The story is almost certainly true. Although Louis VII was among the worst of French kings and among the worst of generals, he was capable of feats of endurance and possessed a certain amount of courage. Kings are rarely seen defending themselves alone on lonely mountain tops, and we have a right to be grateful.
After this defeat Louis VII gave command of the army to Everard of Barre, the third master of the Temple, whose detachment of Templar troops henceforth served as a model of discipline for the army. The haphazard French army reformed and fought its way to the rocky plain of Attalia and the seacoast. From Attalia the king made his way to Antioch by sea, leaving some troops behind. The Turks swooped down on them.
The king with his knights arrived at the port of St. Symeon on March 19, where he was greeted by the prince of Antioch, and festivities were held in his honor. The prince made himself especially agreeable to Queen Eleanor, who was his niece. Out of loyalty to her uncle, the queen supported the plan that was uppermost in the prince's mind: an attack on Aleppo, Nur ed-Din's capital. Nur ed-Din's power was in the ascendant. He controlled nearly all the land east of the Orontes, and he was a perpetual danger to the survival of Antioch. The prince wanted to use all the new knights in a combined operation to capture Aleppo. The king was disinclined to lose more knights to save Antioch. He had duties to perform in Jerusalem. He exasperated the prince by saying that he had no intention of attacking Aleppo until he knew more about the situation in the Holy Land. His army left Antioch at night, in secret; the prince was unaware until it was already on the march.
By now, Conrad III had reached Jerusalem with the pathetic remnants of the German army. He was on excellent terms with Queen Melisende, who was acting as regent. To the two sovereigns the queen of Jerusalem confided her most secret desire: the conquest of Damascus, which was still guardedly in alliance with Jerusalem. This was the purest folly, as the
previous attack on Bosra had demonstrated only too clearly. Strategically, an attack on Aleppo made much more sense. But Melisende was accustomed to prevail, she had set her heart on Damascus, and accordingly the army under command of three kings, Louis, Conrad, and the young Baldwin, marched out of Jerusalem to conquer the one Muslim princedom whose friendship was essential to the survival of the Christian kingdom.
The attack on Damascus was a prolonged exercise in futility. Baldwin commanded the vanguard, Louis commanded the middle, Conrad commanded the rear guard. It appears that the army was abundantly provisioned and had no serious difficulty until it reached the orchards on the north and west of the city and was advancing on the river. The Damascenes on the opposite bank held up the advance, until Conrad, who came riding up to see why the army had failed to cross the river, killed a Turkish knight by slicing him through the neck and the left shoulder, so that his head, shoulder, and left arm were in one place and the rest of his body in another. Whereupon the Damascenes fled back to the safety of their walls.
The fighting continued for six days. The Crusaders chopped down the orchards and built stockades from which they could defend themselves against the continual sorties of the Muslims, who by this time had rallied, knowing that help had been summoned from far away. Then something went horribly wrong for the Crusaders. It is not possible to be sure what it was, but what seems likely is that there was a failure of nerve brought about by rumors of treachery in high places, which may have had no substance at all. Perhaps too, as the long battle continued, the Crusaders realized that nothing had been gained by the attack on Damascus, and that, even if they captured the city, they would be unable to hold it.
“From this time,” wrote William of Tyre, “the condition of the Latins in the East became visibly worse.”
The army withdrew from Damascus in good order on July 18. The Christians had not lost many men, but they had lost hope. Conrad III “perceived that the Lord had withdrawn favor from him,” and ordered ships that would take him back to Europe. Louis VII remained for a year, staying long enough to celebrate Easter at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The kings departed from the troubled kingdom ruled by Queen Melisende, who governed according to the vagaries of her whims. She knew nothing and learned nothing. Nor did the prince of Antioch apply himself to the proper government of his princedom. The people of Antioch saw him as an arbitrary ruler, who took very little interest in their fate. Proud and obstinate, despising the Muslims, he rode with a small company of men into land occupied by Nur ed-Din. Nur ed-Din's spies were everywhere. At night, Nur ed-Din's army crept up to the prince's camp, and in the morning there was a great slaughter. The prince fought well, but was hopelessly outnumbered. Nur ed-Din, who had some respect for him as a
warrior, ordered that his head and right arm should be cut off and sent as a trophy to the caliph, while the rest of his mutilated body was left on the battlefield.
There was no one now in Antioch to encourage and protect the people. Nur ed-Din swept out of the hinterland, led his army past Antioch and occupied the Monastery of St. Symeon, which lay high up in the mountains between Antioch and the sea. In sight of his army he bathed in the sea, and let it be known that the sea also had been conquered by him. He seized the fortress of Harim, which was only ten miles from Antioch, provisioned it, and left a garrison which could withstand a siege of many days. Nur ed-Din was a power to be reckoned with.
Aimery of Limoges, Patriarch of Antioch, emerged at this time as the one man who could weld the people of Antioch together. He had accumulated a vast fortune, and now he placed the treasury of the patriarchate at the service of the people and the army. He spent prodigally and efficiently. When the young Baldwin IIIâhe was now eighteen years oldâarrived in Antioch, he found confidence returning. He immediately took command and pronounced himself regent.
The prince of Antioch had died fighting. Joscelin II, Count of Edessa, died ingloriously. He was on his way to Antioch with a small escort, summoned by the patriarch, when he abruptly left the path to relieve the needs of nature. Some Muslims fell on him and carried him off to Aleppo, knowing there was a price on his head. Nur ed-Din, who despised him, kept him in a dungeon, where he died nine years later. His wife continued to rule over his territories, seeing that the castles were well manned and supplied with food and weapons. She was more of a soldier than he had ever been.
Two kings of Europe had departed; a prince was killed; a count vanished into the darkness of a foreign prison. More and more power fell into the hands of Baldwin III.
OF all the kings of Jerusalem Baldwin III is the one we know best. Contemporary historians were awed by the young king who seemed to have no vices, to be at once intelligent, deeply religious, and gentle to all people. Moreover, he possessed the gift of command. He was born at exactly the right time, for his kingdom was in danger of dissolution, and only by superb ability and great gifts of mind could it be maintained. Even so, before he died he may have known that the end was in sight.
William of Tyre, who described him minutely, remembered that in his youth he was an inveterate gambler and that throughout his life he was astonishingly frank, abruptly rebuking high officers of state in public rather than in private, making enemies unnecessarily. These were dangerous elements in his character, and they were to have dangerous consequences.
One of his major gambles took place in 1152, when he quarreled violently with his mother, who had held the regency for seven years which was past the time when Baldwin should, by law, be the single sovereign. Baldwin at twenty-two performed all the military offices demanded of him, presided over the court, and acted in public as though he possessed the real power. Yet he remained under the tutelage of his formidable mother. It was an absurd situation, and the king at long last decided to assert himself.
Queen Melisende was at that time under the influence of a certain Manasses of Hierges, a clever nobleman from the region of Liege, whom she had appointed Constable of the kingdom. Manasses was rich, powerful, and insolent, determined to retain his privileged place at all costs.
Baldwin set about his assumption of real power in two stages. First, he had himself crowned secretly in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the presence of only a handful of his knights, thus preventing his mother from being crowned with him. Secondly, the king decided on war. Manasses was closely besieged in his castle at Mirabel near Jaffa. He was captured, brought into the king's presence, and spared on condition that he leave the
kingdom and never return. Queen Melisende fortified Jerusalem against the king's army and barricaded herself in the citadel, appealing to the people, the nobles, and the clergy for their assistance in her righteous war against her son. The people and the nobles had grown weary of her; the clergy were deeply indebted to her. After a few days of token resistance, she surrendered and was allowed to leave for Nablus on condition that she, too, never return to Jerusalem. Baldwin had been perfectly prepared to take the citadel by force; he had mounted siege engines and hurled rocks against the walls, and, if necessary, would have killed his mother. This was a gamble that had to be taken to save the kingdom.
In Antioch, the Princess Constance still ruled, headstrong, improvident, pleasure-loving, and without any skill in government. A new Prince of Antioch had to be found for her, and Baldwin presented her with a list of three noblemen who possessed the requisite qualities of courage and resourcefulness. She wanted none of them. In her own good time she would choose a husband suitable to her needs. She found such a husband in Reynald of Châtillon, the feckless younger son of the count of Gien, who had accompanied Louis VII during the Second Crusade. Reynald was young, handsome, possessed of great courage, and to all outward appearances he would have made an excellent Prince of Antioch. Constance was in love with him and appears to have married him secretly even before securing the permission of the king, who was her suzerain. Baldwin appears to have permitted the marriage reluctantly. He had hoped she would marry someone closer to her own rank.
Reynald of Châtillon was one of those men who rise from obscure origins and somehow change the course of history. He, more than anyone else, was responsible for the fall of the kingdom. He endangered everything and everyone who came near him and seemed oblivious to the damage he caused. He could be counted upon to do improbable, absurd, and terrible things with a kind of casual grace, never realizing the cost.
He proved very early that he could be extremely vicious. As Prince of Antioch he regarded himself as the sole ruler whose judgments must never be questioned. The Patriarch Aimery of Limoges sometimes did question them in private, and unhappily these private conversations were reported to the prince. Reynald had the patriarch stripped and scourged till the blood came, then had him placed on the roof of the citadel and smeared all over with honey so that flies settled all over him while the sun burned him. The patriarch was in ill-health but remarkably resilient. Somehow he survived the punishment. News of Reynald's act of revenge reached Baldwin III in Jerusalem. The king was outraged and at once sent two of his councillors posthaste to Antioch with orders that Aimery should be released from captivity and permitted to resume his patriarchal functions. Reynald obeyed. Aimery left Antioch, and it was many years before he returned.
Reynald was the prince of the second most important city in the Holy
Land. Left to itself. Antioch could have added to its great wealth and stability. Reynald, however, possessed the instincts of a bandit chieftain. The Byzantines were warring against the Armenians in Cilicia; Reynald joined the Byzantines, hoping to add Cilicia to his princedom. When it became clear that the Byzantines regarded Cilicia as their own, he turned against them and sent an expedition to Cyprus, which belonged to Byzantium. The expedition was well organized and had one purpose: to obtain booty. The Cypriot army quickly collapsed; monasteries and nunneries were seized; nuns were raped; costly vestments, gold and silver vessels, and jewels were heaped up and carted away to the waiting ships. The raiders remained on the island for only a few days, but the damage was incalculable. Manuel Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor, then busy in Europe, quietly decided to take revenge upon an insolent and treacherous prince.
Meantime, Nur ed-Din continued to attempt to forge a united Muslim army against the Christians. Like his father, Zengi, he could be cruel and implacable; unlike him, he possessed a deeply contemplative temperament. He lived like an ascetic, fasted, and sometimes found himself in a state of religious exaltation. He was a man who lived on many levels: administrator, warrior, mystic. His mysticism was perhaps given strength by his chronic ill-health, while his intense religious feeling gave strength to the holy war he conducted against the Christians.
Baldwin III had a profound understanding of his most implacable enemy. His spies gave him accurate reports, and he sometimes took advantage of the periods when Nur ed-Din was bedridden. In theory the prince of Antioch was charged with defending the northeast, while the king defended Samaria, Judaea, and the Negev. In fact Baldwin III was in overall command of Christian territory in the Holy Land.
From the beginning of his reign Baldwin III meant to conquer Ascalon, which was heavily defended by the Egyptians because it was their northernmost outpost along the Palestinian coast. The people of Ascalon were all trained in arms. High walls, barbicans, and towers protected thecity on the landward side, and it was not easily approachable by sea because there were low shelving sands, the winds whipped up high waves, and there was no proper harbor. Nevertheless supplies could be brought into the city on small boats.
Baldwin proceeded with great care and intelligence. The navy of the kingdom patrolled the sea approaches; the royal fleet was under the command of Gerard of Sidon, and consisted of fifteen ships. Other ships were bought, stripped of their masts, and disassembled: from the wooden strakes they made siege engines and moving towers, covered with hides to prevent them from catching fire. On January 25, 1153, the king with his entire army, together with the grand masters of the Hospital and the Temple, the archbishops of Tyre, Caesarea, and Nazareth, and the patriarch holding high the True Cross, appeared outside the walls of Ascalon. With this
formidable army it was hoped that Ascalon would yield within a month.