A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (34 page)

Before there could be another campaign against
Konya, Manuel was faced with the actual prospect of the Crusade. He was
disquieted, with reason; for the Byzantines’ experience of Crusaders was not
reassuring. When, therefore, Mas’ud sent to him in the spring of 1147 to
suggest a truce and to offer to give back Pracana and his other recent
conquests, Manuel agreed. For this treaty he has been called a traitor to
Christendom. But Conrad’s hostility, demonstrated before news of the treaty
could have reached the Germans, shows that his precautions were wise. He had no
obligations towards a fellow-Christian who openly thought of attacking
Constantinople. Nor could Manuel be pleased by an expedition which would
undoubtedly encourage the Prince of Antioch to forget his recent homage and
subservience. If he were engaged in a serious war against the Turks it might
help the Crusaders in their passage across Anatolia, but it would permit them
to do infinite harm to the Empire that was the bulwark of Christendom. He
preferred to have no entanglement that might weaken him at so delicate a time,
especially as a war with Sicily was imminent.

1147: The
Germans cross into Asia

With Conrad, Manuel’s relations had hitherto
been good. A common fear of Roger of Sicily had brought them together; and
Manuel had recently married Conrad’s sister-in-law. But the behaviour of the
German army in the Balkans and Conrad’s refusal to take the route across the
Hellespont alarmed him. When Conrad arrived before Constantinople he was
allotted as his residence the suburban palace of Philopatium, near the
land-walls; and his army encamped around him. But within a few days the Germans
so pillaged the palace that it was no longer habitable; and Conrad moved across
the head of the Golden Horn to the palace of Picridium, opposite to the Phanar
quarter. Meanwhile his soldiers committed violence against the local
population, and Byzantine soldiers were sent out to repress them. A series of
skirmishes ensued. When Manuel asked for redress Conrad at first said that the
outrages were unimportant; then he angrily threatened to come back next year
and take over the capital. It seems that the Empress, Conrad’s sister-in-law,
was able to pacify the two monarchs. Manuel, who had been urging the Germans to
cross quickly over the Bosphorus, as he feared the consequences of the junction
with the French, suddenly found the Germans amenable, as the Germans were
already beginning to quarrel with the first French arrivals. An outward concord
was restored; and Conrad and his army passed over to Chalcedon, enriched by
costly presents. Conrad himself received some handsome horses. But he refused
the suggestion that he should leave some of his men to take service with the
Emperor and should in return be allotted some of the Byzantine troops in
Cilicia, an arrangement that Manuel would have found convenient for his war
against Roger of Sicily.

When he arrived in Chalcedon, Conrad asked
Manuel to provide him with guides to take him across Anatolia; and Manuel
entrusted the task to the head of the Varangian Guard, Stephen. At the same
time he advised the Germans to avoid the road straight across the peninsula but
to go by the coast-road round to Attalia, thus keeping within
imperial-controlled land. He also suggested that it would be wise to send home
all the non-combatant pilgrims whose presence would only embarrass the army.
Conrad took no notice of this advice, but set out to Nicaea. When his army
arrived there, he thought again and decided to divide the expedition. Otto of
Freisingen was to take a party, including most of the non-combatants, by a road
through Laodicea-on-the-Lycus to Attalia, while he himself and the main
fighting force would follow the route of the First Crusade through the
interior.

Conrad’s army left Nicaea on 15 October, with
Stephen the Varangian as chief guide. For the next eight days, whilst they were
in the Emperor’s territory, they were well fed, though they later complained
that his agents mixed chalk with the flour that was provided and also gave them
coins of a debased value. But they made no provisions for their march into
Turkish territory. In particular they lacked water. On 25 October, as they
reached the little river Bathys, near to Dorylaeum, close to the site of the
great Crusader victory half a century before, the whole Seldjuk army fell upon
them. The German infantry were weary and thirsty. Many of the knights had just
dismounted, to rest their exhausted horses. The sudden, swift and repeated
attacks of the light Turkish horsemen caught them unawares. It was a massacre
rather than a battle. Conrad vainly tried to rally his men; but by evening he
was in full flight with the few survivors on the road back to Nicaea. He had
lost nine-tenths of his soldiers and all the contents of his camp. The booty
was sold by the victors in the bazaars throughout the Moslem East, as far as
Persia.

1147: The French
cross into Asia

Meanwhile King Louis and the French army had
passed through Constantinople. They arrived there on 4 October, to find their
advance-guard and the army of Lorraine disgusted on the one hand by the
savagery of the Germans and on the other by the news of Manuel’s truce with the
Turks. Despite the pleading of Louis’s envoy, Everard of Barre, Grand Master of
the Temple, the Byzantine authorities made difficulties about the junction of
the Lorrainers with the French. The Bishop of Langres, with the un-Christian
intolerance of a monk of Clairvaux, suggested to the King that he should change
his policy and make an alliance with Roger of Sicily against the perfidious
Greeks. But Louis was too scrupulous to listen, to the disappointment of his
barons. He was satisfied by his reception at the Byzantine Court and preferred
the suave advice of the humanist Bishop of Lisieux. He was lodged at
Philopatium, which had been cleaned after the German occupation, and he was
welcomed to banquets at the imperial palace at Blachernae and conducted by the
Emperor round the sights of the great city. Many of his nobility were equally
charmed by the attentions paid to them. But Manuel saw to it that the French
army passed soon over the Bosphorus; and when it was established at Chalcedon
he used the pretext of a riot caused by a Flemish pilgrim who thought he had
been cheated to cut off supplies from the French. Though Louis promptly had the
culprit hanged, Manuel would not revictual the camp until Louis at last swore
to restore to the Empire its lost possessions that he might help to recover,
and agreed that his barons should pay homage in advance for any that they might
occupy. The French nobility demurred; but Louis considered the demand
reasonable, considering his urgent need for Byzantine assistance, particularly
as rumours came through of the German disaster.

At the beginning of November the French army
reached Nicaea. There they learnt definitely of Conrad’s defeat. Frederick of
Swabia rode into the French camp to tell the story, and asked Louis to come at
once to see Conrad. Louis hastened to the German headquarters; and the two
Kings consulted together. They decided both to take the coast route southward,
keeping within Byzantine territory. For the moment there was amity between the
two armies. When the Germans could find no food in the area where they were
encamped, as the French had taken all that was available, and they therefore
began to raid the neighbouring villages, Byzantine police-troops at once
attacked them. They were rescued by a French detachment under the Count of
Soissons, who hurried up at Conrad’s request. Conrad was meantime able to
restore some sort of order among his troops. Most of the pilgrims who survived
left him to struggle back to Constantinople. Their further history is unknown.

The armies moved on together. On 11 November
they encamped at Esseron, near the modern Balikesri. There they made a further
change of plan. It is probable that reports had come to them of the journey
made by Otto of Freisingen along the direct route to Philadelphia and Laodicea.
We know little of that journey save that his expedition arrived at last at
Attalia weary and reduced in numbers, leaving by the wayside the many dead whom
their own privations or Turkish raiders had slain. The Kings decided to keep
closer to the coast, through more fertile country, and to remain in touch with
the Byzantine fleet. They marched on down through Adramyttium, Pergamum and
Smyrna and came to Ephesus. Louis’s army was in the van, and the Germans
struggled on about a day behind, taunted by their allies for their slowness.
The Byzantine historian Cinnamus records the cry of ‘Pousse Allemand’ which was
hurled at them by the contemptuous French.

1147-8: The
French in Asia Minor

When they arrived at Ephesus Conrad’s health
was so bad that he remained there. Hearing this the Emperor Manuel sent him
costly presents and persuaded him to return to Constantinople where he received
him kindly and took him to lodge in the palace. Manuel was passionately
interested in medicine and insisted on being his guest’s own doctor. Conrad
recovered, and was deeply touched by the attentions shown him by the Emperor
and the Empress. It was during this visit that a marriage was arranged between
his brother, Henry, Duke of Austria, and the Emperor’s niece, Theodora,
daughter of his brother Andronicus. The German King and his household remained
in Constantinople till the beginning of March 1148, when a Byzantine squadron
conveyed them to Palestine.

During the four days that he spent at Ephesus
King Louis received a letter from Manuel informing him that the Turks were on
the war-path and advising him to avoid any conflict with them but to keep as
far as possible within the range of shelter afforded by the Byzantine
fortresses. Manuel clearly feared that the French would suffer at the hands of the
Turks and he would be blamed; at the same time he had no wish, with the
Sicilian war on his hands, that anything should occur to break his peace with
the Sultan. Louis returned no answer, nor did he reply when Manuel wrote to
warn him that the Byzantine authorities could not prevent their people from
taking vengeance for the damage caused to them by the Crusaders. The discipline
of the French army was breaking down, and complaints were reaching the capital
of its lawlessness.

The French army wound its way up the valley of
the Meander. At Decervium, where Christmas was spent, the Turks made their
appearance and began to harass the Crusaders till they reached the bridge
across the river, at Pisidian Antioch. There was a pitched battle there; but
the Frenchmen forced their way over the bridge, and the Turks retired behind
the walls of Antioch. Under what circumstances the Turks were able to take
refuge within this Byzantine fortress is unknown. The French not unnaturally
saw it as treason to Christendom; but whether the local garrison had yielded to
superior force or had made some private arrangement with the infidel, it is
unlikely that the Emperor himself had sanctioned the plan.

The battle before the bridge at Antioch took
place about 1 January 1148. Three days later the Crusaders arrived at Laodicea,
to find it deserted; for their reputation had driven the inhabitants to the
hills, with all their provisions. It was difficult for the army to collect any
food for the arduous stage that lay ahead. The road to Attalia wound over high
desolate mountains. It was a hard journey at the best of times. For a hungry
army, struggling through the January storms, with the Turks relentlessly
hanging on its flanks and picking off the stragglers and the sick, it was a
nightmare. All along the road the soldiers saw the corpses of the German
pilgrims who had perished on their march a few months before. There was no
longer any attempt at discipline, except with the company of the Knights
Templar. The Queen and her ladies shivered in their litters, vowing never again
to face such an ordeal. One afternoon, as the army began to descend toward the
sea, the advance-guard, under Geoffrey of Rancon, disobeyed the King’s orders
to camp on the summit of the pass and moved down the hill, losing touch with
the main army, which the Turks at once attacked. The Crusaders held their
ground; but it was only the falling of darkness that saved the King’s life, and
the losses among the Frenchmen were heavy.

1148: The French
at Attalia

Thenceforward the way was easier. The Turks did
not venture down into the plain. At the beginning of February the Crusade
arrived at Attalia. The Byzantine governor there was an Italian called
Landolph. On the Emperor’s orders he did what he could to succour the Westerners.
But Attalia was not a large town with great resources of food. It was set in a
poor countryside ravaged recently by the Turks. Winter stocks were low by now;
and the German pilgrims had taken what there had been to spare. It was no
wonder that few provisions were available and that prices had soared high. But
to the angry disappointed Frenchmen all this was just another proof of
Byzantine treachery. King Louis now decided that the journey must be pursued by
sea, and negotiated with Landolph for ships. It was not easy at that time of
year to assemble a flotilla at a port on the wild Caramanian coast. While the
transports were being collected, the Turks came down and made a sudden attack
on the Crusader camp. Once again the French blamed the Byzantines; who indeed
probably made no effort to defend the unwanted guests to whose presence they
owed these Turkish raids. When the ships arrived they were too few to take all
the company. Louis therefore filled them with his own household and as many
cavalrymen as could be taken, and sailed off to Saint Symeon, where he arrived
on 19 March. To salve his conscience for his desertion of his army, the King
gave Landolph the sum of five hundred marks, asking him to care for the sick
and wounded and to send on the remainder, if possible, by sea. The Counts of
Flanders and Bourbon were left in charge. The day after the King’s departure
the Turks swept down into the plain and attacked the camp. Without sufficient
cavalry it was impossible to drive them off effectively; so the Crusaders
obtained permission to take refuge within the walls. There they were well
treated and their sick given treatment; and Landolph hastily tried to collect
more ships. Again he could not find sufficient for all the expedition. So
Thierry of Flanders and Archimbald of Bourbon followed their King’s example and
themselves embarked with their friends and the remaining horsemen, telling the
foot-soldiers and the pilgrims to make their way by land as best they could.
Deserted by their leaders the unhappy remnant refused to stay in the camp
prepared for them by Landolph, who wished to move them out of the town. They
thought that they would be too badly exposed there to attacks from Turkish
archers. Instead, they set out at once along the eastern road. Ignorant,
undisciplined and distrustful of their guides, continually harassed by the
Turks, with whom they were convinced the Byzantines were in league, the miserable
Frenchmen, with what remained of Conrad’s German infantry dragging on behind,
made their painful way to Cilicia. Less than half of them arrived in the late
spring at Antioch.