God's War: A New History of the Crusades (53 page)

The success of the crusaders at Lisbon confirmed the fears of the doubters. It had brought out the best and worst in them, the heroism of the young men from Suffolk, the obsessive, violent greed for a valuable horse shown by Arnold of Aerschot in the division of the spoils. The numbers and strength of the fleet became dissipated through casualties,
subsequent diversion and settlement in Portugal and Catalonia. The survivors who reached Outremer in time to join the abortive siege of Damascus in July 1148, probably mainly Flemish and Germans who would have found their overlords Count Thierry and King Conrad in Jerusalem, represented only a fraction of the 10,000 who had sailed from Dartmouth in May 1147. Many of the leaders survived, including Hervey of Glanvill and Christian of Gistel, although, judging by the tone and omissions of his priest Raol’s account of events, the former may not have reached the Holy Land, while the latter almost certainly did. For the development of Portugal, the capture of Lisbon, with that of Santarem a few months earlier, marked a significant as well as symbolic advance. For the
reconquista
it provided new heroes and fresh opportunities. For the cause of the Holy Land, the fall of Lisbon proved at best an irrelevance, at worst a distraction. Most of the rest of Europe ignored it.

THE ROADS TO THE HOLY LAND: MAY 1147 TO APRIL 1148

On the same October day that the Christians began the orderly ransacking of Lisbon, 2,000 miles to the east one of the largest armies assembled by a medieval king met with disaster near Dorylaeum in north-west Anatolia, close to the scene of the First Crusade’s victory of 1097. The subsequent retreat westwards towards Nicaea and the coast finished what the battle had begun; losses were horrific; the rearguard wiped out; the commander-in-chief suffering a severe arrow wound to the head. The defeat of Conrad III’s magnificent army, with its echoes not of 1097 but of 1101, placed the whole enterprise in jeopardy, militarily and psychologically. Although within a few weeks, Conrad could describe the traumatic events in the Anatolian hills dispassionately, others saw in them the harsh judgement of God. Veterans later wept at the memory. Louis VII’s army remained in the field, but an aura of besieged failure became established, matched by the mounting practical obstacles against which the French in their turn were broken.
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The scale of later recriminations reflected the size of the armies led eastwards. German, French and Greek observers testified to the
magnitude of Conrad III’s forces on its progress to Constantinople, too numerous for Byzantine officials to count.
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Beside the ranks of fighting men, support troops, clerical and civilian camp followers marched substantial contingents of unarmed pilgrims taking advantage of the protection afforded by the military expedition, a group large and inconvenient enough for Conrad unsuccessfully to try to separate them from the fighting units on reaching the Turkish frontier. One veteran lamented that Pope Eugenius had not insisted on the weak staying at home and, instead of banning fancy clothes, falcons and hunting dogs, ‘had equipped all the strong with the sword instead of the wallet and the bow instead of the staff; for the weak and helpless are always a burden to their comrades and a source of prey to their enemies’.
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Fresh recruits joined the German host on its way from Regensburg, down the Danube to Vienna, Hungary and on to the Byzantine border at Branitz, which was reached around 20 July. The size of Conrad’s army may be reflected in its modest rate of progress, especially once it left the Danube and turned south into Bulgaria. At less than ten miles a day, with no opposition, the Germans marched considerably more slowly than the First Crusaders, who had faced resistance.
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The weight of numbers persuaded King Geza of Hungary, Conrad’s enemy of only a year earlier, to pay protection money to ensure a peaceful passage. The hulks of the large German fleet abandoned at Branitz on the Bulgarian border provided locals with plentiful firewood and building materials. Forewarned but alarmed, the Greek emperor Manuel negotiated a German oath not to cause trouble within his territories; in return he promised access to supplies and markets. It says much for Manuel’s power as well as Conrad’s authority that the march from the Danube to the plains of Thrace passed without serious incident, helped by the fruitful season of the year. Once in Thrace, the opportunities for forage and plunder proved irresistible, as did the local wine, the combination provoking a serious affray at Phillipopolis and the loss of drunken stragglers lagging behind the main columns, their unburied rotting carcases posing a health problem for the French coming up behind. With German discipline fraying, Manuel failed to persuade Conrad to divert his march to Asia across the Hellespont rather than the Bosporus. After further violent incidents at Adrianople and a disastrous flash flood on 8 September that hit the German camp on the plain of Choereobacchi, engulfing men, horses and large quantities of equipment, Conrad’s battered and bad-tempered
army reached Constantinople on 10 September to find Manuel had placed his capital on full military alert.

Manuel had good reason to be nervous.
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He had closely followed the preparations of 1146–7 and tracked the approaching armies with almost intolerably obsequious diplomats. Yet, despite his repeated offers of cooperation and aid, the emperor faced the most dangerous coincidence of circumstances imaginable. By the time the first western troops arrived at the walls of Constantinople, relations with his erstwhile ally Conrad had deteriorated to the extent that it was believed the Germans were contemplating attacking the city. To meet the challenge from the west, Manuel had been forced to abandon his campaign against the Seljuk sultan of Rum and agree a treaty, news of which, when picked up by the crusaders, aroused suspicion, incredulity and anger. The amount of effective assistance Manuel could provide, especially on and beyond the frontier regions of western Asia Minor, would always fall short of the westerners’ expectations raised by Manuel’s own promises, the awesome scale of his capital, the expensive dress of imperial servants and the deliberately intimidating but gorgeous court ritual and entertainment. If relations with Conrad had turned sour, those with Louis of France promised to be no less bitter. Byzantine attempts to subjugate Cilicia and Antioch had aroused hostility from churchmen, who complained at Greeks ousting Latin clergy, and from lay nobles with close relatives in the principality: Prince Raymond of Antioch was the uncle of Louis’s queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and many Franks throughout Outremer still regarded the king of France in some ancestral sense as an overlord. He, in turn, felt a degree of permanent responsibility for them, all of which potentially clashed with Byzantine aspirations in Syria. More ominous still for Manuel, one faction close to King Louis hankered after an alliance with Roger of Sicily, who, at the very time the crusaders were approaching Constantinople, attacked Byzantine Greece: Corfu and Cephalonia were captured; Corinth, Thebes and Euboea plundered. Manuel could have been excused for worrying lest behind these western incursions lay a plot to seize the empire by a new Franco-German-Sicilian coalition.

In the event, by a mixture of aggression, bribery and promises of help, Manuel, whose wife, Bertha of Sulzbach, was Conrad’s sister-in-law, defused any immediate threat from the Germans. Despite sporadic violent clashes and a series of rather tetchy diplomatic exchanges, after
almost a month camped outside the walls of Constantinople, the German army crossed the Bosporus on ships supplied by Manuel. Although rejecting a formal alliance with the Greeks, Conrad accepted guides and food before setting out to follow the route of the army of 1097, refusing to wait for the French in his eagerness to press on to Syria. On 15 October, at Nicaea, possibly to quell a threatened mutiny by those outside the nobles’ retinues, his army divided, one part under his half-brother, Otto of Freising, choosing the coastal road southwards through Byzantine-held territory, the bulk of the force embarking south-east on the road towards Dorylaeum and Iconium. For ten days, the main German army advanced so slowly that food ran short, the columns becoming easy targets for Turkish skirmishers. The westerners failed entirely to adapt to Turkish tactics, despite the presence of Greek guides. On 25 October, near Dorylaeum, the German heavy cavalry fell into the classic Turkish trap, drawn away from the main body of the army by a traditional Turkish feint, leaving the infantry unprotected and open to heavy casualties while being mauled themselves. This severe setback persuaded the German high command to withdraw to Nicaea to regroup. As their food supplies were already exhausted, the retreat was slowed and the line broken by the need for forage to sustain men and horses. With increasing intensity, the Turks picked off stragglers and bombarded the main column with a constant barrage of arrows, the Germans’ retreat becoming a rout once the rearguard under Bernard of Ploetzkau was cut off and overwhelmed. The enthusiastic but inept westerners waged an unequal struggle against agile Turkish mounted archers: ‘these active youths… midway in their course, encountered winged death instead of the enemy against whom they were running swiftly and boldly with oft-drawn swords and using sheep-skins as shields’.
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Without archers and increasingly without horses, German resistance let alone counter-attack became impossible beneath the hail of arrows: Conrad himself was hit by two, seriously wounding him in the head. A starving and broken remnant of the once magnificent army struggled back to Nicaea by the beginning of November, where many abandoned the expedition entirely, seeking Byzantine help for quick passage home. Others survived the Turkish arrows only to succumb to starvation.

The army was wrecked. Whatever the casualties, its spirit had been broken as surely as its military capability. Bankrupt, hungry, scarred physically and psychologically, the rump of the German army could
do nothing except throw themselves on the mercy of the French, now encamped around Nicaea, who greeted news of the German disaster with astonishment; rumour had told them of the fall of Iconium and the opening of the road to Jerusalem. Scapegoats were identified as the Greek guides, accused of misleading the army, and the Byzantine officials for providing inadequate supplies, although Conrad placed responsibility on himself, his companions and the Turks.
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In truth, the German crusade foundered on poor intelligence, fallible logistics, inappropriate tactics and over-optimistic strategy as much as by lack of Greek support or the skill of Turkish archers. From the rebellious, despised footsloggers and pilgrims to the mounted elite, for all their numbers and weaponry, the Germans proved in all respects except courage singularly ill-equipped for Anatolian warfare or the needs of a contested march.

Ironically, the French partially reversed the pattern of the German advance on Islam, a fractious march across Byzantium leading to a remarkably effective fighting march against fierce odds through Asia Minor before, in turn, lack of supplies and logistical support forced disintegration.
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From the muster at Metz in June 1147, the French army, tens of thousands strong, crossed the Rhineland in late June or early July, meeting the Danube at Regensburg before following the Germans’ route to Hungary, Bulgaria and on to Constantinople, reached by some units in late September and by the king in the first week in October. In the eyes of Louis’s chaplain, Odo of Deuil, the provision of markets and access to supplies formed a constant anxiety and a prominent theme of his narrative. At Worms, trouble erupted because of the high prices charged by the locals, which hit both the poorer pilgrims and the army’s merchants and moneychangers whose profit margins were threatened. At Regensburg Louis agreed with ambassadors from Manuel to swear not to attack any Byzantine cities or fortresses in return for guarantees of markets and reasonable exchange rates. In Hungary, King Geza provided open markets, ensuring a peaceful passage for the French despite their harbouring of Boris, a pretender to the Hungarian throne. Until the Byzantine frontier was reached at Branitz, the French march passed smoothly, helped by the new bridges constructed by the Germans. Immediately on entering Byzantine territory, problems of exchange rates and inadequate supplies provoked the French to forage for themselves ‘praedis et rapinis’, ‘with plunder and pillage’.
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Although
the king’s own retinue were kept well supplied by the Greek officials assigned to his entourage, other divisions of the army continued violent foraging, terrorizing local markets and brawling with German stragglers. As the march progressed, relations with the Greeks deteriorated. French foragers were cut down by Byzantine mercenaries; an advance guard was denied a market and attacked at Constantinople just as Louis’s ambassadors were continuing their delicate negotiations with Manuel over the terms of further Greek assistance. The Anglo-Norman contingent of the bishop of Langres and William of Warenne suffered a severe mauling in Thrace. Elements in the French army increasingly regarded the Greeks as hostile, their religious observances heretical, their social conventions despicable. A siege mentality developed. One member of the king’s closest circle recalled that, a day out of Constantinople, the disaffected, reinforced by news leaking out of Manuel’s treaty with the Seljuks, proposed a radical new strategy: use the huge western army to occupy Thrace; enter into an immediate alliance with Roger of Sicily and, with his fleet, which was already in Greek waters, seize Constantinople.
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Although possibly benefiting from hindsight, the story exposes mounting unease at the nature and value of Greek friendship.

As he had consistently since embarking from Metz, Louis rejected any diversion of effort, pressing on to reach Constantinople on 4 October. Any fears he may have held soon dissipated as Manuel, in stark contrast to his brusque treatment of Conrad, went out of his way to shower Louis with attention, granting him a specially favoured audience at which the king was permitted to be seated; personally conducting a guided tour of Constantinople’s shrines for the famously pious monarch; and entertaining him to such a lavish public banquet that some of more boorish and hard-to-please French guests feared poison. Ignoring continued outbreaks of arson and drunken affray by French troops, Manuel provided ample markets and a good exchange rate, leaving the discipline of the unruly elements to Louis, who, typically, proved inadequate to the task. The emperor even organized a joint celebration of the Feast of Louis’s patronal saint, St Denis (9 October), by Orthodox priests and Louis’s own chaplains; even the hellenophobe St Denis monk, Odo of Deuil, remembered the occasion with pleasure, especially the singing of Greek eunuchs.
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Manuel’s tactics of smothering his guest with affection concealed genuine worry at French intentions, hardly assuaged by the approach of contingents from Savoy, the Auvergne and
north Italy who had travelled via Brindisi in Apulia, part of Roger of Sicily’s kingdom. The importance of his charm offensive immediately became clear as vocal elements in the French high command, led by the irascible Bishop Godfrey of Langres, urged an assault on the imperial capital, the capture of which would place the whole empire at the westerners’ disposal. The bishop, angered at his treatment at the hands of Greek soldiers, justified his proposal by accusing the Byzantines of heresy and recalling the campaign against Antioch by Manuel’s father, John II Comnenus, the replacement of the Latin patriarch by a Greek and the recent extraction of homage from Prince Raymond.
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The emergence of Antioch as an issue exposes one strand of western policy largely suppressed in the recruitment drive of 1146–7 and by the strenuous diplomacy of the Greeks. Bishop Godfrey’s complaints may well have reflected Bishop Hugh of Jubail’s negotiations in the west in 1145 to which the bishop of Langres may have been a party: he certainly proclaimed the cause of Edessa at Bourges at Christmas 1145 possibly in response to Bishop Hugh’s mission. King Louis appears to have consulted the pope on Antioch before departing for the east.
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This new front of anti-Greek policy was potentially more damaging to Manuel’s relations with the westerners, as it seemed more immediate to the French and less diplomatically awkward than an alliance with Sicily. However, just as in 1146, the question of Antioch subsided in the face of the claims of the Holy Sepulchre. Against Bishop Godfrey were argued the injunctions of the pope, which could not be reconciled with fighting Christians for ambition or money. Manuel, alert to the debates within the French camp, allegedly exerted pressure on the French to cross over the Bosporus by squeezing the flow of supplies, spreading false rumours that the Germans were winning great victories in Asia Minor and providing a hurriedly assembled fleet to transport the French to the Asiatic shore. The rank and file, as often on such expeditions, pushed for the simple strategy of progress towards the Holy Land; Louis agreed and on 16 or 17 October passed over to Asia, conveniently for Manuel a few days before the arrival of the armies that had come via Apulia.