The scouts were sent ahead, and soon we saw the great cloud of dust raised by the enemy. We had no way of knowing whether they were coming toward us or going away from us. On the following day as we were marching among the mountains of Gilboa, the mountains on our right and the marshes on our left, we came to Bethany, where the enemy had pitched their tents, but when they saw the coming of the army of the living God marching in good order and apparently in vast numbers they fled after folding their tents, leaving to Christian horsemen the ravaging of the land.
. . . we made two stops along the shores of Lake Galilee to see the sights associated with our Lord who deigned to work miracles and to converse with men, whom He honored with his bodily presence. We came to Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter, now reduced to a pathetically small village. We saw the places where Christ summoned the disciples, and walked on water, and fed the multitude in the desert, and where He climbed up in the mountain to pray, and the place where He ate with the disciples after the Resurrection; and then we came to Capharnaum and we returned to Acre, mounting our sick and poor on beasts of burden.
During our second cavalry expedition we came to the foot of Mount Tabor. We thought at first there was no water there, but we dug deep and found water in abundance. Our leaders thought there was no way we could climb the mountain. They deliberated, and a Saracen boy told them how the castle could be taken. And so on the first Sunday after our arrival, while the Gospel was being
read aloud: “
Ite in castellum quod contra vos est
: Go into the village over against you,” the Patriarch marched ahead, bearing the Cross, followed by the bishops and the priests all praying and singing, and we made our way according to the slope of the mountain; and although it was very high and steep, and although it was nearly impossible to climb except by way of a narrow path, the knights and the foot soldiers, and all those who rode on horseback or walked, all of them made the ascent with enthusiasm.
John, King of Jerusalem, followed by the army of the Lord, overwhelmed the castle's governor and an emir with the first onslaught. The castle guards who poured out of the gates with intrepidity in order to defend the approaches, fled ignominiously, being seized with terror. King John behaved admirably as he raced up the mountain but he came down ingloriously. While the enemy remained shut up within the castle, the kings of Jerusalem and of Cyprus together with the Master of the Hospital and the other barons retired shamefully on one side of the mountain to decide on the proper course to take. The noble Duke of Austria, who took no part in these deliberations, was fighting the infidels on the other side of the mountain, and he could not find us, for we were already at the top. . . .
The castle on Mount Tabor fell to the Christian army; large numbers of prisoners were taken, and James of Vitry, the Bishop of Acre, had the pleasure of baptizing many Saracen children who fell into his hands either by gift or because he paid for them with gold coins. What is remarkable in his account of the expedition is its casualness, the sense of things happening haphazardly, without order and without logic. We see the clouds of dustâare they coming or going? The duke of Austria vanishes around the other side of the mountain, and it appears that no one is attempting to find out what happened to him. The first expedition disintegrates into a sightseeing tour.
Yet there were deeply serious purposes in these marches through the Galilee. The Crusaders were testing the enemy's mettle; they were gathering intelligence; they were deciding on the next point of attack. The Templars were the chief strategists, and their opinions on military matters were always listened to with respect. The master of the Temple hoped to attack Nablus, as a stepping stone to the recapture of Jerusalem. At some time in the winter or the early spring, the attack on Nablus was abandoned and it was generally agreed that an attack on Damietta would be more rewarding.
Meanwhile one of the kings was departing. This was King Andrew II of Hungary, who ruled over a vast territory comprising present-day Hungary,
Dalmatia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Galicia. He announced that he had come on pilgrimage and the pilgrimage was over. He had acquired the head of St. Stephen, and he had also acquired one of the jugs used at the marriage feast at Cana. He announced his departure without warning; the patriarch of Jerusalem flew into a rage, but the king was adamant. He marched north to Armenia, received a safe-conduct from the Turks as far as Constantinople, and another safe-conduct through Byzantine territory until he reached his own capital. The Christian army at Acre was incensed: they had hoped for so much more from the king, whose wealth was said to be greater than that of any other king in Europe.
Meanwhile the Crusaders were busy strengthening their fortifications. At the orders of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, and with the help of Duke Leopold of Austria, the fortifications at Caesarea were vastly improved, and the Templars and the Teutonic Knights, with the help of thousands of pilgrims, set about building on a spit of land jutting into the sea about ten miles south of Haifa the great fortress they called Chastel Pèlerin, the Castle of the Pilgrims. It was a perfect site, impregnable by land or by sea, and the fortress they built was so strong that it was never successfully besieged. On both sides there were shelving bays where ships could berth. Fishing boats sailed out from the fortress, and returned with their catch. Because it jutted out from the land and was visible for many miles around, Chastel Pèlerin represented the presence of Frankish power to remarkable degree.
Chastel Pèlerin was built on the ruins of an ancient Phoenician fortress. Construction of the fortress had been going on for seven weeks when workmen came upon a hoard of Phoenician gold coins. These coins, which they regarded as a gift from God, came to the Templars at a time when they were wondering how they could afford to build so vast a building. Thereafter, work went on at an increased pace: all the walls and towers, and most of the interior, were completed within a year. While still under construction, it was attacked by Malik al-Mu'azzam's army. (Al-Mu'azzam was the king of Damascus.) Siege engines were brought up; flaming arrows were shot over the walls; every device of warfare was employed to compel the Templars to surrender.
A month later, having accomplished nothing at all, Malik al-Mu'azzam abandoned the effort. He was like a man throwing tennis balls at a plate of steel; he made no dent in the fortress.
In May 1218, with the arrival of the long-promised Frisian fleet, the affairs of the kingdom suddenly improved. The pope, who had summoned the fleet into existence, had called for the utmost speed; the fleet commanders had spent a year on the journey from the Frisian Islands to Acre, stopping at Dartmouth, Brest, Lisbon, and various other places on the way. Originally the fleet consisted of over 220 ships, almost certainly the largest armada put together up to this time. Some of these ships were built
in shipyards along the Rhine. While they were being built, according to James of Vitry, strange and compelling signs appeared in the sky. In the Frisian Islands, in the province of Cologne, and in the diocese of Münster, men saw three Crosses in the sky, one white and turned to the north, another also white and turned to the south, and between them a Cross of many colors on which they could make out the shape of Christ with outflungarms, his hands and feet nailed down, and his head bent forward.
Nearly half the Frisian fleet arrived at the end of May. Most of these ships came from the Rhineland. The Kingdom of Jerusalem had a small fleet of its own, and there were therefore about a hundred ships lying at anchor in the Bay of Acre. The Germans and Frisians had brought provisions and supplies. The shock that followed the departure of the king of Hungary and his army was wearing off and the Crusaders were of good heart again.
In retrospect, they could see that they had lived through a terrible winter. Although the expeditions through the Galilee had been important for testing the enemy's strength, they had accomplished nothing else of value. There had been a feeling of acute distress, the crops had failed, they had few horses, and the expectation of reinforcements from Europe were not being fulfilled. The mood of the Crusaders before the arrival of the fleet is clearly revealed in a letter written by William of Chartres to the pope at some time during that long winter.
EXCERPTS FROM A LETTER FROM WILLIAM OF CHARTRES, MASTER OF THE TEMPLE, TO THE POPE HONORIUS III, FROM ACRE SOMETIME IN THE WINTER OF 1217.
TO THE VERY REVEREND FATHER IN CHRIST, the Lord Honorius, by the Providence of God Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman Church, Brother William of Chartres, humble master of the poor chivalry of the Temple, proffereth all due obedience and reverence with the kiss of the foot.
. . . [I]n these parts corn and barley and all the necessities of life have become extraordinarily dear. This year the harvest has utterly disappointed the expectations of our husbandmen, and has almost totally failed. The natives, indeed, now depend altogether on the corn imported from the West, but as yet very little foreign grain has been received, and to increase our uneasiness nearly all our knights are dismounted and we cannot secure enough horses to replace those which have perished. It is therefore all the more important, O Holy Father, to warn all those who deign to assume the Cross of this scarcity that they may furnish themselves with plentiful supplies of grain and horses.
Before the arrival of the King of Hungary and the Duke of
Austria we had decided to march against the city of Naplous and to bring the Saracen chief Coradin to an engagement with our forces, and we have all now decided to undertake an expedition into Egypt by sea and by land, and by destroying the city of Damietta we shall be able to command the road to Jerusalem.
The strange belief that Damietta controlled the road to Jerusalem had become by this time an obsession of the Crusaders. Damietta was in fact a place to be avoided, a place of misery and pestilence, certain to be the graveyard of innumerable soldiers. William of Chartres died a few months after writing this letter in the pestilential camp near Damietta.
Once the council of war, which consisted of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, Duke Leopold of Austria, and the masters of the Temple, the Hospital, and the Teutonic Knights, had decided upon attacking Damietta, there was no turning back.
Although they were still expecting the rest of the Frisian fleet, it was decided that with a hundred ships they could safely attempt an attack on Egypt. The fleet set sail without a commander in chief. It assembled off Chastel Pèlerin, saluting the impregnable fortress, which shone like a white headland. They were about to set sail for the south when the wind dropped. Only a small part of the fleet was able to catch any wind. This small part succeeded in sailing south and anchored off the Damietta mouth of the Nile to await the main fleet. Six days later, when it arrived, John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, assumed the role of commander in chief.
There had already been a landing and the Christian army had put up tents on the west bank of the river two miles from Damietta. But heavy chains moored on one side of the river to a small fortress blocked the only navigable channel. The chronicler Oliver of Paderborn thought of a simple scheme for attacking the fortress. He lashed two ships together, built a high mast equipped with scaling ladders, and covered mast and ships with skins so that they could not be set on fire. In his chronicle he lovingly describes the making of this floating fortress.
Prayers were recited, and Ralph of Merencourt, Patriarch of Jerusalem, lay prostrate in the dust before a portion of the True Cross which he had brought from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Success depended upon capturing the fortress. To Oliver's delight his floating fortress was able to grapple with the fortress on land. The Egyptians realized they were in danger. They succeeded in setting fire to the floating fortress, but the Christians put out the fire; and went on, with the help of a flying bridge, to batter their way into the interior of the fortress. The surviving Egyptians, numbering a hundred men, surrendered to the Duke of Austria and were held prisoner.
With the fortress captured, it was an easy matter to cut the chains. The advance on Damietta now began.
If the Christians had sailed up to the walls of Damietta, they might have captured the city, which was still unprepared for a frontal assault. Instead they waited for reinforcements, deliberated, and were cautious to excess.
The capture of the fortress took place in the middle of August. In the middle of September, the Papal Legate, Cardinal Pelagius, arrived on the scene, claiming that he had been appointed commander in chief by the pope. A Spaniard with a sharp satirical mind, harsh, obdurate, singularly ignorant of warfare, and always tactless, he went out of his way to insult King John of Brienne, insisting that he, the cardinal, would lead the army, hitherto ill led, to victory, and he pointed to the failures of the Crusaders as a sign that a new commander was long overdue.
Cardinal Pelagius had brought a small army with him, and at about the same time a French and English contingent had arrived to swell the ranks of the Crusaders. Among the Englishmen was Ranulf, Earl of Chester, an extremely brave but also a most bloodthirsty man.
In November a tempest nearly drowned the Crusaders. In the middle of the night the waters rose, tents floated away, food supplies were ruined, and when the floods subsided, they saw “the fishes of the sea and of the river fearlessly penetrating our sleeping quarters and we were able to catch them with our hands, a delicacy we would cheerfully have foregone.” So wrote the chronicler Oliver of Paderborn.
With the tempest came the plague: fever, pains in the legs and arms, rotting of the teeth and gums, and soon parts of the body turned black. Men died in agony, with faces, arms, and legs eaten away. Oliver of Paderborn says that those who survived until the spring were given back their health, but perhaps a fifth of the Crusaders died in that long, cold winter.