| #### 2. THE DISASTERS IN THE LATIN EAST, 1150-1197 |

| #### #### After the tragic fiasco, in 1148, of the Second Crusade, the Mohammedan offensive went from one success to another. Nureddin conquered what remained of the country of Edessa; he took some of the towns in the principality of Antioch; and the King of Jerusalem found his only hope of salvation to be an alliance with Constantinople. #### In 1153 the king took from the Egyptians Ascalon, which had held out since the days of the First Crusade; but, as against this success, Nureddin, in the following year, took Damascus. There, for the moment, his direct attack halted: for the next fifteen years he and the King of Jerusalem fought each other indirectly, in the faction struggle which divided Egypt. By 1169 the faction which Nureddin supported had triumphed. Its leader was a man of genius, Saladin, and in 1171 he was sole ruler in Egypt. His accession to power meant the end of the religious schism which had for so long rent the Mohammedans; Egypt, to the south, was now as strong as Nureddin to the north. The Latins were yearly weaker, and more divided, while in Europe the papal energies were now wholly occupied in beating off Frederick Barbarossa's great bid for the control of the Church. It could only be a matter of time before the Latins lost their hold on Jerusalem. Only so long as rival Mohammedans faced each other in equal strength would Latins enjoy any security. Once either Saladin or Nureddin achieved a supremacy in the Mohammedan world, the remnant of Latin power would be swept away without much difficulty. #### In 1174 Nureddin died; and Saladin began little by little to make himself master of Syria too. By 1183 Aleppo was his, and Damascus also. The circle was almost complete around the doomed Latin kingdom. #### Its kings, of course, had not been careless of the approaching danger. From 1164 they called repeatedly on the West for help, and their appeal in 1184 had produced in France and England the new institution of a fixed tax levied for the support of the Holy Land. One very grave internal disaster was the extinction of the dynasty when, in 1186, Baldwin the Leper died without heirs. His mother Sybilla had, six years earlier, married as her second husband a French adventurer, Guy de Lusignan, highly unpopular with the barons; now, since Sybilla was herself heiress to the throne, Guy became king. #### It was at this critical moment, when the internal dissensions of the kingdom were at their height, that Raynald of Chatillon, lord of the impregnable fortress of Krak, half brigand, half pirate-for he had a fleet on the Red Sea, and lived largely on the pillage of caravans -- captured a caravan in which Saladin's sister was travelling, and this during a time of truce (1186). #### Saladin proclaimed the Holy War to drive the Christians out, once and for all. A Mohammedan army, fired with all the enthusiasm that had once been the crusaders', swept down on the Western disorganisation. At Tiberias, in May, 1187, a joint army of Hospitallers and Templars was defeated and on July 4, at Hattin, the army of the kingdom was cut to pieces. Nothing lay between Saladin and his prey. One by one he occupied all the towns of the kingdom, except Tyre and Jerusalem. On October 2 he entered Jerusalem, too. Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch were all that remained of the fruits of 1095. After eighty-eight years of occupation there was need of another Urban II. #### The reigning pope to whom the news of the battle of Hattin came was Urban III. Before he learnt of the fall of Jerusalem he was dead; and the shock of this news, when it arrived, killed his successor, Gregory VIII (October 21-December 17, 1187). It was to the aged Clement III that the task fell of once more rousing the Catholic world, or rather of organising the new enthusiasm which, immediately, began to show itself. If Jerusalem had fallen, it was said, this was because Christendom had sinned; and in a fervour of contrition for past apathy the scenes of 1095 began to be renewed. Everywhere, under the encouraging diplomacy of the papal legates, princes long at war came to terms: Henry II of England and Philip II of France, Pisa and Genoa, Venice and Hungary, the King of Sicily and the Byzantine emperor. All took the cross, and none more eagerly than the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, one of the few survivors of the disastrous crusade of 1147. Under his leadership all Germany prepared to send into the East the largest single army yet formed. The Sicilian Fleet set out immediately and saved Tripoli for the cross, and in May, 1189, the Germans marched out of Ratisbon, 100,000 strong. #### Barbarossa's host made its way through Hungary easily enough but when it reached the Byzantine frontiers it came into contact with a power, not merely suspicious, as in previous years, but so alarmed at this revival that it had already come to terms with Saladin, and was prepared to act as his ally. In the last stages of the march to Constantinople the Germans had to fight more than one pitched battle with the Greeks. In the capital itself the emperor threw the German ambassadors into prison, and the patriarch lavished indulgences on whoever would kill the Latin dogs. Frederick began to think of destroying Byzantium. He wrote home to enlist the sympathies of the pope, to beseech that the crusade might be directed against these traitors, and to his son, Henry VI, to assemble the necessary fleets. Finally the Greek emperor -- Isaac Angelus -- yielded, promising a safe passage for the Germans and opportunity to provision their forces. On March 30, 1190, they crossed the Bosphorus and began the march through Asia Minor. Despite terrible hardships they made their way successfully, taking Iconium by storm and then, on June 10, the greatest of disasters befell them. The old emperor, as he crossed the river Salef, was thrown from his horse and drowned. Consternation seized on the princes. Many turned for home; others got as far as Antioch; only a small part survived to join the main operation of the crusade, the siege of St. Jean d'Acre, the strongly defended gate to the Holy Land. #### Here, as the siege continued (June, 1189-July, 1191) all the forces from all over Europe gathered, under a brilliant band of leaders, the most distinguished of whom were Philip II of France and the new King of England, Richard Coeur de Lion. As always, there were as many rivals as princes, and the jealousy of the two kings split the crusade from the beginning. But finally, thanks in great part to Richard's skill, the town surrendered. Before the month was out Philip returned to France leaving Richard supreme. #### It was now decided to take Jerusalem, and through August and September the armies marched along the coast, occupying Cesarea and Jaffa. And now a wholly new feature appeared in the crusade. The long siege of Acre had done as much to familiarise the newly-arrived crusaders with their opponents as the permanent life in the East had long since familiarised the various kings of Jerusalem and their nobles. A sort of military camaraderie had begun to grow, and out of it there now came a move to end the struggle by diplomacy. But Saladin, furious at Richard's massacre of two thousand Saracen hostages, refused to treat, as he refused also the extraordinary proposal that his brother should marry Richard's sister and rule Palestine. The negotiations gave Saladin time to bring reinforcements to Jerusalem, and when Richard prepared to attack, the more experienced chiefs of the military orders could only warn him of his foolhardiness. In the end Richard and Saladin came to terms. There was to be a truce for three years, the coast towns were to be shared, and small parties of crusaders were to be allowed in Jerusalem as pilgrims. This was on September 2, 1192. The crusade was over, and five weeks later Richard set sail for Europe. Once more years of effort, tens of thousands of lives lost, an immense treasure spent, and nothing achieved. #### The next year Saladin died. He left to succeed him a brother, and seventeen sons. Soon Palestine and Syria were their much- disputed prize. The crusade had a new opportunity. This time it was left to the emperor Henry VI, Barbarossa's son and successor, to make the most of it. He was perhaps the greatest man the empire had known since Charlemagne, and, apparently, about to realise that dream of universal dominion which had haunted so many of Charlemagne's German successors. A stroke of luck had brought even the King of England within the range of his policies. He was ruler of Sicily and southern Italy as well as of Germany, and now, from Sicily, he plotted the conquest of the Eastern empire too. The first object of crusading zeal threatened now to be Constantinople. Henry took the cross in a solemn assembly at Bari on May 31, 1195, and six months later, at the German diet called to organise the details of the crusade, the changes in its political objective were admirably prefigured when the kings of Cyprus and Armenia gave over their realms to Henry and received them from him as their suzerain. #### Meanwhile the task of recruiting new armies was pressed forward, Henry himself taking part in it. Through the spring of 1197 the new German forces began to gather in the harbours of southern Italy -- to the dismay of the inhabitants upon whom they lived, and to whom they were " less pilgrims than thieving wolves." In September 1197 the first departures took place. The objective set them was Jerusalem, and the Holy City taken they were to join the emperor before Constantinople. #### These forces came to Acre, took Sidon, defeated the most capable of their opponents, Saladin's brother, Malek, and by the capture of Beyrouth (October 23, 1197) reopened the way from Tripoli -- still in Latin hands -- to Jerusalem. They were then held up by the stronghold of Tiberias, and at the moment when they had decided to raise the siege the news reached them that Henry VI was dead -- had been dead, indeed, since three weeks after their departure. This was the end of all order in the crusade. A truce was patched up with Malek and the army dispersed under its various leaders. #### In the tragic fiasco of these first attempts to regain Jerusalem, the beginnings are discernible of new secular encroachments in what was, in essence and in origin, a spiritual institution. It is the lay prince alone who now really counts in it. The crusade tends to be a thing controlled by him alone, directed to his ends, and along what lines he chooses. It ceases, at times, to be crusade at all; Catholics and Mohammedans fraternise, negotiate, and even plan marriage alliances. The old aim of expelling the unbeliever from the sacred soil of Palestine has lost its place as the absolute determining factor of the movement. And at this moment, when the papally-created institution is definitely slipping from the grasp of the papacy, the Eastern empire whose capital is Constantinople is beginning to seem to the crusader as great a foe as Islam. When next the zeal of Christendom is roused, these new tendencies will mature with unpleasant rapidity. ####  |