Crusade

One group of new arrivals became a godsend. William Embriaco, a gifted builder, boat builder and siege engineer, appeared from the coast with a large contingent of Genoese sailors. They had dismantled their boats at Jaffa and hauled the massive timbers, ropes and shipwright’s tools overland. We immediately got them together with Gaston of Brean, a genius in the science of siege engineering, and together they built battering rams, mangonels, scaling ladders and towers of amazing scale and power.

The towers were over fifty feet tall — mounted on wheels and built on three levels, they were designed to sit hard against the city walls. The assault troops were protected by thatch, covered with several layers of hide.

Then Tancred of Hauteville began his particular brand of intimidation.

First, a captured Muslim knight was paraded in front of the walls before being beheaded by one of Tancred’s henchmen. Then Tancred began to catapult bodies into the city, some already dead, some not so fortunate, who met their deaths dashed against its ramparts and buildings. To his credit, the governor did not retaliate in kind, but did expel all the Orthodox Christians from the city — a reasonable response that seemed only to anger the Crusaders even more.

One of the many zealots and visionaries with the army was a priest, Peter Desiderous, who claimed to have had a visitation from the much respected Adhemar Le Puy, Pope Urban’s Apostolic Legate, who had only recently died. Le Puy had commanded him to remind the Crusaders that they were pilgrims and that they should form a procession around the city, praying for strength from God for their attack on the walls.

Although it may have seemed a trifle too devout for the more worldly of the Crusaders, it had a dramatic impact. Not only did many of them work themselves up into a religious frenzy, but the arrows, stones, excrement and hot oil that were hurled at them by the inhabitants of the city only added to their fury.

The assault began on the morning of the 14th of July 1099, with the Crusaders attacking the city on two fronts at once. The sky was immediately filled with missiles flung from both sides. There were stones, firebrands and a whole range of improvised projectiles, flammable, sharp or heavy.

The fighting lasted for two days until Gaston of Brean’s towers made a breakthrough. With Godfrey of Bouillon himself on the highest level, one of the towers reached the top of the wall. The defenders had one defensive weapon left, which they had held in reserve, a form of Greek fire that was thought to be impossible to extinguish. They poured vats of it on to the tower, but the banished Christians from the city had revealed the secret of how to kill the deadly blaze: vinegar, which the Crusaders had stored on the inside of the tower in skin sacks and used liberally to douse the fire.

As soon as the flames were out, Godfrey let down the hide-covered protective wooden lattice at the front of the tower and used it as a bridge to stride on to the wall, leading a mass of knights behind him. As soon as this bridgehead was established, dozens of scaling ladders were thrown against the wall and the Crusaders poured into the city.

What followed brought shame on us all.

After three years of struggling against overwhelming odds, on a tortuous journey replete with astonishing acts of bravery, for what most thought was the noblest of causes, the Crusaders once more behaved like wild animals. All sense of decency deserted them; their humanity was forgotten in order to slake their bloodlust.

There had been other atrocities and much cruel barbarity, but what happened in Jerusalem over the course of the night of the 15th of July was on an unprecedented scale. Almost the entire population of the city was raped, tortured and butchered; Muslims and Jews, none was spared, save a few of the elite Egyptian cavalry and the Governor, Iftikar ad-Daulah, who hid in the Tower of David and negotiated surrender.

It is difficult to estimate how many died, but it must have been in the tens of thousands.

Robert led our Brethren as we struggled in vain to prevent the carnage. He ordered his contingent to stand down, but only a few did. We were joined by some who were loyal to the Mos Militum and we managed to get a few poor souls into a safe house and keep it guarded while we went in search of more to rescue.

Harrowingly, when we returned, the guards had been overwhelmed and their charges massacred. In all, we managed to get two dozen out of the city and sent them with an escort towards the coast.

Word spread that, before they were killed, many of the richer citizens had swallowed their gold bezants and jewellery to prevent the Crusaders stealing them. Thus there followed horror upon horror, as crazed Crusaders sliced open the bellies of the dead in a grisly hunt for coins and gems.