The Crusader States

by Malcolm Barber

  In practice, however, Zengi's attack on Edessa was more opportunistic than such a teleological presentation suggests. Joscelin was not in residence and in the winter of 1144–5 Raymond was preoccupied by a conflict with Byzantine forces in Cilicia, a campaign in which he was chased back to the city of Antioch itself, leaving him with no alternative but to travel to Constantinople and submit himself as the emperor's vassal.36 The two outside powers most likely to help – Byzantium and Jerusalem – both had new rulers, hardly established after the deaths of John Comnenus and Fulk the previous year. In the county itself it was unlikely that an embittered and demoralised Armenian population would have offered Zengi any effective opposition, while the attritional effects of previous Muslim attacks over more than four decades must have undermined the infrastructure upon which the city depended.37

  ‘The amr ‘Imd al-Dn Atbek,’ says Ibn al-Qalanisi, ‘had long been desirous of it, ambitious to possess himself of it, and on the watch to seize any opportunity against it.’38 This is in keeping with Zengi's record, which was not that of a leader of the jihad, but one of a man always ambitious to extend his power whenever he perceived weakness within the fragmented structure of contemporary Iraq and Syria. As the son of Aq Sunqur, governor of Aleppo, who had been killed by Tutush in 1092, he had been brought up in the violent and unstable world of Seljuk politics. His base was always Mosul, where he had been adopted by its governor, Jikirmish, after his father's death, and where eventually, in 1127, he himself became atabeg under the sultan, having previously ruled Basra and Wasit in southern Iraq (1122–3). His interest in Syria was initially in Aleppo, which he had known as a child, and he took over there in June 1128. Damascus was an obvious goal after this, but, although he gained control of Homs, Hama and Baalbek in the late 1130s, he was never able to take the city, whose ruler and inhabitants were deeply fearful of the consequences of his rule. He was, indeed, seen as a grave threat in Syria by both Muslims and Christians, not only because of his military talents, but also because of his exceptionally cruel and treacherous behaviour.39 The pact between the Franks and Unur of Damascus in 1140 was made, says Ibn al-Qalanisi, in order to drive him away and ‘prevent him from attaining his ambition at Damascus, before he should become too firmly settled to be dislodged and his might should become invincible, and he should be victorious over the Frankish bands and attack their cities’.40 When Zengi was assassinated in September 1146, it is not surprising that suspicion fell on Damascus, to which the murderer fled after he had stabbed Zengi to death while he was asleep.41

  Zengi's death emboldened the Franks, for there was an inevitable hiatus before a new ruler established himself. His two sons, Saif al-Din Ghazi and Nur al-Din Mahmud, immediately took steps to secure their own positions, Saif al-Din (the elder) in his father's base in Mosul and Nur al-Din in Aleppo.42 Relatively few Turks were left in Edessa and messages were secretly sent to Count Joscelin. Late in 1146, in November or December, together with Baldwin, lord of Marash, he moved swiftly to take advantage of the situation and was let into the city at night. Baldwin's presence is significant, since his lordship lay on the edge of eastern Cilicia and was quite isolated from Antioch, over 100 miles to the south. After the fall of Edessa, it was very vulnerable, for it included not only Marash itself, but also the fortresses of Behesni, Raban and Kesoun to the north-east.43

  However, crucially, they could not take the citadel, having apparently left in such haste that they failed to bring siege equipment, and when Nur al-Din suddenly appeared with his ’askar, they found themselves trapped in the city. Desperate to save themselves, the Franks tried to break out, followed by many of the citizens, who feared retribution if they stayed. William of Tyre calls the scenes around the gates ‘a pitiable sight’, for not only armed knights, but the elderly, women, children and the sick were all struggling to escape, pressed from the rear by the garrison of the citadel and attacked from the front by Nur al-Din's forces. Most were hacked or trampled to death or suffocated in the crowd, and only a few of those on horseback managed to get away. Even so, many were killed by the pursuing Turks, including Baldwin of Marash, although Joscelin did reach the Euphrates and gain the safety of Samosata, to the north-west of Edessa.44

  Cruel as these deaths were, says Michael the Syrian, the victims did not suffer like those who were still alive. When they fell into the hands of the Turks, ‘they stripped them of their clothes and shoes. Beating them with sticks, they forced them, men and women, naked and with their hands tied behind their backs, to run with the horses. These perverted men pierced the guts of any who weakened or who fell to the ground, and left them to die on the road.’ The air, he says, was polluted with the stench of cadavers. In Michael's estimate, the two capitulations of Edessa had cost 30,000 lives, while another 16,000 had been taken into slavery. Only about 1,000 men had escaped and no women or children. The city itself was deserted, except for looters, leaving the bodies as food for vultures and jackals.45

  The reaction in Jerusalem was equally vigorous, but no less disastrous. Incited by a disaffected Armenian governor, who claimed he would surrender Bosra and Sarkhad to the Franks if suitably recompensed, in the spring of 1147 King Baldwin gathered together an army to invade the Hauran, south of Damascus. The Hauran consisted of a great plateau extending south to the Yarmuk River and east as far as the desert lands. It was around 47 miles from west to east, and its relative isolation from the crusader lands would have made it difficult to incorporate, which suggests that Baldwin may have intended to establish some kind of protectorate rather than direct rule. It was certainly a desirable area, since its fertile volcanic soils supported a flourishing production of wheat and barley and even in its drier parts there was a strong pastoral economy. Its main limitation was an uncertain water supply in those areas not fed by the waters of Mount Hermon and Gabal al-Arab to the south-west and south-east respectively. It was vital to Damascus, which relied on the region for much of its food. Bosra itself, situated on the traditional caravan routes, was an important commercial centre and for that reason had good fortifications, the centrepiece of which was the citadel, adapted from the Roman theatre, and reinforced by the Fatimids and the Seljuks in the eleventh century. An extensive system of reservoirs, in which were collected the winter rains, enabled the town to survive the summer droughts. Moreover, the combined effects of a legend that Muhammad had visited when he was a boy and the fact that, in 634, it had been the first Byzantine town to be captured by the Arabs meant that it had considerable emotive significance in the Muslim world.46 No ruler of Damascus would relinquish the Hauran without a tremendous struggle.

  As far as Unur was concerned, the Christian invasion was a violation of the agreement between them, although Baldwin attempted to stay within the parameters of convention by informing Unur in advance of his intentions. The chronology of events is by no means clear, but the delivery of this warning seems to have led to a considerable delay and it may have been during this time that Unur negotiated the marriage of one of his daughters to Nur al-Din, evidently as insurance, since it is unlikely that he would have trusted a son of Zengi any more than he did the Christians.47 There were, indeed, serious divisions about the wisdom of this expedition among the Christian leaders, although William of Tyre blamed ‘the rash populace’ for the decision to go ahead.48 In fact, the army had already assembled near Tiberias and the True Cross had been brought from Jerusalem and, as with a modern mobilisation, it was difficult to check the momentum.

  In any circumstances it was a risky enterprise, for Bosra was farther east than any of the other possessions of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and some may have questioned whether it could have been held even if they had managed to take it. Having crossed the mountains and entered what William calls ‘the plain of Medan’, west of Der'a on the Yarmuk River, they were almost at once hemmed in by Turkish forces in much greater numbers than they had expected. As their march forward became slower and slower, their ranks packed tighter together and they became short of water. T
he large numbers of Turks were probably the result of the arrival of Nur al-Din on 27 May, called in by Unur following the warning sent by Baldwin.49

  After several days Baldwin's forces actually came within sight of Bosra, only to learn that it had already been surrendered to the Turks, forcing the Franks to retreat in the same painful manner as they had advanced, but this time exacerbated by the firing of the crops and brushwood by the enemy. Offered a chance to escape using the horse (reputed to be the fastest in the army) of one of his vassals, John Gotman, Baldwin chose to stay, presumably because his reputation would never have recovered had he fled at this point.50 In William of Tyre's narrative, the army is only saved by miracles: first, when Robert, archbishop of Nazareth, raises the True Cross towards the flames, causing the wind to change direction; and, second, in a scene perhaps deliberately reminiscent of the accounts of the First Crusade, when an unknown knight riding a white horse and carrying a red standard leads the army back to Christian territory.51 More germane was Unur's decision ‘to restrain the Muslims and prevent them from attacking and pursuing the Franks on their retreat’.52 Ibn al-Qalanisi says that Unur feared a counterattack if they were provoked too much, but he also knew that he might still need the Frankish alliance if Nur al-Din became too powerful.

  The Christians in the East therefore failed to capitalise on the situation following Zengi's death. However, western opinion had been greatly shocked by the fall of Edessa, the seriousness of which had been reinforced by Hugh, bishop of Jabala, whom Otto, bishop of Freising, had seen at the papal curia in Viterbo making ‘pitiful lament concerning the peril of the Church beyond the sea since the capture of Edessa’. Present at the same time were envoys from Gregory III, the Armenian Catholicus (Patriarch), who must have brought news of their own even more immediate dangers.53 Both parties had their own separate reasons for being there, but the combined effect must have been to reinforce papal determination, and on 1 December 1145, Eugenius III issued the bull Quantum praedecessores, addressed to Louis VII of France and his nobles, calling on them to ‘gird themselves to oppose the multitude of the infidels who are now rejoicing in the victory they have gained over us’. Those who died during the expedition ‘will receive the fruit of everlasting recompense from the rewarder of all good people’.54 William of Tyre, who was studying in the West at this time, probably in Paris, says that the pope sent out preachers to many regions and that above all Bernard of Clairvaux stirred the hearts of people ‘with a longing to avenge such wrongs’. The effect, he says, was that Conrad, whom he describes as emperor of the Romans (although he was never crowned), and Louis, king of the Franks, together with many princes from both kingdoms, ‘embraced the word with an equal desire for the same end’.55

  In fact, the response was not as structured as William presents it, since Louis had already been desirous of making a pilgrimage to the East, while Conrad III had apparently not intended to go until persuaded by Bernard of Clairvaux at Christmas 1146.56 The pope reissued the bull on 1 March 1146, but the real impetus came when Bernard, supported by Louis VII, preached at a great gathering at Vézelay in Burgundy at the end of the month.57 Moreover, not all potential crusaders intended to succour the Holy Land, for they had their own ideas about how best their resources could be used. Indeed, although the expeditions that have become known as the Second Crusade represented the largest western response to the needs of the crusader states since their foundation, it is ironic that the increase of crusading interest that accompanied them also stimulated campaigns against the Wends east of the River Elbe and against the Moors in Iberia, leading to a diversification of crusading effort that did not prove to be in the long-term interests of the Latin settlers in the East. Although the Wendish Crusade between June and September 1147 produced little in the way of concrete results, it did inaugurate an era of military expansion in the Baltic, which eventually led to the conquest of the Slavs, while the Iberian expeditions captured Lisbon in October 1147, in conjunction with Anglo-Flemish fleets, and Almeria and Tortosa in October 1147 and December 1148 with the help of the Genoese.58

  Understandably William concentrates on the two great armies of Conrad and Louis, for there had been nothing on a comparable scale since 1101, and the kings of Germany and France had never before taken the Cross. The sheer size of the enterprise created serious problems. Whereas Fulk of Anjou and Thierry of Flanders had been able to travel by sea, in the mid-twelfth century it was not possible to transport armies on this scale by such means, so both kings decided to take their forces overland through Asia Minor. However, in 1097 and 1098, the first crusaders had twice been on the brink of disaster, while the majority of the crusaders of 1101 were either killed or captured. Relations with the Byzantine empire remained ambivalent and recent events in Antioch had done nothing to encourage a belief in Greek co-operation. In the late 1140s, neither the military and logistical obstacles nor the political problems had diminished.

  Therefore, when the two kings attended a great assembly at Palmarea, just outside Acre, on 24 June 1148, they did so as leaders of forces much undermined by journeys that had been traumatic for all concerned. Conrad's army had been defeated by the Turks near Dorylaeum around 25 October 1147, and had been forced to flee back to Nicaea. Many of the survivors returned home, but Conrad, sick and exhausted, made his way to the coast at Ephesus. Although the king presented this as a strategic retreat, intended to keep the army intact for the future, in reality he had lost so badly that the chronicler Otto of Freising, Conrad's half-brother, who was a participant, could not bear to write about what he describes as a tragedy.59 Conrad himself returned to Constantinople, before sailing to Acre, arriving in early April 1148. He then travelled to Jerusalem, where he was met by the patriarch and ceremonially led into the city.60 Conrad's relations with Emperor Manuel were initially uneasy, partly because of the behaviour of his army, but when he returned to Constantinople after the defeat at Dorylaeum, he was well treated by the emperor and was able to consolidate the link that had already been established when Manuel had married his wife's sister, Bertha of Sulzbach, in January 1146.

  Contacts between the French and the Greeks were more fraught – indeed, an element in Louis's army had even been willing to attack Constantinople – but eventually, in November 1147, the French too began their march across Asia Minor. Louis had visited Conrad to commiserate with him, but could not afford to wait until he had recovered from his illness and reassembled his army. Initially the French were more successful in that in late December they defeated the Turks at the ford on the Meander River, but ultimately they too found the logistics of the march beyond their capabilities. In early January 1148, as they made their way towards Attalia, their long and disjointed column was broken up by the Turks as it attempted to struggle across Mount Cadmus. Although the bulk of the army reached Attalia on 20 January, the chances of a successful march to Tarsus and from there to Antioch did not seem good. After some argument Louis and his wife, Eleanor, sailed to Saint Simeon, but there was insufficient shipping for all the army, and those obliged to travel through Cilicia suffered heavy losses.61

  Ibn al-Qalanisi was well informed about these disasters. Reports from Constantinople warned that huge armies were ‘making for the land of Islm’. The rulers of neighbouring lands, however, had time to make preparations and, when the armies appeared, waited to attack them in the high passes of the mountains.

  Death and slaughter commingled with the Franks until a vast number of them perished, and their sufferings from lack of foodstuffs, forage and supplies, or the costliness of them if they were to be had at all, destroyed multitudes of them by hunger and disease. Fresh reports of their losses and of the destruction of their numbers were constantly arriving until the end of the year 542 [i.e. to May 1148], with the result that men were restored to some degree of tranquillity of mind and began to gain some confidence in the failure of their enterprise, and their former distress and fear were alleviated in spite of the repeated reports of the activities of the Fra
nks.62

  Even so, Ibn al-Qalanisi acknowledges that large numbers of Franks did succeed in reaching Syria and Palestine, but that then ‘there was a divergence of views amongst them as to which of the lands of Islm and Syrian cites they should proceed to attack, but at length they came to an agreed decision to attack the city of Damascus’.63 Conrad III had set out with the intention of recovering Edessa; indeed, despite his defeat at Dorylaeum, in a letter to Wibald, abbot of Corvey, written from Constantinople at the end of February 1148, he was still talking of collecting a new army in Jerusalem at Easter and then pushing on to Edessa.64 An oath to Manuel that he would return via Constantinople presupposes a successful recapture of Edessa, for the Byzantines wanted to confirm their overlordship of the region before he returned to Germany.65

  Louis seems to have had a similar plan, but he had always intended to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and his determination to fulfil this vow must have been reinforced when he heard that Edessa was so wrecked as to be indefensible even if retaken.66 Not surprisingly, he could not be persuaded by Raymond of Antioch to attack Aleppo and Shaizar. According to William of Tyre, Raymond had hoped and believed that such conquests would be possible with the help of the French army, and had been planning as much before Louis left France. His elaborate welcome of the king reinforced the gifts sent beforehand, while his cultivation of Eleanor, who was the eldest daughter of William, count of Poitou, his brother, seems to have been motivated by the same end. The acquisition of Shaizar at least was quite feasible and would have strengthened his hand in the conflict with Byzantium.67