Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/191

 THE CRUSADES, AND THE EAST 179 The Seljuk vizier was succeeded by his nephew Salah-ed-din Yusuf, familiar in history and romance as the great Soldan Saladin, who made it his business to restore and complete the supremacy of the Turks in the Mohammedan world. The reconquest of Palestine itself was only a part of the Imperial designs of Saladin. To him the reconquest of Asia Minor and the mastery of Mesopotamia mattered 4. second more than a strip of territory between Asia Minor Period, and Egypt, which was never a real menace to the Moslem power. Still, it did form a part of his scheme ; and he was materially aided in it by the dissensions which arose within the Latin kingdom itself. The successor of Amalric was Baldwin iv. But Baldwin's great qualities were of no avail against the terrible disease of leprosy to which he was a victim, and when he died there was a bitter contest for the Latin Crown. The successful claimant was the incom- petent Guy of Lusignan, Baldwin's brother-in-law. The Latin But King Guy was ill-supported. Saladin, who Kingdom, had been decisively defeated by Baldwin, fell upon 1186, the Christian kingdom, smote its armies at the battle of Tiberias, and then recaptured city after city till at last Jerusalem itself was in his hands. The small province of Tripolis, and the fortress of Tyre, valiantly defended by that Conrad of Montferrat (who figures in Scott's Talisman ), were almost all that remained to the Christians. The capture of Jerusalem once more seemed to have roused Europe to a great crusade, which should have been overwhelm- ing. Even the strife between the pope and the The TMrd emperor was hushed by that great disaster. Crusade, Frederick Barbarossa, one of the greatest of the 1189, emperors ; Philip Augustus, King of France ; Richard the Lion Heart, Lord of Aquitaine, of Normandy, of half France, and King of England to boot ; dukes and counts innumerable; — took the Cross for the deliverance of the Holy Land. The emperor and his great army went by land; the rest descended upon Palestine by sea. The German army drove its way through Asia Minor, only to go utterly to pieces when the emperor died suddenly just as it was entering Syria. The other princes