Джеймс Миченер - The Source

When the Crusaders camped that night beside the Rhine, Count Volkmar left his wife and went to the tent of the captains, where he accosted his brother-in-law, who lounged in a chair, demanding, “How dare you kill the Jews of my city?”

Gunter, relaxed after the exciting day, had no desire for argument. “They are the known enemies of God,” he explained, not raising his voice, “and in this tent we have just sworn that when we have passed none will live along the Rhine.” The knights showed that they supported this resolve.

Volkmar, appalled by the coldness of this evil decision, grasped Gunter’s arm. “You must not encourage the men,” he pleaded. “Look at the madness they performed in Gretz.”

Patiently Gunter brushed away his brother-in-law’s hand. “I’m sorry the fire from the synagogue burned some of your city,” he apologized, determined that no argument should mar the profitable day.

Volkmar dragged him to his feet. “You must prevent such riots,” he commanded. “You’re not to kill Jews.”

Gunter was annoyed. He was taller than Volkmar, heavier, younger. But he merely removed his brother’s arm and slumped back into his seat. “It would be folly to leave the Jews behind. They crucified Christ and they must not grow rich while we are absent fighting.” He turned from the count, dismissing him, but such contempt Volkmar would not tolerate, and he roughly dragged Gunter to his feet; but the young blond warrior had had enough. Raising his powerful right hand he pushed it into his brother’s face and shoved with force. Volkmar was driven back. He staggered and fell. Reaching for his sword he would have unsheathed it, but was prevented from doing so by Gunter’s knights, who closed in on him and lifted him to his feet, rushing him from the tent. Gottfried, the foolish one with no chin, found bravery and shouted from the tent flaps, “Bother us no more. Gunter leads this army and we shall leave not one Jew alive.”

Up the Rhine surged the Crusaders, led by Gunter with his cross of blue, and wherever they struck, Jews were slaughtered. At Mainz, at Worms, at Speyer there were killings to make a man sick. At the head of the murderers rode Gunter, shouting that God Himself had ordained the destruction of His enemies. In small towns Jews huddled together in one house and were burned alive. In cities they crept into protected quarters and were chopped to death as bold knights coursed among them. In one town the Jews assembled, and with knives sharpened as the Torah demanded for ritual slaughter, methodically cut their own throats so that the floors were slippery with blood when the Crusaders crashed down the door.

“Filthy infidels—to do such a thing!” the knights protested, but their rage reached its apex when Jewish mothers slit the throats of their own babies rather than wait for the crusading lances.

“They’re animals,” Gunter bellowed. “What mother would kill her own babe?”

We can speak accurately of these matters because Wenzel of Trier recorded them in his chronicle of the German Crusade:Most strange in this chain of death was the fact that except for a few Jews who were killed in the heat of first assault, all could have saved their lives and their souls by the simple act of converting to the True Faith, but this they obstinately refused to do, preferring to maintain their abominable error rather than to accept salvation. I myself offered not less than four thousand Jews the love and peace of my Lord Jesus Christ, but obstinately they turned their backs upon me, crying, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” and our Christians had no other choice but to slay them.Sickened by the killings my Lord Volkmar tried repeatedly to break away from the army and return home, but I was forced to remind him that he had sworn an oath to capture Jerusalem and if for any reason he refused to honor that oath he would be forever excommunicate, so he had no escape but to keep with us and I consoled him: “Is it not better that an honest man should ride with Gunter, endeavoring to restrain him?” But even so, I believe that my Lord Volkmar would have left us had not his wife Matwilda pleaded with him that it was his duty to remain, so that what later happened to the countess was in a sense of her own doing.

The slaughter of the Jews continued until one afternoon two girls about seventeen years of age stood side by side until the rapists were upon them, then carefully slit each other’s throats. It was impossible for two people to kill each other in this manner, but the Jewish girls had done it.

“For God’s sake, stop!” Volkmar pleaded for the hundredth time, and when his wife saw the two dead Jewesses, of the same age as her daughter Fulda, but prettier even in death, she ran to them and kissed their ashen lips; and the killing ceased—but thirty thousand Jews were dead, and the great Crusade had been launched in blood.

The march through Austria was more peaceful, for when the attention of the knights was no longer distracted by Jews they were free to look among the women who had accompanied the march, and each found one or two who promised well on the long journey. And there were pleasant nights in the hayricks and under the stars. Gunter kept the young woman he had picked up on his initial survey as well as a prostitute from Speyer; but Volkmar stayed with his wife and daughter, praying that somehow the rabble of which he found himself an unwilling part would finally stumble into Constantinople, where the real armies would be assembling.

But in Hungary, Gunter and his Germans ran into trouble. Barely a month had elapsed since the hordes of Peter the Hermit, marching without money, had caused ill will by trying to live off the land, snatching what they needed from Hungarian peasants, and Gunter’s men were about to harvest the hatred thus engendered. At the first town the Crusaders found that local merchants had closed their shops, knowing that they would not be paid if they kept them open, and there was no food. Gunter solved this by shouting an order: “Break open the shops and help yourselves.” There was moderate fighting and some two dozen Hungarians were killed.

“By God!” Gunter cried as he assembled his men at the far end of town. “They meant to give us trouble and we are the Lord’s men!”

“Let’s go back and destroy the place,” one of his assistants proposed, and for a moment the angry mob hesitated on the verge of another slaughter, but Count Volkmar succeeded in luring them down the river and a massacre was avoided. Of the leading knights, he was the oldest, and certainly the sagest, so he pointed out to his younger associates that their main job was not to brawl with Hungarians but to reach Constantinople with as many fighting men as possible. “The enemy is in Asia,” he kept reminding them.

But when at the second town the citizens—prewarned by messengers from the first—barricaded the gates, refusing to allow any Crusader to enter, Gunter shouted, “Open the gates now or we’ll burn them down.” The Hungarians refused and a great fire was started, and whenever a Hungarian tried to escape he was shot with arrows and the town perished.

From that day on, it was war between Hungary and the Crusaders. When the latter reached a town they found it evacuated, with all food gone. Starvation threatened. Ruthless Hungarian raiders stalked the stragglers, killing off the weaker Germans. Horses and wagons were destroyed and such constant pressure was maintained that Gunter lost one man in eight.

With groans of relief the disorganized columns finally straggled into Bulgaria, where those recently converted Christians were willing to extend the Crusaders one chance: the first Bulgarian town sent emissaries to welcome the marchers, but a priest warned Wenzel: “Tell your knights to behave, or there must be trouble.” Wenzel summoned Gunter and Volkmar and said, in words which he later recorded in his chronicle:“My Lords, we have seen in Hungary what ill returns a want of Christian grace can bring, and I pray you, direct your men to behave as an army of God should, and let us be gentle with the Bulgarians, for they worship the same Jesus Christ that we do, and let us be an example to them of what the brotherhood of the cross signifies.” But either they did not heed my words or their men did not listen, for after the gates were opened and the market made available, our men, sore and famished from the wars in Hungary, descended upon the poor Bulgarians like heathen, taking their wares for the asking. The townsmen, a vigorous people, defended themselves ably, and a fighting began in which many were killed, and the Crusaders became enraged and chased through houses seeking for women, which they treated most shamefully, killing many. It was a pity that day to be wearing the cross of God.