Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/58

 4:0 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The first thought among the soldiers of the Cross was that they had been betrayed ; but the better inforaied among them were aware that Alexis had come upon the invitation of their own leaders. He had been asked to send his own troops to take possession of the city, in order that the Crusaders might be left free to pursue their march towards the Holy Land, and might not be exposed to the delay and demoralization of plun- dering a hostile city. They were not there to plunder impe- rial cities, but to fight the infidel. Alexis had reached the city on its water side by taking his boats overland from the Gulf of Moudania into the lake.' The loss of the Crusaders is put down at 13,000 men, that of the Turks at 200,000. When the victorious army began its advance into the country its troubles recommenced, and the men of the West learned by experience with what an ob- stinate enemy the empire had had to contend. Stragglers from the army were cut off ; and before it advanced one tenth of the distance to Antioch it was met by the sultan at Dory- leon. After a battle obstinately fought on both sides, the Crusaders were again victorious, and the sultan had to beat a hasty retreat, in order to seek the aid of his fellow-country- men in the east of the kingdom of Roum. Had the emperor been in a position to have followed up the victory of the Cru- saders, Asia Minor might again, with the aid of this great army from the West, have been replaced under the rule of Constantinople. There was even a disposition on the part of other Moslems to abandon the Turks. The Arabs then, as now, expressed contempt for their ignorance and barbarism. The Sultan of Bagdad requested the Crusaders to drive them out of Jerusalem. The Crusaders replied to the Sultan of Egypt, who had represented that Syria belonged to the Sara- cens, that the Turks had only acquired the rights of robbers. In June, 1098, the Crusaders took Antioch ; but the conquest almost proved fatal. Before they could provision the town which they had taken, 360,000 Turks surrounded it; when, at the last extremity, the Crusaders were encouraged by the > Will, of Tyre, p. 127; " Recueil," p. 655.