The hermit Peter, with the wreck of his troop, took refuge on a hill in the neighbourhood of the city. He passed the night in alarms, deploring his defeat, and the sad effects of the violences of which he had himself given the signal and the example among the Hungarians. He had around him no more than five hundred men. The trumpets and the clarions were sounded without ceasing, to recall those who had escaped the carnage, and had lost themselves in their flight.
Whether it was that the Crusaders could find no safety but under their own standards, or whether they were still mindful of their oath, none turned back from the crusade. On the day following their defeat, seven thousand fugitives came to rejoin their general. A few days after, Peter mustered beneath his command thirty thousand combatants. All the rest had perished in the battle fought under the walls of Nissa. The army of the Crusaders, reduced to a deplorable condition, sought no opportunity of avenging their defeat, but marched with melancholy steps towards the frontiers of Thrace. They were without the means either of subsisting or fighting. They had to fear a fresh defeat if they encountered the Bulgarians, and all the horrors of famine if they came to a desert country. Misfortune rendered them more docile, and inspired them with sentiments of moderation. The pity which their misery excited was more serviceable to them than the terror which they had wished to create. When they ceased to be an object of dread, assistance was afforded them. When they entered the territories of Thrace, the Greek emperor sent deputies to complain of their disorders, but at the same time to announce his clemency. Peter, who dreaded new disasters, wept with joy when he learnt that he had found favour with Alexis. Full of confidence and hope, he pursued his march, and the Crusaders, carrying palms in their hands, arrived without further obstacles under the walls of Constantinople.
The Greeks, who entertained no love for the Latins, were more prodigal and kind in the assistance they afforded them from finding them less formidable. They secretly applauded the courage of the Bulgarians, and contemplated with complacency the warriors of the West covered with the rags of indigence. The emperor was desirous of seeing the extraordinary man who had roused the western world by his eloquence, and Peter was admitted to an audience of Alexis. In the presence of all his court, the emperor extolled the zeal of the preacher of the crusade; and as he had nothing to fear from the ambition of a hermit, he loaded him with presents, caused arms, money, and provisions to be distributed among his army, and advised him to defer the commencement of the war to the arrival of the princes and illustrious captains who had assumed the cross.
This advice was salutary, but the most renowned heroes of the crusade were not yet ready to leave Europe; they were to be preceded by fresh troops of Crusaders, who, marching without forethought and without discipline in the steps of the army of Peter, should commit the same excesses, and be exposed to the same reverses. A priest of the Palatinate had preached the crusade in several provinces of Germany. At his voice fifteen or twenty thousand men had taken the oath to fight the infidels, and had assembled in an armed body. As the preachers of the holy war passed for men inspired by God, the people believed they were obeying the will of heaven in taking them for chiefs of the crusade. Gotschalk obtained the same honour that had been conferred on Peter the Hermit, and was elected general by the men he had prevailed upon to take arms. This army arrived in Hungary towards the end of summer. The harvest, which was abundant, furnished the Germans with a ready opportunity of giving themselves up to intemperance. In the enjoyment of tumultuous scenes of debauchery, they forgot Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Christ himself, whose worship and laws they were marching to defend. Pillage, violation, and murder were everywhere left as the traces of their passage. Coloman assembled troops to chastise their license, and to recall them to a sense of the maxims of justice and the laws of hospitality. The soldiers of Gotschalk were full of courage, and, at first, defended themselves with advantage. Their resistance even inspired serious alarm among the Hungarians, who resolved to employ stratagem to reduce them. The general of Coloman feigned to be desirous of peace. The chiefs of the Hungarians presented themselves in the camp of the Crusaders, no longer as enemies, but as brothers. By dint of protestations and caresses, they persuaded them to allow themselves to be disarmed. The Germans, slaves of the most brutal passions, but simple and credulous, yielded to the promises of a Christian people, and abandoned themselves to a blind confidence, of which they very shortly became the victims. Scarcely had they laid down their arms when the chief of the Hungarians gave the signal for the carnage. The prayers, the tears of the Crusaders, the sacred sign which they bore upon their breasts, could not divert the blows of a perfidious and barbarous enemy. Their fate was worthy of pity, and history might have shed tears over it if they had themselves respected the laws of humanity.
We are doubtless the less astonished at the excesses of the first Crusaders, when we reflect that they belonged to the lowest class of the people, always blind, and always ready to abuse names and things the most holy, when not restrained by laws or leaders. The civil wars, which had so long disturbed Europe, had greatly increased the number of vagabonds and adventurers. Germany, more troubled than the other countries of the West, was filled with men trained in brigandage, and became the scourge of society. They almost all enrolled themselves under the banners of the cross, and carried with them into a new expedition the spirit of license and revolt with which they were animated.
There assembled on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle a new troop of Crusaders, more seditious, more undisciplined, even, than those of Peter and Gotschalk. They had been told that the crusade procured the forgiveness of all sins; and in this persuasion they committed the greatest crimes with security. Animated by a fanatical pride, they believed themselves entitled to despise and ill-treat all who did not join in the holy expedition. The war they were about to wage appeared to them so agreeable to God, and they thought by it to render such a signal service to the Church, that all the wealth of the earth would be scarcely sufficient to pay them for their devotion. Everything which fell into their hands appeared a conquest over the infidels, and became the just reward of their labours.
No captain durst place himself at the head of this ferocious troop;[55] they wandered on in disorder, and obeyed none but those who partook their wild delirium. A priest named Volkmar, and a Count Emicio, who thought to expiate the wildness of his youth by the excess of his fanaticism, attracted, by their declamations, the attention and confidence of the new Crusaders. These two chiefs were astonished that people should go so far to make war upon the Mussulmans, who kept up under their own law the tomb of Jesus Christ, whilst they left in peace a nation which had crucified its God. To inflame men’s passions still more, they took care to make heaven speak, and to support their opinions by miraculous visions. The people, for whom the Jews were everywhere an object of hatred and horror, had already shown themselves but too ready to persecute them. Commerce, which they almost alone carried on, had placed in their hands a great part of the gold then circulating in Europe. The sight of their wealth necessarily irritated the Crusaders, who were, for the most part, reduced to implore charity of the faithful to procure the means for undertaking their voyage. It is probable, likewise, that the Jews, by their railleries, insulted the enthusiasm of the Christians for the crusade.
All these motives, joined to the thirst for pillage, lit up the fires of persecution. Emicio and Volkmar