A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 Read Free

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after Saewulf landed there in 1102, he witnessed the wrecking of more than
twenty ships of the flotilla with which he had voyaged, and the drowning of
over a thousand pilgrims. The roadstead at Haifa was deeper and was protected
from the south and west winds by the rampart of Mount Carmel, but was
dangerously exposed to the north wind. The only port on the Palestinian coast
that was safe in all weathers was Acre. For commercial as well as strategical
reasons the conquest of Acre must be achieved.
    For his internal government Baldwin’s chief
need was for men and money. He could not hope to build up his kingdom if he
were not rich and powerful enough to control his vassals. Manpower could only
be obtained by welcoming immigration and by inducing the native Christians to
co-operate with him. Money could be obtained by encouraging commerce with the
neighbouring countries and by taking full advantage of the pious desires of the
faithful in Europe to subsidize and endow establishments in the Holy Land. But
such endowments would be made in favour of the Church. To ensure that they
would be used to the advantage of the whole kingdom he must be master of the
Church.
    The Franks’ greatest asset was the disunity of
the Moslem world. It was owing to the jealousies of the Moslem leaders and
their refusal to work together that the First Crusade had achieved its object.
The Shia Moslems, headed by the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, loathed the Sunni
Turks and the Caliph of Baghdad quite as much as they loathed the Christians.
Amongst the Turks there was perpetual rivalry between the Seldjuks and the
Danishmends, between the Ortoqids and the house of Tutush, and between the two
sons of Tutush themselves. Individual atabegs, such as Kerbogha, added to the
confusion by their personal ambitions, while minor Arab dynasties, such as the
Banu Ammar of Tripoli and the Munqidhites of Shaizar profited by the disorder
to maintain a precarious independence. The success of the Crusade only added to
this ineffectual chaos. Despondency and mutual recrimination made it still
harder for the Moslem princes to co-operate.
    The Christians had taken advantage of the
discomfiture of Islam. In the north Byzantium, directed by the supple genius of
the Emperor Alexius, had utilized the Crusade to recover control of western
Asia Minor; and the Byzantine fleet had recently brought the whole coast-line
of the peninsula back into the Emperor’s power. Even the Syrian port of
Lattakieh was, owing to the help of Raymond of Toulouse, once more an imperial
possession. The Armenian principalities of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus
mountains, which had been threatened with extinction by the Turks, could now
feel hopeful of survival. And the Crusade had given birth to two Frankish
principalities, which drove a wedge into the Moslem world.
     
    The Principality
of Antioch
    Of these the wealthier and more secure was the
principality of Antioch, founded by the Norman Bohemond, in spite of the
opposition of his leading Crusader colleague, Raymond of Toulouse, and of his
own sworn obligations to the Emperor Alexius. It did not cover a large area; it
consisted of the lower Orontes valley, the plain of Antioch and the Amanus
range, with the two seaports of Alexandretta and Saint Symeon. But Antioch
itself, despite its recent vicissitudes, was a very rich city. Its factories
produced silk cloths and carpets, glass and pottery and soap. Caravans from
Aleppo and Mesopotamia ignored the wars between Moslem and Christian to pass
through its gates on their way to the sea. The population of the principality
was almost entirely Christian, Greeks and Orthodox Syrians, Syrian Jacobites
and a few Nestorians, and Armenians, all of them so jealous of each other that
it was easy for the Normans to control them. The chief external danger came
less from the Moslems than from Byzantium. The Emperor considered that he had
been cheated over the possession of Antioch; and now, with the Cilician ports
and