THE THIRD ARMENIAN DYNASTY. (A. D. 856.)
The pressure on the reader’s sympathy will be relieved by the portrayal of a brief reign of peace in Armenia, but righteous indignation will not be lessened.
Ashod I., the son of Sumpad, the Confessor who died in chains at Bagdad, gathered the remains of his tribe together, after the retirement of Bogha, the Tyrant, and by his courage, wisdom and humanity became greatly esteemed. The Caliph of Bagdad in an hour of strange friendliness conferred on him the government of Armenia.
He sent him also a special messenger, bearing rich presents and splendid official robes, directing him to invest Ashod with the supreme power.
ARMENIAN TYPES AND COSTUMES.
His first effort was to restore confidence and improve the condition of the country, to the great satisfaction of all the Armenians. George II., Pontiff, and all the chiefs united in drawing up a petition to the Caliph soliciting him to bestow a crown upon Ashod, promising at the same time not to falter in their allegiance to the authority of Bagdad. To the great joy of all Armenians, their prayer was heard and a crown of royalty was sent. Basilius, the Emperor of Constantinople, who was an Armenian of the family of the Arsacids also sent him a magnificent crown. Thus patronized by two emperors, Ashod ascended with great splendor the throne of Armenia. All the ancient royal customs were restored and Armenia again became a great and flourishing country.
Armenia being now at peace, Ashod set out to visit Western Armenia, and thence he passed on to Constantinople to visit Emperor Leo, son of Basilius. His reception was magnificent. On his returning he fell sick—his malady increasing he sent for George, the Pontiff, and received the sacrament, after which he appointed that large sums should be distributed to the poor at the church doors and to hospitals, convents and almshouses. He died in his seventy-first year, having governed Armenia thirty-one years, viz: Twenty-six as governor and five as king. He was buried with all the royal magnificence due to an eastern Monarch.
In 892 the Caliph confirmed the crown to Sumpad, eldest son of Ashod and the ceremony of coronation was again performed. The treaty of his father was renewed with the Emperor of Constantinople, but his reign proved to be a stormy one through successive invasions of the Persians. At length he was enticed into the power of Yussuf, the Persian, bound in chains and cast into a dark dungeon for a year. From prison he was taken before the walls of a castle which was being besieged. Furious with rage because of the continued resistance, Yussuf caused the most horrible barbarities to be executed upon the unfortunate Sumpad in sight of the beleaguered Armenians. The torture was renewed daily to cause him to deny Christ. Then hourly until death released his unshaken spirit.
Ashod II., surnamed the Iron-hearted, famed for bravery and extraordinary strength, son of Sumpad, now gathered a small body of six hundred men like himself and began to drive out the Persians. Soon he cleared the country of them and in gratitude the Armenians placed him on the throne. But many chiefs refused him their allegiance. They were a restless, jealous set of nobles, and these quarrels among themselves are by all their historians denounced as the chief source of their national weakness.
Nobles and peasants rose in rebellion, and Yussuf taking advantage of the anarchy again brought upon them his fiercest bands.
The former cruelties, and persecutions and barbarities were repeated. Aged men and women were tied together and then cut to pieces, babes were tossed in the air to be caught on the points of the spears or cut in twain with their swords, or dashed to the ground in the presence of their distracted and dishonored mothers.
Religious fanaticism was burning like the fires of hell in the breast of Yussuf and yet these Armenians though ready to fight against each other would die the death of martyrs rather than deny their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Greater horrors followed on the devastation of their fields. Sore and dreadful famine began its cruel work. Thousands died of starvation. Cities and villages were attacked solely for the sake of devouring the slain. Individuals were seized and slain by bands of men driven to madness by their hunger.
There was no Red Cross Committee in those days for the relief of the starving populations and even if so, no person wearing a cross would have been permitted to carry to them a loaf of bread lest the religious sensibilities of Yussuf and his Infidel hordes should be deeply wounded.
Starvation was his best ally. It swept off multitudes he could not reach with the sword. The tender heart of the Sultan of Turkey must not to-day be lacerated with even suggestion that there is more mercy under the cross than under his own blood-red crescent. He turns fair and fertile provinces into cemeteries and makes of villages heaps of ruins, then publishes to Europe that he has restored peace to his people.
Peace returned to Armenia for twenty-five years however after the driving out of the Persians, Apas succeeding his brother Ashod II. Multitudes of self-exiled Armenians returned to their deserted fields and ruined villages, and peace soon made the valleys smile again.
Cities were restored, magnificent churches erected. The city of Ani was chosen as the new capital. But Ashod III., derives his greatest fame from his private virtues. Having built a number of hospitals, infirmaries and almshouses for the poor and suffering he gave his personal attention to their management. He visited them frequently, indulging in kindliest familiarity with the poorest.
He even invited the poor, the sick and the maimed to eat with him at his own table. So unbounded was he in his donations to the poor and distressed that on his death not a single piece of money was found in his treasury. Hence he was surnamed the charitable.
These are the kind of men whom for more than a thousand years the Saracens and Turks have been trying to exterminate as dogs of Christians. And the work still goes fearfully on because the great Christian Powers of Europe say the Turk must be upheld and reverenced because he holds the balance of power. It would not do to offer him anything more than a diplomatic hint that some slight reform might be acceptable even if only put on paper to show to the guardians of poor, perishing Armenia.
Sumpad II., succeeded his father and completed the fortifying of the city of Ani. He surrounded it with a wall of exceeding height and thickness on which he raised lofty towers for the stations of its defenders. The wall was protected from assault by a wide, deep moat encompassing the city the whole being faced with stone and brick. It took him eight years to finish it. This city became the center of power and influence. A very large number of churches were erected so that in all they reached the surprising number of one thousand and one. The next largest city was Ardgen containing three hundred thousand souls and eight hundred churches.
The Empire was consolidated and strong and retained its prosperity and power until some years after the close of the century, (A. D., 1020).
Let us leave for a while this ancient race at the height of its power and glory, the only Christian Nation that western Asia has ever had, and take a glance at the uprising of that power of Islam which to-day is, as for more than a thousand years it has been, the bitterest foe of the Church of Christ, the most ruthless destroyer of human life, the most brutal oppressor of enslaved humanity, which has always and everywhere robbed woman of her honor and immortality, motherhood of its glory, childhood of its innocence, the Deity of His mercy and even Heaven itself of its purity, making of Paradise its vestibule only a Mohammedan Seraglio.
CHAPTER II.
THE RISE OF ISLAM.
The reader will please turn aside for awhile to consider the rise of an alien religion which was destined to change the map of Europe and the course of history for many centuries; a religion which binds with fanatical zeal a sixth part of the human race; a power, which gathering its forces from the sands of Arabia swept like a fierce and pitiless simoon over the most ancient civilizations, until the flag of the Prophet waved from the Indus to the pillars of Hercules over an empire vaster than that ever ruled by Roman legions and Roman law.
While empires and kingdoms rose and fell; and the shock of contending armies shook all Europe and Northern Africa, and convulsed the rest of Asia, on its southwestern border, protected by the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and vast stretches of burning sand, lay a great peninsula by the name of Arabia, almost untouched by the cataclysm of centuries. In the depths of its deserts, its primitive character and independence remained unchanged, nor had the nomadic tribes of Ishmael ever bent their haughty necks to servitude.
For more than two thousand years Ishmael had been “a wild man; his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him” and now the other word “I will make him a great nation” was about to receive its fulfillment.
Our first thought of Arabia is of a barren, desert country inhabited by a few wandering tribes, of little importance. But it is an immense country, almost as large as India, with a population of millions. Among its mountains are beautiful and fertile valleys, towns and castles surrounded by orchards and vineyards, groves of palm trees and date-palms, fields of grain and well-stocked pastures. In the south were the people of Yemen—or Arabia the Happy—that land of spices, perfumes and frankincense; the Sheba of the Scriptures.
These were the most active and skillful navigators of the eastern seas and brought the wealth of the far East to their ports: thence by caravans all these mingled products were distributed to Syria, Egypt and other lands on the borders of the Mediterranean. The caravans were generally fitted out and conducted by the nomadic tribes, who added to the merchandise of other lands the exquisite and costly garments woven from the finest fleeces of their countless flocks and herds. In Arabia, above all the other lands in the East, the track of the caravan has borne on it greater riches even than the ships of Tarshish.
At the intersection of two such tracks where the goods of India and of Africa were interchanged, and where the gold of the Roman Empire was weighed against the spices of “Araby the Blest,” was situated the great emporium of Mecca.
Mecca was both the commercial and religious center of the whole peninsula. Although there was no political capital, the tribe feeling had led to the establishment of a form of government aristocratic rather than despotic. The noblest tribe among them all was the Koreish; the noblest family of the Koreish was that of Hashem: and the family of Hashem at the time of which we are writing were the rulers of Mecca and the guardians of its Kaaba.
The original religion of Arabia appears to have been the patriarchal monotheism in which there was still retained some knowledge of one, true, living, personal Deity. One supreme God was still worshiped, but in the language of the Koran they “gave Him companions,” they paid adoration to various subordinate powers, as to the host of heaven—to three female intelligences spoken of as the daughters of God, and to various family, local and national idols of which three hundred and sixty were found in the temple at Mecca.
This ancient temple, built according to Arabian tradition by the patriarch Abraham, contained besides these molten and graven images, the Black Stone—one of the stones of Paradise which fell down with Adam, but being taken up at the deluge, it was brought to Abraham by the angel Gabriel as a sacred ornament for his restored temple. At any rate, here at this temple in Mecca was the great center of worship, of sacrifice, and to it thronged in vast numbers the idolaters of Arabia.
The wild Arab of the desert and the comparatively civilized Arab of the cities show, though in different degrees, the same great elements of national character. Among them all the virtues and the vices of the half savage state, its revenge and its rapacity, its hospitality and its bounty were to be seen in their full force. How often have we had pictured before us the simplicity and beauty of such a natural life.
This wild man has been described as generous and hospitable. He delighted in giving gifts; his door was always open to the wayfarer, with whom he was ready to share his last morsel; and his deadliest foe, having once broken bread with him, might repose securely beneath the inviolable sanctity of his tent.
His social life, however, was most degraded. Drunkenness, gambling and unrestrained licentiousness abounded: the horrible practice of female infanticide was prevalent among the pagan tribes: while polygamy, that curse of the East, everywhere prevailed.
Though speaking a language, copious in the extreme, the words of which have been compared to gems and flowers, literature in the strict sense of that word can hardly be said to have existed; but the Arab had a quick intellect, was always ready with a native vein of rhetoric and was easily aroused by the appeals of eloquence and charmed by the graces of poetry. He was naturally an orator, delighted in proverbs and clothed his ideas in florid oriental style with apologue and parable.
While thus a degraded and degrading polytheism was the prevailing religion of Arabia, many Jews were to be found at Medina and in the cities bordering on Syria, and there was also a corrupted form of Christianity incrusted with numerous errors and superstitions, so that in no part of the world did Christianity give forth so feeble a light.
A very decided reform was imperatively needed to restore the belief in the unity of God and set up a higher standard of morality.
It is claimed by his admirers that Mohammed brought about such a reform. He was born in the year 570 of the family of Hashem and the tribe of Koreish to whom was entrusted the guardianship of the pagan temple and the Black Stone. Early left an orphan and in poverty, he was reared in the family of one of his uncles under all the influences of idolatry. This uncle was a merchant, and the youth made long journeys with him to distant fairs, especially into Syria where he became acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, especially with the Old Testament. At the age of twenty-five he entered the service of Cadijeh, a very wealthy widow conducting her immense caravans to fairs in distant cities. His personal beauty, his intelligence and spirit, won the heart of this powerful mistress and she became his wife.
He was now second to none in Arabia and his soul began to meditate on great things. There was in his household his wife’s cousin, Waraka, a man of flexible faith and of speculative spirit; originally a Jew, then a Christian, and withal a pretender to astrology. His name is worthy of notice as being the first on record to translate parts of the Old and New Testaments into Arabic.
As Mohammed contrasted these spiritual religions with the surrounding idolatry, he became more and more sensible of its grossness and absurdity. It appeared to him that the time for another reform had arrived. He talked with his uncles, they laughed at him. Only Cadijeh listened to him, believed in him, and encouraged him. Long afterwards, when she was dead, Ayeshah, his young and favorite wife, once asked him: “Am I not better than Cadijeh? Do you not love me better than you did her? She was a widow, old and ugly?” “No, by Allah,” said the prophet, “she believed in me when no one else did. In the whole world I had but one friend, and she was that friend.”
Without her sympathy and faith he probably would have failed. He told her, and her alone, his dreams, his ecstasies, his visions; how that God at different times had sent prophets and teachers to reveal new truth: how this one God who created the heavens and the earth had never left himself without witness in the most degraded times.
It was in the fortieth year of his age while spending the month Ramadhan in the cavern of Mount Hara in fasting and prayer that an angel appeared to him and commanded him to read the writing displayed to him on a silken cloth.
Instantly he felt his understanding illumined with celestial light and read what was written thereon:—they were the decrees of God as afterwards promulgated in the Koran. When he had finished reading the angel said: “O Mohammed of a truth, thou art the prophet of God! and I am His angel Gabriel—”
In the morning, as we are told, Mohammed came trembling to Cadijeh not knowing whether what he had heard and seen was indeed true; and that he was a prophet decreed to effect that reform so long the object of his meditations; or whether it might not be a hallucination or worse than all, the apparition of an evil spirit. Cadijeh, however, saw everything with the eye of faith and the credulity of an affectionate wife. “Rejoice, Allah will not suffer thee to fall to shame.” Waraka caught eagerly at the oracle and exclaimed, “Thou speakest true, O Cadijeh! The angel who has appeared to thy husband is the same who, in days of old, was sent to Moses the son of Amram. His annunciation is true. Thy husband is indeed a prophet.” The wavering mind of Mohammed was thus confirmed and throughout his life and even in the hour of death he never uttered a word of doubt concerning his heaven-sent mission.
“This,” says Carlyle, “is the soul of Islam. This is what Mohammed felt and now declared to be of infinite moment, that idols and formulas were nothing: that the jargon of argumentative Greek sects, the vague traditions of Jews, the stupid routine of Arab idolatry were a mockery and a delusion; that there is but one God: that we must let idols alone and look to Him. He alone is reality. He made us and sustains us. Our whole strength lies in submission to Him. The thing He sends us, be it death even, is good, is the best. We resign ourselves to Him.”
Thus far while possessed of this sole idea that he must proclaim to his degenerate countrymen in the midst of all but universal polytheism, that there is but one supreme God, Mohammed is regarded as a great reformer. He was neither a fanatic nor hypocrite; he was a very great man, and according to his light a very good man.
He began to preach everywhere that first word of Revelation “Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord.” “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” Few, however, believed in him. But why not acknowledge such a fundamental truth, appealing to the intellect as well as the moral sense? Because to confess that there is a supreme God who rewards and punishes, and to whom all are responsible both for words and actions, is to imply a confession of sinfulness and the justice of retribution.
Those degraded Arabians would not receive willingly such a truth as this; and how did the Israelites forget it in spite of deliverance from slavery and quickly fall back into idolatry: and how opposed it is to the epicureanism of to-day and the natural pride of the human breast.
The uncles and friends of Mohammed treated his message with scorn and derision. Zealously he labored for three years, yet with all his eloquence, fervor and sincerity he had only won by his preaching some thirteen persons, one of whom was his slave.
His worldly relatives urged him to silence. Why attack idols? Why destroy his own interests? Why destroy his popularity? Then explained that great hero, “If the sun stood on my right hand and the moon on my left, ordering me to hold my peace I would still declare, there is but one God.” A speech following in spirit the famous words of Luther at the Diet of Worms.
At last hostilities began. He was threatened, he was persecuted. They laid plots to take his life. Then his wife died. The priests of an idolatrous religion became furious. He had laid hands on their idols. He was hated, persecuted and alone. Thirteen years had passed away in reproach, in persecution, in fear. At last forty picked men swore to assassinate him. Should he remain and die, or fly for his life? He concluded to fly to Medina, where there were a few Jews and some nominal converts to Christianity.
This was in the year 622—and the flight is called the Hegira—from which the East dates its era; the fifty-third year of the prophet’s life.
In this city he was cordially welcomed and soon found himself surrounded with enthusiastic followers. He built a mosque and openly performed the rites of the new religion. He was for a time at a loss to know how to call his followers to prayer. While in this perplexity, Abdallah, the son of Zeid, suggested a form of words that he declared were revealed to him in a vision. It was instantly adopted by Mohammed, and is to this day heard from the lofty minarets throughout the East calling the Moslems to prayer: “God is great! God is great! There is no God but God. Mohammed is the apostle of God. Come to prayers! Come to prayers! God is great! God is great. There is no God but God.” To which at dawn of day are added the words: “Prayer is better than sleep! Prayer is better than sleep.”
Mohammed soon had an army at his disposal, and with this sudden accession of power there was wrought a fearful change in the spirit of his dreams. He had earnestly declared his great idea of the unity of God. He had pronounced the worship of images to be idolatrous. He held idolatry in supreme abhorrence. He enjoined charity, justice and forbearance. He denounced all falsehood and deception, especially in trade. He commanded his disciples to return good for evil, to be submissive to God; declared humility and benevolence to be the greatest virtues. He enjoined prayers, fastings and meditation as a means of grace.
But when he found an army at his command he lost command of himself. His anger burned against the Koreishites and their vindictive chief, Abu Sofian who now held full sway at Mecca. By them his fortunes had been blasted, his family degraded, impoverished, dispersed, and he himself driven into exile. He began to have visions to suit his changing temper, as all false religionists have even down to our own day. He declared himself, the last of all the prophets, to be sent forth into the world with the sword: “Let those who promulgate my faith enter into no argument nor discussion; but slay all who refuse obedience to the law. Whoever fights for the true faith whether he fall or conquer will assuredly receive a glorious reward. * * * The sword is the key of heaven and hell; and all who draw it in the cause of the faith will be rewarded with temporal advantages; every drop shed of their blood, every peril and hardship endured by them, will be registered on high as more meritorious than even fasting or prayer. If they fall in battle, their sins will at once be blotted out, and they will be transported to Paradise, there to revel in eternal pleasures in the arms of black-eyed houris.” He added to this promise of sensual pleasures the doctrine of fixed-fate, predestination absolute. No man could die sooner or later than his alloted hour and when it arrived, it would be the same, whether the angel of death should find him in the quiet of his bed, or amid the storm of battle.
Behold in these words the chief sources of the fanatical fury which had well-nigh conquered the entire Christian world.
It is as if some Mephistopheles had whispered in his ear; “thy countrymen are wild, fierce and warlike, incite their martial passions in defence of thy doctrines. They are a fanatical people and believing in these teachings they will fight for them and establish them not only in Arabia but throughout the East. Grant them a reward in what their passions crave and they will follow you to the death.”
Certainly this is true, that these counsels of evil let loose upon the world the fiercest, the most cruel and rapacious passions that were ever set on fire in hell. He resolved to adopt his religion to the depraved hearts of his followers. He mingled with sublimest truth the most debasing error. It was success he wanted; he would no longer scruple as to the means used to secure it. He became ambitious. He would become a mighty spiritual potentate, but descended to the level of his people to win them. He granted polygamy under the sanction of a pretended revelation from heaven. He who in his youth had been faithful to Cadijeh, fifteen years his senior, was now in his own age false to his youthful wife Ayeshah, multiplied wives to himself, robbed his faithful Zeid of his beautiful wife, absolved himself from his own law that a believer could only have four wives, and brought forth new revelations to justify in himself the gratifications of passions he condemned in others.
In the second year of the Hegira, Mohammed gratified his revenge against the Koreishites by attacking a caravan of a thousand camels laden with the merchandise of Syria. His arch enemy, Abu Sofian, commanded the escort. In this fight, known as the battle of Beder, the Moslems were victorious. It was during the progress of this battle that Mohammed encouraged his warriors with the memorable words: “Fight and fear not; the gates of Paradise are under the shade of swords.” This first cavalcade entering Medina with spoils, made Moslems of all the inhabitants and gave him control of the city. A few years later, at the head of ten thousand horsemen, he entered the city of Mecca—nothing but the swift commands of Mohammed to Khaled, “The Sword of God,” preserving the city from a general massacre. Mohammed now proceeded to execute the great object of his religious aspirations—the purifying of the temple. He entered it with the sublime words: “Truth is come; let falsehood disappear,” and shivered in quick succession the three hundred and sixty abominations which were in the holy place.
Monastic Rock Chambers at Gueremeh.
Mohammed soon found himself the sovereign of all Arabia; and yet his military triumphs awakened no pride nor vain glory as they would have done had they been effected for selfish ends. He ever maintained the same simplicity of manners as in the days of his adversity. As to the temporal rule which grew up in his hands, as he used it without ostentation, so he took no steps to perpetuate it in his family. The riches which poured in upon him from tribute and the spoils of war were used in relieving the poor or expended in promoting the victories of the faith; so that his treasury was often drained of its last coin. “Allah” says an Arabian historian “offered him the keys of all the treasures of the earth; but he refused to accept them.”
It is this abnegation of self and his apparently heartfelt piety that even in his own dying hour, when there could be no worldly motive for deceit, still breathed the same religious devotion and the same belief in his apostolic mission; that so perplexes one in trying to estimate justly the full force of his character.
Whatever we may think of Mohammed personally, even though we may concede that he was a sincere religious fanatic we can but hold in abhorrence the religion which has ever appealed to the sword and to the basest passions of men either to compel or persuade them to yield allegiance to Islam. When he died at the age of sixty-three, eleven years after the Hegira, Mohammed was next to Buddha, the most successful founder of a religion the world has ever known—a religion that is the most relentless and bitterest foe to Christianity, and that stands like a wall of fire and of adamant to oppose its progress in all the East.
The Saracens were ever loyal to the truth for which they fought. They never became idolaters; but their religion has ever been built up on the miseries of nations. To propagate the faith of Mohammed they drew the sword and overran the world. Never were conquests more rapid, more terrible or more remarkable.
Upon the death of Mohammed, Abu Beker, the father of Ayeshah, was elected to the supreme power, but refused to be called king or God’s vicar on earth, assuming only that of Caliph, that is to say Successor, and by this title the Arab sovereigns have ever since been designated. He was indifferent to riches, to all pomp and luxuries; his Arab establishment was of the simplest kind: his retinue consisting of a camel and a black slave.
The Golden Age of the Saracens was the twelve years, A. D. 632–644, comprised in the reigns of Abu Beker and Omar—a period of uninterrupted harmony and external conquest. Though Mohammed was dead, the sword of Islam was not buried with him; for Khaled, surnamed the Sword of God, now advanced to sustain the fame of former conquests. Within a year, Moseilma, a rival, and hence a false prophet, was slain, the rebellion subdued, the empire of Islam firmly reëstablished in Arabia; the scattered leaves gathered for the Koran; and an army for the subjugation of Syria and the East.
It was a strangely opportune hour for the fierce warriors of the desert. The Romans and the Persians were almost always engaged in warfare and their last and most terrible war was contemporary with the preaching of Mohammed.
Under the great Khosru a war began which lasted more than twenty years and exhausted both nations and left them a more easy prey to the Saracens. The Asiatic provinces fell under his victorious armies and, as in the days of Darius, the Persian Empire extended to the Mediterranean and the Ægean Seas. When Heradius in 610 A. D. came to the throne of Constantinople, he was compelled to submit to the sight of a Persian army encamped at Chalcedon; but after some years’ preparation, he entered on a series of campaigns which places his name beside those of Hannibal and Belisarius. Leaving his own dominions, he struck at the very heart of his enemy’s country, and by a series of victories, one of them gained on the site of Nineveh, he utterly overthrew the Persian power, till Khosru was slain by his own subjects and a peace was concluded. Heradius returned to Constantinople leaving Persia torn by contending factions. The Prophet had been diligently watching from his safe retreat the course of the war which is alluded to in the Koran, and now the hour had come for the Saracens to strike their fatal blow.
In the second year of his reign, therefore, Abu Beker prepared for the great enterprise contemplated by Mohammed—the conquest of Syria.—Under this general name was included all the country lying on the north of Arabia and extending from the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. This had long been a land of promise to them. It was a land of abundance. From it they had drawn their chief supplies of corn. Its cities had long been chief marts for the merchandise of their caravans; its seaports still were the centers of an opulent and widely extended commerce. This summons was sent to the chiefs of Arabia Petrea, and Arabia Felix: “In the name of the Most Merciful God * * * to all true believers, health, happiness and the blessing of God. Praise be to God and to Mohammed his prophet. This is to inform you that I intend to send an army of the faithful into Syria, to deliver that country from the infidels, and I remind you that to fight for the true faith is to obey God.”
This call to the conquest of nations in the name of the most merciful God is tender compared with the prayers which is now being daily offered up by the Mohammedans regarding the Armenians: “O Allah! make their children orphans, and defile their abodes. Cause their feet to slip, give them and their families, their households and their women, their children and their relations by marriage, their brothers and their friends, their possessions and their race, their wealth and their lands as booty to the Moslems, O Lord of all creatures.”
Has the spirit of Islam changed any during the last twelve hundred years? certainly not, except it be as much for the worse as the Turk is more lustful and cruel than the Saracen.
Speedily the plains about Medina were covered with the encampments of the chiefs who had responded from all Arabia, in hope of the rich booty to be had from conquered cities and provinces. From the brow of a hill, Abu Beker reviewed the army on the point of departure. His heart swelled with pride, as he gazed on the passing multitudes; the glittering arms; the squadrons of horsemen; the lengthening line of camels, and called to mind the handful of men that followed Mohammed a fugitive from Mecca. Scarce ten years had elapsed, and now a mighty host assembled at the summons of his successor, and distant empires were threatened by the sword of Islam. He lifted up his voice and prayed God to make these troops valiant and victorious. Then giving the word to march, the tents were struck, the camels laden, and in a little while the army poured forth in a long, continuous train over hill and valley.
The “Scourge of God” was let loose against the nations. Before long an immense cavalcade of horses, mules and camels came pouring in with the booty from the first victory over a body of troops sent by the Emperor Heradius to observe them and harass their march.
Soon four armies were in the field; Jerusalem and Damascus were doomed and fate hastened on its march to Persia in the person of Khaled, “The Sword of God” with an army of ten thousand men. He besieged the city of Hira; stormed its palaces; slew the king in battle; subdued the kingdom; imposed on it an annual tribute of seventy thousand pieces of gold; the first tribute ever levied by Moslems on a foreign land, and sent the same to Medina. City after city fell before him. Nothing seemed able to withstand his arms. Planting his victorious standard on the banks of the Euphrates, he wrote to the Persian monarch calling upon him to embrace the faith or pay tribute. “If you refuse both, I will come upon you with a host who love death as much as you do life.”
But meantime partial defeat had discouraged the leaders of the armies in Syria, and the caliph summoned Khaled to the command of the northern armies. Leaving the army in Persia under the command of a tried and trusty general, Khaled with an escort of fifteen hundred men spurred across the Syrian borders to join the Moslem host about to besiege the Christian city of Bosra.
It was on the Syrian frontier, a walled city of great strength and wealth, that could at anytime put twelve thousand men into the field.
After two days of furious battle the city was taken by treachery, many were massacred, and the survivors were compelled to pass under the yoke.
Khaled now aspired to the capture of Damascus. This renowned and beautiful city, one of the largest and most magnificent in the East and possibly the oldest in the world, stood in a plain of wondrous fertility, covered with groves and gardens. Through this plain flowed a river called by the ancients “The Stream of Gold,” feeding the canals and water courses of its gardens and the fountains of the city.
This most beautiful city lay at the mercy of the coming foe. As the Moslems accustomed to the barrenness of the desert came in sight of the rich plain of Damascus and wound along the banks of the shining river, it seemed as if they were already realizing the paradise promised by the Prophet to true believers: but when the walls and towers and fanes of the city rose upon their vision they could not restrain their shouts of rapture. For the many deeds of valor and personal prowess in single combat, and the fierce and repeated charges of either army, the reader may be referred to the brilliant pages of Irving’s Mahomet or Ockley’s Saracens.
The inhabitants tried to bribe Khaled to raise the siege. The stern reply was: Embrace Islam, pay tribute; or fight unto the death. While the Arabs lay close encamped about the city as if watching its expiring throes, unusual shouts were one day heard within its walls. The cause of it proved to be that an army of one hundred thousand men sent by Heraclius from Antioch were drawing near to their relief.
With fierceness yet the coolness of a practiced warrior Khaled marched to the support of a small body of horsemen who had been sent to harass the enemy. He met and defeated division after division of this Roman army, defeating it in detail by an army less than a third of their number. Thousands of fugitives were slain in the pursuit that followed. An immense booty in treasure, arms, baggage, and horses fell into his hands; and Khaled flushed with conquest, fatigued and burdened with the spoils, led back his army to resume the siege of Damascus.
Word was soon received however that another army of seventy thousand men had been gathered by Heraclius to raise the siege of Damascus. Sending swift couriers to all the Moslem generals within his call to meet him at the camp of the Greeks, he began a hasty march to Aiznadin. When the Moslems beheld the multitude and formidable array of the imperial host they at first quailed at the sight: but Khaled harangued them with fervid speech: “You behold,” he said, “the last stake of the infidels. This army met and vanquished they can never muster another force, and all Syria is ours.” Khaled armed the fierce women who were among them—some of them of the highest rank with orders to slay any Moslem whom they saw turning his back to the foe. Reinforced by fresh thousands, when, after some preliminary skirmishes, on the second day the trumpets sounded a general charge, the imperial armies were struck with confusion and what followed was rather a massacre than a battle. They broke and fled in all directions to Cæsarea, to Damascus and to Antioch. The booty of the camp was of immense value, which Khaled declared should not be divided until after the capture of Damascus.
Great indeed was the consternation in the city when they learned from the fugitives that escaped, of the slaughter of this second army and that all hope of succor was gone. But they set themselves bravely to work to meet the coming storm. New fortifications were erected. The walls were lined with engines for hurling stones and darts upon the besiegers.
Soon the Moslems appeared greatly reinforced. The city was invested. The troops were carefully stationed and orders given as to the support to be given. The battles that followed were fierce as the passions of desperate men could make them. One day a simultaneous sortie was made from every gate of the city at the first peep of day. The besiegers were taken by surprise and were struck down before they could arm themselves or mount. Khaled is said to have wept as he beheld the carnage and the slaughter of his finest troops. “O thou, who never sleepest, aid thy faithful servants; let them not fall beneath the weapons of the infidels.” Finally the tide of battle turned and the Christians were repulsed and driven within the walls leaving several thousand dead on the field. It was no disgrace for even such Christians to be beaten by such Moslems.
For seventy days had Damascus been besieged by these fanatic legions of the desert. They had no heart to make further sallies. They began to talk of capitulation. Khaled turned a deaf ear to their prayer for a truce: he was bent upon taking the city by the sword and giving it up to be plundered by his Arabs. Then they sought under promise of security the meek and humane Abu Obeidah. One hundred of the principal inhabitants went by night to this leader of the mighty power that was shaking the empire of the Orient, and found him living in a humble haircloth tent like a mere wanderer of the desert. He listened to their proposals, for his object was conversion rather than conquest, and tribute rather than plunder. A covenant was written; such of the inhabitants as pleased could depart in safety with so much of their effects as they could carry: the rest should remain as tributaries and have seven churches allotted to them. The gate was then thrown open and the venerable chief entered at the head of a hundred men to take possession.
At the eastern gate a very different transaction was taking place. An apostate priest, on condition of security of person and property to himself and relatives, agreed to deliver the gate into the hands of Khaled. Thus a hundred Arabs were introduced into the city, broke the bolts and chains and bars of the Eastern gate and threw it open with the cry “Allah Achbar.”
Khaled and his legions rushed in at the gate with sound of trumpet and tramp of steeds; putting all to the sword, deluging the streets with blood. “Mercy! Mercy!” was the cry. “No mercy for infidels,” was Khaled’s fierce response. He pursued his career of carnage into the great square and there to his utter astonishment beheld Abu Obeidah and his attendants, with priests and monks, surrounded by the principal inhabitants and women and children.
Khaled was furious when he heard of the covenant. Abu Obeidah entreated him to respect the covenant he had made in the name of God and the prophet.
After fierce altercation he listened to policy though deaf to the cry of pity. They were just beginning their career of conquest. Many cities were to be taken. If the Moslem word was broken, other cities warned by the fate of Damascus would in fear and fury fight to the bitter end.
Khaled finally gave a slow consent, though murmuring at every article of the covenant.
All who chose to remain as tributaries were to enjoy the free exercise of their religion. All who wished might depart, but Khaled only gave them three days grace from pursuit.
It was a piteous sight to behold aged men, delicate and shrinking women, and helpless children thus setting forth with what they could carry on a wandering journey through wastes and deserts and mountains, and the angry hordes of Arabs only three days behind them and swiftly mounted. Many a time did they turn to cast another look of fondness and despair on their beautiful palaces and luxuriant gardens; and still they would turn and weep and beat their breasts—gaze through tears on the stately towers of Damascus and the flowery banks of the Pharpar. Thus Damascus was conquered and yet spared both fire and sword after more than a twelve months’ siege, which Voltaire has likened for its stratagems, skirmishes and deeds of valor in single combat, to Homer’s Siege of Troy.
The cities of Baalbec, the famous city of the Sun, and Emessa the capital of the plains, with many intermediate cities soon fell before the victorious sword of Khaled.
After a short rest at Damascus Abu Obeidah wrote, asking if he should undertake the siege of Cæsarea or Jerusalem. The decision was for the instant siege of Jerusalem.
This was a holy war for the Moslems and soon the army was on the march to Jerusalem. The people saw the approach of these triumphant invaders: but sent out no plea for help. They planted engines on their walls and prepared for vigorous defence.
At early dawn, in the morning of the first assault, the Moslem host was marshalled—the leaders repeated the Matin prayer, each at the head of his battalion, and all as if by one consent with a loud voice gave the verse of the Koran “Enter ye, oh people! into the holy land which Allah hath destined for you.”
For ten days they made repeated but unavailing attacks and then the whole army was brought to their aid. Then a summons was sent requiring the inhabitants to accept the divine mission of Mohammed, to acknowledge allegiance and pay tribute to the Caliph, otherwise he concludes, “Nor will I leave you, God willing, until I have destroyed your fighting men and made slaves of your children.”
But the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem felt confidence in setting the invaders at defiance, and above all, there was a pious incentive to courage and perseverance in defending the Sepulchre of Christ.
Four wintry months elapsed and still the siege was carried on with undiminished spirit. Finally the Patriarch consented to give up the city if the Caliph would come in person to take possession and sign the articles of surrender.
To preserve the city, and inspirit his own troops after their long absence and the hardships of many campaigns the Caliph consented. His journey was made in utmost simplicity. He traveled on a red camel across which was slung his saddle bags, one pocket containing dates and dried fruits, and the other, nothing more than barley, rice or wheat, parched or sodden.
His companions ate with him out of a common wooden platter, using their fingers in true oriental style. At night he slept on a mat under a tree or under a common Bedouin tent: and never resumed his march until he had offered up the morning prayer.
When he came in sight of Jerusalem he lifted up his voice and exclaimed “Allah Achbar, God is mighty! God grant us an easy conquest.”
We give the degrading conditions somewhat in full as they formed the basis upon which other cities were granted terms of peace. “The Christians were to build no new churches in the surrendered territory. * * No crosses should be erected on the churches nor shown openly in the streets. They should not speak openly of their religion; nor attempt to make proselytes; nor hinder their kinsfolk from embracing Islam. * * * They should entertain every Moslem traveler three days gratis. They should sell no wine, bear no arms, and use no saddle in riding, nor sit in the presence of a Mohammedan.”
This utter prostration of all civil and religious liberty took place in the old scenes of Christian triumph. The most bitter scorn and abhorrence of their religious adversaries formed main pillars in the Moslem faith. Upon agreeing to these degrading terms the Caliph gave them under his own hand an assurance of protection in their lives and fortunes, the use of their churches and the exercise of their religion.
The gates of the once splendid city of Solomon were then opened. Omar entered it in reverence and on foot in his simple Arab garb and soon the flag of the Prophet waved over the battlements of the Holy City. Strange city that is thus held in equal reverence by Moslem, Jew and Christian. The surrender of Jerusalem took place in the seventeenth year of the Hegira, the six hundred and thirty-seventh year of the Christian era. With the rapidly succeeding fall of Aleppo, Antioch, Tripoli and Tyre the conquest of Syria was complete. It still remains under the heel of the invader after more than twelve hundred years of varying fortunes.
Meanwhile the conquest of Persia had been pushed forward vigorously since the fall of Damascus. After the battle of Kadesia in which thirty thousand Persians are said to have fallen and upwards of seven thousand Moslems, all Persia lay at the feet of the conquerors. As they advanced with an army of sixty thousand against the capital Madayn the ancient Ctesiphon, fear paralyzed the King and his counsellors. There was no one brave enough to take the command and when the enemy were only a day’s march away they decided on flight to the mountains, leaving behind them the richest city of the world to be sacked by the Arabs. The spoil was incalculable. It required a caravan of nine hundred heavily laden camels to convey to Medina the Caliph’s fifth part of the spoil.
Thus fell without a blow the capital of Persia in the same fateful year that saw the desolation of Jerusalem.
But one more struggle remained—it was the death agony of the Persian Empire. The fugitive king gathered to his standard at Nehavend, on the plains of Hamadan, one hundred and fifty thousand men. Tidings were sent to the Caliph Omar at Medina—and there in the Mosque, by a handful of grey-headed Arabs, who but a few years previously had been homeless wanderers, was debated and decided the fate of the once magnificent empires of the Orient,—Syria, Chaldea, Babylonia and the dominions of the Medes and Persians.
The army of the Saracens, reinforced by men hardened in war, daring, confident, and led by able generals, was greatly inferior in numbers, but fired with zeal and the courage of death.
At the signal given “Allah Achbar” thrice repeated with the shaking of the standard, the army rushed to battle rending the air with the universal shout “Allah Achbar! Allah Achbar!” The shock of the two armies was terrific. In an hour the Persians were routed; by midnight their slain numbered a hundred thousand men, and their Empire was destroyed. The battle of Nehavend commemorated as “The Victory of Victories,” took place in the twenty-first year of the Hegira the year six hundred and forty-one of our era, and only nine years after the death of Mohammed.
If all Syria fell in six years; if the fate of Persia was decided by a single battle, Egypt may be said to have fallen in a single moment. With the fall of Alexandria perished the largest library of the world, the thesaurus of all the intellectual treasures of antiquity.
While Egypt was won almost without a blow, Latin Africa withstood the Saracens for sixty years. But at last it was conquered. Spain also fell. The world staggered. Thirty-six thousand cities, towns and castles had fallen. The armies of the Saracens were victorious from Scinde in India, westward to Constantinople, then southward they had swept through Palestine, Egypt, Northern Africa beyond the Pillars of Hercules into Spain, and were only and finally arrested in Western Europe as all the world knows by Charles Martel in 732 upon the field of Tours.
But all the world does not know so well how that in 673 the Saracens were beaten back from the walls of Constantinople and the Commander of the Faithful compelled to purchase peace by an annual tribute of three thousand pieces of gold, fifty slaves and fifty of the finest Arabian horses. The year 717 saw Constantinople again besieged by a Saracen army, but Leo, the Isaurian, again beat back the invader with utter defeat; and no Moslem army ever again appeared under the walls of the New Rome, until a fiercer, ruder, more cruel race of Conquerors from the far East grasped again with bloody hand the sword of the Prophet.
CHAPTER III.
THE STORY OF THE FIRST CRUSADE.
As at one time Athens “was the Eye of Greece and Mother of the Arts” so both to pious Jew and humble Christian, Jerusalem has ever been the “City of God,” the “Joy of the Whole Earth.” To the fervid hearts of the early Christians a pilgrimage to that Holy City to see the sacred sights and commune with God amid scenes hallowed by the former presence of a Christ, was regarded as a mark of special faith and a source of peculiar blessing. After the Emperor Constantine removed his capital from Rome to Constantinople and embraced the Christian religion, Jerusalem was raised from its ruins, the way to the sacred places was made more easy and safe, and the spirit of pilgrimage greatly revived and stimulated. The magnificent church of The Holy Sepulchre—decorated with pillars and adorned and paved with precious stones—was raised above the obscure tomb, while churches, chapels and monuments filled the city and marked the places made sacred by the life and the death of the Saviour of the world.
Pilgrims flocked in crowds into Judea from almost every country in Europe and Asia, and when they gathered in immense throngs about these holy places, lifting their voices in prayers and hymns in many languages, the sound was like the Babel of former Pentecosts. Each returning pilgrim told his story of strange sights and of the refreshment and inspiration received from his visit.
The Sultan Abdul Hamid in the Park of Yildiz Palace.
He had confirmed his faith by bathing in the Jordan, tested his faith by exposure and perils, warmed his emotions by prayer on Calvary and raised his soul in songs of praise in the Church of the Resurrection.
But in 610 A. D., the armies of Persia overran the provinces of the Byzantine Empire, invading Syria, Palestine and Egypt, capturing Jerusalem and bearing away many Christian captives.
Ten years of fiercest conflict followed and finally Heraclius, Emperor of Constantinople, recaptured the city. In the imposing ceremonies and festivities which followed, the Emperor walked barefoot in the streets, bearing on his shoulders to the summit of Calvary, the wood of the true cross, which to their weird and superstitious imaginations had been miraculously recovered. Jerusalem rescued, became more than ever an object of reverence. Blood had been shed for the church, only Christians should thenceforth be its custodians. Their joy was brief.
Already the Saracenic warriors under able leaders had overrun Persia and Syria, and in 637 Omar, their Caliph, after a four months’ siege, received the keys and homage of a city, which, though the home of many Christians, was very sacred also in the eyes of the Mohammedans, as a “House of God,” a city of saints and miracles, since Mohammed himself had visited it as a prophet and had thence set out for heaven in his nocturnal voyage. During the lifetime of Omar, the Christians escaped serious persecution, but violence and fanaticism increased at a fearful rate under his successors—except for the period (768–814 A. D.) during which reigned Haroun al Raschid, the greatest of all the Saracen Caliphs.
In 1076—fateful day—Jerusalem was captured by the Seljukian Turks who had come down from the inner provinces of Asia in resistless numbers—embraced Islamism, and under the banners of the Caliph of Bagdad, had conquered Syria and Palestine. Their entry into Jerusalem was signalized by a terrible massacre of all opponents. The fanatical fury of these barbarians was untempered by any spirit of toleration that had sometimes marked Saracenic civilization,—and soon their wild hordes waved their banners of blood and fire before the very gates of Constantinople. The Emperor Alexius purchased peace by ceding Asia Minor to the victorious Solyman, who at once established his power at Nice and began building a fleet for the capture of the Byzantine capital.
All Europe was roused and smitten with alarm. The hour had come for the Greek and the Latin churches to unite all their power for the defence of their common faith and preserve their empires from being devastated by the barbarian Turks.
Pope Gregory began to exhort the sovereigns of Europe to arm against the infidel: when suddenly from an anchorite’s cell appeared a monk who fired with enthusiasm the heart of all Europe and blew into fiercest blaze all the fanatical elements of a religious war. It was reserved for a poor pilgrim who had found refuge in a cloister from the ridicule and follies of a wicked world to become the instrument of converting the zeal of pilgrimage into the fury of an armed crusade. This man was Peter the Hermit.
In his cell, amid silence, fasting and prayer he grew to believe himself the agent of heaven for the accomplishment of some great purpose, and he left his retreat to go on a pilgrimage. What he witnessed and suffered on the way and at Jerusalem gave to his zeal fresh determination and to his devotion the fervor of righteous indignation. His spirit was fired by the insults to Christians, his piety shocked by the profanations of the Holy Sepulchre by the barbarians and infidels. To his fevered imagination as to that of Joan of Arc there was a vision and a voice. While prostrate before the Holy Sepulchre the voice of Christ was heard, saying: “Peter, arise, hasten to proclaim the tribulation of my people; it is time my servants should receive help, and that the holy places should be delivered.” He hastened to Italy and threw himself at the feet of the Pope, Urban II.
With the blessing of the Pope he went forth, the preacher of an armed crusade. In imitation of Christ, when he entered Jerusalem in that last week of his life, he traveled on a mule. With crucifix in hand, feet bare, his head uncovered, his body covered with a long frock and girded with a thick cord, his appearance was an awesome spectacle. He went from city to city, from province to province, working on the piety, the superstitions and the courage of his hearers; now in churches, then in village marts and again on the public highways. He was animated and eloquent, his speech filled with vehement apostrophes and appalling descriptions. His exhortations threw the people into sobs and groans, fury and frenzy. Sympathy with the afflicted Christians took the form of furious fervor, natural bravery went out in oaths to redeem or die; religious emotions ran wild in excesses and swung like a pendulum from the lowest follies of superstition to the fiercest outbursts of fanaticism.
It was during this excitement that the Emperor Alexius sent a message to Pope Urban II., appealing for aid. A council was called at Clermont in France where Peter’s preaching had caused the greatest awakening. The Pope attended in person, about him gathered an immense throng of clergy, princes and laity, from France, Italy and Germany. At the tenth session of this council the Pope ascended a pulpit in the open air and preached the sacred duty of redeeming the Sepulchre of Christ from the infidels, proclaiming the certain propitiation for sin by devotion to this meritorious service.
This historic council was most ingeniously called and managed. The Germanic peoples were new and eager converts to Christianity. They were fierce and warlike in disposition. Feudalism still was in its fullest power. The hundreds of castles which add such picturesqueness to the valley of the Rhine were then the centers of feudal pride, and every petty Prince made war as he was able against his neighbor, or joined with others in wars of larger proportions. There was no national spirit as yet. These feuds which had been handed down for generations, had greatly impoverished and destroyed the people. The Church had sought to alleviate the distress and check these petty wars, by issuing decrees prohibiting private wars for four days in each week. This council renewed “The Truce of God,” and threatened all who would not comply, with its Anathemas. It placed all widows, orphans, merchants, artisans and non-combatants generally under the panoply of the Church—made all sanctuaries so many cities of refuge, and declared that even the crosses by the roadside should be reverenced as guardians from violence. These and other salutary decrees struck into the midst of an assembly filled with enthusiasm and energy, and prepared the way for them to unite in any cause that would add to the strength and glory of Christendom. On this day of the tenth session the great square was filled with an immense crowd. The Pope ascended the throne followed by his Cardinals. By his side was Peter the Hermit, who was to speak first, clad in his pilgrim garb. He gave an impassioned and masterly sketch of what he had witnessed in Palestine and Jerusalem—the outrages against the religion of Christ, and the profanation of the most holy places, the persecutions of pilgrim visitors whom he had seen loaded with chains, dragged into slavery; harnessed to the yoke like cattle. And as he spoke he also acted, until the people shuddered in consternation and horror, vented their hate in vehement cries or wept in dismay—no heart remaining unmoved by the very agony of his appeal.
Then Urban rose and so enlarged upon the theme as to arouse and inflame their passions to the highest pitch; then addressing particularly the French he said: “Nation beloved by God, it is in your courage that the Christian Church has placed her hope. It is because I am well acquainted with your piety and your bravery that I have crossed the Alps, and have come to preach the word of God in these countries. You have not forgotten that the land you inhabit has been invaded by the Saracen, and that but for the exploits of Charles Martel and Charlemagne, France would have received the laws of Mohammed. Recall, without ceasing, to your minds the danger and the glory of your fathers, led by heroes whose names shall never die. They delivered your country. They saved the West from shameful slavery. More noble triumphs await you under the guidance of the God of Armies. You will deliver Europe and Asia. You will save the city of Jesus Christ, that Jerusalem which was chosen by the Lord, and from whence the Gospel has come down to us.”
Urban swayed his audience as a wind does the leaves of the forest. It wept as he pictured the misfortunes and sorrows of Jerusalem. Warriors clutched their swords and swore vengeance against the Infidel when he described the tyranny and perfidy of the Mussulman conquerors. The enthusiasm of his auditors rose to the highest pitch, when he declared that God had chosen them to extirpate the Mohammedan. He appealed also to their cupidity by the promise of worldly gain, by possession of the riches of Asia and the lands which according to Scripture flowed with milk and honey. He played on every passion and emotion—ambition, patriotism, love of glory and wealth, piety, power and religion:—until at the close of his grandest outbursts the audience rose as one man and broke into the unanimous cry—a cry that became the war cry of the crusader—“It is the will of God! It is the will of God!”
Taking up this wild refrain Pope Urban repeated dramatically: “Yes, without doubt it is the will of God” * * * It is He who has dictated to you the words that I have heard. Let them be your war cry and let them announce everywhere the presence of the “Armies of God.” He then held up to the gaze of the assemblage the sign of their redemption, saying: “It is Christ himself who issues from the tomb and presents to you his cross; it will be the sign raised among the nations which is to gather together again the dispersed of Israel. Wear it on your shoulders and on your breasts; let it shine on your arms and on your standards; it will be the surety of victory or the palm of martyrdom; it will unceasingly remind you that Christ died for you, and that it is your duty to die for Him.” Again the multitude rose to weep and cheer and vow vengeance against the Mussulman.
I have dwelt thus on the Council of Clermont, and quoted from the speech of Pope Urban, that the reader might see clearly the mixed motives that stirred the heart of Europe for nearly two centuries, and nerved her warriors to the most noble, heroic and almost superhuman deeds of valor and endurance that have ever been emblazoned among the memorials of the mightiest heroes of this mortal race.
This was the declaration of war against the Mohammedan. The breaking up of the Council was the scattering of the firebrands of fanaticism. Pope Urban traversed several provinces of France that seemed to rise en masse to his appeals. France seemed to have no country but the Holy Land. Ease, property and life were cast into the sacrificial cause. All Christian nations seemed to forget their internal strifes, and to plunge headlong into the excitement of the hour. Western Europe resounded with the Papal Watchword: “He who will not take up his cross and come after me, is not worthy of me.”
It must not be forgotten, however, that the political and physical condition of Europe contributed vastly to the warlike conflagration. The people groaned under feudal servitude and violence. Famine more or less severe, for years had contributed to robbery and brigandage. Commerce was almost destroyed, agriculture was neglected. Towns and cities were in ruins; lands everywhere were abandoned. The Church made her appeals popular. The Crusader was freed from all imposts and from pursuit by debts. The Cross suspended all laws and all menaces. Tyranny could not seek a wearer of the emblem nor could justice find the guilty. What wonder that an entire population rushed to a cause that absolved them from a grinding past and pictured so glowing a future! What wonder that the inexpiable wickedness of tyrannical baron and brutal knight sought expiation or at least relief by a desperate plunge into foreign martial excesses! What wonder if freebooters and robbers should join the ranks in hope of sharing the plunder of the conquered East! Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that over and above all love of glory, all true patriotism or base cupidity, towered the sublime passion, the pervading emotion of the hour. Religion smelted every other sentiment into harmonious union with her fervid zeal and her intense zealotry. Monks deserted their cloisters, anchorites their cells or forest retreats to mingle with and encourage the crusading throngs. Thieves and robbers came out of their hiding places to confess their sins and expiate offences by assuming the sacred badge.
All Europe seemed to be on the move eastward. Barons were willing to desert their castles and Lords their manors. The artisan deserted his shop, merchants their stores, the laborer the field. Cities were depopulated, lands were mortgaged, castles sold. Values were nothing. Accumulations of centuries went for a song. Even miracles entered into the furore. To their overheated imaginations stars fell; blood was seen in the clouds. Armed warriors were seen rushing to battle in the skies. Saints issued from the tomb, and the shade of Charlemagne arose to lead these phantom hosts to the rescue of the Holy City. While everywhere the women and children and the helpless of every estate espoused the cause of Heaven crying aloud, “It is the will of God,” and imprinting crosses on their limbs.
The early spring of 1096 saw the gathering of the impatient throngs. They came from every quarter, from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, and from Tiber to the Ocean. Troops of men, armed with every conceivable weapon or without arms of any kind, swarmed towards their respective rendezvous chanting and shouting their war cry until every hill reëchoed “It is the will of God.” Without preparation or forethought or commissary they gathered, blindly trusting that He who fed the sparrows would not suffer them to hunger. There was no voice of reason in all this surging multitude. It was a spectacle without a parallel in history. There is no way of computing the vast aggregate, but the French historian, Carnot, estimates that five billion enthusiasts were on the move in the spring of 1096. This certainly is most extravagant hyperbole, but all Western Europe was fiercely agitated and vast multitudes were on the march.