The age of the crusades

by James M. Ludlow

Meanwhile the French were advancing. On December 19th they reached the canal Aschmoun, a deep and broad stream, which could be crossed only by the crusaders building a causeway. As fast as this work extended into the stream the Moslems dug away the opposite bank, and so each day left the canal of unlessened width. The Infidels massed across the canal; their fleet waited in the Nile above. The Christians were forced to make their camp at Mansourah, on the identical site of the terrible disaster thirty years before.

But neither the memories of the spot which monumented the fatal end of the previous crusade, nor the evidences of danger which they saw on every side, could subdue the gayety for which the French even in that age were proverbial. When a knight of rank was being buried his companions interrupted the chanting of the mass for the repose of his soul by their bantering as to which of them was most apt to win the hand of his widow. Joinville notes the punishment that followed this irreverence, in that all of this company perished in the very next battle, and that not one of their widows respected the memory of her husband sufficiently to remain long without marrying one of his better-behaved comrades. On this old battle-ground the crusaders were incessantly assailed with missiles and with Greek fire, whose huge balls, exploding with tremendous detonations, scattered danger far and wide, and destroyed the wooden towers and engines of the French as fast as they could be constructed.

A ford was opportunely discovered not far distant; the French marched by night and prepared to wade the stream at daybreak. Robert, Count d’Artois, the king’s brother, begged the honor of crossing first. He promised to wait on the farther bank until the whole army was with him, but the flight of an opposing band of Moslems was too much for the hot head of this youth. In vain did the experienced Masters of the Templars and Hospitallers protest against the foolhardiness of pursuing the retreating band into the very midst of their fortifications and hosts. The Count d’Artois replied with taunts, impugning the loyalty and courage of the older warriors: “They fear that if the country be conquered their domination will cease.” This was too much for the self-restraint of the most cautious. “Raise, then, the banner!” cried the Master of the Templars. William Longsword still remonstrated. The Count d’Artois replied, “What cowardice in these long-tailed English!” To which the Englishman made equal bravado: “We shall be to-day where you will not dare to touch my horse’s tail.” With that all dashed ahead for the desperate assault. The Moslems could not at first withstand this impetuous charge. Fakr Eddin was surprised half dressed, and while endeavoring to rally his troops was slain. On swept the victors, driving the enemy over the plain and following them into Mansourah.

But a keen-eyed leader had taken the place of the fallen Fakr Eddin. Bibars Bendoctar, captain of the Mamelukes, quickly checked the flight, and by skilful manœuvring surrounded the city of Mansourah before the Christians could emerge from its gates. Thus the victors were imprisoned within the walls they had conquered. The main body of Christians, delayed in the crossing, at length followed after their comrades, not knowing of their unhappy fate. Without orderly array they spread over the field; a thousand battles were fought instead of one, as band after band met the scattered detachments of the enemy. Before the Christians could plan their engagement Bibars had collected an orderly force and was upon them. Riding through their disconnected ranks, he steadily pressed the slaughter-line back to the canal. The water was reddened with the blood of the wounded and soon covered with the bodies of the drowned. Louis, unable to issue commands that could be heard, set a splendid example of heroism by dashing with his squires into the thickest ranks of the foe. He so far outstripped his quickest attendants that he soon found himself alone, surrounded by six stalwart Moslems, who endeavored to capture him, his royal person being revealed by his gorgeous uniform. With great strength and skill, which his countrymen have never ceased to celebrate, he extricated himself from the danger and, joined by his guards, led the army in a resistless charge. Their valor saved that day.

But alas for those in Mansourah! For five hours this valiant but deluded band stood in the streets, fighting in vain for their lives. Almost the entire vanguard of fifteen hundred perished. England mourned William Longsword, whose death, according to the chronicle, was announced at the very moment to his mother by a vision of her son, a triumphant knight, entering heaven. The bravery of Longsword so impressed his enemies that they carefully marked his grave and in after years restored his body to his kinspeople. France lost the royal brother, Count d’Artois, who, the English say, attempted to escape by casting himself into the Nile. The Hospitallers left their Grand Master a prisoner. The Templars watched long that night before they beheld their leader returning to their camp covered with wounds and rags. Joinville, who narrates the events of that fatal day, consoled his king by showing him his own five ghastly wounds. The Christians were victorious if victory is proved solely by possession of the field.

Three days later Bibars reappeared; his army stretched from the canal to the river. Another day of terrible havoc followed. At nightfall the Christians had maintained their ground, but their losses were equal to a fresh defeat. The records of nearly all the great families of France are starred by the dead who represented them that night as they lay unburied on the plain of Mansourah.

Discretion suggested the retreat of the remnant of the crusaders to Damietta, but desperation took counsel only of its battle-heated blood. They determined to remain and hold the ground so dearly won. It was an unwise decision. While the human enemy was unable to resume the attack, a more fearful one stalked visibly among them. The multitude of dead bodies which covered the land and water quickly putrefied and bred pestilence. The picture of a knight walking days and nights along the canal, exposed to the fetid death-vapors while he searched among the corpses for his master, Robert d’Artois, might be an allegory of France itself as she moaned and waited for thousands of her sons who would never return. Those who survived were attacked by a virulent disease, which Joinville thus describes: “The flesh of our legs dried away to the bone, and our skins became of black or earth color, like an old saddle which has been a long time laid aside.” The fish of the Nile had become poisonous from feeding upon the dead bodies, and putrefied the mouths of those who ate them. “It became necessary for the barbers to cut out the swollen flesh of the gums of all who were afflicted with this disease so that they could not eat, but went about in the army crying and moaning.” So decimated were the ranks that grooms took the places of knights, not waiting for chivalric ceremonies, and put on the noble armor they had been accustomed to clean. There were not enough priests left alive to shrive the dying. King Louis gave himself up to nursing the sick and consoling their last hours until he himself was prostrated by the epidemic. The crusaders watched in anxiety by his cot what they feared would be the extinction of their last hope.

The Moslems, keeping at a safe distance from this death-beleaguered camp, added famine to the other horrors by cutting off supplies. They lay in wait for vessels laden with provisions from Europe, and seized them as they were ascending the Nile. At length almost the entire Christian fleet was captured. Louis was thus reduced to making proposals to abandon Egypt on condition of the restoration of Jerusalem to Christian rule. The sultan agreed, provided the king himself should be surrendered to him as a hostage until the last European had left the country. Louis consented, but the warriors refused to accede to what they deemed the disgraceful terms of putting in pawn their king. Nothing remained but an attempt to return to Damietta.

This retreat of the Christians was fraught with miseries which baffle description. The women, the children, and the sick were stowed in the few boats that remained, and in the darkness of night drifted down the stream. The soldiers took up their perilous march along the banks. Some of the nobles, together with the papal legate, having secured a vessel, urged the king to embark. He refused, being determined, as he declared, to tramp with the last man that survived. The camp they were leaving was quickly assailed by the Moslems, who went through it slaughtering all they could find. Louis turned back and fought with the desperation of a tigress protecting her young. The cry, “Wait for the king!” rang along the banks, and the vessels stopped; but Louis forbade any to loiter. At length the rear-guard was in motion. The king was provided with a horse, and, without helmet or cuirass, arrayed only with his sword and surrounded by a handful of braves, brought up the rear of a mighty funeral procession, in which the living were moving to their own graves. The king afterwards spoke of the heroic fidelity of one of his attendants, Geoffrey de Sargines, “who protected me against the Saracens as a good servant protects his lord’s tankard against the flies.” The cortège—it was such rather than an army—moved along roads lined with the dead and dying. Horrible cries startled them on every side. Peering through the darkness, they saw the forms of comrades often deprived of hands and feet.

As birds of prey follow the traveller in the desert and sometimes do not wait until he is dead before they attack his languishing form, so the Moslems pursued the band which they knew to be foredoomed to perish, and hastened the end by their murderous assault. Those who had embarked on boats met with a disaster equal to that of those who trudged on land. The enemy’s fleet stopped them near Mehallah. The Christian boats were huddled together so that they could not move. The crusaders could scarcely find foot room on the crowded decks; the Mussulman archers on the shore poured upon them a storm of arrows, many of which were tipped with the Greek fire. The Christians on the ships were no longer soldiers, but victims of slaughter.