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Updated: May 8, 2025
Baldwin, who had no real interest in the success of the Crusade, soon afterwards turned aside into Mesopotamia, where he made himself master of Edessa, and formed a Christian state there. Though founded by merely personal ambition, this eventually proved of great assistance to the Crusaders, by checking the progress of the Turkish arms in Asia.
Bohemund, animated himself by a worldly spirit, did not know the true character of the crusaders, nor understand the religious madness which had brought them in such shoals from Europe.
El-Abbas was worsted by his rival, Tataë, and fled to Syria with a large sum of money; but he fell into the hands of the Crusaders, was returned to Tataë, and crucified. The last of the Fatimite caliphs, El-Adid, in 555 a.h., was raised to the throne by Tataë, but his power was merely the shadow of sovereignty.
Godfrey de Bouillon was the first to appear there, and the Emperor Alexis Comnenus learned with dismay that other armies of crusaders would soon follow that which was already so large. It was not long before Bohemond and Raymond appeared.
It was on Mount Zion that Godfrey and Tancred had their camp: when the Crusaders entered the mosque, they rode knee-deep in the blood of its defenders, and of the women and children who had fled thither for refuge: it was the victory of Joshua over again. Then, after three days of butchery, they purified the desecrated mosque and went to prayer.
After some expeditions, the crusaders thought that, instead of operations in Palestine, to which they had hitherto confined themselves, it would be advisable to carry the war into Egypt, because it was thence that the sultans sent large armies into the Holy Land against the Christians; and this had been the opinion of Pope Innocent at the Lateran Council.
Louis's crusaders, waiting here at Aigues Mortes to sail for Palestine with his king, from the sole harbour the monarch could claim as his on all the Mediterranean coast. I decided to let him remain in the dream picture, therefore, and told him so, which seemed to please him, for his eyes lighted up. He always understands exactly what I mean when I say odd things.
No doubt the Governor considered himself entitled to wear a crown, and meant to win it, if not in Africa, then in England, or wherever fate might look propitiously upon him. He was of the stuff of which crusaders and dynasty founders had been made, at a somewhat earlier epoch.
It was at Mersburg, on the Danube, that the greatest slaughter took place, a slaughter so great as to amount almost to extermination. The Hungarians for a while disputed the passage of the river, but the crusaders forced their way across, and attacking the city with the blind courage of madness, succeeded in making a breach in the walls.
Every night brought fresh surprises; and, in the conflicts which took place, the Crusaders had not always the best of the struggle. 'A large body of Turks, says Joinville, 'made an attack on the Count of Poictiers and me. But be assured they were very well received. It was well for them that they found their way back as they came; but they left behind them great numbers of slain.
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