MODERN CRUSADERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 August 1940, Page 5

MODERN CRUSADERS

— KHAKI REPLACES MAIL Since before the time of Moses the little country of Palestine has been a battleground of nations, writes A.F. in the Melbourne “Age.” Soldiers attired in white tunics and metal breastplates, driving chariots, riding Arab steeds or mounted on camels marching under the tropical sun in eoats of mail in their thousands —they have all camped in this land, whose every inch of soil is steeped in history. And to-day Australian soldiers, for the second time, are making their camps in this historic land. History has been made here for almost countless centuries. Egyptian and Hittite, Assyrian, Persian and Greek, Roman and Arab, the Crusaders and the Turks have succeeded one another in their conquests of this corner of the East. In the last war another name was added to the long list, when the British Forces, under General Allenby, drove out the Turks from Jerusalem, after four centuries, and the holy places of three great reand Judaism, came under the ? mandate of Great Britain. On all sides, old buildings some practically untouched by the centuries which have passed since their erection, others merely ruins of their former strength, bear silent witness to the armies which have passed through the land. Each nation has left something of its history in the silent stones which are scattered along the narrow strip of land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, which has the Arabian desert as its inland boundary, but the'battlements of the Crusader castles are crumbling monuments to another long-ago Christian army who occupied a part of Palestine. 200-YEAR CAMPAIGN Numerous causes have been cited as reasons for the First Crusade, but the one most' popularly given in history books, and the one most prominent in people’s minds, was the illtreatment and oppression to which pilgrims were subjected to on the roads of Palestine and in Jerusalem itself. Jerusalem was the most holy of Christian shrines, and devout Christians fro'fn all parts of Europe made pilgirmages each year, many of them never returning to their homes because of the Moslem persecution. Be that as it may, great armies assembled in Europe, noble leaders presented themselves, and in 1087 the Western knights laid siege to the city of Antioch, which, after its capture, remained throughout the Crusades the capitol of the Christian forces. It should be remembered that the Crusades extended over a period of two hundred years, many years more than the history of Australia’s settlement, and in those two centuries the European knights who settled in places like Antioch, Tyre, Tripoli and Acre, made their homes there, built castles such as those in which they had lived in France or England, married and reared families. In these cities, which were, ancient when the Crusaders came to the land, sons and daughters to the sixth and seventh generation intermarried, and had their lives in knightly courts just as did the families of Europe. Traces can still be found amon£ the people of old Crusader names, and an occasional blond head and blue eyes are supposed to be'evidence of that far-off strain of Western blood. ' I It is interesting to note that one of the chief sources of income for the' Christian lords who set up their feudal states in the Holy Land was from 1 the customhouse. The laws of that time, drawn up after the capture of Jerusalem, named all articles on which duty could be collected. An Arab geographer, Ibn Jubair, tells of his visit to Acre. “Upon our arrival we

were taken to the customhouse. Opposite the door, on a covered bench, were seated the clerks of the customs, who were Christians. They had inkpots of ebony, gilded and handsomely decorated, and they wrote in the Arabic language, which they also spoke well. Their head, who farms the customs, has to pay a very heavy sum to the Government. Their merthanks deposited their goods in a storeroom above the customhouse. Private travellers were allowed to pass after an examination of their baggage. The officials did their work courteously and without violence and exaction.” It would seem there have been few changes in customhouses through the centuries. All along the coastline, the Crusader castles are to be seen to-day, occupying, vantage points of land where the sea made a protective moat on three sides. The supreme triumph of the Crusaders’ engineering genius is to be seen in the castle of Kalat-el-Husn/near Homs, between Damascus and Aleppo. For a century and ahalf the Order of the Knights Hospitalers counted the castle as their strongest and richest possession, but to-day this superb relic of Crusader architecture is occupied by villagers with their flocks of goats, cattle and horses, and every chamber and tower is turned into a wretched and filthy hovel. The sea castle of Sidon is another wonderful example of architecture which has withstood the buffets of time. At present it is a storehouse for petroleum, after being modified by succeeding Powers. Fortresses of amazing size and strength were built by members of the knightly orders, the Templars and Hospitalers, and the three outstanding examples of Knight Templar castles to-day, although in ruins, still shows the might of these warriors. Athlit, on the seashore, a little south of Mount Carmel, Saflta the White Castle and Tartous, perhaps the finest specimen of Templar fortification, are mute witnesses of their one-time splendour, though their architecture is a combination of the best in western European, Byzantine and Arab ideas. To-day, the Crusaders who have made camps, dug air-raid shelters and marched across the country which has changed so little through the centuries, are Australians. Khaki shorts and pith helmets replace the ’coats of mail and Cross-emblazoned shields of the twelfth-century Crusaders, who also prepared for battle in these surroundings. To-day’s soldiers will find many modern conveniences to make their camps more livable and for many of these they have to thank the men who followed General Allenby through the gates of Jerusalem in September, 1918. During four centuries of Turkish occupation, Jerusalem had no real water supply and no attempt was made to develop the natural resources available in other parts of the country Two months after the British entered Jerusalem, the Holy City was in possession of a water supply it had been denied by the Turks for over 400 years! . One of the biggest undertakings of the Royal Engineers during the last war was the building of the roads which now intersect the country., They were intended primarily for military purposes, but they have proved of greatest value to the Palestinians in marketing their produce in peace time, and enabling the tourist ■to travel in comparative comfort. I Australians and New Zealanders will be interested in one of the most 'common sights in the Holy Land, the 'sheep which are everywhere watched 'over by the shepherds. Flocks composed of heavy-woolled animals with tails of fat hanging like aprons behind them, some white-wooled and 'some brown, feeding from the luxur;ian grass which springs up everywhere ‘ between the rocky soil. . _