The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

Ten months had passed away after the conquest of Antioch when the main body of the crusading army set out on its march to Jerusalem. They had wished to depart at once, but their chiefs dreaded to encounter waterless wastes at the end of a Syrian summer, and for the present they were content to send Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin of Hainault as envoys to the Greek Emperor, to reproach him with his remissness or his want of faith. But the miseries endured by Christians and Turks were the pleasantest tidings in the ears of Alexius, for in the weakening of both lay his own strength; and he saw with satisfaction the departure of Hugh, not for Antioch, but for Europe, whither Stephen of Chartres had preceded him.

Winter came, but the chiefs still lingered at Antioch. Some were occupied in expeditions against neighboring cities; but a more pressing care was the plague which punished the foulness and disorder of the pilgrims. A band of fifteen hundred Germans, recently landed in strong health and full equipments, were all, it is said, cut off; and among the victims the most lamented perhaps was the papal legate Adhemar. A feeling of discouragement was again spreading through the army generally. The chiefs vainly entreated the Pope to visit the city where the disciples of St. Peter first received the Christian name; the people were disheartened by the animosities and the selfish or crooked policy of their chiefs. Raymond still hankered after the principality of Antioch, and insisted that Bohemond and his people should share in the last great enterprise of the crusade. More disgraceful than these feuds were the scenes witnessed during the siege and after the conquest of Marra. Heedlessness and waste soon brought the assailants to devour the flesh of dogs and of human beings. The bodies of Turks were torn from their sepulchres, ripped up for the gold which they were supposed to have swallowed, and the fragments cooked and eaten. Of the besieged many slew themselves to avoid falling into the hands of the Christians; to some Bohemond, tempted by a large bribe, gave an assurance of safety. When the massacre had begun he ordered these to be brought forward. The weak and old he slaughtered; the rest he sent to the slave markets of Antioch.

A weak attempt made by Alexius to detain the crusaders only spurred them to more vigorous efforts. They had already left Antioch, and Laodicea was in their hands, when he desired them to await his coming in June. The chiefs, remembering the departure of Tatikios with his Byzantine troops for Cyprus, retorted that he had broken his compact, and had therefore no further claims on their obedience. Hastening on their way, they crossed the plain of Berytos (Beyrout), overlooked by the eternal snows of Lebanon, along the narrow strip of land whence the great Phoenician cities had sent their seamen and their colonists, with all the wealth of the East, to the shores of the Adriatic and the gates of the Mediterranean. Having reached Jaffa, they turned inland to Ramlah, a town sixteen miles only from Jerusalem.

Two days later the crusaders came in sight of the Holy City, the object of their long pilgrimage, the cause of wretchedness and death to millions. As their eyes rested on the scene hallowed to them through all the associations of their faith, the crusaders passed in an instant from fierce enthusiasm to a humiliation which showed itself in sighs and tears. All fell on their knees, to kiss the sacred earth and to pour forth thanksgivings that they had been suffered to look upon the desire of their eyes. Putting aside their armor and their weapons, they advanced in pilgrim's garb and with bare feet toward the spot which the Saviour had trodden in the hours of his agony and his passion.

But before their feelings of devotion could be indulged, there was other work to be done. The chiefs took up their posts on those sides from which the nature of the ground gave most hope of a successful assault. On the northern side were Godfrey and Tancred, Robert of Flanders, and Robert of Normandy; on the west Raymond with his Provençals. On the fifth day, without siege instruments, with only one ladder, and trusting to mere weight, the crusaders made a desperate assault upon the walls. Some succeeded in reaching the summit, and the very rashness of their attack struck terror for a moment into their enemies. But the garrison soon rallied, and the invaders were all driven back or hurled from the ramparts. The task, it was manifest, must be undertaken in a more formal manner. Siege engines must be made, and the palm and olive of the immediate neighborhood would not supply fit materials for their construction.