A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (47 page)

1164
:
Disaster
at Artah

Restored to power, Shawar repudiated his
bargain and told Shirkuh to go back to Syria. Shirkuh refused, and seized
Bilbeis. Shawar then appealed to King Amalric, and bade him make haste,
offering him a thousand dinars for each of the twenty-seven stages of the
journey from Jerusalem to the Nile and promising a further present to the
Knights of the Hospital that accompanied him and the expenses for the fodder of
their horses. After putting his kingdom into a good state of defence, Amalric
marched swiftly early in August to Faqus on the Nile. There Shawar joined him
and they moved to besiege Shirkuh in Bilbeis. The fortress held out for three
months and was likely to fall when Amalric, who had news from Syria, decided to
raise the siege on condition that Shirkuh evacuated Egypt. Shirkuh agreed and
the two armies, Frankish and Syrian, marched on parallel routes out across the Sinai
peninsula, leaving Shawar in control of his realm. Shirkuh was the last of his
company to leave. When he bade farewell to the Franks, one of them, newly come
to the East, asked him, was he not afraid of treachery? He answered proudly
that his whole army would avenge him, and the Frank replied gallantly that he
now understood why Shirkuh’s reputation stood so high with the Crusaders.

The news that had brought Amalric hurrying home
came from Antioch. When he knew that Amalric had left for Egypt, Nur ed-Din
struck at the northern principality and laid siege to the key-fortress of
Harenc. With him was his brother’s army from Mosul and troops of the Ortoqid
princes of Diarbekir and Mardin and Diert and Kir. While the lord of Harenc,
Reynald of Saint-Valery, put up a brave defence, Prince Bohemond called upon
Raymond of Tripoli, Thoros of Armenia and Constantine Coloman to come to his
rescue. They set out together in mid-August. At the news of their coming, Nur
ed-Din raised the siege. He was, we are told, particularly alarmed by the
presence of the Byzantine contingent. As he retired, Bohemond, who had some six
hundred knights with him, decided to follow in pursuit, against the advice of
Reynald of Saint-Valery; for the Moslem army was considerably larger. The
armies made contact on 10 August, near Artah. Ignoring a warning from Thoros,
Bohemond attacked at once and when the Moslems feigned flight rushed headlong
after them, only to fall into an ambush and to find himself and his knights surrounded
by the army of Mosul. Thoros and his brother Mleh, who had been more cautious,
escaped from the battlefield. The rest of the Christian army was captured or
slain. Amongst the prisoners were Bohemond, Raymond of Tripoli, Constantine
Coloman and Hugh of Lusignan. They were taken, bound together, to Aleppo.

Nur ed-Din’s advisers urged him to march on the
defenceless city of Antioch. But he refused. If he moved towards Antioch, he
said, the Greeks would hastily send a garrison into the citadel; and though he
might take the city, the citadel could hold out until the Emperor arrived. It
was better, he thought, to have a petty Frankish state there than to let it
become part of a great Empire. So anxious was he not to offend Byzantium that
he freed Constantine Coloman almost at once, in return for a hundred and fifty
silken robes. Once again Antioch was saved for Christendom by the prestige of
the Emperor.

1165: A Greek
Patriarch at Antioch

Amalric, as he hurried northwards, was joined
by Thierry of Flanders, who had come on his fourth pilgrimage to Palestine.
With this reinforcement he paused at Tripoli to establish his right to be
regent of the County during the Count’s captivity, then moved on to Antioch.
There he entered into negotiations with Nur ed-Din, who agreed to release
Bohemond and Thoros for a large ransom, but only because they were the vassals
of the Emperor; he would not allow Raymond of Tripoli to go, nor his older
prisoner, Reynald of Chatillon. Amalric himself was disquieted when an Imperial
envoy came to ask him what he was doing at Antioch. He replied by sending to
Constantinople the Archbishop of Caesarea and his Butler, Odo of Saint-Amand,
to ask the Emperor for the hand of an Imperial princess and to suggest an
alliance for the conquest of Egypt. Manuel kept the embassy waiting two years
for an answer. Meanwhile Amalric had to return south; for Nur ed-Din, instead
of attacking Antioch, had suddenly appeared in October before Banyas, whose
lord, Humphrey II of Toron, was with Amalric’s army. He had spread rumours that
his objective was Tiberias; and the local Frankish militia was concentrated
there. The garrison at Banyas put up a brave resistance at first. It was hoped
that Thierry of Flanders, who had just arrived in Palestine, would come to the
rescue, when suddenly, owing perhaps to treason, the fortress capitulated. Nur
ed-Din occupied the surrounding country and threatened to march on into
Galilee, whose barons bought him off by promising a tribute.

Bohemond of Antioch, as soon as he was
released, went to Constantinople to visit his sister and to beg his
brother-in-law for money with which to pay part of his ransom that he still
owed to Nur ed-Din. Manuel gave the required aid. In return Bohemond journeyed
back to Antioch with a Greek Patriarch, Athanasius II. The Latin Patriarch
Aimery went protesting into exile to the Castle of Qosair. For the next five
years the Greeks dominated the Antiochene Church. It does not seem that Latin
bishops were ejected; but vacant sees were filled by Greeks. The dependent
Latin Church of Tripoli was unaffected. The coming of the Greeks threw the
Jacobite Church into the arms of the Latins. They had been on friendly terms
since 1152 when a miracle at the tomb of the Syrian Saint Barsauma had cured a
lame Frankish child; and in 1156 the Jacobites, to the delight of their
Patriarch, Michael the historian, had been allowed to build a new cathedral, at
whose dedication the Princess Constance and the Armenian Prince Thoros
assisted. Now the Patriarch Michael went to visit Aimery at Qosair to assure
him of his sympathy. Michael’s dislike of the Greeks went so far that he
refused in 1169 a friendly invitation from the Emperor to come to
Constantinople for one of the religious debates in which Manuel delighted.

Nur ed-Din spent 1165 and 1166 in making
surprise attacks on fortresses on the eastern slopes of the Lebanon, while
Shirkuh raided Oultrejourdain, destroying a castle that the Templars had built
in a grotto south of Amman. At the end of 1166 Shirkuh at last obtained
permission from his master to invade Egypt once more. He persuaded the Caliph
at Baghdad to represent the project as a holy war against the heretic Caliphate
of the Shia Fatimids; and this argument probably affected Nur ed-Din, who had
grown deeply religious since his illness. He provided reinforcements from
Aleppo for Shirkuh and his army. Shirkuh set out from Damascus in January 1167.
Once again he took Saladin with him. He had made no secret of his intentions;
and Shawar had time again to call on Amalric’s help. The King was at Nablus and
summoned his barons to meet him there. After he had pointed out the danger to
Palestine should the Sunni Syrians conquer Egypt, the High Court agreed on a
full expedition to save Shawar. The whole fighting force of the kingdom was to
take part or else to stay on the frontiers to guard against attacks in the King’s
absence. Anyone who could not come was to pay a tenth of his year’s income.
Before the army was ready news came that Shirkuh was passing through the Sinai
desert. Amalric sent the troops that were at hand to intercept him, but it was
too late.

1167: Frankish
Ambassadors at Cairo

A terrible sand-storm almost overwhelmed
Shirkuh’s army; but he reached the isthmus about the first days of February.
There he heard that the Frankish army had set out on 30 January. He therefore
marched south-westward, through the desert, to reach the Nile at Atfih, forty
miles above Cairo. There he crossed and came down the west bank and set up his
camp at Giza, opposite the capital. Meanwhile the Frankish army approached
Cairo from the north-east. Shawar met it some way from the city and guided it
to an encampment on the east bank of the Nile, a mile from the city walls.
After he had refused a suggestion from Shirkuh to unite against the Christians,
he made a pact with Amalric. The Franks were to be paid 400,000 besants, half
at once, half a little later, on condition that Amalric solemnly swore not to
leave Egypt until Shirkuh had been driven out. The King sent Hugh, Lord of
Caesarea, and a Templar called Geoffrey, who probably spoke Arabic, into Cairo
to obtain the Caliph’s formal confirmation of the treaty. Their reception at
the palace was superb. They were led past colonnades and fountains and gardens
where the Court menageries and aviaries were kept, through hall after hall,
heavy with hangings of silk and golden thread, studded with jewels, till at
last a great golden curtain was raised, to show the boy-Caliph seated veiled on
his golden throne. The oaths to keep the treaty were sworn; and Hugh then, as
his King’s deputy, wished to seal the pact in the western fashion by shaking
the Caliph’s bare hand. The Egyptian courtiers were horrified; but at last
their sovereign, smiling contemptuously, was persuaded to remove his glove. The
ambassadors then retired, deeply impressed, as was intended, by the accumulated
wealth of the Fatimid Empire.

For a month the armies glared at each other,
neither able to cross the river in face of the other’s opposition. Then Amalric
managed to effect a crossing on to an island at the head of the Delta, a little
to the north, and from there on to the left bank; where he surprised one of
Shirkuh’s corps. Shirkuh, whose army was outnumbered by the Franco-Egyptian,
retired southward up the Nile. Amalric and Shawar followed, but as a precaution
they left a strong garrison in Cairo under Shawar’s son Kamil and Hugh of
Ibelin. The entry of Hugh’s regiment into Cairo and the free access to the
palace allowed to the officers horrified the stricter Moslem circles in the
city.

Not far from Minya in middle Egypt Shirkuh
prepared to cross the Nile again with the idea of falling back to invade the
Syrian frontier. He encamped at Ashmunein, amongst the ruins of the ancient
Hermoupolis. There the Franco-Egyptian army caught up with him. It was larger
than his, even without the garrison left at Cairo; but Shirkuh’s army was
chiefly composed of light Turkish horse, whereas the Egyptians were
infantrymen, and the Franks had only a few hundred knights with them. Against
the advice of his emirs he decided to give battle. Amalric on his side
hesitated. But Saint Bernard then made one of his unfortunate interventions
into Crusading history. He appeared in a vision to the King and taunted him as
being unworthy of the fragment of the True Cross that he wore round his neck.
Only when the King vowed to be a better Christian would he bless the relic.
Thus encouraged, Amalric next morning, 18 March 1167, led an attack on the
Syrians. Shirkuh adopted the usual Turkish tactics. His centre, under Saladin,
yielded, and when the King and his knights galloped on in pursuit, he flung his
right wing against the Franco-Egyptian left, which crumbled. Amalric found
himself surrounded. That he escaped alive was due, it was thought, to his
blessed relic; but many of his best knights were slain, and others, including
Hugh of Caesarea, taken prisoner. Amalric and Shawar and the remnants of their
army retreated precipitately to Cairo, to join the forces of the garrison.

1167: Saladin
besieged in Alexandria

Shirkuh was victorious; but there was still an
allied army in the field. Instead of attempting an attack on Cairo he recrossed
the river and moved swiftly north-west through the Fayyum. Within a few days he
appeared before Alexandria; and the great city, where Shawar was hated, opened
its gates to him. Meanwhile Amalric and Shawar reformed their army outside
Cairo. Despite its losses it still was larger than Shirkuh’s. They therefore
followed him to Alexandria and blockaded the city. A few reinforcements arrived
from Palestine; and Frankish ships sailed in to complete the blockade. After
about a month Shirkuh was threatened with starvation. Leaving Saladin with
about a thousand men to hold the city, he slipped out one night in May with the
greater part of his army, past Amalric’s camp, and made for upper Egypt.
Amalric was furious and wished to go in pursuit; but Shawar advised that
Shirkuh should be allowed if he wished to pillage the upper Egyptian towns. It
was more important to recover Alexandria. By the end of June Saladin’s position
within the city was so desperate, that he had to beg his uncle to return.
Shirkuh realized that nothing more could be done. He approached Alexandria and
sent one of his Frankish prisoners, Arnulf of Turbessel, after Hugh of Caesarea
had refused the task, to Amalric’s camp to suggest peace on the basis that both
he and the Franks should evacuate Egypt, and that Shawar should promise not to
penalize those of his subjects who at Alexandria and elsewhere had supported
the invaders. Amalric, who was nervous about affairs in Palestine and Tripoli,
accepted his terms. On 4 August, the Frankish army, with the King at its head,
entered Alexandria. Saladin and his army were escorted out with full military
honours, though the local population would have gladly torn him to pieces,
blaming him for their recent misery. But their troubles were not over. No
sooner did Shawar’s officials enter the city than anyone suspected of
collaboration with the Syrians was arrested. Saladin complained to Amalric, who
ordered Shawar to let the prisoners go. He himself provided boats to convey
Shirkuh’s wounded by sea to Acre; where unfortunately those that had recovered
were sent to work in the sugar-plantations till the King came in person to
release them. During the negotiations Saladin made many friends amongst the
Franks; and it was believed afterwards that he had been knighted by the
Constable Humphrey of Toron. Shirkuh and Saladin left Egypt about 10 August and
reached Damascus in September. Amalric and his army went to Cairo, to relieve
Hugh of Ibelin from his garrison duty; but Shawar was made to sign a pact
promising to pay a yearly tribute of 100,000 pieces of gold and to keep a
Frankish high commissioner and a small Frankish garrison in Cairo, in control
of the gates of the city. The King then returned to Palestine, reaching Ascalon
on 20 August.