God's Battalions (12 page)

None of this changed history. But then H
kim ordered the burning or confiscation of all Christian churches (eventually about “thirty thousand were burned or pillaged”)
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and the stripping and complete destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, including all traces of the carved-out tomb beneath it. According to the eleventh-century Arab chronicler Yahya ibn Said of Antioch, H
kim ordered Yaruk, the governor of Palestine, “to demolish the church [of the Holy Sepulchre] and to remove its symbols, and to get rid of all traces and remembrance of it.” Yaruk’s son and two associates “seized all the furnishings that were there, and knocked the church down to its foundations, except for what was impossible to destroy…[and they] worked hard to destroy the tomb and to remove every trace of it, and did in fact hew and root up the greater part of it.”
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Word of this outrage caused an enormous wave of anger all across Europe—a bitter grievance that was later rekindled by those who recruited volunteers for the First Crusade. As for H
kim, he disappeared during a ride in the hills where he usually practiced astrology; his donkey came home with blood on its back. The Druze believe that Hakim is “hidden” and will return as the Mahdi on judgment day. Most others think he was murdered by order of his sister, who feared he meant to kill her as he had so many others.

In return for the release of five thousand Muslim prisoners held by Byzantium, H
kim’s successor permitted reconstruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
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although most of the destruction done to the cavern could not be undone. Work began in 1037, by which time the flow of pilgrims from the West had resumed: “[A]n unending stream of travellers poured eastward, sometimes travelling in parties numbering thousands, men and women of every age and class, ready…to spend a year or more on the voyage.”
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Just as they could no longer visit the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre, neither could they visit Justinian’s enormous Nea Church, which also lay in ruins; it is uncertain who destroyed it, and when.
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Still the pilgrims came, despite the fact that in addition to the usual hardships and dangers involved in such a long trip, Muslim attacks on Christian pilgrims had become more frequent and bloody:
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In 1022 Gerald of Thouars, abbot of Saint-Florent-lès-Saumur, had reached the Holy Land when he was imprisoned and then executed by Muslims.


In 1026 Richard of Saint-Vanne was stoned to death for having been detected reciting the Mass in Islamic territory.


In 1040 Ulrich of Breisgau was stoned by a mob near the river Jordan.


In 1064 Bishop Gunther of Bamberg and his large party of pilgrims were ambushed by Muslims near Caesarea, and two-thirds did not survive.

Despite the dangers along the way, once again pilgrims were welcomed in Jerusalem for their substantial contributions to the local economy.

But in 1071, things changed dramatically.

THE TURKISH INVASION

Late in the tenth century a large tribe of nomadic raiders in the area southeast of the Aral Sea that today is divided between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan encountered Islam and soon converted, first by treaty and later by conviction. (Pagans usually converted far more rapidly to Islam than did Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrians.)
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However, the Islam to which they converted differed considerably from the prevailing Muslim orthodoxy. Claude Cahen (1909–1991) described it as “a folk-Islam,” not only for its lack of sophistication, but for its militant intolerance of “heretical” Islamic groups, especially the Shiites. Cahen continued: “[N]aturally the Turks, on adopting the new faith[,] did not entirely forget all the customs, beliefs, and practices of their non-Moslem ancestors.”
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Hence, even as Muslims, the Seljuk Turks continued as brigands, “pillaging and plundering wherever the opportunity arose.”
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And although they sometimes hired on as mercenaries to various Muslim rulers, their conversion to Islam did not shield other Muslims or Muslim-ruled societies from their attacks. Eventually, however, instead of hit-and-run raids, the Turks began to impose permanent control on territories—substituting the systematic, organized plundering committed by states for mere brigandage.

In the eleventh century the Seljuk Turks began to move west, and, under an effective leader named Tughrul Bey, by 1045 they had seized Persia and set themselves up in Baghdad as the heirs of the Abbasid Caliphate, whereupon Tughrul Bey proclaimed himself “Sultan and King of East and West.” Still in an expansionist mode, Tughrul Bey turned his forces north and attacked Armenia, a Monophysite Christian kingdom that recently had fallen captive to Byzantium and was subjected to fierce religious persecution led by Orthodox Byzantine bishops. Given the prevailing bitterness against Byzantium, the Armenian princes offered little resistance, although they surely would have done so had they known what was in store. Thus in 1048, while the Byzantines were distracted by a revolt at home, the Turks overran the city of Ardzen and massacred the men, raped the women, and took the children into slavery.
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However, the Turks did not occupy Armenia, but were content to continue raiding it. More massacres followed. In 1063 Tughrul Bey died and was succeeded by his thirty-three-year-old nephew Alp Arslan. The next year Arslan led a large army into Armenia and laid siege to its capital of Ani. Although enjoying a superb defensive position, the city surrendered after only twenty-five days, obviously thinking that would avoid needless suffering. But according to the Arab historian Sibt ibn al-Gawzi (d. 1256), who claimed to be quoting an eyewitness: “The army entered the city, massacred its inhabitants, pillaged and burned it…The dead bodies were so many that they blocked all the streets.”
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In 1067 Arslan’s forces pushed through Byzantine defenses to Cappadocian Caesarea, in the center of modern Turkey, and committed another massacre. Finally, these depredations drew a serious Byzantine response.

To make this possible, however, it was necessary for the Byzantines to overcome the convoluted and cowardly political intrigues of the Greek court, made acute by the death of the emperor Constantine X, notorious for his neglect of the army and the interests of the empire. With the crowning of Romanus Diogenese in Constantinople as the Byzantine emperor on January 1, 1068, it appeared as if responsible and competent leadership had been restored. Romanus was a successful and very experienced general—young, vigorous, brave, and fully aware of the Seljuk menace.

Emperor Romanus’s first act was to begin rebuilding the Byzantine army, which had become a demoralized collection of mercenaries—ill equipped, poorly trained, and owed enormous sums in back salaries. He spent two years on the task, devoting much time and effort to recruiting new forces. In 1071 he was prepared to move against the Turks with about sixty to seventy thousand fighting men. (Some Muslim sources claim the Byzantine army numbered six hundred thousand, and the Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa placed the total at one million!) Although Romanus had devoted two years to upgrading the army, he had been able to do little more than assemble a larger force that was not much better equipped, trained, or loyal than before. To make matters worse, it “was a motley force” composed of mercenaries from many different nations, some of them bitter enemies of one another.
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Indeed, a major contingent was made up of Uzes, Turks with ties to the Seljuks, and who promptly deserted to the enemy during the crucial battle.

Although upset by various omens and fully aware of the defects of his battalions, Romanus marched east to engage the Turks. Having camped near Erzurum, Romanus inexplicably split his army, giving command of the larger portion to Joseph Tarchaniotes and sending it to attack Khelat (now Ahlat), on the shores of Lake Van, while he led the smaller contingent toward the town of Manzikert. No one knows what happened next, except that the larger force fled and never returned to the campaign. Some Muslim historians claim that Alp Arslan and a much smaller Muslim force won a pitched battle against Tarchaniotes and his Greeks. Others claim that when word of the pending arrival of a Turkish force circulated among Tarchaniotes’ Byzantines, they simply ran away. However, that no word of the debacle was sent to Romanus, who was only thirty miles away, is consistent with the conclusion reached by Viscount Norwich that Tarchaniotes was a traitor in league with plotters back in Constantinople and that he simply abandoned Romanus and marched to the rear.

Now with only about a third of his army, Romanus still attempted to deal with the Turks. A series of hit-and-run engagements followed, and finally came the major battle at Manzikert, whereupon the Uzes changed sides and the Byzantines were routed. Romanus fought on until wounds made it impossible for him to grip his sword, and then he was captured. He was taken to Alp Arslan, and the two seem to have hit it off quite well: a peace treaty was signed. It ceded an area to the Turks and settled on an annual tribute payment; further, Romanus agreed to give one of his daughters in marriage to one of Alp Arslan’s sons. All things considered, it was not a bad deal for the Byzantines.

Meanwhile, back in Constantinople, not only did word of the defeat and the loss of territory reach the congenital conspirators of the court, but at this time they also learned that their forces in Italy had been overwhelmed by Iron Arm and his Normans. So the conspirators gathered troops from the nearby garrisons and rode out to meet the returning emperor Romanus. Perhaps there was some fighting. In any event Romanus was seized. As the contemporary Byzantine historian John Scylitzes told it: “[H]arsh men took him and pitilessly, mercilessly, put out his eyes. Carried forth on a cheap beast of burden like a decaying corpse, his eyes gouged out and his face and head alive with worms, he lived a few days in pain with a foul stench all about him until he gave up the ghost.”
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The new emperor, Michael V, was incompetent, and his reign was nothing but one insurrection and riot after another all across the empire. In 1078 things got so out of control that Michael abdicated and fled, and was replaced by an aged general. Three years later he, too, abdicated, in favor of a brilliant young commander: Alexius Comnenus. Although he was unable to recapture the lost territories, Comnenus restored order, established a reliable army, and eventually wrote the letter that prompted Pope Urban II to launch the First Crusade.