God's War: A New History of the Crusades

by Christopher Tyerman

  The army was wrecked. Whatever the casualties, its spirit had been broken as surely as its military capability. Bankrupt, hungry, scarred physically and psychologically, the rump of the German army could do nothing except throw themselves on the mercy of the French, now encamped around Nicaea, who greeted news of the German disaster with astonishment; rumour had told them of the fall of Iconium and the opening of the road to Jerusalem. Scapegoats were identified as the Greek guides, accused of misleading the army, and the Byzantine officials for providing inadequate supplies, although Conrad placed responsibility on himself, his companions and the Turks.32 In truth, the German crusade foundered on poor intelligence, fallible logistics, inappropriate tactics and over-optimistic strategy as much as by lack of Greek support or the skill of Turkish archers. From the rebellious, despised footsloggers and pilgrims to the mounted elite, for all their numbers and weaponry, the Germans proved in all respects except courage singularly ill-equipped for Anatolian warfare or the needs of a contested march.

  Ironically, the French partially reversed the pattern of the German advance on Islam, a fractious march across Byzantium leading to a remarkably effective fighting march against fierce odds through Asia Minor before, in turn, lack of supplies and logistical support forced disintegration.33 From the muster at Metz in June 1147, the French army, tens of thousands strong, crossed the Rhineland in late June or early July, meeting the Danube at Regensburg before following the Germans’ route to Hungary, Bulgaria and on to Constantinople, reached by some units in late September and by the king in the first week in October. In the eyes of Louis’s chaplain, Odo of Deuil, the provision of markets and access to supplies formed a constant anxiety and a prominent theme of his narrative. At Worms, trouble erupted because of the high prices charged by the locals, which hit both the poorer pilgrims and the army’s merchants and moneychangers whose profit margins were threatened. At Regensburg Louis agreed with ambassadors from Manuel to swear not to attack any Byzantine cities or fortresses in return for guarantees of markets and reasonable exchange rates. In Hungary, King Geza provided open markets, ensuring a peaceful passage for the French despite their harbouring of Boris, a pretender to the Hungarian throne. Until the Byzantine frontier was reached at Branitz, the French march passed smoothly, helped by the new bridges constructed by the Germans. Immediately on entering Byzantine territory, problems of exchange rates and inadequate supplies provoked the French to forage for themselves ‘praedis et rapinis’, ‘with plunder and pillage’.34 Although the king’s own retinue were kept well supplied by the Greek officials assigned to his entourage, other divisions of the army continued violent foraging, terrorizing local markets and brawling with German stragglers. As the march progressed, relations with the Greeks deteriorated. French foragers were cut down by Byzantine mercenaries; an advance guard was denied a market and attacked at Constantinople just as Louis’s ambassadors were continuing their delicate negotiations with Manuel over the terms of further Greek assistance. The Anglo-Norman contingent of the bishop of Langres and William of Warenne suffered a severe mauling in Thrace. Elements in the French army increasingly regarded the Greeks as hostile, their religious observances heretical, their social conventions despicable. A siege mentality developed. One member of the king’s closest circle recalled that, a day out of Constantinople, the disaffected, reinforced by news leaking out of Manuel’s treaty with the Seljuks, proposed a radical new strategy: use the huge western army to occupy Thrace; enter into an immediate alliance with Roger of Sicily and, with his fleet, which was already in Greek waters, seize Constantinople.35 Although possibly benefiting from hindsight, the story exposes mounting unease at the nature and value of Greek friendship.

  As he had consistently since embarking from Metz, Louis rejected any diversion of effort, pressing on to reach Constantinople on 4 October. Any fears he may have held soon dissipated as Manuel, in stark contrast to his brusque treatment of Conrad, went out of his way to shower Louis with attention, granting him a specially favoured audience at which the king was permitted to be seated; personally conducting a guided tour of Constantinople’s shrines for the famously pious monarch; and entertaining him to such a lavish public banquet that some of more boorish and hard-to-please French guests feared poison. Ignoring continued outbreaks of arson and drunken affray by French troops, Manuel provided ample markets and a good exchange rate, leaving the discipline of the unruly elements to Louis, who, typically, proved inadequate to the task. The emperor even organized a joint celebration of the Feast of Louis’s patronal saint, St Denis (9 October), by Orthodox priests and Louis’s own chaplains; even the hellenophobe St Denis monk, Odo of Deuil, remembered the occasion with pleasure, especially the singing of Greek eunuchs.36 Manuel’s tactics of smothering his guest with affection concealed genuine worry at French intentions, hardly assuaged by the approach of contingents from Savoy, the Auvergne and north Italy who had travelled via Brindisi in Apulia, part of Roger of Sicily’s kingdom. The importance of his charm offensive immediately became clear as vocal elements in the French high command, led by the irascible Bishop Godfrey of Langres, urged an assault on the imperial capital, the capture of which would place the whole empire at the westerners’ disposal. The bishop, angered at his treatment at the hands of Greek soldiers, justified his proposal by accusing the Byzantines of heresy and recalling the campaign against Antioch by Manuel’s father, John II Comnenus, the replacement of the Latin patriarch by a Greek and the recent extraction of homage from Prince Raymond.37 The emergence of Antioch as an issue exposes one strand of western policy largely suppressed in the recruitment drive of 1146–7 and by the strenuous diplomacy of the Greeks. Bishop Godfrey’s complaints may well have reflected Bishop Hugh of Jubail’s negotiations in the west in 1145 to which the bishop of Langres may have been a party: he certainly proclaimed the cause of Edessa at Bourges at Christmas 1145 possibly in response to Bishop Hugh’s mission. King Louis appears to have consulted the pope on Antioch before departing for the east.38 This new front of anti-Greek policy was potentially more damaging to Manuel’s relations with the westerners, as it seemed more immediate to the French and less diplomatically awkward than an alliance with Sicily. However, just as in 1146, the question of Antioch subsided in the face of the claims of the Holy Sepulchre. Against Bishop Godfrey were argued the injunctions of the pope, which could not be reconciled with fighting Christians for ambition or money. Manuel, alert to the debates within the French camp, allegedly exerted pressure on the French to cross over the Bosporus by squeezing the flow of supplies, spreading false rumours that the Germans were winning great victories in Asia Minor and providing a hurriedly assembled fleet to transport the French to the Asiatic shore. The rank and file, as often on such expeditions, pushed for the simple strategy of progress towards the Holy Land; Louis agreed and on 16 or 17 October passed over to Asia, conveniently for Manuel a few days before the arrival of the armies that had come via Apulia.

  Louis and his army loitered for some days in the region of Nicomedia, negotiating supplies and waiting for the counts of Savoy and Auvergne and the marquis of Montferrat. The embers of the debate over an attack on Constantinople briefly reignited as Manuel attempted to agree a treaty with Louis that would involve homage from the French, as in 1097, the return to the emperor of any captured cities and forts in exchange for supplies and a marriage alliance designed, in conjunction with the offer of a large financial subsidy, to secure the French king’s support against Roger of Sicily.39 The idea of an anti-Sicilian alliance may have been a Byzantine negotiating ploy; in view of the mood in the French camp it was certainly a bold if not cheeky proposal. After protracted and difficult talks, both sides gained their prime objectives. Manuel received the homage of the French barons and agreement over conquered land; Louis received provisions, the right to plunder where no supplies were available, Greek guides and promises of open markets on the road ahead. Manuel was not committed to provide an army; Louis escaped a binding alliance with Byzantium. Honour and
politics were satisfied, even if the expedition itself scarcely benefited.

  Almost immediately on leaving Nicomedia and Nicaea behind them on 26 October, ominously to some during a partial eclipse of the sun, the French learnt of the true fate of the Germans. From that moment, their march east never lost a sense of crisis, usually borne out by events. After consulting with Conrad, Louis agreed to wait for the Germans to regroup and join him at Lopadium, on the road south. Already markets had thinned and the army resorted to foraging, which soured relations with the Greek locals, who exacted reprisals on the exhausted and battle-shocked Germans struggling to catch up with the French. Too depleted to provide effective protection for the Christian column by themselves, the Germans were placed in the centre of the march, strengthened by the imperial contingents that had travelled separately through Italy, led by the bishop of Metz, who acted as Conrad’s chief interpreter, the counts of Savoy and Bar and the marquis of Montferrat. Some French soldiers could not resist taunting their new comrades with cries of ‘Pousse Allemand’ (literally ‘Push, German…’), which cannot have raised German morale.40 Avoiding the long coastal road taken a month earlier by Otto of Freising, Louis headed towards Philadelphia on what he hoped were easier roads than the more direct route across Anatolia attempted by Conrad. However, reaching Esseron on 11 November, the kings decided to change course, fearful of the winter dearth of supplies in hostile, Turkish-held central Anatolia. The coastal road at least ran within Byzantine territory and offered the prospect of supply by the sea. In reaching the port of Edremit, about fifty miles away, the French army showed a worrying tendency to break up, different units losing touch with each other, a characteristic later to prove near fatal. Rain, rivers in flood, steep passes, short and expensive supplies and curmudgeonly locals conspired to sap morale further. There were reports of soldiers deserting to take service with the Greeks and of others abandoning the march to find ships to lift them off an increasingly desperate shore. It took the westerners a month to arrive at Ephesus, where they hoped to spend Christmas, a distance of about 120 miles as the crow flies.41

  At Ephesus, the army encountered Greek messengers warning of Turkish forces massing to attack the Christians if they advanced further and advising Louis to seek shelter in Byzantine fortresses for the winter. While well meant and accurate, such intelligence hardly compensated for what later struck some crusade veterans as Manuel’s highly cynical policy. He had failed to provide an adequate flow of provisions or a large enough shadowing fleet to succour or transport the western host. Even if impotent to keep Turkish incursions down the valleys of western Asia Minor from attacking the French, Manuel failed to encourage local Greek officials or citizens to show hospitality, welcome or open markets. With the German army destroyed, Manuel’s policy appeared less nervous and thus less supportive, his alliance with Louis now redundant. While not wishing the crusaders ill, Manuel no longer needed to appease or promote their interests, especially if they endangered his own in Anatolia or northern Syria. While the subsequent accusations of Greek perfidy, levelled notably by Louis’s chaplain Odo of Deuil, appear exaggerated and hysterical, especially as criticisms by Louis himself were muted, the king later recalling fondly his relations with Manuel, rumours of Byzantine obstruction persisted even in Greek circles.42 At most, Manuel helped only when and how it suited him; at worst he ensured, if only passively, that the odds were stacked against the westerners disrupting his political and diplomatic arrangements. Circumstances were unpropitious; Manuel did little to ameliorate them. Unlike Alexius I in 1096, he had not called for mass expeditions from the west; he was unsure of their motives, uncertain how best to capitalize on their frankly disruptive presence and unprepared to join a united offensive against Islam. Combating the Sicilian threat in Greece loomed far larger than putative gains in the Euphrates valley. So, when Conrad fell ill at Ephesus, Manuel saw the chance to reverse his diplomacy, abandon the French to their fate, good or ill, and reconstitute the Byzantine–German alliance against Roger of Sicily. Whisking Conrad off to Constantinople by sea, Manuel personally tended to the invalid amidst generous hospitality that the German king must have contrasted with the dry, for bidding welcome he had received at Constantinople only three months before.43 Then, he commanded one of the largest fighting forces ever sent from western Europe; now, he returned a sick old man, nursing wounds to body, spirit and reputation, only too grateful for any comfort offered.

  After Conrad’s departure, Louis pressed on. Turning inland from Ephesus, eastwards up the Maeander valley, the French faced a long, difficult march of more than 200 miles over difficult terrain to reach Adalia, a major port on the south coast of Asia Minor within striking distance, it must have seemed, overland to Christian Cilicia or by sea to Syria. Without a supporting fleet, the direct march across country via Laodicaea appeared sensible. It turned out to be harrowing, yet the French coped effectively with sustained Turkish attacks, more so than the German force of Otto of Freising, who, only a few days ahead of Louis’s army, had suffered severe casualties beyond Laodicaea, their unburied corpses bearing witness to the French of their fate. The Turks were defeated outside Ephesus on Christmas Eve and again in a major engagement at a ford across the Maeander further upstream a week later. Given the vivid, at times lurid account of bloody close-contact battle left by the eyewitness Odo of Deuil, the French march from Ephesus to Adalia in December and January 1147/8 has been regarded as heroic, stubborn but disastrous. In fact, despite major losses suffered in the passage of the mountain range south-east of Laodicaea at Honaz Daghi (Mt Cadmus) on 8 January, due to the leader of the vanguard Geoffrey of Rancon losing touch with the rest of the column, the French forces, although depleted, remained intact after a protracted fighting march of the sort that wholly eluded the Germans. In this achievement, Louis shares credit. Although presenting no obvious skill in leadership except personal bravery and skill in arms, Louis sought ways to ensure discipline on the march, for its last stages handing responsibility to the Templars, and consistently took responsibility for ensuring as far as possible that the destitute, the poor and the ‘paupers since yesterday’ received enough sustenance to continue despite the general shortage of food.44 At the fight at Honaz, Louis managed to shield his infantry and non-combatants by charging the enemy with only his immediate retinue of knights, most of whom were killed. The account of Louis’s own escape reads like a scene from a pulp adventure story:

  During this engagement the king lost his small but renowned royal guard; keeping a stout heart, however, he nimbly and bravely scaled a rock by making use of some tree roots… The enemy climbed after, in order to capture him, and the more distant rabble shot arrows at him. But… his cuirass protected him from the arrows, and to keep from being captured he defended the crag with his bloody sword, cutting off the heads and hands of many opponents in the process. Since they did not recognize him and felt that he would be difficult to capture… the enemy thereupon turned back to collect the spoils before night fell.45

  In the emergency after the reverse at Honaz, Louis handed the organization of the march to the Templars under Everard of Barres, whose authority was secured by all in the army swearing oaths to form a temporary fraternity (fraternitatem), in which the king himself joined. Under tight order, the French fought on, repulsing at least four concerted Turkish attacks. Denied food, so they imagined, by an unholy alliance of local Greeks and Turks, the westerners survived the twelve-day march to Adalia on bread baked on their camp fires and horse meat, the last and most desperate resort of a medieval army.

  The ragged army that stumbled into the plain around Adalia on 20 January 1148 had reached the end of its tether. Fatigue, the loss of horses and abandonment of equipment threatened its survival. At similar crises on the First Crusade, western and Byzantine fleets had come to the aid of the soldiers of Christ. Now the absence of such aid imperilled the entire enterprise; the great fleet of May 1147, now wintering in Lisbon, was sorely missed. Instead, reliance had to be place
d on the resources of Adalia itself and any assistance procured from the Byzantine imperial authorities, who were well informed of the Frenchmen’s progress and in regular contact with Emperor Manuel. Adalia sat precariously as a Greek enclave surrounded by a Turkish hinterland, neither economically nor strategically ideal as a base from which to relaunch the battered invasion force. While Louis’s priorities were to re-equip his army, in particular with horses, and to organize supplies, Greek military support and, if necessary, transport, in all these respects local resources proved inadequate and expensive. After fierce debate within the army and tortuous negotiations with the city’s governor and the emperor’s representative, an Italian called Landulph, Louis secured the basic food needed for survival, at the cost of renewing the oath to Manuel, and the promise of ships to take his army to Antioch. Despite Louis dipping further into his deep coffers to subsidize the increasing numbers of destitute, including many impoverished knights deprived of mounts and cash, neither the available but expensive provisions nor the number of ships proved adequate. With the weather vile and the Turks continually harassing the Christian camp, morale justifiably sank. After more than a month of wrangling and indecision, in early March Louis bowed to pressure from his nobles and took ship with them and as many knights as room allowed for Syria, leaving behind the sick, the infantry, the rest of the knights and the non-combatants under the count of Flanders and the lord of Bourbon, with money to pay for a Greek escort on the long road to Tarsus in Cilicia. In the event, although the infirm and ill received treatment and care, the plan was wrecked by renewed Turkish attacks, the small number and poor quality of the available horses and Greek reluctance to embark on a hazardous land march that offered little prospect of profit and was certain to inflame their Muslim neighbours, with whom they shared local trade and markets. The appearance of more ships in the port persuaded Thierry of Flanders and Archibald of Bourbon to follow their king’s example and sail directly to Syria. The abandoned infantry, trapped between an unfriendly Greek city facing famine and the Turks, took their chance in the field, only to suffer enormous casualties and the loss of thousands of men to Turkish service or slavery. Some of the survivors remained to take employment with the Greeks; others may have fought, bribed or wandered their way to Cilicia, but probably very few.