Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

Alexis, on hearing of Bohemond’s speedy arrival, was greatly alarmed—as, indeed, he had reason to be. With his usual duplicity, he sent ambassadors to flatter his formidable visitor, while he ordered his frontier troops to harass him on his march; and Bohemond had alternately to receive the assurances of the Emperor’s friendship, and to fight his troops. No wonder that he wrote to Godfrey at Constantinople to be on his guard, as he had to do “with the most ferocious wild beast and the most wicked man alive.” But, in spite of his hatred, the fierce Norman found himself constrained to put off his resentment in the presence of Greek politeness; and the rich gifts with which Alexis loaded him, if they did not quiet his suspicions, at least allayed his wrath. Alexis got rid of his unwelcome visitors as speedily as he could. After going through the ceremony of adopting Godfrey as his son, and putting the empire under his protection, he received the homage of the princes, one after the other, with the exception alone of Tancred. And then he sent them all across the straits, to meet whatever fortune awaited them on the other side.

The story of the First Crusade is an oft-told tale. But it is a tale which bears telling often. There is nothing in history which may be compared with this extraordinary rising of whole peoples. The numbers which came from Western Europe cannot, of course, be even approximately stated. Probably, counting the women, children, and camp-followers, their number would not be less than a million. Of these, far more than a half, probably two-thirds, came from the provinces of France. The Germans were but slightly affected by the universal enthusiasm—the English not at all. Edgar Atheling brought a band of his countrymen to join Robert of Normandy; but these were probably those who had compromised themselves in former attempts to raise Northumbria and other parts of England. The Italians came from the south, but not from the north; and nearly the whole of Spain was occupied by the caliphate[caliphate] of Cordova. That all these soldiers were fired with the same ardour, were led by the same disinterested hope, is not to be supposed; but it is certain from every account, whether Christian or Arabic, that the main object of their enterprise was a motive power strong enough, of itself, to enable them to endure hardships and privations almost incredible, and to combat with forces numerically, at least, ten times their superior.

The way to the Holy Land lay through a hostile country. Asia Minor, overrun by the Mohammedans since twenty years, was garrisoned rather than settled. Numerous as were the followers of the Crescent, they had not been able to do more, in their rapid march of conquest, than to take strongholds and towns, and keep them. There were even some towns which had never surrendered, while of those which belonged to them, many were held by insufficient forces, and contained an element of weakness in the large number of Christian inhabitants. And the first of these towns which came in their way was the town of Nicæa.

The miserable remnant of Peter’s army, on the arrival of their friends, made haste to show them the places of their own disasters. These fugitives had lived hidden in the forest, and now, on seeing the brassard of the Cross, emerged—barefooted, ragged, unarmed, cowed—to tell the story of their sufferings. They took the soldiers to see the plain where their great army had been massacred—there were the piles of bones, the plain white with them; they took them to the camp where the women and children had been left. These were gone, but the remains were left of the old men and those who had tried to defend them. Their bodies lay in the moat which had been cut round the camp. In the centre, like a pillar of reproach, stood the white stones which had served for the altar of the camp.

Filled with wrath at the sight of these melancholy objects, the soldiers cried out to be led against their enemy; and the whole army, preceded by four thousand pioneers to clear the way, was marched in good order towards Nicæa, where the enemy awaited them. The Crusaders—they spoke nineteen different languages—were accoutred with some attempt at similarity. The barons and knights wore a coat of chain-armour, while a helmet, set with silver for the princes, of steel for knights, and of iron for the rest, protected their heads. Round bucklers were carried by the knights, long shields by the foot-soldiers; besides the lance, the sword, the arrow, they carried the mace and battleaxe, the sling, and the terrible crossbow; while, for a rallying-point for the soldiers, every prince bore painted on his standard those birds, animals, and towns, which subsequently became coats-of-arms, and gave birth to the science of Heraldry.

The total number of the gigantic host amounted, it is said, to one hundred thousand knights and five hundred thousand foot-soldiers. But this is evidently an exaggeration. If it is not, the losses by battle, famine, and disease were proportionately greater than those of any wars recorded in history.

The first operation was the siege of Nicæa—Nicæa, the city of the great Council—and the avenging of the slaughtered army of Peter. Nicæa stood on the low shores of a lake. It was provided with vessels of all kinds, by which it could receive men and provisions, and was therefore practically impregnable. But the Mohammedans, fully advertised of the approach of their enemies, had made preparations to receive them; and with an immense army, all mounted, charged the array of the Christians on the moment of their arrival in the plains, and while they were occupied in putting up their tents. Victory, such as it was, remained with the Crusaders, but cost them the lives of more than two thousand of their men. The siege of Nicæa, undertaken after this battle, made slow progress. While the Christians wasted their strength in vain efforts to demolish the walls and cross the moats, the garrison, constantly reinforced during the night by means of the lake, held out unshaken for some weeks. Finding out the means by which their strength was recruited, Godfrey, by immense exertions, transported overland from the neighbouring sea a number of light craft, which he launched on the lake, and succeeded in accomplishing a perfect blockade of the town. The Nicæans, terrified at the success of this manœuvre, and by the fate of their most important town, were ready to surrender at discretion, when the cunning of Alexis Comnenus—who had despatched a small force, nominally for the assistance of the Crusaders, but really for the purpose of watching after his own interests—succeeded in inducing the town to surrender to him alone; and the Christians, after all their labour, had the mortification of seeing the Greek flag flying over the citadel, instead of their own. From his own point of view, the Emperor was evidently right. The Crusaders had sworn to protect his empire; he claimed sovereignty over all these lands; his object was neither to revenge the death of a horde of invaders, nor to devastate the towns, nor to destroy the country—but to recover and preserve. Nicæa, at least, was almost within his reach; and though he could not expect that his authority would be recognised in the south of Asia Minor, or in Syria, he had reason to hope that here at any rate, so near to Constantinople, and so recently after the oaths of the princes, it would be recognised.

So, certainly, thought the princes; for, in spite of the unrepressed indignation of the army, they refrained from pillaging the town and murdering the infidels, and gave the word to march.

It was now early summer; the soldiers had not yet experienced the power of an Asiatic sun; no provision was made against the dangers of famine and thirst, and their way led through a land parched with heat, devastated by wars, over rocky passes, across pathless plains. The Crusaders neither knew the country, nor made any preparations, beyond carrying provisions for two or three days. They were, moreover, encumbered with their camp-followers, their baggage, and the weight of their arms.

They were divided, principally for convenience of forage, into two corps d’armée, of which one was commanded by Godfrey, Raymond, Robert of Flanders, and the Count of Vermandois, while the other was led by the three Norman chiefs, Robert, Tancred, and Bohemond. For seven days all went well, the armies having completely lost sight of each other, but confident, after their recent successes, that there would be no more enemies at hand to combat. They were mistaken. Tancred’s division, on the evening of the 30th of June, pitched their camp in a valley called by William of Tyre the valley of Gorgona. It was protected on one side by a river, on the other by a marsh filled with reeds. The night was passed in perfect security, but at daybreak the enemy was upon them. Bohemond took the command. Placing the women and the sick in the midst, he divided the cavalry into three brigades, and prepared to dispute the passage of the river. The Saracens discharged their arrows into the thick ranks of the Crusaders, whose wounded horses confused and disordered them. Unable to endure these attacks with patience, the Christians crossed the river and charged their enemies; but the Saracens, mounted on lighter horses, made way for them to pass, and renewed the discharge of their arrows. Another band, taking advantage of the knights having crossed the river, forded it at a higher point, and attacked the camp itself. Then the slaughter of the sick and wounded, and even of the women, save those whose beauty was sufficient to ransom their lives, began. On the other side of the stream the knights fought every one for himself. Tancred, nearly killed in the mêlée, was saved by Bohemond; Robert of Normandy performed prodigies; the camp was retaken, and the women rescued. But the day was not won. Nor would it have been won, but for the arrival of Godfrey, to whom Bohemond, early in the day, had sent a messenger. He brought up the whole of his army, and the Saracens, retreating to the hills, found themselves attacked on all sides. They fled in utter disorder, leaving twenty-three thousand dead on the field, and the whole of their camp and baggage in the hands of the Christians. These had lost four thousand, besides the number of followers killed in the camp. The booty was immense, and the soldiers pleased themselves by dressing in the long silk robes of the Mussulmans, while they refurnished themselves with arms from those they found upon the dead. Conscious, however, of the danger they had escaped, they were careful to acknowledge that they would not have carried the day, had it not been for St. George and St. Demetrius, who had been plainly visible to many fighting on their side; and the respect which they conceived for the Saracens’ prowess taught them, at least, a salutary lesson of caution.