During this time the rear-guard of the army, in which was the king, advanced full of confidence and security; on seeing troops in the woods and on the rocks, they supposed them to be the French, and saluted them with cries of joy. They marched without order, the beasts of burden and the chariots were mingled with the battalions, and the greater part of the soldiers had left their arms with the baggage. The Turks, perfectly motionless, waited in silence till the Christian army should be enclosed in the defiles, and when they thought themselves sure of victory, they moved forward, uttering frightful cries, and, sword in hand, fell upon the unarmed Christians, who had no time to rally. The disorder and confusion of the French army cannot be described. “Above us,” says an ocular witness, “steep rocks rose up to the clouds; beneath us precipices, dug by the torrent, descended to the infernal regions.” The Crusaders were upon a narrow path, upon which men and horses could neither advance nor retreat; they dragged each other down into the abysses; whilst rocks, detached from the tops of the mountains, rolling down with horrible noise, crushed everything in their passage.
The cries of the wounded and the dying mingled with the confused roar of the torrents, the hissing of the arrows, and the neighing of the terrified horses. In this frightful tumult the leaders gave no orders, and the soldiers could neither fight nor fly. The bravest rallied around the king, and advanced towards the top of the mountain. Thirty of the principal nobles that accompanied Louis perished by his side, selling their lives dearly. The king remained almost alone on the field of battle, and took refuge upon a rock, whence he braved the attack of the infidels who pursued him. With his back against a tree, he singly resisted the efforts of several Saracens, who, taking him for a simple soldier, at length left him, to secure their share of the pillage. Although the night began to fall, the king expected to be attacked again, when the voices of some Frenchmen who had escaped the carnage, gave him the agreeable information that the Turks had retired. He mounted a stray horse, and, after a thousand perils, rejoined his vanguard, where all were lamenting his death.
After this defeat, in which the king had been exposed to such dangers, the report of his death was not only spread throughout the East, but reached Europe, where it filled the Christians, particularly the French, with grief and terror. William of Tyre, whilst relating the disastrous defeat of the Crusaders, expresses astonishment that God, always full of mercy, should have allowed so many illustrious warriors armed in his cause, to perish so miserably. The Crusaders who formed the vanguard of the army, whilst deploring the death of their brethren, raised their voices against Geoffrey de Rançon, and demanded that the loss of so much blood should be visited upon him. The king, however, had not sufficient firmness to punish an irreparable fault, and only so far yielded to the wishes of the barons and the soldiers as to give them as a leader an old warrior named Gilbert, whose skill and bravery were the boast of the whole army. Gilbert shared the command with Evrard des Barres, grand master of the Templars, who had come, with a great number of his knights, to meet the Christian army. Under these two leaders, whom the king himself obeyed, the Crusaders continued their march, and avenged their defeat several times upon the Mussulmans.
On their arrival in Pisidia the French had almost everywhere to defend themselves against the perfidy of the Greeks and the attacks of the Turks; but winter was even a more dangerous enemy than these to the Christian army. Torrents of rain fell every day; cold and humidity enervated the powers of the soldiers; and the greater part of the horses, being destitute of forage, perished, and only served to feed the army, which was without provisions. The clothes of the soldiers hung about them in rags; the Crusaders sold or abandoned their arms; the tents and baggage lay scattered on the roads, and the army dragged in its train a crowd of sick, and numbers of poor pilgrims, who made the air resound with their cries and lamentations. The king of France consoled them by his discourses, and relieved them by his charitable gifts; for in the midst of so many reverses God alone seemed to sustain his courage. “Never,” says Odo of Deuil, “did he pass a single day without hearing mass, and without invoking the God of the Christians.”
At last the Christians arrived before the walls of Attalia, situated on the coast of Pamphylia, at the mouth of the river Cestius. This city, inhabited by Greeks, was governed in the name of the emperor of Constantinople. As the inhabitants were mistrustful of the intentions of the Christian army, they refused to open their gates to them, and the Crusaders were obliged to encamp on the neighbouring plains, exposed to all the rigours of the season.
They could neither find provisions for themselves nor forage for their horses in a barren uncultivated country, constantly ravaged by the Turks. The Greeks refused to assist them in their distress, and sold them everything at its weight in gold. Famine, and the evils which the Christians had hitherto suffered, became still more insupportable to them when they lost all hope. Louis VII. having called a council, the chief men of the army represented to him that the Crusaders were without horses and without arms, they were not in a condition to give an enemy battle, nor could they support the fatigues of a long march. There remained, they added, no other resource for the Christians but to abandon themselves to the perils of the sea.[279] The king did not agree with their opinion, and wished that they should only embark the multitude of pilgrims that embarrassed the march of the army. “As for us,” said he, “we will redouble our courage, and we will follow the route which our fathers, who conquered Antioch and Jerusalem, followed. Whilst anything remains to me, I will share it with my companions; and when I shall have nothing left, which of you will not undergo with me poverty and misery?” The barons, touched with this speech, swore to die with their king, but were not willing to die without glory. Animated by the example of Louis, they might triumph over the Turks, over their misfortunes, and the rigours of winter; but they were without defence against famine and the perfidy of the Greeks. They reproached Louis VII. with not having followed the counsels of the bishop of Langres, and with having pardoned enemies more cruel than the Mussulmans, more dangerous than the tempests or rocks of the ocean.
As at the end of this council, strong murmurs against the Greeks arose in the Christian army, the governor of Attalia became fearful of the effects of despair, and came to offer Louis vessels, in which to embark all the Crusaders. This proposition was accepted; but they had to wait for the promised vessels more than five weeks. In so long a delay the Crusaders consumed all the resources they had left, and many died of hunger and misery; the vessels which at length arrived in the ports of Attalia, were neither large enough nor sufficient in number to embark the whole Christian army. The Crusaders then perceived the abyss of evils into which they were about to fall; but such was their resignation, or rather the deplorable state of the army, that they committed no violence towards the Greeks, and did not even threaten a single city which refused to help them.
A crowd of poor pilgrims, among whom were barons and knights, appeared before the king, and spoke to him in these terms: “We have not means wherewith to pay for our passage, and we cannot follow you into Syria; we remain here victims to misery and disease; when you shall have left us, we shall be exposed to greater perils; and being attacked by the Turks is the least of the misfortunes we have to dread. Remember that we are Franks, that we are Christians; give us leaders who may console us for your absence, and assist us to endure the fatigue, the hunger, and the death which await us.” Louis, in order to reassure them, spoke to them in the most feeling terms, and distributed considerable sums amongst them. He was as liberal in his assistance, says Odo de Deuil, as if he had lost nothing, or wanted nothing for himself. He sent for the governor of Attalia, and gave him fifty silver marks to provide for the sick who remained in the city, and to conduct the land army as far as the coasts