A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (2 page)

Palestine was a poor country. Its prosperity in
Roman times had not outlasted the Persian invasions; and constant wars since
the coming of the Turks had interrupted its partial recovery under the Caliphs.
The land was better wooded than in modern times. Despite the devastations of
the Persians and the slow destruction by peasants and by goats, there were
still great forests in Galilee and along the ridge of Carmel and round Samaria,
and a pine-forest by the coast, south of Caesarea. They brought moisture to a
countryside naturally short of water. Cornfields flourished in the plain of
Esdraelon. The tropical valley of the Jordan produced bananas and other exotic
fruits. But for the recent wars, the coastal plain, with its crops and its
gardens where vegetables and the bitter orange were grown, would have been
prosperous; and many of the mountain villages were surrounded with olive-groves
and fruit orchards. But in the main the country was arid and the soil shallow
and poor, especially round Jerusalem. There was no big industry in any of its
towns. Even when the kingdom was at its zenith, its kings never were as rich as
the Counts of Tripoli or the Princes of Antioch. The main source of wealth came
from tolls; for the fertile lands across the Jordan, Moab and the Jaulan, found
their natural outlet in the ports of the Palestine coast. Merchandise
travelling from Syria to Egypt passed along Palestinian roads; and caravans
laden with spices from southern Arabia had, down the ages, travelled through
the Negeb to the Mediterranean Sea. But to ensure this source it was necessary
to block all other outlets. The whole frontier from the Gulf of Akaba to Mount
Hermon, and even from the Lebanon to the Euphrates, must be controlled by the
Franks.

Need for a
Seaport

Palestine was, moreover, an insalubrious
country. Jerusalem, with its mountain air and its Roman sanitation, was healthy
enough, except when the
khamsin
blew, sultry and dust-laden from the
south. But the warmer plains, whose fertility attracted the invaders, were the
homes of disease, with their stagnant waters, their mosquitoes and their flies.
Malaria, typhoid and dysentery flourished there. Epidemics such as cholera and
the plague spread rapidly through the crowded insanitary villages. Lepers
abounded. The western knights and soldiers, with their unsuitable clothes,
their heavy appetites and their ignorance of personal hygiene, easily succumbed
to these diseases. The rate of mortality was even higher among the children
that they bred there, especially amongst their sons. The cruel prank of nature
that makes baby girls tougher than their brothers was in future generations to
present a constant political problem to the Frankish kingdom. Later, as the
colonists learned to follow native customs, their chances of a long life
improved; but the death-rate remained formidable among their infants. It was
soon obvious that if the Frankish population of Palestine was to be kept at a
sufficient strength to dominate the country, there must be continuous and ample
immigration from Europe.

King Baldwin’s first task must be to secure the
defence of his kingdom. This would involve offensive action. Arsuf and Caesarea
must be taken and their territories absorbed. Ascalon, lost to the Christians
in 1099 owing to Godfrey’s jealousy of Count Raymond, must be annexed and the
Egyptian frontier pushed to the south if the access from Jerusalem to the coast
were to be made safe. Advance posts must be established in Transjordan and to
the south of the Dead Sea. He must try to link up his kingdom with the
Christian states to the north, to open the road for pilgrims and more
immigrants; he must advance as far as possible himself along the coast and must
encourage the formation of other Christian states in Syria. He must also secure
for his kingdom a better seaport than either Jaffa or Haifa. For Jaffa was an
open roadstead, too shallow for larger ships to come close inshore. Landings
were made in small ferry-boats, and were full of danger if any wind were
blowing. If the wind were strong, the ships themselves were in danger. The day
after Saewulf landed there in 1102, he witnessed the wrecking of more than
twenty ships of the flotilla with which he had voyaged, and the drowning of
over a thousand pilgrims. The roadstead at Haifa was deeper and was protected
from the south and west winds by the rampart of Mount Carmel, but was
dangerously exposed to the north wind. The only port on the Palestinian coast
that was safe in all weathers was Acre. For commercial as well as strategical
reasons the conquest of Acre must be achieved.

For his internal government Baldwin’s chief
need was for men and money. He could not hope to build up his kingdom if he
were not rich and powerful enough to control his vassals. Manpower could only
be obtained by welcoming immigration and by inducing the native Christians to
co-operate with him. Money could be obtained by encouraging commerce with the
neighbouring countries and by taking full advantage of the pious desires of the
faithful in Europe to subsidize and endow establishments in the Holy Land. But
such endowments would be made in favour of the Church. To ensure that they
would be used to the advantage of the whole kingdom he must be master of the
Church.

The Franks’ greatest asset was the disunity of
the Moslem world. It was owing to the jealousies of the Moslem leaders and
their refusal to work together that the First Crusade had achieved its object.
The Shia Moslems, headed by the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, loathed the Sunni
Turks and the Caliph of Baghdad quite as much as they loathed the Christians.
Amongst the Turks there was perpetual rivalry between the Seldjuks and the
Danishmends, between the Ortoqids and the house of Tutush, and between the two
sons of Tutush themselves. Individual atabegs, such as Kerbogha, added to the
confusion by their personal ambitions, while minor Arab dynasties, such as the
Banu Ammar of Tripoli and the Munqidhites of Shaizar profited by the disorder
to maintain a precarious independence. The success of the Crusade only added to
this ineffectual chaos. Despondency and mutual recrimination made it still
harder for the Moslem princes to co-operate.

The Christians had taken advantage of the
discomfiture of Islam. In the north Byzantium, directed by the supple genius of
the Emperor Alexius, had utilized the Crusade to recover control of western
Asia Minor; and the Byzantine fleet had recently brought the whole coast-line
of the peninsula back into the Emperor’s power. Even the Syrian port of
Lattakieh was, owing to the help of Raymond of Toulouse, once more an imperial
possession. The Armenian principalities of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus
mountains, which had been threatened with extinction by the Turks, could now
feel hopeful of survival. And the Crusade had given birth to two Frankish
principalities, which drove a wedge into the Moslem world.

The Principality
of Antioch

Of these the wealthier and more secure was the
principality of Antioch, founded by the Norman Bohemond, in spite of the
opposition of his leading Crusader colleague, Raymond of Toulouse, and of his
own sworn obligations to the Emperor Alexius. It did not cover a large area; it
consisted of the lower Orontes valley, the plain of Antioch and the Amanus
range, with the two seaports of Alexandretta and Saint Symeon. But Antioch
itself, despite its recent vicissitudes, was a very rich city. Its factories
produced silk cloths and carpets, glass and pottery and soap. Caravans from
Aleppo and Mesopotamia ignored the wars between Moslem and Christian to pass
through its gates on their way to the sea. The population of the principality
was almost entirely Christian, Greeks and Orthodox Syrians, Syrian Jacobites
and a few Nestorians, and Armenians, all of them so jealous of each other that
it was easy for the Normans to control them. The chief external danger came
less from the Moslems than from Byzantium. The Emperor considered that he had
been cheated over the possession of Antioch; and now, with the Cilician ports
and Lattakieh under his control and his navy based on Cyprus, he awaited an
opportunity to reassert his rights. The Orthodox within the principality were
eager to see Byzantine rule restored; but the Normans could play off against
them the Armenians and the Jacobites. Antioch had suffered a severe blow in the
summer of 1100, when Bohemond led his expedition to the upper Euphrates, and
his army was destroyed by the Danishmend emir and he himself taken into
captivity. But apart from the loss of man-power, the disaster had not done
lasting harm to the principality. The prompt action of King Baldwin, who was
then still Count of Edessa, had prevented the Turks from following up their
victory; and a few months later Tancred came up from Palestine to take over the
regency during his uncle’s imprisonment. In Tancred the Normans found a leader
as energetic and unscrupulous as Bohemond.

The second Frankish state, the county of
Edessa, served as a buffer to protect Antioch from the Moslems. The county, now
ruled by Baldwin’s cousin and namesake, Baldwin of Le Bourg, was larger than
the principality. It sprawled on either side of the Euphrates, from Ravendel
and Aintab to a vague frontier in the Jezireh, to the east of the city of Edessa.
It lacked natural boundaries and a homogeneous population; for though it was
mainly occupied by Christians, Syrian Jacobites and Armenians, it included
Moslem towns such as Saruj. The Franks could not hope to set up a centralized
government. Instead, they ruled by garrisoning a few strong fortresses from
which they could levy taxes and tribute on the surrounding villages and could
embark on profitable raids across the border. The whole district had always
been border-country, subject to unending warfare, but it contained fertile land
and many prosperous towns. From his taxes and his raids the Count of Edessa
could raise an adequate revenue. Baldwin I was comparatively far wealthier as
Count of Edessa than as King of Jerusalem.

Moslem Cities on
the Coast

The chief need of the two states was man-power;
and even here their need was less than that of Jerusalem. In Palestine the
Christian population had been forbidden to bear arms since first the Moslems
had invaded the land. There were no native soldiers on whom the new rulers
could rely. But Antioch and Edessa lay within the old frontiers of Byzantium.
There were Christians there with a long tradition of military prowess, notably
the Armenians. If the Armenians would work in with the Frankish prince, he would
have an army ready-made. Both Bohemond and Tancred at Antioch and Baldwin I and
Baldwin II at Edessa, tried at first to conciliate the Armenians. But they
proved themselves to be unreliable and treacherous. They could not be given
places of trust. The rulers of Antioch and of Edessa needed western-born
knights to lead their regiments and to command their castles, and western-born
clerics to administer their government. But while Antioch offered to immigrants
the prospect of a fairly secure existence, Edessa could only attract
adventurers ready to lead the life of a brigand-chief.

Jerusalem was divided from these two northern
Frankish states by a long stretch of territory ruled by a number of jealous
Moslem potentates. The coast immediately to the north of the kingdom was held
by four rich seaports, Acre, Tyre, Sidon and Beirut, each owing an allegiance
to Egypt that waxed and waned according to the proximity of the Egyptian fleet.
North of Beirut was the emirate of the Banu Ammar, with their capital at Tripoli.
The emir of Tripoli had recently profited by the departure of the Crusaders to
the south to extend his dominion as far as Tortosa.
Jabala, between
Tortosa and Lattakieh, was in the hands of a local magnate, the Qadi ibn
Sulaiha, who in the summer of 1101 handed it over to Toghtekin, the atabeg of
Duqaq of Damascus, from whom it passed to the Banu Ammar. In the Nosairi
mountains, behind Tortosa and Jabala, were the small emirates of the Banu
Muhris of Marqab and Qadmus and the Banu Amrun of Kahf.
The upper
Orontes valley was divided between the adventurer Khalaf ibn Mula’ib of Apamea,
a Shiite who therefore acknowledged Fatimid suzerainty, the Munqidhites of
Shaizar, the most important of these petty dynasties, and Janah ad-Daulah of
Homs, a former atabeg of Ridwan of Aleppo, who had quarrelled with his master
and enjoyed virtual independence. Aleppo was still in the hands of Ridwan, who
as a member of the Seldjuk ruling family bore the title of
Malik
, or
King. The Jezireh, to the east, was mainly occupied by members of the Ortoqid
dynasty, who had retired there on the Fatimid reconquest of Jerusalem in 1097,
and who were considered to be the vassals of Duqaq of Damascus. Duqaq, a
Malik
like his brother Ridwan, ruled in Damascus.

These political divisions were made more
unstable by the divergent elements in the population of Syria. The Turks formed
a sparse feudal aristocracy; but the smaller emirs were almost all Arabs. In
northern Syria and in Damascene territory the urban population was largely Christian,
Syrians of the Jacobite church, with Nestorians in the eastern districts and
Armenians infiltrating from the north. The territory of the Banu Ammar was
largely peopled by the Monothelete sect of the Maronites. In the Nosairi
mountains there was the tribe of the Nosairi, a Shiite sect from whom Khalaf
ibn Mula’ib drew his strength. On the slopes of the southern Lebanon there were
the Druzes, Shiites who accepted the divinity of the Caliph Hakim, and who
hated all their Moslem neighbours but who hated the Christians more. The
situation was further complicated by the steady immigration into the cultivated
lands of Arabs from the desert and of Kurds from the northern mountains, and by
the presence of Turcoman companies, ready to hire themselves out to any warring
chieftain that would pay them.