Part 64

This change did not take place spontaneously and was not an act of foolishness, as some historians have said.420 Rather, it came after study and analysis of the situation in the region undertaken by the campaign leaders at the Council of Acre in which the King of Jerusalem and his commanders took part before the attack on Damascus.421 It became clear to Noor ad-Deen Mahmood that the true aim of the previous Frankish campaign in the First Crusade and in this (Second) Crusade had nothing to do with taking back the grave of the Messiah (the Holy Sepulchre) from the Muslims and securing the pilgrim routes to Jerusalem along the northern coast to Constantinople, as was claimed by the Christian religious leaders who had planned these wars. Rather the real aim of the second Frankish campaign was far removed from seeking revenge for the fall of Edessa, because the campaign targeted Damascus, the Franks' ally in the region, and did not head towards Aleppo or Edessa where there was someone on whom vengeance might be wrought. Noor ad-Deen Mahmood realized that the actual aim of the campaign was to occupy and dominate the Muslim east as the Roman Empire had dominated the region before Islam. In their efforts to achieve this goal they did not differentiate between the various Muslim emirates and states; in their view the ally who cooperated with them was the same as those who resisted their domination and expansion and engaged in Jihad to free the land from their occupation. Their aim was to occupy and dominate the entire land. For this reason, it was better for them to start with Damascus, which was regarded as the heart of Greater Syria and the largest Islamic emirate in terms of area and resources, and as the weakest in military terms. After that they would move on to Aleppo, Edessa, Mosul and elsewhere. This would be a comprehensive war, from which the one who was watching from the sidelines thinking that danger was far away, would never be safe; his turn would come, even if it was after a while. As that was the case, Noor ad-Deen, with his usual farsightedness, had no choice but to get involved in this war from the outset. For him, Damascus was exactly the same as Aleppo, and in this situation it formed the first line of defence for Aleppo, Mosul and all other Muslim lands. Hence he decided to mobilize his army alongside that of his brother Sayf ad-Deen Ghazi the Emir of Mosul, near Horns and Baalbek, in order to coordinate with the ruler of Damascus and work out a joint plan of action for confronting the foreign invasion. This coordination was the main cause of the failure of the Crusaders' attack on Damascus. Noor ad-Deen Mahmood learned important lessons from this incident which supported his convictions and previous thinking, including: the extreme importance of unity among the Muslim emirates in order to confront the Frankish danger and liberate their lands from foreign occupation; the strategic importance of the emirate of Damascus in confrontations with the Franks; the necessity of capturing Damascus at all costs; and that European interference in conflicts with Frankish states must be taken into consideration.422 How the Christian clergy viewed the Second Crusade As soon as news of the fall of Edessa at the hand of Imad ad-Deen Zangi in 539 AH/1144 CE had been confirmed, it reverberated in the capitals of Western Europe until it had stirred up a great deal of fear and anxiety. The Crusaders realized that it represented the beginning of the end for the other Crusader states in the holy land, so the opinion formed that a delegation should be sent to Pope Eugenius III (540-548 AH/1145-1153 CE) asking him to call for a new Crusade. In fact a great movement developed in Europe which called zealously for this campaign to be started quickly, in order to regain the County of Edessa for the Christians. The pope Eugenius III hastened to summon Louis VII of France and Konrad III of Germany to lead this campaign. Louis VII welcomed the pope's request and called his followers to meet him and discuss arrangements. When they did not show any enthusiasm for taking part in the campaign, King Louis VII decided to delay responding to the pope's call for three months, and he turned to a prominent Christian religious figure in his kingdom, Bernard, who was the Abbot of the Clairvaux monastery; he enjoyed great fame and his authority superseded that of the king, according to the English historian Steven Runciman. He had a great ability to convince and influence people, and as soon as King Louis VII and Pope Eugenius asked him to promote the new Crusade, Bernard responded to this request and strove to make this effort successful.423 As Pope Urban II had stood at Clermont and called for the First Crusade fifty years earlier, Bernard stood outside the church of Vezelay in Shawwal 540 AH/March 1146 CE, calling for the second Crusade. With his eloquence he reached the hearts of those who were thirsting for war and adventure. When the people heard his eloquence they began to call out for crosses,424 at which point St.