But the army was too confident to keep to the old path. They would go eastward and attack the Turks in their strongest place, even in Khorassan itself. Raymond let them have their own way, doubtless with misgiving and anxiety, and went with them. The town of Ancyra, in Paphlagonia, was attacked and taken by assault. All the people were put to death without exception. They went on farther, exulting and jubilant. Presently they found themselves surrounded by the enemy, who appeared suddenly, attacked them in clouds, and from all quarters. They were in a desert where there was little water, what there was being so rigorously watched over by the Turks that few escaped who went to seek it. They were marching over dry brushwood; the Turks set fire to it, and many perished in the flames or the smoke. There was but one thing to do, to fight the enemy. They did so, and though the victory seemed theirs, they had small cause to triumph, for division after division of their army had been forced to fly before the Turks. Still this might have been repaired. But in the night Count Raymond left them, and fled with his soldiers in the direction of Sinope. The news of this defection quickly spread. Bishops, princes, and knights, seized with a sudden panic, left baggage, tents and all, and fled away in hot haste. In the morning the Turks prepared again for battle. There was no enemy. In the camp was nothing but a shrieking, despairing multitude of monks, and women, and children. The Turks killed remorselessly, sparing none but those women who were young and beautiful. In their terror and misery the poor creatures put on hastily their finest dresses, in hopes by their beauty to win life at least, if life shameful, and hopeless, and miserable.
“Alas!” says Albert of Aix, “alas! what grief for these women so tender and so noble, led into captivity by savages so impious and so horrible! For these men had their heads shaven in front, at the sides, and at the nape, the little hair left fell behind in disorder, and in few plaits, upon their necks; their beards were thick and unkempt, and everything, with their garments, gave them the appearance of infernal and unclean spirits. There were no bounds to the cries and lamentations of these delicate women; the camp re-echoed with their groans; one had seen her husband perish, one had been left behind by hers. Some were beheaded after serving to gratify the lust of the Turks; some whose beauty had struck their eyes were reserved for a wretched captivity. After having taken so many women in the tents of the Christians, the Turks set off in pursuit of the foot-soldiers, the knights, the priests, and the monks; they struck them with the sword as a reaper cuts the wheat with his sickle; they respected neither age nor rank, they spared none but those whom they destined to be soldiers. The ground was covered with immense riches abandoned by the fugitives. Here and there were seen splendid dresses of various colours; horses and mules lay about the plain; blood inundated the roads, and the number of dead amounted to more than a hundred and sixty thousand.”
As for the arm of St. Ambrose, that was lost too, and it doubtless lies still upon the plain beyond Ancyra, waiting to work more miracles. It is exasperating to find all the chroniclers, with the exception of Albert of Aix, passing over with hardly a word of sympathy the miserable fate of the helpless women, and pouring out their regrets over this trumpery relic.
There was another army still, headed by the Duke of Nevers. They followed in the footsteps of their predecessors as far as Ancyra, where they turned southwards. Their fate was the same as that of the others: all were killed. The leader, who had fled to Germanicopolis, took some Greek soldiers as guides. These stripped him, and left him alone in the forest. He wandered about for some days, and at last found his way to Antioch, as poor and naked as any beggar in his own town.
The third and last army, headed by the Count Hugh of Vermandois, met with a similar end. Thirst, heat, and hunger destroyed their strength, for the Turks had filled the wells, destroyed the crops, and let the water out of the cisterns. On the river Halys they met their end; William of Poitiers, like the Duke of Nevers, arrived naked at Antioch. The luckless Count of Vermandois got as far as Tarsus, where he died of his wounds, and poor Ida of Austria, who came, as she thought, under the protection of the pilgrims, with all her noble ladies, was never heard of any more.
Of these three great hosts, only ten thousand managed to get to Antioch. Every one of the ladies and women who were with them perished; all the children, all the monks and priests. And of the leaders, none went back to Europe except the Count of Blandrat, who with the Bishop of Milan had headed the Lombards, the Duke of Nevers, and William of Poitiers, the troubadour.
These were the last waves of the first great storm. With the last of these three great armies died away the crusading spirit proper—that which Peter the Hermit had aroused. There could be no more any such universal enthusiasm. Once and only once again would all Europe thrill with rage and indignation. It had burned to wrest the city from the infidels; it was to burn once more, but this time with a feebler flame, and ineffectually, to wrest it a second time, when the frail and turbulent kingdom of Jerusalem should be at an end.
We have dwelt perhaps at too great length on the great Crusade which really ended with the death of Godfrey. But the centre of its aims was Jerusalem. The Christian kingdom, one of the most interesting episodes in the history of the city, cannot be understood without knowing some of the events which brought it about.
THE KINGS OF JERUSALEM