Little Lost Lambs, page 57
Meanwhile Saladin and his amirs had studied the western wall, and found it too strong to be assailed. As the first Crusaders had done, eighty and eight years before, he moved his camp to the high ground opposite the northeast angle of the city. Here the siege engines were set up, and a barricade raised along the ditch to protect the miners who set to work to dig under the foundations of the wall.
The unskilled garrison had no proper engines to break down the barricade, and their counter-mines fell in. They manned the summit of the wall and plied their bows, but the veteran Mamluks and Turks made no attempt at first to storm the gray stone rampart. Instead, the miners enlarged their tunnels, propping up the foundation of the city wall as they dug beneath it—until the props were burned and a broad section of the wall cracked and fell in.
For this moment the Moslem swords-men had waited, and while the drums roared they swarmed up into the breach, to be met by arrows and sling-stones and javelins.
"I will take Jerusalem as the Christians took it," Saladin had said, "sword in hand."
The Moslems gained the breach and held it, fortifying it for their next effort. And that night a kind of miracle happened. While the priests and women marched in procession through the streets chanting the Miserere, the armed men led by the knights, surged out, with the battle cry of the Cross—
"God wills it!"
They drove the besiegers from the breach, and when the next day had passed with its din of weapons and outcry of the wounded and the maddened men, they still held fast in the breach, against the stones and shafts from the Moslem engines.
And they sent out envoys to Saladin, saying in the exultation of the hour that the men of Jerusalem had pledged themselves not to survive the loss of the city. They would slaughter the horses and cattle, and pile the furniture in the churches. They would set torches to the wood and burn the churches, with their altars and vestments and relics. Women and children would be put to the sword, and then the men, priests and warriors would sally out to find death in their turn.
While Saladin pondered their words, the patriarch Heraclius sought Balian d'Ibelin within the city.
"It is not well to destroy ourselves thus," he said. "For every man of us fifty women and children would be lost. Nay, it is better to yield the city and betake ourselves to Christian soil."
Balian listened and talked with the leaders of the men. The next day he went out under truce to confer with Saladin. What the knight and the sultan said is not known. Both were men of decision and they knew the plight of Jerusalem. The enlightened Moslem had no wish to lay the city in ruins, and he agreed to allow all the inhabitants to depart with arms and all possessions, except money, that they could take with them. But they must ransom themselves, paying ten pieces of gold for every man, five for a woman, and one for a child. He agreed to conduct them to the coast ports.
And Balian, who could not have hoped for such leniency, accepted the terms.
The next days saw a strange sight. All the gates remained closed except the Gate of David. From this a ceaseless cavalcade passed out. Women, in traveling cloaks, laden with bundles, rode forth with their children, while servants dragged cattle and herded sheep beside them. Sallow Armenians rode out on donkeys, followed by their women. Barefoot monks came out, with lowered heads, marching after their superiors. Behind them the bells of the Sepulchre were tolling.
The men of Jerusalem came forth—seneschal and hermit, lord and beggar and peasant. Among her ladies, veiled before the insolent eyes of the Moslem warriors, Sybil the queen appeared, with her sister and the widows of Hattin. Some went down the road silent in their pride, but others sought the sultan in a throng and fell on their knees to beseech that their husbands, the captives of Hattin, be released. A strange sight—the noblewomen of Outremer kneeling before a sultan of Islam. They did not beg in vain, for Saladin granted their plea.
All of them paid their ransom coins to the watchful officers, and Saladin, when the money was brought to him, gave it out to the Moslem soldiers.
The black robes of the sad priests filed past him, and the gray habits of the Augustinians. The patriarch Heraclius went out, with his private treasure hidden in the sacks upon his beasts. He carried out gold, although thousands of the poor remained weeping in the city. It was Saladin who released them—and who forbade his men to lay hand on the property of the patriarch—by announcing that those who had no money might pass out by the postern of St. Lazarus.
So the last of the exodus began, and the people of the alleys, with their rags and their sick and clinging children, passed across the stones of the Sepulchre court-yard, looking up at the silent bell tower and the arched gateways with their familiar stone figures. They looked back at the dome of the Temple of the Lord, and as they left the gate, their hands touched helplessly the gray stones.
Upon the road they stood without knowing what else to do, until detachments of Moslem cavalry formed them into parties and set out with them toward the coast. No miracle had saved the city, but a strange thing had happened. For the Moslems had taken possession of it without blood being shed. And this had been brought about by Saladin's mercy.
On the hill beyond the gate the people of Jerusalem saw dark figures climb to the dome of the Sepulchre and wrench from it the great gilt cross, casting it down to the ground. A shout rose and swelled as surf beats against the rocks of a shore—.
"Allahu-akbar—allah 'l allahu!"
IT SEEMED to the world of Islam a portent and a sign from the Lord. Hattin had ceased upon a Friday, and Jerusalem had fallen upon a Friday while the true believers prayed. Couriers rode to the distant lands, crying out their message—
"The praise to God, who hath over-turned the pride of the Nazarenes by the sword of the King, the Victory Bringer!"
Already the learned men of Damascus and Cairo were assembling, with the kadis and the readers of the Law, to make the first pilgrimage to Al Kuds—The Holy. For that was their name for Jerusalem.
The men of letters wrote a paean of victory, and people made a song of the downfall of the Christians.
Their city!
Fallen is their city, into the hands of the true friends of the Lord.
Fearful is their spirit, beholding before them only the Sword and the fire of Purgatory!
On the Temple enclosure thousands of hands were laboring at the Al Aksa mosque that had been for so long the palace of the Templars. The walled-up prayer niches were opened again, and the altar torn from the chapel. Mosaics upon the walls were whitewashed, and the heads smashed from marble images—since Muhammad had forbidden the worship of images. The stones were washed, and sprinkled with rose water. And in the corner toward Mecca a slender pulpit of carved wood was placed.
This had been fashioned by order of Nur ad-Din, to be kept until it could be placed in the Holy City. And Saladin, remembering it, had sent for it from Aleppo. Around it clean prayer carpets were spread, and men hastened to wash their feet and kneel in this sanctuary redeemed from the infidels, while the caller-to-prayer ascended the bell tower from which the bells had been thrown.
Swarthy faces were lifted reverently, when the chant of the muezzin sounded over the roofs. Mailed figures gathered, shoulder to shoulder, and brother smiled at brother.
O Dawn that has cast its shadows upon the unbelievers,
Shrouding them in eternal night!
O Dawn that has brought new life to Islam,
Shedding the radiance of everlasting day!
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*1 Salah ad-Din. The Crusaders and after them the historians of Europe have written his name Saladin for centuries.
*2 The Moslem chronicles relate that Saladin's amirs advised him at this time not to risk a battle but to withdraw and lay waste the lands of the Christian lords until they scattered. Saladin answered: "And when will such a gathering be gathered together again in one place before us? Nay, be ready to lead your men. God will do what He wills."
*3 Historians, reading the pages of William of Tyre, have explained the disaster by saying that these men of the army of Jerusalem were degenerate or weaklings compared to the earlier Crusaders, and so were defeated where the others gained victories. That is not so. These man did not lack courage, or experience. They were badly led, and they were opposed by a united army of Islam superior in numbers, and ably commanded by Saladin.
*4 Guy and Amalric of Lusignan, who were the king and the constable of Jerusalem. Arnat was Reginald of Kerak.
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CAMP FIRE
A FEW words from Harold Lamb relative to his historical piece, "Saladin's Holy War," in this issue. It ought to be repeated here that this, like the others of the series to follow, is an extract from the manuscript of the author's second volume on the Crusades, to be published in book form sometime in the spring.
Mr. Lamb has condensed and arranged these articles for Adventure, writing a special foreword in several cases, to serve both to orient the reader and to make each piece as complete in itself as possible. This will enable those of you who should happen to miss one (and you shouldn't!) to go right on with the next without losing the swing of the Crusades movement as a whole.
Probably as rich in color and drama as any in recorded history, the period covered includes roughly the years between the Fall of Jerusalem and the coming of the Mongols. Mighty figures playing the leading roles—Saladin, Richard the Lion Heart, Pope Innocent III, Baibars the Panther, St. Louis—and turbulent and stirring is the story of their exploits . None of his previous books, all splendidly received by the reading public, has offered Harold Lamb such an opportunity to display his mastery of the historical narrative. Nowhere has he succeeded so brilliantly in catching the spirit and movement of one of the world's great epics.
New York, N. Y.
The battle of Hattin was one of the turning points of the Crusades. In fact it was pretty much the turning paint. Until then the Moslems had looked on the Crusaders as invincible in ranged battle. Even upon the eve of Hattin, Saladin's emirs had urged him to withdraw and content himself with the old policy of raiding here and there, and retreating when the Christian army of Jerusalem took the field. Saladin, however, saw his opportunity to break the power of the armored knights, and the event proved that he was right.
Various stories are told to explain the disaster to the army of Jerusalem. Some chroniclers of the time accuse Raymond, prince of Galilee, of treachery. But it is clear that Raymond kept the field until the issue of the battle was decided. He had urged the other leaders not to advance, and had gone forward with them against his better judgment.
AND later-day writers have assumed that the Crusaders of Hattin were incapable and weak compared to the men of Godfrey of Bouillon and the first Baldwins, who conquered Palestine. That is not so. Individually the men who fought their way to the Horns of Hattin were as courageous, and certainly as able soldiers, as the first Crusaders. Only a decade before Hattin the Templars had routed Saladin on the southern coast, forcing the sultan to flee at the full speed of his horse for a day and a night to escape capture. After that, Reginald, or Renault, of Kerak had transported ships across the desert to the Red Sea and sailed down the coast to raid the Moslem holy cities—a bit of sheer daring that astonished the Moslems. The adventurers from Kerak were killed or taken prisoner almost to a man, and the Arab chroniclers said, after questioning the prisoners:
"The stories they told us of their hardships and exploits almost burst our hearts with astonishment."
This exploit of the wolf of Kerak aroused Saladin and his amirs to settle the issue once for all—to risk a decisive battle after generations of border warfare.
THE Crusaders lost this battle, but not because they were weaklings. They had no leader able to cope with Saladin. The lord of Kerak and the master of the Templars were responsible for the fatal advance toward Hattin, and Saladin, seeing clearly their mistake, hemmed in the wings of the Christian host and penned it on the barren plateau where it could not get at water.
A day and a night without water finished the Crusaders' horses, and in a few hours more the men themselves were done.
A LITTLE over a year ago I visited the battlefield of Hattin, and understood a bit of what the crusaders faced. The plateau from Nazareth to the edge of the Galilee depression is without shelter or water of any kind except occasional deep wells in the villages. The lake of Galilee lies some six hundred feet below sea level, and down by the shore of the lake—in the sunken valley—the air is bearable enough—cooled by the breeze over the water.
But on the height of Hattin over the lake the heat is stifling. The hot air from the depression seems to hang on the edge of the slope. I visited the place on a cloudy day in October. What the heat would do to a man under a clear sun, in early July—after a day's march in armor and under arms—can be imagined.
And after a day's fighting without water, and after the brush was set on fire!
A WORD as to Saladin's character. Recently the great sultan has been painted as a man merciful in all things. A kind of chivalrous saint. Saladin was more than that—a just man, and very wise. Moreover he held inviolate his given word.
There was nothing emotional in the mercy he displayed. He ordered the men of Kerak to be executed after the Mecca raid, as retribution, and the Templars after Hattin. With his own hand he struck down the lord of Kerak, as he had sworn to do.
HE GRANTED the best of terms to the Christian garrisons which surrendered after Hattin, because it was essential to him to take possession of the Crusaders' citadels before a new army could arrive from Europe to take the field against him. No, Saladin was not a sentimentalist. He was merciful beyond his age to women and children who appealed to him, while he dealt sternly with men under arms.
One of the wisest generals who ever lived, Sun Tzu, who won battles in China long before our era, said, "Never attack desperate men, and never attack men who have no way of retreat open." Saladin's policy of mercy made it easier to surrender than to resist, and we are beginning to understand how his sagacity gained more for Islam than his armies.
—HAROLD LAMB
THE LION HEART had reached the camp, but not the battle line. On a pallet covered with leopard skins, under the sun scorched linen pavilion, he tossed and twisted in the grip of fever, his lips and throat covered with sores. His long, powerful arms quivered with weakness.
Yet Richard of England was in the prime of life, being thirty-four years of age, and the very figure of a king. Red hair, with a tinge of gold, fell to his massive shoulders. His forehead was smooth and broad, the dark eyes beneath set wide apart. A short beard, close trimmed in the French fashion, covered his chin.
A man he was, confident in his own strength, and intolerant of weakness. He had a boy’s generosity and love of display; a restless humor that found satisfaction in the bravery of a tournament and the richness of the banquet board. He was never so pleased as when he wielded lance or sword, or tuned his own harp at a table. In every game he must have a hand, and in war he must be the leader.
On the voyage to Acre upon the coast of the Holy Land, he had lingered the best part of a year to champion a quarrel of his sister. His ships, scattered by a storm, had been ill treated by the Byzantines of Cyprus, and Richard had waded ashore to range the island, until he held the Byzantine prince a captive in silver chains, and his daughter a hostage. In the very cathedral of Cyprus he had married Berengaria of Navarre, his betrothed. Straightway he had embarked again with his bride, attended by his sister and the girl princess of Byzantium, and with new treasure in his coffers.
Richard cared not a jot for statecraft. His great hands were shaped for sword hilt and lance shaft rather than pen or parchment. Recklessly he had sold the royal prerogatives in England to raise money for the Crusade. He said he would have sold the city of London, if he could have found a chapman. In his veins ran the blood of Poitiers and Gascony—the hot blood of troubadours and errant princes—and he had lived, a voluntary exile from his father’s wrath at the French court until the death of his father had brought him the crown of England on the very eve of the Crusade. Fastidious, overbearing, and utterly brave, he had borne himself until now as a gallant prince-adventurer.
He had indeed set out upon the Crusade as if it were a new and most joyous adventure.
And on the voyage he had mortally offended his careful cousin, Philip, King of France—a youth no more than twenty-six years of age who had already reigned eleven years. A patient and disillusioned soul, cowardly in the face of personal danger, but unyielding where the welfare of his kingdom was at stake. Peering into the future, pondering frontier castles and new laws, even on the Crusade, Philip was the exact opposite of his errant cousin of England. Philip had pledged a truce with Richard, but Richard knew that he would break any pledge to gain an advantage. Philip begrudged the Crusade that put the careful scheming of years to the hazard. While Richard exulted in the hazard, and baited his timid comrade-enemy with no gentle words.
In these days Philip lingered moodily in his tent before Acre, out of joint with his surroundings, hearing uneasily that in this Holy Land William the Good of Sicily had died, and Frederick, Duke of Swabia, and the reverend Archbishop of Canterbury. His cousin, the Count of Flanders, lay dying, and even Richard was touched by the plague. Out of 12,000 Scandinavians who had come in their ships, not 200 survived. He heard that here more men fell in a single battle than in a year’s campaigning in France. Outside the ditch of the camp crosses covered the clay knolls—crosses as thick as the stones in the field.
