History of the Fourth Crusade by Edwin Pears

Author:Edwin Pears
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ozymandias Press

CHAPTER VIII. THE PREPARATIONS FOR A CRUSADE

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ΤHE FOURTH CRUSADE BEGAN TO be preached in 1197. The earlier successes of the third crusade, notwithstanding the quarrels of its leaders, had led the Christians of the West to believe that the progress of Mahometanism might yet be checked. In 1187 Saladin had captured Jerusalem. Guy of Lusignan had been taken prisoner. Many brave Templars and Hospitallers, with many a nameless soldier of the West, had suffered martyrdom rather than renounce the faith. The fall of Jerusalem had been the immediate cause of the third crusade. Our own Richard the Lion-hearted, whose sole claim to be remembered is his skill as a captain of Crusaders, Philip of France, one of the ablest of French kings, and Frederic Barbarossa, the Swabian Emperor of Western Rome, had, as we have seen, united to reconquer Christian territory in Syria. Acre had been besieged, and after a two years’ resistance, which had cost the Crusaders 300,000 men, had surrendered to Richard and Philip. Saladin had been defeated at Ascalon. Other places had been captured. But the victories and the results of the expedition fell far short of what might reasonably have been hoped for from the preparations which had been made by the three great sovereigns of the West. Jaffa had been taken by storm, but had been recaptured, and its Christian garrison massacred. Frederic was drowned in 1190. The quarrel between Philip and Richard had been espoused by their followers. In 1192 the English king quitted Syria, was shipwrecked, imprisoned, and went through some, at least, of the adventures which have associated the name of that sovereign with poetry and romance. Philip had returned home the same year. The victories which the Crusaders had gained would be altogether barren if help were not shortly sent to the Christians in Palestine. The supplementary expedition had been a failure. The Crusaders who had remained behind, aided by the Armenian, Greek, and Syrian Christians, were doing their best to hold the territory which had been conquered, but every year saw that territory decreasing. Every traveller returning from Syria brought a prayer for immediate help from the survivors of the third crusade. It was necessary to act at once if any portion even of the wreck of the kingdom of Jerusalem were to be saved. Innocent the Third and some, at least, of the statesmen of the West were fully alive to the progress which Islam had made since the departure of the Western kings.

In 1197, however, after five years of weary waiting, the time seemed opportune for striking a new blow for Christendom. Saladin, the great sultan, had died in 1193, and his two sons were already quarrelling about the partition of his empire. The contending divisions of the Arab Moslems were at this moment each bidding for the support of the Christians of Syria. The other great race of Mahometans which had threatened Europe—the Seljukian Turks—had made a halt in their progress through Asia Minor. We have seen that their empire was also divided against itself.

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