The banners of Almeric and the Fatimite Caliph waved together on the walls of Alexandria; but on either side the peace or truce was a mere makeshift for the purpose of gaining time.
Continuing Saladin Takes Jerusalem From the Christians,
our selection from Sir George W. Cox. The selection is presented in five easy 5 minute installments.
Previously in Saladin Takes Jerusalem From the Christians.
Time: 1187
Place: Jerusalem
The banners of Almeric and the Fatimite Caliph waved together on the walls of Alexandria; but on either side the peace or truce was a mere makeshift for the purpose of gaining time. Neither the Latin King nor the Sultan of Aleppo had given up the thought of the conquest of Egypt; and Almeric found a ready cause of quarrel in the plea that since his own return to Palestine the Egyptians had entered into communication with their enemy and his. The King of Jerusalem had lately married the niece of the Greek Emperor and the latter promised to aid the expedition with his fleet. The help of the Knights Hospitalers was easily obtained, while (some said, on this account) that of the Knights Templars was refused. At length with a large and powerful army Almeric left Jerusalem, pretending that his destination was the Syrian town of Hems; but after a while his march was suddenly turned. In ten days he reached Pelusium; and the storm and capture of that city were followed by a wanton carnage which served to increase, if anything could increase, the reputation of the Christians for merciless cruelty. The prayers of the wazir Shawer for help were now directed as earnestly to the Turkish Sultan as they had once been to the Latin King of Jerusalem; but his envoys were also sent to Almeric offering him a million pieces of gold, of which a tenth part was produced on the spot.
Almeric took the bribe; and when his army looked for nothing less than the immediate sack of Cairo, they were told that they must remain idle while the rest of the money was being collected. The wazir took care that the gathering should not be ended before the soldiers of Noureddin had reached the frontier and Almeric found too late that he was caught in the trap which his own greed had laid for him. He could himself do nothing but retreat and his retreat was as disastrous as it was ignominious. The Greek fleet had shown itself off the mouths of the Nile and had sailed away again. The Greek Emperor could not be punished; but a scapegoat for the failure of the enterprise was found in the grand master of the Hospitalers, who was deprived of his dignity by his knights.
The triumph of Shiracouh brought with it the fall of the wazir Shawer, who was seized and put to death, while the man whose aid he had invoked was chosen to fill his place. But Shiracouh himself lived only two months; and then by way of choosing one whose love of pleasure and lack of influence seemed to promise a career of useful insignificance, the Fatimite Caliph made the young Saladin his minister. The Caliph was mistaken. Saladin brought back his Kurds and so used the treasures which his office placed at his command that the new yoke became stronger than the old one.
To the Latins the exaltation of Saladin signified the formation of a really formidable power on their southern frontier. Their alarm prompted embassies to the court of the Eastern Emperor and the princes of Western Christendom. But the time was not yet come for a third crusade; and only from Manuel was any help obtained. His fleet aided the Latins in a fruitless siege of Damietta; and a terrible earthquake which laid Aleppo in ruins and shattered the walls of Antioch saved them from attack by the army of Noureddin which was approaching from the north. Still, in spite of conspiracies or revolutions of the old nobility, the power of Saladin was growing and at length he dealt with the mock sovereignty of the Fatimites as Pépin dealt with that of the Merovingians. The last Fatimite Sultan, then prostrate in his last illness, never knew that the public prayer had been offered in the name of the Caliph of Bagdad; but Saladin had the glory of ending a schism which had lasted two hundred years and from Mostadhi, the vicar of the Prophet, he received the gift of a linen robe and two swords.
But the healing of one schism led only to the opening of another. Saladin was the servant of the Sultan of Aleppo and he had been recognized and confirmed in office by Mostadhi strictly on the score of this lieutenancy. But the new wazir of Egypt had no mind to obey any longer the summons of his old master and to his threat of chastisement Saladin in his council of emirs retorted by a threat of war. His vehemence was cooled when his own father declared before the assembly that, were he so commissioned by Noureddin, he would strike his son’s head off from his shoulders. In private, he let Saladin know that his mistake lay not in thinking of resistance but in speaking of it; and a letter sent by his advice sufficed for the present to smooth matters over. But the time of quietness could not last long. The designs of Saladin became continually more manifest and Noureddin was on his way to Egypt when he was struck down by illness and died at Damascus.
The widow of Noureddin held the fortress of Paneas; and her husband’s death encouraged Almeric to undertake the siege. A bribe to abandon it was at first refused. A fortnight later it was accepted; but Almeric returned to Jerusalem only to die. His life had lasted only five years longer than that of his predecessor Baldwin; but it had been long enough to win for him a reputation for consummate avarice and meanness. His son and successor, Baldwin IV, was a leper and his disease made such rapid strides as to make it necessary to delegate his authority to another.
We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history
Some History Moments selections posted before 2012 need to be updated to meet HM’s quality standards. These relate to: (1) links to outside sources for modern, additional information; (2) graphics; (3) navigation links; and (4) other presentation issues. The reader is assured that the author’s materiel is faithfully reproduced in all History Moments posts.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.