ailure. The lauded
warriors of feudal Europe effected almost nothing. Tasso attempted to
immortalize their deeds; but how insignificant they were, compared with
even Homer's heroes! A modern army of twenty-five thousand men could not
only have put the whole five hundred thousand to rout in an hour, but
could have delivered Palestine in a few months. Even one of the standing
armies of the sixteenth century, under such a general as Henry IV. or
the Duke of Guise, could have effected more than all the crusaders of
two hundred years. The crusaders numbered many heroes, but scarcely a
single general. There was no military discipline among them: they knew
nothing of tactics or strategy; they fought pell-mell in groups, as in
the contests of barons among themselves. Individually they were gallant
and brave, and performed prodigies of valor with their swords and
battle-axes; but there was no direction given to their strength
by leaders.

The Second Crusade, preached half a century afterwards by Saint Bernard,
and commanded by an Emperor of Germany and a King of France, proved
equally unfortunate. Not a single trophy consoled Europe for the
additional loss of two hundred thousand men. The army melted away in
foolish sieges, for which the crusaders had no genius or proper means.

The Third Crusade, and the most famous, which began in the year 1189, of
which Philip Augustus of France, Richard Coeur de Lion of England, and
Frederic Barbarossa of Germany were the leaders,--the three greatest
monarchs of their age,--was also signally unsuccessful. Feudal armies
seem to have learned nothing in one hundred years of foreign warfare; or
else they had greater difficulties to contend with, abler generals to
meet, than they dreamed of, who reaped the real advantages,--like
Saladin. Sir Walter Scott, in his "Ivanhoe," has not probably
exaggerated the military prowess of the heroes of this war, or the valor
of Templars and Hospitallers; yet the finest array of feudal forces in
the Middle Ages, from which so much was expected, wasted its strength
and committed innumerable mistakes. It proved how useless was a feudal
army for a distant and foreign war. Philip may have been wily, and
Richard lion-hearted, but neither had the generalship of Saladin. Though
they triumphed at Tiberias, at Jaffa, at Caesarea; though prodigies of
valor were performed; though Ptolemais (or Acre), the strongest city of
the East, was taken,--yet no great military resul