Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/260

 242 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The leaders of the crusade had decided, as we have seen, that their operations should be directed against Egypt. chooSng "^^ Many considerations induced them to arrive at this ^^^^^' conclusion. The passage through Homania had been found during previous crusades to be long and costly. Even when the Dardanelles had been passed, there remained the terrible march tlirough Asia Minor, where the Turks hin- dered the progress of the Christians at every step, and where fever had rapidly thinned their ranks. The terrible experi- ence of the last crusade had been that the great German army, after winning every battle it had fought, had, by the time it reached the Holy Land, melted away. The leaders wished to avoid this long and fatal route, and desired to be landed at some place where they could strike at the enemy before the army had been weakened by repeated contests, and wearied and demoralized by long marches through an unhealthy coun- try. No place offered so many advantages from this point of view as Egypt. A short sail over a pleasant sea and the Cru- saders could be landed fresh and vigorous and prepared for battle. The cost of transporting an army to Alexandria would be far less than that of taking it to any other part of paynimrie. The sea was the safest and most easily guarded road to keep open between the invading army and Europe. Alex- andria was a base of operations which might be kept with surety against the enemy, while its port would always be open to supplies of men and means of warfare from the AVest. A footing once obtained, Egypt could better support the army of Christendom than any other countrj'. Its perennial wealth had been the mainstay of the Arabs in their marvellous con- quests over Syria and Northern Africa. Moreover, while the renown of Egypt was spread thro^nghout Islam and Christen- dom alike, the enemy could be more advantageously fought in the densely populated delta than in the wide and thinly peopled regions of Syria. Probably, too, it was known in Europe that the Egyptian Arabs had lost their early vigor, that the climate had told upon them, and that they were al- ready becoming an unwarlike race. The occasion, however.