Читать книгу Bleeding Armenia - M. Smbat Gabrielean - Страница 13

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Their story is but a harrowing recital of a tumultuous and reckless march through an unknown country by a starving horde of men, women and children. Pillage, rapine and blood marked their way. For a time in Germany the people were kindly disposed and brought them food. Fortunately for the mob Hungary had but recently embraced Christianity and its King, Carloman, gave it a friendly passage through his domains: but when it struck Bulgaria its struggles and sorrows began. They were forced to pillage to keep from starvation. Religion was laid aside. Hunger knew no law stronger than that of self-preservation. The Bulgarians flew to arms and inflicted great losses on the undisciplined and helpless crowd of beggars. At last that part of the throng led by Walter the Penniless, arrived under the walls of Constantinople and there were allowed by the Emperor to await the coming of Peter the Hermit. Alas! the excesses of his hosts led to still more terrible assaults while passing through Hungary and Bulgaria. At Nissa they endeavored to scale the ramparts and a terrific battle ensued in which the Crusaders were cut to pieces. Women, children, horses, camp and trophy chests, all fell a prey to the infuriated Bulgarians.

In August, Peter the Hermit appeared under the walls of Constantinople with about seven thousand soldiers and camp followers to recruit his wasted energies in the camp of Walter the Penniless while waiting for other and better armed and disciplined forces to arrive. From the banks of the Rhine, from Flanders, and even from Britain an army largely composed of the refuse of mankind, two hundred thousand strong, started on its march—but soon gave themselves to unheard-of barbarities. How much worse than a Mohammedan was a member of that hated race which had crucified the Christ and so they let loose their fury against the defenseless Jews in most pitiless massacres, sweeping on into Hungary, to the city of Mersburg, which shut its gates and refused them provisions. Forests were cut down, causeways built across the swamps which partially protected the walls and a furious assault was made upon the city. The battle raged fiercely and for a long time with doubtful result, but at last the scaling ladders of the Crusaders began to give way, and then fell dragging down their occupants and fragments of the walls and towers. These disasters carried panic into the army of the besiegers and they fled into the forests, were caught in the swamps and were ruthlessly slaughtered. Few of the desperate and cruel adventurers escaped. Some found the way back to their own country covered with disgrace—a few more made their way to the army of Peter the Hermit encamped before Constantinople.

Thus far this fanatical spirit had cost Western Europe the lives of nearly a quarter of a million people, and not a Saracen had been seen. But the motley crowd encamped on the Bosphorus augmented by adventurers from Italian cities had gradually increased until now it probably numbered one hundred thousand all told. They were scarcely more welcome than the Saracens to the Emperor Alexius who had treated them as guests and supplied their famished hosts. Their desire for plunder could not long be restrained, and the churches, houses and palaces in the suburbs fell a prey to their rapacity which was as insatiable as the cry for blood that rises from a pack of ravening wolves. Alexius was therefore very glad to furnish them with transportation across the Bosphorus. They were now on Asiatic soil an undisciplined and motley crowd in the face of the well armed and equally furious and fanatical Turk. They revelled in the pillage of the fertile plains of Nicomedia, dividing the booty at night in their camps. They plundered the valley, ravaged and burned the villages and committed most horrible excesses; they captured a small fort near the mountains from the Turks and massacred the garrison. The Turks reinforced, fell upon them in turn, and put nearly all of them to the sword. This roused the anger of the mixed crowds in camp. Nothing could restrain the blind fury of the soldier mob. They chased the apparently flying columns of the Turks into the mountains of an unknown country and fell into the ambush laid for them. In vain their courage, their despair. The carnage was horrible. Only three thousand escaped. The entire crusading army perished in this single battle and only their bleaching bones remained as a ghastly monument pointing out to other crusaders the way to the Holy Land.

Europe learned with astonishment and horror of the sad fate of over three hundred thousand soldiers who had departed amid the promises and the blessings of the church. Their misfortune, however, did not deter others, but seemed only to inspire them with resolution; their disasters furnished a warning to the better regulated and more formidable hosts which were to pour into the East from the now thoroughly aroused West.