The clergy, however, warmly censured the retreat and desertion of the Crusaders, and implored Heaven to punish the base soldiers who thus abandoned the standards of the cross. Six thousand pilgrims from Brittany, who were returning to Europe, were shipwrecked on the coast of Italy, and almost all perished; and the ecclesiastics, with the most ardent of the Crusaders, did not fail to see, in so great a disaster, a manifestation of divine anger. When the Crusaders of Friesland, after having deserted the banners of the Holy Land, had returned into the West, the ocean all at once broke through the dykes, and overflowed its customary boundaries; the richest provinces of Holland were submerged, and a hundred thousand inhabitants, with whole cities, disappeared beneath the waters. Many Christians attributed this calamity to the culpable retreat of the Frieson and Dutch Crusaders. The pope beheld with pain the return of the pilgrim deserters from the cause of Christ. Honorius neglected nothing to secure the success of a war he had preached; and he every day, both by prayers and threats, pressed the departure of those who, after having taken the cross, delayed the accomplishment of their vow. According to the usual custom of navigators, two periods of the year were fixed upon at which it was best to cross the sea. The pilgrims almost always embarked in the month of March and in the month of September, whether to repair to the East or to return to Europe; which caused them to be compared to those birds of passage that change their climate at the approach of a new season, and towards the end of fine weather.[215] At each passage, the Mediterranean was covered with vessels which transported Crusaders, some returning to their homes, others going to fight the infidels. At the very moment the Christians were deploring the loss of the Frieson and Dutch warriors, their spirits were restored by seeing Crusaders from Germany, Pisa, Genoa, Venice, and several provinces of France, arrive in the camp at Damietta. Among the French warriors, history names Hervé, count of Nevers; Hugh, count de la Marche; Miles de Bar-sur-Seine; the lords John of Artois and Ponce de Crancey; Ithier de Thacy, and Savary de Mauléon; they were accompanied by the archbishop of Bordeaux, the bishops of Angers, Autun, Beauvais, Paris, Meaux, Noyon, &c. England also sent the bravest of her knights into Egypt. Henry III. had taken the cross after the council of the Lateran; but as he could not quit his dominions, at that time a prey to civil wars and torn by discord, the earls of Harcourt, Chester, and Arundel, with Prince Oliver,[216] were honoured with the charge of acquitting, in his name, the vow he had taken to fight in the East for the cause of Christ.