Joseph François Michaud - The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3)

The Franks, so dreaded in the field of battle, were powerless against the skill and address of Alexis, and could not sustain their advantage amidst the intrigues of a dissolute court. An abode at Byzantium might become otherwise dangerous for the Crusaders; the spectacle of the luxury of the East, which they beheld for the first time, was calculated to corrupt them. The Christian knights, according to the report of the historians of the times, were never weary of admiring the palaces, the splendid edifices, the riches, and perhaps the beautiful Greek women, of whom Alexis had spoken in his letters addressed to the princes of the West. Tancred alone, inflexible to all solicitations, would not expose his virtue to the seductions of Byzantium. He deplored the weakness of his companions, and, followed by a small number of knights, hastened to quit Constantinople, without having taken the oath of fidelity to the emperor.

The departure and resistance of Tancred disturbed the joy which the success of his policy had given Alexis. He applauded himself for having softened, by his presents, the principal leaders of the crusade; but he did not so entirely depend upon his means of corruption as to be perfectly free from apprehension. Every day brought new Crusaders, whom he must seduce and load with presents; the very riches he displayed to them might, in the end, awaken their ambition, and inspire them with most fatal designs. He felt by no means secure against their enterprizes until all the armies of the West were on the other side of the Bosphorus. There, without the power of insulting the capital of the empire, they turned all their attention to their preparations for the war against the Saracens.

As the Crusaders advanced across the plains of Bithynia, they saw, seeking refuge in their tents, several soldiers of Peter’s army, who having escaped from the sword of the Saracens, had lived concealed in the mountains and forests. They were clothed in the rags of misery, and with lamentations and tears related the disasters of the first army of the Christians. On the east they pointed to the fortress in which the companions of Rinaldo, pressed by hunger and thirst, had surrendered to the Turks, who had massacred them all. Near to that they showed them the mountains, at the foot of which had perished Walter and his whole army. Everywhere the Crusaders encountered the remains of their brethren; everywhere they found reason to deplore the imprudence and disasters of the first soldiers of the cross; but nothing affected them so deeply as the sight of the camp in which Walter had left the women and the sick, when he was forced by his soldiers to advance to the city of Nicea. There the Christians had been surprised by the Mussulmans, at the moment their priests were celebrating the sacrifice of the mass. Women, children, old men, all whom weakness or sickness detained in the camp, pursued to the foot of their altars, had been either borne away into slavery, or slaughtered by a pitiless enemy. The remembrance of so great a calamity stifled discord, silenced ambition, and rekindled zeal for the deliverance of the holy places. The leaders profited by this terrible lesson, and laid down useful regulations for the maintenance of discipline. The formidable army of the Crusaders advanced in the best order through the country of the infidels, and commenced the war with the first days of the spring.

Although the empire of the Seljoucide Turks, at the period of the arrival of the Crusaders in Asia, already inclined towards its fall, it nevertheless presented a formidable barrier to the warriors of the West. The kingdom of Ezeroum, or Roum, extended from the Orontes and the Euphrates to the neighbourhood of the Bosphorus, and comprised the richest provinces of Asia Minor. The Turks were animated by the double enthusiasm of religion and victory. Abandoning the cares of agriculture and commerce to the Greeks, their slaves, they knew no profession but that of arms, or desired other wealth but the booty obtained from their enemies. Their present chief was the son of Soliman, whose victories over the Christians had procured him the name of the Sacred Champion . David, surnamed Kilidge-Arslan, or the Sword of the Lion , brought up amidst the troubles of civil war, and for a long time detained a prisoner in the fortress of Koraçan by the orders of Malek-Scha, had ascended the throne of his father, and maintained his position by his valour. He possessed a genius rich in resources, and a character not to be subdued by reverses. On the approach of the Crusaders, he summoned his subjects and his allies to his defence. From all the provinces of Asia Minor, and even from Persia, the bravest defenders of Islamism hastened to range themselves beneath his banner.

Not content with assembling an army, he at first gave all his attention to the fortifying of the city of Nice, to which the earliest attempts of the Christians would be directed. This city, the capital of Bithynia, and celebrated by the holding of two councils, was the seat of the empire of Roum; and it was there that the Turks, as in an advanced post, awaited an opportunity to attack Constantinople, and precipitate themselves upon Europe. High mountains defended the approach to it. Towards the west and the south the Lake of Ascanius bathed its ramparts, and preserved to the inhabitants an easy communication with the sea. Large ditches, filled with water, surrounded the place. Three hundred and seventy towers of brick or stone protected the double enclosure of its walls, which were wide enough for the passage of a chariot. The chosen of the Turkish warriors composed its garrison, and the sultan of Roum, ready to defend it, was encamped upon the neighbouring mountains, at the head of an army of a hundred thousand men.

Full of just confidence in their own strength, and ignorant of that which could be opposed to them, the Crusaders advanced towards Nice. Never had the plains of Bithynia presented a more magnificent or a more terrible spectacle. The numbers of the Crusaders exceeded the population of many great cities of the West, and were sufficient to cover the largest plains. The Turks, from their encampments on the summits of the mountains, must have beheld, with terror, an army composed of more than a hundred thousand horse and five hundred thousand foot, [72]the picked men of the warlike nations of Europe, who were come to dispute with them the possession of Asia. [73]

When it had been determined to besiege Nice, the posts were distributed to the various bodies of the Christian army. The camp of the Crusaders extended over a vast plain, intersected by rivulets which fell from the mountains. Fleets from Greece and Italy transported provisions, and kept the besiegers in a state of abundance. Foulcher de Chartres reckons in the camp of the Christians nineteen nations, differing in manners and language. Each nation had its quarters, which they surrounded with walls and palisades, and as they were without wood or stone for the divisions, they employed the bones of the Crusaders lying unburied in the country round Nice; “by which,” Anna Comnena says, “they at once constructed a tomb for the dead and an abode for the living.” In each quarter they quickly raised magnificent tents, which served as churches, in which the chiefs and the soldiers assembled to perform the ceremonies of religion. Different war-cries, drums, the use of which had been introduced into Europe by the Saracens, and sonorous horns, pierced with several holes, summoned the Crusaders to their military exercises.

The barons and knights wore a hauberk, or coat of mail, a sort of tunic, composed of small rings of iron or steel. Over the coat of arms of every squire floated a blue, red, green, or white scarf. Every warrior wore a casque, covered with silver for the princes, of steel for the knights and nobles, and of iron for the common men. The knights bore round or square bucklers, and long shields covered the foot-soldiers. The arms employed in fight by the Crusaders were the lance, the sword, a species of knife, a poniard, called miséricorde , the club, the masse d’armes , with which a warrior could, at a single blow, strike an enemy to the earth; the sling, from which were thrown stones and balls of lead; the bow, and the cross-bow, a murderous weapon, till that time unknown to the Orientals. The warriors of the West did not then cover themselves with that heavy iron armour described by the historians of the middle ages, which they afterwards borrowed from the Saracens.