Part 65

Bernard took off his cloak and it was cut and turned into crosses and the Abbot and his aides sewed crosses for all of those who volunteered to take part in this campaign.425 A few days later, Bernard wrote a letter to the Pope which demonstrated the extent of the clergy’s influence on the people and the degree to which the people obeyed them at that time. In his letter he said: I commanded them and they obeyed. The one who issued the order has no authority. The people’s obedience to me bore fruit. Barely had I opened my mouth before the Crusaders began to gather with no limit to their numbers. The villages and towns have been deserted by their inhabitants and there is barely one man for every seven women. You see everywhere widows whose husbands are still alive.426 After the success that Bernard achieved in France, his zeal began to increase and he began to travel around Germany, hoping to attract the Germans to take part in this campaign, and he succeeded by and large in convincing Konrad III, King of Germany, to join the holy war. He asked the German nobility to explain the papal declaration that had been sent by the Pope to all the cities of Europe so that everyone would take on the responsibility of helping the holy land in Palestine and striving to liberate it.427 The participants in this campaign agreed to attack and occupy Damascus, and the Christian clergy took part alongside the soldiers in besieging Damascus. Konrad had with him an elderly priest called Elias who had a long beard, whom the people believed in. When they besieged Damascus, this priest rode his donkey, wearing a cross around his neck and carrying a cross in his hand. The priests gathered with the crosses, the kings and knights rode ahead of them, and none of the Crusaders stayed behind except those whom they left behind to guard the tents. This priest stood before the throng and said, "Christ has promised me that I will conquer Damascus today, and no one will repel me." However, his words were proven false when he was attacked by one of the young mujahideen who killed him and his donkey.428 The Victory of Damascus in the Second Crusade In Rabee’ I 543 AH, the Franks besieged Damascus with ten thousand knights and sixty thousand foot soldiers. The Muslims of Damascus came out to confront them with one hundred and thirty thousand men and local troops, of whom nearly two hundred were martyred. Then they came out on the second day and some of them were martyred, and many of the Franks were killed. On the fifth day, Ghazi ibn Atabeg and his brother Noor ad-Deen arrived with twenty thousand men from Aleppo. The people of Damascus were beseeching Allah for help. They brought the ‘Uthmani mus-haf out to the courtyard of the Grand Mosque, and the people, women and children, began crying out with their heads uncovered, calling upon Allah sincerely and expressing their need.429 Allah says: ‘Is not He [better than your gods], Who responds to the distressed one, when he calls on Him...’ (Qur’an 27: 62) One of the causes of victory which Allah granted to the people of Damascus was the arrival of the armies of Mosul and Aleppo at the right time. Both Sayf ad-Deen Ghazi and his brother Noor ad-Deen had contacted Mu’een ad-Deen Unur to coordinate with them against the Franks and Mu’een ad-Deen Unur, the ruler of Damascus, did not want Sayf ad-Deen and Noor ad-Deen to enter Damascus. At the same time, he was threatening the Franks that he would hand over Damascus to Sayf ad-Deen or Noor ad-Deen if the Crusaders tried to breach it, and yet he sent word to the Christian rulers of Jerusalem and promised to hand over the fortress of Baniyas to them if they persuaded Konrad and Louis to withdraw from Damascus. This correspondence coincided with the dispute among the Franks themselves about who would rule Damascus after it was occupied.430 The ruler of Jerusalem accepted the offer of Mu’een ad-Deen Unur, and convinced King Konrad and King Louis of the necessity of withdrawing, lest the city be handed over to Sayf ad-Deen Ghazi, the ‘King of the East’.431 For if he captured it he would then have hopes of capturing Jerusalem and the other Crusader states later on, and the Christian presence would disappear from the east altogether. As a result the Frankish armies withdrew to Palestine, Konrad sailed to Constantinople on his way back to Germany, and Louis stayed on for a few months before setting sail for France.432 Thus the greatest Frankish venture ended in utter failure because of mutual support between the Islamic emirates Mosul and Aleppo with Damascus and the Seljuks of Rum in the face of aggression, and because the will to resist was present in the hearts of the leaders. This was in contrast to the situation during the first Frankish campaign in which the Europeans achieved their aim of occupying most of Syria because of the differences among these emirates, the lack of any will to fight, and the weakness of the spirit of resistance in the rulers’ hearts. Noor ad-Deen Mahmood was the primary beneficiary of the failure of the second Frankish campaign, after the ruler of Damascus.