Part 5 (1/2)
Two notable instances may be given. Gottschalk, a German priest, had gathered fifteen thousand Crusaders, who made him their leader. His army arrived in Hungary near the end of summer. Here they gave themselves up to every kind of wrong-doing. They left behind them daily a trail of outraged women, robbery, and arson. The Germans were good fighters and checked the punitive expeditions of the Hungarian ruler. What was not possible to valor was accomplished by trickery. The Crusaders admitted the Hungarian chiefs to their camps and fraternized with them. They yielded to promises and allowed themselves to be disarmed. Promptly they were attacked and slaughtered.
[Sidenote: _Crusaders Practice on Jews_]
[Sidenote: _Commerce in Jewish Hands_]
Incidentally the Jews suffered from the Crusading craze. One band of rascally and ungovernable Germans, who had many sins to be washed away and who availed themselves of the hope for absolution in the promise of the pope to those who fought for the Holy Tomb, thought it ridiculous to attack the Unitarian Mussulman so far away, when the Unitarian Jew who had slain the Lord was close at hand. Then, as now, the commerce of the world was in Jewish hands, and it was felt that so much wealth ought not to be in such hands. That element which still exists in the Jewish character of being purse-proud and offensively familiar in prosperity, is reported to have twitted the Christians with the wors.h.i.+p of a Jewish prophet as a G.o.d.
[Sidenote: _Slaughter of Jews_]
Whatever was the proportion of motive, it is certain that this mob fell on the Jews and robbed and killed all they found in the cities of the Rhine and the Moselle. It is said that many perished by kindling flames they felt to be more merciful than their Christian persecutors. Others, with stones tied to their necks, drowned themselves and their treasures in the adjacent rivers. Let us be thankful that there was pity somewhere and that the Bishops of Worms, Treves, Mayence, and Spires gave asylum to the persecuted race and denounced the marauding bands as beyond the pale of the Church.
[Sidenote: _A Goose for a Leader_]
[Sidenote: _Fear of such Maniacs_]
This band set out for Jerusalem in pious rapture that the soldiers of G.o.d had been given victory and had been supplied by the G.o.d of Battles with money for the journey! Blinded with superst.i.tion, they measure themselves to us by what they did. Albert of Aix tells us that they found a goose ”filled with the Holy Ghost,” which they made leader in equal authority with a goat not less filled with the same Spirit (_et capellam non minus eodem repletam_)! Fear of such maniacs closed the gates of Hungarian cities. The city now known among Germans as Ungarish-Altenburg, situated in the marshy embouchure of the Leytha, was attacked by them by means of a causeway made of the trunks of trees.
Ladders were built, and walls, defended by darts, arrows, and boiling oil, were almost scaled and won, when the breaking of ladders caused a panic and the plain was soon covered by fugitives who had, like all panicky soldiers, thrown away their arms. Mult.i.tudes of these were butchered without resistance while others died hopelessly mired in the marshes.
[Sidenote: _Horrors of the March_]
Surely these are enough to show the horrors of such marches in the name of Christ. A sentence may express the fate of those who survived. The Bulgarians almost finished what the Huns began. The Greeks received the news with joy.
[Sidenote: _Forget Their Lessons_]
At length Peter and Walter, between them, could muster an army of one hundred thousand men, when the re-enforcements from Italian cities were counted. Still under the walls of Constantinople it was not long before they forgot the lessons of their defeats and began again to rob and murder. Alexius soon found it expedient to ferry them across the Bosporus. The subjects of Alexius suffered worse than the Turks at first. Anna Comnena, perhaps prejudiced, yet quoted by Michaud, declares that the Normans in Peter's army when near Nicea, chopped children to pieces, stuck others on spits, and harried old people. The Germans, stung by Norman gibes, took a fort in the mountain near Nicea, killed the garrison and there met the attack of the Turks only to be slain by the sword. Their commander purchased his life by apostasy and a treasonable oath.
[Sidenote: _Cruelties of Crusaders_]
Once again the army sets forward, against the protest of the Penniless Walter, but by his forced consent. Once again they meet the reward of ignorance and undisciplined courage.
[Sidenote: _Walter Killed at Nicea_]
The ruler of Nicea, concealing a part of his army in the woods, waited for the Crusaders at the foot of a hill. The Turks pretended flight, but suddenly turned, surrounded the Crusaders on all sides, routed them, and slew them with dreadful carnage. Walter died of seven arrow wounds.
The whole army found refuge in a castle close to the sea. The Chronicler says, ”Their monument was a heap of bones piled upon the plain of Nicea.”
[Sidenote: _Turkish Contempt for Crusaders_]
The two results in the East were intense prejudice among the Greeks against the whole movement and contempt of the Turks for Christian warriors.
[Sidenote: _Peter Belabors His Followers_]
[Sidenote: _Peter's Failure as Leader_]
But where was Peter? Losing all authority among the Crusaders he went back, before the battle of Nicea, to Constantinople and turned the batteries of his abusive eloquence on those he had lately commanded. He called them robbers and brigands, and said that their sins shut them out of the Holy Land. In this he follows the sad habit of all, or almost all, of those who lead their followers into trouble. It is probable that he had at this moment led three hundred thousand to death. It may be that his conscience troubled him a little, though in general the fanatic is superior to such pangs. At any rate Peter calmed himself by the consideration that his army was chiefly a rascally crowd. This was the final proof that he was not of the stuff of which leaders are made. The verdict of the historian is just: ”He had neither the prudence, the coolness, nor the firmness of the commander.” He could rouse but not control. He could preach, but could not conserve the results of his preaching. Hereafter we shall see him as a preacher chiefly or in kindred work. Others supply true leaders.h.i.+p.
[Sidenote: _Later Leaders.h.i.+p Wiser_]
Those who lingered at home, when the armies of Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless started for Jerusalem, may have been of the wiser sort, and certainly seemed to have profited by the calamities of their brethren, both in the matter of preparation and in the treatment of the nations through which they pa.s.sed. The first army was led by enthusiasm almost wholly. The second had true military leaders.h.i.+p.