A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (3 page)

The German army had marched very slowly
through the Balkans; and Frederick was too cautious to attempt to cross
Anatolia in winter time. He spent the winter months at Adrianople, while the
citizens of Constantinople trembled lest he should refuse Isaac’s apologies and
march on their city. Eventually, in March 1190, his whole expedition moved down
to Gallipoli on the Dardanelles, and with the help of Byzantine transports,
crossed into Asia, to the relief of Isaac and his subjects.

1190: Death of Frederick Barbarossa

On leaving the Asiatic shore of the
Dardanelles, Frederick roughly kept the road taken by Alexander the Great
fifteen centuries before, crossing over the Granicus and the flooded river
Angelocomites, till he struck a paved Byzantine high-road between Miletopolis
and the modern Balikesir. He followed this road through Calamus to
Philadelphia, where the inhabitants were friendly at first but attempted to rob
the rearguard of the army and were punished. He reached Laodicea on 27 April,
thirty days after his passage across the Dardanelles. From there he struck
inland along the road that Manuel had taken on his fatal march to
Myriocephalum; and on 3 May, after a skirmish with the Turks, he passed the
site of the battlefield, where the bones of the victims still could be seen. He
was now in territory controlled by the Seldjuk Sultan. It was clear that Kilij
Arslan, in spite of his promises, did not intend to let the Crusaders pass
peaceably through his domains. But, awed by the size of their army, he
attempted little more than to hang round its skirts, picking off stragglers and
interfering with the search for food. It was effective tactics. Hunger and
thirst as well as Turkish arrows began to cause casualties. Making his way
round the end of the Sultan Dagh mountains on to the old road from Philomelium
eastward, Frederick reached Konya on 17 May. The Sultan and his court had
retired before him; and, after a sharp battle with the Sultan’s son, Qutb
ad-Din, he was able next day to force an entry into the town. He did not remain
long within the walls, but let his army rest for a while in the gardens of
Meram, in its southern suburbs. Six days later he moved on to Karaman, where he
arrived on the 30th; and thence he led the army over the passes of the Taurus
without opposition, towards the south coast at Seleucia. The port was now held
by the Armenians, whose Catholicus hastened to send a message to Saladin. The
road lay through difficult country; food was short, and the summer heat
intense.

On 10 June the great host descended into
the plain of Seleucia, and prepared to cross the river Calycadnus to enter the
city. The Emperor rode ahead with his bodyguard, and came down to the
waterside. What happened then is uncertain. Either he leapt from his horse to
refresh himself in the cool stream and the current was stronger than he
thought, or his aged body could not stand the sudden shock; or else his horse
slipped and threw him into the water, and the weight of his armour sank him. By
the time that the army reached the river his corpse had been rescued and was
lying on the bank.

The death of the great Emperor was a
bitter blow not only to his own followers but to the whole Frankish world. The
news of his coming at the head of a great army had enormously heartened the
knights fighting on the Syrian coast. His force alone seemed sufficient to
drive back the Moslems: and its combination with the armies of the Kings of
France and England, who were known to be setting out soon for the East, would
surely recover the Holy Land for Christendom. Saladin himself was afraid that
the combination might be too much for him. When he heard that Frederick was on
the road to Constantinople he sent his secretary and future biographer, Beha
ed-Din, to Baghdad to warn the Caliph Nasr that the faithful must gather to
meet the threat; and he summoned all his vassals to join him. He collected
information about every stage of the German army’s march and wrongly believed
that Kilij Arslan was secretly helping the invaders. When they suddenly learned
of Frederick’s death it seemed to the Moslems that God had wrought a miracle
for the Faith. The army that Saladin had gathered to hold the Germans in
Northern Syria could safely be reduced and detachments sent to join his forces
on the coast of Palestine.

The Germans at Antioch

The danger had been great for Islam; and
Saladin was right to see his salvation in the Emperor’s death. Though a number
of German soldiers had perished and some equipment been lost in the arduous
march across Anatolia, the Emperor’s army was still formidable. But the
Germans, with their strange longing to worship a leader, are usually
demoralized when the leader disappears. Frederick’s troops lost their nerve.
The Duke of Swabia took over the command; but, though he was gallant enough, he
lacked his father’s personality. Some of the princes decided to return with
their followers to Europe; others took ship from Seleucia or Tarsus for Tyre.
The Duke, with the army much reduced, marched on through the damp summer heat of
the Cilician plain, carrying with him the Emperor’s body preserved in vinegar.
After some hesitation the Armenian Prince Leo paid a deferential visit to the
German camp. But the German leaders could not make adequate arrangements for
the feeding of their men. Bereft of the Emperor’s control, the troops lost
their discipline. Many were hungry, many were sick, and all were unruly. The
Duke himself fell seriously ill and had to linger in Cilicia. His army went on without
him, to be attacked with heavy losses as it passed through the Syrian Gates. It
was a sorry rabble that arrived on 21 June at Antioch. Frederick followed a few
days later, on his recovery.

Prince Bohemond of Antioch gave the
Germans a hospitable welcome. It was their undoing. Leaderless, they had lost
their enthusiasm, and after the hardships of their journey they were unwilling
to abandon the luxuries of Antioch. Nor did the excesses in which they indulged
improve their health. Frederick of Swabia, pleased with the homage paid him by
Bohemond and encouraged by a visit that his cousin, Conrad of Montferrat, made
him from Tyre, was eager to continue the journey. But when he left Antioch at
the end of August it was with an army that was still further reduced. Nor was
his effort appreciated by many of the Franks whom he had come to help. All
Conrad’s opponents, knowing Frederick to be his cousin and friend, whispered
that Saladin had paid Conrad sixty thousand besants to take him away from
Antioch where he would have been more useful to the Christian cause. With
apposite symbolism the old Emperor’s body had disintegrated. The vinegar had
been ineffective, and the decaying remains were hastily buried in the Cathedral
of Antioch. But some bones were removed from the corpse and travelled on with
the army, in the vain hope that at least a portion of Frederick Barbarossa
should await the Judgement Day at Jerusalem.

The grim fiasco of the Emperor’s Crusade
made it more than ever urgent that the Kings of France and England should
arrive in the East, to share in the bitter and fateful contest that was being
waged on the coast of northern Palestine.

CHAPTER
II

ACRE

‘Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your
hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and against the
Chaldean, which besiege you without the walls.’
JEREMIAH XXI, 4

In the moment of triumph Saladin had made
one grave mistake, when he let himself be daunted by the fortifications of
Tyre. Had he marched on Tyre immediately after his capture of Acre in July
1187, it would have been his. But he thought that its surrender had been
arranged, and delayed a few days. When he arrived before Tyre, Conrad of
Montferrat was there already and refused to consider capitulation. Saladin was
not equipped at that moment to undertake a systematic siege of the town and
moved on to easier conquests. It was not till after the fall of Jerusalem in
October that he made a second attack on Tyre, with a large army and all his
siege-machines. But the walls across the narrow isthmus had been strengthened
now by Conrad, who devoted the money that he had brought with him from
Constantinople to improve all the defences. After his engines proved
ineffectual and his fleet was destroyed in a battle at the harbour entrance,
Saladin lifted the siege once more and disbanded most of his troops. Before he
came again to complete the conquest of the coast, help had arrived from
overseas.

1188: Release of King Guy

The forces dispatched by William II of
Sicily in the late spring of 1188 were not large, but they consisted of a
well-armed fleet under the Admiral Margaritus and two hundred trained knights.
The presence of these reinforcements caused Saladin to raise the siege of Krak
des Chevaliers in July 1188, and deterred him from attacking Tripoli. He would
have been glad now to negotiate a peace. There was a knight from Spain who had
arrived at Tyre in time to share in its defence. His name is unknown, but from
the armour that he wore men called him the Green Knight. His valour and prowess
greatly impressed Saladin, who interviewed him near Tripoli in the summer of
1188, hoping to persuade him to arrange for a truce and himself take service
with the Saracens. But the Green Knight answered that the Franks would consider
nothing less than the restoration of their country, especially as help was
coming from the West. Let Saladin evacuate Palestine; then he would find the
Franks the most loyal of allies.

Though peace was not to be had Saladin
showed his friendly intentions by releasing some of his eminent prisoners. It
had been his practice to induce the captive Frankish lords to obtain their
liberty by ordering the surrender of their castles to him. It was a cheap and
easy way of obtaining the fortresses. His chivalry went further. When
Stephanie, lady of Oultrejourdain, failed to persuade her garrisons at Kerak
and Montreal to give themselves up in order that her son, Humphrey of Toron,
might be released, Saladin returned him to her even before the obstinate
castles were taken by storm. The price of King Guy’s release was to have been
Ascalon. But the citizens there, ashamed of their King’s selfishness, refused
to honour his undertaking. Ascalon now had fallen; and so Queen Sibylla wrote
again and again to Saladin, begging him to give her back her husband. In July
1188, Saladin granted her request. After solemnly swearing that he would go
back across the sea and never again take arms against the Moslems, King Guy,
with ten distinguished followers, including the Constable Amalric, was sent to
join the Queen at Tripoli. At the same time the aged Marquis of Montferrat was
allowed to go to his son at Tyre.

Saladin’s generosity alarmed his
compatriots. Not only did he allow the Frankish citizens in every town that
surrendered to him to go and join their fellows at Tyre or Tripoli, but he
further swelled the garrisons of these last Christian fortresses by setting
free so many of the captive lords. But Saladin knew what he was doing. The
party quarrels that had rent the latter years of the kingdom of Jerusalem had
been healed by the tact of Balian of Ibelin only a few weeks before the battle
of Hattin, and they had broken out again on the very eve of the battle. The
disaster embittered them. The Lusignan and Courtenay supporters blamed it on
Raymond of Tripoli, and Raymond’s friends, the Ibelins and the Garniers and
most of the local nobility, blamed it, with better reason, on King Guy’s
weakness and the influence of the Templars and Reynald of Chatillon. Raymond
and Reynald were dead now, but the bitterness lasted on. Cooped up behind the
walls of Tyre, the dispossessed nobles had little else to do but to hurl
recriminations at each other. Balian and his friends who had eluded captivity
now accepted Conrad of Montferrat as their leader. They had seen that it was he
alone who had saved Tyre. But Guy’s supporters, emerging from prison after the
worst of the crisis was over, merely saw him as an interloper, a potential
rival to their King. Guy’s release, so far from strengthening the Franks,
brought the quarrel to a head.

1188: Rivalry of Guy and Conrad

Queen Sibylla, probably to escape from an
atmosphere hostile to her husband, had retired to Tripoli. On Raymond’s death
in the autumn of 1187 Tripoli had passed to the young son of his cousin,
Bohemond of Antioch; and Bohemond, who was easygoing and, perhaps, grateful to
have the garrison at Tripoli reinforced, made no objections when the Lusignan
partisans gathered round her there. Guy joined her as soon as he was freed; and
at once a cleric was found to release him from his oath to Saladin. It had been
made under duress and to an infidel. Therefore, said the Church, it was
invalid. Saladin was angry to hear of this but cannot have been much surprised.
After visiting Antioch, where Bohemond gave him a vague promise to help, Guy
marched with his supporters from Tripoli to Tyre, intending to take over the
government of what remained of his former kingdom. Conrad closed the gates in
his face. In the opinion of Conrad’s party Guy had forfeited the kingdom at
Hattin and during his captivity. He had left it without a government, and all
would have been lost but for Conrad’s intervention. To Guy’s demand to be
received as king, Conrad answered that he held Tyre in trust for the Crusader
monarchs who were coming to rescue the Holy Land. The Emperor Frederick and the
Kings of France and England must decide to whom eventually the government
should be given. It was a fair enough claim, and it suited Conrad. Richard of
England, as overlord of the Lusignans in Guienne, might favour Guy’s cause; but
the Emperor and Philip of France were Conrad’s cousins and friends. Guy
returned disconsolate with his party to Tripoli. It was well for the Franks
that at this moment Saladin, with his army partly disbanded, was occupied in
reducing the castles in the north of Syria, and that in January 1189 he sent
further detachments to their homes. He himself, after spending the first months
of the year at Jerusalem and Acre, reorganizing the administration of
Palestine, went back to his capital at Damascus in March.