The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land (27 page)

The main armies of the Second Crusade began their journeys to the Levant in early summer 1147. Their intention was to recreate the glories of the First Crusade, travelling east overland through Byzantium and Asia Minor. After the ceremony at St Denis, Louis led the French from Metz; having assembled his German forces at Regensburg, Conrad III had set out in May. These staggered departures appear to have been purposefully coordinated, perhaps as a result of plans laid at Châlons-sur-Marne, the aim being to allow both contingents to follow the same route to Constantinople–through Germany and Hungary–without exhausting local resources. But despite this early promise of cooperation, and all the carefully nurtured dreams of reliving past exploits and achievements, the attempt to reach the Holy Land proved to be an almost unmitigated disaster.

In large part this was due to a failure to collaborate effectively with the Byzantine Empire. Half a century earlier, Alexius I Comnenus had helped to trigger the First Crusade and then succeeded in harnessing its strength to reconquer western Asia Minor. In 1147, the position and perspective of his grandson, Emperor Manuel, differed considerably. Manuel had had no interest in summoning this new Latin expedition and actually stood to lose power and influence now that it was in motion. In the West, Conrad III’s absence freed Roger of Sicily to attack Greek territory, and the prospect of two vast Frankish armies marching through the empire, and past Constantinople itself, filled Manuel with dread. To the east, meanwhile, the new crusade looked set to revitalise Outremer, stemming the recent resurgence of Byzantine authority in northern Syria; a concern that was only exacerbated by King Louis VII’s familial connections to Prince Raymond of Antioch. For Manuel, the Second Crusade was a worrisome threat. As the Frankish armies approached the empire the emperor’s concerns deepened to such an extent that he decided to secure his eastern frontier by agreeing a temporary truce with Ma‘sud, the Seljuq sultan of Anatolia. To the Greeks this was a logical step that allowed Manuel to focus upon the thousands of Latin troops nearing his western borders. But, when they learned of the deal, many crusaders saw it as an act of treachery.

Problems began almost as soon as the Franks crossed the Danube and entered the empire. Conrad’s large, unwieldy army conducted an ill-disciplined march south-east through Philippopolis and Adrianople, punctuated by outbreaks of looting and skirmishing with Greek troops. Desperate to safeguard his capital, Manuel hurriedly ushered the Germans across the Bosphorus. Initially, the smaller French contingent’s advance progressed more peacefully, but, once camped outside Constantinople, the Franks became increasingly belligerent. News of Manuel’s pact with Ma‘sud was greeted with horror, derision and deep-seated mistrust. Godfrey, bishop of Langres, one of the crusade’s leading churchmen, even sought to incite a direct attack on Constantinople, a scheme which King Louis rejected. The emperor did supply the crusaders with guides, but even they seem to have rendered only limited assistance.

Lacking the full support of Byzantium, the Latins needed, above all, to unite their own forces against Islam once in Asia Minor. Unfortunately, coordination between the French and German contingents broke down in autumn 1147. Conrad unwisely elected to forge ahead without Louis in late October, marching out from his staging post at Nicaea into an arid, inhospitable landscape that was controlled only loosely by the Greeks. The plan was, once again, to follow a similar route to that taken by the First Crusaders, but the Seljuqs of Anatolia were better prepared than they had been in 1097. The German column, unaccustomed to Muslim battle tactics, soon fell foul of repeated harrying attacks from elusive, fast-moving bands of Turkish horsemen. Limping their way eastwards past Dorylaeum, with losses mounting and supplies dwindling, the crusaders finally decided to turn back. By the time they had retraced their steps to Nicaea in early November, thousands had perished and even King Conrad had been wounded. Morale was shattered. Many of the bedraggled survivors cut their losses and set out on the return journey to Germany.

Chastened, Conrad joined forces with the French, who by now had crossed the Bosphorus, to attempt a second advance. They successfully traced a different route south towards the ancient Roman metropolis of Ephesus, where the onset of illness forced the German king to remain behind. In late December, with rain and snow falling, Louis left the coast, leading his army along the Meander valley towards the Anatolian uplands. At first, military discipline held and early waves of Seljuq attacks were repulsed, but around 6 January 1148 the crusaders lost formation while trying to cross the imposing physical obstacle of Mount Cadmus and suffered a searing Turkish assault. Losses were heavy and Louis himself was surrounded, narrowly avoiding capture by taking refuge in a tree. Shaken by the experience, the king now asked the force of Templar knights that had joined his army back in France to lead the survivors in a tightly controlled march south-east to the Greek-held port of Adalia–a decision illustrative both of the crusaders’ dire predicament and of the martial reputation already accrued by the Templar Order. Louis later sent a letter to the abbot of St Denis recalling these grim days: ‘There were constant ambushes from bandits, grave difficulties of travel, daily battles with the Turks…We ourselves were frequently in peril of our life; but thanks to God’s grace were freed from all these horrors and escaped.’ Exhausted and hungry, the French reached the coast around 20 January. Some thought was given to marching onwards, but eventually Louis decided to sail to Syria with a portion of his army. Those left behind were promised Byzantine support, but most died from starvation or were killed during Turkish attacks. The French king reached Antioch in March 1148. Meanwhile, having recuperated in Constantinople, Conrad likewise decided to complete his journey east by sea and sailed to Acre.

The Second Crusaders who took the land route to the Near East, proudly hoping to emulate the ‘heroism’ of their forebears, had been crushed; thousands were lost to combat, starvation and desertion. The expedition had been broken even before it reached the Holy Land. Many blamed the Greeks for this terrible reversal, levelling accusations of treachery and betrayal. But, although Manuel had indeed offered Louis and Conrad only limited support, it was the Latins’ own incaution in the face of heightened Turkish aggression that precipitated disaster. With both the Germans and French so roundly and ignominiously defeated, William of Tyre concluded that the crusaders’ once ‘glorious reputation [for] valour’ now lay in tatters. ‘Henceforward’, he wrote, ‘it was but a joke in the eyes of those unclean peoples to whom it had once been a terror.’ Louis and Conrad had finally reached the Levant; the question now was whether their greatly weakened forces could hope to achieve anything of substance and rekindle the crusading flame.
¹⁰⁷

The half-century since the advent of the First Crusade had seen little sign of a united or determined Islamic response to the Christian conquest of the Holy Land. Jerusalem–the most sacred city in the Muslim world after Mecca and Medina–remained in Latin hands. And the elemental division between Sunni Iraq and Syria and Shi‘ite Egypt endured. Barring occasional Muslim victories, most notably at the Field of Blood in 1119, the early twelfth century had been dominated by Frankish expansion and aggression. But in the 1140s it seemed as if the tide might be shifting, as Zangi, the
atabeg
of Mosul and Aleppo, and his family (the Zangid dynasty) took up the torch of
jihad
.

ZANGI–THE CHAMPION OF ISLAM

Zangi’s capture of Edessa in 1144 was a triumph for Islam: what one Muslim chronicle described as ‘the victory of victories’. When his troops stormed the city on 24 December, the
atabeg
initially allowed them to pillage and slaughter at will. But after this first wave of violence, he enforced an approach that was, at least by his standards, relatively temperate. The Franks suffered–every man was butchered and all women taken into slavery–but the surviving eastern Christians were spared and permitted to remain in their homes. Likewise, Latin churches were destroyed, but their Armenian and Syriac counterparts left untouched. Similar care was taken to limit the amount of damage inflicted upon Edessa’s fortifications, and a rebuilding programme was undertaken immediately to repair weakened sections of the walls. Realising the strategic significance of his new acquisition, Zangi wished the city to remain habitable and defendable.

With Edessa in his possession, the
atabeg
could hope to unite a vast swathe of Syrian and Mesopotamian territory, stretching from Aleppo to Mosul. And for the Muslim world of the Near and Middle East, his startling achievement seemed to promise the dawn of a new era, one in which the Franks might be driven from the Levant. There can be no doubt that 1144 marked a turning point for Islam in the war for the Holy Land. Equally, it is clear that Zangi made energetic efforts to publicise his success as a blow struck by a zealous
mujahid
in the name of all Muslims.

Within Islamic culture, Arabic poetry had a long-established role in both influencing and reflecting public opinion. Muslim poets commonly composed works for public recitation, sometimes before massed crowds, mixing reportage and propaganda to comment upon current events. Poets who joined Zangi’s court, some of them Syrian refugees from Latin rule, authored works celebrating the
atabeg
’s achievements, casting him as the champion of a wider
jihadi
movement. Ibn al-Qaysarani (from Caesarea) stressed the need for Zangi to reconquer the whole of the Syrian coastline (the
Sahil
), arguing that this should be the holy war’s primary aim. ‘Tell the infidel rulers to surrender…all their territories’, he wrote, ‘for it is [Zangi’s] country.’ At the same time, this notion of pan-Levantine conquest was twinned with a more precise objective, one that possessed an immediate devotional focus–Jerusalem. Edessa lay hundreds of miles north of Palestine, but its capture was nonetheless presented as the first step on the path to the Holy City’s recovery. ‘If the conquest of Edessa is the high sea’, Ibn al-Qaysarani affirmed, ‘Jerusalem and the
Sahil
are its shore.’

Many Muslim contemporaries appear to have accepted this projection of the
atabeg
as a
jihadi
warrior. The Abbasid caliph in Baghdad now conferred upon him the grand titles ‘Auxiliary of the Commander of the Faithful, the Divinely Aided King’. Given that the Zangids were still, to an extent, outsiders–upstart Turkish warlords, with no innate right to rule over the established Arab and Persian hierarchies of the East–this caliphal endorsement helped to legitimate Zangi’s position. The idea that the
atabeg
’s career had somehow been building to this single achievement also gained currency. Even a chronicler based in rival Damascus declared that ‘Zangi had always coveted Edessa and watched for a chance to achieve his ambition. Edessa was never out of his thoughts or far from his mind.’ On the basis of his 1144 victory, later Islamic chroniclers labelled him a
shahid
, or martyr, an honour reserved for those who died ‘in the path of God’ engaging in the
jihad
.

This is not to suggest that Zangi recognised the political value of espousing the principles of holy war only after his sudden success at Edessa. An inscription dated to 1138, from a Damascene
madrasa
(religious school) patronised by the
atabeg
, already described him as ‘the fighter of
jihad
, the defender of the frontier, the tamer of the polytheists and the destroyer of heretics’, and the same titles were again used four years later in an Aleppan inscription. The events of 1144 allowed Zangi to emphasise and expand upon this facet of his career, but even then
jihad
against the Franks remained as one issue among many. Within his own lifetime, the
atabeg
sought, first and foremost, to present himself as a ruler of all Islam; an aspiration highlighted by his decision to employ an array of honorific titles tailored to the differing needs (and distinct tongues) of Mesopotamia, Syria and Diyar Bakr. In Arabic he was often styled as
Imad al-Din Zangi
(‘Zangi, the pillar of religion’), but in Persian he might present himself as ‘the guardian of the world’ or ‘the great king of Iran’, and in nomadic Turkish as ‘the falcon prince’.
¹

There is precious little evidence to suggest that Zangi prioritised
jihad
above all other concerns before, or even after, 1144. He did take steps to consolidate his hold over the county of Edessa in early 1145, seizing the town of Saruj from the Franks and defeating a Latin relief force that had assembled at Antioch. But before long, he was to be found once again fighting fellow Muslims in Iraq. By early 1146 it was whispered that Zangi was preparing for a new Syrian offensive. Construction of siege weaponry began and, while officially these were for the
jihad
, an Aleppan chronicler admitted that ‘some people thought that he was intending to attack Damascus’.

Zangi was now sixty-two and still in remarkably rude health. But on the night of 14 September 1146, during the siege of the Muslim fortress of Qalat Ja‘bar (on the banks of the Euphrates), he suffered a sudden and unexpected assault. The details of the terrible attack are murky. Zangi was said to have retained numerous watchful sentries to guard against assassination, but somehow they were bypassed, and the
atabeg
was set upon in his own bed. The assailant was later cast variously as a trusted eunuch, slave or soldier and, not surprisingly, rumours also circulated that the bloody deed had been instigated by Damascus. The truth will probably never be known. An attendant who found Zangi grievously wounded recounted the scene:

For all his feral vitality and enduring ambition, the
atabeg
’s tumultuous career had been cut short. Zangi, lord of Mosul and Aleppo, conqueror of Edessa, lay dead.

The advent of Nur al-Din

Zangi’s demise was a squalid, brutal and ignominious affair. Amid the shock of the moment, even his relatives gave little thought to honouring the deceased; the
atabeg
’s corpse was buried without ceremony and ‘his stores of money and rich treasures were plundered’. Attention turned instead to the issues of power and succession.

Zangi’s heirs moved swiftly: his eldest son, Saif al-Din, seized Mosul–affirmation that Mesopotamia was still seen as the true cradle of Sunni Islam; the
atabeg
’s younger son, Nur al-Din Mahmud, meanwhile, travelled west to assume control of his father’s Syrian lands. This division of Zangid territory had notable consequences. Without direct interests in Iraq, Nur al-Din, the new emir of Aleppo, would be focused upon Levantine affairs, and thus perhaps better placed to pursue the
jihad
. At the same time, however, without access to the Fertile Crescent’s wealth and resources, the strength of his Syrian realm might wane.

Nur al-Din came to power aged around twenty-eight. He was said to have been ‘a tall, swarthy man with a beard but no moustache, a fine forehead and a pleasant appearance enhanced by beautiful, melting eyes’. In time he would attain power to eclipse even that held by his father, emerging as Latin Christendom’s most feared and respected Muslim adversary in the Near East–a ruler who nurtured and re-energised the cause of Islamic holy war. Even William of Tyre was later moved to describe him as ‘a wise and prudent man and, according to the superstitious traditions of his people, one who feared God’. But in 1146, the emir’s position was precarious and the task set before him all but insurmountable.
³

In the wake of Zangi’s assassination, Syria was thrown into disarray. The brutal effectiveness of the
atabeg
’s despotism now became apparent as lawlessness broke out across large swathes of the Muslim Levant. Even a Damascene contemporary acknowledged that ‘all the towns were in confusion, the roads became unsafe, after enjoying a grateful period of security’. With Nur al-Din’s right and ability to rule as yet unproven, a number of Zangi’s loyal lieutenants realigned their interests. Under pressure from Unur, the de facto ruler of Damascus, the Kurdish warlord Ayyub ibn Shadi surrendered Baalbek and moved to the southern Syrian capital. Nur al-Din retained the support of Aleppo’s Zangid governor, Sawar, and the backing of Ayyub’s brother, Shirkuh, but on balance the young emir’s prospects for success, or even survival, were slim.

As emir of Aleppo, Nur al-Din found himself in control of one of the great cities of the Near East. Already in the twelfth century Aleppo had an almost unimaginably ancient history–the site of human settlement for at least seven thousand years. In physical terms, the metropolis governed by Nur al-Din from 1146 was dominated by an impressive walled citadel, rising out of the heart of the city, atop a steep-sided, 200-foot-high natural hill. One near-contemporary visitor noted that this ‘fortress is renowned for its impregnability and, from far distance seen for its great height, is without like or match among castles’–even today it dominates the modern city. Aleppo’s Great Mosque, a short distance to the west, was founded around 715 under the Umayyads, to which the Seljuqs had added a striking square minaret in the late eleventh century. The city was also a renowned commercial hub, home to a network of covered
souqs
(markets). Aleppo may not have been Syria’s first city in the twelfth century, but it was a centre of political, military and economic power–as such it offered Nur al-Din a vital platform upon which to build his career.
⁴

In 1146, amidst the chaotic vacuum of power that followed Zangi’s murder, Nur al-Din needed to assert his authority. An opportunity to do just this soon presented itself, as urgent news of a sudden crisis arrived. The Frankish count of Edessa, Joscelin II, was making a desperate attempt to recover his capital. Leading a rapidly assembled force, he had marched on the city in October 1146 and, with the collusion of its native Christian population, breached Edessa’s outer defences by night. The Muslim garrison fled to the heavily fortified citadel and were now closely besieged.

Nur al-Din reacted with urgent resolution, determined to prevent Edessa’s loss to the Franks and to forestall any possibility of westward expansion by his brother Saif al-Din. Mustering thousands of Aleppan troops and Turcoman warriors, the emir prosecuted a lightning forced march through day and night, travelling at such an intense pace ‘that [the Muslims’] horses dropped by the roadsides from fatigue’. This speed paid off. Lacking the manpower and siege engines to overcome the citadel, Joscelin’s troops were still ranged within the lower city when Nur al-Din arrived. Trapped between two forces, the count immediately abandoned the city, escaping at the cost of heavy Latin losses. With Edessa back in his possession, the emir chose to make a blunt demonstration of his ruthless will. Two years earlier, Zangi had spared the city’s eastern Christians; now, as punishment for their ‘connivance’ with the Franks, his son and heir scourged Edessa of their presence. All males were killed, women and children enslaved. One Muslim chronicler remarked that ‘the sword blotted out the existence of all the Christians’, while a shocked Syrian Christian described how, in the aftermath of this massacre, the city ‘was deserted of life: an appalling vision, enveloped in a black cloud, drunk with blood, infected by the cadavers of its sons and daughters’. The once vibrant metropolis remained a desolate backwater for centuries to come.
⁵

Grim as its impact was in Edessa, Nur al-Din’s show of strength helped to cement his rule over Aleppo. On this occasion, the emir had followed his father’s lead in relying upon brute force and fear to impose his authority. Over time, however, Nur al-Din proved capable of employing more subtle modes of governance–from consensual politics to the shaping of public opinion–alongside steely resolve. Like Zangi, he aspired to unite Aleppo and Damascus, but to begin with, at least, the emir cultivated an atmosphere of renewed cooperation with his southern Syrian neighbour. A marriage alliance was arranged between Nur al-Din and Unur of Damascus’ daughter, Ismat. The Aleppan emir also made the magnanimous gesture of releasing a slave girl captured by Zangi at Baalbek in 1138, who had once been Unur’s lover. In the opinion of one Muslim chronicler, ‘this was the most important reason for the friendship between [Nur al-Din and the Damascene]’.