“Maimonides explained it. ‘Eretz Israel, the land of the Jews, accepts no foreign nation or language. It reserves itself for its own sons.’ So your castle, even when the Mamelukes besiege it, can never be …”
“Don’t!” the count cried, putting his hands over his ears to keep out words which he himself had uttered: the castle was not his home nor had the Crusaders made Palestine theirs by any sensible occupation; but as he stood thus with his ears covered, the bells of Acre began pealing from all directions and he realized that news of moment had arrived. He could hear clamor in the street and regardless of its significance he wanted to be with his own people; and he left the house of Judaism, so battered on the outside, so clean and perceptive inside.
He ran toward the Venetian quarter, where many were gathered while the bells rose to a paean of jubilation, and soon he saw knights running from the various quarters, shouting, “The Crusaders have arrived!” And he joined the cheering, for there, rounding the Tower of Flies which protected the anchorage, came the fleet from Europe. At the critical moment, as had so often happened in Acre’s history, substantial reinforcements were at hand.
As the bells danced in their steeples with noisy glee the first ship tied up to the Venetian dock, and Volkmar noticed an ominous fact: the captain and crew showed none of the elation customary at the end of this dangerous voyage. Mechanically they tied the ropes and sighed as at the conclusion of a dirty business, and soon the knights of Acre were to understand why.
At Rome, Nicholas IV, the first Franciscan Pope in history, had hoped to make a name for himself by preaching a fiery Crusade that would finally wrest Jerusalem from the infidel, but he was unlucky in his timing, because none of the kings he had hoped to attract had any intention of leaving home. England, which in the past had provided many stalwart knights, offered no response whatever, for the English ruler was preoccupied with Scottish matters. In France, the birthplace of Crusaders, business was good and after the death of St. Louis the French had lost all stomach for Jerusalem. Aragon was engaged in open war with the papacy, while relations between Genoa and Venice had again degenerated into warfare. From all the countries of Europe, Pope Nicholas had been able to find only one nest of volunteers, and these came not from knightly families but from a cluster of backward villages in northern Italy, so this culminating Crusade consisted not of warriors but of sixteen hundred illiterate peasants who knew nothing of Jerusalem and less of Acre.
When the gangplanks were lowered and the triumphant army straggled ashore, the citizens of Acre gasped. Slack-jawed men, bowed from toil in field and shop, the Italian peasants straggled onto the Holy Land. Without leadership, without any arms but knives and clubs, the riffraff landed, listened to the bells, stretched their still wobbly legs and asked, “Where’s the infidel?”
Through one of God’s inscrutable stage directions, some of the mob fanning out through the city happened onto the church of SS. Peter and Andrew, where they entered to give thanks for their deliverance from the sea. As they knelt they saw in the chapel opposite the prostrate figure of the Damascus merchant, Muzaffar, praying at the little Muslim mosque. One of the Italians dashed back to the door of the church, screaming, “The infidels are upon us!” on which the others unsheathed their daggers and lunged at Muzaffar, slashing him severely across the right shoulder. The startled Arab ran crying from the church, pursued by the Crusaders, whereupon others, seeing the Muslim with his sword arm covered with blood, concluded that the Arab had killed a Christian and leaped at him with their daggers and swords, and would have killed him had not Volkmar jumped forward to save the old man.
The local knights, apprehensive over what might develop if the peasants got out of hand, moved among the rioters and tried to calm them, but the crusading spirit was alive and they burst out of control, storming through the town, for on the day they had sailed from Europe they had been promised certain heaven if they killed an infidel, and they could see that the infidel was among them. “Hold them off!” the leader of the Templars shouted, and his knights formed barriers while bells lent music to the confusion, but the mob swung unexpectedly to the north, where two Syrian priests happened to be leaving the church of St. Mark of Antioch and their unfamiliar robes convinced the mob that here were infidels, and the two were slaughtered.
The massacre, that hot August day, was paralyzing. Armenian Christians whose families had lived in Acre for two centuries were slain. Mameluke ambassadors from Cairo, Mameluke emissaries in town to arrange trade treaties with the Venetians, were beheaded amid scenes of fire and cheering. Arab merchants on whom the prosperity of the city depended were stabbed to death, and churches which could not be easily identified as either Christian or Muslim were sacked. The delicate balance on which Acre existed, attained after so many decades of patient adjustment, was shattered in an afternoon.
At the height of the riot Count Volkmar thought of the improvised Jewish settlement in the fonduk of Genoa, and for reasons which he could not fully have explained he gathered some Templars and hurried there, only to find that the new Crusaders were storming through the place and screaming, “Kill the Jews! They killed Jesus!” Volkmar rushed to the mean hovel in which the rabbi lived, but he arrived too late. The rabbi was dead. The manuscripts were burned.
The Italians, riotous with victory and still unaware of what they had accomplished, were finally herded into the Pisan quarter, where they sang Crusader hymns while the iron bell of SS. Peter and Andrew concluded its dirge. When they sought the king, so that he could praise them for their fidelity, some of the older knights began arresting the leaders of the mob, hoping that by delivering them to the Mamelukes disaster could be forestalled, but the Italians resisted arrest, crying, “We were sent to kill Muslims and we’ve killed them. Take us not to jail but to Jerusalem.”
When news of the massacre reached Cairo the Mamelukes refused even to discuss resumption of the truce; ambassadors sent from Acre with apologies were allowed to die in prison. Any possible reason for allowing Christians to remain in the Holy Land had been surrendered in the massacre, and St. Jean d’Acre must be finally eliminated. When this fiat reached the city the knights knew that barring a miracle their days in the Holy Land were ended. “Oh, God,” prayed the surviving priests, “why did those fateful ships not sink in the harbor before leaving Italy?” And all inside the walls made preparation for the final tragedy.
Count Volkmar, nursing a cut left arm which one of the new Crusaders had given him as he rescued Muzaffar, summoned his men and prepared for the doleful journey home, but before he left he felt that he must say good-bye to the tall Circassian girl, so he climbed the stairs of the Pisan caravanserai, but found there that the Italians had come upon this lively Christian as she wore a Circassian robe and had of course slaughtered her. Gravely he bowed to the other girls, then walked to the castle, where from the king’s general he obtained a basket of pigeons which he carried with him as he went to SS. Peter and Andrew for his final prayers. As the bells of the city pealed their litanies he led his men out through the walls of Acre, that cherished city, that strange abomination, and each man suspected that he would not again visit those walls, those gleaming turrets that so captivated the imagination.
At Ma Coeur, Volkmar and his knights launched a day-and-night activity. All peasants living outside the walls were ordered to make ready to move inside and to bring their beasts, and when this was done Volkmar told them, “If any are afraid, you may leave now.” A few Muslims headed south to join the Mamelukes; but where could the Christians go, even if they so desired?
The knights were perplexed when Volkmar paid considerable attention to brushwood, but without discovering his purpose they humored his whim and directed peasants to lug large piles of the brush inside the castle walls. Other men were let down on ropes to check the huge cisterns, thirty and forty feet deep, and they reported that thanks to the secret well, the castle had enough water to serve two thousand people for two years, should the siege last so long. Co
mparable supplies of food were also in storage: fruits, nuts, dried fish and meat, chickens, some pigs whose very shadows alarmed the Muslims, and immense stores of grain. Few castles in the Holy Land over the past two hundred years had escaped sieges, and some had held out for thirty or forty months unassailable behind their walls. But in those happier days there had always been the assurance that sooner or later relief would come from Antioch or Cyprus. But this time where would the rescuers be?
When supplies were checked Volkmar and his knights inspected the lines of defense. The outer wall of the town no longer seemed so stout as when Gunter of Cologne had built it two centuries before, but it was in good repair and was protected by the glacis; if properly defended this wall could frustrate an enemy for five or six days. The narrow alleys of the town also presented opportunities for defense, and the mosque and the three Christian churches would provide strong rallying points: indeed, the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene could be converted into a minor fortress which ought to hold for several weeks. The deep moat protecting the castle wall would be hard to cross, while the wall itself was surely impregnable. Behind it rose the castle, a self-contained unit with its own ponderous walls well able to withstand an enemy for months. And all was in repair.
Satisfied on these points Count Volkmar next turned to the most difficult question facing him: what to do with his wife and son? He assembled his knights and said, “If there is one who would prefer sailing from Acre, perhaps to Germany …” The discussion had gone no further. The countess said that she had been born in the Holy Land, that her father had withstood seven sieges, and she four. And her son said, “At Saphet I heard what the Mameluke captain said and at the Horns of Hattin young Volkmar stood with his father, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Volkmar replied. He then asked, “Do any of the knights prefer Acre?” None did, and the waiting began.
On a stormy morning in late February, 1291, the man on the watch-tower announced, not loudly nor with excitement, “They are coming.”
Dispassionately the knights lined the battlements to inspect the Mamelukes as they rode easily up from the southern plains. There was no great dust, no shouting. The vast columns moved slowly, for they felt no excitement; when they finished with Ma Coeur they would proceed to Acre and one siege was pretty much like another: generals stayed in the rear and half-naked foot soldiers went up against the walls. Any Ma Coeur peasants who happened to be working outside the town moved quietly within, except a handful who set off across the fields to join the Mamelukes. No one tried to prevent them.
By noon the purposeful column was nearing the walls of the town, but no one on either side fired arrows or launched spears. The impressive thing was that the columns kept coming forward in staggering numbers. “There must be fifty thousand people down there,” one of the knights calculated. The figure was not unreasonable.
As soon as the horde was sighted, Volkmar went to the quiet room where he and Muzaffar had dined at the beginning of the truce, and he wrote to Acre:
A Mameluke army of considerable size is now approaching from the south. It seems to be accompanied by so many siege engines that I cannot believe they are all intended for Ma Coeur, so I suppose you must expect them next. All here is well, and we shall withstand until we have been slain on the last battlements. We shall send you the customary signals, but we do not expect your few knights to ride to our defense. To do so would be folly. May God bless us both in these hours of trial, and may He send divine rescue from some quarter that we cannot now perceive.
He carried the message to one of the keeps, where it was tied by a silken thread to the leg of a pigeon, which, as soon as it was released, circled higher and higher above the castle until it established a reckoning, then sped for Acre.
All during the day the columns moved forward, the largest army Count Volkmar had ever seen, and at dusk his knights agreed that it must number well over a hundred thousand—while Ma Coeur had only some sixty knights and a thousand unarmed peasants. He posted his sentries, then went to bed and slept well.
For two days nothing happened, except that the Mamelukes sent their slaves fanning out across the countryside, chopping down all trees except olives, stripping the trunks and moving into separate depots both the resulting posts and the broken branches. At the same time the soldiers pushed up from the rear the great wooden engines of war, creaking noisily and moving slowly: the monstrous ballistas which could be cranked tight, then sprung to arch rocks of two hundred pounds into the castle compound; lighter sheitanis, the Satanic ones, for lighter loads; enormous swaying towers with retractable drawbridges which would be dropped across the walls of Ma Coeur; wooden bridges to throw over the moat; rams with bulbous iron heads to smash down gateways; ladders, scaling hooks, grapples and buckets for burning pitch; next, the most effective weapon of all, the mangonel, a rope-wound bow which required three men to operate and which, when sprung, released an arrow capable of crashing through the strongest shield; and finally, the most frightening, the slow-moving turtle creeping steadily forward as if it had a life of its own. In the days ahead the men on the battlements would come to know each of these weapons well, and already they held them in respect.
It was not only the presence of the engines that impressed the Crusaders; it was their astonishing number. Where an ordinary siege might have one tower, the Mamelukes had five, plus two dozen turtles, and so many horsemen they could not be counted. When all was in readiness the Mameluke general signaled by three white flags his desire for a parley, and in accordance with the custom of the age the gates of the town were opened, the drawbridge was lowered across the moat, and the main gate to the castle was thrown open to admit the general and six of his top assistants, who thus had a chance to study carefully the nature of the defenses they must finally subdue. With a kind of grim fascination Volkmar noticed that among the six were the mustachioed governor who had treated the pilgrims so graciously at Tabarie and the baldheaded man with the scar who had captained the garrison at Saphet. The Mamelukes looked straight ahead.
Their general was a short, red-faced man of forty, bearded and with long mustaches. He wore a turban beset with jewels, and no metal armor, but a costume of heavily quilted brocade richly adorned with gold and silver. His shoes were similarly decorated and came to sharp points that rose at the tip. He was armed with a short curved sword whose handle was encrusted with jewels, and he carried in his right hand an ebony baton, also bejeweled. He was a man of considerable importance and wished to get right down to work, for he had been given a terminal date by which Acre must fall and he wanted to waste no unnecessary days at the preliminary siege of Ma Coeur.
Count Volkmar mustered his knights in the courtyard so they could be seen, and directed peasants bearing lances to move about the other portions of the castle. Then he waited till the enemy general appeared, dismounted and approached, extending the hand of friendship. Volkmar took it. The men shook hands, whereupon the other Mamelukes dismounted. The leaders gathered at a table near the parapet and the Mameluke spoke first, using Arabic, which he handled awkwardly.
“Our preparations you see. You wish to surrender? Now?”
“Under what terms?”
“Your peasants, Muslim, Christian, can stay. They’ll farm their land as now,” the Mameluke began, and Volkmar smiled, thinking: They aren’t going to make the same mistakes we made at the beginning. The little general continued, “No knights killed. You select four. The rest become slaves.” At this Volkmar drew back, and the general concluded, “You, your wife, your family and the four knights. Safe-conduct to Acre.”
Coldly, and with a courage he was not aware he possessed, Volkmar asked, “The same safe-conduct that you gave the defenders of Saphet?”
The Mameluke general masked his anger—if indeed he felt any. “Since then we learned,” he said.
“To each of your proposals, no.” Volkmar spoke without accenting any word.
“The sultan directed me. I must ask you a second time.”
“And I am bound by my conscience to answer for the second time, no.”
The red-faced Mameluke bowed. Contemptuously he surveyed the castle and the assembled knights. “You may delay us perhaps one week.” He bowed again, and at the gate called back, “No man up there will come through this gate alive.” And he was off.
Still he made no move. His mangonels were primed and his turtles were ready, but he spent two more days bringing the towers up to the walls of the fortress, after which he signaled for another parley; but when the gates were opened he did not ascend to the castle but directed an assistant to speak with the villagers, after which some sixty peasants followed him out through the gates. The Christians among them were started on their way to the slave markets of Damascus and Aleppo.
Shortly after dawn on the twenty-fifth of February the siege began. The fat general in the padded suit gave signal for his trumpeters to sound alarms, and the vast army inched forward, all engines moving at the same time toward the main gate and applying such a steady pressure that by mid-afternoon the enemy was within the walls of the town. Stunned by the failure of his outer defenses, which he had calculated could resist for at least five days, Volkmar ordered his troops to fight in the streets, where determined cadres occupied the mosque, the Roman and Maronite churches and the basilica, while their companions retreated across the bridge, which was raised behind them. All who did not make their way into the castle were methodically butchered by the Mamelukes, almost without passion. The invaders did not even bother to save attractive young girls for harems; they raped them in the streets, then slaughtered them. To prove to the defenders how mortal this siege was to be, Mameluke slaves were then given the job of beheading all corpses. The ballistas were cranked up and one by one the heads were lobbed into the castle compound, where Volkmar’s men saw the grinning, rolling faces of their friends.
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