The emperor Conrad, after having caused his son Henry to be crowned, left Ratisbon in the beginning of spring. He was followed by an army so numerous, that, according to the report of Otho, of Frisingen, the waves were not sufficient to transport it, nor the fields spacious enough to contain all its battalions. He had sent ambassadors to announce his coming to Constantinople, and to demand permission to cross the territories of the Greek empire. Manuel Comnenus returned him a most friendly and flattering answer; but when the Germans arrived in Bulgaria and Thrace, they were not long in perceiving that they must not reckon upon the promises that had been made them.
At the time of the first crusade, Constantinople was in great dread of the Turks, which was of service to the Franks; but from that period the capital of the Greeks had experienced no alarms, and no longer feared the attacks of the Mussulmans. An opinion likewise had spread through all the provinces of the empire, that the warriors of the West entertained the project of taking possession of Constantinople. This report, probable in itself, and strengthened by the threats of the Crusaders, was very little calculated to reëstablish peace and harmony between people who despised each other reciprocally, and, perhaps with equal reason, exchanged accusations of violations of the faith of treaties.
Manuel Comnenus, whom Odo de Deuil will not even name, because, he says, his name is not written in the book of life, was the grandson of Alexius I., who reigned at the time of the first crusade. Faithful to the policy of his ancestor, more able, and above all more artful and hypocritical than he, he neglected no means to annoy and ruin the army of the Germans. In his councils the warriors of the West were considered as men of iron, whose eyes darted flames, and who shed torrents of blood with the same indifference as they would pour out the same quantity of water. At the same time that he sent them ambassadors, and furnished them with provisions, Manuel formed an alliance with the Turks, and fortified his capital. The Germans, in the course of their march, had often to repulse the perfidious attacks of the Greeks, and the latter had, more than once, cause to complain of the violence of the Crusaders. A relation of Conrad, who had remained sick in a monastery at Adrianople, was slain by the soldiers of Manuel; Frederick, duke of Suabia, gave the monastery in which this crime had been committed, up to the flames; and torrents of blood flowed to avenge an assassination.
Upon approaching Constantinople, the Germans had set up their tents in a rich valley watered by the river Melas. All at once a violent storm burst over the neighbouring mountains; the river, increased by the torrents, inundated the plain where the Christian army was celebrating the feast of the Assumption,[275] and as if it had conspired with the Greeks, says a French historian, and as if it imitated their perfidy and treason, it carried away the horses and baggage, and brought desolation into the camp of the Crusaders. The Greeks afforded some succour to the German soldiers, but they saw with joy, in an event they affected to deplore, a presage of the defeats which threatened the armies of the Latins.
Constantinople, on the arrival of Conrad, presented the novel spectacle of two emperors who had inherited the wrecks of the empire of Augustus, and each of whom called himself the successor of Cæsar and Constantine. Their pretensions created some divisions; the emperor of the West had a valiant army to support his rights; he of the East did not dare to insist too openly upon his. He called in perfidy to his aid, and wounded vanity avenged itself in a manner as cowardly as it was cruel.
As soon as the Germans had passed the Bosphorus, they found themselves exposed to all sorts of treachery. All who straggled from the army were slain by the soldiers of Comnenus; the gates of all the cities on their route were closed; when they asked for provisions, they were obliged to put the money into the baskets which were lowered down from the walls, and after all, they frequently obtained nothing but insult and ridicule. The Greeks mixed lime with the flour they sold them; and when the Crusaders had anything for sale, they where paid in a false coin, which was refused when they became purchasers. Ambuscades awaited them throughout their route; the enemy was aware of their line of march, and as the height of perfidy, furnished them at Constantinople with faithless guides, who misled the army in the defiles of Mount Taurus, and delivered them up, worn out with fatigue, to famine and despair, or to the swords of the Mussulmans. The Germans, ill-treated by the Greeks, did not seek to revenge themselves, although it would have been easy to have done so, and, according to the ideas of the age, might have appeared glorious. This is the reason why Montesquieu says, that the Germans were the best sort of people in the world. The French, who came after them, showed themselves less patient, and were more respected. The emperor sent the principal lords of his court to the king of France, before whom they prostrated themselves, and only spoke to him on their knees. French haughtiness was more surprised than pleased at such homage, and only answered the flattery of the East by a disdainful silence. The two monarchs had an interview, in which they reciprocated the most tender caresses, and sought to surpass each other in magnificence. If Manuel on this occasion excelled his rival in the display of his riches, he showed less sincerity than Louis in the demonstrations of his friendship, for in the midst of the banquets which he gave to the Crusaders, the latter learnt that he preserved a close alliance with the sultan of Iconium, and that the Turks were fully informed of the plans of the French king.
This treachery irritated the French lords, and when the emperor required them to render him homage, as the leaders of the first crusade had done, it was proposed in the council that the only reply should be to take possession of Constantinople. “You have heard,” said the bishop of Langres, “that the Greeks propose to you to recognise their empire, and submit to their laws: thus then weakness is to command strength, and cowardice bravery! What has this nation done? What have their ancestors done, that they should show so much pride? I will not speak to you of the snares and the ambushes that they have everywhere planted in your way; we have seen the priests of Byzantium mingling ridicule with outrage, purify with fire the altars at which our priests had sacrificed. They ask of us new oaths, which honour repudiates. Is it not time to revenge treasons, and repulse insults? Hitherto the Crusaders have suffered more from their perfidious friends than from their open enemies. Constantinople has long been a troublesome barrier between us and our brothers of the East. It is our duty at last to open a free road to Asia. The Greeks, you know, have allowed the sepulchre of Christ, and all the Christian cities of the East, to fall into the hands of the infidels. Constantinople, there is no doubt, will soon become a prey to Turks and barbarians, and by her cowardly weakness, she will one day open the barriers of the West. The emperors of Byzantium neither know how to defend their own provinces nor will they suffer others to do it for them. They have always impeded the generous efforts of the soldiers of the cross; even lately, this emperor, who declares himself your support, has endeavoured to dispute their conquests with the Latins, and ravish from them the principality of Antioch. His aim now is to deliver up the Christian armies to the Saracens. Let us hasten then to prevent our own ruin by effecting that of these traitors; let us not leave behind us a jealous and insolent city, which only seeks the means of destroying us; let us cast upon her the evils she prepares for us. If the Greeks accomplish their perfidious designs, it is of you the West will one day ask back its armies. Since the war we undertake is holy, is it not just that we should employ every means to succeed? Necessity, country, religion, all order you to do that which I propose to you. The aqueducts which supply the city with water are in our power, and offer an easy means of reducing the inhabitants. The soldiers of Manuel cannot stand against our battalions; a part of the walls and towers of Byzantium has crumbled away before our eyes,