Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

These trials were to have an end. In the midst of their greatest distress, the news came that a Genoese fleet had arrived off Joppa, loaded with munitions and provisions. A detachment of three hundred men was sent off at once to receive them. They fought their way to Joppa. Here they found that the Christian ships had been abandoned to a superior Egyptian fleet, but not till after all the stores and provisions had been landed. With the fleet was a large number of Genoese artificers and carpenters, whose arrival in the camp was almost as timely as that of the wine and food.

The hopes of the Crusaders, always as sanguine as they were easily dejected, revived again. This unexpected reinforcement—was it not a miracle? and might there not be others yet to follow? Gaston of Béarn superintended the construction of the machines. In the carriage of their timber, as they had no carts or wheels, they employed their Saracen prisoners. Putting fifty or sixty of them in line, they made them carry beams “which four oxen could not drag.” Raymond of Toulouse, who alone had not spent all he had brought with him, found the money to pay those few who were exempted from gratuitous service. A regular service for the carriage of water was organised, and some alleviation thus afforded to the sufferings caused by thirst.

Three great towers were made, higher than the walls. Each of these was divided into three stages; the lowest for the workmen, and the two higher for the soldiers. The front and sides exposed to the enemy were cased with plates of iron, or defended by wet hides; the back part was of wood. On the top was a sort of drawbridge, which could be lowered so as to afford a passage to the wall.

All being ready, it was determined to preface the attack by a processional march round the city. After a fast of three days and solemn services, the Crusaders solemnly went in procession, barefooted and bareheaded, round the city. They were preceded by their priests in white surplices, carrying the images of saints, and chanting psalms; their banners were displayed, the clarions blew. As the Israelites marched round Jericho, the Crusaders marched round Jerusalem, and doubtless many longing eyes, though more in doubt than in hope, were turned upon the walls to see if they, too, would fall. They did not. The besieged crowded upon them, holding crosses, which they insulted, and discharging their arrows at the procession. But the hearts of the rough soldiers were moved to the utmost, not by the taunts of their enemies, but by the sight of the sacred spots, and the memory of the things which had taken place there: there was Calvary; here Gethsemane, where Christ prayed and wept; here the place where He ascended; here the spot on which He stood while He wept over the city. They, too, could see it lying at their feet, with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Great Mosque in the midst of the place where had been the Temple of the Lord. These places cried aloud to them for deliverance. Or, if they looked behind them, to the east, they saw the banks of the river across which Joshua had passed, and the Dead Sea which lay above the Cities of the Plain.

Arnold, chaplain to Duke Robert of Normandy—an eloquent man, but of dissolute morals—harangued them. His discourse had been preserved after the manner of historians; that is, we are told what he ought to have said; very likely, in substance, what he did say. God, he told them, would pardon them all sins in recompense for their recovery of the holy places. And he made the chiefs themselves, who had sinned by quarrelling and dissension, embrace in presence of the whole army, and thereby set the example of perfect union. Then they renewed, for the last time, their oaths of fidelity to the Cross. Peter the Hermit, who was with them, harangued them also. And in the evening the soldiers returned to the camp to confess their sins, to receive the Eucharist, and to spend the night in prayer.

Godfrey alone was active. He perceived that the Saracens had constructed on the wall opposite to the position of his great tower, works which would perhaps render it useless. He therefore took it down, and transported it, with very great labour, and in a single night, to a spot which he considered the weakest in the north wall. Here it was re-erected to the dismay of the besieged.

At break of day on Thursday, July 14th, 1099, the attack began. The towers were moved against the walls, the mangonels hurled their stones into the city, and the battering-rams were brought into play. All day long the attack was carried on, but to little effect, and at nightfall, when the Crusaders returned to their camp, the tower of Raymond was in ruins; those of Tancred and Godfrey were so damaged that they could not be moved; and the princes were seen beating their hands in despair, and crying that God had abandoned them. “Miserable men that we are!” cried Robert of Normandy; “God judges us unworthy to enter into the Holy City, and worship at the tomb of His Son.”

The next day was Friday, the day of the Crucifixion. At daybreak the battle began again. It went well for the Crusaders; the wall was broken in many places, and the besieged with all their endeavours could not set fire to the towers. In the middle of the day they brought out two magicians—witches, it is said, though one hardly believes it. They made their incantations on the walls, attended by their maidens.[^[53]] These were all destroyed at once by stones from the mangonels. But the day went on, and the final assault could not be delivered for the courage and ferocity of the Saracens. And then, the usual miracle happened. Godfrey and Raymond, shouting that heaven had come to their rescue, pointed to the Mount of Olives, where stood a man, “miles splendidus et refulgens,” one clothed in bright and glittering armour, waving his shield as a signal for the advance. Who could it be but Saint George himself? In the midst of a shower of arrows, Greek fire, and stones, the tower of Godfrey was pushed against the wall; the drawbridge fell; Godfrey himself was among the first to leap upon the wall. And then the rumour ran, that not only Saint George, but Bishop Adhémar—dead Bishop Adhémar himself—was in the ranks, and fighting against the Infidel. The supreme moment was arrived! A whisper went through the troops that it was now three o’clock; the time, as well as the day, when our Lord died, on the very spot where they were fighting. Even the women and children joined in the attack, and mingled their cries with the shouts of the soldiers. The Saracens gave way, and Jerusalem was taken.

[53]. Robert of Normandy might have remembered that a similar plan had been adopted by his father against Hereward in Ely.

The city was taken, and the massacre of its defenders began. The Christians ran through the streets, slaughtering as they went. At first they spared none, neither man, woman, nor child, putting all alike to the sword; but when resistance had ceased, and rage was partly appeased, they began to bethink them of pillage, and tortured those who remained alive to make them discover their gold. As for the Jews within the city, they had fled to their synagogue, which the Christians set on fire, and so burned them all. The chroniclers relate with savage joy, how the streets were encumbered with heads and mangled bodies, and how in the Haram Area, the sacred enclosure of the Temple, the knights rode in blood up to the knees of their horses. Here upwards of ten thousand were slaughtered, while the whole number of killed amounted, according to various estimates, to forty, seventy, and even a hundred thousand. An Arabic historian, not to be outdone in miracles by the Christians, reports that at the moment when the city fell, a sudden eclipse took place, and the stars appeared in the day. Fugitives brought the news to Damascus and Baghdad. It was then the month of Ramadan, but the general trouble was such that the very fast was neglected. No greater misfortune, except, perhaps, the loss of Mecca, could have happened to Islamism. The people went in masses to the mosques; the poets made their verses of lamentation: “We have mingled our blood with our tears. No refuge remains against the woes that overpower us.... How can ye close your eyes, children of Islam, in the midst of troubles which would rouse the deepest sleeper? Will the chiefs of the Arabs resign themselves to such evils? and will the warriors of Persia submit to such disgrace? Would to God, since they will not fight for their religion, that they would fight for the safety of their neighbours! And if they give up the rewards of heaven, will they not be induced to fight by the hope of booty?”[^[54]]