The History of the Crusades (vol. 2 of 3)

by J. Fr. Michaud

This moderate and pacific language would well have become the mouth of an envoy of the pope; but Pelagius listened to the king of Jerusalem with the most evident impatience: he answered, that weakness and timidity screened themselves behind the veil of moderation and prudence; that Christ did not summon to his defence such wise and far-sighted soldiers, but warriors who sought for battle rather than for reasons, and who could see the glory of an enterprise, and be blind to its dangers. The legate added several more reasons to those he had already advanced, and expressed them with great bitterness; at length, led away by the heat of the discussion, he threatened all those who did not partake of his opinions with excommunication. Most of the leaders, and the king of Jerusalem himself, fearing to be excommunicated, but dreading much more to see the least suspicion cast upon their bravery, at length yielded to the obstinate will of Pelagius: the council of the barons and the bishops decided that the Christian army should leave Damietta, and march against the capital of Egypt.

This army, composed of more than seventy thousand men, advanced up the banks of the Nile. A numerous fleet, laden with provisions, arms, and machines of war, ascended the river at the same time. The Christian army passed through Farescour and several other villages, that had been abandoned by their inhabitants; all fled away at the approach of the Crusaders, who began to believe they should meet with no obstacle to their victories, and celebrated, beforehand, the conquest of Memphis and Cairo. The legate of the pope exulted in the resolution he had dictated to the Christian army; and, full of confidence in a prediction that had been made concerning him in his youth, the presumptuous cardinal flattered himself that he was about to overthrow the worship of Mahomet; and indulged in the most insulting railleries against those who had been opposed to the war. Without fighting a single battle, the Christians gained the extremity of the Delta, at the angle formed by the arm of the river which descends towards Damietta and the canal of Almon, whose waters flow into the sea on the eastern side. The Saracens were encamped in the plain of Mansourah, on the opposite bank of the river: the Crusaders halted on the hither shore, and their fleet cast anchor as near to them as possible.

The sultan of Damascus, and the princes of Aleppo, Balbec, Hamah, and Bosra, had united their troops with those of the sultan of Cairo. The Nile, whose bank was covered with intrenchments, presented a barrier very difficult to be overcome. But Melic-Kamel did not dare to match himself with the Crusaders; dreading their rash bravery, so accustomed to sport with perils and triumph over all obstacles. Reports of the arrival of Frederick, and of the approach of the Tartars, kept the Mussulmans in a continual state of alarm, and made them anxious to terminate a war which exhausted their resources, consumed their strength, and did not promise them, even in victory, a compensation for so many efforts and so many sacrifices.

Ambassadors were sent to propose peace to the leaders of the Christian army: the Mussulmans offered their enemies, if they would consent to an entire cessation of hostilities, to give up to them Damietta and its territories, and to restore Jerusalem, with all the places of Palestine that had been conquered by Saladin.

These conditions assured to the Christians all the advantages of both war and peace. The king of Jerusalem, and most of the barons, who saw the difficulties and perils of the expedition they had entered upon, listened with as much surprise as joy to the proposals of the infidels, and did not hesitate to accept them; but they had absolutely no power in the army. The legate, who exercised an arbitrary authority, and who was constantly dreaming of conquests, persisted in thinking that these pacific proposals were only the effects of fear, and that the enemy who sued for peace was the one with whom war should be prosecuted with most spirit.

The ambassadors returned to the camp of the Mussulmans, to announce that the Christians refused the peace: their account excited indignation, and indignation roused courage. When the Ayoubite princes proposed peace, they were in possession of ample means to carry on the war with advantage; they every day received reinforcements, and their camp rapidly assumed a more formidable aspect; but soon a terrible auxiliary, against whose attacks Pelagius had no defence, came to the assistance of the Mussulmans, and procured them a complete triumph without either battles or danger.

The Christian warriors, who flattered themselves they had now only to deal with a conquered enemy, were satisfied with surrounding their camp with a ditch and a wall; the army remained for several days in this position, without making an effort either to attack the Saracens or pass the Nile. Pelagius, who was constantly promising victory to his soldiers, remained, nevertheless, in a state of inactivity in his tent. During this period, many of the Crusaders grew weary of a war in which no battles were fought; some fancied that the cause no longer stood in need of their assistance; whilst others, with more foresight, feared coming reverses: more than ten thousand Crusaders abandoned the camp and returned to Damietta.

The Christian army had been for more than a month in face of the enemy, always in expectation of the victories that had been promised to them. At length, the overflowing of the Nile, in a most alarming manner, disturbed their imagined security. The Saracens opened the sluices, and filled all the canals of Lower Egypt. The Mussulman fleet, which had not been able to ascend the Nile by Damietta, took advantage of the canals, and came up with the Christian ships. In a single engagement, the vessels of the Crusaders were almost all dispersed and consumed by the Greek fire: from that moment terror seized upon the Christians, for they were in want of provisions, and had neither means nor hopes of obtaining any. The Saracens, after having crossed the Nile on bridges, occupied all the circumjacent hills. The Christian soldiers wandered about the fields at hazard, pursued by the waves of the rising river, and by the Mussulmans, whose bravery they had so lately held in contempt. The whole army was on the point of being submerged or perishing with hunger, and had no hope but in the clemency of an enemy with whom they had recently refused to make peace.

In this extremity, the king of Jerusalem and the principal leaders of the Christians sent several of their knights to offer the Saracens battle; but the latter were neither sufficiently imprudent, nor sufficiently generous to accept a proposal dictated by despair. The Crusaders were exhausted with hunger and fatigue; the cavalry sunk into, and encumbered by mud and slime, could neither advance nor retreat; the foot-soldiers cast away their arms; the baggage of the army floated away upon the waters, and nothing was heard but groans and lamentations. “When the Christian warriors,” says an Arabian historian, “saw nothing before them but death, their minds sank into a state of despondency, and their backs bent beneath the rod of God, to whom be all praise!”