The truce made with the king of Jerusalem was broken at the same time by both Christians and Mussulmans. Renaud de Chatillon continued his incursions upon the territories of the infidels, and only replied to the complaints of Saladin by new violations of treaties. A Mussulman army, which the sultan of Damascus had sent to the assistance of the count of Tripoli, advanced into the country of Galilee, whither five hundred knights of the Temple and St. John hastened to defend the Christian territory, and give battle to the Saracens. They were speedily overwhelmed by numbers, and almost all perished on the field of battle. Old chronicles, whilst celebrating the bravery of the Christian knights, relate prodigies which we have now great difficulty in believing. These indomitable heroes, after having exhausted their arrows, plucked from their own bodies such as had pierced them, and launched them back upon the enemy; pressed by fatigue and heat, they drank their own blood, and revived their strength by the very means which must weaken it; at length, after having broken their lances and swords, they rushed upon their enemies, fought body to body, rolling in the dust with the Mussulman warriors, and died threatening their conquerors. Above all the rest, nothing could equal the heroic valour of Jacques de Maillé, a knight of the Temple. Mounted on a white horse, he remained alone in the field of battle, and fought on, surrounded by heaps of slain. Although hemmed in on all sides, he refused to surrender. The horse which he rode, worn out with fatigue and exhausted by wounds, sunk under him, and dragged him with him; but the intrepid knight arose, lance in hand, covered with blood and dust, and bristling with arrows, and rushed upon the ranks of the Mussulmans, astonished at his audacity; at length he fell, covered with wounds, but fighting to the last. The Saracens took him for St. George, whom the Christians believed they saw descend from heaven to join their battalions. After his death the Turkish soldiers, whom an historian calls the children of Babylon and Sodom, drew near with signs of respect to his body, slain by a thousand wounds; they wiped off the blood, they shared the rags of his clothes and the fragments of his arms, and, in their brutal excitement, evinced their admiration by actions that make modesty blush when speaking of them.[304]
The grand master of the Templars, with two of his knights, were all that escaped from the carnage. This battle was fought on the 1st of May, 1187. In the season, says an ancient chronicle, in which flowers and roses are gathered in the fields, the Christians of Nazareth found nothing but the traces of slaughter and the mangled bodies of their brethren. They buried them in the church of St. Mary, repeating these prophetic words: “Daughters of Galilee, put on your garments of mourning; and you, daughters of Sion, weep over the ills that threaten the kings of Judah.” The terror which this sanguinary defeat created for a moment appeased the discords of the Christians. The king consented to be reconciled to the count of Tripoli, whilst on his part Raymond resolved to forget his private injuries, and to use every effort to repair the misfortunes he had brought upon the kingdom. He repaired to Jerusalem, where Guy de Lusignan, coming forth to meet him, received him with marks of sincere affection. The two princes embraced before the people, and swore to fight in unison for the heritage of Christ.
After the rupture of the truce, Saladin employed himself in getting together a formidable army. Turks, Arabs, Curds, and Egyptians flocked to his standard; he promised the spoils of the Christians to the Mussulman families that had been driven from Palestine; he distributed cities and provinces beforehand to his faithful emirs, and held out to all his soldiers the certainty of pillage or a glorious martyrdom. The caliph of Bagdad and all the imauns of Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia put up prayers for the triumph of his arms and the deliverance of Jerusalem. He crossed the Jordan, and advanced into Galilee at the head of eighty thousand horse.
In a council held at Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan, the count of Tripoli, and the barons deliberated upon the measures most proper to be adopted to save the kingdom. The knights of the three military orders, the troops of the king and the nobles, the garrisons of cities, with all Christians able to bear arms, received orders to assemble on the plain of Sephouri. It was determined to employ in the prosecution of the war the treasures sent by Henry II., which were kept in the house of the Temple; and to associate the English monarch in the glory of this holy expedition, the arms of England were represented on the standards of the Christian army. The wood of the true cross, which had so often animated the Crusaders in fight, was exhibited to the people as a last means of safety, and carried in triumph to the place where the defenders of Jerusalem were assembled.
An army of fifty thousand fighting men had been collected on the plain of Sephouri, when the leaders learned that Saladin had carried the city of Tiberias by assault, and threatened the citadel, in which were shut up the women and children of the count of Tripoli. The Christians who had escaped from the sword of the Saracens, in the utmost terror, took refuge in the camp of Sephouri, conjuring the king and the chiefs to put an end to the ravages of the infidels. The barons assembled in the tent of Guy, and all at once exclaimed that it was necessary to march immediately against the enemy. Raymond then arose and demanded permission to speak. “I am about,” said he, “to lay before you advice which will surprise you; but I offer it with the greater confidence from its being opposed to my personal interests. My desolated country, my cities in ashes, my subjects ready to submit to death or slavery, my wife exposed to the insults of the Mussulmans all implore instant succour from me and you; but it is my duty to think of the safety of the Christian cities now left without garrisons. In this army assembled on the plain of Sephouri exists the only hope which the Christians of the East have left. You behold here all the soldiers of Christ, all the defenders of Jerusalem; if they perish, the infidels have no other foes to dread. Beware, then, of leading this multitude of men and horses into a dry and arid country, where the season, with thirst and hunger, must soon deliver them up without defence to the enemy. The number even of the Christian soldiers inspires me with more alarm than confidence. They present nothing but a confused troop of men got together in haste, and totally unable to support fatigue. The Mussulman archers are more skilful than our soldiers in casting javelins, and may harass us on our march, without our being able to defend ourselves; the cavalry of Saladin is more numerous and better trained than ours, and may attack us with advantage on the plains, across which we must pass. Abandon, then, I entreat you, Tiberias to the Mussulmans, and let us save an army which may yet repair our losses.
“I swear before God and before man, that I would willingly abandon the county of Tripoli, with all the lands I possess, to procure the safety of the city of Christ. Our only aim must be to destroy the power of Saladin, and at the same time to preserve some defenders for the kingdom of Jerusalem. If we go to meet the enemy and should be conquered, God himself will not be able to save the Christians, but will allow us to be delivered up to the infidels. If, on the contrary, the enemy come to offer themselves to our arms, all our losses will be repaired, and the evils that will fall upon me, will become for me a source of gratification, since I shall have suffered for the cause of Christ and the safety of his people.”
The more generosity there was in this advice, the less sincere it was esteemed. The grand master of the Templars, blinded by his hatred for Raymond, interrupted him several times; he reminded the assembly of the alliance of the count of Tripoli with Saladin, and exclaimed aloud that he could plainly perceive the wolf’s skin under the fleece of the sheep. When Raymond invoked the name of Christ, the grand master repeated with bitterness, that the name of Mahomet was better fitted to the mouth of a traitor. The count of Tripoli made not the least reply to the insulting words of the grand master, but finished his speech by these words, uttered with an accent of perfect conviction: “I will submit to the punishment of death if these things do not fall out as I have said.”
The council of the knights and barons adopted the opinion of Raymond; but when Guy was left alone in his tent, the grand master came to him, and infused into his mind the blackest suspicions of the conduct and secret designs of the count of Tripoli. The feeble Lusignan, who had already issued several contradictory orders, gave the command for marching to meet the enemy. For the first time, the king of Jerusalem was obeyed, and that was for the ruin of the Christians.
The undetermined conduct that Lusignan had exhibited, communicated itself to the other chiefs, and this want of a fixed purpose spread trouble and confusion throughout the army. The disheartened soldiers quitted the camp of Sephouri with reluctance, and saw nothing around them but presages of an approaching defeat. The Christian army advanced towards Tiberias, and were marching in silence across a plain, which modern travellers call the plain of Batouf, when they perceived the standards of Saladin.
The Mussulman army was encamped on the heights of Loubi, with the Lake of Tiberias in its rear; it covered the tops of the hills, and commanded all the defiles through which the Christians had to pass. The barons and knights then remembered the advice of Raymond, but they had lost the opportunity of following it, and the courage of the Christian soldiers alone could repair the errors of their leaders. The bold and desperate resolution was formed of cutting themselves a passage through the army of the enemy, so as to gain the banks of the Jordan. On the 4th of July, at break of day, the Christians began their march. From the moment they were in motion, the Mussulman archers unceasingly poured upon them showers of arrows. The army of the Franks was bravely enduring, on its march, the attacks of the Saracen archers, when Saladin descended into the plain at the head of his cavalry. Then the Christians were compelled to stop, and fight with the enemy that disputed their passage.[305] The first shock was impetuous and terrible; but as the Franks had for many days been short of both provisions and water, and were oppressed by heat and thirst, they had less strength than courage, and fell more from lassitude than in consequence of their wounds. The bishops passed through the ranks, and endeavoured to revive the ardour of the soldiers by the images of religion.