Crusader Castles : Stone ghosts of battle lie empty, waiting to be explored

Nine hundred years ago, one of history’s greatest debacles began: the Crusades, those armed pilgrimages whose goal was to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control.

About 30,000 Europeans, 10% of whom were knights, participated in the first of these, enduring terrible losses on their way to the Middle East and even worse losses once there. But in 1099 they managed to take Jerusalem, and for the first time in 450 years, “the navel of the world,” as the city was called, lay in Christian hands.

After the victory, the conquerors walked triumphantly over the bodies of the dead defenders and their horses, past “mounds of heads, hands and feet,” glad, as an eyewitness chillingly reported, that “the very place that had endured for so long blasphemies against God was now masked in the blood of the blasphemers.” The Christian conquest lasted less than a century; vengeful Muslims struck back in 1187 and retook the city. With successive Crusades, thousands more Christians (and equal numbers of local people) died--many by the sword, but others to famine, thirst and disease--as Jerusalem and the contested towns of the Holy Land passed back and forth between the vying forces.

No more powerful or haunting reminder of this hellish period remains today than the dozens of castle strongholds the Crusaders built for themselves all the way from Turkey to Egypt. Short on manpower, they needed these stone bastions, not just for the defense of the territory--a strip about 400 to 500 miles long and 60 to 70 miles wide--but to ensure safe passage for European pilgrims taking the overland route to the holy sites. However impregnable the fortresses may have seemed to those who built them in one of the supreme engineering feats of the Middle Ages, they fell one by one. By 1291, the Christian presence in the Middle East had all but evaporated, leaving behind only the empty shells of vanquished power.

I was fortunate to have seen three of the greatest of these castles--Saone and the Krak des Chevaliers in Syria and Kerak in Jordan--on a trip my wife and I made last May to the Middle East. Kerak is largely a ruin, a jumble of stones high above a valley. Saone preserves more of its original character, and though it fully occupies 12 acres of a hilltop, it is never more awesome to behold than at its base. There the knights carved from the living rock a defile, or narrow passage, as much as 130 feet deep and 90 feet wide to protect themselves from assault, leaving only a needle of stone as a support for a wood drawbridge that they could raise in an attack. Not stopping at this feat, they hollowed out two cisterns from rock--one measuring 52 feet deep and 117 feet long--inside the castle to provide water in case of a siege.

But the most impressive of the three castles is easily Krak des Chevaliers, on a mount 2,300 feet above sea level.

“Where’s Errol Flynn?” I flippantly asked when we first beheld it. My question wasn’t quite as inappropriate as it might sound. From our vantage point on a poppy-covered slope we could see the white limestone structure in all its medieval glory. Indeed, its perfectly preserved limestone walls, ramparts and round towers can make it appear, in this incongruous setting so far from Europe, more like a Hollywood set than a real building; the perfect backdrop for a swashbuckler movie starring the dashing, nimble Flynn.

To be sure, dramas were played out here, but between the Crusaders, who largely built the fortress, and the Muslims, who eventually seized it.

*

We had arrived at Krak des Chevaliers by a harrowing road kinked with hairpin turns. Our driver was nonplused, but the passengers weren’t. The climb--for those of us who kept our eyes open--certainly brought home the point that the castle had been strategically placed. From the road’s summit, I could easily see how it dominated the one gap in the mountains, which stretch from Beirut to Antakya, Turkey, and form a barrier between inland Syria and the Mediterranean, 18 miles distant. Anyone in control of this pass could determine who got through to the Holy Land. Not for nothing was Krak des Chevaliers regarded as “the key to Christendom.”

The Chevaliers were Knights Hospitaliers, a French secular order that gave shelter to European pilgrims arriving in Jerusalem. Their importance greatly increased when the members were enjoined by the church to safeguard the Crusaders’ growing territorial and economic interests in the Middle East. In their formidable new role, the Hospitaliers fell heir to the fortress in 1144, when the Count of Tripoli, head of one of the four Crusader states that had grown up in the area, transferred it to them. The castle had already acquired a fascinating history. It had begun in the 11th century as a Kurdish fort, been taken over by Crusaders in 1099, then been reoccupied by Muslims before it reverted to Christians in 1110. They held onto it until 1271.

Under the Hospitaliers, a massive construction program got under way and continued for 33 years. They made the fort all but impregnable, with enough storerooms, wells and backup supplies to permit the 2,000-man garrison to hold out for several years in the event of a siege. After earthquakes damaged it, the knights further enlarged and strengthened the structure. The present castle--restored by the Syrians and the French, who earlier in this century were given a mandate over the country by the League of Nations--reflects the knights’ incredible achievement. It sprawls 108,000 square feet across its broad mountaintop, thousands upon thousands of massive stones having gone into its construction--most conveyed from a source 3 1/2 miles away.

No wonder the French, laying claim in 1934 to what they regarded as part of their cultural heritage, cleared out the village that over the centuries had grown up inside its walls, made whatever repairs were necessary and declared the Krak des Chevaliers “a monument of France.”

We entered the Krak through its high gate, cut into a square tower and once reached by a drawbridge. After we got past the ticket seller and souvenir stands in the lobby, we found ourselves engulfed by the atmosphere of the Middle Ages. Our feet felt unsteady on the cobblestones as we advanced along a dark corridor illuminated here and there by rectangular openings in the vaulted ceiling. These had been designed by the Hospitaliers to allow not only light and air in, but also to permit the knights to display their own particular brand of hospitality when under attack. Any enemy that managed to breach the ditch around the castle and penetrate the first gate would have been welcomed with hot oil and melted tar poured generously through the holes.

The corridor, about 15 feet wide, rose steeply in a series of low steps laid down to make it easier for the knights’ horses to climb. We paused briefly to peer inside a long chamber that may have been used as a stable for the mounts or as shelter for the guards. As we went on, the corridor suddenly bent back on itself in a sharp V, one of three so-called elbows intended to expose hostile troops rounding such a corner to the arrows, pikes and swords of the waiting defenders. We soon came out into the open, where we beheld the castle’s inner wall, slanted to form an embankment.

Once again the Hospitaliers knew what they were doing: They had angled the glacis so steeply and given it such a smooth surface that it would have discouraged any attackers from scaling it.

Between the outer and inner walls are stables, guardrooms and some of the storehouses. A world unto itself, the inside portion contains sun-filled courtyards, long, dramatic staircases, thrusting towers and a series of imposing chambers.

Pioneers of a sort, we were enjoying the advantage of travel in a country that has yet to open itself up fully to tourism. As at many other sites in Syria, there were no crowds to contend with. In fact, we were often alone in the chambers, and could linger without being obliged to make way for the next clutch of visitors. This was mercifully true in the chapel, built in the 12th century when the Romanesque style of architecture prevailed. Severe in its stony plainness, it had been converted to a mosque after the knights’ departure. Although no longer used for worship, the minbar, or pulpit, remains in place near the obligatory prayer niches, which, following custom, face east toward Mecca. How many thousands of prayers had been sent heavenward from this space, I wondered, as we stood alone in the silence.

The chapel led to an enormous, 396-foot-long chamber that may have been the castle’s multipurpose room. Its central portion apparently had been devoted to kitchen use, as evidenced by a bread oven and a well. The cavernous space may also have served for storage and sleeping. At least one of its functions was unmistakably clear--lining a wall was a series of cubicle-like latrines.

The castle’s real jewel, however, is its loggia, or gallery, which we came to next. One long wall is made up of Gothic pointed arches, embellished by trefoils. These glass-less windows and an open doorway face onto a courtyard. Built in the 13th century, the loggia projects the peacefulness of a cloister, filled, as it was on the day we visited, with glowing, filtered light.

To us, it seemed something of a miracle that these outposts of Christendom should have survived after Krak des Chevaliers fell to Muslim conquerors. Having effectively isolated the castle in 1267 by cutting it off from any support, the army of a powerful sultan, known as the Panther, put the defenders under siege in 1271. His troops succeeded in undermining one of the towers, which collapsed, and they poured in over the rubble. The Hospitaliers’ humiliating defeat signaled the final decline of the Crusaders’ presence in the Middle East.

*

Upon leaving the Krak des Chevaliers, we were taken to the nearby Orthodox Monastery of St. George, founded in the 6th century. It consists of two chapels, one built in 1857; the other more than 600 years earlier. We stepped into the boxy older chapel to find a baptism going on by candlelight. Embarrassed that we had intruded on a family ceremony, we were surprised to find ourselves being motioned to stay and participate.

The bearded priest, dressed in a long black gown with a gold and red scarf, dipped the baby, a girl, into the water of the ancient baptismal font.

When the ceremony was over, we smiled at the young woman, who came over to greet us--in English. Her husband couldn’t be with her, she said; he was a medical intern in a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital, too busy to leave. She had come all the way from the United States to have her child baptized here, a tradition among many Christian Syrian Americans. Her tie was not just to the ritual but to the venerable monastery and to that empty guardian castle standing on its mountain.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK: Routing for Crusaders

Getting there: Unlike Jordan, the tourism industry in Syria is still relatively flegling. Rather than travel on our own, my wife and I took a 15-day tour with an archeological and historical focus led by Jennie Shamey, a Syrian American woman who speaks Arabic and has been taking groups of Americans to Syria for a dozen years. Cost for this year’s 17-day tour, including round-trip air fare from New York, is $2,900 per person. Shamey runs two tours, May 19-June 14 (booked, but there’s a wating list), and Oct. 20-Nov. 5. Ash-Shaami Tours, 3310 27th St., NW, No. 3, Washington DC 20008. Telephone (202) 362-4530; fax (202) 244-5175.

Other companies offering group tours:

Brendan Tours, 15137 Califa St., Van Nuys, CA 91411: Israel and Jordan (13-day tour includes Kerak, from $1,400 per person, not including air fare from the U.S. Spring through fall departures; book through a travel agent); tel. (800) 421-8446.

Overseas Adventure Travel, 625 Mt. Auburn, Cambridge, MA 02138: Undiscovered Jordan, with Syria extension (16-days, includes Krak des Chevaliers and Kerak, $3,780, including air fare from New York. October, November, December departures); tel. (800) 221-0814.

Smithsonian Study Tours and Seminars, 1100 Jefferson Drive SW, Washington DC 20560: Sites of Ancient Civilization (15-day cruise in October visits Krak des Chevaliers and Kerak, from $8,100, including air fare from New York) and Syria and Jordan (13-day tour in April 1997, visits Krak des Chevaliers, from $4,500, including air fare from New York); tel. (202) 357-4700.

Wilderness Travel, 801 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94710: Journey to the Holy Land (17-day tour includes Kerak; $3,695, not including air fare from the United States. One October departure); tel. (800) 368-2794.

Safety: With the conflict continuing between the Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon, the U.S. State Department recommends exercising caution during all trips to the Middle East, although Syria and Jordan are peaceful and sites mentioned in this story are at least a day’s drive away from where the fighting is.

--D.B.