3 i8 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE reled. At last the murmurs of the mass of the crusaders forced their chiefs to lead them on to Jerusalem. The Fatimite caliph of Cairo, whom the crusaders had been trying to obtain as an ally against the Turks, had The recently captured Jerusalem from the Seljuks, taking of but refused to surrender it to the crusaders. Therefore they marched south against Jerusa- lem, supported by the fleets of Genoa and Pisa, which fol- lowed the coast and kept them supplied with provisions. On July 15, 1099, the Holy City fell to them after a siege of two months, although they had but forty thousand men left. After slaughtering Saracens all day long in the temple precincts, at nightfall the crusaders, "sobbing for joy," paid their devotions at the sepulcher of the Prince of Peace. Their object had been gained ; and when we consider all the obstacles and difficulties which they had to surmount, we must agree that despite its shortcomings the First Crusade was one of the most daring and brilliantly successful mili- tary expeditions recorded in history. The news of the taking of Jerusalem was received with boundless joy in Europe, and many pilgrims hastened east to the support of their fellows. Unfortunately most of the reinforcements were massacred by the Turks in Asia Minor. Nevertheless, the Christians continued to hold Jerusalem, and with the aid of the ships of the Italian cities they soon Latin gained the towns of the Syrian coast. Godfrey of fn a s?ria Bouillon, the first ruler of Jerusalem, took the modest title, Defender of the Holy Sepulcher, but upon his death in 1100 his brother was made king. The other three principalities in Syria founded by the crusaders, Edessa, Antioch, and the County of Tripoli, which Raymond of Toulouse began to conquer in 11 02 to the south of Anti- och, soon became dependencies of the Kingdom of Jerusa- lem, which extended its frontier south to the Red Sea. Thus Western Christendom had acquired a strip of territory bor- dering the eastern end of the Mediterranean from the Euphrates to Egypt. It was, however, a narrow strip with Turkish emirs and fortresses lining its eastern frontier.
