Part 37

The greatest captains have often been reproached with avoiding engagements. Their firmness in despising the railleries of the multitude and the scoffing opinions of their rivals, have in almost all cases placed the seal upon their reputations. Francis, duke of Guise, at the head of a French army and some troops furnished by Pope Paul IV., undertook the conquest of Naples. This general, too skilful not to be certain that the expedition could not succeed if it were not begun with some complete advantage, did all in his power to bring the Spaniards to a general action: he offered them so many favourable opportunities, that their officers could not pardon their leader, the duke of Alva, for neglecting them. The duke called a council of war, in which he said, in an animated yet haughty tone,--“I have always prayed God, gentlemen, to inspire my soldiers with a determined firmness and a fiery courage, so that, without fearing or reasoning, they would rush headlong to meet death, and expose themselves to any dangers when commanded to do so. But I ask other qualities of officers: much prudence and great phlegm, to moderate the impetuosity of the soldiers--that is the way by which they attain the rank of great captains. I will not conceal from you that I have been displeased with your ardour, because I have thought it immoderate and opposed to reason. To point out to you the occasions on which a great general should give battle, I will tell you it is when his object is to succour a strong place reduced to extremity, which may form the security of a province; when he knows that the enemy must receive succours which will render them his superior, or even his equal; when, at the beginning of a war, it is desirable to give reputation to his arms, to strengthen the fidelity of wavering subjects, retain allies, and prevent covert enemies from declaring themselves; when fortune not discontinuing to favour us, our enemies are in such consternation that they dare not stand before us; and lastly, when, pressed by famine and disease, and hemmed in on all sides, we must either conquer or die.

“A great captain will never hazard a considerable action if he is not sure of drawing great advantages from it, or unless he is forced into it: tell us what the dangers are which surround us, or what fruit our country can derive from the loss of our lives or of our blood? Suppose we are victorious over the duke of Guise, and the French are cut to pieces, what shall we be the better for it? Is it that the cities of the dominions of the Pope will be united to those of Philip? Is it that the baggage of the French will enrich us? If, on the contrary, the always uncertain fate of arms should prove to be against us, what misfortunes would not our rashness bring upon us? Do not, then, let us trouble ourselves about conquering Guise; he is flying before us. Could a murderous battle procure us anything more solid or more glorious? We gain a complete victory, without shedding a drop of blood. Our name alone serves as a defence and a rampart to all Italy.

“If this manner of making war did not appear to me suited to circumstances, I should remember what I did in Saxony; I would cross the greatest rivers, I would not shrink from wetting my feet with the sea: but whilst I find victory in the retreat of my enemy, I will remain faithful to my maxims, and will endeavour to combat your audacity and rashness. In a word, I will not risk a kingdom against a cassock of cloth of gold, which is all Guise can lose.”

The conjectures of the Spanish general were all verified. The French expedition had the most fatal issue.

It may be said that this speech contains the history of no siege; but Fabius Maximus was no less admirable than Scipio; and he who consumes his enemy in vain enterprises, is not a less able general than he who annihilates him in a battle. Military men will find more instruction in the motives which determined the duke of Alva not to risk a battle, than they would by the description of a siege.

Since the commencement of the French revolution, Naples has been the scene of several important political events, and has more than once succumbed to the power of the French; but as there has been no regular siege, these do not come within the scope of our plan.

EDESSA.

A.D. 503.

The inhabitants of Edessa have, or rather had, a legend that Christ promised their king Abgarus that their city should never be taken. This gave them such confidence, that they on all occasions braved the most formidable enemies. In 503 of the Christian era, Cavadez, king of Persia, approached Edessa at the head of an army. The confidence of the inhabitants was so little shaken by the appearance of this formidable host, that they left their gates wide open during a whole day, and, such is the influence of superstition, the Persians did not make the least attempt to violate the prohibition. It is related that, on this occasion, children even went to the camp of the Persians, and insulted them with impunity. Cavadez proposed an accommodation; but without effect. This prince was preparing his batteries, when the inhabitants made so furious an assault upon him, that, without losing a single man, they repulsed his army with great slaughter. Ashamed of his defeat, the great king regained his dominions at quickest speed.

SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 544.

Chosroës, son of the above king, presented himself before Edessa, but without any better success. Upon the point of abandoning his enterprise, he made it known, by a herald, that he meant to sell all the prisoners he had taken at Antioch. The whole city of Edessa, animated by the zealous and active charity which religion inspires, was in a state of eager impatience to redeem these unhappy victims of war. Every one wished to contribute in proportion to, or even beyond their fortune, to this pious purpose. Each person carried his offering to the great church, which was speedily filled with treasures of various kinds. Courtesans from their vices, honest peasants from their labours, if they had but a goat or a sheep, contributed cheerfully to the liberation of their fellow Christians. This generous emulation produced a sufficient ransom for all the prisoners. But, as is too often the case, this wealth, collected for holy purposes, became so great as to attract the cupidity of Buzes, who commanded the city for the emperor Justinian: when it was collected, he appropriated the whole to himself, and Chosroës took his prisoners to a better market.

THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 549.

Four years after, this prince again laid siege to Edessa, and attacked it vigorously. But the besieged made a sortie, in which, it is said, an officer named Arget killed, with his own hand, twenty-seven of the enemy, and in which Chosroës was repulsed. He then commenced, out of reach of the city missiles, a platform, with the purpose of carrying it up to the walls. The sight of this terrible work induced the inhabitants to have recourse to prayer. The physician Stephen endeavoured to bend the haughty monarch: “Great lord,” said he, “humanity marks the character of good kings. Victories and conquests will procure you other titles, but kindnesses alone will secure you the name dearest to your own age, and most honourable in the eyes of posterity. If there is a city in the world which ought to experience the effects of that kindness, it is that which you now threaten to destroy. Edessa gave me birth. I restored life to your father; I preserved and watched over your infancy. Alas! when I advised the immortal Cavadez to place you on his throne, and to deprive your brothers of it, I was then preparing the ruin of my own country! Blind mortals, we are often the artisans of our own misfortunes! If you remember my services, I ask of you a recompense which will be not less advantageous to you than to my compatriots. By leaving them their lives, you spare yourself the reproach of cruelty.” This well-timed and pathetic discourse produced very little effect upon Chosroës; he made such hard propositions, that the besieged fell back upon their courage and their resources. They destroyed the point of the terrace, by digging a chamber under it, and filling it with the most combustible wood, steeped in oil of cedar, sulphur, and bitumen; fire was easily set to this, and the following night, columns of fire were seen bursting from different parts of the platform. At the same time, the Romans, the better to deceive the enemy, threw upon it a number of fire-pots and ignited torches. The Persians, not suspecting there was any other cause for the fire, came in crowds from their camp to extinguish it, and were received with showers of missiles from the walls. Chosroës himself came to the scene of action, and was the first to discover that the conflagration was in the entrails of his platform. He ordered the whole army to throw earth upon the top, to stifle the flames, and water to extinguish them; but all in vain: when vent was stopped at one place, a hundred more passages were opened in others, the water thrown upon the sulphur and bitumen augmenting the violence of the burning. In the midst of the confusion, the garrison made a happy and vigorous sortie, producing great slaughter among the Persians. At length the flames burst from all parts, and the work was abandoned.

Six days after, Chosroës ordered the walls to be scaled, early in the morning; but, after a severe contest, the Persians were repulsed, and obliged to abandon their ladders, which were drawn up over the walls by the besieged, amidst triumphant laughter. On the same day at noon, the Persians attacked one of the gates; but the garrison, the peasants who had retired to the city, with the inhabitants, made a sortie from the gate attacked, and again repulsed their enemies. At length, the king of Persia, enraged at this noble resistance, resolved upon a general assault. The citizens crowded to defend their walls; every human being in Edessa became a soldier; women, children, and old men, were all eager to share the labours of the combatants, or to furnish them with arms and refreshments. The Persians gave way; Chosroës forced them back to the walls with threats and blows; but, notwithstanding his efforts, they yielded to the brave efforts of the besieged. Foaming with vexation and rage, Chosroës regained his camp, and soon after returned to his own states. During this furious attack, an immense elephant, bearing upon his back a lofty tower, filled with archers, advanced towards the wall like a terrible machine, from the top of which poured a continuous shower of darts and arrows. There was great chance of the wall being escaladed at this spot, when a Roman soldier took it into his head to suspend a pig by a cord, and dangle it before the elephant. This animal appeared amazed at the horrible noise made by the suspended pig; he at first looked at it earnestly, and then, turning his back, retreated in such haste as to place his master’s troops in danger.

FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1097.

Although the means by which Edessa fell into the hands of one of the Crusaders may not be, correctly speaking, a siege, the circumstances are too interesting to be passed by in silence.

Of all the Crusaders, Baldwin, the brother of Godfrey, was one of the bravest, but at the same time the most intractable. In fact, he had the honesty to confess what many of his comrades really felt, but were ashamed to admit; he came into Asia to make his fortune, and he lost no opportunity for effecting that great purpose.

Seduced by the attractive picture drawn of the provinces upon the banks of the Euphrates, by Pancratius, an ambitious, restless Armenian prince, Baldwin, soon after the siege of Nicea, abandoned the main army of the Crusaders, and may literally be said to _have gone to seek his fortune_ at the head of fifteen hundred foot and two hundred horse, all attracted by the hopes of plunder. He was the more free for this undertaking, from having just lost his wife Gundechilde, who had accompanied him to the Crusade. He witnessed the magnificent obsequies bestowed upon her by his fellow-adventurers, and then departed, unregretted, on his expedition.

The cities of Turbessel and Ravendel were the first places that opened their gates to the fortunate adventurer. These conquests soon produced a division between Baldwin and Pancratius, both being actuated by the same ambitious projects; but this quarrel did not stop the march of the brother of Godfrey a moment. The Crusader opposed open unhesitating force to cunning; he told Pancratius, if he presumed to be his rival, he should at once treat him as an enemy; and thus banished the disappointed Armenian from the theatre of his victories. Baldwin stood in need of neither guide nor help in a country whose inhabitants all came out to hail and meet him. His fame preceded his march; and his exploits were canvassed in Edessa long before he drew near to its walls.

This city, the metropolis of Mesopotamia, and so celebrated in the history of the primitive church, having escaped the invasions of the Turks and Persians, became the place of refuge for all the neighbouring Christians, who brought their wealth thither for security. A Greek prince, of the name of Theodore, sent by the emperor of Constantinople, was governor at the time, and maintained his position by paying tribute to the Saracens. The approach and the victories of the Crusaders produced a great sensation in Edessa. The people united with the governor in calling Baldwin to their aid. The bishop and twelve of the principal inhabitants were deputed to meet the European adventurer. They spoke to him of the wealth of Mesopotamia, of the devotion of their fellow-citizens to the cause of Christ, and conjured him to save a Christian city from the domination of the infidels. Baldwin easily yielded to their entreaties, and set forward on his march to cross the Euphrates.

He had the good fortune to escape the Turks, who laid wait for him, and without drawing a sword, arrived safely in the territories of Edessa. Having left garrisons in the places which had surrendered to him, when he came near to this great object of his ambition, he had really with him no more than a body of a hundred horsemen. As he approached the city, the whole population came out to meet him, bearing olive-branches, and singing triumphant hymns. It was a singular spectacle to behold such a small number of warriors surrounded by an immense multitude, imploring their support, and proclaiming them their liberators. They were received with so much enthusiasm, that the prince or governor took umbrage at it, and began to see in them enemies much more dangerous than the Saracens. To attach their leader to himself, and to engage him to support his authority, he offered him vast wealth. But the ambitious Baldwin, whether he expected to obtain more from the affection of the people and the good fortune of his arms, or whether he considered it disgraceful to be in the pay of a petty foreign prince, refused the governor’s offers with contempt; he even threatened to leave the city to its fate. The inhabitants, to prevent his departure, assembled in a tumultuous manner, and conjured him with loud cries to remain amongst them; the governor himself made fresh efforts to detain the Crusaders and interest them in their cause. Baldwin gave them all clearly to understand that he would never be at the trouble of defending states that were not his own; and the prince of Edessa, who was old and childless, determined to adopt him as his son, and to designate him as his successor. The ceremony of adoption was gone through in the presence of the Crusaders and the inhabitants. According to the custom of the East, the Greek prince caused Baldwin to pass between his shirt and his naked flesh, giving him a kiss, in token of alliance and parentage. The old wife of the governor repeated the same ceremony, and from that time Baldwin, considered as their son and heir, neglected nothing for the defence of a city which was to belong to him.

An Armenian prince coming to the aid of Edessa, Baldwin, seconded by this useful auxiliary, with his own horsemen and Theodore’s troops, thought himself in a condition to take the field against the Turks. He was at first successful, but, whilst his men were engaged in plunder, they were attacked, and obliged to return to Edessa, where their appearance spread consternation.

As a loser is never welcome, Baldwin and Theodore began now to quarrel. But the people were all in favour of the new prince, and after several disgraceful plots and tumults, the Edessans hurled their old governor from the battlements, dragged his bleeding body through the streets, rejoicing over the murder of an old man as if they had gained a victory over the infidels.

Although Baldwin affected to be passive in this horrid business, he did not fail to seize the advantages that accrued to him in consequence of it. He was proclaimed master and liberator of Edessa. Seated on a bloody throne, and dreading the inconstant humour of the people, he soon inspired as much fear among his subjects as among his enemies. But his firmness of character overcame domestic seditions, and his prudence, tact, and valour speedily extended his dominions. He purchased the city of Samoata with the treasures of his predecessor, and took several other cities by force of arms. As fortune favoured him in everything, the loss even of his wife assisted his projects of aggrandizement. He married the niece of an Armenian prince, and, by this alliance, extended his possessions to Mount Taurus. All Mesopotamia, with the two shores of the Euphrates, acknowledged his authority, and Asia beheld a Frank knight reigning without obstacle over the richest provinces of the ancient kingdom of Assyria.

KAIBAR.

A.D. 682.

Remarkable characters give consequence to insignificant places; Richard Cœur de Lion, who had filled two continents with his fame, was killed at the siege of a paltry castle, and the name of Chaluze is preserved in history. But Kaibar, a city of Arabia, is associated with, and saved from oblivion by, the name of even a greater man than Richard.

The Jews spread throughout Arabia attempted to cross the ambitious projects of Mahomet. They took up arms, and shut themselves up in the strongly fortified city of Kaibar. Although he had beaten them several times, Mahomet knew that he must not lose his _prestige_, and at once marched to attack them. Kaibar was carried, but the conquest proved fatal to the conqueror. He lodged at the house of one of the principal inhabitants, whose daughter, named Zainab, gave him for supper a poisoned shoulder of mutton. Mahomet vomited the meat; but such was the activity of the poison that from that moment he became a valetudinarian: he died from the effects of the poison three years after. When questioned as to what could lead her to the commission of such a crime, Zainab coolly replied, “_I wished to know if Mahomet were really a prophet._” Notwithstanding such a death would discredit the holiness of his mission, the followers of Mahomet do not deny this poisoning.

CONSTANTINOPLE.

A.D. 559.

The majesty of the Roman people no longer commanded the respect of the universe, the valour of its legions no longer spread terror among the barbarians, in the time of Justinian. A king of the Huns, named Zabergan, ventured to advance, in 559, to the very walls of Constantinople, and to threaten the imperial city with pillage. There was but a feeble garrison within its ramparts, but in the moment of terror it was remembered that they possessed Belisarius. That great man was instantly dragged from the obscurity in which he languished. Called upon to drive from the walls of the capital the dangers by which it was surrounded, he resumed his genius, his activity, and his valour; no one could perceive that years had cooled his ardour. His first care was to surround his camp with a wide ditch, to protect it from the insults of the Huns, and to deceive them with regard to the number of his troops by lighting fires in all parts of the plain. There was only one passage by which the Huns could reach Constantinople, and that was through a hollow way, bordered on each side by a thick forest. Belisarius began by lining the two sides of this defile with two hundred archers; he then advanced at the head of three hundred soldiers, trained to conquer under his orders. He was followed by the rest of his troops, who were ordered to utter loud cries, and to drag along the ground large branches of trees, so as to raise vast clouds of dust round them. Everything succeeded; the barbarians, charged in flank, blinded by the dust which the wind blew in their eyes, terrified by the cries of the Romans, and the noise of their arms, and attacked in front with vigour by Belisarius and his chosen band, took to flight without striking a blow. This horde of barbarians hastily departed, to carry the evils of plunder, fire, and death elsewhere.

SECOND SIEGE, A.D. 670.

Whilst Heraclius was absent, combating the Persians, the khan of the Abares appeared before Constantinople. For once the inhabitants of that magnificent city evinced bravery, and rendered the efforts of the khan useless. He regained his deserts, after having witnessed the destruction of the greater part of his troops.

THIRD SIEGE, A.D. 672.

Tezid, son of the caliph Moavias, proved no less unfortunate in his expedition against Constantinople. His naval force was entirely destroyed, and that loss compelled him to raise the siege. Among the Mussulmans who signalized their courage in this expedition, was the captain Aboux Aioub, one of the companions of Mahomet in the battles of Bedra and Ohod. He was buried at the foot of the walls of the city. His tomb is the place at which the Ottoman emperors are girded with the sword.

FOURTH SIEGE, A.D. 1203.

The great siege of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders is one of the most tempting subjects to dilate upon that history affords. After casting a retrospective glance at this city, or rather this empire, for, as Paris is said to be France, so was Constantinople the empire of the East; and contemplating its glories and disasters, from its foundation upon Byzantium, by Constantine, to its capture by Mahomet II., of all the events connected with it, its siege and plunder by a handful of Christian knights is one of the most extraordinary and interesting. But to relate all the particulars of this siege would require a volume, and we, alas! can only afford a few pages to it. In this predicament we turn from Michaud, who tells the tale admirably, to the quite as elegant but more brief account of Gibbon, to whose words, or nearly so, we shall confine ourselves.