The last thing that the County of Acre, then the dominant Crusader State, wanted was to have a bunch of uncouth holy warriors despoiling the calm but they were not in a situation to disinvite the coming armada of ships. A sizable Crusader fighting force landed at Acre and King John of the realm tried his best to occupy the restless men, who were additionally an onerous task to quarter, and as more forces from Hungary, Germany, France and Flanders arrived, King John was helpless to prevent the march on Egypt. The Crusaders sought control of the city of Damietta (Dumyฤt) at the mouth of the Nile, which protected the waterway to the capital of Cairo, some two hundred kilometers downstream. Maneuvers were indecisive and guarded, the force strong enough to besiege the fortification but not strong enough to take the city outright and the months before the Crusaders decamped, they found that they had starved the population into submission. Once Damietta had fallen, the way-forward remained unclear as they were awaiting the arrival of relief-forces from the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick II that would give them an unstoppable numerical advantage and could thus safely proceed. The armies of Sultan al-Adil, Saladin’s brother, were watching events unfold in a similarly vacillating manner, as internal strife prevented them from a certain counter-attack.
While at this impasse, the sultan ordered the destruction of the defensive fortifications that protected the city of Jerusalem, preemptively entertaining the idea that the Holy City might become an important bargaining token in the near future and if it was to fall to the Crusaders, the Muslims wanted them to have a city not easily defended, just as Saladin had directed for the town of Ascalon to be demolished to stop the earlier Crusaders’ advance from Jaffa to the Holy City, then resolved to negotiate with the Crusaders in order to end this stalemate and attend to its own affairs. The offer that the sultan’s ambassadors brought to the table was unbelievably favourable—concession of Jerusalem and return of the True Cross in exchange for leaving Egypt in peace, but what was even more unbelievable was how the Crusaders rejected the terms. Maybe they were sly to the dismantling of Jerusalem and did not want to take it just to see it lost again, but I think the only plausible logic behind their stance—which was not universal among the ranks, was that they were sure that they were going to triumph, with the wealthy and powerful Egypt and not just out of the way Jerusalem as the prize.
The papal legate, nominally in charge of military operations, was flattered with a prophesy that he fancied to be a sure sign that he’d personally led the Crusaders to victory—and besides, Egypt was apparently being attacked on its eastern border by the long awaited cavalry from the land of Prester John and so there was no way that absolute triumph could be denied them. Except that the papal legate had misinterpreted the augurs and having waited so long in Damietta, the Nile had again flooded and was no longer navigable and the fighting-force was bogged down once again. Frustrated, the separate divisions splintered and sailed back to Acre and then back home to Europe. One last exception was that Egypt was not under siege from a magnanimous Oriental Christian Magi, but rather these skirmishes with an unknown and fierce tribe marked the first encounter that the Western world had with Genghis Khan and the Mongol Hoard, but all that is for another story-line.
Before entering his illustrious Star Fleet career as helmsman, LTC Geordi La Forge served in the civilian world as chief librarian at the universal database of Memory Alpha. La Forge was tragically blinded by the incorporeal luminous beings known as the Lights of Zetar, but the potential handicap became a great asset for this future officer. But don’t take my word for it. In the evenings for the past few weeks, rather than watch television—which for me has become too much of a backdrop to properly hold my attention in most cases and is too conducive of darting off to other things, or try to scourer the internet for something novel, I have been absorbed in reading and returned to one of my all-time favourite authors, Mister Kurt Vonnegut, JR
The back-drop of gross wealth disparity, the nature of altruism and what we’d I suppose now call poverty porn, salaciousness to illicit attention, sympathy or outrage, fits contemporary times just as well—plus the author makes his signature cameo appearance in that universe as science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout. LTC La Forge never sternly shushed the hapless red-suit ensigns, but seeing him on an away-mission always made me think of his earlier gig with Reading Rainbow, a public service provided by the United Federation of Planets. I was also pleased to be informed that the author gives this work high-marks himself. I don’t want to unleash any spoilers, so I’d highly recommend you check out the books of Vonnegut yourself.
la brea: a fascinating look at seeping tar and pitch in Los Angeles county
self-published: disastrously awesome pastiche of electronic-book jackets
shoegazing: new wave pop stars portrayed as comic book super-heroes
rip van winkle: a fun map from 1946 by artist and folklorist William Gropper that illustrates many of America’s mythological figures
don’t much trigonometry: World renown Finnish schools are experimenting with overhauling education, getting rid of disciplines in favour of phenomenology
