THE FOURTH CRUSADE.
[Sidenote: Motives of the chief promoters of the fourth crusade.]
The story of the fourth crusade is soon told. It was an effort prompted
by the policy of a pope to whom the diversion of forces which the German
emperor might turn against himself was of supreme importance,—of an
emperor whose consciousness of ill desert made him catch eagerly at an
opportunity for winning the favour of his German subjects—and of chiefs
who hoped to take advantage of the weakened condition of the Turks for
the promotion of their personal interests against the wishes and even
against the warning and protests of the Latin Christians in Palestine.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1193. Death of Saladin and its consequences.]
Saladin, the chivalrous antagonist of the lion-hearted Richard, was
dead; and the fabric of his empire soon showed signs of decay. His
brother Saphadin, upheld by Saladin’s soldiers, maintained his ground
against the competition of Saladin’s children who ruled in Egypt,
Damascus, and Aleppo. But although Christians and Mahomedans were alike
weighed down by the pressure of a terrible famine, the Knights of St.
John longed to strike a blow by which they thought that they could surely
crush their enemies. Their efforts to stir up a crusade in England and
in Europe were seconded by pope Cælestine III., who promised all the
spiritual rewards which had called forth the heroism or the brutality
of the earlier pilgrim warriors. On Philip Augustus all entreaties were
thrown away. Richard of England, it is said, was nursing dreams of
conquests which were to place him in the seat of the Byzantine Cæsars:
but for the time he was busied with the less pleasing task of wringing
money from impoverished subjects.
[Sidenote: Encouragement given to the crusade by the emperor Henry VI.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1196. Death of Henry VI.]
But if pope Cælestine hoped that by urging this crusade he should rid
himself of his mortal enemy, he was doomed to disappointment. The death
of Tancred, king of Sicily, and of his heir enabled the emperor Henry
VI., the son of Barbarossa to claim the island by right of his wife
Constantia (p. 128); and the force which Germany might bring together for
the reconquest of the Holy Land could be made available for strengthening
the imperial power in Southern Europe. Thus the enterprise received
his strongest approval, and his encouragement stirred up a throng of
barons, knights and prelates to assume the cross. But he had no intention
of journeying to Palestine in person. Money and men he was ready to
contribute; but his own task lay nearer home. He had levelled the walls
of Capua and Naples, and was besieging a Sicilian castle, when his own
imprudence brought on a fever which cut short at the age of thirty a
career shameful for its merciless and wholesale tyranny.
[Sidenote: Arrival of his barons with their troops in the Holy Land.]
[Sidenote: Capture of Jaffa by Saphadin.]
[Sidenote: Arrival of fresh crusaders under Conrad, bishop of Hildesheim.]
His barons with their followers reached the Holy Land at a time when,
although the truce made with Saladin (p. 135) had expired, the Latin
Christians were not disposed to renew hostilities. But the Germans had
come to fight, not to debate; and their energy was to be tested by
Saphadin, who resolved to be first in striking a blow. Jaffa was taken
before any succour could reach it from Acre, its inhabitants slaughtered
by hundreds or by thousands, and its fortifications, the work on which
Richard and his soldiers had toiled so hard (p. 132), utterly demolished.
The arrival of a second body of German crusaders seemed to justify a
fresh movement which was directed against Berytos. Saphadin compelled
them to fight between Tyre and Sidon: but he did so to his grievous
cost. His army was for the time broken, and Jaffa with Sidon and other
cities came again into the possession of the Christians. In the town of
Berytos they found, it is said, provisions stored up for three years,
and the power and confidence of the conquerors were largely increased by
the arrival of a third body of armed pilgrims led by Conrad, bishop of
Hildesheim, chancellor of the empire.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1197. Siege of the castle of Thoron.]
[Sidenote: Complete defeat of the Crusaders.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1197. Capture of Jaffa, and massacre of the crusaders.]
The crusaders were, in all seeming, in the full career of victory; but
the advantages which they had gained were lost almost in a moment by
their own infatuated bloodthirstiness. They had besieged the castle
of Thoron, and so undermined the rocks on which it rested, that the
garrison, foreseeing the inevitable end, agreed to surrender on the
single stipulation that they should be allowed a free passage into Moslem
territory. The terms were accepted; but so loud were still the threats of
vengeance, so persistent, it is said, the assurances which the Frenchmen
gave to the besieged of the deadly intentions of the Germans, that the
miserable garrison resolved to fight to the death rather than fall into
their hands. They lined the passages which the besiegers had scooped
out in the rock, and their desperate resistance filled with dismay the
savages who but a little while ago had been crying out for their blood.
The disorganization which had not once or twice disgraced the armies
of the earlier crusaders was seen again in even greater degree. The
chiefs fled from the camp in the night, and their followers woke to find
themselves deserted. A confusion ensued so utter and helpless that an
enemy might have won a victory almost without striking a blow; but the
Saracens were scarcely less exhausted than the Christians, and these on
being gathered after their dispersion were able to accuse each the other
of obstinacy, cowardice, or treachery. Conrad of Hildesheim, hastening to
Jaffa with the purpose of restoring its walls, had won a battle fought
against Saphadin at a cost fully equal to any profit which might accrue
from it. The tidings of the death of Henry VI. dealt the final blow to
the enterprise, by recalling to Germany those princes who had an interest
in the election of the emperor. Those who remained behind took refuge in
Jaffa, only, however to meet their doom a few months later at the hands
of a Moslem host which suddenly attacked and stormed the city, while the
Germans were showing their devotion to St. Martin by drinking themselves
into a state of helpless stupidity.
[Sidenote: Almeric of Lusignan king of Jerusalem and Cyprus.]
In spite of these disasters the mockery of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem
was still carried on. On the death of Henry of Champagne (p. 134), his
widow Isabella was advised by the grand-master of the Hospitallers to
marry Almeric of Lusignan who had recently succeeded his brother Guy as
king of Cyprus. Isabella showed no unwillingness to follow this counsel,
and with her fourth husband she added the title of queen of Cyprus to
that of queen of Jerusalem. If the politics of the time represented
Cyprus as a convenient retreat in cases of emergency, such considerations
have little interest or none. The only valid plea for keeping up
the fiction of the Latin kingdom in Palestine would be found in the
likelihood that the abandonment of the title would be regarded throughout
Europe as a confession of defeat, and would be followed by the complete
extinction of the crusading impulse.