The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 05: (From Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa)
History
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 05: (From Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa)
World history
The crusaders had won a considerable victory. Three thousand knights
belonging to the enemy had been slain, and Kilidje Arslan was hurrying
away to enlist the services of his kinsmen. Meanwhile the Latin hosts
were sweeping onward. Hundreds died from the heat, and dogs or goats
took the place of the baggage-horses which had perished. At length
Tancred with his troop found himself before Tarsus, the birthplace and
the home of that single-hearted apostle who long ago had preached a
gospel strangely unlike the creed of the crusaders. Following rapidly
behind him, Baldwin saw with keen jealousy the banner of the Italian
chief floating on its towers, and insisted on taking the precedence.
Tancred pleaded the choice of the people and his own promise to protect
them; but the intrigues of Baldwin changed their humor, and the
rejection of Tancred by the men of Tarsus was followed by an attempt at
private war between Tancred and Baldwin, in which the troops of Tancred
were overborne. So early was the first harvest of murderous discord
reaped among the holy warriors of the Cross. It was ruin, however, to
stay where they were; and the main army again began its march, to
undergo once more the old monotony of hardship and peril.
A very small force would have sufficed to disorganize and rout them as
they clambered over the defiles of Mount Taurus; nor could Raymond,
recovering from a terrible illness, or Godfrey, suffering from wounds
inflicted by a bear, have done much to help them. But for the present
their enemies were dismayed; and Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, hastened
with eagerness to obey a summons which besought him to aid the Greek or
Armenian tyrant of Edessa. As Alexius had done to his brother, so this
chief welcomed Baldwin as his son; but Baldwin, having once entered into
the city, cared nothing for the means which had brought him thither, and
the death of his adoptive father was followed by the establishment at
Edessa of a Latin principality which lasted for fifty-four, or, as some
have thought, forty-seven years. Baldwin had anticipated the
unconditional surrender of Samosata; but the Turkish governor had some
of the Edessenes in his power, and he refused to give up the city except
on the payment of ten thousand gold pieces. The Turk shortly afterward
fell into Baldwin's hands, and was put to death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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