Peter the Hermit Part 7

Whether the Christian leaders felt that they could better spare Peter than a general we do not know, but we do know that, with the great revival of courage, challenge was sent to the Saracens for general engagement or single combat, and Peter the Hermit was the messenger. He was in his element when he could talk. Though treated contemptuously by his audience, he spoke as if he was the greatest ruler of the earth. It is a wonder that they did not promptly kill him for his insolence. He told them that Asia Minor properly belonged to Christians, that G.o.d had permitted it to fall into Turkish hands on account of Christian sins, but G.o.d was now arisen to fight on the Christian side. "Now," he says, "leave and go to your own country. We will not humble you. We will pray for your conversion to the true faith. If you will not go, and will not become Christians, let us decide all matters by battle by a few knights, or by one, or by a general fight."

[Sidenote: _Emba.s.sy Driven Away_]

The perilous situation of the Christians was known to Kerbogha, the Mohammedan general, and he was enraged at the impudence of Peter. "You are as good as conquered and come to me to dictate terms. Go back and tell them they must receive conditions, and not make them. If you will acknowledge Mohammed, I will feed and clothe you, and may leave Antioch in your hands. If not, we shall see what the sword will do!" Peter and his escort were driven off, and were several times in danger of death on the way back. Battle was ordered for the next day by the Christian captains.

During the night a hidden supply of provisions was found. The Crusaders strengthened themselves by a meal and the offices of religion, and day coming, the Christian army, representing the twelve apostles, marched out in twelve divisions.

[Sidenote: _Carrying the Lance-Head_]

[Sidenote: _Disposition for Battle_]

Raymond D'Agiles carried the lance-head and fixed their attention on it.

Some of the priests chanted a warlike psalm in the front rank, while others blessed the outgoing army from the walls. The walls and the hills echoed the cry, "G.o.d wills it! G.o.d wills it!" The appearance of the army was such as to fill the Mussulmans with contempt. Ragged, thin, and weak, mounted on a.s.ses and camels, on anything which could carry them, they deployed to meet the fifteen ma.s.ses of Saracens. The Crusaders soon cut to pieces the two thousand who guarded the bridge of Antioch, and ranged themselves where the mountain protected them from surprise. The great names commanded the wings and the center, with Bohemond in reserve. The early hours were friendly to the Christians. Later they were sorely hurt by a surprise from a body of Saracens who had pa.s.sed around the mountain and had attacked their rear. The gra.s.s was fired in front of the Christians by the sultan of Nicea, a fact which was near ruining the prospects of the Christians.

[Sidenote: _Prodigy of Hors.e.m.e.n_]

[Sidenote: _Hundred Thousand Turks Killed_]

Once again a prodigy is reported. A squadron descends from the mountains, led by three white hors.e.m.e.n. A bishop, perhaps himself the inventor of this pious fraud, cries out to the wavering Crusaders: "Behold, heavenly succor has come!" Instantly the Christians revive and renew the attack, and the Saracens were put to rout. Failing even to rally on the other side of the river, they left behind them their arms and their baggage. Their general had only a small body-guard as he fled toward the Euphrates. With horses captured on the field, the Christians kept up the pursuit. A hundred thousand of the infidels died, and four thousand Christians won the martyr's crown. The battle enriched the Crusaders beyond any hope or experience, and Antioch was filled with the captured booty. The historian declares, "Horrors had made the Christians invincible. This was the only miracle."

[Sidenote: _Disputes Follow Victory_]

With this astounding victory the march of the Crusaders almost ceased to meet armed resistance. The ma.s.s of the army clamored to march on to Jerusalem. The leaders were divided. Some said, "Let us march before the enemy recovers from the terror of our arms." The majority of the leaders forgot the Holy City in the pleasures, securities, and conquests of Syria. This gave strength to their arguments to wait for the re-enforcements of men and horses for which they asked the home authorities.

[Sidenote: _Fifty Thousand Christians die of Pestilence_]

Pestilence was the penalty of delay, and fifty thousand old and new warriors died in and near Antioch. Yet in such times Christians could quarrel, and Bohemond was denied by the Count of Toulouse the full possession of Antioch. They were ready to fight. Others followed their example, and all important time was wasted by quarrels and recriminations. At the very foot of the altar some of the leaders lied and quarreled to gain power. Bands roamed over Syria wherever there was a chance to loot; fighting over it when taken, and dying of starvation and thirst whenever they met unexpected resistance.

[Sidenote: _Piety and Villainy_]

The world has never seen a greater mixture of piety and villainy than among these Crusaders. They could rape, rob, and murder with a good conscience, yet must be numbered among the most heroic of men. They endured uncomplainingly long marches in heat and cold, in hunger, thirst, and pestilence. They fought superior numbers with amazing courage. The one supreme virtue was valor against man and beast.

[Sidenote: _Excursions While Waiting_]

[Sidenote: _Careless Again_]

The long wait for orders to march to Jerusalem sent some leaders out to take cities over which they might rule, and others to visit the Christian leaders who had already won thrones. But most remained in a demoralizing inactivity until a prodigy of electrical b.a.l.l.s of light, or possibly a meteoric shower, started, by various interpretations, the ma.s.s into securing their rear by the capture and subjugation of several Syrian cities. In one of these sieges the Saracens threw something like Greek fire down on the besiegers, and followed this with hives of bees.

Always the Crusaders seemed to be without a proper preparation for food, and before more than one city the Christian soldiers cooked and ate the bodies of their enemies; and it is even reported that human flesh was sold in the shambles of their camp, as the flesh of dogs certainly was.

[Sidenote: _Saracens Defile the Cross_]

In all this horror the spirits of the Crusaders were fortified by the outrages of the Saracens on the symbol of Christianity. They erected crosses on their walls, covered them with filth, and reviled the worshipers. It was poor policy for the besieged. It infuriated the natural pa.s.sions and inflamed the religious zeal of the besiegers.

Constructing engines which shattered the walls, the Crusaders made themselves masters of the fortifications. In the dusk they did not dare to enter the city. In the morning it appeared to be deserted, but the inhabitants were discovered in subterranean refuges. They were soon smoked out, and were slaughtered without regard to age or s.e.x. Thus fell the city of Maarah, of which no stone was left. Awful as this was for men wearing the cross of Christ, it spread such terror that life may have been saved thereby, since other cities willingly opened their gates.

[Sidenote: _Soldiers Desire Attack_]

The common soldiers refused longer to interest themselves in the quarrels of their leaders, and, hearing that the Egyptians had taken Jerusalem, demanded to be led on, and threatened to choose new leaders unless their old ones showed the way to Jerusalem. Raymond finding that he must lead or be left behind, forsook his ambition, led in a procession of penitence, and gave the signal for departure.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM.

During the six months after the capture of Antioch most of the leaders seemed to have contemplated no forward step.

[Sidenote: _Raymond Orders March_]

[Sidenote: _Re-enforcements from England_]

[Sidenote: _Quarrels and Miracles_]

[Sidenote: _Alexius and His Craft_]

[Sidenote: _Egyptian Bribes_]

But the orders of Raymond to march filled many with enthusiasm, and, under the lead of Raymond, Tancred, and the Duke of Normandy, the army traversed the territories of Syrian Caesarea, Hamath, and Edessa. They were welcomed by Moslem and Christian alike. Fear pleaded for this with the first, and sympathy with the last. Protection was sought at the hands of the invaders, and presents and food were abundantly provided.

They were surprised and delighted by the return of Christian prisoners believed to have perished on the battle-field. A portion of the army reached Laodicea, and welcomed there re-enforcements from England. But the main object was still postponed, and the army under separate leaders attacked neighboring cities. Raymond sat down before Archas, and was firmly resisted. G.o.dfrey went to lay siege to Gibel, and Raymond of Turenne to Tortosa. This period of delay and of excursions for the sake of loot, was chiefly occupied by those who remained in camp, with disgraceful quarrels when not engaged in inventing miracles, and noising them abroad. The first seem to have been largely checked by the appearance of an amba.s.sador from the Emperor Alexius of Constantinople, who proved himself, while professing friendship, about the worst enemy the Crusaders had. Just now he reproached them with gentleness, being afraid of them, for not putting the cities they had captured under his dominion. He promised to follow them with an army into Jerusalem if the Crusaders would give him time to prepare. Sick of his treacheries, and feeling only contempt for him personally, his new complaints and promises served only to cement and unify them and make them the more ready to march on. As to the miracles, they ceased when, in the ordeal by fire, Barthelemi, the author of the Holy Lance, came through the flames mortally injured. The Caliph of Cairo, with whom it was believed Alexius was in league, had already possessed himself of Jerusalem, and, fearing for his authority there, sent amba.s.sadors to treat with the Christian army. Rich presents were brought to the leaders sufficient to tempt the avarice which had grown by conquest. The announcement by the amba.s.sadors that the gates of Jerusalem would be opened only to unarmed Christians--a proposition which the leaders had rejected when in the miseries of the siege of Antioch--enraged those in authority.

[Sidenote: _The Crusaders' Answer_]

The answer of the Christian leaders was an order to prepare to march and a threat to carry the war into Egypt itself. The Emir of Tripoli attacked them with fearful loss, and was mulcted heavily in tribute and provisions. All headed toward Jerusalem with the way cleared by fear of Christian arms, except Raymond, who was finally compelled to march also by the threatened rebellion of his soldiers. Late May found the Crusading army in the field. They pa.s.sed through a rich country, whose harvests were finished and whose orchards bore abundantly oranges, pomegranates, and olives.

[Sidenote: _A Rich Country_]

Yet as they marched they were mindful that battle and pestilence had reduced their numbers by two hundred thousand. Some had returned home, unable to endure the hardships, and many had remained in the conquered cities through which they had pa.s.sed. The army numbered scarcely fifty thousand real soldiers. Yet much that was gone was a relief to their camp-chests and their commissary. One historian thinks this fifty thousand to have been really stronger than the horde which besieged Nicea.

[Sidenote: _Along the Sea Coasts_]

The line of march was along the seacoasts that the sea might furnish them provisions through the Flemish and Italian fleets. They reach Accon, the modern Acre, to find the Emir promising everything but immediate surrender, and that also when Jerusalem was occupied. A wounded pigeon, picked up by the Bishop of Apt, had under its wing a letter from the Emir of Accon to the Emir of Caesarea which said, "The accursed Christians have just pa.s.sed through my territories, and will soon be in yours. Let the Mussulman rulers be warned, and let our enemies be crushed!" The Crusaders naturally believed this a providence of great a.s.surance and value, and presently moved inland and took possession of Lydda and Ramla.

[Sidenote: _Near Jerusalem_]

They were now but sixteen miles from Jerusalem. A stronger desire to march on Egypt led some to counsel delay. But agreement to march to Jerusalem was had, and, with temporary desertions and cautious advances and the marking houses and towns as private possessions, they came at last near Emmaus. Terrified by a lunar eclipse, some are panic-stricken, but the phenomenon is well explained and held to be a sign of victory.

[Sidenote: _Jerusalem from the Hill_]

Now, those who slept that night could hope, could know that, with the climbing of a hill, daylight would reveal Jerusalem. On the 10th of June, 1099, the first who reached the summit at break of day, cried out, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem," and the crowd rushing after cried, "G.o.d wills it!" as they looked upon the Mount of Olives and the Holy City. Riders climbed down from their horses and marched on foot; many knelt, and mult.i.tudes kissed the ground. The sense of the sin for whose forgiveness Christ had died, brought many to tears of honest penitence and some to conscious pardon. As they looked on the height where His profaned tomb must be, they wept bitter tears and vowed again to deliver the city.

[Sidenote: _Country Laid Waste_]

Before the Christians could invest the city its ruler took care to ravage the adjacent territory, poison the wells, and thus belted the walls with a desert. He provisioned the city against a siege, and fashioned all known engines of war. The garrison of forty thousand was increased by twenty thousand arm-bearing citizens.

[Sidenote: _Plan for Attack_]

On the day after arrival, the various leaders distributed the territory and laid siege to the city. Egress from the city was possible only through the valley of Gihon and the valley of Jehoshaphat. Christians from the city, driven out for fear of treason and to burden the resources of the besiegers, quickened the ardor of the Christian army by an account of the wrongs they had suffered at Mussulman hands. Churches had been robbed for the benefit of infidel soldiers, and the most sacred buildings were threatened with destruction by the unbelievers. All these conditions led to a determination of an early a.s.sault. They had made no adequate provision for scaling walls or battering gates, but expected Divine intervention in their favor. The a.s.sault was repulsed, and their losses brought the victory of reason.