Infidels_ A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam - Andrew Wheatcroft [109]
The Crusaders outside Jerusalem now had news of a large army massing in Egypt to relieve the holy city. There was no chance of starving Jerusalem into submission—it could be taken only by assault. Once more, as at Antioch, they risked being trapped between the enemy within the walls and the enemy without. A long investment was therefore out of the question: the city had to be taken by storm. But there was no wood to hand from which they could make ladders and siege towers, and the garrison had poisoned the wells outside the walls. Parties were sent out to scour the country to find enough trees to build siege engines, and eventually two large mobile towers were made in secret out of wood, and clad with wet hides to prevent the Muslim garrison destroying them with Greek fire. On July 13, 1099, the larger of the two towers was rolled slowly into position close to the northern wall of the city, while a covered ram battered away at a lower outer wall that protected the main fortification. For two days the ram pounded at the wall, under constant enemy fire. But it slowly dislodged the stones in the wall so that on the morning of July 14 the tower could be pushed into position, close enough to lower the assault bridges onto the city rampart. The defenders made increasingly desperate efforts to topple it, but they were swept off the wall by a hail of arrows.
Suddenly, huge clouds of acrid black smoke poured out of the siege engines and drifted over the walls, choking the defenders. Seeing the direction of the light breeze, the Christians had lit bundles of damp straw inside the towers. As smoke enveloped the walls, the assault bridges were dropped and two Flemish knights crossed, jumping down onto the city wall. As they held off the defenders, more knights poured across the bridge, consolidating the position on the wall. The defense weakened, and then broke. Ladders were pushed up to the wall and more knights clambered into the city. As they advanced through the streets, the Muslim defenders fled before them. Some knights moved off to open the Gate of the Column, allowing the main body of the army into the city. Others pursued the defenders, and began the slaughter of every living thing within the walls. Count Raymond had given his safe conduct to the survivors of the garrison in the city’s citadel, but many were killed. Raymond of Aguilar, who was with him, wrote:
Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses …
Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgement of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. The city was filled with corpses and blood.48
Then there was a hiatus. On the first day, the massacres took place in the heat of battle. On the next day,
in the morning our men climbed up cautiously on to the roof of the Temple and attacked the Saracens, both male and female, and beheaded them with unsheathed swords. The other Saracens threw themselves from the Temple … The Saracens who were still alive dragged the dead ones out in front of the gates, and made huge piles of them, as big as houses. Such a slaughter of pagans no one has ever seen or heard of.49
The Jews of the city had been confined to their synagogue, which was then set alight. All died. And one writer, Albert of Aix, mentions an event that none of those present in Jerusalem