The eloquence of Peter served him in the stead of more orderly methods of enlisting the people. Untrained masses of men, women, and children followed him from place to place, and about Easter to the number of upward of sixty thousand crossed the Rhine. Walter, surnamed the Penniless, assumed the leadership of the advance portion of this impatient throng. The people, however, cared little for any authority save that of the imagined divine presence, which would appear through pillars of cloud and fire to direct them in emergency. The fears of the more cautious were silenced by a saying of Solomon, “The grasshoppers have no king, yet they go forth in companies.” A goose and a goat were led at the head of the motley procession, under the fanatical delusion that in these creatures resided some super-human wisdom. It has been suggested that this superstition was due to the importation of Manichean notions, since the goose was the Egyptian symbol for the divine sonship, and the goat represented the devil—the opposing principles of good and evil as conceived by this Eastern sect.
The first vengeance of the marching crowd was inflicted upon the Jews, whose historic infidelity excited the wrath, or whose accumulated wealth tempted the cupidity, of the ill-provided host. In the cities of what is now western Germany this unfortunate people were pillaged and massacred to such an extent that, says Gibbon, “they had felt no more bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian.” The crusaders’ appetite for plunder thus whetted, they passed on to the ruder countries of Hungary and Bulgaria, where they took a forceful revenge upon a people of kindred Christian faith for refusing to supply them with provisions. This provoked a bloody retaliation, under which the advanced crusaders were scattered, more than two thirds of their number perishing in the defiles of the Thracian mountains.
Peter, who had delayed at Cologne, with a new German contingent followed the desolate track of his forerunners. He propitiated Coloman, the Hungarian king; but at Semlin, enraged at the marks of the discomfiture of Walter, he looted the town. At Nisch his army abused the hospitality of the Bulgarian prince, Nichita, who had given them the freedom of the market. The outraged people took terrible vengeance, and Peter’s host was driven out. At length, in sorry remnants, they reached Constantinople August (30, 1096). With the permission of the Emperor Alexius, they pitched their camp outside the city gates to wait for the new bands of crusaders.
A third horde pressed upon the footsteps of Walter and Peter, led by Gottschalk, a German priest. Reaching Hungary in the midst of the late summer harvest, they forgot their religious vows in the abundance which surrounded them, and gave themselves up to every form of debauchery. King Coloman lulled the invaders into a feeling of security until, taking advantage of a time when they were unarmed, he gave orders for their extirpation. This was not difficult to accomplish, as the followers of Gottschalk were of a lower class than even those who had preceded them, largely vagabonds and brigands, ferocious only in crime, and without the spirit of noble and sustained adventure.
A still more unconscionable crowd had in the meantime gathered on the banks of the Rhine and Moselle. A bigoted priest, Volkman, and a reprobate count, Emico, were chosen leaders. These men hoped to atone for the crimes of youth by excesses of cruelty wrought under the name of religion. This band met with terrible chastisement from the Hungarians at Merseburg. The walls of the town, which they had undermined, gave way under their assault and buried multitudes of the assailants in the falling débris. In the words of William of Tyre, the panegyrist of the later crusades, “God Himself spread terror through their ranks to punish their crimes and to fulfil the words of the Wise Man, ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth.’” Through Bulgaria their advance was of the nature of flight to gain the sheltering walls of Constantinople.
Here, about the Greek capital, were collected the wrecks of various expeditions. If the memory of their misfortunes, augmented by their different stories of the journey, depressed and solemnized the crusaders, idleness and the sight of the riches of Constantinople inflamed their natural thirst for spoil. Homes and even churches in the suburbs were looted. The Emperor Alexius induced his unwelcome guests to cross the Bosporus into Nicomedia, where for two months he supplied their wants, as men feed wild beasts that they may not themselves fall prey to their rapacity.
The impetuosity of the crusaders was soon stirred again by their proximity to the Turks. They refortified the deserted fortress of Exerogorgo; but scarcely were they within its walls when Kilidge-Arslan (“sword of the lion”), the Sultan of Roum, laid siege to and captured the place. He then surprised the town of Civitat, outside of which the crusaders had made their chief camp. A terrible massacre ensued. Out of a numberless multitude, but three thousand remained to contemplate, instead of proud cities they had hoped to wrest from the Infidel, the piles of bones which strewed the plains of Nicæa. Walter was slain, and the town into which the miserable remnant was huddled would have fallen into the hands of the Turks but for the opportune relief afforded by the imperial troops from Constantinople. It is estimated by Gibbon that not less than three hundred thousand lives were lost in these preliminary excursions before the more orderly hosts started from western Europe.
The age, though degenerate, had nourished an order of men of far loftier type than those we have described. Godfrey of Bouillon was the most prominent figure. The chivalric spirit of the middle ages enrolled him among the nine greatest heroes of mankind—Joshua, David, Judas Maccabæus, Hector, Alexander, Cæsar, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey. He was of noblest lineage. His father was brother-in-law to Edward the Confessor of England, and through his mother, the beautiful and saintly Ida of Lorraine, he inherited the blood of Charlemagne. He was short of stature, but of such prodigious strength that he is reputed to have divided an opponent from helmet to saddle with one blow of his sword. He was equally endowed with courage and sagacity. In his war against the rival emperor, Rudolph, Henry IV. committed the imperial standard to Godfrey, who, though but a youth of eighteen, honored this charge by penetrating to the presence of Rudolph in the thick of the battle, plunging the spear of the standard through his heart, and bearing it aloft with the blood of victory. Yet such a deed in that age did not lessen his repute for gentleness and piety. Two ancestral spirits alternated their control of him, if we are to credit the praise given him by an old chronicle of the time: “For zeal in war, behold his father; for serving God, behold his mother.” When Rome was besieged by his imperial patron, Godfrey signalized his prowess by being the first to mount the walls. This exploit, however, troubled his tender conscience as a devout Catholic, and when the crusade was proclaimed he sold his lands and devoted himself to the holy war, in attempted expiation of what he had come to regard as his former impious deeds. At the head of ten thousand horse and seventy thousand foot, he set out for the Holy Land. He was accompanied by his two brothers, Baldwin and Eustace.
Raymond of Toulouse led a second army composed of the men of Languedoc. He was the most opulent and haughty of the chieftains, as well as the most experienced in years and war. He had fought by the side of the Cid in Spain, and was haloed in popular estimate with some of the glory of that great knight. Alfonso VI. of Castile had not hesitated to bestow upon him his daughter Elvira, who shared with her husband the hazard of the expedition. One hundred thousand warriors followed in Raymond’s train as he took the cross. With him went Bishop Adhemar of Puy, the papal legate, who, in the name of the Holy Father, was the spiritual head of the combined expeditions.
Bohemond of Taranto marshalled another host. He was son of the famous Robert Guiscard, founder of the Norman kingdom of Naples. Anna Comnena thus describes him: “He was taller than the tallest by a cubit. There was an agreeability in his appearance, but the agreeability was destroyed by terror. There was something not human in that stature and look of his. His smile seemed to me alive with threat.” The fair annalist recognized Bohemond’s inheritance of his great father’s prestige and ability, and at the same time of his disposition “to regard as foes all whose dominions and riches he coveted; and was not restrained by fear of God, by man’s opinions, or by his own oaths.” Robert Guiscard had died while preparing for an attempt to capture Constantinople. With filial pride, his son Bohemond had also “sworn eternal enmity to the Greek emperors. He smiled at the idea of traversing their empire at the head of an army, and, full of confidence in his fortunes, he hoped to make for himself a kingdom before arriving at Jerusalem.” When the march of the other crusaders was reported to him, with an ostentation of piety which his subsequent career scarcely justified, Bohemond tore his own elegant mantle into tiny crosses and distributed them to his soldiers, who were at the time engaged in the less glorious attempt of reducing the Christian town of Amalfi.
Tancred de Hauteville by his splendid character amply compensated the defects of Bohemond, his kinsman. In history and romance he is celebrated as the type of the perfect soldier:
Dissatisfied with even the ideals of Chivalry, Tancred hailed the new lustre that might be given to arms when wielded only in the cause of justice, mercy, and faith, which, perhaps too sanguinely, he foresaw in the crusade. Thus nobly seconded by Tancred, Bohemond took the field with one hundred thousand horse and twenty thousand foot.
Hugh of Vermandois, brother of Philip I. of France, led the host of Langue d’Oil, as Raymond that of Languedoc.
Robert of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, set out with nearly all his nobles. To raise money for the expedition, he mortgaged his duchy to his brother, William Rufus of England, for ten thousand silver marks, a sum which that impious monarch raised by stripping the churches of their plate and taxing their clergy. Robert was companioned by Stephen of Blois, whose castles were “as many as the days of the year,” and by Robert of Flanders, “the lance and sword of the Christians.”
These leaders, deterred by the difficulty of obtaining sustenance for such multitudes as followed them, agreed to take separate routes, which should converge at Constantinople. Count Hugh was the first afield. He crossed the Adriatic, and after much beating by tempest gathered his men at Durazzo. Here he experienced what his comrades were continually to meet, the treachery of the Greek emperor, Alexius. Being the brother of the French king, Hugh would be a valuable possession of the Greeks, as hostage for the good behavior of his brethren. By Alexius’s order he was seized and sent without his army to Constantinople.
Godfrey’s band took the road through Hungary, already marked by the bones of the crusaders under Peter and Walter. The ghastly warnings everywhere about him encouraged him to treat with justice and kindness his coreligionists through whose lands he was journeying. He enforced strict military discipline against pillage, and appeased the wrath of the Hungarians by leaving his brother Baldwin in their hands as hostage for his good faith. But beneath the gentleness of Godfrey smouldered fiery indignation against all forms of injustice. When, therefore, he heard of the capture of Count Hugh he demanded of the emperor instant reparation, failing to receive which, he took summary revenge by laying waste the country about Adrianople. The emperor reluctantly pledged the release of Count Hugh. When the crusaders camped before Constantinople, Alexius refused to sell them provisions except on condition of their rendering homage to his throne. Several leaders had in their extremity yielded this point, but Godfrey replied by letting loose his soldiers to gather as they might; this brought Alexius to better terms.
Bohemond and Tancred crossed the sea to Durazzo and thence took the route eastward through Macedonia and Thrace. Hearing of the duplicity of Alexius, Bohemond urged Godfrey to seize upon Constantinople. Though Godfrey declined to divert his sword from the Infidels, the rumor of Bohemond’s proposal led the haughty Greek to seek closer alliance with his unwelcome guests. With stately parade, he adopted Godfrey as a son, and, in return for the formal bending of the knee at his throne, intrusted to him the defence of the empire. When Bohemond reached the Eastern court he was received with flattering protestations of friendship, which he repaid with equal adulation and as unblushing deceit. These two men at least understood each other, perhaps by that subtle instinct which leads serpents of a kind to come together.
Count Raymond had greater difficulties in leading his forces from northern Italy around the head of the Adriatic and over the mountains of Dalmatia, whose semi-savage inhabitants menaced his march. From Durazzo, he says, “right and left did the emperor’s Turks and Comans, his Pincenati and Bulgarians, lie in wait for us; and this though in his letters he spoke to us of peace and brotherhood.” The stern warrior inflicted cruel retaliation upon his assailants by cutting off the noses and ears of those he captured. On arriving at Constantinople, the irate veteran proposed to his brother chieftains to immediately sack the city. But, in spite of his severity, the blunt honesty of Raymond eventually won from Alexius more praise than did the apparent compliance of his brethren; for, says Anna Comnena, “My father knew that he [Raymond] preferred honor and truth above all things.”
The expedition of Robert of Normandy gave no credit to the crusading zeal. That chief, surnamed “Short-hose” and “the Fat,” chose the route through Italy, and justified his repute for indolence by spending the entire winter in that genial climate. Robert of Flanders and a few resolute kindred spirits shamed the lethargy of their brethren, and crossed the Adriatic in spite of wintry storms. Many others, disgusted with the general conduct of affairs, returned to their homes. It was not until after Easter in 1097 that Duke Robert and Count Stephen embarked at Brindisi.
All these armies were encumbered by the presence of women and children, since the crusading scheme proposed not only war against the Mussulman, but settlement in the lands that should be conquered. In some cases the entire population of villages and sections of cities tramped eastward, so that the movement took the character of a migration rather than that of a campaign.
The dealings of the Greek emperor with the crusaders were characteristic of the man. Alexius Comnenus had secured the throne in 1081 by successful rebellion and the capture through treachery of the capital, which he gave over to license and rapine. His subsequent policy as a ruler was in keeping with its beginning. The intrigues by which he acquired power were matched by the despotic cruelty with which he held it. His career has been depicted for us by the partial pen of his daughter Anna. Through her fulsome coloring we can detect the contemptible disposition of Alexius, and in her unblushing admissions, while purposing only to praise, we can also see much of the prevailing degeneracy of the Greek mind and conscience. Sir Walter Scott would temper our contempt for the man by the consideration that “if Alexius commonly employed cunning and dissimulation instead of wisdom, and perfidy instead of courage, his expedients were the disgrace of the age rather than his own.” But his wife, the Empress Irene, without doubt correctly summarized his personal character when, watching by his death-bed, she exclaimed, “You die as you have lived, a hypocrite.”
No doubt Alexius had reason to fear the proximity of the crusaders. In the strong figure of Gibbon, he was like the Hindu shepherd who prayed for water. Heaven turned the Ganges into his grounds and swept away his flocks and cottage in the inundation. Alexius was aware of the ambition of Bohemond to harm the Greek empire, and suspected all his comrades of similar designs. The rude manners of the invaders were also such as not to ingratiate them with the sycophancy of the court. Once, while the Franks were paying homage to the emperor, one of them unceremoniously placed himself beside his Majesty, remarking, “It is shocking that this jackanapes should be seated, while so many noble captains are standing yonder.”
Alexius was doubtless right in exacting from his visitors an oath of loyalty while within his dominions, and a pledge to turn over to him any Greek cities and fortresses they might recapture from the Turks. This was agreed to by all except Count Raymond, who declared that he would have no oath but to Christ, and invited the emperor to share with the crusaders the marches and battles against the Turks if he would divide the spoil. The ambition and cupidity of Bohemond were stayed with bribes. Thus Alexius one day introduced the Norman leader into a roomful of treasures. “Ah, here is wherewith to conquer kingdoms!” exclaimed Bohemond. The next day the treasures were transferred to his tent. The amazing request of Bohemond to be appointed Grand Domestic, or general of the Greek empire, was declined by Alexius, who had himself held that office and found it a convenient step to the throne. He, however, promised Bohemond the rule of the principality of Antioch in the event of his conquering it with his sword. Tancred, with a delicate sense of honor that shamed the truculency of his kinsman, fled the imperial lures by avoiding the city and keeping himself in disguise on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. His example was not lost upon his fellow-chieftains, who felt the enervating influence of the daily vision of palaces, villas, gorgeous equipages, and, as the historian has fondly noted, the beauty of the women of the capital.
Alexius encouraged the virtuous purpose of the Latins to resume the crusade, from considerations of their menace to his own domain while encamped within it. With apparent magnanimity, he facilitated their crossing the Bosporus, and applauded the heroism of their start through the plains of Bithynia. In every way he fanned their enthusiasm against the Turk; but at the same time he informed the enemy of the movement of his allies, that their victories might not diminish his own prestige, and that, in the event of their discomfiture, he might profit by the friendship of the Infidel.
The first objective chosen by the crusaders was Nicæa, a city sacred with the memories of the first great ecumenical council of the Christian church, in the time of Constantine. On their march the soldiers of the cross were saddened by the continual sight of the decayed bodies of those who had fallen in the ill-advised expedition of Peter and Walter. A few survivors of this calamity, in rags and semi-starvation, came from their hiding-places to welcome their brethren. Among them was the Hermit himself. His tale of woe sharpened their zeal and encouraged their caution against the skill and bravery of the enemy.
The Infidels were under the command of Kilidge-Arslan, Sultan of Roum, still flushed with his slaughter of the first crusaders. He had fortified Nicæa, and had gathered within and about its walls sixty thousand men, drawn from all the provinces of Asia Minor and from distant Persia. May 15, 1097, the Christians sat down before the place and began the siege.
The crusading knights were clad in the hauberk, a coat of mail made of rings of steel; all wore the casque, covered with iron for common soldiers, with steel for untitled knights, and with silver to denote the princely rank. Horsemen carried round, square, or kite-shaped shields; footmen longer ones, made ordinarily of elm, which protected the entire body. Helmets of steel or chain hoods covered the head. The weapons of offence were the lance of ash tipped with steel, the sword, often of enormous length and weight, to be wielded with both hands, the axe, the mace, the poniard, the club, the sling, and, what at that time was a novelty to the Turks and Greeks, the crossbow of steel, which Anna Comnena called a “thoroughly diabolical device.” The knight’s horse was usually a heavy beast, whose tough muscles were needed to carry the weighty armament mounted upon his back, together with his own housings, which consisted of a saddle plated with steel, gathered as a breastplate in front and projecting backward so as to protect the flanks and loins. The horse’s head was likewise hooded with metal, ornamented between the eyes with a short, sharp pike like the horn of the unicorn. But, notwithstanding the burden he carried, the knight acquired by discipline a marvellous celerity of movement, often baffling the anticipation of the most wary antagonist, while in the crash of conflict he bore down his foe with superior weight. In the train of the crusading knight were carried the materials for the erection of rams with which to batter down walls, catapults to hurl huge rocks, and siege-castles, or movable towers, which overtopped the opposing defences and were provided with bridges to let down upon the walls.
The Turkish or Saracen soldier was more lightly accoutred. His horse was of more slender mould, deep-winded, and fleet of limb. In the encounter the rider depended upon the momentum acquired by celerity rather than that of weight. The long but light spear, brandished rather than couched, the crescent-shaped, slender, but well-tempered cimeter, the shield of leather, made, where attainable, of rhinoceros’s hide rather than of metal, the light bow, the quiver filled with nicely balanced arrows, the many folds of the muslin turban which protected the head from the Eastern sun—these made an almost ideal contrast with the appearance of his Western antagonist when upon the march. The armor of Christian and Moslem, so diverse, necessitated manœuvres in the battle which in their first encounters were almost equally bewildering to both contestants.
In the assault upon Nicæa the Christians numbered upward of a quarter of a million men. Against them Kilidge-Arslan had at least one hundred thousand and the advantage of the city fortifications. The place was encircled with a double line of walls, surmounted by three hundred and seventy towers, and guarded from approach by a deep canal or moat. On the east high mountains obstructed the way; on the west and south the Lake of Ascanius prevented attack, while it gave the besieged an outlet to the sea, through which they could replenish their provisions and ranks in spite of their foes.
The Christians were divided into nineteen different camps, representing as many different nations. Their habit of fighting, not on extensive battle lines, but in groups about the standards of their special leaders, gave plausibility to the declaration of Kilidge-Arslan, as he viewed the invaders from his mountain outlook, that “disorder reigned in their army” and that their very numbers insured their defeat. With tremendous vigor, he hurled his forces in two divisions upon the camps of Godfrey and Raymond. The Christians were dislodged from their defences as bowlders from their places by a spring freshet. It seemed that they must be swept away in the impetuous torrent, but quickly the tide of battle turned, and the Turks were driven back to their mountain fortresses. Again they descended, but only to cover the field with their dead, as the exhausted freshet leaves upon the ground it has inundated the débris it brought down from the hills, while the rocks it assailed still lie near the position where they sustained the assault. The brutality that distempered the age was illustrated by the Christian victors, who severed many heads from the bodies of the slain and slung them as trophies from their saddle-bows. With ghoulish pride, they hurled a thousand of them from their catapults into the city. One of these “soldiers of the cross,” Anselme of Ribemont, wrote to the Archbishop of Rheims: “Our men, returning in victory and bearing many heads fixed upon pikes, furnished a joyful spectacle for the people of God.”
One line of walls soon fell beneath the rams of the besiegers, but it only revealed another within. The Christians dragged vessels overland from Civitat (the modern Guemlik), and by night launched them upon the Lake of Ascanius, thus cutting off reinforcement for the garrison within the city. After seven weeks of almost incredible effort, Nicæa was about to fall to the reward of its Latin conquerors, when suddenly there appeared upon the ramparts numerous strange standards. To the amazement of the Christians, these proved to be not those of the Turk, but of the Greek. Alexius, conniving with the enemy, had surreptitiously introduced into Nicæa a detachment of his own troops, and thus secured the surrender to himself of what had been won by others. The rage of the crusaders knew no bounds. With the price of their blood they had gained nothing but the honor of their valor. Only the utmost discretion on the part of the chieftains prevented the army from declaring war upon Alexius and marching back to the capture of Constantinople. It afterwards transpired that Alexius’s movement had been encouraged by some of the leaders of the crusade, that their armies might not be weakened by leaving garrisons to hold the captured places.
From Nicæa the Christians advanced (June 29, 1097) through Asia Minor towards the Holy Land. Their march was over a roadless country, threading the ravines and climbing the precipices of mountains, across plains desolated by the retreating foe, under the burning heat of the midsummer sun, and exposed to the guerilla attacks of a half-beaten enemy, whose main army was rapidly recruiting and waiting with double its former numbers to renew the battle.
In order to procure provisions, the crusaders divided their forces—one band under Bohemond, Tancred, Count Hugh, and Robert of Normandy, the other under Godfrey, Raymond, Adhemar, and Robert of Flanders. The former had camped with confident security in a little valley near Dorylæum in Phrygia. On the morning of July 1st sudden clouds of dust appeared on the height above, and a storm of arrows and missiles announced the attack of Kilidge-Arslan. Bohemond had scarcely arranged his people for battle when the Turks were upon him. With their lighter armor and swifter steeds, they circled about the Christians, delivering volleys of arrows, and escaping before the assault could be returned, as hawks might assail a lion. If a valiant band of Christians pursued them they dispersed in every direction, only to form again in a circle and repeat their murderous attack. Many of the most valiant Christian knights fell without being able to return a stroke. The Turkish numbers were being constantly augmented by new arrivals. Kilidge-Arslan, at the head of a body of his braves, made a sudden raid upon the Christian camp, massacring the men and children and carrying off the women for his seraglios.
But a bitter vengeance was taken. Robert of Normandy, snatching his white banner, drove through the densest ranks of the foe with the watchword of “Deus vult!” followed by Tancred, who was made doubly valiant by having seen his brother William fall, pierced with arrows. The captives were rescued, but the crusaders were exhausted, and retired in despair behind the stockade of their camp. At noon, however, the air was rent with new trumpet-calls. The hilltop shone with the armor of the knights under Godfrey. The charge of this redoubtable warrior and fifty chosen comrades broke upon the Turks like a thunderbolt. The opportune arrival of Raymond gave the crusaders fifty thousand fresh horsemen, who pursued the now panic-stricken enemy over the mountain. Three thousand Turkish officers and a measureless multitude of men were slain. The camp of Kilidge-Arslan was taken, and the crusaders pursued their way, laden with provision and treasures. Mounted on the horses of their foes, they pursued the flying remnant. To complete the enthusiasm of victory, it was alleged that St. George and St. Demetrius had been seen fighting in the Christian ranks. For many generations the peasants of that neighborhood believed that once a year St. George, on horseback, with lance in hand, could be seen by the worshippers in the little church which was erected on the spot to commemorate his timely apparition.
The crusaders marched from the field of Dorylæum to new terrors, against which it was not the province of sword or lance to contend. The scattered Turks devastated the country along the line of march. Neither field nor bin was left to be plundered. The roots of wild plants were at times the only food of the pursuers. The July sun, always terrific in what the ancients called “burning Phrygia,” beat upon them with unusual balefulness. Falcons, which the knights had brought along to relieve the tedium of the journey, fell dead from their masters’ arms. Many women gave untimely birth to offspring, which perished in their first efforts to inhale the hot atmosphere. Five hundred of the hapless multitude died between a sunrise and sunset. One day some dogs, which had wandered off, returned with moist sand upon their paw’s and coats; they had found water. Following the trail of the brutes, the soldiers discovered a mountain stream. The men plunged into it and drank so abundantly that the multitude became water drunk; thus three hundred perished with the fever flush of new-found life.
Passing through Cilicia, the advance under Tancred captured Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul. But Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, contested with Tancred the honor of its possession and a share of its spoil. Tancred refused to allow either his own men or those of Baldwin to loot the place, saying that he had not taken arms to pillage Christians. His flag was torn from the ramparts and flung into the ditch. By a display of moral courage equal to his physical prowess, Tancred restrained his resentment, that the Christian host might not be divided. Baldwin, left in possession of a part of the town, refused admission to a company of crusaders, who, thus left exposed without the walls, were massacred by the Turks. Popular indignation ran high against Baldwin, which he ultimately assuaged by taking a horrible vengeance upon the Turks remaining in Tarsus, not one of whom he left alive.
The crusaders at Tarsus received reinforcements by the arrival of a fleet of Flemish and Dutch pirates, who, by the bribe of expected spoil, were induced to sew the cross upon their garments.
Leaving a garrison in this city, Baldwin followed eastward in the track of Tancred, whom he overtook at Malmistra. The rage of the soldiers of Tancred against him could not be checked by the mild counsel of their leader, whom they taunted with weakness. For once the self-restraint of Tancred gave way. He led his men against Baldwin. A pitched battle ensued, followed on the morrow by the embrace of the leaders in the presence of their troops, and vows to expiate their mutual offences in fresh blood of the common enemy.
The popularity of Tancred ill suited the ambition of his rival. Baldwin, seemingly stung by the withdrawal of the confidence of his brethren, nursed the project of leaving the crusading army and setting up a kingdom for himself. He offered his aid to Thoros, the Armenian Prince of Edessa, in Mesopotamia, who was at that time warring on his own account against the Turks beyond the Euphrates. None of the crusading chiefs seconded Baldwin’s project. With eighty knights and one thousand foot-soldiers, he traversed the deserts. Upon his arrival at Edessa, in the strange custom of the country the aged Thoros and his wife pressed the count to their naked breasts, thus acknowledging him as son by adoption. The fable of him who had warmed a serpent in his bosom only to feel its sting was repeated in this case. With Baldwin’s knowledge, if not with his connivance, an insurrection was stirred against Thoros, which resulted in his being flung from the wall of his own castle.
Baldwin, thus installed in chief authority, confirmed his hold upon the people by marrying an Armenian princess. All Mesopotamia acknowledged him, and a Frankish knight was seen reigning on the Euphrates over the richest part of ancient Assyria.
The defection of Baldwin was not ultimately detrimental to the crusades, since his kingdom made a barrier on the north and east against the Turkish and Saracenic hordes, and prevented their interfering more readily with the Christians’ march upon Jerusalem, of which Baldwin himself was one day to be king.
The crusading hosts passed, with incredible toil and suffering, through the remainder of Asia Minor. The perils of the Taurus chain of mountains nearly brought them to despair. Borne down with their heavy arms, encumbered with thousands of women and children, they passed along paths which the practised feet of mountaineers were alone fitted to tread. In the defiles were left many who could not climb the precipitous rocks, which thus became the walls of their tomb. At the base of the palisades were heaps of armor, which their wearers were too spiritless to recover. But in spite of the despair of many, the leaders evidently did not leave the spoil of war to rust or decay in the cañons of the Taurus. Stephen of Blois wrote to his wife a few weeks later than the events we are describing: “You may know for certain, my beloved, that of gold, silver, and many other kinds of riches I now have twice as much as your love had assigned to me when I left you.”
At length the survivors emerged to look down from the mountains upon the borders of Syria. The sight inspired them as that from Pisgah did the invader of old. Courage revived, and with joy they hastened southward. Hard by was the battle-field of Issus, where Alexander the Great, the man from the West, had broken the power of the East under Xerxes—an omen of its repetition. Soon Antioch, the city built to commemorate the fame of Antiochus, one of Alexander’s generals, stood before them. The rumor of their invincibility had served the crusaders in the stead of battles, and October 21, 1097, they sat down unmolested for the siege of the Syrian capital.
This city, where a thousand years before believers were first called Christians, still wore in the reverence of all the world the honor of that initial christening. It was called the “Eldest Daughter of Sion,” and was the seat of one of the original patriarchates into which the early church was divided. It had been the third city of the Roman world, and those who were unimpressed with its sacred story could imagine its splendor when it was called the “Queen of the East.” Paganism once worshipped obscene divinities in its famous groves of Daphne. About it still stood the enormous wall built by the Emperor Justinian five hundred years before, on every tower of which were mementos of sieges when it had been captured alternately by Saracen and Greek, and now, but thirteen years before the crusaders’ coming, by Solyman, the Turk.
The natural defences of Antioch, supplemented by those of art, made it impregnable, except to the enthusiastic faith of such men as now essayed its capture. On the north it was guarded by the river Orontes, on the south by natural heights of several hundred feet, on the west by the great citadel, and on the east by a castle. The wall which bound together the various fortifications was nine miles in extent, strengthened by three hundred and sixty towers. A deep cleft in the southern height poured a mountain torrent through the city to the Orontes. Accian, grandson of Malek-Shah, had twenty thousand Turks within the walls, who behind such battlements were presumably the match for the three hundred thousand crusaders who are said to have been without.
To the sanguine enthusiasm of the Christians the city seemed like a ripened fruit ready to fall into the hand at a touch. Guards appeared upon the walls, but the challenge of their camps provoked no response. This the Christians interpreted as a sign of the feebleness and dismay of the garrison. They were disposed to wait for the fruit to fall of itself. The genial influence of the climate soon wrought its softness into nerve and spirit. Discipline was relaxed; knights whose shields showed many a dent of conflict spent the hours among the vineyards, where the luscious clusters still hung upon their stems. Adventure found its pastime in discovering the vaults in which the peasants had hidden their grain. If we could believe the theory that good and evil people leave in the places they frequent an atmosphere of virtue or vice, to invigorate or infect the souls of those who come after them, we might think that the soldiers of the cross had succumbed to the influence of the votaries of Venus and Adonis, who anciently revelled in the grove of Daphne; for the Christian host became infatuated with unseemly pleasures; they were given over to intemperance and debauchery. An arch-deacon was not ashamed to be seen in dalliance with a Syrian nymph.
If the leaders did not yield to the prevalent vice, they seem to have been infected with that intellectual dulness and lethargy of purpose which follows license. They neglected to prepare their siege machinery, and when a momentary enthusiasm led them to attack the walls they paid for their temerity with failure. The enemy became correspondingly emboldened, and retaliated with fearful forays through the Christian lines. With the approach of winter the crusaders had exhausted their provisions, and the country about furnished no more. Heavy rainfalls reduced their camps to swamps, in which the bow lost its stiffness, and the body its vigor, making the men the prey of diseases which kept them busy burying their dead.
Stories of disasters to the cause elsewhere floated to them, until the air seemed laden with evil omens. Sweno, Prince of Denmark, had advanced through Cappadocia. At his side was Florine, daughter of Count Eudes of Burgundy, his affianced bride. Together they fought their way through countless swarms of Turks, until, with all their attendant knights, they were slain. The body of this heroic woman showed that seven arrows had penetrated her armor. News also came that fleets of Pisans and Genoese, their allies, had withdrawn from the coast, lured by better prospects of gain than in bringing succor to what seemed a ruined cause.
Such was the moral depression that Robert of Normandy deserted for a while, until shame brought him back. His example was followed even by Peter the Hermit, “a star fallen from heaven,” says Guibert, the eye-witness and chronicler. Peter, however, returned at the entreaty of Tancred, whose heart was as true in trouble as his eye was keen in the mêlée. The Hermit was made to take oath never again to desert the cause he had once so eloquently proclaimed. The piety of Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, instituted fasts and penitential processions around the camp, to purge it of iniquity and to avert the wrath of Heaven. The practical judgment of the chieftains enacted terrible punishments to curb the unreasoning debauchery. The drunkard was cropped of his hair, the gambler branded with a hot iron, the adulterer stripped naked and beaten in the presence of the camp. The Syrian spies who were caught were, by order of Bohemond, spitted and roasted, and this proclamation was posted over them: “In this manner all spies shall make meat for us with their bodies.”
About this time there arrived in the camp an embassy from the caliph of Egypt. The race of Ali hated the Turks as the usurpers of the headship of their faith, and proposed alliance with the Christians to expel them from Jerusalem. They stipulated for themselves the sovereignty of Palestine, and would grant to the disciples of Jesus perpetual privilege of pilgrimage to the sacred places. If this offer of the caliph was declined, the ambassadors presented the alternative of war, not only with the Turks, but with the combined Saracen world from Gibraltar to Bagdad. The Christian reply was bold. Their orators taunted the Egyptians with the diabolical cruelty they had once practised when Jerusalem was under Hakim, and declared that they would brave the wrath of the Moslem world rather than permit a stone of the sacred city to be possessed by an enemy of their faith. This reply was saved from seeming bravado by an opportune victory. Bohemond and Raymond met and cut to pieces a Moslem force of twenty thousand horsemen, who were advancing from the north for the relief of Antioch. As the ambassadors of Egypt were embarking, they were presented with four camel-loads of human heads, to impress their master with the sincerity of the Christian boast, while hundreds more of these ghastly tokens were stuck upon pikes before the walls or flung by the ballistæ into the city to terrorize the defendants.
The fearfulness of their extremity animated the courage of the Turks as it had often done that of the Christians; for brave hearts are the same, under whatever faith and culture. They sallied from the gates, which by the orders of Accian were closed behind them until they should return as victors. At nightfall, however, but few lived to seek the entrance.
Their valor was doubtless as fine as that of the Christians, the exploits of whose leaders have come to us in story and song. Tancred’s deeds were so great that, either from excessive modesty or the fear that nobody would believe such wonders, he exacted a promise of his squire never to tell what his master had wrought. If his great actions were like most reported of his comrades, we can admire his wisdom as well as his humility; for the legends of the battle tell, among other wonders, of a monster Turk who was cloven in twain by the sword of Godfrey, and one half of whose lifeless body rode his charger back to the gate. A less glorious exploit is mentioned. The Christians rifled by night the new-made graves of the Moslems, and paraded the next day in the clothes of the fallen braves, carrying upon their pikes instead of garlands fifteen hundred heads they had severed from the corpses. A more romantic scene makes a pleasant foil to this: the children of either side, drilled by their seniors, engaged in battle in presence of both armies. Hands that could not use the sword thrust with the dagger, and the poisoned tip of the arrow was not less deadly because it was sent from a tiny bow.
After seven months of valorous assault and defence, Antioch at length was gained. It fell, however, not as the prize of honorable conquest, but as the price of treachery, disgraceful to both those within and those without the walls. Phirous, an Armenian Christian, had abjured his faith in order to secure promotion in the Turkish service. In reward he was given position, and now commanded three of the principal towers. Divining a similar, if not equal, unconscionableness in Bohemond, Phirous made known to him his willingness to recant his new vows as a Moslem and again betray his trust for larger reward in the Christian ranks. Bohemond announced to the other chiefs his possession of a secret by which Antioch might easily be taken, but refused to reveal it except upon their agreement to assign to him the independent sovereignty of the Syrian capital. The proposal at first met with the contempt and rage of his fellow-leaders, which were expressed to his face in the hot words of Raymond, who declared that Bohemond proposed to “repay with the conquests of valor some shameful artifice worthy of women.” Bohemond was as brazen as he was brave, and endured this insult. Reports became rife that Kerbogha, Sultan of Mosul, was advancing to the relief of his coreligionists. Bohemond, through his emissaries, magnified the alarm until the besiegers anticipated the attack of an army of two hundred thousand, whose cimeters were dripping with the blood of victory over all the peoples west of the Euphrates. Under this menace the chiefs chose the valor of discretion, and, not without lamentation at the shameful necessity, yielded to the ambition of their comrade.
The scheme of Phirous came near miscarriage at the very moment of execution. Accian, the commandant at Antioch, suspicious of treachery, ordered all the Christians in the city to be seized and massacred that very night. Summoning Phirous, he subjected him to severest examination, but the shrewdness of the wretch completely veiled his duplicity. Phirous tried to induce his own brother to join him in his treachery. The man refused, and, lest he should reveal the plot, Phirous plunged his dagger to his heart.
A comet, which had appeared in the early evening sky, was regarded as an omen favorable to the scheme. The subsequent dense darkness of the night and the roar of sudden storm shielded the forms and drowned the footfalls of the plotters. At a given signal Phirous dropped from the wall a ladder of leather, which was quickly mounted by one of Bohemond’s men. As the traitor Phirous stood by the parapet conversing with the intruders, he was startled by the glare of a lantern in the hand of an officer making his round of inspection, but his ready tact diverted suspicion. The agent of Bohemond descended the ladder and reported all in readiness for the assault; but the Christians were held back by a strange spell. Men who were accustomed to brave death without a question at the command of their princes, could not be prevailed upon by either threatening or promise to venture into this unknown danger. Moral courage is the strongest stimulus to physical daring, and this treacherous project failed to supply the heroic incentive. Bohemond himself was compelled to set the perilous example; but no one followed until he descended to assure them by his presence that he had not fallen into some deadly trap. Then one by one the bravest knights, such as Foulcher of Chartres and the Count of Flanders, emulated Bohemond’s bravery. The parapet was overweighted by the assailants, who were massed upon its edge, and gave way, precipitating many upon the lance-points of those below them. But the thunders of the storm drowned the crash of the falling masonry. Securing the three towers of Phirous’s command, the crusaders opened the city gates to the dense ranks that waited without.
With the cry of “Deus vult! Deus vult!” the infuriated multitude poured into the city. The Moslems, as they came from their homes and barracks at the rude awakening, were slaughtered without having time for resistance. Through all houses not marked by some symbol of the Christian faith the crusaders raged; cruelty and lust knew no restraint. The dawn revealed over six thousand corpses in the streets. Accian escaped the Christian soldiers, only to meet a less honorable death at the hands of a woodman while in flight through the forest. Phirous was abundantly rewarded for his treachery, but two years later he reëmbraced Moslemism in expectation of larger gains. In the anathemas of Christian and paynim he was consigned to the hell in which both believed.