The Dream and the Tomb by Robert Payne Read Free Book Online Page A

given food. The emperor’s generosity continued until at last the army reached Constantinople on or about August 1, 1096. Walter Sans-Avoir had arrived in the city two weeks earlier.
    When Peter was received in audience by the emperor, he was voluble in his gratitude and convincing in his description of the trials he had passed through at the hands of the Turks when he was living in Jerusalem some years earlier. He said that a divine voice had urged him to bring a vast army to the Holy Land, and he had returned to France to organize a Crusade which would save the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians. Impressed by his speech and his manner, the emperor gave him splendid gifts. Peter wanted to march against the Turks immediately. The emperor suggested that it would be wiser for him to remain in camp until the coming of the army of the princes, but Peter was determined. Five days later, at Peter’s request, the remnant of the once great army of poor folk, now numbering less than thirty thousand men, women, and children, was ferried across the Bosphorus.
    They pitched camp in a small place called Helenopolis. There they rested for a few days, recuperating from their adventures and receiving gifts of food from the emperor. According to William of Tyre, the emperor’s bounty was so great that they were incited to arrogance by their well-being. Against the emperor’s repeated warnings, they insisted on going to war against the Turks, although they were ill prepared, knew nothing about fighting the Turks and nothing about the geography of Asia Minor.
    The army of the poor was not the elite army of knights the emperor had called for. Though he half-admired Peter the Hermit, he had no confidence in his leadership nor any hope that his unruly, cantankerous, pathetic soldiers would amount to anything. Integrated into the army of the princes they might serve as laborers, scouts, water-carriers, or grooms, but they were not a fighting force.
    Near Helenopolis was a fortified camp formerly occupied by English mercenaries. The Greeks called it Cibotos, the Franks called it Civetot. Here the army rested and debated the coming offensive against the Turks, and when Peter the Hermit explained that this was not to be contemplated until the great army of the princes crossed the Bosphorus, they simply disregarded him and relieved him of his authority. There were some Germans and Italians in the army of the poor, and they elected a certain Rainald to be their leader, while Geoffrey Burel, who had been Peter’s chief military adviser, was elected leader of the Franks. Peter was relegated to theposition of ambassador to the court of Byzantium and charged with obtaining as much assistance as possible for the Crusaders.
    The savage momentum of the army of the poor survived its transplantation to the shores of Asia. In their restlessness they began to attack surrounding Christian villages, murdering and plundering; then they advanced farther and attacked the villages within the Turkish frontier, which were also inhabited by Christians. All their plunder was sold to Greek sailors at Civetot; all their success was at the expense of defenseless villagers who shared their own faith.
    Thus emboldened, the Franks decided to attack Nicaea, the capital of the Seljuk Sultan Kilij Arslan. They plundered the villages around Nicaea, drove off huge herds of sheep and cattle, caroused and murdered as they pleased. Anna Comnena wrote that they had the unpleasant habit of impaling babies on wooden spits and roasting them over a fire. There is no doubt that they were merciless. But Nicaea was a very large walled city with huge defensive towers, a large garrison, capable commanders. A Turkish column raced out of the city and there was a pitched battle. The Franks were able to flee from the battlefield with much of their booty, and if they had not conquered Nicaea, they had acquired the wealth of many villages.
    Then it was the turn of the Germans