Swords From the Desert (49 page)

(To explain the situation, Sad, the Lion, leader of the Arabs, was sick that day and was watching events from a cot placed on the rampart of a tower. So his horse, a white mare, was without a rider. Every able-bodied man was in the lines, and the women had been put in charge of the wounded and the prisoners. Among those confined was Abu Mihjan, a hotheaded but redoubtable warrior who had not long since charged single-handed against an elephant-the first to be encountered by the Arabs.)

Abu Mihjan was sent away to Badi by Omar (the caliph), because he drank wine. Somehow, he managed to escape and rode after Sad. In the army of Sad, Abu Mihjan again drank wine, and Sad flogged and imprisoned him in the tower. Then he was heard to sing:

When he heard the shouting of the battle he asked Zabra, a concubine of Sa'd, to set him free to take part in the fight, after which he would return to his fetters. She made him swear by Allah he would do so. Mounted on Sa d's mare he rode against the Persians, piercing through their line several times, and once cutting with his sword into the trunk of an elephant. Many did not know who he was, and others thought him to be Al Khizr (one of the angels).

But Sad said, "If Abu Mihjan were not safe in chains I could swear it were he and the mare my own." Abu Mihjan afterward rode back to his gaol, and Sad exclaimed, "The mare is indeed mine, but the charge is that of Abu Mihjan! "

When the issue with Rustam (the battle with the Persians) was ended, Sad said to Abu Mihjan, "ByAllah, I shall never punish thee for wine drinking after seeing what I saw of thee."

`As forme,"Abu Mihjan answered, "by Allah, I shall never drink it again."

1 have tried to tell the story of the Guest of Karadak as Daril would have told it, relating it in his own way as hadith-tradition.

The hospitality and the fighting qualities of the Rajputs are too well known to need comment. They would, as one chronicler put it, "find cause for quarrel in the blowing of the wind against their faces." The feud between Kurran's clan and the clan of the cousins Awa Khan and Sidri Singh was only one of fifty-or a hundred-going on at the time. Perhaps its first cause had been no more than an unintended word, or a fancied grievance. Nothing would appeal more to a Rajput chieftain than an opportunity to defend the honor-against a stranger-of another Rajput with whom he was at feud.

In one case a raja, flying for his life from the pursuit of his enemies, stopped for a night at the dwelling of a third chieftain who was not involved in their quarrel. This Rajput considered that the fugitive was now his guest and he was obligated to protect him, so he defended his house against the pursuers and lost his life in doing so.

December 1, 1930

A few words from Harold Lamb relative to his historical piece "Saladin's Holy War," in this issue. It ought to be repeated here that this, like the others of the series to follow, is an extract from the manuscript of the author's second volume on the Crusades, to be published in book form sometime in the spring.

Mr. Lamb has condensed and arranged these articles for Adventure, writing a special foreword in several cases to serve both to orient the reader and to make each piece as complete in itself as possible. This will enable those of you who should happen to miss one hand you shouldn't! to go right on with the next without losing the swing of the Crusades movement as a whole.

Probably as rich in color and drama as any in recorded history, the period covered includes roughly the years between the fall of Jerusalem and the coming of the Mongols. Mighty figures play the leading roles-Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, Pope Innocent III, Baibars the Panther, St. Louis-and turbulent and stirring is the story of their exploits. None of his previous books, all splendidly received by the reading public, has offered Harold Lamb such an opportunity to display his mastery of the historical narrative. Nowhere has he succeeded so brilliantly in catching the spirit and movement of one of the world's great epics.

New York, N.Y

The battle of Hattin was one of the turning points of the Crusades. In fact it was pretty much the turning point. Until then the Moslems had looked on the crusaders as invincible in ranged battle. Even upon the eve of Hattin, Saladin's emirs had urged him to withdraw and content himself with the old policy of raiding here and there, and retreating when the Christian army of Jerusalem took the field. Sala din, however, saw his opportunity to break the power of the armored knights, and the event proved that he was right.

Various stories are told to explain the disaster to the army of Jerusalem. Some chroniclers of the time accuse Raymond, Prince of Galilee, of treachery. But it is clear that Raymond kept the field until the issue of the battle was decided. He had urged the other leaders not to advance, and had gone forward with them against his better judgment.

And later-day writers have assumed that the crusaders of Hattin were incapable and weak compared to the men of Godfrey of Bouillon and the first Baldwins, who conquered Palestine. That is not so. Individually the men who fought their way to the Horns of Hattin were as courageous, and certainly as able soldiers, as the first crusaders. Only a decade before Hattin, the Templars had routed Saladin on the southern coast, forcing the sultan to flee at the full speed of his horse for a day and a night to escape capture. After that, Reginald, or Renault, of Kerak had transported ships across the desert to the Red Sea and sailed down the coast to raid the Moslem holy cities-a bit of sheer daring that astonished the Moslems. The adventurers from Kerak were killed or taken prisoner almost to a man, and the Arab chroniclers said, after questioning the prisoners, "the stories they told us of their hardships and exploits almost burst our hearts with astonishment."

The exploit of the Wolf of Kerak aroused Saladin and his emirs to settle the issue once and for all-to risk a decisive battle after generations of border warfare.

The crusaders lost this battle, but not because they were weaklings. They had no leader able to cope with Saladin. The lord of Kerak and the master of the Templars were responsible for the fatal advance toward Hattin, and Saladin, seeing clearly their mistake, hemmed in the wings of the Christian host and penned it on the barren plateau where it could not get at water.

A day and a night without water finished the crusaders' horses, and in a few hours more the men themselves were done.

A little over a year ago I visited the battlefield of Hattin, and understood a bit of what the crusaders faced. The plateau from Nazareth to the edge of the Galilee depressions is without shelter or water of any kind except occasional deep wells in the villages. The lake of Galilee lies some six hundred feet below sea level, and down by the shore of the lake -in the sunken valley- the air is bearable enough, cooled by the breeze over the water.

But on the height of Hattin over the lake the heat is stifling. The hot air from the depression seems to hang on the edge of the slope. I visited the place on a cloudy day in October. What the heat would do to a man under a clear sun, in early July-after a day's march in armor and under arms-can be imagined.

And after a day's fighting without water, and after the brush was set on fire!

A word as to Saladin's character. Recently the great sultan has been painted as a man merciful in all things. A kind of chivalrous saint. Saladin was more than that-a just man, and very wise. Moreover he held inviolate his given word.

There was nothing emotional in the mercy he displayed. He ordered the men of Kerak to be executed after the Mecca raid as retribution, and the Templars after Hattin. With his own hand he struck down the lord of Kerak, as he had sworn to do.

He granted the best of terms to the Christian garrisons which surrendered after Hattin, because it was essential to him to take possession of the crusaders' citadels before a new army could arrive from Europe to take the field against him. No, Saladin was not a sentimentalist. He was merciful beyond his age to women and children who appealed to him, while he dealt sternly with men under arms.

One of the wisest generals who ever lived, Sun Tzu, who won battles in China long before our era, said "Never attack desperate men, and never attack men who have no way of retreat open." Saladin's policy of mercy made it easier to surrender than to resist, and we are beginning to understand how his sagacity gained more for Islam than his armies.

December 15, 1930

A note from Harold Lamb in connection with his Crusades narrative, "The Walls of Acre," in this issue:

New York, N. Y.

We are all beginning to understand after the last show in France that wars are not decided by grand strategy alone, in spite of what the brass hats say. We have been realizing it more and more after each war. The strategists and disciplinarians point to Austerlitz as the perfect battle; but Austerlitz was fought on terrain like a parade ground-and strategy and tactics alike went by the board when Napoleon's grande armee was confronted by the bare plains of Russia in early winter a little later.

Weapons and ground, and the thing called morale-the character and feelings of the men themselves-are apt to settle things once the actual fighting has begun. Genghis Khan rather than Napoleon gives us our best example of a strategist who was supremely successful. Napoleon's plans usually went astray when his armies maneuvered outside the familiar and easy terrain of middle Europe-failed, for instance, in Syria, Russia, and Spain. While the plans of the Mongol conqueror stood the real test-they worked.

Genghis Khan won his campaigns upon every kind of ground, under all conditions. But we are apt to forget that his Mongol horsemen, believing him invincible after the first years, had what might be called a trouble-proof morale, and their bows out-ranged and outhit any opposing weapons. Era Carpini, one of the first Europeans to journey to the court of the Mongol khans, said emphatically that the Mongol mounted archers were so destructive that they would cut the enemy forces to pieces before the "battle" began.

Take the late war, the Gallipoli campaign. The Allies had all the odds but one in their favor, and a strong fleet to back their landing. They had numbers, morale on their side, and the element of surprise. Military critics say the strategy of the landing was perfect. For nearly two days the detachments landed had only a few battalions of Turks, badly bewildered, and still fewer machine guns concealed in higher ground, to oppose them.

What happened is familiar enough. The detachments lost touch, and proved again what the Allied higher command proved so often-that riflemen in the open cannot advance against concealed machine guns.

Leaving Constantinople the last time, I passed over the Gallipoli peninsula in a seaplane, and saw only sheep moving on the shore where the Australians and the others had landed. There was also a gray stone monument of some kind on the tip of the land. A Greek captain of aviation was with me, and writing in French on some unused vomit bags in the plane, he pointed out tome the gray tracery of trenches still visible, and a cemetery enclosure. Those trenches and the cemetery were the real monument to the men who carried rifles against machine guns. And there are plenty of similar monuments around northern France.

Weapons, ground, and morale have all been used to the last, ultimate advantage by the great captains of history. It maybe heresy to say it, but it does not look nowas if the Germans were beaten in the last war until the advantage in weapons and morale passed over to us, and they were driven out of their prepared strong points. Even at the last, in Palestine, Allenby's fine sweep up to Damascus-strategy that really worked-only took place when the British and Arabs had enormous superiority in weapons and transport-in such things as motors and planes-and when the Turko-German morale was about broken.

This is rambling off the subject. What I'm getting at is the odds faced by the crusaders. We are accustomed to think of them as men physically stronger than the Arabs and Turks, and wearing heavy armor, equipped with much heavier weapons. That is mostly wrong.

The crusaders had heavier shields and lances-those who had lances. The Moslem shield of the time was usually leather strengthened by metal, small and round-shaped to the forearm of the riders. Not at all lance-proof. The Arabs and Turks relied on their agility and the speed of their horses to avoid the long, massive lances. And it seems that the crusaders did most of their fighting with their swords and short axes. Lighter Moslem lances, with six- to eightfoot bamboo shafts, were handier than the long ash weapons of the crusaders.

Crusaders' swords were shorter and heavier than the Moslem curved sabers, and had more iron in them. But the long blades of the Moslems met the crusaders' weapons on even terms, by and large. The Moslem horsemen also used javelins and the short, curved khanjar and yataghans with considerable effect, while the crusaders did not. Nobles and knights who came out of Europe had more complete body armor (link or chain mail) than the average Moslem horseman. But the Christian archers and miscellaneous soldiery did not.