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 EUROPE'S
LAST SUMMER
Who Started the Great War in 1914?

DAVID F R O M K I N
 T H I S I S A B O R Z O I B O O K P U B L I S H E D B Y A L F R E D A . K N O P F

Copyright © 2004. by David Fromkin

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

All photographs are reprinted with the kind permission of the Illustrated London News
Library excerpt: "Colonel Edward House" and "Count GrafBerchtold" (Hulton-Deutsch
Collection/Corbis); "German General Erich von Falkenhayn" (Corbis); and "German
Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz" (Bettman/Corbis).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fromkin, David.
Europe's last summer: who started the Great War in 1914? /by David Fromkin.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-3 75-41156-9
1. World War, 1914-1918—Causes. I. Title: Who started the Great War in 1914?.
II. Title. D$ 11.F746 2004
940.3'n—dc22 2003027391

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition
 /

The peremptory transition from an apparently profound peace to

violent general war in a few mid-summer weeks in 1 9 1 4 continues to
defy attempts at explanation.
— J O H N K E E G - A N , The First World War
 CONTENTS

Map xiii

PROLOGUE
(i) Out of the Blue 5
(it) The Importance of the Question 5
(Hi) A Summer to Remember 12

PART ONE
EUROPE'S TENSIONS

C H A P T E R 1 EMPIRES CLASH 17
C H A P T E R 2 CLASSES STRUGGLE 21
C H A P T E R 3 NATIONS QUARREL 25
C H A P T E R 4 C O U N T R I E S ARM 28
C H A P T E R 5 ZARATHUSTRA PROPHESIES 39
C H A P T E R 6 DIPLOMATS A L I G N 43

PART TWO
WALKING THROUGH MINEFIELDS

C H A P T E R 7 THE EASTERN QUESTION 49

C H A P T E R 8 A C H A L L E N G E FOR T H E A R C H D U K E
C H A P T E R 9 E X P L O S I V E G E R M A N Y 54
X C O N T E N T S

PART T H R E E
DRIFTING TOWARD WAR

C H A P T E R 10 M A C E D O N I A — O U T OF C O N T R O L 67
C H A P T E R 11 A U S T R I A — F I R S T OFF T H E MARK 70
C H A P T E R 12 F R A N C E AND G E R M A N Y M A K E T H E I R PLAY
C H A P T E R 13 ITALY GRASPS; T H E N T H E BALKANS DO T O O
C H A P T E R 14 T H E S L A V I C T I D E 87
C H A P T E R 15 EUROPE GOES TO T H E BRINK 94
C H A P T E R 16 MORE BALKAN T R E M O R S 98
C H A P T E R 17 AN A M E R I C A N T R I E S TO STOP IT 104

PART FOUR
MURDER!

CHAPTER 18 THE LAST WALTZ 113

C H A P T E R 19 IN T H E L A N D OF T H E A S S A S S I N S 118
C H A P T E R 20 T H E RUSSIAN C O N N E C T I O N 129
C H A P T E R 21 T H E T E R R O R I S T S S T R I K E 132
C H A P T E R 22 EUROPE YAWNS 137
C H A P T E R 23 DISPOSING OF T H E BODIES 144
C H A P T E R 24 R O U N D I N G UP T H E S U S P E C T S 146

PART F I V E
TELLING LIES

C H A P T E R 25 G E R M A N Y SIGNS A B L A N K C H E C K 153
C H A P T E R 26 T H E G R E A T D E C E P T I O N 162
C H A P T E R 27 B E R C H T O L D RUNS OUT OF T I M E 168
C H A P T E R 28 T H E S E C R E T IS K E P T 170

PART SIX
CRISIS!

C H A P T E R 29 T H E FAIT IS N O T ACCOMPLI 175

C H A P T E R 30 P R E S E N T I N G AN U L T I M A T U M 185
C H A P T E R 31 SERBIA MORE OR L E S S A C C E P T S 195
 C O N T E N T S

PART SEVEN
COUNTDOWN

C H A P T E R 32 S H O W D O W N IN B E R L I N 201
C H A P T E R 33 J U L Y 26 206
C H A P T E R 34 J U L Y 27 212
C H A P T E R 35 J U L Y 28 217
C H A P T E R 36 J U L Y 29 225
C H A P T E R 37 J U L Y 30 229
C H A P T E R 38 J U L Y 31 234
C H A P T E R 39 A U G U S T 1 257
C H A P T E R 40 A U G U S T 2 243
C H A P T E R 41 A U G U S T 3 247
C H A P T E R 42 A U G U S T 4 249
C H A P T E R 43 SHREDDING T H E E V I D E N C E 251

PART EIGHT
THE MYSTERY SOLVED

C H A P T E R 4 4 A S S E M B L I N G I N T H E LIBRARY 257
C H A P T E R 45 W H A T DID N O T H A P P E N 259
C H A P T E R 46 T H E KEY TO WHAT HAPPENED 269
C H A P T E R 47 W H A T WAS IT A B O U T ? 276
C H A P T E R 48 WHO C O U L D HAVE P R E V E N T E D IT? 282
C H A P T E R 49 WHO S T A R T E D IT? 286
C H A P T E R 50 C O U L D IT H A P P E N AGAIN? 292
C H A P T E R 51 S U M M I N G UP 295

EPILOGUE
C H A P T E R 52 A U S T R I A ' S WAR 299
C H A P T E R 53 G E R M A N Y ' S WAR 303

Appendix 1: T h e Austrian Note 307

Appendix 2: T h e Serbian Reply 313
Who Was Who 517
Notes 319
Bibliography 331
Acknowledgments 557
Index 339
i
 PROLOGUE:

( i ) Out of the Blue

Shortly after eleven o'clock at night on Sunday, December 29,1997,

United Airlines Flight 826, a Boeing 747 carrying 374 passengers
and 19 crew, was two hours into its scheduled trip across the Pacific
from Tokyo to Honolulu. It had reached its assigned cruising altitude
of between 31,000 and 33,000 feet. Meal service was about to be
completed. It had been an uneventful trip.
In a terrifying instant everything changed. The plane was struck,
without warning, by a force that was invisible. The aircraft abruptly
nosed up; then it nosed down into a freefall. Screaming bodies were
flung about promiscuously, colliding with ceilings and with serving
carts. A thirty-two-year-old Japanese woman was killed and 102 peo-
ple were injured. Regaining control of the jumbo jet, the captain and
cockpit crew guided Flight 826 back to the Japanese airport from
which it had taken off hours before.
What was so frightening about this episode was its mysteriousness.
Until the moment of impact, the flight had been a normal one. There
had been no reason to expect that it would be anything else. There
had been no warning: no flash of lightning across the sky. You could

3
 P R O L O G U E
4

not see it coming, whatever "it" may have been. Passengers had no
idea what had hit them and airline companies were in no position to
assure the public that something similar would not happen again.
Experts quoted by the communications media were of the opinion
that Flight 826 had fallen victim to what they called "clear air turbu-
lence." They likened this to a horizontal tornado, but one that you
could not see. Some of the experts who were interviewed expressed
the hope that within a few years some sort of sensing technology
would be developed to detect these invisible storms before they
strike. Transparency, the public learned from this episode, signifies
little; a pacific sky can rise up in wrath as suddenly as can a pacific
ocean.

Something like such an attack of clear air turbulence is supposed by

some to have happened to European civilization in 1 9 1 4 during its
passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The world of
the 1890s and 1900s had been, not unlike our own age, a time of inter-
national congresses, disarmament conferences, globalization of the
world economy, and schemes to establish some sort of league of
nations to outlaw war. A long stretch of peace and prosperity was
expected by the public to go on indefinitely.
Instead, the European world abruptly plunged out of control,
crashing and exploding into decades of tyranny, world war, and mass
murder. What tornado wrecked civilized Old Europe and the world
it then ruled? In retrospect, it may be less of a mystery than some of
those who lived through it imagined. The years 1 9 1 3 and 1 9 1 4 were
ones of dangers and troubles. There were warning signs in the early
decades of the twentieth century that catastrophe might well lie
ahead; we can see that now, and military and political leaders could
see it then.
The sky out of which Europe fell was not empty; on the contrary,
it was alive with processes and powers. The forces that were to devas-
tate it—nationalism, socialism, imperialism, and the like—had been
in motion for a long time. The European world already was buffeted
by high winds. It had been traversing dangerous skies for a long time.
The captain and the crew had known it. But the passengers, taken
completely by surprise, insistently kept asking: why had they received
no warning?
 P R O L O G U E 5

(i i) The Importance of the Question

In the summer of 1914 a war broke out in Europe that then spread to
Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. Known
now, somewhat inaccurately, as the First World War, it ended by
becoming in many ways the largest conflict that the planet had ever
known. It deserved the name by which it was called at the time: the
Great War.
To enter the lists, countries of the earth ranged themselves into
one or another of two worldwide coalitions. One, led by Great
Britain,* France, and Russia, was called the Triple Entente;* the
other, led by Germany and Austria-Hungary, was known at first as
5
the Triple Alliance. Between them the two coalitions mobilized
about 65 million troops. In Germany and France, nations that gam-
bled their entire manhood on the outcome, 80 percent of all males
between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine were called to the colors.
In the ensuing clashes of arms they were slaughtered.
More than 20 million soldiers and civilians perished in the Great
War, and an additional 21 million were wounded. Millions more fell
victim to the diseases that the war unleashed: upwards of 20 million
people died in the influenza pandemic of 1 9 1 8 - 1 9 alone.
The figures, staggering though they are, fail to tell the whole story
or to convey the full impact of the war on the world of 1914. The
consequences of the changes wrought by the crisis of European civi-
lization are too many to specify and, in their range and in their depth,
made it the turning point in modern history. That would be true even
if, as some maintain, the war merely accelerated some of the changes
to which it led.
On August 8 , 1 9 1 4 , only four days after Great Britain entered the
war, the London Economist described it as "perhaps the greatest
tragedy of human history." That may well remain true. In 1979 the

'Beginning in 1801, the official title of Great Britain was the "United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland"; for short, the United Kingdom.
Called "the Allies" during the war.
HVith Italy as the third member in peacetime. Called "the Central Powers" during the war.
6 P R O L O G U E

distinguished American diplomat and historian George Kennan

wrote that he had "come to see the First World War, as I think many
reasonably thoughtful people have learned to see it, as the grand sem-
inal catastrophe of this century."
Fritz Stern, one of the foremost scholars of German affairs, writes
of "the first calamity of the twentieth century, the Great War, from
which all other calamities sprang."
The military, political, economic, and social earthquakes brought
about a redrawing of the map of the world. Empires and dynasties
were swept away. New countries took their place. Disintegration of
the political structure of the globe continued over the course of the
twentieth century. Today the earth is divided into about four times as
many independent states as existed when the Europeans went to war
in 1914. Many of the new entities—Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are
examples that come to mind—are countries that never existed before.
The Great War gave birth to terrible forces that would plague the
rest of the century. To drive Russia out of the war, the German gov-
ernment financed Lenin's Bolshevik communists, and introduced
Lenin himself into Russia in 1917—in Winston Churchill's words,
"in the same way that you might send a phial containing a culture of
typhoid or of cholera to be poured into the water supply of a great
city." Bolshevism was only the first of such war-born furies, followed
in years to come by fascism and Nazism.
Yet the war also set in motion two of the great liberation move-
ments of the twentieth century. As Europe tore itself apart, its over-
lordship of the rest of the planet came undone, and over the course of
the century, literally billions of people achieved their independence.
Women, too, in parts of the world, broke free from some of the shack-
les of the past, arguably as a direct consequence of their involvement
in war work—jobs in factories and in the armed forces—beginning in
1914.
Another kind of liberation, a wide-ranging freedom from restraint,
came out of the Great War and has expanded ever since in behavior,
sex life, manners, dress, language, and the arts. Not everybody
believes it to be a good thing that so many rules and restrictions have
gone by the way. But whether for good or ill, the world has traveled a
long way—from the Victorian age to the twenty-first century—along
paths that were blasted out for it by the warriors of 1914.
In searching for the origins of any of the great issues that have
 P R O L O G U E 7

faced the world during the twentieth century, or that confront it

today, it is remarkable how often we come back to the Great War. As
George Kennan observed: "all the lines of inquiry, it seems to me,
lead back to it." Afterwards the choices narrowed. The United States
and even Great Britain had a choice, for example, of whether or not
to enter the First World War—indeed disagreement has persisted
ever since as to whether they were wise to do so—but, realistically,
the two countries had little or no choice at all about whether or not
to join battle in the Second.
There was nothing inevitable about the progression from the ear-
lier conflict to the later one. The long fuse could have been cut at
many points along the way from 1914 to 1939, but nobody did cut it.
So the First World War did in fact lead to the Second, even though
it need not have done so, and the Second, whether or not it needed
to do so, led to the Cold War. In 1991 historians Steven E. Miller
and Sean M. Lynn-Jones maintained: "Most observers describe
the present period of international politics as the 'post-Cold War'
era but in many ways our age is better defined as the 'post-World
War F era."
From the start, the explosion of 1914 seemed to set off a series of
chain reactions, and the serious consequences were soon apparent to
contemporaries: In the Introduction to The Magic Mountain (1924),
Thomas Mann wrote of "the Great War, in the beginning of which
so much began that has scarcely yet left off beginning."
Nor has it entirely left off today. On April 2 1 , 2001, the New York
Times reported from France the return to their homes of thousands
of people who had been evacuated temporarily because of a threat
from munitions left over from World War I and stored near them.
These included shells and mustard gas. The evacuees had been
allowed to return home after fifty tons of the more dangerous muni-
tions had been removed. But a hundred tons of the lethal materials
remained—and remain. So munitions from the 1914 war may yet
explode in the twenty-first century.
Indeed, in a sense they already have. On September 1 1 , 2001, the
Muslim fundamentalist suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in
New York City destroyed the heart of lower Manhattan and took
some three thousand lives. Osama bin Laden, the terrorist chieftain
who seemingly conjured up this horror and who threatened more, in
his first televised statement afterwards described it as vengeance for
8 P R O L O G U E

what had happened eighty years earlier. By this he presumably meant

the intrusion of the Christian European empires into the hitherto
Muslim-governed Middle East in the aftermath of—and as a conse-
quence of—the First World War. Bin Laden's sympathizers who
hijacked jumbo jets had smashed them into the twin towers in pur-
suance of a quarrel seemingly rooted in the conflicts of 1914.
Similarly, the Iraq crisis that escalated in 2002-03 drove journalists
and broadcast news personalities to their telephones, asking history
professors from leading American universities how Iraq had emerged
as a state from the embers of the First World War. It was a relevant
question, for had there been no world war in 1914, there might well
have been no Iraq in 2002.
It was indeed the seminal event of modern times.

What was the First World War about? How did it happen? Who
started it? Why did it break out where and when it did? "Millions of
deaths, and words, later, historians still have not agreed why," as the
"Millennium Special Edition" of The Economist (January 1,
1000-December 3 1 , 1999) remarked, adding that "none of it need
have happened." From the outset everybody said that the outbreak of
war in 1914 was literally triggered by a Bosnian Serb schoolboy when
he shot and killed the heir to the Austrian and Hungarian thrones.
But practically everybody also agrees that the assassination provided
not the cause, but merely the occasion, for first the Balkans, then
Europe, and then the rest of the earth to take up arms.
The disproportion between the schoolboy's crime and the confla-
gration in which the globe was consumed, beginning thirty-seven
days later, was too absurd for observers to credit the one as the cause
of the other. Tens of millions of people could not be losing their lives,
they felt, because one man and his wife—two people of whom many
of them had never heard—had lost theirs. It did not seem possible. It
could not, everyone said, be true.
Because the Great War was so enormous an event and so fraught
with consequences, and because we want to keep anything similar
from happening in the future, the inquiry as to how it occurred has
become not only the most challenging but also the biggest question
in modern history. But it remains elusive; in the words of the histo-
rian Laurence Lafore, "the war was many things, not one, and the
meanings of the word 'cause' are also many."
 P R O L O G U E 9

In the 1940s and 1950s scholars tended to believe that they had
learned all that there was to be known about the origins of the war,
and that all that remained to be disputed was interpretation of the
evidence. Beginning in the 1960s, however, sparked by the research
of the great German historian Fritz Fischer—of whose views more
will be said later—new information has come to light, notably from
German, Austrian, and Serbian sources, and hardly a year goes by
now without the appearance of new monographs adding consider-
ably to our knowledge. Fischer inspired scholars to comb the
archives for what was hidden. What follows in this book is an
attempt to look at the old questions in the light of the new knowl-
edge, to summarize the data, and then to draw some conclusions
from it.
When and where did the march toward the war of 1914 begin?
Recently, in a Boston classroom, I asked university students to pin-
point the first steps—before 1908—along the way. From their
responses, the following may illustrate how many roads can be imag-
ined to have led to Sarajevo.

The fourth century A.D. The decision to divide the Roman Empire
between the Latin-speaking West and the Greek-speaking East had
lasting consequences. The cultural divide that ramified into two dif-
ferent branches of Christianity, two calendars, and two rival scripts
(the Latin and the Cyrillic) persisted. The Roman Catholic Austrians
and the Greek Orthodox Serbs, whose quarrel provided the occasion
for the 1914 war, were, in that sense, fated to be enemies.

The seventh century. The Slavs, who were to become Europe's

largest ethnic group, moved into the Balkans, where the Teutons
already had arrived. The conflict between Slavic and Germanic peo-
ples became a recurring theme of European history, and in the twen-
tieth century pitted Teuton Germans and Austrians against Slavic
Russians and Serbs.

The eleventh century. The formal split between Roman Catholic

and Greek Orthodox Christianity generated a conflict of religious
faith along the same fault line as those of ethnic group, alphabet, and
culture—Roman versus Greek—a fault line that threatened the
 P R O L O G U E

southeast of Europe and was followed by the political earthquake

that struck in 1914.

The fifteenth century. The conquest of Christian eastern and cen-

tral Europe by the Muslim Ottoman (or Turkish) Empire deprived
the peoples of the Balkans of centuries of experience in self-
government. That perhaps contributed to the violence and fractious-
ness of that area in the years that led up to the 1 9 1 4 war—and
perhaps contributed to bringing it about.

The sixteenth century. The Protestant Reformation split Western

Christendom. It divided the German peoples politically, and led to
the curious relationship between Germany and Austria that lay at the
heart of the crisis of July 1914.

The seventeenth century. The beginning of the centuries-long

Ottoman retreat from Europe meant that the Turks were abandon-
ing valuable lands that the Christian Great Powers coveted. Desire to
seize those lands fed the rivalry between Austria and Russia that set
off war in 1914.

1870-71. The creation of the German Empire and its annexation

of French territory in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War
made another European war likely as soon as France recovered suffi-
ciently to try to take back what it had lost.

1 8 9 0 . The German emperor dismissed his Chancellor—his prime

minister—Prince Otto von Bismarck. The new Chancellor reversed
Bismarck's policy of allying with both Austria and Russia to keep the
peace between them. Instead, Germany sided with Austria against
Russia in the struggle to control the Balkans, which encouraged Aus-
tria to follow a dangerously bellicose policy that seemed likely to pro-
voke an eventual Russian response.

1 8 9 0 5 . Rebuffed by Germany, and seeing no other alternative,

reactionary, monarchical Russia was drawn into an alliance with
republican France. This convinced Germany's leaders that war was
inevitable sooner or later, and that Germany stood a better chance of
winning if it were waged sooner rather than later.
 P R O L O G U E

1900^. Germany's attempt to rival Britain as a naval power was

seen in London as a vital threat.

1 9 0 3 . In a bloody coup d'etat in Serbia, army officers belonging to

a secret society butchered their pro-Austrian king and queen and
replaced them with a rival dynasty that was pro-Russian. Austrian
leaders reacted by planning to punish Serbia—a plan that if carried
out threatened to lead to a dangerously wider conflict.

1 9 0 5 . The First Moroccan Crisis was a complicated affair. It will

be described in Chapter 1 2 . In it Germany's aggressive diplomacy
had the unintended effect of unifying the other countries against
it. Britain moved from mere friendship with France—the Entente
Cordiale—to something closer to informal alliance, including con-
versations between the two governments and military staff talks, and
later to agreement and conversation with France's ally Russia. There
was a hardening of European alignments into rival and potentially
enemy blocs: France, Britain, and Russia on one side, and an isolated
Germany—with only halfhearted support from Austria-Hungary and
Italy—on the other.

To some extent all of these were right answers. Other dates—among

them 1908, which is discussed in the pages that follow—also served as
the starting points of fuse lines that led to the explosions of 1914. All of
them can be said to have contributed something to the coming of war.
Yet, in a sense all of them are wrong answers, too, to the question
of why the conflict came. Thirty-seven days before the Great War
the European world was comfortably at peace. Europe's leaders were
starting their summer vacations and none of them expected to be dis-
turbed while away. What went wrong?
All of the fuse lines identified by my students had been as danger-
ous to the peace of Europe in 1910 and 1912 as they were in 1914.
Since they had not led to war i n i 9 i o o r i 9 i 2 , why did they in 1914?
The question is not only why war came, but why war came in the
European summer of 1914; not why war? but—why this war?

Why did things happen as they did and not otherwise is a question
that historians have been asking ever since Herodotus and Thucy-
dides, Greeks of the fifth century B . C , started to do so more than
 P R O L O G U E

twenty-five hundred years ago. Whether such questions can be

answered with any accuracy remains debatable; often so many tribu-
taries flow into the stream that it is difficult to say which is its real
source.
In its magnitude and many dimensions, the First World War is
perhaps a supreme example of the complexity that challenges and
baffles historians. Arthur Balfour, a prewar British Prime Minister,
longtime Conservative statesman, philosopher, and named sponsor
of the Jewish state in Palestine, is quoted somewhere as having said
the war was too big to be comprehended.
, Not merely, therefore, is the explanation of the war the biggest
question in modern history; it is an exemplary question, compelling
us to reexamine what we mean by such words as "cause." There were
causes—many of them—for Europe's Great Powers to be disposed to
go to war with one another. There were other causes—immediate
ones, with which this book is concerned—for them to have gone to
war when and where and how they did.

(i i i) A Summer to Remember

To the man or woman in the streets of the Western world—someone

who was alive in the vibrant early years of the twentieth century—
nothing would have seemed further away than war. In those years
men who dreamed of battlefield adventure had been hard pressed to
find a war in which they could participate. In the year 1901, and in
the thirteen years that followed, the peoples of western Europe and
the English-speaking Americas were becoming consumers rather
than warriors. They looked forward to more: more progress, more
prosperity, more peace. The United States at that time (commented
an English observer) "sailed upon a summer sea," but so did Great
Britain, France, and others. There had been no war among the Great
Powers for nearly half a century, and the globalization of the world
economy suggested that war had become a thing of the past. The cul-
mination of those years in the hot, sun-drenched, gorgeous summer
of 1914, the most beautiful within living memory, was remembered
by many Europeans as a kind of Eden. Stefan Zweig spoke for many
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Title: History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Vol. 2 (of 3)

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE

MOORISH EMPIRE IN EUROPE, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***
 HISTORY
OF THE

Moorish Empire
IN EUROPE

BY
S. P. SCOTT
AUTHOR OF “THROUGH SPAIN”

Corduba famosa locuples de nomine dicta,

Inclyta deliciis, rebus quoque splendida cunctis
Hroswitha, Passio S. Pelagii

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. II.

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1904
 Copyright, 1904 By J. B. Lippincott Company
Published March, 1904

Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. S. A.

 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.

CHAPTER XV
THE MOSLEM DOMINATION IN SICILY
PAGE
Classic Souvenirs of Sicily—Its Great Natural Advantages—It becomes the
Stronghold of the Papacy—Invasion of the Arabs—They besiege
Syracuse—Strength of that City—Failure of the Enterprise—Capture of
Palermo—Rapid Progress of the Moslems—Condition of Italy—Arab
Alliance with Naples—Messina taken—Betrayal of Castrogiovanni—Rout
of the Greeks near Syracuse—Feuds of the Conquerors—Their Successes
in Italy—Second Siege of Syracuse—The City is stormed and destroyed
by Ibn-Mohammed—Peril of Rome—Appearance of the Normans in the
South of Europe—They invade Sicily—Siege of Palermo—Subjection of
the Island—Influence of the Moslems over their Conquerors—General
Condition of Sicily—Its Civilization—Palermo and its Environs—Science,
Art, and Literature—The Great Work of Edrisi—Arab Occupation of
Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, and Malta 1

CHAPTER XVI
THE PRINCIPALITIES OF MOORISH SPAIN
Immobility of the African Race—Its Hostility to Civilization—Its Pernicious
Influence on the Politics of the Western Khalifate—Character of
Suleyman—Invasion of Ali—He ascends the Throne—His Tyranny—He is
assassinated—Abd-al-Rahman IV. succeeds Him—Yahya—Abd-al-
Rahman V.—Mohammed—Hischem III.—Organization of the Council of
State—Ibn-Djahwar, the Minister—His Talents and Power—Abul-Kasim-
Mohammed, Kadi of Seville—Berber Conspiracy—The Impostor Khalaf is
raised to the Throne as Hischem II.—Almeria—The Vizier Ibn-Abbas—
Influence of the Jews at Granada—The Rabbi Samuel— Rivalry of
Granada and Almeria—Abu-al-Fotuh—Motadhid ascends the Throne of
Seville—His Cruel and Dissolute Character—His Collection of Skulls—
Badis, King of Granada—Increasing Power of Castile—Valencia and
Malaga—Atrocities of the Christians at Barbastro 77

CHAPTER XVII
 WARS WITH THE CHRISTIANS; THE ALMORAVIDES
Dissensions in Castile—Alfonso the Guest of the Emir of Toledo—
Civilization of that Moorish Capital—Motamid, Prince of Seville—His
Prodigality—Valencia and Murcia become subject to Mamun—Motamid
takes Cordova—Military Genius of Alfonso VI.—The Famous Game of
Chess—Siege of Toledo—Capitulation of that City—Depredations of
Bands of Outlaws—Danger and Distress of the Moslems—Rise of the
Almoravides—Their Fanaticism and Prowess—They conquer Northern
Africa—The Spanish Emirs appeal to Yusuf—He crosses the Strait—Rout
of the Christians at Zallaca—Second Expedition of Yusuf—His Popularity
—He claims the Sovereignty of the Peninsula—The Cid: His Character
and His Exploits—He serves the Emir of Saragossa—He obtains Control
of Valencia—Revolt and Siege of that City—Cruelties of the Cid—Death
of Yusuf—Greatness of the Almoravide Empire—Accession of Ali—
Demoralization of the Conquerors 159

CHAPTER XVIII
THE EMPIRE OF THE ALMOHADES
Rise of Abu-Abdallah, the Mahdi—His Character and Talents—He rebels
against Ali—His Eventful Career—Abd-al-Mumen succeeds Him—Decline
of the Almoravide Power in Spain—Raid of Alfonso of Aragon—Rout of
Fraga—Death of Alfonso—Indecisive Character of the Campaigns in the
War of the Reconquest—Progress of Abd-al-Mumen in Africa—Victories
of the Almohades—Natural Hostility of Moor and Berber—Anarchy in the
Peninsula—It is invaded by the Africans—Establishment of the Almohade
Empire in Andalusia—Almeria taken by the Christians—Its Recapture by
the Berbers—Death of Abd-al-Mumen—His Genius and Greatness—
Accession of Yusuf—His Public Works—He organizes a Great Expedition
—He dies and is succeeded by Yakub—The Holy War proclaimed—Battle
of Alarcos—Effects of African Supremacy—Death of Yakub—The Giralda
—Mohammed—He attempts the Subjugation of the Christians—Despair
of the Latter—Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa—Utter Rout of the
Almohade Army 247

CHAPTER XIX
THE PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN ARMS
General Disorder in the Peninsula—Aggressive Policy of the Christians— 334
Capture of Ubeda—Al-Mamun—Rise of Mohammed-Ibn-Hud—Merida
taken by the King of Leon—Prosperity of Barcelona—Jaime I. of Aragon
—Siege of Majorca—Terrible Sack of that City—Extinction of the
Almohades—Siege and Capture of Cordova by Ferdinand—Valencia
 surrenders to the King of Aragon—Character of the Struggle between
Christian and Moslem—Xativa—Its Prosperity—Murcia becomes the
Property of Castile—Xativa acquired by Aragon—Death and Character of
Jaime—Rise of the Kingdom of Granada—Its Wealth and Literary Culture
—Ferdinand captures Jaen—Mohammed-Ibn-Ahmar, King of Granada,
renders Homage to Ferdinand—Seville invested by the Castilians—Great
Strength of that City—Its Obstinate Defence—It is reduced by Famine—
Character of Ferdinand the Saint

CHAPTER XX
PROSECUTION OF THE RECONQUEST
Condition of Moorish Spain after the Death of Ferdinand III.—Invasion of
Ibn-Yusuf—Vast Wealth and Power of the Spanish Clergy—Public
Disorder—Energy of Mohammed I.—His Achievements—Mohammed II.
—Peace with Castile—Character of Alfonso X.—Siege of Tarifa—
Mohammed III.—Al-Nazer—Ismail—Baza taken—Mohammed IV.—The
Empire of Fez—Defeat of the Africans in the Plain of Pagana—Yusuf—
Rout of the Salado—Alfonso XI. captures Algeziras—Splendid Public
Works of the Kings of Granada—Mohammed V.—Ismail II.—Abu-Said—
He repairs to the Court of Pedro el Cruel, and is murdered—Yusuf II.—
Mohammed VI.—Yusuf III.—Mohammed VII.—Mohammed VIII.—Ibn-
Ismail—Gibraltar taken by the Castilians—Character of Muley Hassan—
Critical Condition of the Spanish Arabs—Impending Destruction of the
Kingdom of Granada 418

CHAPTER XXI
THE LAST WAR WITH GRANADA
Description of Granada—Its Wealth, Prosperity, and Civilization—Its Cities
—Beauty and Splendor of the Capital—The Alhambra—Condition and
Power of the Spanish Monarchy—Character of Ferdinand—Character of
Isabella—Muley Hassan and His Family—Storming of Zahara—Alhama
surprised by the Christians—Siege of that City and Repulse of the Moors
—Sedition at Granada—Ferdinand routed at Loja—Foray of Muley
Hassan—Expedition to the Ajarquia—Defeat and Massacre of the
Castilians—Boabdil attacks Lucena and is captured—Destructive Foray of
the Christians—Boabdil is released and returns to Granada—Renewal of
Factional Hostility in the Moorish Capital—Moslem and Christian
Predatory Inroads—Siege and Capture of Ronda—Embassy from Fez—
Al-Zagal becomes King—Defeat of the Court of Cabra at Moclin—Division
of the Kingdom of Granada—Its Disastrous Effects 510
 CHAPTER XXII
TERMINATION OF THE RECONQUEST
Summary of the Causes of the Decay of the Moslem Empire—Loja taken
by Storm—Progress of the Feud between Al-Zagal and Boabdil—The
Christians assist the Latter—Anarchy in Granada—Siege of Velez—
Ineffectual Attempt of Al-Zagal to relieve it—Surrender of the City—
Situation of Malaga—Its Delightful Surroundings—Its Vast Commercial
and Manufacturing Interests—It is invested by Ferdinand—Desperate
Resistance of the Garrison—Its Sufferings—Capitulation of the City—
Enslavement of the Population—Duplicity of the Spanish Sovereigns—
War with Al-Zagal—Siege of Baza—Discontent of the Christian Soldiery—
Energy and Firmness of the Queen—Embassy from the Sultan—Baza
surrenders—Al-Zagal relinquishes His Crown—War with Boabdil—The
Last Campaign—Blockade of Granada—Distress of Its Inhabitants—
Submission of the Capital—Fate of Boabdil—Isabella the Inspiring
Genius of the Conquest 595
HISTORY OF THE MOORISH EMPIRE IN EUROPE
 CHAPTER XV
THE MOSLEM DOMINATION IN SICILY

827–1072
Classic Souvenirs of Sicily—Its Great Natural Advantages—It becomes
the Stronghold of the Papacy—Invasion of the Arabs—They
besiege Syracuse—Strength of that City—Failure of the Enterprise
—Capture of Palermo—Rapid Progress of the Moslems—Condition
of Italy—Arab Alliance with Naples—Messina taken—Betrayal of
Castrogiovanni—Rout of the Greeks near Syracuse—Feuds of the
Conquerors—Their Successes in Italy—Second Siege of Syracuse
—The City is stormed and destroyed by Ibn-Mohammed—Peril of
Rome—Appearance of the Normans in the South of Europe—They
invade Sicily—Siege of Palermo—Subjection of the Island—
Influence of the Moslems over their Conquerors—General
Condition of Sicily—Its Civilization—Palermo and its Environs—
Science, Art, and Literature—The Great Work of Edrisi—Arab
Occupation of Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, and Malta.
The island of Sicily, by reason of its geographical position, its
extraordinary fertility, and its commercial advantages, was one of the
most renowned and coveted domains of the ancient world. Its
situation, near the centre of the Mediterranean, afforded rare
facilities for participation in the trade and enjoyment of the culture
of those polished nations whose shores were washed by that famous
sea. Its soil yielded, with insignificant labor, the choicest products of
both the temperate and the torrid zones. Its coast was provided with
numerous and commodious harbors. That of Messina permitted
vessels of the heaviest tonnage to discharge their cargoes in security
at her quays. Those of Syracuse and Palermo were double, for the
use of men-of-war and merchantmen, as were the port of Tyre and
the Kothon of Carthage. The Phœnicians, at a period far anterior to
any mentioned in history, had established and maintained important
trading stations at points subsequently marked by the erection of
vast and flourishing cities. Doric and Ionic colonists, in their turn,
carried thither the elegant luxury and fastidious tastes which
distinguished the finished civilization of antiquity. This mysterious
island, where were manifested some of the most appalling and
inexplicable phenomena of nature, was the home of frightful
monsters, the scene of dire enchantments, the inspiration of
Homeric fable and mythological legend. Here was the haunt of the
dreaded Cyclops. A short distance from its shores were practised the
infernal arts of the beauteous but vindictive Circe. Here passed the
Argonauts on their triumphant return from Colchis. To the Greek
succeeded the Carthaginian, who might assert, with no little show of
justice, a claim to the inheritance of his Phœnician ancestors. Next
came the mighty and resistless supremacy of Rome. Sicily was one
of the first, as it was among the richest, of the provinces early
acquired by her arms. It long shared with Egypt the honorable
distinction of being one of the granaries of Italy. The great resources
of the island in the days of the Republic are indicated by the value of
the spoils appropriated by the avarice of a rapacious governor. The
corrupt accumulations of Verres, during the course of his magistracy,
amounted to forty million sesterces. Besides the money of which he
plundered the unfortunate dependents of the Republic are
enumerated statues, paintings, bronzes, utensils sacred to the
service of the gods, the ornaments of the altars, the costly offerings
with which the affectionate gratitude of the pious and the opulent
had enriched her magnificent temples. In intellectual advancement
Sicily kept well abreast of her enlightened neighbors. The choicest
works of the Attic and of the Roman muse were read with delight by
the polished society of her cities. The masterpieces of Aristophanes
and Terence were enacted with applause in her spacious theatres,
resplendent with many colored marbles and decorations of beaten
gold. The intimate social and commercial relations maintained with
the cities of Magna Græcia aided, in no inconsiderable degree, the
development of Sicilian civilization. The citizens of Messina and
Palermo could perhaps claim a common origin with the refined
inhabitants of Crotona and Tarentum.
 Thus had Sicily, by her amalgamation of widely different races and
through her political affiliations, inherited all the noblest traditions of
antiquity, all the maxims of Oriental philosophy, of Grecian culture,
of Phœnician enterprise, and of Roman power. With her history are
associated the names of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar, of Pyrrhus and
Marcellus, of Dionysius and Archimedes. But long before the period
of Byzantine degeneracy so fatal to the Empire, her prosperity had
greatly declined. Even in the time of the Cæsars the evils of a venal
and rapacious administration had been felt in the imposition of
onerous taxes, and the consequent and inevitable decay of
agriculture. Insurrections were common, and characterized by all the
atrocities of anarchy. The harvests were wantonly destroyed. The
villas of the Roman nobles, whose extensive domains embraced the
larger portion of the arable land, were given to the flames. Bands of
robbers roamed at will through the deserted settlements. The cities
were not infrequently stormed and plundered. The tillage of the soil
was no longer safe or profitable. Extensive tracts of territory, whose
extraordinary and varied productiveness had formerly astonished the
stranger, were abandoned to pasturage, an unfailing sign of national
decadence. The care of the flocks was committed to slaves, whose
savage aspect and brutal habits proclaimed their barbarian lineage.
Clothed in skins and armed with rude weapons, they were a menace
alike to the industrious citizen and the belated wayfarer. No wages or
sustenance was bestowed upon these outlaws, who were expected
and encouraged to supply by acts of violence the necessaries denied
by the neglect and parsimony of their masters. Others, whose
ferocious temper and habitual insubordination demanded restraint,
labored from early dawn in fetters, and were confined in filthy
dungeons during the night. The most shocking crimes were
perpetrated with impunity. The spoils which had escaped the robber
could not be rescued from the vigilant perquisitions of the farmer of
the revenue. The tax upon grain amounted to twenty-five per cent.,
and the impositions upon articles of commerce and the scanty
manufactures which had survived the general destruction of trade
and the mechanical arts were apportioned in a corresponding ratio,
and were collected with uncompromising severity. With the prevalent
insecurity of person and property, maritime enterprise was checked,
and the fleets of foreign merchantmen which had once crowded the
seaports of the island disappeared. The weak and corrupt
government of Constantinople, dominated by eunuchs and disgraced
by the political intrigues of ecclesiastics and women, was powerless
to correct the disorders of a distant and almost unknown province.
Theological disputes and the pleasures of the circus engrossed the
attention of the successors of the martial Constantine, whose
authority, disputed at home, was often scarcely acknowledged in
their insular possessions. The exaggerated perils of the strait, aided
perhaps by a knowledge of the impoverished condition of the
country, may have deterred the victorious barbarians from any
prolonged occupation of Sicily. While they overran the country at
different times, they left no traces of their sojourn,—neither
colonies, institutions, racial impressions, nor physical peculiarities.
But this comparative exemption from the common ruin seems to
have been productive of no substantial benefit. The spirit of the
people was not adapted either to the requirements of self-
government or to the imperious demands of vassalage. They were at
once turbulent, rebellious, servile. In the character of the Sicilian of
the ninth century, as in that of the Calabrian of modern times, every
evil instinct was predominant. The seditious spirit of the peasantry,
aided by their proverbial inconstancy, was one of the principal
causes which prevented the consolidation of the Mohammedan
power.
From being the seat of Grecian civilization, the granary of Rome,
the theatre of barbarian license, Sicily had become the nursery of
the Papacy. It furnished bold and zealous defenders of the chair of
St. Peter. Its opportune contributions replenished the exhausted
treasury of the Vatican. There the genius of St. Gregory first laid the
foundations of the temporal power of the Holy See. There was
situated the richest portion of the possessions of the Roman
hierarchy. There were matured political measures which were
destined to exercise for generations the talents of the ablest
statesmen of Europe. At an early period the popes acquired an
important following among the peasantry of the island. The
ignorance of the populace, and the eagerness with which it received
impressions of the supernatural; the associations derived from the
legends of antiquity, many of which, with political foresight, had
been bodily appropriated by the Fathers of the Church; the
absolution promised, without reserve, for the most heinous offences,
had allured thousands upon thousands of proselytes to the gorgeous
altars of Rome. The institution of the monastic orders and the vast
number of idlers increased tenfold the burdens of an oppressed and
impoverished country. It was said that the Benedictines alone
possessed nearly half of the island. Convents surrounded with
beautiful gardens and supplied with all the requirements of luxury
arose on every side. The mountain-caves swarmed with hermits. The
miracles performed by holy men and women surpassed in wonder
and mystery the achievements of mythological heroes,—the
conquerors of Cyclops, the captors of dragons. Martyrs underwent
the most exquisite tortures with unshaken constancy. In no other
province which recognized the predominance of the Papacy was
there greater reverence for ecclesiastical tradition; and, as a
legitimate consequence, in no other was prevalent a more marked
degree of ignorance in the masses, or a more habitual defiance of
the laws of morality and justice by those indebted for their
superiority to the influence of the Church. The number of slaves
owned by the Holy See and employed upon its estates was
enormous. The greater part of its wealth was computed to be
derived from their labor and from the traffic in their children. The
arts of the confessor secured from the wealthy penitent immense
estates and valuable legacies, the reluctant tribute of terror and
remorse. These possessions, once in the iron grasp of the sacerdotal
order, a master endowed with legal immortality, were never
relinquished. The oblations of grateful convalescents enriched the
treasuries of chapel and cathedral. Pilgrims flocked in great numbers
to those shrines which enjoyed an extensive reputation for sanctity,
and whose relics were believed to possess unfailing virtues for the
cure of the sick and the relief of the afflicted. A profitable trade was
supported at the expense of the superstitious credulity of these
devout strangers. Well aware of its importance as an adjunct to their
temporal power, and taking advantage of the relations of its
parishioners with the Byzantine court, the early bishops of Rome
extended every aid to the Sicilian branch of the Catholic hierarchy. It
enjoyed peculiar privileges. It was exempted from vexatious
impositions. Its legates were received with distinguished courtesy by
the papal court. Gregory founded from his private purse seven
monasteries in the island. Adrian frequently referred to it as the
citadel of the Italian clergy. No portion of the patrimony of St. Peter
could boast a priesthood more opulent, more arrogant, more
powerful, more corrupt.
At the time of the Moorish invasion Sicily had become thoroughly
Byzantine. The glorious traditions of the Greek occupation were
forgotten. In Messina alone the style of architecture, the physical
characteristics of the people, the comparative purity of language,
revealed significant traces of the influence of the most polished
nation of antiquity. In no other province subject to Rome had the
brutal doctrine of force, the basis of both republican and imperial
power, been so sedulously inculcated and applied. The harvests of
Sicily aided largely to sustain the idle population of the metropolis of
the world. Its commerce and its revenues furnished inexhaustible
resources to the venality and peculations of the proconsul. The
Roman aristocracy had there its most sumptuous villas, its largest
and most productive estates, its most numerous bodies of retainers.
It was not unusual for a patrician in the days of the Empire to own
twenty thousand slaves.
Byzantine degeneracy had not failed to cast its blight over this,
one of the fairest possessions of the emperors of the East. After the
reign of Justinian, no attempt was made by the exhausted state,
scarcely able to defend its capital, to send colonists to the island.
The debased populace, the refuse of a score of nations, ignorant of
the very name of patriotism, destitute of every principle of honor or
virtue, sank each day still lower in the scale of humanity.
 The condition of Italy was even worse. The Lombards had
conquered all of that peninsula except the Exarchate of Ravenna. To
their dominion had succeeded the contentions of a multitude of
insignificant principalities, inflamed with mutual and irreconcilable
hostility, united in nothing except jealousy of the papal power. The
incredible perfidy and fraud which afterwards became the peculiar
attributes of the Italian political system—whose maxims, elaborated
by Machiavelli, have excited the wonder and contempt of succeeding
ages—had then their origin. The entire country was the scene of
perpetual discord, treachery, and intrigue. In the latter the Pope,
urged by necessity and inclination alike, bore no insignificant share.
The prevalence of such conditions came within a hair’s-breadth of
changing, perhaps forever, the political complexion of Europe and
the sphere of Christian influence. The feuds of petty rulers were
aggravated rather than reconciled in the presence of the common
danger. The general anarchy was eminently favorable to foreign
conquest. The Lombard princes solicited the aid of the Saracens.
The latter profited by every occasion of dissension and enmity. They
enlisted with equal facility and disloyalty under the banners of every
faction. Twice they ravaged the environs of Rome. At different times
they were in the pay of the Holy See. A series of fortunate accidents
alone prevented the enthronement of an Arab emir in the Vatican
and the transformation of St. Peter’s into a Mohammedan mosque.
The vicinity of Sicily to the main-land of Africa had early
suggested to the Saracens the conquest of that island. In the
seventh century it had been visited by marauding expeditions from
Egypt. Syracuse was stormed in 669, and the treasures of the
Roman churches, placed there for security from barbarian attack,
were borne away to Alexandria. Before crossing the Strait of
Gibraltar, and even while the Berber tribes still threatened the
security of his outposts, the enterprising Musa—as has already been
recounted in these pages—had despatched his son Abdallah upon a
predatory expedition among the islands of the Mediterranean. In
Majorca, Minorca, Sardinia, and Sicily a large quantity of plunder was
obtained and carried off by these adventurous freebooters. Other
expeditions from time to time, and with varying success for the
space of more than a century, followed the example of that
organized by Musa. Despite these inroads, amicable relations
subsisted, for the most part, between the Byzantine governors of
Sicily and the Aghlabite princes of Africa. They despatched
embassies, made protestations of mutual attachment, negotiated
treaties, exchanged presents. But under all these plausible
appearances of peace and friendship there lurked, on the one side,
the deadly hatred and ambitious hopes of the fanatic whose creed
was sustained by arms, and, on the other, an indefinable dread of
inevitable calamity which could not long be averted.
A strong resemblance exists between the historical legends from
which are derived our information concerning the Saracen
occupations of Spain and Sicily. In both cases a real or pretended
injury to female innocence is said to have been the indirect cause of
the invasion of the Moslems. In the army of the Byzantine emperor
stationed in Sicily was one Euphemius, an officer of high rank,
eminent talents, and unquestioned courage, who, having become
enamored of a nun, invaded the sanctity of the cloister, carried off
the recluse, and, despite her remonstrances, made her his wife. This
act of sacrilege, while far from being without precedent in the
lawless condition of society under the lax and cruel administration of
the Greek emperors, was not in this instance committed by a
personage of sufficient authority to enable him to escape the
consequences of his rashness. The relatives of the damsel appealed
for redress to the Byzantine court, the demand was heeded, and a
mandate was despatched by the Emperor to the governor of Sicily to
deprive the daring ravisher of his nose, the penalty prescribed by the
sanguinary code of Greek jurisprudence for the offence. Euphemius,
having learned of the punishment with which he was threatened and
relying on his popularity, endeavored to frustrate the execution of
the sentence by exciting an insurrection. The enterprise failed
through the cowardice and treachery of some of the leading
conspirators, and the baffled rebel was compelled to seek refuge
among the Saracens of Africa. The reigning sovereign of the
Aghlabite dynasty, whose seat of government was at Kairoan, was
Ziadet-Allah, a prince of warlike tastes, implacable ferocity, and
licentious manners. No sooner had he landed than Euphemius sent
messages to the African Sultan, imploring his assistance, and
promising that in case it was afforded Sicily should be erected into
an Aghlabite principality, evidenced by the payment of tribute and
the acknowledgment of supremacy. The offer was tempting to the
cupidity and ambition of the Moslem ruler, and the powerful
following of the fugitive made its accomplishment apparently a
matter of little difficulty. In the mean time, however, envoys had
arrived from the Sicilian government charged to remonstrate, in the
name of the Emperor, against this encouragement of rebellion and
violation of neutrality by a friendly power. Thus harassed by the
arguments of the rival emissaries, and weighing the political
advantages which might result from the observation of the faith of
treaties on the one hand, and from the acquisition of valuable
territory and the extension of the spiritual domain of Islam on the
other, Ziadet-Allah remained for a long time undecided. In the time
of the early khalifs the material benefits accruing from warfare with
the infidel—a duty enjoined upon every Moslem—would hardly have
been subordinated to a mere question of casuistry. But the condition
of the provinces subject to the Aghlabite dynasty, whose throne had
recently been shaken by a religious revolution, rendered the cordial
acquiescence and co-operation of the discordant elements of African
society indispensably requisite in a measure of national moment.
The chieftains and nobles were convoked in solemn assembly. The
avarice of the soldier, the fanaticism of the dervish, the aspirations of
the commander were stimulated by every device of intrigue and by
every resource of oratory. The scruples of the conscientious were
overcome by quotations from the Koran inculcating the obligation of
unremitting hostility to the infidel. A plausible pretext for breaking
the treaty was found in the fact that one of its main provisions had
already been evaded by the Greeks themselves, who had neglected
to liberate certain Moslems who had fallen into their hands. The
arguments of those who favored hostilities finally prevailed. The
opposition—which had been organized from purely interested
motives—disappeared; the assembly, controlled by the skilful arts of
the representatives of the government animated by enthusiastic zeal
for conquest, declared for immediate action, and the sounds of
preparation were soon heard in the city of Susa, whose harbor had
been made the rendezvous of the expedition. The supreme
command was intrusted to Asad-Ibn-Forat, Kadi of Tunis, a
personage more renowned as a jurist and a theologian than as a
master of the art of war, and who, like Musa, had already passed the
ordinary limit of manly vigor and military ambition. A great force was
mustered for the enterprise from every part of Northern Africa. The
wild Berbers, whose faith was weak and vacillating except when
revived by the prospect of booty, assembled in vast numbers. A fleet
of a hundred vessels, exclusive of the squadron of the rebels, was
equipped, and sailed from Susa on the thirteenth of June, 827.
Three days afterwards the army disembarked at Mazara, which city
was at once surrendered by the partisans of Euphemius, who
outnumbered the garrison. The imperial army soon appeared, and a
bloody engagement took place, in which the great numerical
superiority of the Sicilians availed nothing against the desperate
valor of the invaders, well aware that there was no refuge for them
in case of defeat. The shouts of the Christians mingled with the
chants of the soldiers of Islam as they repeated, according to
custom, the verses of the Koran; the shock of the Arab cavalry was
irresistible, and, their lines once broken, the Sicilians were routed on
every side and dispersed in headlong flight. The Moslem victory was
complete. The booty was enormous, not the least of it being the
slaves who were sent in ship-loads to Africa. Such was the distrust
of their allies, that Euphemius and his followers, although
constituting a body respectable in numbers, were not permitted to
take part in the battle. Neither the remembrance of personal
indignity and disappointed ambition, nor the thirst for vengeance
cherished by the exiles, was sufficient to remove from the mind of
the Moslem general the feeling of suspicion which he entertained for
their professions, and the contempt with which he regarded the
proverbial duplicity of the Byzantine character.
 A garrison having been stationed at Mazara, the Moslems
marched on Syracuse. This city, although it had lost much of its
former wealth and splendor, was still one of the most important
seaports of the Mediterranean. Its ancient circumference of one
hundred and eighty stadii—eleven and a half miles—was practically
the same as when described by Strabo. A triple line of defences still
encompassed it. Almost surrounded by the sea, it possessed two
harbors—or rather basins—which afforded not only a safe anchorage
for merchant vessels, but excellent means of protection in time of
war. As at Carthage, these artificial harbors were supplied with well-
appointed dock-yards and arsenals, and constituted the stronghold
of the naval power of Sicily. The reverses of fortune it had
experienced had not entirely deprived Syracuse of its superb
monuments of antiquity. Many of the palaces which antedated the
Roman occupation had been preserved. The fortifications which had
repelled so many invaders were standing. At every turn the eye was
delighted with the view of elegant porticoes and arches, towering
columns, vast amphitheatres. In the suburbs were scattered the
villas of the nobility, built upon the sites once occupied by the winter
homes of those Roman patricians whose extortions had
impoverished the island, and whose wealth had enabled them to
command the services of the ministers of dissipation and luxury from
every quarter of the globe. Strong in its natural situation, the city
had been rendered doubly formidable by the skill of the military
engineer. Its walls were lofty and of great thickness. Upon the side
of the sea the aid of a powerful navy was indispensable to an
attacking enemy. Aware of the great strategic value of the place, the
imperial government had exercised unusual care in the preservation
and repair of its defences. The only obstacle to a successful
resistance was the extent of the fortifications, which required a
garrison of many thousand soldiers to man them properly. The
habitual carelessness and imaginary security of her pleasure-loving
citizens had left Syracuse totally unprepared for a siege. At the
approach of the Moslems, every expedient was adopted to remedy
this culpable neglect. Supplies were hastily collected from the
villages and fertile lands in the neighborhood. The precious vessels
and furniture of the churches and religious houses were carried into
the citadel. From the trembling artisans and laborers, who, with their
families, had fled in haste to the city to escape the lances of the
Berber cavalry, already scouting in the neighborhood, a numerous
but inefficient militia was organized. In order to gain time, the
progress of the Moslems was stayed by unprofitable negotiations,
and a large sum of money was offered as a condition of their leaving
the city unmolested. Euphemius, true to the base instincts of his
race, and apparently eager to secure an ignominious distinction
among his unprincipled countrymen by the commission of a double
treason, secretly exhorted the garrison to a vigorous defence by
promises of assistance and by the inculcation of patriotic maxims.
The pretexts prompted by Byzantine perfidy could not long impose
upon the wily and penetrating Ibn-Forat. His spies revealed the plans
of the enemy; the Moslem army broke camp; and a few days
afterwards the invaders appeared before the walls.
Notwithstanding their extensive preparations for the campaign,
the Saracens were unprovided with the military appliances necessary
to make the siege successful. Their engineers had not yet attained
that superiority in their profession which subsequently enabled them
to rank with the best soldiers of the age. Their great victories had
been won, for the most part, by the activity of their operations, and
by their intrepid behavior in the face of an enemy rather than by
endurance and discipline. The transports were inadequate to an
attack by water, which required the services of a fleet of well-built
and well-protected galleys. In addition to these disadvantages, the
force of Ibn-Forat had been reduced by the establishment of
garrisons, by the casualties of battle, by disease, by desertion. A
large detachment was constantly detailed to guard the prisoners and
the spoil. Entire companies of Berbers, weary of the monotony and
restraints of the camp, had abandoned the army after the battle, to
indulge in their favorite pastimes of rapine and massacre. Thus
hampered, a partial and ineffectual blockade was all that the
Moorish general could hope to accomplish. He therefore threw up
intrenchments and despatched a messenger to Africa for
reinforcements.
It was not long before a more formidable enemy than the
Byzantines attacked the camp of the besiegers. The country had
been completely stripped of provisions by the foraging parties of
both armies. Such supplies as had been overlooked by the Sicilians
were wasted or destroyed by the Moors, who began to experience
the effects of their improvidence in the sufferings of starvation. The
soldiers devoured their horses. But these were not sufficiently
numerous to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and the famishing
Moslems were driven to the use of unwholesome plants and herbs. A
mutiny broke out, which was at once suppressed by the iron will of
the undaunted commander, who threatened, in case the mutineers
did not return to their duty, to burn his ships. At length
reinforcements and an abundant supply of provisions appeared in
the camp, and, the spirits of the soldiery having revived, the lines
were drawn still closer around the beleaguered city.
The latter had been strengthened by an army of Venetians under
the Doge, Justinian Participazus, who had been ordered by the
Emperor, Michael the Stammerer, to drive the Moslems from
Syracuse. The task, however, proved too arduous for the dignitary,
who seems to have been endowed with more conceit than military
ability. While their communications by sea were not intercepted, the
people of Syracuse were in no danger of famine, but on the land
side the city was completely invested. The country was gradually
occupied by the Saracens; a large force commanded by the governor
of Palermo was decoyed into an ambush and cut to pieces; the
prestige of victory tempted many subjects of the Emperor to
renounce their allegiance and their faith for the code of Mohammed;
and, although no impression had yet been made on the stupendous
fortifications, the advantages of the war seemed to be entirely on
the side of the Moslems. Disheartened by their enforced inactivity,
and harassed by the clamors of the peasantry, who had witnessed
from the ramparts the spoliation and ruin of their homes, the Sicilian
authorities made overtures for peace, which were disdainfully
refused.
But fortune, which had hitherto favored the invader, now deserted
his standard. A pestilence, the result of exposure and unwholesome
food, decimated the besiegers. Among the first to succumb was the
veteran general, whose martial spirit and indomitable energy had
been the soul of the enterprise. With him perished the only hand
capable of restraining and utilizing the unruly elements which
composed the Saracen army. Insubordination and tumult
immediately arose. Amidst the confusion, the hostages and the
commanders of fortresses and towns subdued by the Moslem arms
who were detained as prisoners escaped. Information was at once
spread throughout the island of the loss sustained by the enemy and
of the demoralized condition of his camp. Confidence and order were
not restored by the announcement that Mohammed-Ibn-al-Gewari
had, by the suffrages of the soldiery, been raised to the dignity of
lieutenant of the Sultan, when it was disclosed that his promotion
had been brought about by the enemies of the sovereign; his chief
title to their favor being subserviency to a faction whose overthrow
had been mainly effected by the courage and address of the
deceased commander. The favorable auspices under which the
operations of the Moslems had hitherto been conducted no longer
encouraged them with the prospect of success. Disease in its most
appalling form, aggravated by neglect of the simplest sanitary
precautions, stalked through their encampment. In addition to these
misfortunes, the kingdom of Ziadet-Allah was harassed by the
incursion of a band of Tuscan adventurers, who defeated the
Sultan’s troops in a series of encounters and carried their victorious
standards almost to the gates of Kairoan. Under these discouraging
circumstances it was determined to raise the siege. The troops and
baggage were embarked; but just as the fleet was ready to sail, a
great squadron, sent by the Emperor to relieve the city, closed the
entrance to the harbor. The Moorish army was hastily landed, the
supplies and camp equipage were thrown into the sea, and the ships
set on fire to avoid their seizure by the enemy. The sick were
abandoned to their fate, and the disheartened soldiery, almost
without provisions or the means of shelter, took refuge in the
mountains, a day’s journey from the scene of their privations and
discomfiture. Thus ended the first siege of Syracuse, whose
immunity from capture was due more to the strength of its walls and
the deficiency of its besiegers in military engines than to the
resolution and intrepidity of its defenders. Half a century was to
elapse before the cry of the muezzin would be heard from the tower
of the cathedral, or the tramp of the Arab squadrons resound
through the streets which had witnessed the exploits of Pyrrhus,
Agathocles, and Marcellus.
In the elevated and salubrious region where stood the city of
Mineo, to which they were led by Euphemius, the Saracens speedily
found relief. The plague disappeared. Foraging parties were sent out,
which returned with an abundance of supplies. The strength and
courage of the despairing Moslems were restored; several fortified
places fell into the hands of their flying squadrons, and, finally, they
felt themselves strong enough to attempt an enterprise of the
greatest importance. Near the interior of the island stood the
fortress of Castrogiovanni,—the Castrum-Ennæ of antiquity. It was
built upon a rock rising high above a table-land, whose surface,
broken and rugged from the effects of volcanic action, resembled in
its sharp and undulating ridges the billows of a stormy sea. Upon the
summit of the rock once stood a temple dedicated to the worship of
the goddess Ceres, the favorite deity of the pagan Sicilians. Every
resource of engineering skill had been brought to bear to insure the
impregnability of this formidable citadel. Numerous springs supplied
the inhabitants with fresh water. With its natural advantages for
defence, supplemented thus with all the artifices of human ingenuity,
the siege of Castrogiovanni might well have deterred the boldest
captain. But, undismayed by their unfortunate experience at
Syracuse, the Moslems intrenched themselves before this
stronghold. A sally of the Byzantine garrison was repulsed with great
carnage. Communication with the surrounding country was cut off.
In order publicly to announce the permanence of their occupancy,
substantial barracks were raised for the troops, and money bearing
the name and device of the Aghlabite dynasty was coined from silver
reserved from the share of royal spoil. Once more the Saracens were
called upon to pay the last honors to their general, and the army
chose as its commander, Zobeir-Ibn-Ghauth. The latter proved no
match for the active Theodotus, governor of Castrogiovanni, who
craftily intercepted and cut to pieces a foraging detachment, and
soon afterwards defeated the Moslems in a pitched battle in which
they lost a thousand men. The siege was raised; the invaders
retreated in confusion to Mineo; the inhabitants of the smaller
fortresses, which the Moslems had occupied on their route, rebelled
and massacred the garrisons; the sight of a turbaned horseman was
sufficient to infuriate the peasantry of an entire province; and after
two years of frightful privation and incessant conflict, the Moslems
saw themselves restricted to the isolated fortified towns of Mineo
and Mazara, which they themselves had taken without difficulty, and
of whose possession they were scarcely sure for a single day in the
face of a vindictive and determined enemy.
While the affairs of the invaders had grown desperate, and the
speedy abandonment of the island seemed inevitable, fortune, with
her proverbial fickleness, once more smiled upon them. A fleet
manned by Spanish adventurers and commanded by an experienced
officer, Asbagh-Ibn-Wikil, landed supplies and troops which
strengthened the position of the despairing Saracens. The Greek
emperor, Michael the Stammerer, died, and was succeeded by the
weak and cruel Theophilus, who, amidst the pleasures of the
Byzantine capital and the indulgence of his savage and perfidious
instincts, had neither time nor treasure to devote to the recovery of
the most important island of his dominions. The Venetian squadron
in the pay of the Emperor, left without co-operation with the land
forces, seeing little prospect of victory and still less of plunder, sailed
ingloriously away, abandoning the decimated Byzantine army to the
tender mercies of the Moorish pirates, who landing on all sides again
swarmed over the island.
 The civil commotions which had for a time seriously menaced the
power of Ziadet-Allah having been quelled, he now felt himself at
liberty to afford substantial aid to his subjects in Sicily. An imposing
fleet of three hundred ships, transporting an army of twenty
thousand men, sailed in the year 830 from the harbors of Africa. A
force including such a great variety of nationalities had rarely
assembled under the banner of any leader. Every tribe of Berbers
and Arabs, from the Nile to the Atlantic, was represented in this
motley and turbulent host. Yemenite exiles, refugees from Persia,
renegade Greeks, and Spanish Moors of every faction which, in turn,
had desolated the most enchanting and fertile provinces of the
Peninsula, hastened to enlist in the invading army. The politic Ziadet-
Allah offered with success tempting inducements to the enrolment of
the Tunisian rebels who had recently disputed his authority;
convinced that few of those dangerous subjects who could be
prevailed upon to face the pestilential climate of the Sicilian coast
and the weapons of the Byzantine veterans would ever return to vex
the tranquillity of his empire. This expedition also was placed under
the command of Asbagh-Ibn-Wikil, whose former attempt, already
mentioned, had been merely in the nature of a reconnoissance. The
invading army, despite its formidable appearance, failed to realize
the expectations which had been raised by its numbers and its
boasted valor. Without discipline, and wholly bent on plunder, its
force was consumed in mutinous tumults and predatory excursions.
The country, already devastated by the roving squadrons of both
nations, was now compelled to sustain another oppressive visitation
by robbers more pitiless and more insatiable than their
predecessors. Still the enterprise of Asbagh was not entirely fruitless.
Theodotus, the Byzantine general, was defeated and slain under the
walls of Mineo, and the strong town of Ghalulia was taken by storm.
But here the plague broke out in the Moslem camp. Asbagh and his
principal officers perished; the deaths increased so rapidly that a
retreat was resolved upon, and the Saracens, after sustaining
considerable loss at the hands of the enemy, embarked in disorder
and returned, a portion to Africa, but the majority to Spain.
 Meanwhile a great blow had been struck by a detachment of
Asbagh’s army acting, as it seems, independently of his orders. A
division of Africans appeared suddenly before Palermo. The siege,
which lasted a year, was pushed with an energy and a perseverance
hitherto unprecedented in the military operations of the impetuous
but easily disheartened Moslems. The defeat of the Greeks before
Mineo deprived the garrison of all hope of relief from that quarter.
The Emperor, with characteristic negligence, afforded but slight and
ineffectual aid. Abandoned to their fate, the soldiery, reinforced by
the public-spirited citizens, conducted an heroic but unavailing
defence. In addition to the inevitable casualties of war, their ranks
were reduced by hunger and the plague. From seventy thousand
their numbers fell to three thousand within twelve months,—an
almost incredible mortality. It was not in the power of human
endurance to longer support such sufferings and privations. The
governor negotiated an honorable capitulation, and the remnant of
the garrison was permitted to depart without hinderance, retaining
their arms and effects. The slaves of the Byzantine patricians
experienced a change of masters, and the most famous insular
emporium of the Mediterranean, whose traditions dated to the
highest antiquity, whose history was inseparably interwoven with the
stirring events of the fierce struggle of Rome and Carthage for the
supremacy of the world, whose magnificence and sensuality were
proverbial among the polished voluptuaries of Italy and the Orient,
passed into the hands of the Saracen, to be raised under his
auspices to a still higher degree of commercial greatness and
material prosperity.
With the excellent base of operations afforded by the capture of
Palermo, the affairs of the Moslems assumed a more promising
aspect. No longer were they confined to the insufficient and
precarious shelter of isolated castles and insignificant hamlets. The
naval advantages of the city, whose harbor had been improved and
enlarged by the labor of many successive nations, were incalculable.
Easy and rapid communication was now possible with the ports of
Africa. Supplies and reinforcements could be introduced into any
part of the island in defiance of the utmost exertions of the naval
power of Constantinople. The fertile territory included in this new
conquest was capable, even under an imperfect and negligent
system of cultivation, of furnishing support to a numerous army. Nor
was the prestige attaching to the name of Palermo the least of the
manifold benefits resulting from its possession. No city was better
known throughout the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. It
was founded by the Phœnicians. It had been one of the most
frequented marts of antiquity. Tyre, Carthage, Athens, Rome,
Constantinople, had in turn been enriched by its commerce, and had
contaminated it with their vices. In natural advantages, in facility of
intercourse with distant countries, in the possession of a trade
established long before any mentioned in the earliest historical
records, in the boundless agricultural possibilities of its adjacent
territory, in the convenience and excellence of its port as a naval
station, Palermo could vie with even the greatest commercial centres
of the ancient or the medieval world. For the power which could take
and hold such a city, the subjugation of Sicily was but a question of
time.
The serious results of its occupation soon became apparent even
to the inefficient and corrupt government of the Bosphorus. The
depopulation of the city, where streets of palaces and rows of
elegant suburban villas awaited the claim of the military adventurer,
allured from every settlement of Northern Africa swarms of ferocious
and intrepid soldiers of fortune. From a Christian community,
Palermo was, as if by magic, metamorphosed into a colony of Islam.
The cathedral became a Djalma; the churches were transformed into
mosques. In accordance with Moorish custom, separate quarters
were assigned to the votaries of different religions, and set apart for
the maintenance of various branches of traffic. The entire city
assumed an Oriental aspect. Flowing robes and lofty turbans took
the place of the ungraceful Byzantine and Italian costumes. The
veiled ladies of the harems, attended by gorgeously attired eunuchs,
glided silently through the streets or peered coquettishly through
projecting lattices at the passing stranger. The beasts of burden