A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (53 page)

In February 1288, Nicholas IV was elected
Pope; and one of his first actions was to receive the Mongol ambassador. Their
personal relations were excellent. Rabban Sauma addressed the Pope as First
Bishop of Christendom, and Nicholas sent his blessing to the Nestorian
Catholicus and acknowledged him as Patriarch of the East. In the course of Holy
Week the ambassador celebrated Mass before all the Cardinals, and he received
Communion from the hands of the Pope himself. He left Rome, together with
Gobert of Helleville, in the late spring of 1288, laden with gifts, many of
them precious relics, for the Ilkhan and the Catholicus, and with letters for
them both and for two Christian princesses at the Court and for the Jacobite
Bishop of Tabriz, Denys. But the letters were a little vague. The Pope could
not promise definite action on any definite date.

1289: The Ilkhan urges a Crusade

Indeed, as Rabban Sauma came to realize,
the Kings of the West had their own distractions. The sinister ghost of Charles
of Anjou combined with the old vindictiveness of the Papacy to block any
Crusade. The Pope had given Sicily to the Angevins; and now that the Sicilians
had turned against the Angevins, both the Papacy and France were obliged by the
claims of prestige to fight for the reconquest of the island, against the two
great sea-powers of the Mediterranean, Genoa and Aragon. Till the Sicilian question
was settled neither Nicholas nor Philip was ready to think of a Crusade. Edward
of England saw the danger, and managed in 1286 to arrange a truce between
France and Aragon; but it was a precarious truce so long as fighting continued
in Italy and on the sea. Moreover, Edward had his own troubles. He might yearn
to save the Holy Land, but he found it of more urgent interest to conquer Wales
and to attempt the conquest of Scotland. After the death of Alexander III of
Scotland in 1286 his eyes were turned northward, as he planned to control the
neighbour kingdom through the person of its child-heiress, Margaret, the Maid
of Norway. The East must wait. Nor was there any force of public opinion to
urge the monarchs on. As Pope Gregory X’s researches had shown, the Crusading
spirit was moribund.

Arghun would not believe that the
Christians of the West, with all their pious protestations of devotion to the
Holy Land, could show such indifference to its threatened fate. He welcomed
Rabban Sauma home with the highest honours, and showed cordiality to Gobert of
Helleville. But he wished for greater precision than Gobert could give him.
Just after Easter 1289, he sent a second envoy, a Genoese called Buscarel of
Gisolf, who had long been settled in his lands, with letters for the Pope and
the Kings of France and England. The letter to Philip still survives. It is
written in the Mongol tongue, using Uighur script. In the name of the Great
Khan Kubilai, Arghun announces to the King of France that, with God’s help, he
proposes to set out into Syria on the last winter month of the year of the
panther, that is to say, in January 1291, and to reach Damascus about the
middle of the first month of spring, February. If the King will send
auxiliaries and the Mongols capture Jerusalem, it will be given to him. But if
he fails to co-operate the campaign will be wasted. Added to the letter is a
note by Buscarel, written in French, which pays tactful compliments to the
French King and adds that Arghun will bring with him the Christian Kings of
Georgia and twenty or even thirty thousand horsemen, and will guarantee that
the Westerners shall be amply victualled. A similar letter, now lost, must have
been sent to King Edward, to whom the Pope added a note of recommendation and
encouragement. Philip’s reply has not come down to us, but Edward’s can still
be read. It congratulates the Ilkhan on his Christian enterprise and pays him
friendly compliments. But as to an actual date nothing is said and no promises
are given. The Ilkhan is merely referred to the Pope; who could do little
without the co-operation of the Kings. Meanwhile another Frank, whose name is
unknown, published a treatise showing how easy it would be to land a force of
Westerners by Ayas in Armenia, whose King would be most helpful, and from there
to make a junction with the Mongols. His advice was unheeded.

In spite of the unpromising answers with
which Buscarel returned, Arghun sent him once again, with two Christian
Mongols, Andrew Zagan and Sahadin. They went first to Rome, where Pope Nicholas
received them, and then set out to visit the King of England, armed with urgent
letters from the Pope, who seems to have considered him a likelier Crusader
than King Philip. They reached him early in 1291. But the Maid of Norway had died
the previous year, and Edward was immersed in Scottish affairs. The envoys
returned disconsolate to Rome, there they stayed throughout the summer. By then
it was too late. The fate of Outremer had been decided; and the Ilkhan Arghun
was dead.

Had the Mongol alliance been achieved and
honestly implemented by the West, the existence of Outremer would almost
certainly have been prolonged. The Mameluks would have been crippled if not
destroyed; and the Ilkhanate of Persia would have survived as a power friendly
to the Christians and the West. As it was, the Mameluk Empire survived for
nearly three centuries; and within four years of Arghun’s death the Mongols of
Persia passed into the Moslem camp. It was not only the Franks of Outremer
whose cause was lost by the negligence of the West but also the miserable
congregations of Eastern Christendom. And this negligence was due primarily to
the Sicilian war, itself the outcome of Papal bitterness and French
imperialism.

1287: Fall of Lattakieh

Meanwhile Outremer gave an impression of
still more feckless irresponsibility. King Henry had hardly returned to Cyprus
from the festivities at Acre before open war started along the Syrian coast
between the Pisans and the Genoese. In the spring of 1287 the Genoese sent a squadron
under their admirals Thomas Spinola and Orlando Ascheri to the Levant. While
Spinola visited Alexandria to obtain the friendly neutrality of the Sultan,
Ascheri sailed up and down the Syrian coast, sinking or capturing any ships
that he could find that belonged to Pisans or Franks of Pisan origin. Only the
intervention of the Templars prevented the captured sailors from being sold
into captivity. Ascheri then retired to Tyre, to plan an attack on the harbour
of Acre. The Venetians joined their local fleet to the Pisans to protect the
harbour; but Ascheri won a victory off the mole on 31 May 1287, though he could
not penetrate into the port. When Spinola sailed up from Alexandria, the
Genoese were able to blockade the whole coast. The Grand Masters of the Temple
and the Hospital together with representatives of the local nobility at last
persuaded them to sail back to Tyre and allow a free passage to shipping.

One seaport had been spared this conflict,
having already met a worse fate. For some time past the merchants of Aleppo had
been complaining to the Sultan that it was inconvenient to have to send their
goods to the Christian port of Lattakieh, the last remnant of the Principality
of Antioch. Qalawun’s opportunity came that spring. An earthquake on 22 March
seriously damaged the walls of the town. Claiming that Lattakieh, as part of
the old Principality, was not covered by the truce with Tripoli, he sent his
emir, Husam ad-Din Turantai, to take it over. The town fell easily into his
hands; but the defenders retired to a fort at the mouth of the harbour, joined
to the land by a causeway. Turantai widened the causeway and soon induced the
garrison to surrender on 20 April. There had been no attempt to come to its
relief.

Its former lord, Bohemond VII, did not
long survive its loss. He died, childless, on 19 October 1287. His heir was his
sister Lucia, who had married Charles of Anjou’s former Grand Admiral, Narjot
of Toucy, and now lived in Apulia. The nobles and citizens of Tripoli had no
particular desire to summon to the East an almost unknown princess who was
associated with the discredited Angevins. Instead, they offered the county to
the Dowager Princess, Sibylla of Armenia. As soon as she received the offer she
wrote to her old friend, Bishop Bartholomew of Tortosa, to invite him to be her
bailli.
But her letter was intercepted, and the nobles of the county
came to her and told her that the Bishop was unacceptable. She refused to give
way. After an angry scene the nobles withdrew and took counsel with the leading
merchants; and together they proclaimed the dethronement of the dynasty and the
establishment of a Commune, which would henceforth be the sovereign authority.
Its mayor was Bartholomew Embriaco, whose father Bertrand had been the bitter
enemy of Bohemond VI and whose brother William had been cruelly done to death,
along with his cousin, the lord of Jebail, by Bohemond VII.

The Dowager retired to her brother in
Armenia. But early in 1288, Lucia arrived with her husband at Acre, in order to
go to Tripoli to take up her inheritance. She was well received by the
Hospitallers, old allies of the dynasty, who escorted her as far as Nephin, the
frontier town of the county. There she issued a proclamation, declaring her
rights. The Commune responded by reciting a long list of grievances and
complaints against the cruel and high-handed actions of her brother, her father
and her grandfather. They would have no more of the dynasty. Instead, they put
themselves under the protection of the Republic of Genoa. A messenger went to
Genoa to inform the Genoese Doge, who at once dispatched the admiral Benito
Zaccaria, with five galleys, to make terms with the Commune. Meanwhile the
Grand Masters of the Three Orders, together with the
bailli
of the
Venetians at Acre, had gone to Tripoli to plead the cause of the heiress, the
Hospitaller for the old friendship of his Order for her family, the Templar and
the Teuton because they backed Venice against Genoa. But they were told that
Lucia must recognize the Commune as the government of the county.

1288: Lucia, Countess of Tripoli

When Zaccaria arrived he insisted on a
treaty giving the Genoese many more streets in Tripoli and the right to have a
podesta to govern their colony, while he guaranteed the liberties and the privileges
of the Commune. But the citizens of Tripoli began to wonder whether Genoa would
be a disinterested friend. Bartholomew Embriaco, who had secured control of
Jebail by marrying his daughter Agnes to his young cousin, Peter, son of Guy
II, coveted the county for himself. He sent a message to Cairo to find out
whether Qalawun would support him if he proclaimed himself Count. His ambition
was suspected; and opinion in Tripoli veered round to Lucia’s cause. Without
informing the Genoese, the Commune wrote to her at Acre offering to accept her
if she would confirm its position. Lucia shrewdly informed Zaccaria, who was at
Ayas making a commercial treaty with the King of Armenia. He hurried to Acre to
interview her. She agreed to confirm the privileges both of the Commune and of
Genoa, and on those terms she was recognized as Countess of Tripoli.

The arrangement pleased neither the
Venetians nor Bartholomew Embriaco. He was already in touch with Qalawun; but
whether it was he or the Venetians of Acre who now sent two Franks to Cairo to
ask the Sultan to intervene cannot now be known. The secretary of the Grand
Master of the Temple knew the names of the envoys but preferred not to reveal
them. They warned the Sultan that if Genoa controlled Tripoli she would
dominate the whole Levant, and the trade of Alexandria would be at her mercy.

The Sultan was delighted to have an
invitation to intervene. It justified him in breaking his truce with Tripoli.
In February 1289, he moved the whole Egyptian army into Syria, without
revealing his objective. But one of his emirs, Badr ad-Din Bektash al Fakhri,
was in the pay of the Templars and sent word to the Grand Master, William of
Beaujeu, that Qalawun’s destination was Tripoli. William hastened to warn the
city and bid it unite and see to its defences. No one there would believe him.
William was notoriously fond of political intrigue, and it was suspected that
he had invented the story for his own profit, in the hope of being invited to
mediate. Nothing was done, and the factions continued their quarrels till,
towards the end of March, the Sultan’s huge army marched down through the
Buqaia and assembled before the city walls.

Now, at last, the threat was taken
seriously. Inside the city the Countess Lucia was given the supreme authority
by the Commune and the nobles alike. The Templars sent up a force under their
Marshal, Geoffrey of Vendac, and the Hospitallers under their Marshal, Matthew
of Clermont. The French regiment marched up from Acre, under John of Grailly.
There were four Genoese and two Venetian galleys in the port, as well as
smaller boats, some of them Pisan. From Cyprus King Henry sent his young
brother Amalric, whom he had just appointed Constable of Jerusalem, with a
company of knights and four galleys. Meanwhile many non-combatant citizens fled
across the sea to Cyprus.

1289: The Fall of Tripoli

Medieval Tripoli lay on the sea, on the
blunt peninsula where the modern suburb of al-Mina stands. It was detached from
the Castle of Mount Pilgrim, which, it seems, no attempt was made to defend.
The city itself was gallantly defended. But, even though the Christians had
command of the sea, the vast numerical superiority of the Moslems and their
great siege-engines proved irresistible. When the Tower of the Bishop, at the
south-east corner of the land walls, and the Tower of the Hospital, between it
and the sea, crumbled before the bombardment, the Venetians decided that
further defence was impossible. They hastily loaded their ships with all their
possessions and sailed out of the harbour. Their defection alarmed the Genoese,
whose admiral, Zaccaria, suspected them of trying to steal some of his boats.
He too called off his men, and they left the city with everything that they
could salvage. Their going threw the Christians into disorder; and that
morning, 26 April 1289, the Sultan ordered a general assault. Hordes of
Mameluks swarmed over the crumbling south-eastern wall into the city.