Stories from the Crusades

by Janet Harvey Kelman

Yet though Bernard was a great and strong man, the Crusade he planned ended in failure. Thousands of knights and soldiers died in Asia, and the leaders came back to Europe with only a handful of the men who had followed them in the wars.

Not very long after the return of these fighting men, a lad named Saladin went to Egypt from Damascus. Saladin liked pleasure and idleness, and he was very unwilling to leave his happy home in the north to go to Egypt to fight under his uncle. When he was told that he must do this, he said, ‘I go, but with the despair of a man led to death.’ The ruler of Egypt had many men around him who wished for more power and honour than they had, and he was afraid that one of them would kill him and take his place. He saw Saladin, and noticed that he seemed careless about making a name for himself, and yet that he was a very great fighter when he was roused by battle. This made him wish to have him always with him, and so Saladin was made ruler of the forces.

But then a strange change came over Saladin. He no sooner had charge of men than he ceased to be a thoughtless lad, and became a serious leader of armies. Instead of growing slowly, as most people do, he seemed to change all at once from a playful, self-willed child to a strong man, who could bear all hardships to gain his end. Soon the ruler of Egypt died, and Saladin reigned in his place. Ere long he was Lord of Bagdad too, and that meant that he had power over the whole Moslem world.

During all this time the kings of Jerusalem were weak, powerless men. At first Saladin wished to make a truce with the one who reigned when he became Lord of Bagdad. This was not because he had any kind feeling towards him. He only wished to get time to make his own kingdom strong ere he fought for the little belt of Syrian land that belonged to the Christians. It was the only bit in all that part of the world that he did not rule.

But a noble of the kingdom of Jerusalem, named the Lord of Carac, broke the truce. He robbed caravans and killed Moslems whenever he could. Saladin was very angry. He could wait no longer, but decided to fight for Jerusalem at once.

In the Holy City, jealousy and bitterness were making strife amongst those who ought to have been friends. Red cross knights hated white cross knights. When they did uphold each other it was not in order to fight the foe, but to fight the priests. They even shot arrows at them in the streets of Jerusalem. The priests gathered up the arrows, laid them out under the open sky, and prayed that God would punish the knights. And when the time came to face Saladin, it was not possible to get the Christian army to fight as one man.

The Saracens took the town of Tiberias on the Lake of Galilee. The news of this was brought to the King of Jerusalem as he rode out to meet Saladin. Count Raymond, in whose land Tiberias was, rode beside the king. The Count’s wife and children were in the town, but yet Raymond said:

‘This army is all we have: if we lose it, the Holy City will be lost. Let us go to some place where Saladin will have to attack us, where we shall hold the fortress instead of attacking him. I would rather lose this country and all that I possess, if by that I might save the Holy City.’

But the other knights made the king believe that Raymond said this because he was really on Saladin’s side, and wished him to win. The king yielded to them, and the army marched forward to Tiberias. When they reached the town, they found that all the heights on the hills round it were fortified. For two days a terrible battle raged. The Moslems even were astonished at the brave way the crusading army fought to save the wood of the true Cross which they had carried into the fight. They said that ‘the knights flew round it like moths round a candle.’

But at last the bishop who bore it was killed, and the Cross was carried to Saladin’s camp. When the Crusaders raised the body of the dead bishop they found that he had worn a coat of mail under his robe, and they thought that it was because of his want of faith that they had lost the battle, for always before, the bearer of the Cross had gone unarmed into battle.