A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 by Steven Runciman Read Free Book Online

cousin John
Tzimisces. Nicephorus was a grim, unlovable man. Despite his victories, he had
been hated at Constantinople for his financial exactions and corruption and his
bitter quarrel with the Church. John, who was already known as a brilliant
general, succeeded without difficulty to the throne, and made his peace with
the Church by throwing over his imperial paramour. But a war with Bulgaria kept
him busy in Europe for the next four years. Meanwhile there was a revival in
Islam, led by the Fatimid dynasty, which established itself in Egypt and
southern Syria, and in 971 even attempted the recapture of Antioch. In 974 John
could turn his attention to the East. That autumn he descended into eastern
Mesopotamia, capturing Nisibin and reducing Mosul to vassalage, and even
contemplating a sudden march on Baghdad. But he realized that the Fatimites
were more dangerous enemies than their Abbasid rivals, and next spring he
advanced into Syria. Following the route of Nicephorus, six years before, he
swept up the Orontes valley, past Homs, which submitted without a blow, and
Baalbek, which he took by force, right into Damascus, which promised him
tribute and a humble alliance. Thence he went on into Galilee, to Tiberias and
to Nazareth, and down to the coast at Caesarea. Envoys from Jerusalem came to
him to beg him to spare them the horrors of a sack. But he did not feel able to
advance to the Holy City itself with the towns of the Phoenician coast untaken
behind him. He retired northward, overpowering them one by one, with the
exception of the fortress-port of Tripoli. Winter was coming on, and the
Emperor was obliged to postpone his efforts for a season. On his way back to
Antioch he captured and garrisoned the two great castles of the Nosairi
Mountains, Barzuya and Sahyun. Then he returned to Constantinople. But his
campaign was never resumed. Quite suddenly, in January 976, he died.
    These wars had made the Christian Empire once
more the great power in the East. With the prospect of the deliverance of the
Christians of the East in sight, they had, moreover, reached the status of
religious wars. Hitherto, wars against the Moslem had been wars regularly waged
for the defence of the Empire and had been, so to speak, taken for granted as a
part of daily life. Though now and then Christian captives might be given the
choice of apostasy or death by some fanatical Moslem victor and their martyrdom
would be duly remembered and honoured, such cases were rare. To public opinion
in Byzantium there was no greater merit in dying in battle for the protection
of the Empire against the infidel Arab than against the Christian Bulgar; nor
did the Church make any distinction. But both Nicephorus and John declared that
the struggle was now for the glory of Christendom, for the rescue of the holy
places and for the destruction of Islam. Already when an Emperor celebrated a
triumph over the Saracens the choirs sang: ‘Glory be to God, Who has conquered
the Saracens.’ Nicephorus emphasized that his wars were Christian wars, partly,
perhaps, in an attempt to counteract his bad relations with the Church. He
failed to induce the Patriarch to support a decree announcing that soldiers
dying on the eastern front died as martyrs; for to the eastern Church even the
exigencies of war did not entirely excuse the act of murder. But in his
insulting manifesto to the Caliph that he sent before starting on his campaign
of 964, he saw himself as the Christian champion, and even threatened to march
on Mecca, to establish there the throne of Christ. John Tzimisces used the same
language. In his letter describing his campaign of 974, written to the king of
Armenia, ‘our desire’, he says, ‘was to free the Holy Sepulchre from the
outrages of the Moslems’. He tells how he spared the cities of Galilee from
being pillaged, because of their part in the history of the Christian faith;
and mentioning his check before Tripoli he adds that but for it he would have
gone