In Distant Lands

by Lars Brownworth

  They made terrible guests. Conrad's soldiers routinely attacked Byzantine citizens, looted stores, and had the nasty habit of breaking into homes and helping themselves to any item they found. The king himself was cool, offering no apology, and condescendingly accepted Manuel's repeated gifts.

  Summoning his immense reserves of tact, the emperor carefully ignored these insults. He still had hopes of recreating his alliance, and he needed the German monarch at the center. No matter what blandishments the emperor supplied, however, it was clear that Conrad just wanted to get on with his crusade. After a few final gifts, the Germans were ferried across to Anatolia.

  Conrad was aware that the French king, Louis VII, was on the way, but now that he was already in Asia Minor, he had no intention of sitting around and waiting for the French to show up. He departed for Antioch immediately, marching – in what he hoped was a favorable sign – over the same route that the First Crusade had taken nearly five decades before. But it was no longer 1099. The intervening years had given the Turks plenty of experience fighting western knights, and they had been careful students. A few days after Conrad's army had passed Nicaea, the Turks attacked. Lightly armed infantry launched darting strikes faster than the unwieldy knights could respond, while mounted archers poured arrows into the crusader ranks. The bewildered cavalry tried to form a line and charge, but broke under the withering fire.

  Within a few hours it was all over. Of the twenty thousand men that Conrad had started the day with, barely a tenth survived. The king slunk back to Nicaea in what is present-day northwestern Turkey, where he was joined by the remnants of his army. There he was gallingly given shelter by the imperial army until the French could arrive. The fact that the disaster happened at the exact spot where forty-eight years earlier the knights of the First Crusade had won their great victory against Kilij Arslan only added to the humiliation.

  The French Arrive

  At least the wait wasn't too long. Louis VII had left France only a month behind the Germans. His reception in Constantinople wasn’t as chilly as it deserved to be. There were many in the French camp who wondered openly if the Turks or the Byzantine were the greater threat to Christendom, and Louis was urged by many to conquer the city for the good of all Christians.

  Louis declined, but the fact that he had debated it at all was hardly calculated to put him in Manuel's good graces. Nevertheless, once again the emperor rolled out the red carpet, and every luxury that the capital of the Roman Empire could provide was put at the French monarch's disposal. This time, the charm offensive worked.

  The warming relations went in both directions. The French nobility was better behaved than their German counterparts, while the Byzantines were unceasingly amused by the king's feminine entourage. Many of the nobility had brought their wives, who had in turn brought swarms of maids, minstrels, and endless baggage trains containing costumes and cosmetics to guard against the inroads of time, war, or weather. Most delightful of all, however, was Louis' wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

  Eleanor was the niece of Raymond of Antioch, the man whose pig-headedness had led to the fall of Edessa. She was cultured, intelligent, and fabulously wealthy.88 As the daughter and sole heir of the Duke of Aquitaine, she had grown up in the spotlight. At fifteen she was considered the most eligible bachelorette in Europe; at seventeen she had become the Queen of France. Now twenty-five, she was captivating, accomplished, and completely bored with her dour, pious husband.

  It was only with the greatest reluctance that Eleanor left Constantinople. She had not been thrilled to exchange the comforts of Paris for the rigors of a long march, and the great city seemed like an oasis of culture. The only thing to look forward to now was a hard slog across miles of desolate landscape. Her hesitation was prescient.

  At Nicaea the army was joined by Conrad who wisely suggested that they should proceed along the coasts to stay in Byzantine territory as long as possible. The Aegean and Mediterranean coasts were beautiful and the time spent marching along them was mercifully uneventful. When they reached Ephesus, however, the trouble began. Conrad fell seriously ill and was forced to return to Constantinople, and despite still being in imperial territory there were continual Turkish attacks. Supplies also became problematic to obtain; the crusaders would reach a city, only to find that a Turkish raid had deprived it of all food the day before.

  In addition to the ambushes and harassment from the Muslims, the French were also tiring of their Byzantine allies. Manuel had sensibly ordered his troops to protect Byzantine citizens, and as food sources declined, clashes with the locals became more frequent. More time was spent, it seemed, fighting Christians than the enemies of the faith.

  More troubling was the emperor's relationship with the Islamic opponent. Manuel had long since concluded that even if they were successful, the crusaders were unlikely to return any captured cities to the empire. His relationships with his Muslim neighbors, on the other hand, were exactly where he wanted them. The Seljuks were weak and divided, and with a crusading army bearing down on them, were easily persuaded to agree to a treaty with generous terms.

  To the crusaders, this was vile treachery that confirmed their darkest suspicions. The pleasantries of the capital had only masked the corruption underneath. Manuel was roundly condemned as a smooth talking snake who was attempting to purposefully weaken the crusade.

  For Louis VII it was also the last straw. This long and painful march along the coast bore no resemblance to the grand procession he had imagined. At the next port he came to he announced that he would be sailing the rest of the way to Antioch. There weren't nearly enough ships to transport the entire army, but this was a minor detail. Ordering the clergy to board the nearest available ship, he followed with the court. The army was given what little provisions were left, some money to buy fresh supplies, and instructions to march to Antioch. He never saw them again. The ships had barely disappeared when a Turkish force swept down on the hapless crusaders and massacred them all.

  News of the disaster was a bitter blow to the crusader kingdoms. In the months that had elapsed since the western knights set out, Zengi's younger son Nūr al-Dīn had triumphed over his brothers in the civil war and largely rebuilt his father's dominions. He had quickly proved to be even more ferocious than Zengi. When Joscelin of Edessa, in a wild and slightly hare-brained exploit, briefly reoccupied his capital, Nūr al-Dīn had the entire population massacred, enslaved, or driven into exile. The city, which claimed to be the oldest Christian kingdom in the world, never recovered.89

  Raymond of Antioch

  No one was more concerned than Raymond of Antioch. Although he had no sympathy for Joscelin of Edessa, he was acutely aware of the danger in which he now found himself. A new, terrible enemy had appeared, the crusader states were weakened, and everyone had placed their hopes in the great host of Christian champions that were on the way. When crusader ships were spotted nearing its harbor, the citizens of Antioch crowded in, hoping to catch a glimpse of their savior. Instead, they were greeted by the sight of a beleaguered looking Louis VII disembarking with his court and a tiny remnant of the army.

  Whatever disappointment Raymond of Antioch felt at the arrival of his niece and the French king was carefully masked. Louis still had a handful of well-trained knights and his entire treasury. There were always men willing to sell their swords, and as Raymond knew, armies could be rebuilt. Louis and Eleanor were welcomed to Antioch, and the prince gallantly refused to talk business until they had recovered from the rigors of their journey. The king and queen spent several pleasant days riding in the hills around Antioch, doing their best to forget the recent horrors. Only when an appropriate time had passed did the Prince of Antioch gently float the idea of a campaign against nearby Aleppo.

  Despite Raymond's best efforts, however, the stay at Antioch – much like the crusade itself that had started so auspiciously – soon devolved into farce. The main problem was the deteriorating relationship between the king and queen. Only with gre
at effort had the two managed to preserve public decorum, but there was no disguising the coolness of their partnership. It certainly didn't help that Raymond cut such a dashing figure, or that Eleanor clearly preferred his company to that of her dour husband. Before long, whispers began to circulate that Eleanor's fondness for her uncle was beyond what was strictly proper.

  Adding to Louis' headaches was the fact that everyone wanted his attention. Raymond was growing bolder in his suggestions of an immediate advance against Aleppo, and had taken the step of enlisting Eleanor to argue on his behalf. Joscelin of Edessa was also in the city, urging him to march to recover the lost city, while the Patriarch of Jerusalem was begging just as insistently for him to hurry to Palestine to ensure the safety of Jerusalem.

  The wisest use of his strength would have been to join with Raymond and strike at Nūr al-Dīn, but in the end his distaste for his wife's uncle won out. Claiming that he had made a vow to reach Jerusalem before starting his crusading activities, he announced his imminent departure. Eleanor was furious. She had openly backed Raymond's plan and wasn't used to being brushed aside. If Louis did not change his mind and advance against Aleppo, she heatedly informed him, she would ask for a divorce on the grounds that they were too closely related.

  This was no idle threat. Royal marriages in medieval Europe were only considered between candidates of equal rank, and the practical result of a few centuries of this was that virtually everyone was related in some way to their spouse. Official cannon law forbade marriages within seven degrees, but in the interest of political necessities a blind eye was usually turned, until new realities made it convenient to discover the relationship. Since Louis and Eleanor were third cousins once removed – well within the prohibited range – a divorce would result in considerable embarrassment for Louis, not to mention the major territorial loss of Aquitaine.90

  The ultimatum was the final indignity. Louis had been madly in love with his young bride when they married, and had indulged her every whim. He had spent a fortune making his palace more comfortable for her in Paris, accommodated every one of her more worldly impulses, and outfitted their living quarters with the latest luxuries even when they baffled him. Still she insisted on being unhappy, rewarding his efforts with petulant sniping and temper tantrums that publicly undermined his authority. Enough was enough. Eleanor was placed under house arrest and dragged off against her will to Jerusalem.

  The dysfunction hardly improved when they reached the Holy City and discovered Conrad III waiting for them. The German king had been personally nursed back to health by the emperor Manuel, and a warm friendship had sprung up between them. In French eyes, this made Conrad either naive or a fool, since the Byzantines were largely blamed for the destruction of Louis' army. But there was no disputing Conrad's work ethic. In the few weeks he had been in the city, he had already raised a mercenary army. With the addition of Louis' troops as well as a fresh wave of stragglers from Provence, it was the largest Christian army ever assembled in Jerusalem.

  The question now was what to do with this huge force. Despite being the ostensible reason for the crusade in the first place, the recovery of Edessa wasn't considered. Neither was the defense of Antioch. After publicly dragging his wife out of the city amid swirling rumors of an incestuous affair with her uncle, he wasn't about to consider Raymond's plan. Besides, in the usual show of Christian disunity, Raymond had petulantly washed his hands of the crusade when Louis had refused to help him.

  Advance to Damascus

  After much deliberation, the decision was made to attack Damascus. Jerusalem currently had a treaty with the city, but that objection was easily overcome. For the crusaders freshly arrived from Europe it was barely a consideration at all. Any treaty with the Muslims was obviously null and void. Besides, as king Baldwin III pointed out to his knights, the Emir of Damascus had recently married his daughter off to Nūr al-Dīn, and it seemed only a matter of time before he betrayed them all. The prudent thing to do would be to strike first.

  Not only was this a terrible strategic blunder, it was also mind-numbingly foolish. Damascus was the only Muslim power that was eager to remain on good terms with the Christians. The marriage wasn't a sign of the emir's growing warmth with Aleppo, it was just the opposite. Unlike the crusaders, he recognized that Nūr al-Dīn was the greatest threat to his security. Marrying off his daughter to the atabeg was a desperate gamble to play both sides and preserve his independence. By attacking him, the crusaders guaranteed that they would face a united Muslim front, led by the all-powerful Nūr al-Dīn.

  The Emir of Damascus was dumbfounded when he awoke on the morning of July 24, 1148 to find a crusading army camped on his doorstep. Reports of the destruction of both French and German armies in Anatolia had reached him, and although there were rumors of a new army in Jerusalem, he certainly didn't expect it to attack its own ally. As he scrambled to assemble his army, messengers were sent to Nūr al-Dīn to send help.

  The crusaders, meanwhile, were finding plenty of wood to construct their own camp. Damascus was surrounded by gardens and fruit orchards that provided material for the engines of war. By the end of the first day, it seemed as if siege machines wouldn't even be needed. In a show of considerable bravery, Conrad III had scattered the Damascene army, forcing his way right up to the walls. The citizens of the city were so panicked that they began to barricade the streets and prepare for the worst.

  One final charge might have broken the demoralized defenders, but the decision was made to postpone the assault until the next day. That night, Muslim reinforcements flooded into Damascus, stiffening the garrison's resolve. Even worse, the morning revealed that the orchards were infested with Islamic guerrilla fighters. Faced with mounting casualties, the two kings withdrew to a nearby plain where they could regroup.

  Each move they made only worsened their situation. They had neglected to scout the territory they were moving to and discovered too late that there was no water. The blunder was so obvious that several knights refused to believe that it was an innocent mistake and a rumor started that the kings had been bribed by the Muslims. Instead of remedying the situation, however, the royal pair started to argue about what to do with the city when they captured it. Thirst quickly settled the matter. By July 28, only four days after they had arrived, it was clear to everyone that their position was hopeless.

  The emir of Damascus, well aware of the crusader's predicament, encouraged the retreat with generous bribes and the insinuation that he would revoke his alliance with Nūr al-Dīn if they left. The fact that the money proved to be counterfeit, and that the emir immediately sent horse archers to harass them as they decamped, only added to the humiliation.

  The entire fiasco had been an exercise in monumental stupidity. The largest Christian army ever assembled in Outremer had not only failed to win a single victory, it had alienated the crusader's only Muslim ally and immeasurably strengthened their great enemy, Nūr al-Dīn. Outremer would have been far better off if the crusaders had never left Europe.

  The same could also be said about the leaders of the Second Crusade. The dramatic failure left their reputations in tatters. Conrad III left Jerusalem immediately and made his way to Constantinople where he could lick his wounds in comfortable surroundings. He continued his warm friendship with the emperor, and the pair of them started planning a grand campaign against the Normans of southern Italy.

  Louis VII, on the other hand, dragged his feet, staying in the East for another ten months. This was partly due to his unwillingness to admit failure, but partly because he was genuinely concerned for the welfare of Christian Jerusalem and felt sure there was some useful service he could still perform. The other reason for his reticence was the appalling state of his marriage. Eleanor had been kept under armed guard ever since they had left Antioch, and the two were not on speaking terms. His fury over her behavior had long since faded, replaced by the dawning realization of the many humiliations that were in store when he returned to France. In
addition to the fiasco of the crusade and the resulting strain on his treasury and military, he would suffer the loss of Aquitaine, the embarrassment of a public annulment, and the headache of searching for a new spouse. All that could be avoided if he could change Eleanor's mind, but by 1149 it was painfully obvious to everyone that she would rather cut off her own arm. Bracing himself for the worst, Louis VII disembarked for France.91

  As frustrated as Louis was with his wife – and since he completely ignored his own role in the fiasco, his anger was considerable – Eleanor wasn't the recipient of most of his spleen. In his mind, the author of most of his misfortunes was the Byzantine emperor. Manuel had claimed to be an ally, but had constantly obstructed the crusader's progress while faithlessly making accommodations with the enemy. Worst of all, Louis was convinced that the emperor had treacherously kept the Muslims informed of the route the crusaders had taken, and therefore bore direct responsibility for the slaughter of the French army. The true enemy of Christendom, he believed, was sitting on the throne of Constantinople.

  The moment he got back to France, Louis allied with the Normans of Italy to attack Byzantium. Ironically, this came only a few months after Conrad III had concluded an alliance of his own with the emperor Manuel. If it hadn't been for Pope Eugenius III's lack of enthusiasm for what amounted to a Christian civil war, Conrad and Louis, the two former allies and champions of the faith, would have been fighting against each other. It was a fitting illustration of the complete and utter dysfunction of the Second Crusade.