DISASTER OF MARIETTA.
Pope Innocent III. comforted himself for this “slaughter of the
innocents” by making the incident the basis of a new appeal for the
relief of Palestine. “These children,” said he, “reproach us with being
asleep while they were flying to the assistance of the Holy Land.” In
his exhortation to Europe the Holy Father ventures to interpret the
mysterious prediction of the Book of Revelation regarding the duration
of the Antichrist symbolized by the beast. Some Protestants have
presumptuously applied the figures to the destiny of the Roman Church.
Innocent regarded Mohammedanism as meant, and, counting from the hejira
of Mohammed (622) to his own day, announced to the people, in the name
of God, whose infallible vicegerent he was, “The power of Mohammed draws
towards its end; for that power is nothing but the beast of the
Apocalypse, which is not to extend beyond the number of six hundred and
sixty-six years, and already six hundred have been accomplished.” Europe
was asked to believe that the marshalled nations of the East, then so
threatening, would only furnish the funeral cortège of Antichrist, after
which the world would enter upon its millennium of peace.
Every crowned head, every noble, every knight, every city, every church,
received its especial appeal from Rome to offer men, ships, money, and
incessant prayers for this last holy adventure. With equal assurance
Innocent addressed letters to the sultans of Damascus and Cairo, giving
them an opportunity to voluntarily restore the holy places before the
final vengeance of the Lord. Ardent orators, like Cardinal Courçon and
James of Vitri (an original chronicler of these events), went
everywhere, firing the passions of the people. Philip Augustus
appropriated for the project two and a half per cent. of the territorial
revenue of France. King John of England promised to make amends for his
many sins by taking the cross; he was the more inclined to this from the
fact that his barons had just wrenched from him Magna Charta, and the
Pope had put him under excommunication; his pretence of piety was the
policy of the moment. Frederick II. of Germany, to secure the papal
favor in his contest with Otho for the imperial throne, assumed the rôle
of a crusader.
The movement was, however, halted by the affairs in France. England,
Flanders, Holland, Boulogne, with the aid of the German Otho, invaded
France. At the battle of Bouvines (1214) this combination was
overthrown, and the French monarchy, with restored territory and
prestige, assumed the independence which it maintained until recent
times.
In 1215 the Lateran Council issued the grand order for the crusading
expedition. The Pope and cardinals taxed themselves a tenth of their
income, and all ecclesiastics a twentieth. So great was the excitement
for war that two astounding phenomena were observed: luminous crosses
appeared in the heavens, and the Troubadours sang only of battle, no
longer of love. Innocent III. proposed to head the crusade in person,
but when his example had wrought its full influence discreetly retired
from the leadership. Shortly after he died, and Honorius III. came into
the pontificate.
In 1217 the mighty armament was in motion. Andrew II., King of Hungary,
was designated chief. Germany, under its representative dukes of Bavaria
and Austria, followed in his train. The host was augmented by those from
Italy and France and the islands of the Mediterranean. According to the
Arabian historian, it was the largest force ever at one time pitted
against them in Palestine.
The army landed at Acre. The new soldiers signalled their arrival by an
impressive exhibition of their pilgrim zeal. They formed an immense
procession. At their head was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who bore aloft
a piece of wood which had been surreptitiously cut from the True Cross
at the time it was captured by Saladin at Hattîn. With utmost pomp they
passed over the land from the sea to the Jordan, bathed in the waters of
the sacred river, and lingered to pray amid the ruins on the shores of
the Sea of Tiberias. They gathered many relics, and did not hesitate to
take as their pious plunder many of the people of the land, whom they
brought with them as prisoners to Acre.
No enemy molested them. Malek-Ahdel had advised that the invaders be
left to their own dissensions, which, judging from previous observation,
were sure to follow as soon as they should attempt to divide the spoil
they might take. The martial spirit of the Christians did not resent
this idleness, and stagnation of energy bred moral malaria. Camp vices
thrived to such an extent that the leaders were forced to drive out the
soldiers in search of manly adventures. Mount Tabor, the Mount of
Transfiguration, lifted high its head, crowned with Moslem forts in
place of the Church of St. Helena and of the two monasteries which had
formerly commemorated the tabernacles of Moses and Elias. The crusaders
were ordered to capture the holy mountain. That all doubt of Heaven’s
favor in the enterprise might be removed, the patriarch read the gospel
for the day, first Sunday in Advent, and interpreted the words, “Go ye
into the village over against you,” to mean the castle on Tabor.
Led by this high dignitary, who carried the ubiquitous piece of the True
Cross, they made the ascent through a shower of Moslem arrows and an
avalanche of stones. The defenders at first retired within their
citadel, but an unaccountable panic seized the assailants: they deserted
their own cause at the moment of victory, and made a disorderly retreat
down to the plain. Their piety was, however, compensated by the capture
of a number of women and children, whom they forced to be baptized. The
anticipated dissensions followed. Each leader reproached the others. On
Christmas eve a terrific storm swept the camp, which, in the general
discouragement, they attributed to the displeasure of Heaven. Lack of
provisions forced them to encamp in different neighborhoods—Tripoli,
Acre, Mount Carmel, and the plains of Cæsarea. The commander-in-chief,
the King of Hungary, returned to Europe, consoling himself for lack of
martial laurels by the possession of the head of St. Peter, the hand of
St. Thomas, and one of the seven water-jars in which Christ had made
water wine at Cana. The sacred relics did not, however, prevent his
subsequent excommunication.
This crusade was saved from utter and ignominious failure only by the
arrival of fresh enthusiasts from the West. Bands from Friesland and the
banks of the Rhine had taken ships on the Baltic and coasted by France
and Portugal. They told of the luminous crosses which appeared in the
heavens and signalled them by moving towards the East, and how squadrons
of angels had fought with them against the Moors on the Tagus.
The courage of their brethren was thus rekindled to venture at the
opening of spring (1218) upon an invasion of Egypt. The chronicler tells
us of a favorable omen here observed by the crusaders: the water of the
Nile, which was sweet to the taste on their arrival, afterwards became
salt.
The city of Damietta was guarded by a strong tower, which rose from the
middle of the Nile, and was connected with the walls by an immense chain
which impeded the passage of ships. The crusaders attacked this
unavailingly. There were in the host certain skilled mechanics, who, “by
the inspiration of the Almighty,” constructed an enormous wooden tower,
which floated upon two vessels and overtopped the walls of the great
citadel. In vain did the Moslems set fire to this with streams of liquid
flame. The prayers of the monks on the shore, together with the “tears
of the faithful,” and, we may add, the abundant oblation of the buckets,
soon subdued the conflagration. The huge drawbridge which dropped from
the top of the floating tower successfully landed upon the walls three
hundred brave knights. Their valor, together with the spiritual prowess
of the patriarch, who lay stretched on the ground wrestling with the
will of Heaven, was resistless, and soon the flag of the Duke of Austria
was flying from the ramparts; not, however, until the usual band of
celestial knights in white armor had dazzled the eyes of the Moslems, so
that they could not see where to strike their foes. This was on August
24th, which, being St. Bartholomew’s day, enabled the crusaders also to
see that saint, clad in red, at the head of their celestial assistants.
Mastering the tower of the Nile and breaking the chain which obstructed
the channel, the Christian fleet lay close to the walls of the city.
Seventeen months were destined to pass in the siege of Damietta. In
September Malek-Ahdel died. He had before formally laid down the
chieftainship, and divided his realm among his many sons; but his
prestige and continually sought counsel made him until his death the
virtual head of the Moslem power. He maintained a sumptuous court and a
splendid palace, the recesses of which were regarded by the faithful as
a sanctuary where Heaven daily blessed its favorite son. The various
courts saluted him as “king of kings,” and the camps hailed him as
saphadin, the “sword of religion.” His death threw a shadow upon the
Moslem world.
Instead of taking advantage of this providence, the Christians seemed to
emulate the divisions of their enemies. Many grew weary of the task they
had vowed to Heaven, and returned to Europe. The priests pronounced a
curse upon the deserters. This malediction was regarded as inspired when
it was learned that six thousand of the crusaders from Brittany had been
wrecked off the coast of Italy, and that the returning Frieslanders
reached their homes only to witness the wrath of the North Sea, which
broke the Holland dikes, submerged their richest provinces and cities,
and drowned one hundred thousand of the inhabitants.
But new warriors were excited to redeem the opportunity. France and
England sent much of their best blood and many of their most famous
names. Among the multitude of celebrities was one who was destined to
bring the entire crusade to a fatal ending. Cardinal Pelagius was
delegated as papal legate. He was a man of arrogance, and asserted his
right to supersede even John of Brienne, the King of Jerusalem, in the
military command. This position was refused him by the soldiery. He at
length accomplished his ambition by threatening all who opposed him with
excommunication.
The coming of these auxiliaries spurred the Christians to take advantage
of contentions among the Moslems and make a forward movement. They
crossed from the west bank of the Nile and invested Damietta. The menace
reunited the Infidels. Battles were of daily occurrence, in which whole
battalions, now of Christians, now of Moslems, were driven into the
Nile, and perished.
One beautiful episode redeemed these hellish scenes. St. Francis of
Assisi visited the camps; he went among his brethren with consolations
for the sick and wounded, his presence redolent with heavenly charity.
No labors could weary this man, who already seemed divested largely of
his physical nature, and to be sustained only by the power of his inward
spirit. His zeal for God led him to visit even the camp of the Moslems.
He preached his doctrines before Malek-Kamel, the Sultan of Cairo; he
alternately threatened the sultan’s infidelity with the pains of hell,
and sought to win his better faith by promises of heaven. Francis
proposed to test the truth of either religion by passing with the
holiest Moslems through an ordeal of fire. This being declined, he
offered himself to the flame, provided that the sultan’s conversion
should follow the refusal of fire to burn the representative of the
faith of Christ. With courteous words the test was declined. Moslems
reverenced insane persons as in some way under a divine influence;
Malek-Kamel treated his uninvited guest as one of this sort. The Moslem
doctors of the law commanded Malek-Kamel to take off the head of the
intruder, but the warrior was either too much amused with the
simplicity, or too much amazed at the sincerity, of his visitor to harm
him, and dismissed him with presents, which, however, Francis’ vow of
poverty would not allow him to accept.
Whether persuaded by the holy eloquence of the saint, or by the rumor
that Frederick of Germany was approaching with fresh armies, the sultan
proposed peace. He offered the flattering condition of giving up
Jerusalem to the Christians. The warriors would have assented thus to
secure as the reward of their valor that which had been the object of
the entire crusade; but Cardinal Pelagius forbade, in the name of the
Holy Father, the cessation of arms at any less price than the entire
subjugation of the Moslem power.
Damietta was therefore more closely invested; its garrison was reduced
to starvation. To prevent possible defection among his miserable
soldiers, the commander of Damietta walled up the gates of the city. The
Christians made an assault in full force; the rams battered the
trembling towers; ladders swarmed with assailants; no one opposed them.
Sweeping over the ramparts with naked swords, they found the streets and
houses filled with the dead. Of seventy thousand scarcely three thousand
of the inhabitants had remained alive. The air was fraught with
poisonous stench from the decaying corpses; as the chronicler says, “the
dead had killed the living.” The crusaders could abide only long enough
to gather the booty, and left the city to be cleansed by carrion-birds
and the air of heaven.
This temporary success of his policy inflamed the conceit of Cardinal
Pelagius. According to his own people, the “King of kings and Lord of
lords” had given him the city; “under the guidance of Christ” the
soldiers had scaled the walls. The victors took as their reward the rich
plunder of the place, and gratefully “baptized all the children who were
found alive in the city, thereby giving to God the first-fruit of
souls.”
The Moslems, afflicted by these reverses, enlarged their conditions of
peace to the yielding up, not only of Jerusalem, but all the Holy Land.
The cardinal refused even these terms, and proposed to march to the
capture of Cairo, the capital of Egypt. In vain did the military leaders
protest against that which they esteemed impracticable in itself, and
which, in the event of its success, would leave on their hands a land
which they could not hope to defend against the myriads who were
swarming from all parts of the Moslem world. The cardinal accused the
warriors of timidity and irreligion. This was too much for John of
Brienne, who would have dared to sheathe his good sword in the bowels of
Lucifer himself. Orders for the ascent of the Nile were given. At the
junction of its two branches, the southern extreme of the Delta, the
Moslems made their fortified camp, and built what has since been known
as the city of Mansourah. The enemy approached; once more the sultan
offered peace, including now the gift of the Delta, together with the
previously offered conditions.
The refusal of this exhausted the patience, not only of the sultan, but
seemingly of Heaven also. With the rising of the Nile the Moslems opened
the sluices, flooded all the canals of Lower Egypt, and inundated the
Christians’ camp. Simultaneously the Moslem ships made their way up
through the canals and destroyed the vessels of their foes. The Infidels
occupied every rising knoll; “while,” says a letter from the camp, “we
were thus caught in the midst of the waters like fish in a net.” In vain
did the Christians endeavor to force a battle. Shrewdly retreating from
the arbitrament of the sword, the Moslems left the invaders to the
destruction which they proclaimed Allah had prepared for His insolent
adversaries.
Cardinal Pelagius now begged for the peace he had despised; nor did he
stop with the old conditions. He would yield all he had taken or
claimed, if only he might be permitted to lead the armies of Europe
safely into the walls of distant Acre. This capitulation was reluctantly
accepted by the Sultan of Cairo. The haughty cardinal, the brave King
John of Brienne, the Duke of Bavaria, and many of the nobles meditated
their disgrace as hostages in the hostile camp, while the Christian
soldiers were still waiting the will of their conqueror in the marshes.
King John of Brienne one day sat down at the feet of the sultan and
burst into tears. The Moslem respected his courage and was grieved at
the distress which seemingly had shaken it. “Why do you weep?” he asked.
“To see my brave people perishing with hunger amid the waters.” The
sultan immediately provisioned the Christian camp, and sent his own son
to conduct the host in safety out of the land they had come to conquer
(autumn, 1221).
THE SIXTH CRUSADE.