volume one

348 HISTORY OF THE CEUSADES.
the plain where the Christian army was celebrating the feast
of the Assumption,* and as if it had conspired -with the
Greeks, says a French historian, and as if it imitated their
perfidy and treason, it carried away the horses and baggage,
and brought desolation into the camp of the Crusaders. The
Gre>?ks afforded some succour to the German soldiers, but
they saw with joy, in an event they affected to deplore, a
presage of the defeats which threatened the armies of the
Latins.
Constantinople, on the arrival of Conrad, presented the
novel spectacle of two emperors who had inherited the wrecks
of the empire of Augustus, and each of whom called himself
the successor of Caesar and Constantine. Their pretensions
created some divisions ; the emperor of the West had a valiant
army to support his rights ; he of the East did not
dare to insist too openly upon his. He called in perfidy to
bis aid, and wounded vanity avenged itself in a manner as
cowardly as it was cruel.
As soon as the Germans had passed the Bosphorus, they
foimd themselves exposed to all sorts of treachery. All who
straggled from the army were slain by the soldiers of Comuenus
; the gates of all the cities on their route were closed
when they asked for provisions, they were obliged to put the
money into the baskets which were lowered down from the
walls, and afcer all, they frequently obtained nothing but in-
sult and ridicule. The Greeks mixed lime with the flour
they sold them ; and when the Crusaders had anytliing for
sale, they were paid in a false coin, which was refused
when they became purcliasers. Ambuscades awaited them
the enemy was aware of their line
throughout their route ;
of march, and as the height of perfidy, furnished them at
Constantinople with faithless guides, who misled the army
in the defiles of Mount Taurus, and deKvered them up, Avorn
out with fatigue, to famine and despair, or to the swords of
the Mussulmans. The Germans, ill-treated by the Greeks,
did not seek to revenge themselves, although it would have
been easy to have done so, and, according to the ideas of the
age, might have appeared glorious. This is the reason why
* Otto of Frisingen, an eye-witness, describes this misfortune at great
length.
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