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

Upon approaching Constantinople, the Germans had set up their tents in a rich valley watered by the river Melas. All at once a violent storm burst over the neighbouring mountains; the river, increased by the torrents, inundated the plain where the Christian army was celebrating the feast of the Assumption, [275]and as if it had conspired with the Greeks, says a French historian, and as if it imitated their perfidy and treason, it carried away the horses and baggage, and brought desolation into the camp of the Crusaders. The Greeks afforded some succour to the German soldiers, but they saw with joy, in an event they affected to deplore, a presage of the defeats which threatened the armies of the Latins.

Constantinople, on the arrival of Conrad, presented the novel spectacle of two emperors who had inherited the wrecks of the empire of Augustus, and each of whom called himself the successor of Cæsar and Constantine. Their pretensions created some divisions; the emperor of the West had a valiant army to support his rights; he of the East did not dare to insist too openly upon his. He called in perfidy to his aid, and wounded vanity avenged itself in a manner as cowardly as it was cruel.

As soon as the Germans had passed the Bosphorus, they found themselves exposed to all sorts of treachery. All who straggled from the army were slain by the soldiers of Comnenus; the gates of all the cities on their route were closed; when they asked for provisions, they were obliged to put the money into the baskets which were lowered down from the walls, and after all, they frequently obtained nothing but insult and ridicule. The Greeks mixed lime with the flour they sold them; and when the Crusaders had anything for sale, they where paid in a false coin, which was refused when they became purchasers. Ambuscades awaited them throughout their route; the enemy was aware of their line of march, and as the height of perfidy, furnished them at Constantinople with faithless guides, who misled the army in the defiles of Mount Taurus, and delivered them up, worn out with fatigue, to famine and despair, or to the swords of the Mussulmans. The Germans, ill-treated by the Greeks, did not seek to revenge themselves, although it would have been easy to have done so, and, according to the ideas of the age, might have appeared glorious. This is the reason why Montesquieu says, that the Germans were the best sort of people in the world . The French, who came after them, showed themselves less patient, and were more respected. The emperor sent the principal lords of his court to the king of France, before whom they prostrated themselves, and only spoke to him on their knees. French haughtiness was more surprised than pleased at such homage, and only answered the flattery of the East by a disdainful silence. The two monarchs had an interview, in which they reciprocated the most tender caresses, and sought to surpass each other in magnificence. If Manuel on this occasion excelled his rival in the display of his riches, he showed less sincerity than Louis in the demonstrations of his friendship, for in the midst of the banquets which he gave to the Crusaders, the latter learnt that he preserved a close alliance with the sultan of Iconium, and that the Turks were fully informed of the plans of the French king.

This treachery irritated the French lords, and when the emperor required them to render him homage, as the leaders of the first crusade had done, it was proposed in the council that the only reply should be to take possession of Constantinople. “You have heard,” said the bishop of Langres, “that the Greeks propose to you to recognise their empire, and submit to their laws: thus then weakness is to command strength, and cowardice bravery! What has this nation done? What have their ancestors done, that they should show so much pride? I will not speak to you of the snares and the ambushes that they have everywhere planted in your way; we have seen the priests of Byzantium mingling ridicule with outrage, purify with fire the altars at which our priests had sacrificed. They ask of us new oaths, which honour repudiates. Is it not time to revenge treasons, and repulse insults? Hitherto the Crusaders have suffered more from their perfidious friends than from their open enemies. Constantinople has long been a troublesome barrier between us and our brothers of the East. It is our duty at last to open a free road to Asia. The Greeks, you know, have allowed the sepulchre of Christ, and all the Christian cities of the East, to fall into the hands of the infidels. Constantinople, there is no doubt, will soon become a prey to Turks and barbarians, and by her cowardly weakness, she will one day open the barriers of the West. The emperors of Byzantium neither know how to defend their own provinces nor will they suffer others to do it for them. They have always impeded the generous efforts of the soldiers of the cross; even lately, this emperor, who declares himself your support, has endeavoured to dispute their conquests with the Latins, and ravish from them the principality of Antioch. His aim now is to deliver up the Christian armies to the Saracens. Let us hasten then to prevent our own ruin by effecting that of these traitors; let us not leave behind us a jealous and insolent city, which only seeks the means of destroying us; let us cast upon her the evils she prepares for us. If the Greeks accomplish their perfidious designs, it is of you the West will one day ask back its armies. Since the war we undertake is holy, is it not just that we should employ every means to succeed? Necessity, country, religion, all order you to do that which I propose to you. The aqueducts which supply the city with water are in our power, and offer an easy means of reducing the inhabitants. The soldiers of Manuel cannot stand against our battalions; a part of the walls and towers of Byzantium has crumbled away before our eyes, as by a species of miracle. It appears that God himself calls us into the city of Constantine, and he opens its gates to you as he opened the gates of Edessa, Antioch, and Jerusalem to your fathers.” [276]

When the bishop of Langres had ceased to speak, several knights and barons raised their voices in reply. The Christians, they said, were come into Asia to expiate their own sins, and not to punish the crimes of the Greeks. They had taken up arms to defend Jerusalem, and not to destroy Constantinople. It was true they must consider the Greeks as heretics, but it was not more just for them to massacre them than to massacre the Jews; when the Christian warriors assumed the cross, God did not put into their hands the sword of justice. In a word, the barons found much more policy than religion in that which they had heard, and could not conceive that it was right to undertake an enterprise was not in accordance with the principles of honour. Neither had they faith in the misfortunes with which they were threatened, and relied upon Providence and their own valour to enable them to surmount all obstacles. The most fervent of the pilgrims dreaded any delay in the march of the Crusaders, and this fear increased their scruples; at length the loyalty of the knights, the general pious impatience to behold the sacred places, and perhaps also the presents and the seductions of Manuel, procured a triumph for the party advocating moderation.

The emperor was nevertheless alarmed at seeing a body of warriors, full of confidence and courage, thus deliberate so near to him on the conquest of his capital. The homage that the barons and knights paid him did not at all reassure him as to their intentions. To hasten their departure, he caused a report to be spread that the Germans had gained great victories over the Turks, and that they had made themselves masters of Iconium. This succeeded even beyond Manuel’s hopes.

When the Crusaders, impatient to pursue the Turks, were leaving Constantinople, they were surprised by an eclipse of the sun. A superstitious multitude saw in this phenomenon nothing but a fatal presage, and believed it to be either the warning of some great calamity, or of some new treachery on the part of Manuel; and the fears of the pilgrims were not long in being realized. Scarcely had they entered Bithynia when they were taught how to appreciate the false reports and perfidy of the Greeks. Louis, when encamped upon the shores of the Lake Ascanius, in the neighbourhood of Nice, received information of the complete defeat of the Germans. The sultan of Iconium, on the approach of the Christians of the West, had assembled all his forces, and at the same time solicited the aid of the other Mussulman powers to defend the passages of Asia Minor. Conrad, whom William of Tyre styles vir simplex , whom le Père Maimbourg compares to a victim crowned with flowers that is being led to slaughter, had advanced, on the faith of some unknown guides, into the mountains of Cappadocia. Impatient to be before the French, for whom he was to have waited, he marched on in perfect ignorance of the roads, and without provisions to feed the multitude which followed him. At a time that he entertained no suspicion of their vicinity, he was surprised by the Turks, who covered the summits of the mountains, and rushed down upon the exhausted and famished Christians. [277]The Mussulmans were lightly armed, and performed their evolutions with the greatest rapidity. The Germans could scarcely move under the weight of their bucklers, corselets, and steel brassets; every day skirmishes were fought, in which the Christians had the disadvantage. Such as were more lightly armed, and bore sheep-skin bucklers, sometimes would rush among the enemy and put them to flight; but the Turks soon rallied upon the heights, and darted down again, like birds of prey, upon the terrified Christians. A crowd of pilgrims, whose arms only consisted of their scrip and staff, created the greatest trouble and confusion in the Christian army. The Mussulmans took advantage of their disorder, and never allowed their enemies a moment’s repose. Despair and terror put an end to all discipline among the Crusaders; they no longer obeyed the orders of their leaders, but every one sought to insure his own safety by flight. At length the rout became general; the country was covered with fugitives, who wandered about at hazard, and found no asylum against the conquerors. Some perished with want, others fell beneath the swords of the Mussulmans; the women and children were carried off with the baggage, and formed a part of the enemy’s booty. Conrad, who had scarcely saved the tenth part of his army, was himself wounded by two arrows, and only escaped the pursuit of the Saracens by a kind of miracle.