Titans of History (18 page)

He ravaged Sicily then conquered Cyprus on the way. On arrival he fought hard and bloody battles against Saladin's forces, besieging and capturing Acre, butchering 3,000 Muslim prisoners to counter Saladin's delaying negotiations and winning the Battle of Arsuf with a cavalry charge, but he failed to take the main prize of Jerusalem. Despite their violent struggle, Richard and Saladin held for each other a chivalrous respect. Each thought and spoke with the highest regard of the other. When Richard was sick and thirsty, Saladin sent him fresh fruit and water, and when he was in need of a horse, Saladin sent him one of his finest.

During their peace negotiations, Saladin was dazzled by Richard's scarlet-clad exploits—especially his last-minute rescue of Jaffa, wading into the sea right under Saladin's nose. The sultan is said to have called Richard “so pleasant, upright, magnanimous and excellent that, if the land [Jerusalem] were to be lost in my time, he would rather have it taken into Richard's mighty power than to have it go into the hands of any other prince whom he had ever seen.” When both sides had fought themselves to exhaustion, Richard offered Saladin a unique and imaginative deal: his brother Safadin would marry Richard's sister and rule Palestine together from Jerusalem. It did not work of course but it shows Richard's dynamic flexibility.

In his absence, John, now raised to count of Mortain and granted huge estates to assuage his greed—in return for agreeing not to visit England at all—was plotting to seize power and meddling in English politics, breaking his ban. Richard had to settle things in the Holy Land and rush home. But on his way
back his enemies Emperor Henry VI and Duke Leopold of Austria captured him and held him to ransom, giving John the opportunity, in January 1193, to control England. John, however, failed in an attempt to invade England with the assistance of King Philip II of France, and then unsuccessfully attempted to bribe Richard's captors to hand him over to his custody. As Richard once put it, “my brother John is not the man to win lands by force if there is anyone at all to oppose him.”

On his return (after the astonishing sum of 150,000 marks had been raised for his release), Richard showed incredible leniency to his wayward brother and officially declared him his successor before leaving the country to make war against Philip of France. So, when Richard was killed in 1199 by crossbow bolt at a siege in France, John became king of England and duke of Normandy and Aquitaine.

King John lost most of his empire, broke every promise he ever made, dropped his royal seal in the sea, impoverished England, murdered his nephew, seduced the wives of his friends, betrayed his father, brothers and country, foamed at the mouth when angry, starved and tortured his enemies to death, lost virtually every battle he fought, fled any responsibility whenever possible and died of eating too many peaches. Treacherous, lecherous, malicious, avaricious, cruel and murderous, he earned his nicknames Softsword for military cowardice and incompetence, and Lackland for losing most of his inheritance.

On his succession, his nephew, Arthur, duke of Brittany, the son of Geoffrey II and Constance, was a serious rival to the throne, considered by many as the rightful king, so John quickly arrested the boy, at age fifteen, and—in a crime not unlike that of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower—had him murdered the following year. Arthur's murder provoked a rebellion in Brittany and a humiliating retreat for John's armies, who were forced to withdraw from
the region in 1204. By 1206, Softsword had lost nearly all of England's territorial possessions in France, putting up only limp resistance. In fact, when Normandy—England's last possession on the continent—was seized by the French, John reportedly stayed in bed with his wife, as his soldiers fell in the rout.

Richard, for all his faults, had been admired for his chivalry, unlike the priapic John, who had countless mistresses and illegitimate children, often trying to force himself on the wives and daughters of important noblemen. His treatment of prisoners was particularly odious; he starved to death the wife and son of one of his enemies.

Stranded on English soil and short of funds, John imposed large increases in taxation and mercilessly exploited his feudal prerogatives, giving rise to the popular legend of Robin Hood holding out in Sherwood Forest against royal extortion. Between 1209 and 1213, when John was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III, he shamelessly plundered the revenues of the Church.

From 1212, John faced increasing opposition from the nobility, who began to plot against him. After another thoroughly disastrous military campaign in France in 1214, rebellion finally broke out in England. At a famous meeting in a meadow by the Thames at Runnymede on June 15, 1215, the barons forced John to seal Magna Carta, the foundation of modern English liberties, guaranteeing them rights against the arbitrary rule of the king. John had no intention of keeping his word, and quickly betrayed his promise to abide by the charter, prompting a return to civil war. As he tried his rally his forces, his entourage—with his treasure and bags—was almost lost as he crossed the Wash. The tides rose unexpectedly, and in his frantic efforts to save his possessions he lost the Great Seal of England. As the king betrayed his promises of Magna Carta, he faced a French invasion and a
general baronial revolt: his power was slipping away when he fell ill. His death too became him: the king succumbing to dysentery after an excessively voracious meal of peaches and ale.

c.
1163–1227

The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters
.

Genghis Khan

Charismatic, dynamic, ferocious, violent and ambitious, Genghis Khan was a military genius, brilliant statesman and world conqueror who united the nomadic tribes of the Asian steppes to create the Mongol empire, the largest land empire in history. But the triumphs of this heroic monster had a terrible price—a reign of terror and mass killing across Eurasia on a scale never before seen.

Genghis Khan was born between 1163 and 1167 in the mountainous terrain of Khentii province in Mongolia, reportedly clutching a blood clot—a supposed portent of his future greatness as a warrior. He was named Temujin, after a tribesman recently captured by his father. The third son of Yesukhei—a local chieftain—and Hoelun, Temujin was soon to experience at first hand the dangerous world of Mongolian tribal politics. When Temujin was just nine years old, his father arranged for him to marry
Börte, a girl from a neighboring tribe. He was sent to live with Börte's family, but, shortly afterward, Yesukhei was poisoned by vengeful tribesmen, and Temujin was obliged to return home. Deprived of their protector, Temujin's family was forced out into the wilderness, where they survived by eating berries, nuts, mice and other small animals. At thirteen, Temujin murdered his own half-brother.

Several years of wandering followed, marked by intertribal kidnapping and feuds, during which time Temujin—who soon became known and feared for his leadership, intelligence and military ability—built up a sizeable following. A tall, strong and hardened young man, with piercing green eyes and a long reddish beard, he finally married Börte at the age of sixteen and was taken under the wing of Toghril Ong-Khan, ruler of the Kerait tribe (and his father's blood brother). When Börte was later kidnapped by the Merkit tribe, Temujin and Toghril joined forces with Jamuka, a childhood friend of Temujin and now a Mongol chieftain, sending a large army to rescue her. (Börte turned out to be pregnant, and Temujin brought up the child, Jochi, as his own son.) The three-way alliance enabled the Mongols and Keraits to force other tribes into submission.

Following this success, in 1200 Toghril declared Temujin his adoptive son and heir—a fateful decision that enraged both Toghril's natural son, Senggum, and the ambitious Jamuka, leading ultimately to a war in which Temujin defeated first Jamuka and then Toghril to establish his dominance over the Mongol tribes. In 1206, a council of leading Mongolian tribesmen—called the Kurultai—met and recognized Temujin's authority, giving him the name Genghis Khan, meaning Oceanic Khan or Ruler of the Universe.

Before 1200, the Mongols had been a scattered people, but Genghis—claiming a mandate from heaven—was swiftly to
transform them into a powerful and unified nation. “My strength,” he declared, “was fortified by Heaven and Earth. Foreordained by Mighty Heaven, I was brought here by Mother Earth.” His soldiers were mainly nomadic warriors, including deadly archers who traveled on small but sturdy Mongolian-bred ponies capable of covering great distances. Genghis turned them into a disciplined and brilliantly coordinated war machine that swept all before them.

In 1207—having secured an alliance with the Uighurs and subjugated the Mongols' old rivals, the Merkit tribe—Genghis immediately began expansionist operations, eating into the Xi Xia territory in northwest China, as well as parts of Tibet. His target was the Silk Road—a key trade route between east and west and the gateway to wealth. In 1211, after refusing to pay tribute to the Jin dynasty in northern China, he went to war again, besieging and destroying the Jin capital, Yanjing, now Beijing, and securing instead tribute for himself. He returned to Mongolia in triumph, taking with him booty, artisans and, above all, guaranteed trade with China.

In 1219, Genghis turned his attentions west after an attack on a caravan of traders he had sent to establish trading links with the Khwarazm empire—a realm including most of Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan under the rule of the sultan Muhammad Khwarazmshah. Genghis showed restraint, but when members of a second Mongolian delegation were beheaded, he raised 200,000 troops and marched into central Asia, with his four sons, Jochi, Ogodei, Chaghatai and Touli serving as commanders. Over the next three years, he subjected the Khwarazm people to a terrifying campaign of shock and awe, taking the cities of Bokhara, Samarkand, Herat, Nishapar and Merv—his troops lining up the civilians of the latter and, in a cold-blooded killing spree, slitting their throats.

A peerless strategist, Genghis recognized the value of fear in building an empire, often sending out envoys to cow enemies into submission through tales of his exploits: civilians slaughtered, money and booty stolen, women raped, molten silver poured into people's ears. For all this brutality, however, Genghis did not indulge in killing for the sake of it. He was loyal to his friends and generous to supporters, a shrewd manager of men, who promoted an elite of top generals, giving them enormous powers. He spared those who surrendered, reserving wholesale slaughter to make an example of those who resisted. Nor did the Mongols wantonly maim, mutilate or torture—their chief interest was in booty rather than barbarism. Indeed, in some ways Genghis showed himself to be an enlightened ruler, combining political acumen with economic shrewdness. He used divide-and-rule tactics to weaken enemies and promote loyalty. He recognized the importance of good administration, fostering the spread of a unified official language across his empire and a written legal system called Jasagti. He was also tolerant of religions and gave priests an exemption from taxation. Believing in the importance of providing a safe passage of trade between the east and the west, he forbade troops and officials to abuse merchants or citizens, his reign becoming a period of cultural interaction and advancement for the Mongolian people. He was also a patron of artists, craftsmen and literature.

After his early triumphs over the Khwarazm empire, Genghis pressed on, eager to consolidate his gains. He pushed into Russia, Georgia and the Crimea, defeating the forces of Prince Mstitslav of Kiev at the Battle of Kalka River in 1223, in which, after a feigned retreat, his forces turned on their pursuers and routed them. He now ruled a vast empire stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific, his people enjoying ever-increasing wealth. In 1226, however, he died after he fell from his horse hurrying back to Xi Xia, where a rebellion had erupted in his absence.

The Great Khan left his empire to his son Ogodei, though it was soon divided amongst the descendants of his sons, who founded their own khanates which ruled the Near East, Russia and China (where his grandson Kublai Khan founded his own dynasty). The Mongol empire thus expanded even further, until it stretched from the Pacific coast of Asia in the east to Hungary and the Balkans in the west. The Crimean khanate, longest-lasting of the successor states of the Mongol empire, would survive up until 1783.

A Y chromosomal lineage in an astounding 8 percent of men in Asia is descended from one source. Most likely this was Genghis himself.

1194–1250

He was an adroit man, cunning, greedy, wanton, malicious, bad-tempered, but at times when he wished to reveal his good and courtly qualities, consoling, witty, delightful, hard working
.

Salimbene di Adam,
Chronicle
(1282–90)

The author of a book on falconry called
The Art of Hunting with Birds
, Frederick was the most powerful ruler in Europe—Holy Roman Emperor, king of Sicily, later king of Jerusalem and heir to vast German-Italian lands. Green-eyed, ginger-haired, son of the German Emperor Henry IV and the Norman heiress of Sicily, Constance, he was raised in Sicily, a court that blended Christian
and Islamic, Arab and Norman culture. If his upbringing—speaking Arabic and at home with Jews and Muslims—made him seem exotic, his eccentricity was his own. He traveled with Arab bodyguards, a Scottish magician, Jewish and Arab scholars, fifty falconers, a zoo and a sultanic harem of odalisques. He was said to be an atheistic scientist who joked that Jesus, Muhammad and Moses were frauds and was portrayed as a proto-Dr. Frankenstein who sealed a dying man in a barrel to see if his soul would escape.

Yet he was actually an effective and ruthless politician with a clear vision of his own role as universal Christian emperor. In 1225, he married Yolande, fifteen, heiress to Jerusalem, making him king of the Holy City. He seduced one of her ladies at the wedding and she died at sixteen. But, after many false starts Frederick set off in 1227 on crusade, even though already excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his delays. Backed by his Teutonic Knights, Frederick offended the crusader barons with his imperial air, seduced local ladies and marched down the coast—all the time, negotiating with Saladin's nephew, Sultan Kamil of Egypt, who, faced with his own rebellions as well as this new crusader threat, agreed a most unconventional peace deal.