A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 (34 page)

As the Crusaders approached, the Emir of
Tripoli hastened to buy immunity for his capital and its suburbs by releasing
some three hundred Christian captives that were in the town. He compensated
them with fifteen thousand bezants and fifteen fine horses; and he provided
pack-animals and provender for the whole army. He was further reported to have
offered to embrace Christianity if the Franks defeated the Fatimids.

On Monday, 16 May, the Crusaders left Tripoli,
accompanied by guides provided by the Emir; who led them safely along the
dangerous road that rounded the cape of Ras Shaqqa. Passing peacefully through
the Emir’s towns of Batrun and Jebail, they reached the Fatimid frontier on the
Dog River on 19 May. The Fatimids kept no troops in their northern territory,
except for small garrisons in the towns on the coast, but they possessed a
considerable navy, which could provide additional defence for these towns.
Thus, though the Crusaders did not meet with any opposition on the road, they could
not hope to capture any of the ports that they passed; and the Christian fleet
could no longer keep in touch with them. Fear of running short of supplies
obliged them thenceforward to hurry on as quickly as possible to their final
objective.

As they drew near to Beirut the local
inhabitants, dreading the destruction of the rich gardens and orchards that
surrounded the city, hastened to offer them gifts and a free passage through
their lands on condition that the fruit trees, the vines and the crops were
unharmed. The princes accepted the terms and led the army quickly on to Sidon,
which was reached on 20 May. The garrison of Sidon was of sterner stuff and
made a sortie against the Crusaders as they were encamped on the banks of the
Nahr al-Awali. The sortie was repulsed; and the Crusaders retorted by ravaging
the gardens in the suburbs. But they moved on as soon as possible to the
neighbourhood of Tyre, where they waited two days to allow Baldwin of Le Bourg
and a number of knights from Antioch and from Edessa to catch them up. The
streams and greenery of the neighbourhood made it a delightful halting-place.
The garrison of Tyre stayed behind its walls and did not molest them. Tyre was
left on the 23rd; and the army crossed without difficulty over the pass called
the Ladder of Tyre and over the heights of Naqoura, and arrived outside Acre on
the 24th. The governor, following the example of Beirut, secured immunity for
the fertile farms around the town by the gift of ample provisions. From Acre
the army marched to Haifa and along the coast under Mount Carmel to Caesarea,
where four days were spent, from the 26th to the 30th, in order that Whitsun
might be properly celebrated. While it was encamped there a pigeon was killed
by a hawk overhead and fell near the tent of the Bishop of Apt. It was found to
be a carrier, with a message from the governor of Acre to rouse the Moslems of
Palestine against the invaders.

The Occupation
of Ramleh

When the march was resumed, the coast was
followed only as far as Arsuf, where the army turned inland, arriving before
Ramleh on 3 June. Ramleh, unlike most of the towns of Palestine, was a Moslem
town. Before the Turkish invasions it had been the administrative capital of
the province, but had declined in recent years. The approach of the Crusaders
alarmed the inhabitants; the garrison was small and they were too far from the
sea for the Egyptian navy to help them. They fled in a body from their homes,
away toward the south-west, having first, as an act of defiance, destroyed the
great Church of St George that stood in the ruined village of Lydda, a mile
from Ramleh. When Robert of Flanders and Gaston of Bearn rode up in the van of
the Crusading army they found the streets deserted and the houses empty.

The occupation of a Moslem town in the heart of
the Holy Land elated the Crusaders. They vowed at once to rebuild the sanctuary
of St George and to erect Ramleh and Lydda into a lordship to be his patrimony,
and to create a new diocese whose bishop should be its lord. A Norman priest,
Robert of Rouen, was appointed to the see. As at Albara this did not mean the
displacement of a Greek bishop in favour of a Latin, but the establishment of a
bishopric in conquered Moslem country. The appointment showed that public
opinion amongst the Crusaders considered that conquered territory should be
given to the Church. Robert was left in charge of Ramleh with a small garrison
to protect him. Meanwhile the princes debated what next should be done; for
some considered that it would be foolish to attack Jerusalem in the height of
summer. It would be better, they argued, to advance against the real enemy,
Egypt. After some discussion their advice was rejected and the march to
Jerusalem was resumed on 6 June.

From Ramleh the army took the old road that
winds up into the Judaean hills to the north of the present thoroughfare. As it
passed through the village of Emmaus envoys came to the princes from the city
of Bethlehem, whose entirely Christian population begged to be delivered from
the yoke of the Moslems. Tancred and Baldwin of Le Bourg at once rode off with
a small detachment of knights over the hills to Bethlehem. They arrived in the
middle of the night, and the frightened citizens at first believed them to be
part of an Egyptian army come to reinforce the defence of Jerusalem. When dawn
broke and the knights were recognized as Christians, the whole city came out in
procession, with all the relics and the crosses from the Church of the
Nativity, to welcome their rescuers and to kiss their hands.

While the birthplace of Christ was being
restored to Christian rule, the main Christian army pressed on all day and
through the night towards Jerusalem. It was heartened by an eclipse of the
moon, foreboding the eclipse of the Crescent. Next morning a hundred of Tancred’s
knights from Bethlehem rejoined their comrades. Later in the morning, the
Crusaders reached the summit of the road, at the Mosque of the prophet Samuel,
on the hill-top that the pilgrims called Montjoie; and Jerusalem with its walls
and towers rose in the distance before them. By that evening of Tuesday, 7 June
1099, the Christian army was encamped before the Holy City.

CHAPTER II

THE TRIUMPH OF
THE CROSS

‘
Shout unto
God with the voice of triumph
.
For the Lord most high is terrible.’
PSALMS
XLVII, 1, 2

The city of Jerusalem was one of the great
fortresses of the medieval world. Since the days of the Jebusites its site had
been famed for its strength, which the skill of men had improved down the
centuries. The walls beneath which the Crusaders found themselves followed the
same line as the walls built later by the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the
Magnificent, which surround the old city to-day. They had been laid out when
Hadrian rebuilt the city; and the Byzantines, the Ommayads and the Fatimids in
turn had added to them and repaired them. On the east the wall was protected by
the steep slopes of the ravine of the Kedron. On the south-east the ground fell
to the Vale of Gehenna. A third valley that was only slightly less deep skirted
the western wall. It was only on the south-west, where the wall cut across
Mount Sion, and along the length of the northern wall that the terrain favoured
an attack on the fortifications. The citadel, the Tower of David, was placed
half-way down the western wall, commanding the road that slanted up the
hill-side to the Jaffa Gate. Though there were no springs within the city, its
ample cisterns secured the water supply. The Roman drainage system, still in
use in the twentieth century, kept it from disease.

The defence of the city was in the hands of the
Fatimid governor, Iftikhar ad-Dawla. The walls were in good condition; and he
had a strong garrison of Arab and Sudanese troops. On the news of the Franks’
approach he took the precaution of blocking or poisoning the wells outside the
city, and driving the flocks and herds from the pastures round the city into
places of safety. Next, he ordered all the Christian population of the city,
Orthodox and heretic alike, to retire outside the city walls. The Jews,
however, were permitted to remain within. It was a wise move. In the tenth
century the Christians outnumbered the Moslems in Jerusalem; and though the
Caliph Hakim’s persecutions had reduced their numbers, and though many more,
including most of the Orthodox clergy, had departed with the Patriarch during
the uneasy times that followed Ortoq’s death, there were still thousands left,
useless as fighting men as they were forbidden to carry arms, and unreliable in
a battle against fellow-Christians. Moreover their exile meant that there would
be fewer mouths to feed in the beleaguered city. At the same time Iftikhar sent
urgently to Egypt for armed aid.

Even had the lie of the land permitted it, the
Crusaders had insufficient forces to invest the whole city. They concentrated
their strength on the sectors where they could come near to the walls. Robert
of Normandy took up his station along the northern wall opposite to the Gate of
Flowers (Herod’s Gate), with Robert of Flanders on his right, opposite to the
Gate of the Column (St Stephen’s or the Damascus Gate). Godfrey of Lorraine
took over the area covering the north-west angle of the city, as far down as
the Jaffa Gate. He was joined here by Tancred, who rode up when the army was
already in position, bringing flocks that he had taken on his way from
Bethlehem. To his south was Raymond of Toulouse, who, finding that the valley
kept him too far from the walls, moved up after two or three days on to Mount
Sion. The eastern and south-eastern sectors were left unguarded.

The Defence of
Jerusalem

The siege began on 7 June, the very day that
the Crusade arrived at the walls. But it was soon clear that time was on the
side of the besieged. Iftikhar was well supplied with food and water. His
armaments were better than the Franks’; and he was able to strengthen his
towers with sacks full of cotton and of hay, which enabled them to withstand
the shock of the bombardment by the Frankish mangonels. If he could hold out
till the relieving army from Egypt appeared, all would be over with the
Crusade. But, large though the garrison was, it was barely sufficient to man
all the walls. The Crusaders on their part soon were in difficulties over their
water supply. Iftikhar’s measures had been effective. The only source of pure
water available to the besiegers came from the pool of Siloam, below the south
walls, which was dangerously exposed to missiles from the city. To supplement
their supplies of water, they had to travel six miles or more. Knowing this,
the garrison would send out small companies to ambush the paths to the springs.
Many soldiers and pilgrims perished from such surprise attacks. Food also began
to run short; for little could be obtained near the city. Heat and dust and
lack of shade added to the discomfort of the Crusaders, coming as they did from
cooler climates and wearing, many of them, armour ill-suited to the Judaean
summer. It was clear to them all that they could not afford a long siege but
must quickly take the city by assault.

On 12 June the princes made a pilgrimage to the
Mount of Olives. There an aged hermit addressed them, bidding them attack the
walls on the morrow. They protested that they lacked the machines for a
successful assault; but the hermit would have none of that. If they had faith,
God, he said, would give them the victory. Emboldened by his words, they
ordered a general attack to be made next morning. But the hermit was mistaken
or else their faith was too weak. The Crusaders went to the attack with great
fervour and soon overran the outer defences of the north wall. But they had too
few ladders to be able to scale the walls simultaneously in a sufficient number
of places. After several hours of desperate fighting they saw that their
attempts were useless and withdrew.

Trials of the
Besiegers

The failure of the assault caused bitter
disappointment; but it made clear to the princes the need for building more
siege machines. At a council on 15 June they decided to withhold further
attacks till they were better supplied with mangonels and ladders. But they
lacked the material with which to build them. As at Antioch, they were now
saved by the timely arrival of help from the sea. On 17 June six Christian
vessels put into the harbour of Jaffa, which they found deserted by the
Moslems. The squadron consisted of two Genoese galleys, under the brothers
Embriaco, and four ships probably from the English fleet. They were carrying
food supplies and armaments, including the ropes, nails and bolts required for
making siege machines. Hearing of their arrival the Crusaders at once sent a
small detachment to establish contact with them. Near Ramleh these troops were
ambushed by a Moslem company, operating from Ascalon, and were only rescued by
the coming of Raymond Pilet and his men close on their heels. Meanwhile an Egyptian
fleet appeared off the coast and blockaded Jaffa. One of the English ships
slipped through the blockade and sailed back to Lattakieh. The other ships were
abandoned by their crews as soon as the cargo was landed; and the sailors
marched up under Raymond Pilet’s escort to the camp outside Jerusalem. They
themselves and the goods that they brought were very welcome. But it was still
necessary to find wood with which to build the machines. Little was to be
obtained on the bare hills round Jerusalem; and the Crusaders were obliged to
send expeditions for many miles to collect what was required. It was only when
Tancred and Robert of Flanders penetrated with their followers as far as the
forests round Samaria and came back laden with logs and planks carried on
camel-back or by captive Moslems, that work could start upon the machines.
Scaling-ladders were made; and Raymond and Godfrey each began to construct a
wooden castle fitted with catapults and set on wheels. Gaston of Beam was
responsible for the construction of Godfrey’s castle, and William Ricou of
Raymond’s.