A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (20 page)

In May 1216 Pope Innocent went to Perugia
to try to settle the long feud between Genoa and Pisa, that both might
contribute to the transport of the Crusaders. There, after a short illness, he
died on 16 July. Few Papal reigns have been more splendid or more outwardly
triumphant. Yet his dearest ambition, to recover Jerusalem, was never realized.
Two days after his death the aged Cardinal Savelli was elected Pope, as
Honorius III.

1217: The Crusaders’ Delay

Honorius eagerly took over his great
predecessor’s programme. A few days after his accession he wrote to King John
at Acre to tell him that the Crusade was coming. John was growing anxious; for
his truce with al-Adil was due to expire next year. Honorius also wrote round
to the Kings of Europe. Few of them responded. In the far north King Ingi II of
Norway took the Cross, only to die next spring; and when the Scandinavian
expedition started out it was a paltry affair. King Andrew II of Hungary had
already taken the Cross, but had been excused by Innocent from fulfilling his
vow earlier because of civil war in his country. He now showed zeal, but he had
another motive. His Queen was the niece, through her mother, of the Latin
Emperor Henry of Constantinople, who was childless, and he had hopes of the
inheritance. But when Henry died in June 1216, her father, Peter of Courtenay,
was chosen in his place. King Andrew’s ardour began to fade; but he agreed at
last to have his army ready by the following summer. In the lower Rhineland
there was a good response to the preaching; and the Pope hoped for a large
fleet manned by Frisians. But here again there were delays. Nor was the news
from Palestine very encouraging. James of Vitry, who had recently been sent
there as Bishop of Acre, with instructions to rouse the local Latins, gave a
bitter report of what he found. The native Christians hated the Latins and
would prefer Moslem rule, while the Latins themselves led indolent, luxurious
and immoral lives and were completely Oriental. Their clergy was corrupt,
avaricious and intriguing. Only the Military Orders were worthy of
commendation, though the Italian colonists, who were wise enough to lead frugal
lives, kept some energy and enterprise; but the mutual jealousy of the great
Italian cities, Venice, Genoa and Pisa, made them unable ever to work together.
In fact, as Bishop James discovered, the Franks of Outremer had no desire for a
Crusade. Two decades of peace had added to their material prosperity. Since
Saladin’s death the Moslems showed no tendency to aggression, for they too were
profiting by the increased commerce. Merchandise from the interior filled the
quays of Acre and Tyre. The palace that John of Ibelin had built at Beirut bore
witness to revived prosperity. There were Italian colonies happily established
in Egypt. With the purchasing power of Western Europe steadily growing, there
was a fine future for the Mediterranean trade. But it all depended precariously
on the maintenance of peace.

Pope Honorius thought otherwise. He hoped
that a great expedition would be sailing from Sicily in the summer of 1217. But
when the summer came, though various companies of French knights had reached
the Italian ports, there were no ships. The King of Hungary’s army reached
Spalato in Dalmatia in August, and was joined there by Duke Leopold VI of
Austria and his army. The Frisian fleet only reached Portugal in July, and part
of it remained at Lisbon. It was in October that the rest sailed in to Gaeta,
too late to proceed to Palestine till the winter was over. At the end of July
the Pope ordered the Crusaders assembled in Italy and Sicily to proceed to
Cyprus; but still no transport was provided. At last in early September Duke
Leopold found a ship at Spalato to take his small company to Acre. His voyage
took only sixteen days. King Andrew followed him about a fortnight later; but
the Spalatans could not let him have more than two ships; so the bulk of his
army was left behind. About the same time King Hugh of Cyprus landed at Acre
with the troops that he could raise.

The harvest had been poor that year in
Syria, and it was difficult to feed an idle army. When the Kings arrived, John
of Brienne recommended an immediate campaign. On Friday, 3 November, the
Crusaders set out from Acre and marched up the plain of Esdraelon. Their
numbers, though not great, were larger than any that had been seen in Palestine
since the Third Crusade. Al-Adil, when he heard that the Christians were
assembling, had come with some troops to Palestine, but he had not expected so
early an invasion. He was outnumbered; so, when the Crusade advanced towards
Beisan, he retired, sending his son al-Mu’azzam to cover Jerusalem, while he
waited at Ajlun, ready to intercept any attack on Damascus. His fears were
scarcely justified. The Christian army lacked discipline. King John considered
himself as being in command, but the Austro-Hungarian troops looked only to
King Andrew and the Cypriots to King Hugh, while the Military Orders obeyed
their own leaders. Beisan was occupied and sacked. Then the Christians wandered
aimlessly across the Jordan and up the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee,
round past Capernaum and back through Galilee to Acre. Their chief occupation
had been the capture of relics. King Andrew was delighted to obtain one of the
water-jugs used at the marriage feast at Cana.

King John was dissatisfied and planned an
expedition of his own to destroy the fort that the Moslems had erected on Mount
Thabor. Neither Hugh nor Andrew joined him, nor would he wait for the Military
Orders. His first attack on the fort, on 3 December, failed, though in fact the
garrison was ready to surrender. When the Orders arrived two days later a
second assault was attempted, but in vain. Once more the army retreated to Acre.

1218: King Andrew returns Home

About the New Year a small band of
Hungarians, against local advice and without their King’s approval, planned a
foray into the Bekaa and was almost annihilated in a snowstorm when crossing
the Lebanon. Meanwhile King Andrew rode off with King Hugh to Tripoli, where
Bohemond IV, ex-Prince of Antioch, recently widowed of his first wife,
Plaisance of Jebail, celebrated his marriage to Hugh’s half-sister, Melisende.
There Hugh suddenly died, on 10 January, leaving the throne of Cyprus to an
eight-month-old boy, Henry, under the regency of his widow, Alice of Jerusalem.
King Andrew returned to Acre and announced his departure for Europe. He had
fulfilled his vow. He had recently added to his relic-collection the head of St
Stephen. It was time to go home. The Patriarch of Jerusalem pleaded with him
and threatened him in vain. He took his troops northward, through Tripoli and
Antioch, to Armenia, and thence, with a safe-conduct from the Seldjuk Sultan,
to Constantinople. His Crusade had achieved nothing.

Leopold of Austria remained behind. He was
short of money and had to borrow 50,000 besants from Guy Embriaco of Jebail,
but he was ready to work further for the Cross. King John used his help for the
refortification of Caesarea, while the Templars and Teutonic knights set about
the construction of a great castle at Athlit, just south of Carmel, the Castle
of the Pilgrims. Al-Adil meanwhile dismantled his fort on Mount Thabor. It was
too vulnerable and not worth its upkeep.

On 26 April 1218 the first half of the
Frisian fleet arrived at Acre, and a fortnight later the half that had wintered
at Lisbon. There was news that the French Crusaders massed in Italy were soon
to follow. King John at once took counsel about the best use to be made of the
newcomers. It had never been forgotten that King Richard had advised an attack
on Egypt; and the Lateran Council had also mentioned Egypt as the chief objective
for a Crusade. If the Moslems could be driven out of the Nile valley, not only
would they lose their richest province, but they would be unable to keep a
fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean; nor could they hold Jerusalem long against
a pincer attack coming from Acre and from Suez. With the Frisian ships at their
disposal the Crusaders now had the means for a great attack on the Delta.
Without hesitation it was decided that the first objective should be the port
of Damietta, the key to the Nile.

1218: The Crusade lands in Egypt

The Sultan al-Adil was an old man now and
had hoped to spend his latter years in peace. He had his worries in the north.
His nephew, az-Zahir of Aleppo, died in 1216, leaving as his successor a child
called al-Aziz, for whom a eunuch, Toghril, acted as regent. Az-Zahir’s
brother, Saladin’s eldest son, al-Afdal, emerged from his retirement at
Samosata to make a bid for the inheritance and summoned to his help the Seldjuk
Sultan of Konya, Kaikhaus. The Anatolian Seldjuks were now at the height of
their power. Byzantium was no more; and the Emperor of Nicaea was too busy
fighting the Franks to disturb them. The Danishmends had faded out. Their
Turcoman subjects were settled now and orderly, and prosperity was returning to
the peninsula. Early in 1218 Kaikhaus and al-Afdal swept into the territory of
Aleppo and advanced on the capital. The Regent Toghril, knowing al-Adil to be
threatened by the Crusade, appealed to his young master’s cousin, al-Ashraf of
Iraq, al-Adil’s third son. Al-Ashraf routed the Seldjuk army near Buza’a;
al-Afdal retired back to Samosata; and the Prince of Aleppo had to acknowledge
al-Ashraf as his overlord. But the Seldjuks remained a menace until the death
of Kaikhaus next year, when he was planning to intervene in a disputed
succession at Mosul. This enabled al-Ashraf to consolidate his power, and to
become a serious rival to his brothers further south.

Up to the last al-Adil seems to have hoped
that the Franks would not be so foolish as to break the peace. His son,
al-Malik al-Kamil, viceroy of Egypt, shared his hopes. Al-Kamil was on
excellent terms with the Venetians, with whom he had signed a commercial treaty
in 1208. In 1215 there were no fewer than 3000 European merchants in Egypt. The
sudden arrival that year at Alexandria of two Western lords with an armed
company had frightened the authorities, who had put the whole European colony
under temporary arrest. But good relations had been restored. In 1217 a new
Venetian embassy was cordially received by the viceroy. The ineffectual
meanderings of the Crusade of 1217 had not impressed the Moslems. They could
not believe that there was any danger now.

On Ascension Day, 24 May 1218, the
Crusading army, with King John in command, embarked at Acre in the Frisian
ships, and sailed down to Athlit to pick up further supplies. After a few hours
the ships lifted anchor, but the wind dropped. Only a few of them managed to
leave the anchorage and sail on to Egypt. They arrived off the Damietta mouth
of the Nile on the 27th, and anchored there to await their comrades. The
soldiers did not venture at first to try to land, as there was no senior
officer amongst them. But on the 29th, when still no fleet appeared, the
Archbishop of Nicosia, Eustorgius, persuaded them to accept Count Simon II of
Sarrebruck as their leader and to force a landing on the west bank of the river
mouth. There was very little opposition; and the operation was nearly complete
when the sails of the main Crusader fleet appeared over the horizon. Soon the
ships came in across the bar and King John, the Duke of Austria and the Grand
Masters of the three Military Orders stepped ashore.

Damietta lay two miles up the river, on
the east bank, with its rear protected by Lake Manzaleh. As the Franks’
experience in 1169 had shown, it could not be efficiently attacked except by
water as well as by land. As in 1169 a chain had been stretched across the
river a little below the town, from the east bank to a tower on an island close
to the west bank, blocking the only navigable channel; and a bridge of boats
lay behind the chain. The Crusaders made this tower their first objective.

When the Moslems realized that the Crusade
was directed against Egypt, al-Adil hastily recruited an army in Syria, while
al-Kamil marched the main Egyptian army northward from Cairo and encamped at
al-Adiliya, a few miles south of Damietta. But he had insufficient men and
ships to attack the Christian positions, though he reinforced the tower. The
first serious assault on the fort, at the end of June, failed. Oliver of
Paderborn, the future historian of the campaign, then suggested the making of a
new device, for which he and one of his fellow-citizens paid. It was a tower
built on two ships that were lashed together, covered with leather and fitted
with scaling-ladders. The fort could now be attacked from the river as well as
from the shore.

On Friday, 17 August, the Christian army
held a solemn service of intercession. A week later, on the afternoon of the
24th, the assault began. About twenty-four hours later, after a fierce
struggle, the Crusaders managed to establish themselves on the ramparts and
poured into the fort. The garrison fought on till only a hundred survivors
remained; then it surrendered. The booty found in the fort was immense, and the
victors made a small bridge of boats to carry it to the west bank. They then
hacked down the chain and bridge of boats across the main channel, and their
ships could sail through, up to the walls of Damietta.