Prerequisites

This was a painful blow to the Christian world, whose foremost outpost was the fallen city. Other crusader states were unable to help Edessa, since Raymond of Antioch was busy at war with Byzantium, and the widow of King Fulk Melisenda ruled in Jerusalem, whose power was fragile.

AT Western Europe there were also no favorable conditions for raising a new crusade. In 1144, Pope Eugene III sat on the Roman throne. He would have to, taking advantage of the power of the church, take under his own hand the cause of protecting the East Asian principalities, but by this time the position of the pope, even in Italy itself, was far from powerful: the Roman throne was a victim of parties, and the authority of the church was threatened by a new democratic trend , which was led by Arnold of Brescian, who fought against the temporal power of the Pope. The German king Conrad III was also placed in difficult circumstances by fighting the Welfs. It was impossible to hope that the Pope or the King would take the lead in the Second Crusade.

The ideas of the Second Crusade reached not only France, but also spread by themselves in Germany, which caused a wave of anti-Semitic sentiments. Bernard of Clairvaux had to appear in person across the Rhine to rebuke the clergy who allowed such sentiments to arise. During his visit to Germany, on the eve of 1147, Conrad III invites Bernard to celebrate the first day of the New Year. After a solemn mass, the Pope delivers a speech that convinces the German emperor to take part in the Second Crusade.

This task would have been successfully completed by one French army, which consisted of a well-armed army, which along the way was doubly enlarged by volunteers who stuck to it. If the crusader militia of 1147 had consisted only of the French, they would have taken a different route, shorter and safer than that which they had chosen under the influence of the Germans.

French in political system of that era represented a nation completely isolated, which, with its immediate interests, leaned towards Italy. The Sicilian King Rod II and the French king were on close terms. Consequently, it was most natural for the French king to choose the route through Italy, whence he could, using the Norman fleet and also the fleet of the trading cities, which were such energetic assistants in the First Crusade, conveniently and quickly arrive in Syria. In addition, the route through southern Italy had the advantage that the Sicilian king could also join the militia. Louis VII, having communicated with Roger II, was ready to move through Italy.

When the question of the path and means of movement was raised, the German king proposed to choose the path that the first German crusaders also went - to Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Thrace and Macedonia. The Germans insisted that the French king also move along this path, motivating their proposal by the fact that it is better to avoid the division of forces, that the movement through the possessions of an allied and even related sovereign to the German king is completely secured from all sorts of accidents and surprises, and that with the Byzantine king began negotiations on this issue, in the favorable outcome of which Conrad did not doubt.

In the first battle (October 26, 1147), which took place in Cappadocia, near Dorileus, the German army, taken by surprise, was completely defeated, most of the militia died or were taken prisoner, very few returned with the king to Nicaea, where Conrad began to wait for the French .

Almost at the same time that Conrad suffered a terrible defeat, Louis VII was approaching Constantinople. There were the usual skirmishes between the French army and the Byzantine government. Knowing the sympathy between Louis VII and Roger II, Manuel did not consider it safe for the French to stay in Constantinople for a long time. In order to quickly get rid of them and force the knights to take a fealty oath, King Manuel used a trick. A rumor was spread among the French that the Germans, who had crossed over to Asia, were rapidly advancing, step by step, winning brilliant victories; so the French will have nothing to do in Asia. French competition was aroused; they demanded that they be sent as soon as possible across the Bosphorus. Here, on the Asian coast, the French learned about the unfortunate fate German troops; in Nicaea, both kings, Louis and Conrad, met, and decided to continue the journey together, in a faithful alliance.

Since the path from Nicaea to Dorileus was covered with corpses and doused with Christian blood, both kings wanted to save the army from a difficult spectacle and therefore set off by a detour, to Adramitium, Pergamum and Smyrna. This path was extremely difficult, slowing down the movement of the troops; choosing this path, the kings hoped to meet here less danger from the Muslims. However, their hopes were not justified: the Turkish riders kept the crusading army in constant tension, slowed down the path, robbed, beat off people and carts. In addition, the lack of food and fodder forced Louis to abandon a lot of pack animals and luggage. The French king, not foreseeing all these difficulties, took with him a large retinue; his train, in which his wife Eleanor also participated, was extremely brilliant, magnificent, not corresponding to the importance of the enterprise, connected with such difficulties and dangers. The crusader militia moved very slowly, losing a lot of people, pack animals and luggage along the way.

The failure of the campaign

At the beginning of 1148, both kings arrived at Ephesus with the miserable remnants of the army, while when the militia crossed the Bosporus, the Byzantines, obviously exaggerated, numbered up to 90 thousand. In Ephesus, the kings received a letter from the Byzantine emperor, in which the latter invited them to rest in Constantinople. Conrad went by sea to Constantinople, and Louis, having with great difficulty reached the seaside city of Antalya, begged ships from the Byzantine government and arrived in Antioch with the remnants of the army in March 1148. As a result, the huge armies of the kings melted under the blows of the Muslims; and the French and German kings, united for one purpose, soon dispersed and began to pursue opposite tasks.

Raymond of Antioch received the French very cordially: a series of festivities and celebrations followed, in which the French queen Eleanor of Aquitaine played a leading role. Intrigue was not slow to appear, which did not remain without influence on the general course of affairs: Eleanor entered into a relationship with Raymond. Needless to say, Louis felt insulted, humiliated, he lost his energy, inspiration and desire to carry on the work he had begun.

But there were circumstances that responded even worse to the Second Crusade. The stay of Conrad III in Constantinople during the winter of 1147/48 was accompanied by a chill between him and the Byzantine emperor. In the spring of 1148, Conrad set off from Constantinople to Asia Minor, but not to Antioch to connect with the French king, but straight to Jerusalem. For both Raymond and Louis, the news was extremely unpleasant that Conrad had abandoned the tasks of the crusade and surrendered to the interests of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem, prompted Conrad to become the head of the army, which the Kingdom of Jerusalem could put up to 50 thousand, and undertake a campaign against Damascus. This enterprise must be considered highly false and erroneous, and it was not included in the types of the second crusade.

The movement against Damascus in the interests of the Kingdom of Jerusalem ended in very sad results. True, there was a rather formidable force in Damascus, but the entire center of gravity of the Muslim East, all the strength and danger for Christians was concentrated at that time not in Damascus, but in Mosul. The emir of Mosul Zangi, and no one else, conquered Edessa and threatened the rest of the Christian possessions. After the death of Zangi, his son Nur ad-Din Mahmud sat in Mosul, who gained a very large, albeit notorious fame in the Eastern Christian annals, as the most implacable and formidable enemy of Antioch and Tripoli. It goes without saying that if he was not weakened in 1148, he could later become a formidable, fatal force for all Eastern Christianity.

Jerusalem did not understand this. The German king became the head of the fifty-thousandth army and headed against Damascus. This caused an anti-Christian coalition: the Emir of Damascus made an alliance with Nurad-Din. The policy of Christians in the East at this time, when they did not have significant military forces, had to be very careful: entering the fight against any Muslim center, Christians had to strike for sure so as not to raise coalitions against themselves from Muslims .

Meanwhile, Conrad and Baldwin III walked with their eyes closed and did not bother to familiarize themselves with the local conditions. Damascus turned out to be fortified with strong walls and protected by a significant garrison, the siege of Damascus required a long time and considerable effort. The Christian army directed its forces against that part of the city, which seemed to be weaker. Meanwhile, rumors spread in the camp that Nur ad-Din was coming from the north to rescue Damascus. Conrad, with a handful of Germans, did not lose hope for the surrender of Damascus. But in the camp of Christians, a betrayal took place, which, however, has not yet been sufficiently clarified, although many chroniclers mention it. As if the King of Jerusalem, the patriarch and the knights, bribed with Muslim gold, spread rumors that Damascus was invincible from the side from which the Crusaders approached it. As a result, the besiegers crossed to the other side of the city, which was really impregnable. Other researchers see the reason for the transfer of the siege camp in the fact that it was impossible to deploy cavalry in the suburban gardens where the crusader camp was originally located, and besides, the crusaders were subjected to frequent attacks by Saracens who staged sorties. Therefore, both monarchs gave the order to relocate to the desert area east of the city. After spending quite a long time in a futile siege, threatened from the north by Nur ad-Din, the Christians had to retreat from Damascus without achieving anything.

This failure took a heavy toll on the knightly king Conrad and on the entire army. There were no hunters to continue the work of the Second Crusade, that is, to go further north and, in alliance with Antioch, wage war against the main enemy - the Emir of Mosul. Conrad's energy and chivalrous enthusiasm weakened, and he decided to return to his homeland. In the autumn of 1148, on Byzantine ships, he arrived in Constantinople, and from there, at the beginning of 1149, he returned to Germany, having, in essence, done nothing for the cause of Christians in the East, but, on the contrary, dishonored himself and the German nation.

Louis VII, as a young man, with great chivalrous enthusiasm, did not dare, like Conrad, to quit the business he started so soon. But at the same time, given the difficulty of the situation, he did not dare to take energetic measures. There were people in his retinue who did not consider the task of the crusade completed and, considering the return back a humiliating matter for knightly honor, advised him to stay in Antioch and wait for reinforcements, that is, the arrival of new forces from the West to rescue Edessa. But there were those who, pointing to the example of Conrad, persuaded the king to return to his homeland; Louis VII succumbed to the influence of the latter and decided to return. At the beginning of 1149, he crossed on Norman ships to southern Italy, where he had a meeting with the Norman king, and in the fall of 1149 he arrived in France.

In the battle of Inab (or at Ard al-Khatim) on June 29, 1149, Nur ad-Din Zangi destroyed the allied army of Antioch and the Assassins under the command of Raymond de Poitiers and Ali ibn Wafa, plundered Antioch and occupied the eastern lands of the Christian principality.

Results of the Second Crusade

Thus, the Second Crusade, which seemed so brilliant, so promising at the beginning, was accompanied by quite insignificant results. Not only were the Muslims not weakened, but, on the contrary, inflicting one defeat after another on the Christians, destroying entire crusader armies, they gained greater confidence in their own strength, their energy increased, and they arose hopes for the destruction of Christianity in Asia Minor. In the East there were sharp clashes between the Germans and the French. The German army was humbled in the eyes of other nations by its fatal failures. Already after the defeat of Conrad III, the Germans were the subject of ridicule for the French; consequently, the Second Campaign showed that the joint action of the French and Germans in the future is impossible. This campaign also revealed divisions between Palestinian and European Christians. For Eastern Christians, the fifty-year stay in the environment of Muslim influence did not go unnoticed culturally. Thus, a fundamental discord was revealed between the Europeans who settled in Asia and the new crusaders arriving here from Europe; they began to misunderstand each other. Mercantile character, bribery, licentiousness, debauchery have become hallmark morals of Palestinian Christians.

The failure of the Second Crusade had a strong effect on the French nation, whose memory long retained the echo of this failure. She had to lie as a dark stain on the honor of the church, in particular she undermined the authority of St. Bernard, as well as the Pope: Bernard raised the masses of the people, he called the crusade a matter pleasing to God, predicted a good outcome. After shameful failures, a strong murmur arose against Bernard: Bernard is not a prophet, they said, but a false prophet; and the Pope, who gave his blessing, is not a representative of the church, but the Antichrist. Papa blamed Bernard for the failure of the campaign, and Bernard blamed Papa.

Highly interesting is the trend emerging by this time among Romance peoples: they began to weigh, especially the French, the circumstances of the First and Second campaigns, began to find out what were the shortcomings of their organization and the reasons for failure. The conclusion was simple: it is impossible to reach the goal of the campaigns because the schismatic Byzantine kingdom stood on the road, first you need to destroy this obstacle. This trend, emerging in the middle of the 12th century, then gained more and more supporters in the West. Thanks to the gradual spread of this idea to the masses of the people, the Fourth Crusade, in which the Venetians, Normans and part of the French participated, did not go directly to the East, but to Constantinople and achieved a brilliant result: it ended with the capture of Constantinople and the transformation of Byzantium into a Latin empire.

The result of the Second Campaign was upset especially by the young Louis VII. Returning to his homeland, Louis came to the realization of the need to correct his mistake, to wash away the stain from his name. A council was composed, at which the question of a new campaign was again discussed, and, very surprisingly, there was again a mass of people who, embraced by religious enthusiasm, were again ready to go to the Holy Land. Something even more amazing happened: Saint Bernard also appeared at the cathedral and began to say that the upcoming campaign would already be successful. Voices began to be heard at the cathedral that the recent campaign was unsuccessful because St. Bernard. There was a proposal to entrust him with the conduct of a new campaign.

The Pope received the news of this without sympathy. He called Bernard himself a madman, and in an official document he characterized such an attitude to business as stupidity. After that, Louis, too, cooled somewhat towards the planned campaign. If during the First Crusade religious enthusiasm was still visible in some princes, now it is completely falling.

The events of the Second Crusade also include the participation of European crusaders in the Reconquista. Part of the Norman, French and English knights was brought by a storm to Spain. Here they offered Alfonso, the Portuguese king, their services against the Muslims and in 1147 captured

Second crusade led by the French king Louis VII and the German Emperor Conrad III took place in 1147-1149.
Consider the prerequisites, causes, goals and results of this campaign on holy land.
In 1137 the Byzantine emperor John II attacked Antioch and conquered it. States crusaders on the holy land were so at odds with each other that they did not even help Antioch.
At the end of 1143, the strong Muslim emir Imad-ad-din Zengi attacked the county Edessa and snatched it from crusaders. The loss Edessa aroused anger and chagrin both in Europe and holy land, because there was a fear that now Muslim states oppose on a broad front crusaders.
During the time when Edessa fell under the blows Muslims, other principalities holy land were either in a constrained position, or were busy with questions of a purely selfish nature, and therefore, just as they could not give assistance to the Principality of Edessa, they were not able to replace for Christian its meaning. four
In Jerusalem, shortly before, King Fulk died, the same one who united the interests of the Principality of Jerusalem with the interests of his French possessions.

After his death, the widow, Queen Melisinda, guardian of Baudouin III, became the head of the kingdom; the disobedience of the vassal princes took away from her every opportunity and means even to protect her own possessions - Jerusalem was in danger and could not give help to Edessa.
As for Antioch, Prince Raymond started a war with Byzantium, which ended in complete failure for him, and thus also could not help Edessa. four

In 1144 sat on the Roman throne pope Eugene III - a man who did not differ in either great willpower, or energy, or intelligence, and also did not have broad political views. He would have to take advantage of the imperious position of the church to take under his own hand the cause of protecting the East Asian principalities on holy land, but by this time the position of the pope, even in Italy itself, was far from imperious: the Roman throne was a victim of parties, and the authority of the church was threatened by a new democratic trend, which was headed by Arnold of Brescian, a student of Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux.
Both Arnold of Brescia and his famous teacher came from the well-known monastic congregation of the monastery of Cluny and were the spokesmen for the ideas disseminated by this monastery. Arnold was as much a political philosopher as he was a preacher. His political views were based on the democratic principle. He fought with all the strength of his eloquence and influence against the secular power of the pope and against the abuses that crept into the church system of that time.
Arnold was followed by a number of monastic preachers who spread the same ideas. Arnold's sermon raised a storm against the pope.
By the same time, the urban movement, with its democratic character, particularly vigorously swept Italy. At the head of the cities was not the archbishop, not secular feudal lords and nobles, but the people; the ancient form of government - the senate and the people - was resurrected, even the ancient term "senatus populuaque Romanus" was resurrected. Instead of an outdated system, instead of vassalage and suzerainty, communes were put forward, which were extremely unfavorable to the spiritual princes. four
german king was also placed in difficult circumstances by the struggle with the Welves and, in turn, waited for support from Rome, hoping that the pope would send him a crown and thereby strengthen his precarious position on the throne.
It was impossible to hope that the Pope or the King would take the initiative of the Second crusade . 3
King of France Louis VII before deciding to take such an important step as going to holy land, asked the opinion of Abbot Suger, his tutor and adviser, who, without discouraging the king from good intentions, advised him to take all measures to ensure the due success of the enterprise. Louis VII wished to know the mood of the people and the clergy.
At the request of the King of Jerusalem, Pope Eugene III again called for crusade. It was organized by the abbot Bernard of Clairvaux who enjoyed great prestige.
March 31, 1146 in front of the newly erected church of St.. Magdalen in Vézelay, in Burgundy, he exhorted his listeners in fiery terms to take part in crusade :
“Look, brethren, here it is, the desired time, here are the blessed days!
The countries will tremble and tremble, for the Lord in heaven began to lose his land. I repeat: my land, for there he taught the word of his Father, there for more than thirty years he wandered among people. (...)
And only our sins are to blame for the fact that the enemies of the cross in that land again began to raise their wicked head: with the edge of their sword they devastate the Promised Land. (...)
Oh you brave knight, O you warlike man, before you is a battle fraught with no danger, for victory in it brings glory, and death - gain.
But as soon as you are a profit seeker, I promise you an immense market, and hurry so that it does not escape you. 2
Shouts: “God wants it! God wants it that way!” covered this call, as they once did in Clermont. Excited by the enthusiasm of the crowd, the orator predicted the success of the campaign in holy land and threatened with divine wrath those who would not stain their sword with the blood of infidels, in the name of Jesus Christ.
In the midst of the general excitement, King Louis VII of France fell at the feet of Bernard and asked him for a cross, after which he repeated the call, urging all believers to accompany him to the East. Eleanor of Aquitaine, following her husband, received the sign of the cross from the hands of the abbot of Clairvaux, followed by the counts of Toulouse, Champagne, Flanders, Nevers, Archambaud de Bourbon, Engueran de Coucy, Hugues de Lusignan, many barons, knights and spiritual persons.

Since there were not enough crosses for everyone, Bernard tore his cassock to put on new ones, and many prelates followed his example.
In his further messages, the abbot called for a campaign in holy land and promised all participants absolution of sins.
He was asked to lead this crusade. But, remembering the example of Peter the Hermit, Bernard shied away from this honor and, since the appeals were persistent, even turned to the protection of the pope. In general, his preaching in France was such a success that, in his words, "villages and cities were depopulated." 6
True, here and there voices were heard that instead of the infidels in the East, it would be better to expel the impious Slavs from Prussia or the Muslims from Spain. Some North German princes, such as Heinrich the Lion, Albrecht the Bear and others, realized that they did not need to look for a fight with the infidels in the distant East, that next to them there were a lot of Wends, pagan peoples Slavic origin, who until now have not accepted Christian preachers and turned with this wish to Rome.

Unlike First campaign, now from the very beginning there was more organization and order: the participation of two powerful sovereigns could not but affect the very nature of the expedition crusaders on the holy land. This time the barons and knights they did not take with them either dogs or hunting falcons, but they stocked up not only with weapons, but also with the tools necessary for building bridges and laying roads.
The goal to be achieved by the second crusade, was clearly outlined and strictly defined: to weaken the emir Zengi and take away Edessa from him.
French crusaders were to link up at Metz, the Germans at Regensburg.
The example of France and Germany was followed by England, Flanders and Italy. From the Alpine foothills, from Lombardy and Piedmont moved warriors of the cross under the leadership of the Marquis of Montferrat and the Count of Maurienne, uncle of the French king. English crusaders set off on ships from the harbors of the English Channel, heading for Spain. The Flemings were led by their Count Thierry, who had already been there, in holy land and became famous. 6
Germanic crusaders, having suffered few losses in skirmishes with the Hungarians, passed through Hungary and entered the Byzantine lands.
Here, as soon as food supplies began to come to an end, the German crusaders engaged in robberies. Byzantine emperor Manuel I was so outraged by the shameful behavior crusaders that even refused to accept King Conrad.
Under the influence of danger threatening on all sides, Manuel took a step that fundamentally undermined the assumptions of the Second crusade tasks and goals - he made an alliance with the Seljuk Turks; True, this was not an offensive alliance, it had the goal of securing the empire and threatening the Latins in case the latter took it into their head to threaten Constantinople. Nevertheless, this alliance was very important in the sense that it made it clear to the Seljuks that they would have to reckon with only one western militia. Concluding this alliance with the Iconian sultan, Manuel made it clear that he did not look at the Seljuks as enemies: protecting his personal interests, he washed his hands, giving crusaders act at their own risk with their own forces and means. 3
When host of the cross passed through Anatolia, on October 26, 1147, it was attacked by the Seljuks near Dorilei. The German army suffered heavy losses, King Conrad managed to escape, he returned to Nicaea, where he waited for the approach of the French forces.
Almost at the same time that Conrad suffered a terrible defeat, Louis VII was approaching Constantinople. There were the usual skirmishes between the French army and the Byzantine government.
To quickly get rid of them and force knights French troops to the fealty oath, Emperor Manuel used a trick. A rumor was circulated among the French that the Germans, who crossed over to Asia, were rapidly advancing, step by step, winning brilliant victories; so the French will have nothing to do in Asia.
French crusaders, who took all the rumors at face value, demanded that they be sent as soon as possible across the Bosphorus. And already on the Asian coast, the French learned about the unfortunate fate of the German army; in Nicaea, both kings met - Louis and Conrad, who decided to continue the journey together, in a faithful alliance. 3
For the way from Nicaea to Dorileus was covered with corpses and doused with Christian blood, both kings wanted to save the army from a difficult spectacle and therefore set off by a detour, to Adramity, Pergamum and Smyrna.
This path was extremely difficult, slowing down the movement crusaders; choosing this path, the kings hoped to meet here less dangers from outside Muslims. Their hopes, however, did not come true: the Turkish riders kept in constant suspense crusading army, slowed down the path, robbed, beat off people and convoys.
In addition, the lack of food and fodder forced Louis to abandon a lot of pack animals and luggage. The French king, not foreseeing all these difficulties, took with him a large retinue; his train, in which his wife Eleanor was also present, was extremely brilliant, magnificent, and did not correspond to the importance of the enterprise associated with such difficulties and dangers ...
Crusader the militia moved very slowly, losing a lot of people, pack animals and luggage on its way. 3
Meanwhile , Louis VII, the patriarch and king of Jerusalem held a secret council at which they revised the goals of their crusade and decided to seize Damascus with all available forces, promising them rich booty. But with such a decision, they only pushed the Syrian ruler into the arms of the Seljuk prince from Aleppo, who was advancing with a large army and with whom relations in Syria had previously been hostile. 2
It soon became clear that the second crusade will not achieve his goal - to return the lost Edessa ...
Army crusaders headed for Damascus, in early June, with the joined knights of the Temple and the Johnites, she crossed the Lebanese ridge and set up camp near the town of Dari, from where Damascus was visible. This ancient city, "a home of comfort and luxury," repeatedly passed from hand to hand until, in the time of Muhammad, the Muslims finally took it from the Christians.
Damascus was fortified with strong walls and protected by a significant garrison; the siege of Damascus required a long time and considerable effort. the army directed its forces against that part of the city, which seemed weaker: there were only gardens and groves, separated by fences and embankments with small turrets.
Despite the clouds of arrows with which they were met by the enemies who sat in the turrets, the siege was successful, and soon warriors of the cross, chasing the Muslims, came close to the city.
Here the emperor Conrad glorified himself by an amazing feat that made him forget for a moment his past failures. While the soldiers of Baldwin, who repeatedly tried to break through the ranks of the enemy, almost began to retreat, he suddenly attacked the Muslims with a handful of his soldiers. The Turks fell under his blows, when a gigantic Saracen, clad in iron, rode out to meet him and challenged him to battle. The emperor accepted the challenge, and both troops stopped, looking with interest at this fight. The fight, however, was short-lived.
Conrad, repeating the feat of Gopyrride, cut the giant in half with one blow of the sword, from the shoulder to the saddle. This amazing blow decided the outcome of the battle: the Muslims left the battlefield in horror and took refuge in the city. 6
Meanwhile, rumors spread in the camp that Nuredin was coming from the north to rescue Damascus. Conrad, with a handful of Germans, did not lose hope for the surrender of Damascus, but rumors spread in the camp about treason, which is mentioned by many chroniclers.
It's about that the supposedly Jerusalem king, patriarch and knights, bribed with Muslim gold, spread rumors that Damascus was invincible from the side from which they approached it crusaders. Thereby crusaders crossed to the other side of the city, which was really impregnable...
According to other sources, as it often happened before, the victory crusaders broke their internal strife. When it became clear that Damascus would fall, disputes began over whose banner would fly over the defeated city. And here the line separating the two groups was clearly marked. armies of Christ: princes and barons of the East on the one hand, and aliens from the West, under the leadership of the king and emperor, on the other.
Among those who sought power over the city, Thierry, Count of Flanders, was especially zealous. It would seem that his reputation was tarnished: he was one of two military leaders who cowardly fled from Atalia, where the king, departing for Antioch, appointed them to lead the remaining crusaders.
But now Thierry showed great perseverance and promptness. Motivating by the fact that he had already visited the East twice and left his possessions in Europe to his relatives, he demanded the Principality of Damascus as compensation for his exploits and losses.
The French king agreed with these arguments. This preference aroused the envy and malice of other princes, especially the princes of Syria and Palestine, who felt that each of them had a greater right to any new addition than any of these new arrivals. Seeing no more personal advantage for themselves, they cooled off towards an enterprise that until recently aroused their enthusiasm.
This mood was sensitively caught by the besieged and tried to strengthen it: they persuaded the Syrian barons not to believe the newcomers from the West, who came to rob them and profit from their lands on holy land.
These speeches fell on grateful ground. Military action stalled... 6
After spending quite a long time in a futile siege, threatened from the north by Nuredin, the Christians had to retreat from Damascus without achieving anything ...
This failure took a heavy toll on the king. Konrade and throughout the army crusaders: hunters continue the cause of the Second crusade gone...
Energy and knightly enthusiasm Conrad weakened, and he decided to return to his homeland. In the autumn of 1148, on Byzantine ships, he arrived in Constantinople, and from there, at the beginning of 1149, he returned to Germany, having, in essence, done nothing for the cause of Christians in the East, but, on the contrary, dishonored himself and the German nation. 3
Louis VII undecided like Conrad, to quit the business he started so soon, but at the same time, with the difficulty of the situation, he did not dare to take energetic measures. There were people in his retinue who did not consider the task completed. crusade and, considering the return back as a humiliating matter for knightly honor, advised him to remain in Antioch and wait for reinforcements, that is, the arrival of new forces soldiers of Christ from the West to rescue Edessa.
But there were those who, pointing to the example Conrad, persuaded the king to return to his homeland; Louis VII succumbed to the influence of the latter and decided to return.
At the beginning of 1149, he crossed on Norman ships to southern Italy, where he had a meeting with the Norman king, and in the autumn of 1149 arrived in France.
During the twelfth century in holy land three chivalrous orders: Johnites (1113), Templars (1119) and the Teutonic Order. They set themselves the goal of caring for the sick and infirm pilgrims and crusaders on the holy land, provide them with spiritual support and protect them, if necessary, by force of arms. These were the so-called spiritual chivalrous orders and their members sought to combine knightly lifestyle with monastic.
2nd Crusade led by the French king Louis VII and Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III on the holy land failed as the Franks were unable to plan and coordinate your activities.
Even after the defeat Conrad III near Dorilea, the Germans were the subject of ridicule for the French; hence the second crusade showed that joint actions of the French and Germans in the future are impossible.
This campaign also revealed divisions between Palestinian and European Christians. For Eastern Christians, a fifty-year stay in the environment of Muslim influence on holy land did not go unnoticed culturally.
Thus, between the Europeans who settled in Asia and the new ones arriving here from Europe crusaders fundamental discord was revealed; they mutually began to misunderstand each other. Mercantile character, bribery, licentiousness, debauchery have become a hallmark of the mores of Palestinian Christians. 3
The failure of the campaign was a stain on the honor of the church, in particular it undermined the authority of St. Bernard, as well as the Pope: Bernard raised the masses of the people, he called crusade deed pleasing to God predicted a good outcome. After shameful failures, a strong murmur arose against Bernard: Bernard is not a prophet, they said, but a false prophet; and the pope, who gave his blessing, is not a representative of the church, but the Antichrist.
The Pope blamed all responsibility on Bernard, the latter saying that he acted on the orders of the Pope. 3
Second crusade on the holy land was upset especially young Louis VII. Returning to the homeland Louis I came to the realization of the need to correct my mistake, to wash away the stain from my name. A council was convened, at which the question of a new campaign was again discussed and, which is very surprising, there was again a mass of people who, embraced by religious enthusiasm, were again ready to go to holy land.
Something even more amazing happened: Saint Bernard also appeared at the cathedral and began to say that the upcoming campaign would already be successful. Voices began to be heard at the cathedral that the Second crusade was unsuccessful because they did not put St. Bernard. There was a proposal to entrust him with the conduct of a new campaign.
The Pope received the news of this without sympathy. He called Bernard himself a madman, and in an official document he characterized such an attitude to business as stupidity.
After that and Louis VII somewhat cooled off for the planned trip to holy land...

Sources of information:
one. " Crusades"(magazine "Tree of Knowledge" No. 21 / 2002)
2. Vazold M. " crusaders»
3. Wikipedia site
4. Uspensky F. "History crusades »
5. "All the wars of world history" (according to Dupuy's Harper Encyclopedia of Military History)
6. Michaud J.-F. "Story

They say that the term "hazing" appeared in those distant times, when future knights were subjected to all sorts of trials by their senior comrades in order to prepare them for the hardships of the future camp life. "Educational wanderings of young Europe to the East" claimed the lives of tens of thousands of pilgrims in armor. Whether they managed, as promised, to get to paradise faster - history is silent. But, one way or another, they laid down their heads in the very place where the Earth meets the Sky, which means that this is where our path lies, which, with the light hand of historians, we habitually call the Crusades ... How did it happen that, going to punish infidels valiant knights drowned in blood the most Christian of all cities? How did the sorceress Melusina help the Sultan defeat an invincible knightly army? Why did the sea never part for the participants of the children's trip? Where did the Holy Grail disappear from Montsegur conquered by the crusaders? And why do scientists still argue what the campaigns of Western Europeans to the East were - the embodiment of a bloody revelry or a lofty spiritual mission? About this and much more - in the book of Ekaterina Monusova "History of the Crusades".

Feast in Time of Plague

Second crusade

The ball was enchantingly cheerful and noisy, music thundered, couples rushed around in a circle, it seemed that everything merged into one fantastic, endless dance. Luxuriously dressed gentlemen habitually and easily embraced the ladies sparkling with jewels ... In the motley crowd, one stood out and shone especially. However, it is not surprising, because it was she, the French Queen Eleanor. Her crowned husband, Louis VII, on the contrary, was distinguished by a very dull look. Gloomy and angry, he stood aside and silently watched his wife. And next to the queen, flushed either from the dance, or from compliments, Prince Raymond was spinning and annoyingly whispering something in her ear ... All this, happening far from Paris, in Antioch, the capital of the principality of the same name, in the midst of the Second Crusade, perhaps , it could well be called "a feast during the plague." Because most of the knights who went on an expedition were already either lying in the damp earth, or languishing in Turkish captivity ...

The crusader states that were established in the eastern Mediterranean after the First Crusade never felt safe. Defending the Holy Land was not so easy. Not only the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also the principality of Antioch, and the counties of Tripoli and Edessa were under constant threat from the Turks. And, in the end, they managed to win back in 1144 the most remote from others, and therefore the most vulnerable Edessa. One of the strongest Muslim emirs, ruling in the city of Mossul, Imad-ed-din Zengi, the founder of the dynasty, who managed to unite northeastern Syria and Iraq under his rule in the middle of the 12th century, took over.

In general, after the First Crusade, the Christian princes in the East thought more about the weakening of Byzantine domination, reassured by the fact that the Muslims were “pushed” by them into the depths of Asia. But they were just famous for their ability to quickly revive, and from the borders of Mesopotamia they again began to threaten Christian possessions. The fall of the County of Edessa, founded at the beginning of 1098 by King Baldwin of Jerusalem, dealt a severe blow to all Eastern Christianity. After all, Edessa served as an outpost, standing in the way of Muslim raids. This prompted the Europeans to think about organizing the Second Crusade, although the circumstances did not contribute to it at all.

Even before the start of a new campaign, King Fulk V of Jerusalem, who is also the Count of Anjou, unexpectedly died. On a hunt near Acre, the monarch unsuccessfully fell off his horse. His widow, Queen Melisende, guardian of the minor heir to the throne, Baldwin III, was too busy fighting the recalcitrant vassal princes. The need to defend the integrity of her own Jerusalem possessions did not give her the opportunity to lend a helping hand to the Edessa Christian brothers. The Antiochian prince Raimund was mired in a war with Byzantium, which, by the way, ended in complete failure for him, and he also had no time for the support of his neighbors. And in Europe, although alarmed by the fact that one of the eastern possessions of the crusaders was again under the control of Muslims, favorable conditions for organizing a retaliation campaign did not develop.

Gustave Dore. "Louis single-handedly fights off enemies"

Pope-elected Eugene III, a disciple of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a former abbot of the Cistercian monastery of St. Anastasius near Rome, had practically no secular power. Rome was ruled by the senate and public figure Arnold of Brescia, who captured it. This politician-philosopher and preacher fiercely fought against all sorts of abuses that existed in church administration. His democratic ideas were supported by a fairly large detachment of monks. In Italy, it was widely believed that church hierarchs should not have wealth and secular power. In his speeches, Arnold of Brescia accused them of luxury and debauchery, of getting their positions for money. In Rome, these sermons gained such popularity that the pope was even forced to flee to France.

Eugene III was never distinguished by great willpower and energy, although he managed to defeat the antipope Felix V. (This term was used in the Catholic Church to refer to a person who illegally appropriates the title of pope.) Nevertheless, the head of the Catholic Church immediately began propaganda of the Second Crusade in France . Its king at that time was Louis VII. The younger son of Louis VI, nicknamed the Fat, had no real chance of taking the throne and was going to devote himself to the church. But the unexpected death of his older brother Philip changed his fate, and in 1137, at the age of 17, he received one of the most prestigious thrones in Europe. However, the preparation for an ecclesiastical career made the young Louis gentle and pious. He remained such, which, however, did not prevent him, already at the beginning of his reign, from entering into open conflict with Pope Innocent II over a candidacy for the bishopric in Bourges. The king also showed military leadership abilities. In 1144, just as Edessa fell under Muslim pressure, Gottfried of Anjou, the eldest son of the absurdly deceased Count of Anjou, the Jerusalem ruler Fulk V, who was also the future king of England, threatening France, entered Normandy. Louis then managed to carry out a brilliant military operation and occupy Gisor, one of the important fortresses on the border of the duchy. And thus averted the threat of the capture of the province ...

Louis VII

The fall of eastern Edessa caused great alarm in the Western world, and especially in France. It was she who during the time of the Crusades always showed responsiveness to the interests of Christians in the East. Actually, this is not surprising, because in Edessa, and in Jerusalem itself, and in Tripoli, princes with French roots ruled. Knightly impulses and crusading ideas were not alien to King Louis VII. Therefore, Pope Eugene III found in the person of the French monarch a kind of like-minded person and ally in organizing a campaign to defend the Holy Land. However, the pious king, before daring to take such a decisive step, turned for advice to his former tutor, Abbot Suger. He approved the good intention of the royal disciple to go on a campaign and gave instructions to take all possible measures to ensure the success of the charitable cause. For his part, Pope Eugene III prepared an appeal to the French people and, handing it to his former mentor Bernard of Clairvaux, directed him to the widespread preaching of the crusade. Even a brief information from Wikipedia vividly characterizes the large-scale figure of this outstanding person, who was later recognized as a saint:

"Bernard of Clairvaux ( Bernard de Clairvaux; Bernardus abbas Clarae Vallis, 1091 Fontaine, Burgundy - August 20 or 21, 1153, Clairvaux) - French medieval mystic, public figure, abbot of the Clairvaux monastery (since 1117). He came from a noble family, at the age of 20 he entered the Cistercian order, where he gained popularity with his asceticism. In 1115 he founded the monastery of Clairvaux, where he became abbot. Thanks to his activities, the small Cistercian order became one of the largest. Bernard of Clairvaux adhered to a mystical direction in theology, was an ardent supporter of the papal theocracy. Actively defended the rights of Pope Innocent II against Anaclet II. In the light of the struggle against Anaclete II, he condemned Roger II, who received the crown from the antipope, but then reconciled with the king and corresponded with him. He fought against heresies and freethinking, in particular, was the initiator of the condemnation of Pierre Abelard and Arnold of Brescia at the church council of 1140. He actively fought against the heresy of the Cathars.

Bernard of Clairvaux

Participated in the creation of the spiritual and knightly order of the Templars. The inspirer of the Second Crusade of 1147. He contributed to the growth of the monastic order of the Cistercians, who were named Bernardines in his memory. Against the background of the inexpressive figures of the popes of that time (among whom were his students from Clairvaux), Bernard of Clairvaux acquired colossal authority in church and secular circles. He dictated his will to the popes, the French king Louis VII. Bernard of Clairvaux was the main ideologist and organizer of the Second Crusade. He wrote the first charter for spiritual knightly orders(Charter of the Templars). Humility was considered the main virtue. The goal of human existence was to merge with God. Canonized in 1174.

If we deviate from the telegraphic encyclopedic style, then we must certainly emphasize the almost mystical influence of the preacher on those around him. His emaciated face, impassioned speech and all majestic figure literally hypnotized the listeners. The name of the frantic abbot was revered throughout Europe. And respect and authority were added by the fact that Bernard invariably refused episcopal and archiepiscopal seats and titles, which he was repeatedly offered.

Saint Bernard preaching a crusade to Louis VII

In 1146, the abbot was invited to a state meeting in Vézelay, Burgundy. The guest of honor was seated next to the king, he put a cross on Louis VII and delivered a fiery speech in which he called on Christians to oppose the infidels and defend the Holy Sepulcher. We can say that at this moment the issue of the Second Crusade was finally resolved.

Curiously, the campaign turned out to have another unwitting but very active supporter and propagandist. Here is how the Russian historian F. I. Uspensky writes about him in his work “The History of the Crusades”, published in St. Petersburg in 1900-1901:

«… After the defeat of Edessa, a significant part of the secular and clergy came from the East to Italy and France; here they described the state of affairs in the East and aroused the masses with their stories. In France, Louis VII was king; a knight at heart, he felt connected to the East and was inclined to embark on a crusade. The king, like all his contemporaries, was strongly influenced by that literary movement, which penetrated deeply into all of France and spread even to Germany. The literary movement implied here constitutes a vast cycle of poetic tales contained in the songs of knights and nobility. This oral art, vast and varied, sang of the exploits of the fighters of Christianity, clothed them in fantastic images, telling about the disasters of Christians in the East, kept the people in an excited state and kindled their passions. His influences were not alien to the upper strata - spiritual and secular princes ...»

Poetic tales and songs became an additional and very effective preacher of the campaign. So, France was ready to move its large army to the East. As later researchers emphasized, the troops were quite enough to defeat the Muslims. However, inspired by widespread support, Bernard of Clairvaux continued to carry the idea of ​​a crusade further across Europe, outside of France. The involvement of Germany in it, as history has shown, was not just a mistake, but a fatal step that led the campaign to a fatal outcome. The German king and Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III invited Bernard to celebrate the first day of the new year, 1147. Of course, there were some pep talks. Bernard addressed the emperor as if on behalf of the Savior himself: “Oh, man! I gave you everything that I could give: power, authority, all the fullness of spiritual and physical strength, what use did you make of all these gifts for the service of Me? You do not even defend the place where I died, where I gave salvation to your soul; soon the Gentiles will spread all over the world, saying where their God is.” - "Enough! answered the shocked king, bursting into tears. “I will serve the One who redeemed me.” The call of the future saint with a cross and a sword to go to the Holy Land was so convincing that the monarch also decides to take part in the campaign. Conrad was warmly supported by all the inspired Germany.

Now, when these events are already things of bygone days, and everything is known about the inglorious end of the Second Crusade, there is a version that it was the participation of the Germans that changed the further course of the whole affair and led to sad results. The main goal pursued by the Christians in this enterprise was to weaken the power of the Mossul Emir Imad-ed-din Zengi and, first of all, to return the Edessa County he had conquered. Historians argue that this was quite within the power of the 70,000th, well-armed French army, which almost doubled along the way thanks to the volunteers who joined the army. And if the French had decided on an independent campaign, then the militia would certainly have gone the other way, not only shorter, but also safer than the one imposed by the German allies.

In the middle of the XII century, the French were by no means friends with the Germans. The interests of France were rather intertwined with those of Italy. Louis VII and the Sicilian king Roger II were very close and supported each other. Therefore, it was quite reasonable for the French army to choose the route through Italy. From there, with the help of the Norman fleet, as well as the ships of the trading cities that were actively used in the First Crusade, it was easy and convenient to get to Syria. Actually, Louis VII was going to do just that and had already contacted Roger II. Moreover, during the passage of southern Italy, the Sicilians were also ready to join the French crusaders.

Sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux in Toulouse and Albi

However, when the allies discussed the question of the route and means of movement, the German king insisted on the route through Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Thrace and Macedonia. This road was familiar to the first German crusaders. Conrad assured that the movement of troops on the territory of his kindred sovereign was guaranteed against all sorts of accidents and unexpected obstacles. Also, he argued, negotiations had begun with the Byzantine emperor, the success of which was beyond doubt...

In the summer of 1147, Conrad III moved his army through Hungary. The Sicilian King Roger II, although he did not express a firm intention to join the campaign, but to remain absolutely indifferent means to fall into isolation. Still, the ideas of the cross had a strong influence on the minds and souls of Europeans. He put forward a demand to the French monarch to comply with the agreement concluded between them and go through Italy. Doubting Louis, a month later, nevertheless went after Conrad. Then the offended Roger equipped the ships, armed the teams, but by no means to participate in the common cause. He conducted his campaign in the familiar spirit of Norman politics in the East. That is, he began to plunder the islands and lands facing the sea belonging to Byzantium, Greece, as well as the coasts of Illyria, Dalmatia, which in fact were provinces of the Roman Empire. Raiding Byzantine possessions, the Sicilian king captured the island of Corfu, from where it was convenient to continue devastating sea sorties. Moreover, he unprincipledly entered into an alliance with African Muslims, insuring himself from a stab in the back ...

Gustave Dore. "The defeat in Damascus of the army of Conrad III"

Byzantine riches muddied the mind of the crusaders and excited the blood. The Holy Land was still so far away, and the soldiers of Christ swept away everything in their path, plundered churches and houses, and attacked the locals. The violent, profit-hungry armed crowd did not really obey the emperor of the Roman Empire, which was what his Byzantine colleague Manuel I Komnenos feared most of all. He persistently advised Conrad III to cross over to the Asian coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula in order to avert the threat from Constantinople. But the army with cold-blooded cruelty rushed to Constantinople. In September 1147, the Byzantine capital froze in anxious anticipation. Impatient Germans settled under its walls, having already plundered everything possible around. From day to day, the arrival of the French crusaders was expected. And in this case, Constantinople had nothing to hope for. The news of the capture of Corfu and the raids of the Sicilians on the coastal Byzantine lands did not please the Byzantine king. Of particular concern was Roger II's treaty with the Muslims of Egypt.

And then the desperate Manuel, under the influence of seemingly insurmountable circumstances, took the same step, contrary to the Christian faith - he entered into an alliance with the Seljuk Turks. And although this alliance was not offensive, but rather defensive in nature, it achieved its main goal - to secure the empire as much as possible and make it clear to the Latins that you cannot take them with your bare hands. By and large, there was an additional and very serious obstacle to achieving the goals of the Second Crusade. The Turks, thus, were able to resist the western crusading army, without fear of connecting the Byzantines who were close in faith to it. And the cross militia found itself face to face with two hostile Christian-Muslim alliances: the first - Roger II with the Egyptian sultan, and the second - the emperor of Byzantium with the sultan of Iconium. And this was only the beginning of the setbacks that doomed the Second Crusade...

Manuel still managed to convince Conrad to cross to the opposite bank of the Bosporus. But already in Nicaea (on the site of the modern Turkish city of Iznik), where the crusaders for the first time allowed themselves to rest, the first serious complications arose. 15 thousand militias decided to separate from the German troops and independently head to Palestine along the sea. Conrad, with the main army, went along the path trodden by the first crusade expedition - through Dorilei, where a major battle took place between the participants of that campaign with the Turks, the cities of Iconium and Heraclea (modern Eregli).

October 26, 1147 near Dorileus, in Cappadocia - "the country of beautiful horses", a wonderful area in the east of Asia Minor with outlandish volcanic landscapes and real underground cities created in the 1st millennium BC. e., cave monasteries from the early Christians - a bloody battle also took place, now with the army of Conrad. But the difference between these two battles was not only in time. The barely relaxed German army was taken by surprise by the Turks and smashed to smithereens. Most of it remained forever on the battlefield, thousands of crusaders were taken prisoner, and only a few were lucky enough to return with their king to Nicaea, where they remained to wait for the French allies.

Louis VII, who was approaching Constantinople at that very time, did not know in spirit about the terrible rout that befell Conrad. The French army was already familiar to the crusaders "battles of local importance", that is, slowly engaged in robberies. The Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos, who had entered into an alliance with the Sicilian Roger II, but knew about his sympathy for Louis, reasonably feared a long delay of the French near his capital. The cunning Byzantine decided to get rid of unwanted aliens by deceit. He spread the rumor that beyond the Bosporus the valiant Germans were simply stringing victories one upon the other, rapidly moving forward, so that the French would get little in Asia. The greed of the initiators of the second campaign, of course, leapt up, and they demanded that they be immediately transported across the strait. They experienced a mixture of disappointment and gloating when they found themselves on the Asian coast and learned the truth about the unfortunate fate of the allies. After conferring, Louis and Conrad decided not to part further and continue the campaign together.

But the further path of the Crusaders cannot be called a victorious march. From Nicaea to Dorileus, the land was covered with the corpses of Christians. In order not to drop the already confused fighting spirit of the warriors with such a spectacle, the monarchs sent the army around. The route ran from the seaside Adramitia, through ancient Pergamum on the coast of Asia Minor - to Smyrna, the most important point of the Levantine trade route, which stretches out surrounded by the mountains of the Smyrna Gulf, deepening into the mainland for 70 km (now the Turkish city of Izmir). Having outlined such a path, the commanders-in-chief of the kings expected that it would be the least dangerous. But their expectations were torn to pieces by the daring raids of the Muslims. Turkish horsemen, like ghosts, constantly appeared on the horizon. They fought off the stragglers of the crusaders, robbed the carts, kept the army in continuous tension, making its movement extremely slow.

The unenviable position of the army was exacerbated by the shortage of food and fodder. Brilliant Louis, who, as if on a secular walk, took with him a magnificent, numerous retinue and even his wife Eleanor, was forced to abandon dozens of pack horses to the delight of his pursuers, and with them a lot of luggage, however, useless for waging war. At the beginning of 1148, anxious monarchs with the miserable remnants of the united army did not solemnly enter the port of Ephesus, which is located south of Smyrna on the shores of the Aegean Sea.

Apparently, believing that such overloads are too heavy for royal natures, the Byzantine sovereign sends an invitation to the unfortunate kings who arrived in Ephesus to rest in Constantinople. And Conrad, relieved, embarks on the sea to visit Manuel. Louis, with great difficulty, having reached the “land of all tribes”, “home for the Gods”, “heaven on earth” - the city of Attalia, known today to everyone and everyone as Antalya, did not rush into the arms of rest. The sunny city at that time was under the rule of the Byzantines. The French king begged ships from them and, with the few surviving soldiers in March 1148, moored to the shores of Antioch.

The ruler of the country, Raymond, who also fought very unsuccessfully with Byzantium, received the French with open arms. Festive celebrations, balls and dinners followed one after another. And everywhere the first number shone the French queen. The royal pleasures ended with a banal affair between Raymond and Eleanor. Insulted and humiliated, Louis did not feel at all capable of defending the Holy Sepulcher and recapturing Edessa. Perhaps friend Conrad could somehow improve his mood if he ended up in Antioch. But the stay of the German king in Constantinople, apparently, was influenced by the winter of 1147/48. Relations between him and the Byzantine emperor cooled greatly. And Conrad went straight to warm Jerusalem in the spring, forgetting about his recent ally and the original goal of the expedition.

The ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, who had already entered into legal rights, persuaded Conrad to lead a 50,000-strong army and lead him to Damascus. Historians define this idea as completely wrong and erroneous and has nothing to do with the Second Crusade. Although Damascus was a potential threat to Middle Eastern Christians, the main danger for them lurked in Mosul. The legendary Imad-ed-din Zengi, who conquered the county of Edessa, also threatened other Christian possessions in the East. He, however, gave his soul to Allah, but his son and heir, the new emir of Mosul Nur-ed-din has already gained fame as the most implacable and powerful enemy of Antioch and Tripoli. And he really hoped that they would share the fate of Edessa.

It was Nur-ed-din and his Mossul who were to be the first target for the Jerusalem soldiers. However, Baldwin and Conrad moved them to Damascus. But its ruler knew exactly where to seek protection, and made an alliance with Nur-ed-din. As researchers now write, the policy of Christians in the East at a time when they did not have significant military forces should have been carried out with extreme caution. They were obliged not to allow any Muslim coalitions, but to carefully calibrate the blows and apply them for sure. Baldwin and Conrad behaved like blind kittens, without even studying the terrain on the outskirts of Damascus.

The city, meanwhile, was protected by powerful walls and defended by a very strong garrison. His siege promised to be exhausting and long and required not only a large number of troops, but also real military skill. The Jerusalem army came close to that side of Damascus, which seemed to her the least fortified. And Konrad, with a handful of Germans who came with him, were already rubbing their hands, counting on a quick victory. But straightforwardness rarely brings success, and not only in war.

Cunning Muslims, not sparing gold, bribed several traitors in the Christian camp. And they first spread rumors that the troops of Nur-ed-din were coming to help the city from the north, and then launched a fiction that it was impossible to take Damascus from the side where the Christian detachments were located. In some sources there is a version that among those generously bribed were the Jerusalem king himself, the patriarch and high-ranking knights.

The besiegers moved to the other side of the city. And she certainly turned out to be unapproachable. Long days of useless siege completely demoralized the Jerusalem army. And the real threat of getting hit from the north from Nur-ed-din forced the Christians to retreat from Damascus, once again achieving nothing. King Conrad's hands dropped completely. He no longer thought about his crusade mission, nor about the liberation of Edessa, he mortally wanted to go home. Among his few surviving associates, there were also no people willing to continue the work of the Second Crusade. What kind of alliance with Antioch, what kind of war with the Mossul emir? To the homeland, to dear Germany!..

In the autumn of 1148, the king of all Germans, Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III arrived in Constantinople on Byzantine ships. A few months later he returned to Germany in disgrace, alas, without having done anything valiant or at least useful for strengthening the position of Christians in the East.

His ally and colleague in the failures of Louis VII, apparently due to his young years, has not yet completely extinguished the desire for exploits. His chivalrous honor did not allow him to immediately leave the lands where they reached with such difficulty immediately after his comrade-in-arms. Moreover, many experienced knights advised him to wait in Antioch for reinforcements from Europe to march on Edessa. True, who will collect it and how quickly it will be able to approach, it was not entirely clear. Therefore, voices nevertheless prevailed, whispering about their native Paris, about the court that was bored without its monarch. Dejected by the defeats and betrayal of his wife, the king with his retinue at the beginning of 1149 went on Norman ships to his friend Roger in southern Italy, and from there to France ...

So, the Second Crusade to the East completely failed. The Muslims, battered by the first crusaders, not only were not further weakened, but, on the contrary, took revenge, strengthened unity and received hope to eradicate Christianity in Asia Minor. The crusaders, on the contrary, demonstrated the inability of joint actions (the French with the Germans), as well as a misunderstanding between the Christians of the West inclined towards romanticism and chivalry and their eastern co-religionists. Those, having lived for decades surrounded by Muslims, already felt like a fish in water in an atmosphere of sybarism, bribery and licentiousness.

The inglorious eastern adventures of the Germans and the French remained a shameful stain on them for a long time. They did not contribute to the authority of the church, the inspirer of crusading ideas, belittled the popularity of Abbé Bernard and respect for the pope. These religious pillars, by the way, also did not avoid controversy, shifting the responsibility for the defeat on each other. The fact that rich schismatic Byzantium interfered in the actions of the crusaders played a cruel joke with her, in the end. The Fourth Crusade, as you know, turned Constantinople into ruins, and the Byzantine Empire itself into a Latin one.

Returning to France and recovering from fatal bad luck, Louis VII decided to improve his knightly reputation. A council was convened, at which they again started talking about the need to march to the Holy Land. The furious crusade propagandist Bernard of Clairvaux also appeared at the meeting. His supporters immediately raised their voices and offered to put the frantic abbot at the head of the next expedition. The Pope was skeptical about the idea, called this idea stupidity, and Bernard himself - a madman.

After such statements by the head of the church, King Louis realized that he could also do without eastern battles, and decided to put in order at least his personal affairs. He began divorce proceedings with Eleanor, whose frank debauchery became for him one of the strongest disappointments of the campaign. As a result of the divorce, Louis lost Aquitaine. And Eleanor soon married another king, Henry II of England, who gladly annexed the new French lands to Brittany, Anjou, Maine and Normandy he already had. Thus, in the west of the country, a state was created that was larger than the possessions of the French monarch. Of course, this could not but lead to the inevitable war between England and France, which began in 1160. There was definitely no need to go on a crusade now. The war with the neighbor actually lasted two decades, until the death of the monarch. Broken at the end of his life by paralysis, Louis died and was buried in the royal tomb at Saint-Denis. However, his German colleague in the campaign, Konrad III, had long been dead.

In the middle of the 12th century, in the Holy Land, the Muslims gathered their strength and inflicted a series of painful defeats on the Christians. After the fall of Edessa in 1144, the idea of ​​a Second Crusade arose in Europe. Despite intensive preparations, the expedition did not bring the desired result.

Preparation and organization of the Second Crusade

On December 1, 1145, Eugene III issued a bull about a new crusade, sent to the king of France. On March 1 of the following year, a second bull was issued, which became the model for all subsequent calls for crusades.
It consisted of three main parts:

• story (description of the First Crusade and the current situation);
• call (an ardent appeal to all Christians, urging them to defend the Eastern Church);
• privilege (absolution of sins, protection by the church of the family and property of the crusaders, a ban on charging interest on crusader loans, etc.).

In the bull of the Pope of Rome in 1145, a formula arose explaining the military failures of Christians by their great sinfulness.

The famous abbot Bernard of Clairvaux became the main preacher of the Second Crusade. His fiery sermons in France and Germany attracted a huge number of fanatics to participate in the campaign.

Rice. 1. Bernard of Clairvaux in a painting by G. A. Wasshuber.

Course of the Second Crusade

The campaign was led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany. Together with two monarchs, participants in the Second Crusade became many famous people

• from France - Robert I de Dre (brother of the king), counts Alphonse Jordan of Toulouse and Guillaume III of Nevers, bishops of Langres, Arras and Lisieux;
• from Germany - Duke Friedrich of Swabia (Barbarossa), Duke of Spoleto Welf VI, etc.

Briefly about the events of the Second Crusade, we can say the following:

• The start date of the campaign was May 1147, when the German crusaders set out on a campaign from Regensburg. A month later they were followed by the army of Louis VII.
• Byzantine territories lay in the way of the crusaders. german army started the robbery. The Byzantine emperor Manuel provided the crusaders with a fleet to cross the Bosphorus. That was where his help was limited.
• The army of Konrad III was constantly attacked by the Turkish light cavalry. Under Dorileus, a decisive battle took place, which ended in a stampede of the crusaders. The remnants of the army at the end of November 1147 returned to Nicaea and united with the French.
• The united army made a second attempt to reach Edessa. In January 1148, near the city of Kadmus, the crusaders again suffered a crushing defeat from the Turks.
• In the summer of 1148, the main participants in the campaign and the local feudal nobility gathered at the Crown Council in Acre. The decision was made to capture Damascus. The siege lasted five days. At this time, Muslim reinforcements began to approach the city. The crusaders retreated, having lost many people. In early August, the army was disbanded.

Rice. 2. The second crusade on the map.

During the siege of Damascus, the unprecedented strength of Conrad III manifested itself, which cut the enemy into two parts with a sword.

In the summer of 1149, a truce was concluded between Jerusalem and Damascus, which officially confirmed the end of the Second Crusade.

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Rice. 3. The siege of Damascus on a miniature from the Chronicle of Ernul.

Results of the Second Crusade

The grandiose plan of revenge on the Muslims did not bring any results.
This happened for the following reasons:

• insufficient coordination between Conrad III and Louis VII;
• the mutual hostility of Byzantium and the crusaders during these years;
• the difficulty of the way and the lack of supply of the army.

What have we learned?

In the middle of the 12th century, Muslims began to gradually conquer territories in the East from Christians. In response to this, the Second Crusade of 1147-1149 was organized. He was given very great importance, but the goal (the capture of Edessa) was never achieved.

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2nd crusade. Start of the hike

In the 12th century, alliances, sympathies or antipathies of states were of great importance for the success of all external political enterprises. The French nation, at the head of its king, fielded considerable forces. Both King Louis VII himself and the feudal princes of France showed much sympathy for the cause of the Second Crusade; gathered a detachment of up to 70 thousand. The goal that the Second Crusade was to achieve was clearly outlined and strictly defined. His task was to weaken the Mossul emir Zengi and take away Edessa from him. This task would have been successfully completed by one French army, consisting of a well-armed army, which along the way was doubly enlarged by the volunteers who molested. If the crusader militia of 1147 had consisted entirely of Frenchmen, they would have taken a different route, shorter and safer than that which they had chosen under the influence of the Germans. The French in the political system of that era represented a nation, completely isolated, which, with its closest interests, leaned towards Italy. The Sicilian king Roger II and the French king were on close terms. Consequently, it was most natural for the French king to take the route through Italy, whence he could, taking advantage of the Norman fleet and also the fleet of the trading cities, which, as we have seen before, were such energetic assistants in the First Crusade, conveniently and quickly arrive in Syria. This path seemed shorter and more convenient, if only because it led the crusaders not to the hostile possessions of the Muslims, but to those lands of Syria and Palestine that already belonged to the Christians; this path, therefore, not only would not require any sacrifices from the crusader militia, but, on the contrary, promised him quite favorable results. In addition, the route through southern Italy had the additional advantage that the Sicilian king could also join the militia. Louis VII, having communicated with Roger II, was ready to move through Italy.

The German king was the bearer of completely opposite political ideas. The constant desire of the German nation to take possession of southern Italy made every German king feel the need to consider his task unfinished until he visited Italy and Rome, received the imperial crown from the pope, and the oath of allegiance from the Italian population. From this side, the aspirations of the German kings directly threatened the interests of Norman influence in southern Italy and at this moment the interests of the Sicilian king Roger II. The strength of the Sicilian king was due to the weak influence of the German emperor in Italy. Naturally, Roger II was far from on favorable terms with the emperor; between the two peoples, Germanic and Norman, there could be no union. But in the period under review, things were much worse. Conrad least of all set himself the goal of making alliances with the Western European powers; on the contrary, shortly before that, he concluded an alliance with Byzantium. In the alliance of the German king with the Byzantine emperor, the fulfillment of the task that Alexei Comnenus tried to accomplish during the First Crusade was concealed: the German king and the Byzantine king had every opportunity to take the crusading movement into their own hands and lead it to the implementation of their tasks. The participation of the French king in the Second Crusade complicated and made it difficult to solve this problem; but nevertheless, Conrad III and Manuel Comnenus had every opportunity to jointly direct the movement towards the common Christian goal and play the main role in this movement.

When the question of the path and means of movement was raised, the German king proposed to choose the path that the first German crusaders also went - to Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Thrace and Macedonia. The Germans insisted that the French king also move along this path, motivating their proposal by the fact that it was better to avoid the division of forces, that the movement through the possessions of an allied and even related sovereign to the German king was completely secured from all sorts of accidents and surprises, and that with the Byzantine king began negotiations on this issue, in the favorable outcome of which Conrad did not doubt.

In the summer of 1147, movement began through Hungary; Conrad walked in front, a month later Louis followed him. Roger of Sicily, who had not previously declared his intention to participate in the Second Crusade, but who, however, could not remain indifferent to its outcome, demanded that Louis fulfill the agreement concluded between them - to direct the path through Italy. Louis hesitated for a long time, but yielded to an alliance with the German king. Roger realized that if he now took part in the campaign, then his position would be completely isolated. He equipped the ships, armed himself, but not in order to help general movement; he began to act at his own peril in accordance with the Norman policy towards the East; the Sicilian fleet began to plunder the islands and coastal lands belonging to Byzantium, the coast of Illyria, Dalmatia and southern Greece. Devastating the Byzantine possessions, the Sicilian king took possession of the island of Corfu and at the same time, in order to successfully continue his naval operations against Byzantium and to provide himself from the African Muslims, he concluded an alliance with the latter.

Thus the crusading movement was placed at the very beginning in the most unfavorable position. On the one hand, the western king attacked the Byzantine possessions at the very time when the crusaders were approaching Constantinople; on the other hand, an alliance was formed between the Christian king and the Muslims, an alliance directly hostile to the success of the crusades. The policy of the Norman king immediately resonated in the distant East. The cross militia was attended by a mass of people who did not want to obey the German and French kings, did not recognize any authority over themselves. No matter how much the kings wished to bring their army safely to Constantinople, without arousing murmuring in the native population with robberies and violence, it was difficult for them to maintain order and discipline in their army: volunteers who had joined the militia separated from the army, robbed, insulted and committed violence. residents. This could not but settle misunderstandings between the Byzantine king and the German king, mutual displeasure and reproaches began for non-fulfillment of treaties and conventions. In Thrace even came from open clashes. The crusaders complained that food and fodder were not delivered to them on time; the Byzantines accused the crusaders of robbery. Although the Byzantine king was confident in Conrad's disposition, it was not a secret for him that there was a lack of discipline in the crusading army and the weak authority of the king. Tsar Manuel was afraid that Conrad would not be able to curb the violent and recalcitrant crowd, that this crowd, greedy for profit, might start robberies and violence in the mind of Constantinople and cause serious unrest in the capital. Therefore, Manuel tried to remove the crusader militia from Constantinople and advised Conrad to cross to the Asian coast of Gallipoli. This would be really better, because it would prevent many different misunderstandings and skirmishes. But the crusaders made their way to Constantinople by force, accompanying their path with robberies and violence. In September 1147, the danger to Byzantium from the Crusaders was serious: irritated Germans stood at the walls of Constantinople, betraying everything to robbery; after two or three weeks, the arrival of the French crusaders was to be expected; the combined forces of both could threaten Constantinople with serious troubles. At the same time, news reached the Byzantine king about the capture of Corfu, about the attacks of the Norman king on the coastal Byzantine possessions, about the alliance of Roger II with the Egyptian Muslims.

Under the influence of danger threatening from all sides, Manuel took a step that fundamentally undermined the tasks and goals proposed by the Second Crusade - he entered into an alliance with the Seljuk Turks; True, this was not an offensive alliance, it had the goal of securing the empire and threatening the Latins in case the latter took it into their head to threaten Constantinople. Nevertheless, this alliance was very important in the sense that it made it clear to the Seljuks that they would have to reckon with only one western militia. Concluding this alliance with the Iconian sultan, Manuel made it clear that he did not look at the Seljuks as enemies. Protecting his personal interests, he washed his hands, leaving the crusaders to act at their own risk with their own forces and means. Thus, two Christian-Muslim alliances were formed against the crusade militia: one - directly hostile to the crusader militia - is the alliance of Roger II with the Egyptian sultan; the other - the union of the Byzantine king with the Iconian sultan - was not in the interests of the crusade. All this was the cause of the failures that ended the Second Crusade.

Manuel hurried to satisfy Konrad and moved the Germans to the opposite bank of the Bosphorus. It is unlikely that at that time the Byzantine king could ensure the further course of affairs in Asian territory. The crusaders gave themselves their first rest in Nicaea, where there were already serious misunderstandings. A 15,000-strong detachment separated from the German militia and, at its own peril, headed along the seaside route to Palestine. Conrad with the rest of the army chose the path that the first crusader militia held on to - through Dorilei, Iconium, Heraclea. In the first battle (October 26, 1147), which took place in Cappadocia, near Dorileus, the German army, taken by surprise, was completely defeated, most of the militia died or were taken prisoner, very few returned with the king to Nicaea, where Conrad began to wait French. Almost at the same time that Conrad suffered a terrible defeat, Louis VII was approaching Constantinople. There were the usual skirmishes between the French army and the Byzantine government. Knowing the sympathy between Louis VII and Roger II, Manuel did not consider it safe for the French to stay in Constantinople for a long time. In order to quickly get rid of them and force the knights to take a fealty oath, King Manuel used a trick. A rumor was circulated among the French that the Germans, who crossed over to Asia, were rapidly advancing, step by step, winning brilliant victories; so the French will have nothing to do in Asia. French competition was aroused; they demanded that they be sent as soon as possible across the Bosphorus. Here already, on the Asian coast, the French learned about the unfortunate fate of the German army; in Nicaea, both kings met, - Louis and Conrad, and decided to continue the journey together, in a faithful alliance.