Frederick Barbarossa

Overview

Frederick, king of the Germans. Ibn al-Athir describes the Germans as a kind of the Franks, most numerous of them and fiercest in might. ¹

The campaign

He set out in 586 AH with a great host, aiming for Jerusalem. He took the road through Constantinople and then the lands of the Rum Seljuks, where cold, hunger and the Turkmen destroyed most of his army. He then drowned in a river in the lands of Armenia, at a place where the water does not reach a man's waist. His son then went on with the rest of the army to Acre, which had shrunk to about a thousand men. ¹

The German King's Campaign and His Drowning

In 586, after the Muslim king's taking of Jerusalem alarmed him, the king of the Germans set out — a kind of Franks, the most numerous and fiercest of them — and took the road through Constantinople. The Byzantine ruler sent to Saladin to warn him and promise that he would not let him cross. When the Germans arrived, Saladin could not stop them because of their numbers, but he cut off their supplies, and provisions ran short until they crossed the strait into the realm of Qilij Arslan ibn Mas'ud the Seljuk. The Turkmen rose against them, harrying them and killing any who fell behind; it was winter, the snow lay deep, and cold, hunger and the Turkmen destroyed them. When they neared Konya, Qutb al-Din Malikshah ibn Qilij Arslan came out to block them but had no strength against them. They sent to Qilij Arslan saying they had not come against his lands but against Jerusalem; he allowed his subjects to sell them food and handed over more than twenty emirs as hostages. The German king marched to the land of the Armenians, whose ruler Lafun supplied them with food, then moved toward Antioch and camped by a river on the way, where the king went in to bathe and drowned in a spot where the water reached only to a man's waist. His son succeeded him and marched on Antioch, but the followers quarrelled: some stayed behind and some made a brother of the king their ruler. The force that went on, numbering over forty thousand, was struck by plague and death until it reached Antioch looking as though it had been dug out of graves; only about a thousand men were left, who took ship to the Franks at Acre.

At a glance

Overview

The campaign

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

People

The German King's Campaign and His Drowning