The age of the crusades

by James M. Ludlow

THE FIFTH CRUSADE.

CHAPTER XL.
DISASTER OF MARIETTA.

Pope Innocent III. comforted himself for this “slaughter of the innocents” by making the incident the basis of a new appeal for the relief of Palestine. “These children,” said he, “reproach us with being asleep while they were flying to the assistance of the Holy Land.” In his exhortation to Europe the Holy Father ventures to interpret the mysterious prediction of the Book of Revelation regarding the duration of the Antichrist symbolized by the beast. Some Protestants have presumptuously applied the figures to the destiny of the Roman Church. Innocent regarded Mohammedanism as meant, and, counting from the hejira of Mohammed (622) to his own day, announced to the people, in the name of God, whose infallible vicegerent he was, “The power of Mohammed draws towards its end; for that power is nothing but the beast of the Apocalypse, which is not to extend beyond the number of six hundred and sixty-six years, and already six hundred have been accomplished.” Europe was asked to believe that the marshalled nations of the East, then so threatening, would only furnish the funeral cortège of Antichrist, after which the world would enter upon its millennium of peace.

Every crowned head, every noble, every knight, every city, every church, received its especial appeal from Rome to offer men, ships, money, and incessant prayers for this last holy adventure. With equal assurance Innocent addressed letters to the sultans of Damascus and Cairo, giving them an opportunity to voluntarily restore the holy places before the final vengeance of the Lord. Ardent orators, like Cardinal Courçon and James of Vitri (an original chronicler of these events), went everywhere, firing the passions of the people. Philip Augustus appropriated for the project two and a half per cent. of the territorial revenue of France. King John of England promised to make amends for his many sins by taking the cross; he was the more inclined to this from the fact that his barons had just wrenched from him Magna Charta, and the Pope had put him under excommunication; his pretence of piety was the policy of the moment. Frederick II. of Germany, to secure the papal favor in his contest with Otho for the imperial throne, assumed the rôle of a crusader.

The movement was, however, halted by the affairs in France. England, Flanders, Holland, Boulogne, with the aid of the German Otho, invaded France. At the battle of Bouvines (1214) this combination was overthrown, and the French monarchy, with restored territory and prestige, assumed the independence which it maintained until recent times.

In 1215 the Lateran Council issued the grand order for the crusading expedition. The Pope and cardinals taxed themselves a tenth of their income, and all ecclesiastics a twentieth. So great was the excitement for war that two astounding phenomena were observed: luminous crosses appeared in the heavens, and the Troubadours sang only of battle, no longer of love. Innocent III. proposed to head the crusade in person, but when his example had wrought its full influence discreetly retired from the leadership. Shortly after he died, and Honorius III. came into the pontificate.

In 1217 the mighty armament was in motion. Andrew II., King of Hungary, was designated chief. Germany, under its representative dukes of Bavaria and Austria, followed in his train. The host was augmented by those from Italy and France and the islands of the Mediterranean. According to the Arabian historian, it was the largest force ever at one time pitted against them in Palestine.

The army landed at Acre. The new soldiers signalled their arrival by an impressive exhibition of their pilgrim zeal. They formed an immense procession. At their head was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who bore aloft a piece of wood which had been surreptitiously cut from the True Cross at the time it was captured by Saladin at Hattîn. With utmost pomp they passed over the land from the sea to the Jordan, bathed in the waters of the sacred river, and lingered to pray amid the ruins on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias. They gathered many relics, and did not hesitate to take as their pious plunder many of the people of the land, whom they brought with them as prisoners to Acre.

No enemy molested them. Malek-Ahdel had advised that the invaders be left to their own dissensions, which, judging from previous observation, were sure to follow as soon as they should attempt to divide the spoil they might take. The martial spirit of the Christians did not resent this idleness, and stagnation of energy bred moral malaria. Camp vices thrived to such an extent that the leaders were forced to drive out the soldiers in search of manly adventures. Mount Tabor, the Mount of Transfiguration, lifted high its head, crowned with Moslem forts in place of the Church of St. Helena and of the two monasteries which had formerly commemorated the tabernacles of Moses and Elias. The crusaders were ordered to capture the holy mountain. That all doubt of Heaven’s favor in the enterprise might be removed, the patriarch read the gospel for the day, first Sunday in Advent, and interpreted the words, “Go ye into the village over against you,” to mean the castle on Tabor.

Led by this high dignitary, who carried the ubiquitous piece of the True Cross, they made the ascent through a shower of Moslem arrows and an avalanche of stones. The defenders at first retired within their citadel, but an unaccountable panic seized the assailants: they deserted their own cause at the moment of victory, and made a disorderly retreat down to the plain. Their piety was, however, compensated by the capture of a number of women and children, whom they forced to be baptized. The anticipated dissensions followed. Each leader reproached the others. On Christmas eve a terrific storm swept the camp, which, in the general discouragement, they attributed to the displeasure of Heaven. Lack of provisions forced them to encamp in different neighborhoods—Tripoli, Acre, Mount Carmel, and the plains of Cæsarea. The commander-in-chief, the King of Hungary, returned to Europe, consoling himself for lack of martial laurels by the possession of the head of St. Peter, the hand of St. Thomas, and one of the seven water-jars in which Christ had made water wine at Cana. The sacred relics did not, however, prevent his subsequent excommunication.

This crusade was saved from utter and ignominious failure only by the arrival of fresh enthusiasts from the West. Bands from Friesland and the banks of the Rhine had taken ships on the Baltic and coasted by France and Portugal. They told of the luminous crosses which appeared in the heavens and signalled them by moving towards the East, and how squadrons of angels had fought with them against the Moors on the Tagus.

The courage of their brethren was thus rekindled to venture at the opening of spring (1218) upon an invasion of Egypt. The chronicler tells us of a favorable omen here observed by the crusaders: the water of the Nile, which was sweet to the taste on their arrival, afterwards became salt.

The city of Damietta was guarded by a strong tower, which rose from the middle of the Nile, and was connected with the walls by an immense chain which impeded the passage of ships. The crusaders attacked this unavailingly. There were in the host certain skilled mechanics, who, “by the inspiration of the Almighty,” constructed an enormous wooden tower, which floated upon two vessels and overtopped the walls of the great citadel. In vain did the Moslems set fire to this with streams of liquid flame. The prayers of the monks on the shore, together with the “tears of the faithful,” and, we may add, the abundant oblation of the buckets, soon subdued the conflagration. The huge drawbridge which dropped from the top of the floating tower successfully landed upon the walls three hundred brave knights. Their valor, together with the spiritual prowess of the patriarch, who lay stretched on the ground wrestling with the will of Heaven, was resistless, and soon the flag of the Duke of Austria was flying from the ramparts; not, however, until the usual band of celestial knights in white armor had dazzled the eyes of the Moslems, so that they could not see where to strike their foes. This was on August 24th, which, being St. Bartholomew’s day, enabled the crusaders also to see that saint, clad in red, at the head of their celestial assistants.

Mastering the tower of the Nile and breaking the chain which obstructed the channel, the Christian fleet lay close to the walls of the city.

Seventeen months were destined to pass in the siege of Damietta. In September Malek-Ahdel died. He had before formally laid down the chieftainship, and divided his realm among his many sons; but his prestige and continually sought counsel made him until his death the virtual head of the Moslem power. He maintained a sumptuous court and a splendid palace, the recesses of which were regarded by the faithful as a sanctuary where Heaven daily blessed its favorite son. The various courts saluted him as “king of kings,” and the camps hailed him as saphadin, the “sword of religion.” His death threw a shadow upon the Moslem world.

Instead of taking advantage of this providence, the Christians seemed to emulate the divisions of their enemies. Many grew weary of the task they had vowed to Heaven, and returned to Europe. The priests pronounced a curse upon the deserters. This malediction was regarded as inspired when it was learned that six thousand of the crusaders from Brittany had been wrecked off the coast of Italy, and that the returning Frieslanders reached their homes only to witness the wrath of the North Sea, which broke the Holland dikes, submerged their richest provinces and cities, and drowned one hundred thousand of the inhabitants.

But new warriors were excited to redeem the opportunity. France and England sent much of their best blood and many of their most famous names. Among the multitude of celebrities was one who was destined to bring the entire crusade to a fatal ending. Cardinal Pelagius was delegated as papal legate. He was a man of arrogance, and asserted his right to supersede even John of Brienne, the King of Jerusalem, in the military command. This position was refused him by the soldiery. He at length accomplished his ambition by threatening all who opposed him with excommunication.

The coming of these auxiliaries spurred the Christians to take advantage of contentions among the Moslems and make a forward movement. They crossed from the west bank of the Nile and invested Damietta. The menace reunited the Infidels. Battles were of daily occurrence, in which whole battalions, now of Christians, now of Moslems, were driven into the Nile, and perished.

One beautiful episode redeemed these hellish scenes. St. Francis of Assisi visited the camps; he went among his brethren with consolations for the sick and wounded, his presence redolent with heavenly charity. No labors could weary this man, who already seemed divested largely of his physical nature, and to be sustained only by the power of his inward spirit. His zeal for God led him to visit even the camp of the Moslems. He preached his doctrines before Malek-Kamel, the Sultan of Cairo; he alternately threatened the sultan’s infidelity with the pains of hell, and sought to win his better faith by promises of heaven. Francis proposed to test the truth of either religion by passing with the holiest Moslems through an ordeal of fire. This being declined, he offered himself to the flame, provided that the sultan’s conversion should follow the refusal of fire to burn the representative of the faith of Christ. With courteous words the test was declined. Moslems reverenced insane persons as in some way under a divine influence; Malek-Kamel treated his uninvited guest as one of this sort. The Moslem doctors of the law commanded Malek-Kamel to take off the head of the intruder, but the warrior was either too much amused with the simplicity, or too much amazed at the sincerity, of his visitor to harm him, and dismissed him with presents, which, however, Francis’ vow of poverty would not allow him to accept.

Whether persuaded by the holy eloquence of the saint, or by the rumor that Frederick of Germany was approaching with fresh armies, the sultan proposed peace. He offered the flattering condition of giving up Jerusalem to the Christians. The warriors would have assented thus to secure as the reward of their valor that which had been the object of the entire crusade; but Cardinal Pelagius forbade, in the name of the Holy Father, the cessation of arms at any less price than the entire subjugation of the Moslem power.

Damietta was therefore more closely invested; its garrison was reduced to starvation. To prevent possible defection among his miserable soldiers, the commander of Damietta walled up the gates of the city. The Christians made an assault in full force; the rams battered the trembling towers; ladders swarmed with assailants; no one opposed them. Sweeping over the ramparts with naked swords, they found the streets and houses filled with the dead. Of seventy thousand scarcely three thousand of the inhabitants had remained alive. The air was fraught with poisonous stench from the decaying corpses; as the chronicler says, “the dead had killed the living.” The crusaders could abide only long enough to gather the booty, and left the city to be cleansed by carrion-birds and the air of heaven.

This temporary success of his policy inflamed the conceit of Cardinal Pelagius. According to his own people, the “King of kings and Lord of lords” had given him the city; “under the guidance of Christ” the soldiers had scaled the walls. The victors took as their reward the rich plunder of the place, and gratefully “baptized all the children who were found alive in the city, thereby giving to God the first-fruit of souls.”

The Moslems, afflicted by these reverses, enlarged their conditions of peace to the yielding up, not only of Jerusalem, but all the Holy Land. The cardinal refused even these terms, and proposed to march to the capture of Cairo, the capital of Egypt. In vain did the military leaders protest against that which they esteemed impracticable in itself, and which, in the event of its success, would leave on their hands a land which they could not hope to defend against the myriads who were swarming from all parts of the Moslem world. The cardinal accused the warriors of timidity and irreligion. This was too much for John of Brienne, who would have dared to sheathe his good sword in the bowels of Lucifer himself. Orders for the ascent of the Nile were given. At the junction of its two branches, the southern extreme of the Delta, the Moslems made their fortified camp, and built what has since been known as the city of Mansourah. The enemy approached; once more the sultan offered peace, including now the gift of the Delta, together with the previously offered conditions.

The refusal of this exhausted the patience, not only of the sultan, but seemingly of Heaven also. With the rising of the Nile the Moslems opened the sluices, flooded all the canals of Lower Egypt, and inundated the Christians’ camp. Simultaneously the Moslem ships made their way up through the canals and destroyed the vessels of their foes. The Infidels occupied every rising knoll; “while,” says a letter from the camp, “we were thus caught in the midst of the waters like fish in a net.” In vain did the Christians endeavor to force a battle. Shrewdly retreating from the arbitrament of the sword, the Moslems left the invaders to the destruction which they proclaimed Allah had prepared for His insolent adversaries.

Cardinal Pelagius now begged for the peace he had despised; nor did he stop with the old conditions. He would yield all he had taken or claimed, if only he might be permitted to lead the armies of Europe safely into the walls of distant Acre. This capitulation was reluctantly accepted by the Sultan of Cairo. The haughty cardinal, the brave King John of Brienne, the Duke of Bavaria, and many of the nobles meditated their disgrace as hostages in the hostile camp, while the Christian soldiers were still waiting the will of their conqueror in the marshes. King John of Brienne one day sat down at the feet of the sultan and burst into tears. The Moslem respected his courage and was grieved at the distress which seemingly had shaken it. “Why do you weep?” he asked. “To see my brave people perishing with hunger amid the waters.” The sultan immediately provisioned the Christian camp, and sent his own son to conduct the host in safety out of the land they had come to conquer (autumn, 1221).