With the British Army in The Holy Land

by H. O. Lock

A change came in the year 1077. Jerusalem was then taken by the Turks, who had conquered all Asia Minor and were already threatening the Byzantine Empire in Europe. The treatment which the Christian pilgrims now received at Jerusalem aroused intense indignation in Europe, chiefly stimulated by the preaching of Peter the Hermit. Other motives there were, such as the protection of the Byzantine Empire from the menaces of the Turk, the desire of the Latin Church to prevail over the Byzantine, and the temptations always offered in a holy war of loot upon earth and salvation in heaven. Nevertheless, there undoubtedly spread, throughout Western Europe, a mighty wave of religious enthusiasm which was sincere.

The first Crusade was mainly recruited in France. Great were the vicissitudes through which the Crusaders passed on their pilgrimage through Europe and Asia Minor, largely through quarrels with their fellow-Christians before the Turks had even been encountered or their country entered. Having defeated the Turks at Antioch, the army marched south along the coast and at length reached and besieged Jerusalem. Of the numbers that set out from Western Europe, probably not less than a million, only a remnant of twenty thousand fighting men, with an equal number of followers, had reached the Holy City. Though thus decimated and war weary, the Crusaders were ecstatic with religious fervour; St. George was said to have appeared to them clad in shining armour; the Saracens gave way, and Jerusalem was taken by assault. The usual massacre of the inhabitants followed, and estimates of the slain vary from forty to a hundred thousand. In 1099 was established the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, the kingdom of the Crusaders, Latin in creed, French in nationality, feudal in character and precarious in existence. The state of affairs seems now rather to have resembled the relationship which formerly existed between the Hebrews and the Philistines, or, even more analogously, that between the Italian city-states of the Middle Ages. Most of the cities of Palestine were gradually annexed by the Christians, but some, notably Askalon, did not pass out of the hands of the Saracens for many decades. Accordingly, wars became matters of almost annual occurrence, and "never, during the whole eighty years of its existence, was the kingdom of Jerusalem free from war and war's alarms."[6] The bulk of the original Crusaders left alive soon returned to their homes in Europe. There was little or no native Christian population on which to draw, and the kingdom became dependent for the support of its army, both as to men and money, on the pilgrims that swarmed from Europe to Jerusalem; naval assistance was given by Genoese and by Venetians, more, alas, from motives of commerce than of piety. Religious enthusiasm had been capable of conquering and establishing this kingdom, but it proved quite unequal to the tasks of sustenance or protection. And so, after eighty years of romance and trouble, of love and war, of lust and murder, often inflicted, more often endured, this kingdom fell, because it had no sure foundation.

The decline and fall of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem forms a sordid story of jealousy, and intrigue, of futile ambition and divided counsels, of perjury and perfidy. The Crusaders intermarried with the women of the country, and, except so far as it was constantly recruited from Europe, the race rapidly degenerated. With no resources at their back, except the charity of Europe, the Crusaders yet had dreams of worldly aggrandisement, which included in their ken the whole of Egypt and Syria. The Second Crusade of 1146-9 came, not to conquer, but to support and defend this already tottering kingdom. It did that kingdom more harm than good, for it drained Europe of its potential pilgrims, anticipating and exhausting the natural flow of men and money on which the kingdom had come to rely, and dissipated them on a futile attempt to annex Damascus.

The Knights Templars, the feudal barons of the country, built castles throughout the land, and lived at constant variance with the King and central government. Every baron fought for his own land and for his own aggrandisement. The kingdom of Jerusalem was fast tottering to its fall.

It was in 1187 that Saladin, having made himself master of Egypt and of Damascus, attacked Tiberias, as a first step towards overthrowing the kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusaders moved against him from Seffuriyeh. It was July, and the Crusaders were absolutely without water; the Saracens, with Lake Tiberias at their back, had abundance. The Crusaders, suffering terribly from thirst, nevertheless attacked. The result of the battle was a foregone conclusion. Here, at the Horns of Hattin, the Mount of Beatitudes, was the Crusaders' army destroyed and the power of the Christian completely crushed. Jerusalem itself, after a short, fierce struggle, fell in the following October. The inhabitants were not put to the sword. Huge ransoms were paid and the Christian population allowed to disperse throughout Syria. Jerusalem had passed again (it seemed as if for ever) into the hands of the Mahomedan.

"The news of the fall of Jerusalem was received in Europe with a thrill of horror and indignation."[7] Thereupon set forth the Third Crusade, that which is identified with Richard I of England. Travelling by sea, these Crusaders avoided the horrible sufferings inevitable to the crossing of Asia Minor. Acre was captured in 1190, by the Crusaders, after a siege lasting for two years. Thence they marched southwards, through Cæsarea to Jaffa, fighting on their way the great battle of Assur, when Saladin was defeated. But Richard, instead of marching upon Jerusalem, which lay in his grasp, vacillated and negotiated. At length he decided to go up against Jerusalem. Some twenty miles from the city he stopped. Again he vacillated. Dissensions broke out between the Duke of Burgundy and King Richard. The design of besieging Jerusalem was given up, and the army slowly and sadly returned to Jaffa. Thereupon, in 1192, a peace was concluded, whereby the sea coast, from Jaffa to Acre, was ceded to the Franks, but Jerusalem still remained in the hands of the Saracens.

There were several more Crusades. None of them (unless we except the treaty of the excommunicated Frederick in 1229) ever reached Jerusalem. Some of them never even reached Palestine, being shamefully diverted to other purposes. Saddest of all was the Children's Crusade, when fifty thousand poor misguided children followed the Cross (like the Pied Piper of Hamelin) to slavery, dishonour, or death. But these form no part of the history of Jerusalem.

In 1244, we find Christian and Saracen making common cause in Palestine against the Kharezmians. These Mongols, who only appeared on the stage of history for a brief period of four years, swept through the country, captured Jerusalem, massacred all on whom they could lay hands, Moslem and Christian alike, and destroyed such sacred relics as they could find. Then, defeated by the Egyptians, they perished out of history as suddenly as they had appeared.

In 1291, the Christians, by this time reduced to their last stronghold of Acre, were finally expelled by the Moslems from Palestine—and that was the end of the Crusades. Europe became reconciled to the fact that the Kingdom of Christ is a Kingdom, not of the sword but of the soul. And so, the watchword by which the Crusades were inspired now became the consolation of their end—"Dieu le veut."

In 1400, Syria and Palestine fell under another Mongol invasion by Timoor the Tartar (Tamerlane). In 1517, Palestine was annexed to the Ottoman Empire under Selim I, of which Empire it has since formed an integral part. At the close of the eighteenth century, Napoleon marched through the country, defeating the Turks at Gaza and on the Plain of Esdraelon, but was forced to withdraw. In 1832, Mohammad Ali, having thrown off the Turkish yoke in Egypt, conquered Syria, but nine years later, through the action of the European Powers, the country was restored again to the Ottoman Porte.