The other torrents, whose beds in summer present nothing but an arid sand, overflow in winter like the Belus. During several months of the year a great part of the plain of Ptolemaïs is under water; and when summer comes to dry the long-flooded fields, the exhalations corrupt the air and spread around the germs of epidemic diseases.
Nevertheless, the plains of Ptolemaïs were fertile and smiling: groves and gardens covered the country near the city; some villages arose on the declivities of the mountains, and houses of pleasure dotted the hills. Religious and profane traditions had bestowed names upon several spots in the neighbourhood. A little hill reminded travellers of the tomb of Memnon; and upon Mount Carmel was pointed out the retreat of Eli and Pythagoras. Such were the places that were soon to become the theatre of a sanguinary war, and see assembled and fighting the armies of Europe and Asia.
Guy de Lusignan had but nine thousand men when he laid siege to Ptolemaïs; but the whole West was preparing to fly to the defence of the Holy Land. The army of the Christians soon became of sufficient magnitude to excite serious alarm among the Saracens. French, English, and Flemish warriors preceded Philip and Richard, under the command of Jacques d’Avesnes, one of the greatest captains of his time, and the bishop of Beauvais, brother to the count of Dreux. The Genoese, the Venetians, and the Pisans, with the greater part of the Crusaders from the provinces of Italy, arrived in Palestine under the orders of the archbishops of Pisa and Ravenna. The cries of alarm of the Christians of the East had resounded even to the north of Europe, where young warriors had taken up arms to combat the infidels. All the nations of the West furnished Jerusalem with defenders, and eighty thousand Crusaders attacked the ramparts of Ptolemaïs, whilst the powerful monarchs who had placed themselves at the head of the crusade, were still engaged in preparations for their departure.
Saladin, who had at first despised the Christians, now thought it prudent to gather his powers together to oppose them. After assembling his army at Damascus, he crossed Anti-Libanus, and the mountains of Galilee, and encamped at a short distance from Ptolemaïs. He pitched his tents and pavilions at the extremity of the plain, on the mountains of Casan, from whence he could overlook all the sea-coast. On one side his army extended from the river Belus, and on the other as far as Mahumeria, or the Hill of the Mosque. The sultan occupied all the elevated posts, and all the passages by which the Christians could pass out from the spot upon which they were encamped. Thus the besiegers were besieged, and the army before the walls of the city saw the banners of the Mussulmans floating around it.
The Christians made their intrenchments, dug wide ditches,[324] and raised towers at proper distances around their camp, in order to repulse the attacks of Saladin or the garrison of Ptolemaïs. The Mussulman army had scarcely pitched its tents when it presented itself in battle array before the trenches of the Crusaders, and fought with them several combats, in which victory was doubtful. In one of these conflicts the sultan penetrated to the city, and after having ascertained from the top of the towers the position of the Crusaders, he joined the garrison in a sortie, and surprised, and drove them into their camp. By entering into Ptolemaïs, Saladin revived the courage of the inhabitants and troops; he arranged measures necessary for the providing of supplies, he left them some of his chosen warriors, and gave them for leaders the most intrepid of his emirs, Melchou, the faithful companion of his victories, and Karacoush,[325] whose capacity and bravery had been often tried during the conquest of Egypt. The sultan then returned to his camp, prepared to combat afresh the army of the Crusaders.
The roads of Galilee were covered with Mussulman soldiers coming from Damascus; and as Saladin looked daily for the arrival of a fleet from Egypt, which would make him master of the sea, he hoped soon to be able to triumph over the Christians, and deliver Ptolemaïs. A few days after the victory he had gained, a great number of vessels appeared upon the sea, directing their course towards the land. Both armies were filled with hope and joy, the Mussulmans believing them to be a fleet from the ports of Damietta and Alexandria, whilst the Crusaders confidently hoped them to be a Christian armament coming to their aid. The standard of the cross was soon seen floating from the masts of the vessels, which, whilst it excited the liveliest joy in the Christians, equally depressed the Mussulmans. Two fleets from western ports entered the Road of Ptolemaïs. The first bore the German Crusaders, commanded by the duke of Gueldres and the landgrave of Thuringia, and the other the warriors of Friesland and Denmark, who, after having fought the Saracens in Spain, came to defend the kingdom of Jerusalem. Conrad, marquis of Tyre, could not remain idle while this war was going on; he armed vessels, raised troops, and united his forces with those of the Christian army.
The arrival of the new reinforcements restored the ardour of the Crusaders. The Christian knights, according to an Arabian historian,[326] covered with their long cuirasses of steel, looked, from a distance, like serpents spread over the plain; when they flew to arms, they resembled birds of prey, and in the mêlée, they were as indomitable lions. In a council, several emirs proposed to Saladin to retire before an enemy as numerous, they said, as the sands of the sea, more violent than tempests, and more impetuous than torrents.
The Christians, encouraged by the reinforcements that continued to arrive daily, resolved to attack Saladin, and drive him beyond the mountains. They marched out from their intrenchments, and drew up in order of battle. Their army extended from the mouth of the Belus to the hill of Turon. The Crusaders, full of zeal and ardour, were commanded by many illustrious captains, among whom the grand master of the Templars, the marquis of Tyre, the counts of Blois, Bar, and Clermont, with de Brioude, and Guy and Gauche de Chatillon, were conspicuous. The clergy even appeared in arms; the archbishops of Ravenna, Pisa, Canterbury, Besançon, Nazareth, and Montréal; the bishops of Beauvais, Salisbury, Cambrai, Ptolemaïs, and Bethlehem, assumed the helmet and cuirass, and led warriors on to battle. The Christian army presented so redoubtable an aspect, and appeared so full of confidence, that a Christian knight cried out, in the height of his enthusiasm: “Let God remain neuter, and the victory is ours!”
The king of Jerusalem, who caused the book of the Evangelists to be borne before him, wrapped in a covering of silk, and supported by four knights, commanded the right wing; he had under his orders the French and the Hospitallers; his lines extended to the Belus. The Venetians, the Lombards, and the Syrians formed the left wing, which was flanked by the sea, and marched under the banners of Conrad. The centre of the army was occupied by the Germans, the Pisans, and the English, headed by the landgrave of Thuringia. The grand master of the Templars, with his knights, and the duke of Gueldres, with his soldiers, formed the body of reserve ready to hasten wherever danger or the chances of the day might call them. The guardianship of the camp was intrusted to Gerard d’Avesnes and Geoffrey de Lusignan.
When the Christian army was drawn up on the plain, the Saracens issued from their intrenchments, and prepared to sustain the shock of the Crusaders. Saladin placed himself with his Mamelukes in the centre; his nephew Teki-eddin Omar, one of his most skilful lieutenants, commanded the right wing, which extended to the sea at the north-east of Ptolemaïs; the princes of Mossoul and Sandjar commanded the left wing, bearing upon the river Belus. By this disposition, Saladin inclosed the Christians between the river Belus and the sea, and left them no means of retreat if fortune should favour his arms.
The archers and cavalry of the Christians commenced the conflict. At the first charge they broke the right wing of the Mussulmans, commanded by the nephew of Saladin. The cavalry and infantry of the marquis of Tyre advanced upon the field of battle, the Saracens giving way before them as they proceeded. Pursuing the enemy, who fled in disorder, the Christians ascended the hill of the Mosque, and planted their standards in the camp of the infidels. The count of Bar even penetrated to the tent of the sultan, which was given up to pillage. An Arabian historian,[327] who followed the army, says of himself, that upon beholding the rout of the Mussulmans, he took to flight, and did not stop till he came to Tiberias. The terror was so great, that several Saracens fled as far as Damascus. Saladin remained almost alone upon the field of battle, and was several times in great danger.[328]
Followed by a few of his faithful Mamelukes, he endeavoured to rally his scattered forces, and at length succeeded in reviving their courage. No sooner had he the means of support, than he returned to the fight with characteristic energy, rushing down upon the Christians, whom he surprised in all the disorder of victory. The Mussulman cavalry now charged in their turn, and dispersed the cavalry of the Franks. The different bodies of the Christian army became soon separated from one another, and in vain endeavoured to rally in their flight. The grand master of the Templars then advanced with the reserve, to support the troops that fled, but he met the Mussulman cavalry in full career, that crushed everything in their passage. The reserve was broken at the first shock; they returned several times to the charge, but without being able to stand against the impetuosity of the Saracen horsemen. On all sides, victory was escaping from the hands of the Crusaders, terror pervaded the whole Christian army, and disorder and confusion reigned everywhere. Whilst the left wing was put to flight, and the body of reserve was making vain efforts to check the Mussulmans, the right wing and the centre were attacked not only by the princes of Aleppo, Mossoul, and Sandjar, with Teki-eddin Omar, but by the garrison of Ptolemaïs, which issued from the city in order of battle.
The Saracens made a most horrible slaughter; every part of the Christian army was broken and put to flight, and utter destruction threatened them if their camp should fall into the hands of the enemy. The conquerors proceeded at once to the attack of the intrenchments, but the height of the walls, the depth of the ditches, and the bravery of Geoffrey de Lusignan and Jacques d’Avesnes,[329] stopped the Mussulman cavalry, and preserved the last asylum of the Christian army.
During the contest, Saladin appears to have been everywhere at once: after having re-established the battle in his right wing, he returned to the centre, and thence passed to the left. Ten times he crossed the lines of the Christians, and himself directed every charge of his cavalry. The battle lasted during the whole day; in the evening, still many combats were kept up around the camp of the Christians, and night alone brought repose to the two armies. As the Mussulmans and Christians had by turns been victors, the loss was equal on both sides. The Crusaders had to deplore the death of several of their leaders; the grand master of the Templars, covered with wounds, was made prisoner on the field of battle, and led to the camp of the infidels. The emirs reproached him with having taken up arms against Saladin, who had generously broken his chains after the battle of Tiberias. He replied with haughty firmness, and received the palm of martyrdom. André de Brienne was cast from his horse whilst endeavouring to rally the Crusaders. He in vain implored assistance of his companions, whom fear rendered deaf to pity, and Erard de Brienne, whilst precipitating his flight, trampled under his horse’s feet his brother, expiring on the field of battle.
The Latin historians attribute the defeat of the Crusaders to an unexpected accident,[330] which threw the combatants into disorder.[331] An Arabian horse, which had been taken from the enemy, escaping in the heat of the battle, was pursued by some soldiers, and it was believed they were flying before the Saracens. All at once a rumour prevailed that the Christian army was conquered and dispersed, and the news redoubled the tumult, and gave birth to general terror. Whole battalions, seized with a panic, abandoned their triumphant banners, and sought safety in a precipitate flight.
We only report this singular circumstance to show the spirit of the contemporary chronicles. The fate of the battle might be much better explained by saying that the Christian soldiers abandoned the fight for the sake of plunder; and that the greater part of the leaders, less skilful than brave, neither knew how to prevent or repair the reverses to which an undisciplined army must be exposed.
In the plain of Ptolemaïs, trod by two hundred thousand warriors, on the morrow was only to be seen, to employ an Oriental image, birds of prey and wolves attracted by the scent of carnage and death. The Christians did not dare to leave their intrenchments, and victory itself could not reassure Saladin, who had seen his whole army put to flight. The most frightful disorder prevailed in the camp of the Saracens; the slaves had pillaged it at the commencement of the battle, and had fled, carrying away the booty that escaped the hands of the Crusaders. Both the emirs and soldiers had lost their baggage; some pursued the fugitive slaves, whilst others addressed their complaints to Saladin. Amidst such confusion and tumult, it was impossible for the sultan to follow up the advantage he had gained, and as winter was approaching, and the Mussulmans were short of provisions, he abandoned the plain, and retired to the mountain Karouba.
The Christians, who now remained masters of the plain, extended their lines over the whole chain of hills that surrounded the city of Ptolemaïs; the marquis of Montferrat, with his troops, the Venetians, the Pisans, and the Crusaders commanded by the archbishop of Ravenna and the bishop of Pisa, encamped towards the north, and occupied ground from the sea to the road to Damascus. Near the camp of Conrad, the Hospitallers pitched their tents, in a valley which had belonged to them before the taking of Ptolemaïs by the Saracens. The Genoese occupied the hill which contemporary historians call Mount Musard. The French and English, who were in front of the Cursed Tower, were placed in the centre, under the orders of the counts of Dreux, Blois, and Clermont, and the archbishops of Besançon and Canterbury. Close to the camp of the French floated the banners of the Flemings, commanded by the bishop of Cambrai, and Raymond II., viscount de Turenne.
Guy de Lusignan encamped with his soldiers and knights upon the hill of Turon, which part of the camp served as citadel and head-quarters to the whole army. The king of Jerusalem had with him the queen Sibylla, his two brothers Geoffrey and Aimar, Humphrey de Theron, the husband of the second daughter of Amaury, the patriarch Heraclius, and the clergy of the holy city. The viscount de Chatellerault, who was of the same country as Guy de Lusignan, ranged himself under the standard of the king of Jerusalem. The knights of the Temple, and the troop of Jacques d’Avesnes, fixed their quarters between the hill of Turon and the Belus, and guarded the road that led from Ptolemaïs to Jerusalem. On the south of the Belus stood the tents of the Germans, the Danes, and the Frisons: these northern warriors, commanded by the landgrave of Thuringia and the duke of Gueldres, were placed along the shore of the Road of Ptolemaïs, and protected the disembarkation of the Christians who arrived from Europe by sea.
Such was the disposition of the Christian army before Ptolemaïs, and this order was preserved during the whole siege. The Christians dug ditches on the declivities of the hills whose heights they occupied; they raised high walls round their quarters, and their camps were so inclosed, says an Arabian historian, that the birds could scarcely find entrance. All the torrents which fell from the neighbouring mountains overflowed their banks, and covered the plain with their waters; and the Crusaders, having nothing to fear from surprise by the army of Saladin, prosecuted the siege without intermission. Their machines battered the walls night and day, and with each morning their assaults were renewed. The garrison, which opposed them with obstinate bravery, could not much longer defend itself without the aid of the Mussulman army. Every day pigeons bearing letters under their wings, and divers, who threw themselves into the sea, were sent to warn Saladin of the imminent dangers of Ptolemaïs.
At the approach of spring, several Mussulman princes of Mesopotamia and Syria came to range themselves and their troops under the standards of the sultan. Then Saladin quitted the mountain of Karouba, and his army descending towards the plain of Ptolemaïs, defiled in sight of the Christians, with colours spread and drums and trumpets sounding. The Crusaders had soon fresh contests to maintain. The ditches they had dug, to employ the expression of a Mussulman historian, became their own sepulchres, and were often filled with their dead bodies. The hopes they had fondly entertained of getting possession of the city, vanished at the sight of such formidable enemies. They had constructed during the winter three rolling towers, similar to those which Godfrey of Bouillon had erected at the taking of Jerusalem. These three towers arose above the walls of Ptolemaïs, and threatened the city with destruction. Whilst the Crusaders were engaged in repelling the attacks of Saladin, inflamed arrows and pots filled with burning naphtha were hurled on their machines, that were left unprotected at the foot of the ramparts. All at once the Christians saw flames arise in the air, and their wooden towers, seized upon by an unextinguishable fire, were consumed and reduced to ashes before their eyes, as if they had been struck by the lightning of heaven. So great was the terror spread among the Crusaders by this conflagration, that the landgrave of Thuringia quitted the siege and returned to Europe, believing that God no longer protected the cause of the Christians.
Saladin followed up his attacks so incessantly, that he left his enemy no repose. Every time that an assault was attempted on the city, the noise of drums and trumpets resounded from the ramparts to warn the Mussulman troops, who then flew to arms and attacked the camp of the Christians.
The Road of Ptolemaïs was often covered with vessels from Europe, and Mussulman vessels from the ports of Egypt and Syria. The latter brought supplies to the city, and the former to the Christian army. At a distance might be seen masts surmounted with the standards of the cross, and others bearing the banners of Mahomet, which seemed to mingle and float together. Several times the Franks and Saracens were spectators of the conflicts between their fleets laden with arms and provisions, that took place near the shore. At the sight of a naval combat the warriors of the cross and of Mahomet struck upon their shields, and announced by their cries their hopes and their fears. Sometimes even the two armies were so excited as to attack each other on the plain to assure the victory, or avenge the defeat of those who had fought upon the waves.
In the battles that took place sometimes on the banks of the Belus, and sometimes under the walls or at the foot of the hills, the Saracens often prepared ambushes, and did not disdain to have recourse to all the stratagems of war. The Christians, on the contrary, placed no confidence in anything but their valour and their own good swords. A car, upon which was raised a tower, surmounted by a cross and a white flag, served them as a rallying-point, and was their guiding star in battle. When the enemy gave way, the thirst for booty soon made every man quit the ranks; their chiefs, almost always without authority in the tumult of battle, became no more than simple soldiers in the mêlée, and had nothing to oppose to the enemy but their sword and lance. Saladin, more respected by his troops, commanded a disciplined army, and often profited by the disorder and confusion of the Christians to combat them with advantage and snatch a victory. Every battle began at sunrise, and the Christians were generally conquerors up to the middle of the day; but when even they had invaded and partly plundered the camp of the Mussulmans, and at evening returned home loaded with booty, they were almost sure to find their own camp had been broken into by the troops of Saladin or the garrison.
After the sultan’s descent from the mountain of Karouba, an Egyptian fleet entered the port of Ptolemaïs. At the same time Saladin welcomed to his camp his brother Malec-Adel, who brought with him troops raised in Egypt. This double reinforcement revived the courage of the Mussulmans, but they did not long profit by these advantages, and the hope of conquering the Christians began to give way to the most serious alarms. A report was spread throughout the East that the emperor of Germany had quitted Europe at the head of a numerous army, and was advancing towards Syria. Saladin sent troops to meet such a formidable enemy, and several Mussulman princes quitted the sultan’s army to defend their own states, which were menaced by the Crusaders coming from the West. Ambassadors were sent to the caliph of Bagdad, the princes of Africa and Asia, and to the Mussulman powers of Spain, to engage them to unite their efforts against the enemies of Islamism. Whilst terror thus took possession of the Saracens, the Crusaders conceived fresh hopes, and redoubled their efforts to gain possession of Ptolemaïs before the arrival of the Germans. After several contests, they resolved to make one last attempt to drive the Mussulman army beyond the mountains. Marching from their camp, they presented themselves in order of battle before the Saracens. The Mussulman historians compare their multitude to that which will assemble at the last day in the valley of Jehoshaphat.
At the first signal, the two armies approached, mingled, and soon appeared nothing but one horrible, contending mass. Arrows hissed through the air, lances crossed, and the rapid blows of sabres and swords resounded from the bucklers and steel casques. The Christian knights seemed animated with an invincible ardour. The Templars and Hospitallers carried death wherever they directed their course; Syrians and Franks, foot-soldiers and horsemen, contended for the prize of valour, and rushed together to meet peril and find victory or death. The Mussulman army could not resist their impetuosity, and at the first charge retired in disorder. The plains and hills were covered with Saracen warriors, who fled, throwing away their arms. Victory remained with the Christians; but soon the thirst of booty led them to abandon their ranks, and the face of the battle was changed. The Mussulmans had time to rally, and returned to surprise the conquerors, who were pillaging the tent and camp of the sultan. All at once the Christians were surrounded on every side; and having laid down their arms in their eagerness for booty, could not defend themselves, but were seized by a terror like that with which they had inspired their enemies. The Mussulmans, irritated by their defeat, immolated to their vengeance every Christian that fell in their way. Such of the Crusaders as were most greedy of plunder, lost their lives, together with the spoils with which they were loaded, and were slaughtered without defence in the very tents they had invaded. “The enemies of God,” says Bohaheddin, “dared to enter into the camp of the lions of Islamism; but they experienced the terrible effects of divine wrath. They fell beneath the sword of the Mussulmans as leaves fall in autumn, under the gusts of the tempest. The earth was covered with their bodies, heaped one upon another, like lopped branches which fill the valleys and hills in a forest that has been cut down.” Another Arabian historian speaks thus of this bloody battle: “The Christians fell under the swords of the conquerors, as the wicked will fall into the abode of fire at the last day. Nine ranks of dead covered the ground between the hill and the sea, and each rank was of a thousand warriors.”
Whilst the Christians were being conquered and dispersed, the garrison of Ptolemaïs made a sortie; and, penetrating into their camp, carried off a great number of women and children that were left without defence. The Crusaders, whom night saved from destruction, returned to their camp, deploring their double defeat. The sight of their plundered tents and the losses they had experienced, quite depressed their courage; and the death of Frederick Barbarossa, with the disasters of the German army, of which they were soon informed, appeared to fill up their cup of wretchedness. The despair of the leaders was so great that they determined to return to Europe, and, in order to secure their departure, were seeking to obtain a disgraceful peace of Saladin, when a fleet arrived in the Road of Ptolemaïs, and landed a great number of French, English, and Italians, commanded by Henry, count of Champagne.
Once more hope was restored to the Crusaders; the Christians were again masters of the sea, and might, in their turn, make Saladin tremble, who had believed he had nothing more to dread from them. They renewed their attacks upon the city with spirit. The count of Champagne, who had restored abundance to the camp, caused to be constructed, at great expense, rams of a prodigious size, with two enormous towers composed of wood, steel, iron, and brass. These machines are said to have cost fifteen hundred pieces of gold. Whilst these formidable auxiliaries menaced the ramparts, the Christians mounted several times to the assault, and were, more than once, on the point of planting the standard of the cross on the walls of the infidels.
But the besieged continued to repulse them, and the Mussulmans shut up in the city supported the horrors of a long siege with heroic firmness. The emirs Karacoush and Melchoub were unremitting in their endeavours to keep up the courage of their soldiers. Vigilant, present everywhere, sometimes employing force, and as often stratagem, they allowed no opportunity of surprising the Christians to escape, or to render their attacks abortive. The Mussulmans burnt all the machines of the besiegers, and made several sorties, in which they drove the Christians to the security of their camp.
The garrison received daily reinforcements and provisions by sea; sometimes barks stole along the shore, and got into Ptolemaïs under the favour of night; at others, vessels from Berytus, manned by apostate Christians, hoisted the white flag with a red cross, and thus deceived the vigilance of the besiegers. The Crusaders, to prevent all communication by sea, resolved to get possession of the Tower of the Spies, which overlooked and dominated the port of Ptolemaïs. A vessel, upon which was placed a wooden tower, advanced towards the fort they wished to attack, whilst a bark filled with combustible matters, to which fire had been set, was launched into the port among the Mussulman fleet. Everything seemed to promise success to this attempt, when, all at once, the wind changed, and drove the blazing fire-ship full upon the wooden tower, which was rapidly consumed by the flames. The duke of Austria, who commanded this perilous expedition, followed by several of the bravest of his warriors, had mounted the tower of the infidels sword in hand; but at the sight of the conflagration which was devouring the vessel he came on, he cast himself into the sea, covered with his own blood and that of the Saracens, and gained the shore almost alone.
Whilst the duke of Austria attacked the tower, the army left their camp to make an assault upon the city. The besiegers performed prodigies of valour without success, and were obliged to return in haste to defend their own tents, undergoing fire and pillage by the army of Saladin.
It was amidst this double defeat that Frederick, duke of Swabia, arrived under the walls of Ptolemaïs with five thousand men, the deplorable remains of a numerous army. When the Christians in Syria had heard of the preparations of the Germans, their invincible powers were the theme of every tongue, and the Crusaders before Ptolemaïs were animated by the most sanguine expectations; but when they arrived, and related the disasters they had undergone, their presence spread mourning and depression throughout the army.
Frederick wished to signalize his arrival by an attack upon the Saracens. “The Christians,” say the Arabian writers, “issued from their camp like ants swarming to their prey, and covered the valleys and hills.” They attacked the advanced post of the Mussulman army, encamped upon the heights of Aiadhiat, not far from the mountains of Galilee. Saladin, whom a serious illness prevented from mounting on horseback, caused himself to be carried to Mount Karouba, from whence he could overlook all that went on, and issue his orders. The Christians renewed their attacks several times without producing any effect upon their enemies; and after having fought the whole day, they renounced the hope of a triumph, and returned to their camp, where the famine, which was beginning to be severely felt, allowed them nothing wherewith to recruit their exhausted strength.
Every leader of this multitude of Crusaders was obliged to feed the troops that he commanded, and they at no time were possessed of more than provisions for one week. When a Christian fleet arrived, they enjoyed abundance; but when no vessels appeared for a time, they were destitute of the commonest necessaries of life. As winter approached, and the sea became more stormy, want was necessarily proportionately increased.
When the Crusaders made incursions upon neighbouring lands to procure provisions, they fought amidst the ambuscades of the Saracens. Animated by despair, they several times attacked the enemy in their intrenchments, but were always repulsed. At length famine began to make frightful ravages in the Christian army; a measure of flour, that weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, was sold for ninety-six crowns, a sum so exorbitant that not even princes could pay it. The leaders insisted upon fixing the prices of all provisions brought to the camp; the venders then hid them in the earth, and the scarcity was increased by the very measures adopted to lessen it.[332] The Crusaders were obliged to feed upon their horses; next they devoured leather, harness, and old skins, which were sold for their weight in gold. Many Christians, driven from their camp by famine, took refuge in that of Saladin; some embraced Islamism to obtain relief in their misery; whilst others, going on board Mussulman vessels, and braving the perils of the sea, went to pillage the isle of Cyprus and the coasts of Syria.
During the rainy season the waters covered the plains, and the Crusaders remained crowded together on the hills. The carcasses left on the banks of the rivers, or cast into the torrents, exhaled a pestilential odour, and contagious diseases were very soon added to the horrors of famine. The camp was filled with mourning and funeral rites; from two to three hundred pilgrims were buried daily. Several of the most illustrious leaders found in contagion the death they had so often braved in the field of battle. Frederick, duke of Swabia, died in his tent, after having escaped all the perils of war. His unhappy companions in arms gave tears to his memory, and, despairing of the cause of the Christians, for which they had suffered so much, returned to the West.
To complete their misfortune, Sibylla, the wife of Guy de Lusignan, died, with her two children, and her death gave rise to fresh discord. Isabella, second daughter of Amaury, and sister to Queen Sibylla, was heir to the throne of Jerusalem; consequently Humphrey de Thoron, the husband of this princess, immediately asserted her rights. On the other side, Guy de Lusignan could not consent to abandon his, and maintained that the character of king was indelible; no one had the right to deprive him of a crown he had once worn. Amidst these disputes, Conrad, already master of Tyre, was all at once seized with the ambition of reigning over Jerusalem and Palestine; he succeeded in gaining the love of Isabella, induced the council of bishops to dissolve the marriage of Humphrey, and, although himself married to the sister of the Emperor Isaac, espoused the sister and heiress of Baldwin, determined to defend with the sword the rights which this new union gave him.
The Christians, though plunged in such horrible misery, and at the same time constantly menaced by Saladin, were entirely engaged by the pretensions of the two rival princes. Humphrey, who defended his rights very weakly, was in great dread of the threats of Conrad, and was wise enough not to regret a sceptre which he must win, or a wife who had abandoned him. He renounced all his claims, and would have been happy if his docility had restored unanimity; but there remained still two kings for an invaded, or rather a nominal kingdom, and the two factions divided the army. Some were touched by the misfortunes of Guy, and declared themselves his partisans; whilst others, admiring the bravery of Conrad, thought the kingdom should fall to him who was most capable of defending it. Guy was reproached with having fostered the power of Saladin; the marquis of Tyre, on the contrary, was praised for having preserved the only two cities that remained in the power of the Franks: he alone, they added, could furnish the Christians with provisions, and put an end to the famine which was consuming them.
Not one of the Crusaders was ignorant of this quarrel. Dissension spread from the leaders to the soldiers; they heaped abuse upon each other, and were even ready to cut the throats of their comrades to determine who should possess a broken sceptre and the vain title of king. The bishops at length calmed the fury of these differences, and persuaded the rivals to refer the matter to the judgment of Richard and Philip.
These two princes, who had embarked at Genoa and Marseilles, met at Messina. Sicily was then at war with Germany for the succession of William II. Constance, the heir of William, had married the Emperor Henry VI., and had charged him with the duty of proclaiming her rights, and defending her inheritance; but Tancred, natural brother of Constance, who had obtained the love of the nobility of Sicily, had usurped the throne of his sister, and maintained himself upon it, by force of arms, against the efforts of the Germans.
This prince, not firmly settled on his throne, was much alarmed at the approach of the Crusaders. He feared in Philip an ally of the emperor of Germany, and in Richard, the brother of Queen Jane, the widow of William, whom he had ill-treated, and still detained in prison. Being totally unable to contend with them, he attempted to conciliate them by his submission and attentions: he at first succeeded with Philip beyond his expectations, but had much more trouble in appeasing Richard, who, immediately after his arrival, haughtily demanded the liberty of Jane, and took possession of the two forts which commanded Messina. The English soon got embroiled with the subjects of Tancred, and the banners of England were seen floating over the capital itself. By this act of violence and authority Richard gave great umbrage to Philip, whose vassal he was. The king gave orders that Richard’s standards should be removed; and the impetuous Cœur de Lion was forced to comply, though trembling with rage. This submission, although it was accompanied with menaces, seemed to appease Philip, and put an end to the quarrel; but from that time Richard became friendly with Tancred, who endeavoured to create suspicions of the loyalty of the king of France, and to secure peace to himself, sowed dissension among the Crusaders.
The two kings by turns accused each other of breach of faith and perfidy, and the French and English took part in the hatred of their monarchs. Among these divisions, Philip pressed Richard to espouse the princess Alice, who had been promised to him in marriage; but the face of circumstances had changed, and the king of England refused with contempt a sister of the king of France, whom he had himself earnestly sought, and for whom he had made war against his own father.
Eleanor of Guienne, who had only ceased to be queen of the French to become their implacable enemy, had for a long time endeavoured to dissuade Richard from this marriage. In order to complete her work, and create an eternal division between the two kings, she brought with her into Sicily, Berengaria, the daughter of Don Sancho of Navarre, with the view of marrying her to the king of England. The report of her arrival augmented the suspicions of Philip, and was a fresh source of complaints on his part. War was upon the point of breaking out, but some wise and pious men succeeded in soothing these angry spirits; the two kings formed a new alliance bound by new oaths, and discord was for a moment quelled. But a friendship which required to be sworn to so often, and a peace which every day demanded a fresh treaty, were very little to be relied on.
Richard, who had just been making war upon Christians, all at once became a prey to repentance and penitence; he assembled the bishops that had accompanied him in a chapel, presented himself before them in his shirt, confessed his sins, and listened to their reproofs with the docility of the humblest of the faithful. Some time after this whimsical ceremony, his mind[333] being naturally inclined to superstition, he took a fancy to hear Abbot Joachim, who lived in retirement in the mountains of Calabria, and passed for a prophet.
In a voyage to Jerusalem, this solitary had, it was said, received from Jesus Christ the faculty of explaining the Apocalypse, and to read in it, as in a faithful history, all that was to take place on earth. On the invitation of the king of England, he quitted his retreat, and repaired to Messina, preceded by the fame of his visions and miracles. The austerity of his morals, the singularity of his behaviour, with the mystical obscurity of his discourses, at once procured him the confidence and veneration of the Crusaders. He was questioned upon the issue of the war they were about to make in Palestine; and he predicted that Jerusalem would be delivered seven years after its conquest by Saladin. “Why, then,” said Richard, “are we come so soon?” “Your arrival,” replied Joachim, “is very necessary; God will give you the victory over his enemies, and will render your name celebrated above all the princes of the earth.”
This speech, which did not at all flatter the passions or impatience of the Crusaders, could only minister to the self-love of Richard. Philip was very little affected by a prediction which was afterwards also falsified by the event; and was only the more anxious to encounter Saladin, the redoubtable conqueror, in whom Joachim saw one of the seven heads of the Apocalypse. As soon as spring rendered the sea navigable, Philip embarked for Palestine. He was received there as an angel of the Lord, and his presence reanimated the valour and hopes of the Christians, who had during two years unsuccessfully besieged Ptolemaïs. The French fixed their quarters within bow-shot of the enemy, and, as soon as they had pitched their tents, proceeded to the assault. They might have rendered themselves masters of the city; but Philip, inspired by a chivalric spirit, rather than by a wise policy, was desirous that Richard should be present at this first conquest. This generous consideration proved fatal to the enterprises of the Christians, and gave time to the Saracens to receive reinforcements.
Saladin had passed the winter on the mountain of Karouba, and fatigue, frequent combats, want, and disease had greatly reduced his army. He himself likewise was weakened by a complaint which the physicians could not cure, and which, on many occasions, prevented him from accompanying his warriors to the field of battle. When he heard of the arrival of the two powerful Christian monarchs, he once more, by his ambassadors, called upon the Mussulman nations for assistance. In all the mosques prayers were put up for the triumph of his arms and the deliverance of Islamism; and in every Mussulman city the Imauns exhorted the true believers to hasten to the war.
“Numberless legions of Christians,” said they, “are come from countries situated beyond Constantinople, to bear away from us conquests that gave such joy to the Koran, and to dispute with us a land upon which the companions of Omar planted the standard of the Prophet. Spare neither your lives nor your treasures to oppose them. Your marches against the infidels, your perils, your wounds, all, even to the passage of the torrent, is written in the book of God. Thirst, hunger, fatigue, death itself will become for you treasures in heaven, and will open to you the gardens and delicious bowers of Paradise. In whatever place you may be, death must overtake you; neither your mansions nor your lofty towers can defend you against his darts. Some among you have said, Let us not go to seek for battles during the heats of summer, or the rigours of winter; but hell will be more terrible than the rigours of winter or the heats of summer. Go, then, and bravely fight your enemies in a war undertaken for religion. Victory or Paradise awaits you; fear God more than the infidels; it is Saladin who calls you to his banners; and Saladin is the friend of the Prophet, as the Prophet is the friend of God. If you do not obey, your families will be driven from Syria, and God will plant in your places other nations better than you. Jerusalem, the sister of Medina and Mecca, will fall again into the power of idolaters, who give a son, a companion, an equal to the Most High, and wish to extinguish the knowledge of God. Arm yourselves then with the buckler of victory; disperse the children of fire, the sons of hell, whom the sea has vomited upon your shores, and remember these words of the Koran: ‘He who shall abandon his dwelling to defend the holy religion, shall meet with abundance and a great number of companions.’”
Animated by such discourses, the Mussulmans flew to arms, and from all parts flocked to the camp of Saladin, whom they looked upon as the arm of victory, and the beloved son of the Prophet.
Whilst this was going on Richard was retarded in his march by interests quite foreign to the crusade. At the moment that his rival was waiting for him to take a city from the Saracens, and was willing to share even glory with him, he made himself master of a kingdom, and kept it for himself.
On leaving the port of Messina, the English fleet was dispersed by a violent tempest; three vessels were wrecked upon the coast of Cyprus, and the unfortunate crews, who escaped, were ill-treated by the inhabitants and cast into prison. A ship, on board of which were Berengaria of Navarre, and Jane, queen of Sicily, upon presenting itself before Limisso, was forbidden to enter the port. A short time after, Richard arrived with his fleet, which he had succeeded in getting together again, and himself met with an insolent refusal. Isaac, of the family of Comnenus, who, during the troubles of Constantinople, had got possession of the isle of Cyprus, and governed it with the ostentatious title of emperor, dared to threaten the king of England.
His menaces became the signal for war; and both sides were eager for the conflict. Isaac could not resist the first shock of the English; his troops were beaten and dispersed; his cities opened their gates to the conqueror, and the emperor of Cyprus himself fell into the hands of Richard, who, to insult his vanity and avarice, caused him to be bound with chains of silver. The king of England, after having delivered the inhabitants of Cyprus from a master whom they called a tyrant, made them repay this service with the half of their property, and took possession of the island, which was erected into a kingdom, and remained nearly three hundred years under the domination of the Latins.
It was on this island, in the bosom of victory, and in the vicinity of the ancient Amathus, that Richard celebrated his marriage with Berengaria of Navarre. He then set out for Palestine, dragging after him Isaac, loaded with chains, and the daughter of that unfortunate prince, in whom, it is said, the new queen found a dangerous rival.
The Franks celebrated the arrival of Richard with feux de joie, lighted up throughout the camp. When the English had united their forces with those of the Christian army, Ptolemaïs saw beneath its walls all that Europe could boast of as illustrious captains and valiant warriors. The tents of the Franks covered a vast plain, and their army presented a most majestic and terrible aspect. A spectator, on beholding on the coast of the sea the towers of Ptolemaïs, and the camp of the Christians, in which they had built houses and traced streets, traversed unceasingly by an immense crowd, might have supposed he saw two rival cities which were at war with each other. Each nation had its leader and its separate quarter, and so many languages were spoken by the Crusaders, that the Mussulmans could not find interpreters enough to enable them to understand all the prisoners. In this confused multitude, each people had a different character, different manners, and different arms; but, at the signal for battle, all were animated by the same zeal and the same ardour; the presence of the two monarchs had re-established discipline, and Ptolemaïs could not have prolonged its resistance, if discord, that eternal enemy of the Christians, had not entered their camp with Richard.
The debates relative to the succession to the throne of Jerusalem were renewed on the arrival of the English. Philip declared for Conrad, which was quite enough to determine Richard to give his voice for Guy de Lusignan. The Christian army was filled with troubles, and again divided into two factions: on one side were the French, the Germans, the Templars, and the Genoese; on the other, the English, the Pisans, and the knights of the Hospital. The two parties, ready to break into open war, no longer united their efforts or their arms against the Saracens; whenever the king of France, at the head of his warriors, proceeded to the assault, the king of England remained in his tent in a state of sullen repose.[334] The besieged had never more than one of the monarchs to contend with at once, and the Christian army, after it had received such powerful auxiliaries, became much less redoubtable to the Saracens.
Amidst the disputes which divided the Crusaders, both kings fell dangerously ill, and their hatred and suspicion were so great, that each accused the other of having made an attempt upon his life. As Saladin sent them refreshments and physicians, and as they addressed frequent messages to him, each party reproached the monarch who was opposed to him with keeping up an impious understanding with the Saracens.
The perils of the army, however, with the glory of religion and the interests of the crusade, for a moment stifled the voice of faction, and induced the Crusaders to unite against the common enemy. After long debates, it was decided that Guy de Lusignan should retain the title of king during his life, and that Conrad and his descendants should succeed to the kingdom of Jerusalem. It was at the same time agreed that when one of the two monarchs should attack the city, the other should watch over the safety of the camp, and keep the army of Saladin in check. This agreement re-established harmony; and the Christian warriors, who had been upon the point of taking arms against each other, now only contended for the glory of conquering the infidels.
The siege was resumed with fresh ardour, but the Mussulmans had employed the time wasted by the Christians in vain disputes, in strengthening the city. When the besiegers appeared before the walls, they met with a resistance entirely unexpected, whilst the army of Saladin continued indefatigable and unceasing in its attacks. At the earliest break of day, the drums and trumpets constantly sounded the signal for battle, both from the walls of Ptolemaïs and the camp of the sultan. Saladin animated his troops by his presence; whilst his brother, Malec-Adel, offered an example of bravery to the emirs. Many great battles were fought at the foot of the hills on which the Christians were encamped, and twice the Crusaders gave a general assault; but on both occasions were obliged to return hastily to their tents, to defend them against Saladin.
In one of these attacks, a Christian knight singly defended one of the gates of the camp against a host of Saracens. The Arabian writers compare this knight to a demon animated by all the fires of hell. An enormous cuirass[335] entirely covered him; arrows, stones, lance-thrusts, made no impression on him; all who approached him were slain, and he alone, though stuck all over with javelins and surrounded by enemies, appeared to have nothing to fear. No weapons or force being able to prevail, the Greek fire was at length employed, which being poured upon his head, devoured by flames, he perished like one of the enormous machines that the besieged had burnt under the walls of the city.
Every day the Crusaders redoubled their efforts, and by turns repulsed the army of Saladin, or made assaults upon Ptolemaïs. In one of these assaults, they filled up a part of the ditches of the city with the carcasses of their dead horses and the bodies of their companions who had fallen beneath the swords of the enemy, or been swept away by disease. The Saracens raised up these horrid masses heaped up under their walls, and cast them back again in fragments upon the banks of the ditches, where the sword and lance were for ever immolating fresh victims. Neither the spectacle of death, nor obstacles, nor fatigue affected the Christians. When their wooden towers and their battering-rams were reduced to ashes, they dug into the earth, and by subterranean ways advanced under the foundations of the ramparts. Every day they employed some fresh means or some new machine to subdue the place. An Arabian historian relates that they raised near their camp a hill of earth of a prodigious height, and that by constantly throwing the earth up before them, they brought this mountain close to the city. It had advanced within half a bow-shot, when the Mussulmans issued from their gates, and precipitated themselves in front of this enormous mass, which grew nearer and nearer, and already threatened their walls. Armed with swords, pickaxes, and shovels, they attacked the troops employed in forwarding it, using every effort to remove it back towards the plain; but were only able to arrest its progress by digging vast and deep ditches in its passage.
Among all the Christian warriors, the French distinguished themselves greatly, and directed their efforts principally against the Cursed Tower, which was erected at the eastern side of the city. A great part of the walls began to fall, and must soon offer a passage to the besieging army. War, famine, and disease had weakened the garrison; the city had not soldiers enough left to defend the ramparts and move about the machines employed against those of the Christians. The place not only stood in need of provisions, but of warlike munitions and Greek fire. The warriors who had gone through so much, began to feel discouragement, and the people loudly murmured against Saladin and the emirs. In this extremity, the commander of the garrison came and proposed a capitulation to Philip Augustus, who swore by the God of the Christians that he would not spare a single inhabitant of Ptolemaïs, if the Mussulmans did not restore all the cities that had fallen into their power since the battle of Tiberias.
The chief of the emirs, irritated by the refusal of Philip, retired, saying that he and his companions would rather bury themselves beneath the ruins of the city, than listen to such terms, and that they would defend Ptolemaïs as a lion defends his blood-stained lair. On his return into the place, the commander of the Saracens communicated his courage, or rather his despair, to every heart. When the Christians resumed their assaults, they were repulsed with a vigour that astonished them. “The tumultuous waves of the Franks,” says an Arabian author, “rolled towards the place with the rapidity of a torrent; they mounted the half-ruined walls as wild goats ascend the steepest rocks, whilst the Saracens precipitated themselves upon the besiegers like stones detached from the summits of mountains.”
In one general assault, a Florentine knight of the family of Bonaguisi, followed by some of his men, fought his way into one of the towers of the infidels, and got possession of the Mussulman banner that floated from it. Overpowered by numbers, and forced to retreat, he returned to the camp, bearing the flag he had carried off from the Saracens. In the same assault, Alberic Clement, the first marshal of France of whom history makes mention, scaled the ramparts, and, sword in hand, penetrated into the city, where he found a glorious death. Stephen, count of Blois, and several knights were burnt by the Greek fire, the boiling oil, the melted lead, and heated sand which the besieged poured down upon all who approached the walls.
The obstinate ardour of the Mussulmans was sustained during several days; but as they received no succour, many emirs, at length despairing of the safety of Ptolemaïs, threw themselves, by night, into a bark, to seek an asylum in the camp of Saladin, preferring to encounter the anger of the sultan, to perishing by the sword of the Christians. This desertion, and the contemplation of their ruined towers, filled the Mussulmans with terror. Whilst pigeons and divers constantly announced to Saladin the horrible distresses of the besieged, the latter came to the resolution of leaving the city by night, and braving every peril to join the Saracen army. But their project being discovered by the Christians, they blocked up and guarded every passage by which the enemy could possibly escape. The emirs, the soldiers, and the inhabitants then became convinced that they had no hope but in the mercy of Philip Augustus, and promised, if he would grant them liberty and life, to cause to be given up to the Christians sixteen hundred prisoners, and the wood of the true cross. By the capitulation they engaged to pay two hundred thousand pieces of gold to the leaders of the Christian army, and the garrison, with the entire population of Ptolemaïs, were to remain in the power of the conquerors till the execution of the treaty.
A Mussulman soldier was sent from the city to announce to Saladin that the garrison was forced to capitulate. The sultan, who was preparing to make a last effort to save the place, learnt the news with deep regret. He assembled his council, to know if they approved of the capitulation; but scarcely were the principal emirs met in his tent, when they beheld the standards of the crusaders floating over the walls and towers of Ptolemaïs.
Such was the conclusion of this famous siege, which lasted nearly three years, and in which the crusaders shed more blood and exhibited more bravery than ought to have sufficed for the subjugation of the whole of Asia. More than a hundred skirmishes and nine great battles were fought before the walls of the city; several flourishing armies came to recruit armies nearly annihilated, and were in their turn replaced by fresh armies. The bravest nobility of Europe perished in this siege, swept away by the sword or disease. Among the illustrious victims of this war, history points out Philip, count of Flanders, Guy de Chatillon, Bernard de St. Vallery, Vautrier de Mory, Raoul de Fougères, Eudes de Gonesse, Renaud de Maguy, Geoffroi d’Aumale, viscount de Châtellerault, Josselin de Montmorency, and Raoul de Marle; the archbishops of Besançon and Canterbury; with many other ecclesiastics and knights whose piety and exploits were the admiration of Europe.[336]
In this war both parties were animated by religion; each side boasted of its miracles, its saints, and its prophets. Bishops and imauns equally promised the soldiers remission of their sins and the crown of martyrdom. Whilst the king of Jerusalem caused the book of the Evangelists to be borne before him, Saladin would often pause on the field of battle to offer up a prayer or read a chapter from the Koran.[337] The Franks and the Saracens mutually accused each other of ignorance of the true God and of outraging him by their ceremonies. The Christians rushed upon their enemies crying, “It is the will of God! It is the will of God!” and the Saracens answered by their war-cry, “Islam! Islam!”
Fanaticism frequently augmented the fury of slaughter. The Mussulmans from the height of their towers insulted the religious ceremonies of the Christians.[338] They raised crosses on their ramparts, beat them with rods, covered them with dust, mud, and filth, and broke them into a thousand pieces before the eyes of the besiegers. At this spectacle the Christians swore to avenge their outraged worship, and menaced the Saracens with the destruction of every Mahomedan pulpit. In the heat of this religious animosity, the Mussulmans often massacred disarmed captives; and in more than one battle they burnt their[339] Christian prisoners in the very field of conflict. The crusaders but too closely imitated the barbarity of their enemies; funeral piles, lighted up by fanatical rage, were often extinguished in rivers of blood.
The Mussulman and Christian warriors provoked each other during single combats, and were as lavish of abuse as the heroes of Homer. Heroines often appeared in the mêlée, and disputed the prize of strength and courage with the bravest of the Saracens.[340] Children came from the city to fight with the children of the Christians in the presence of the two armies.
But sometimes the furies of war gave place to the amenities of peace, and Franks and Saracens would for a moment forget the hatred that had led them to take up arms. During the course of the siege several tournaments were held in the plain of Ptolemaïs, to which the Mussulmans were invited. The champions of the two parties harangued each other before entering the lists; the conqueror was borne in triumph, and the conquered ransomed like a prisoner of war. In these warlike festivities, which brought the two nations together, the Franks often danced to the sound of Arabian instruments, and their minstrels afterwards played or sang to the dancing of the Saracens.
Most of the Mussulman emirs, after the example of Saladin, affected an austere simplicity in their vestments and manners. An Arabian author compares the sultan, in his court, surrounded by his sons and brothers, to the star of night, which sheds a sombre light amidst the other stars. The principal leaders of the crusade did not entertain the same love of simplicity, but endeavoured to excel each other in splendour and magnificence. As in the first crusade, the princes and barons were followed into Asia by their hunting and fishing appointments, and the luxuries of their palaces and castles. When Philip Augustus arrived before Ptolemaïs, all eyes were for a moment turned upon the falcons he had brought with him. One of these having escaped from the hands of his keeper, perched upon the ramparts of the city, and the whole Christian army was excited by endeavours to recapture the fugitive bird. As it was caught by the Mussulmans, and carried to Saladin, Philip sent an ambassador to the sultan to recover it, offering a sum of gold that would have been quite sufficient for the ransom of many Christian warriors.
The misery which so often visited the Crusaders, did not at all prevent a great number of them from indulging in excesses of license and debauchery. All the vices of Europe and Asia were met together on one spot. If an Arabian author may be believed, at the very moment in which the Franks were a prey to famine and contagious diseases, a troop of three hundred women from Cyprus and the neighbouring islands arrived in the camp. These three hundred women, whose presence in the Christian army was a scandal in the eyes of the Saracens, prostituted themselves among the soldiers of the cross, and stood in no need of employing the enchantments of the Armida of Tasso to corrupt them.
Nevertheless, the clergy were unremitting in their exhortations to the pilgrims to lead them back to the morals of the Gospel. Churches, surmounted by wooden steeples, were erected in the camp, in which the faithful were every day called together. Not unfrequently the Saracens took advantage of the moment at which the soldiers left their intrenchments unguarded to attend mass, and made flying but annoying incursions. Amidst general corruption, the siege of Ptolemaïs presented many subjects of edification. In the camp, or in the field of battle, charity hovered constantly around the Christian soldier, to soothe his misery, to watch his sick pallet, or dress his wounds. During the siege the warriors from the North were in the greatest distress, and could gain little assistance from other nations. Some pilgrims from Lubeck and Bremen came to their aid, formed tents of the sails of their vessels to shelter their poor countrymen, and ministered to their wants and tended their diseases. Forty German nobles took part in this generous enterprise, and their association was the origin of the hospitable and military order of the Teutonic knights.
When the Crusaders entered Ptolemaïs, they shared the sovereignty of it amongst them, each nation taking possession of one of the quarters of the city, which had soon as many masters as it had had enemies. The king of Jerusalem was the only leader that obtained nothing in the division of the first reconquered place of his kingdom.