The terms of surrender at the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, in 1187,
were that the Crusaders should retire with their goods from that city
to one of the garrisoned ports which were held by the Franks, on the
payment of ten pieces of gold for each man. As they were filing out of
the city, and handing in their ransom-money, Saladin and his generals
looked on, watching the proceedings. The patriarch's turn came, and he
was followed by a number of mules laden with much treasure. Saladin
made no sign, but his generals said: "Sire, the conditions of surrender
were for private property, not for such treasures of money, which we
urgently need for carrying on the war." To this appeal he replied:
"No, I have pledged my word, and for the ten pieces of gold agreed upon
he shall be free."
But just as he was so strictly truthful to his word, he was equally
severe in exacting the same truthfulness from his foes. Thus after the
great battle of Hittin, when the Crusading army was utterly crushed, a
large number of prisoners fell into his hands, including the King of
Jerusalem and Count Raymond de Chatillon, Governor of Kerak, to the
east of the Jordan. The count was a bad, dishonourable man, and had
(not long before) shamelessly violated an armistice, and fallen on a
defenceless Moslem caravan which was passing through his province,
killing the men and seizing their property. When Saladin heard of this
base breach of the laws of war he was furious, and vowed that if this
perfidious prince should ever fall into his power, he would kill him
with his own hand; and now the count was his prisoner. The day of
battle, in the month of August, had been very hot, and the Crusaders,
with their heavy coats of mail, and without a drop of water to drink,
had suffered terribly from thirst. The tents of Saladin were pitched
near the Lake of Tiberias, and when the king and the count were brought
in, the king asked for a drink of water--which Saladin at once ordered.
A large goblet of iced water was handed to him, and after quenching his
thirst he passed the cup to the count. Saladin looked on, but said
nothing until the count had finished drinking, and he then said to him:
"I gave no orders for drink for you; if I had, your life would have
been safe by our laws of hospitality. But you are a bad, faithless
man, who broke the terms of our truce, and you shall now suffer the
death which you deserve," and with one stroke of his scimitar he cut
off his head. He then sent for the Knights of St. John, of whom there
were about a thousand prisoners, and said to them: "So far as you have
been brave warriors, and cost the Moslems many a man, I have nothing to
say; but you have not been fair and honourable in our wars, nor true to
your engagements, and I now offer you the option of Islam or death."
To a man they all chose death in preference to adopting a faith which
they hated; and so they were led to the shores of the lake and there
beheaded.
More than seven hundred years after these tragic events, William II.,
the present Emperor of Germany, who is a descendant of the Crusading
Princes, and a Knight of the Brandenburg branch of the order of St.
John, came to Damascus in 1898; and one of the first things he did
there was to visit the tomb of Saladin, and lay on it a wreath of
flowers. It was a generous and beautiful and well-deserved tribute to
the memory of a truly great man, from whom the Christian nations of his
times learned much of their chivalry and truthfulness to their pledged
word.