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List of Illustrations
Figures
1Comparing federations and confederations28
2Public opinion on the euro63
3What Europeans think of EU membership72
4Identifying with Europe94
5Citizenship of the European Union95
6Support for joint EU policymaking113
7The world’s biggest economies136
8The world’s biggest corporations144
Tables
1A guide to the EU institutions17
2Regional integration around the world122
3The world’s three biggest trading powers137
Boxes
1Six myths about the European project20
2Seven reasons why Europe is peaceful38
3Seven advantages of civilian power43
4Twelve benefits of the single European market55
5Potential benefits of Britain adopting the euro65
6What do Europeans think of the EU?74
7Eight channels for the protection of public interests in the EU80
8How the EU has helped change the identity of Europeans93
9Ten qualities that help define what it means to be European102
10Six advantages of thinking like a European110
11Six misconceptions about European law117
12Five benefits of a European foreign policy132
13Six benefits of a European trade policy139
14Big corporations and European influence142
15Fourteen reasons why Europe matters to Britain151
Document
1EU mythology at work22
About the Author
John McCormick is Professor of European Union Politics at Indiana University in the United States and has held visiting positions at the University of Exeter and the University of Sussex in the UK. He has written widely on the EU and other subjects, with books that include Understanding the European Union (now in its 6th edition), European Politics, The European Superpower, Europeanism,and Contemporary Britain.
Preface
Europe has been dominating the headlines of late, but rarely for happy reasons. First we had the breaking in 2009 of the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, and it was not long before the woes of one small European country took on deeper and wider significance: euro zone leaders were divided over how to respond, the very viability of the single currency was questioned and there were doubts even about the future of the European Union. Then Britain saw renewed squabbles within the Conservative government about membership of the UK, leading to a decision to hold a national referendum, and prompting new debate about the pros and cons of UK membership. Then we had the breaking of the immigration crisis in 2015, which raised numerous troubling questions about the willingness of Europeans and their leaders to continue supporting one of the foundations of the European Union: open borders. It became hard to find anyone prepared to step up in praise of integration, and even long-standing pro-Europeans struggled to maintain their sunny dispositions.
As the euro zone crisis deepened in late 2011, I was asked to write a chapter making the case for the EU in a university textbook.1 The exercise made me realize that while more than 20 years of studying and writing about the EU had left me convinced of the benefits and advantages of Europe, I had never outlined them comprehensively in writing, and nor – come to that – had anyone else. Meanwhile, there was much about the quality of the debate over Europe that I found troubling: it was not so much that the EU was being so roundly denounced in so many quarters, but rather that so much of the denunciation was both wrong-headed and misinformed. Someone clearly needed to step up before truth was forever sacrificed on the altar of myth. The result was the publication in 2013 of my book Why Europe Matters. The announcement of the UK referendum came soon after and – combined with the particular problems in the public debate about Europe in Britain – prompted this new book,
which focuses on making the case for continued UK membership of the European Union.
Because it is the EU that has been the target of so much of the recent analysis and speculation, it might seem that the title of the book should be Why the European Union Matters for Britain. But integration has always been about more than the work of the EU, or its precursor the European Economic Community. We should not forget the work of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Free Trade Association and a large and diverse community of specialized professional bodies, interest groups and think tanks working on European matters. We should also not forget the efforts of individuals and groups working outside formal institutions, as well as the effects of broader political, economic and social pressures, such as the cold war, internationalization and globalization.
Of one thing we can be sure: Europe is more than a body of laws and a network of institutions, and in arguing why Europe matters to the UK I am including the ideas and attitudes that together constitute the modern European experience. To avoid distracting semantic logjams, I use the term Europe to mean the region as well as the broad process of European integration and cooperation, and occasionally use the phrase European project to describe the laws, policies, institutions and people involved in that process, and I refer to the European Union when writing specifically about its work.
As for my background, I am a university professor of political science and have been studying the European Union since the early 1990s, writing about it mainly for students and other academics. I was born in Britain, but I have spent most of my life elsewhere (most recently, a long-time residency in the United States). I today live a transatlantic existence, carrying UK and US passports as I travel back and forth across the Atlantic but on neither side feeling entirely at home nor entirely foreign. This allows me to look at both the EU and the UK as an insider and an outsider, impressed by the changes I see in Europe, deeply concerned that the UK continues to remain on the margins, and my views about politics influenced most immediately by my daily experience of the American model.
As an academic, meanwhile, I have been dismayed by how little of the work of my peers has entered the public debate about Europe. Academics work hard and publish a great deal, and much of it is
fascinating and insightful and even perhaps revolutionary. But the scholarship on Europe is often arcane and theoretical, is rarely read by anyone except other academics and only infrequently enters the mainstream of political and public debate. This is a problem that is far from unique to the field of European studies, and it is not the sole reason why the EU is so widely misunderstood in Britain, but it is unfortunate that so little of this potentially illuminating research should be working its way into the public domain.
I have written this book, then, because I believe that Europe matters to the UK and vice versa, that too much of the debate about Europe in the UK is poorly informed and misleading and that we urgently need a better grasp of the longer-term significance of the European experiment. It is written for anyone who wants to better understand the achievements of Europe (and of the European Union in particular) or who needs new support for their pro-European instincts or has not yet been able to make up their mind. And perhaps a few eurosceptics might even be encouraged by my arguments into examining Europe from a new perspective.
Introduction:Britain’s Place in Europe
If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance,there would be no limit to the happiness,to the prosperity and the glory which its … people would enjoy.
Winston Churchill,1946
Europe is a destiny we will never embrace easily.But it … would be a monumental error of statesmanship to turn our back on it and fall away from a crucial position of power and influence in the 21st Century.
Tony Blair,2012
On 6 June 1975, the UK held its first ever national referendum. The question on the ballot was whether it should remain a member of the European Economic Community (EEC), a body it had joined less than 30 months before. By a margin of more than two to one, with 65 per cent turnout, the vote was in favour of staying, a result that Prime Minister Harold Wilson greeted as an ‘historic decision’. But while the vote was promoted as an opportunity for the British people to say what they thought about EEC membership, it was as much as anything an effort by Wilson to end a damaging internal disagreement within the Labour Party about British membership.
Home Secretary Roy Jenkins claimed that the result put an end to the uncertainty, and committed Britain to ‘playing an active, constructive and enthusiastic role’ in Europe. But while the British role may since have been active and generally constructive, it has never been all that enthusiastic. Many Britons have long doubted the idea of ‘Europe’, and many more have never really understood what Europe means. And while the result of the 1975 referendum ended most of the debate for a while, by the early 1990s it had begun to revive, and has since become more strident. Criticisms of what is now the European Union have grown, feeding off the debt crisis that
broke in 2009 in Greece and several other EU countries, security concerns in the wake of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, and an immigration crisis in the wake of war and unrest in the Middle East.
So focused has the debate about Europe been on its problems that it is easy to overlook the many benefits and achievements of integration. Cooperation under the auspices of the EEC/EU has helped bring to Europe the longest spell of general peace in its recorded history, and has helped bring down political barriers, expand economic opportunities, redefine social priorities and recognize and celebrate cultural differences. The European Union is the world’s wealthiest single market, to which anyone in the business community craves access. Its work has promoted innovation and choice, underpinned democracy and free markets at home and abroad, and encouraged Europeans to focus on what they have in common rather than on what divides them. On the global stage, the EU stands as an example of the moral and political advantages of civilian power and of the social advantages of investing in schools, hospitals and highways rather than guns, bombs and warships.
Its role as a peacemaker was recognized at a moving and inspiring ceremony in Oslo on 10 December 2012; leaders of the major institutions of the European Union accepted on behalf of more than 500 million people the award of the Nobel Prize for Peace. The event represented the culmination of more than six decades of hard work aimed at promoting peace and prosperity in a continent that had for centuries been home to some of the world’s most intractable and long-lasting conflicts and wars.
In presenting the award, Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland described the reconciliation between France and Germany as ‘probably the most dramatic example in history’ of war and conflict being turned so rapidly into peace and cooperation. European Council President Herman van Rompuy spoke of the ‘bold bet’ that Europe’s founders had made in breaking the ‘endless cycle of violence’ and shared his hope that future generations would say with pride ‘Ich bin ein Europaer’, ‘Je suis fier d’etre Europeen’ or ‘I’m proud to be European.’ Germany’s Bild carried a front-page story with the headline ‘This prize belongs to us all.’ Spain’s El Mundo recorded that in the chronicles of the European Union, the date of the award ceremony would ‘appear in bold and underlined’. It was a
day, in short, on which those who believed in the European Union could celebrate its achievements.
Regrettably, the Oslo ceremony was a rare moment of pride in an era that has seen numerous challenges to the goals that Europe represents. Doubters questioned the timing of the award, coming as it did against a background of the debt crisis in the euro zone and a sorry tale of austerity and high unemployment. The resulting tensions, some suggested, might be causing Europe to turn back from the path of peace and cooperation. The award, said others, had come as euro zone governments were showing a distinct lack of goodwill towards one another and bickering over how the debt crisis might best be resolved.
The contrasting visions of celebration and doubt, of achievement and stress and of pride and criticism speak volumes about the current state of the debate about Europe, particularly in the UK. Efforts to integrate the region have long had their doubters and critics but at no time have the dismissals been more voluble or the predictions of doom so numerous as they are today. The problems of Europe have deepened as the debt crisis has been joined by an immigration crisis, which has built against the background of a deeper reaction against government that has fed into support for populist and anti-EU political parties.
But while there is undoubtedly much that is wrong with Europe, there is far more that is right with it. And contrary to what we are often told, Europeans support its work, often by large margins. Even as the problems of the euro worsened in early 2011, those who thought positively about the EU outnumbered those who thought negatively by two to one, and those who were optimistic for its future outnumbered the pessimists by nearly six to four.1 As the crisis deepened during 2012–13, more than half of Europeans remained in favour of a common economic and monetary system with a single currency, and by late 2014 those in favour outnumbered those opposed by 57 to 36 per cent. The margin was even greater in countries with the euro: 69 to 25 per cent.2 And rather than the debt crisis sparking a mass rejection of Europe as pessimists might have expected, most Europeans believed that EU countries would need to work more closely together in the wake of the crisis and that the EU would be stronger as a result.3 Introduction:Britain’s
4 Why Europe Matters for Britain
But Britain has always been something of an outlier in the story of Europe. It was not one of the founding members of the EEC in 1958, although it soon changed its mind and would have joined earlier had President de Gaulle of France not twice vetoed its membership application during the 1960s. It finally joined on 1 January 1973 but then became the first and so far the only member state to hold a referendum on continued membership. The term eurosceptism first began to appear in the British media in the mid-1980s, 4 when the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major resisted European initiatives ranging from the Schengen Agreement on open borders to adoption of the euro, and Britain earned itself the label ‘awkward partner’.5
Just how much the British reputation of awkwardness is merited, however, is debatable and overlooks the many occasions when the UK has not only cooperated but has provided leadership on European issues, particularly in the realms of foreign, trade and defence policy. It has also often been seen by smaller EU states as a bulwark against the substantial influence of Germany and France. Meanwhile, British government representatives have earned a reputation for being tough and competent negotiators in the meeting rooms of the European institutions, in large part because the British government does not wish to agree to new laws and policies without a high degree of certainty that it can meet the resulting obligations. At the same time, though, Britons are notably badly informed about the EU and what it does.
The uniqueness of British attitudes is exemplified by a 2013 Eurobarometer poll which asked people throughout the EU whether they thought their country could better face the future outside the EU. Britain was the only EU member state where those who agreed outnumbered those who disagreed (by 53 to 36 per cent). The EU average was almost exactly the opposite (33 per cent agree, 56 per cent disagree), and even the bruised and battered Greeks felt their future was better in than out, by a factor of 36 per cent agree to 58 per cent disagree.6 But polls taken in the UK since the late 1970s have found opinion on British membership to be highly changeable: in 1979, 60 per cent were in favour of leaving compared to 32 per cent who wanted to stay in, but by 1989 the proportions had almost exactly reversed, and in the 30 polls taken between 1990 and 2014, 24 polls found more people in favour of remaining a member than leaving.7
In 2013, David Cameron proposed holding another referendum on membership. The 1975 vote – argue the critics – was on membership of the EEC, while the new vote was to be about membership of the European Union, whose requirements go far beyond what was agreed with membership of the EEC. But it is often forgotten that just as the 1975 referendum was as much as anything an attempt to end an internal squabble within Labour, so the new referendum is as much as anything an attempt to end an internal squabble within the Conservative party, and to stop its backbenchers – in the words of Cameron – ‘banging on about Europe’. And it should also be noted that the new vote was proposed against a background of declining faith in government more broadly; the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) symbolizes not just criticism of the EU but also a broader protest against elitism, political exclusion and politics as usual. Three additional sets of distractions compromise the democratic qualities of the vote.
Prime among them is the pessimism that attends most British assessments of Europe’s possibilities. That pessimism – and the regret that accompanies some of the assessments of a possible British exit – is in few places better represented than in the pages of The Economist, whose editors and cover designers have apparently been engaged of late in a contest to outdo themselves in the wittiness of their predictions of collapse in the euro zone. A May 2010 cover was particularly perverse, with its headline ‘Acropolis Now’ and a glum-faced Angela Merkel uttering the words ‘The horror, the horror’.
But wind the clock back to 1982 and we find the same newspaper with a cover showing a tombstone bearing the words ‘EEC: Born March 25 1957, Moribund March 25 1982’ and adapting the judgement of the historian Tacitus on the Roman Emperor Galba: Capax imperii nisi imperasset. (It seemed capable of being a power until it tried to be one.) The editors bemoaned ineffectual leadership from the European Commission, a disappointing European Parliament, an indecisive Council of Ministers, apathetic public opinion, an economic slump in western Europe and the need for Europe’s leaders to find the vision needed to address its disagreements.8
Jump forward more than 30 years and we find The Economist making similar complaints about the EU but also regretting the growing prospect of Britain leaving the EU. A December 2012
editorial argued that a British exit would amount to a ‘reckless gamble’ as well as a ‘double tragedy’ in the sense that Britons and other Europeans alike would suffer. The UK would make some immediate gains in the form of savings on its budget contributions to the EU and perhaps cheaper food (freed from the demands of the Common Agricultural Policy). But it went on:
these gains would be greatly outweighed by the costs of a British exit, which would dent trade with a market that accounts for half of Britain’s exports.The carmakers that use Britain as their European operations base would gradually drift away,along with large parts of the financial-services industry.Britain would have to renegotiate dozens of bilateral trade deals from a much weaker position than it enjoyed as a member of the EU.It would cut a greatly diminished figure on the world stage.It would have bought some sovereignty,but at an extraordinary cost to Britain—and its partners.9
The second distraction in the debate about Europe is the lack of courage on the part of British political leaders. Without much in the way of a road map or an agreed destination, they have joined their EU counterparts in moving ahead in fits and starts, muddling through, making decisions on the fly and worrying often about not being seen to be too European for fear of sparking a nationalist backlash. But it is worth noting that many of the EU’s problems have been less the result of European integration having gone too far than of it not having gone far enough. Critics like to argue that integration has created burdensome new regulations and impinged too much on national sovereignty, but we are told at the same time by many business leaders, consumer organizations, environmentalists, educationists, scientists, economists and defence analysts that what we really need is more Europe, not less Europe.
The final and most troublesome distraction in the British debate over Europe is the problem of how little most Britons actually know about the EU. Judicious and informed criticism of Europe is, of course, a legitimate and essential part of the debate, but there is an unhappy tradition in Britain of misrepresenting the work of the EU for political ends, routinely painting it in an unflattering light, greatly exaggerating the reach and powers of the European institutions and using Europe as a handy scapegoat for problems that have
entirely separate origins. The more impulsive eurosceptics even talk of a conspiracy to defraud Europe’s states of their sovereignty by means of subterfuge and intrigue. And when polls reveal that half of Britons admit that they do not understand how the EU works,10 the stage is set for misunderstanding and misinformation.
We need to be careful about making too many generalizations about British hostility to the EU. The popular use of the term euroscepticism gives the false impression that there is a monolithic and consistent set of anti-European (or anti-EU) sentiments. In truth, there are multiple shades of critical opinion that vary by time, place, depth and political persuasion. Polls reveal that support for the EU, and the sense of being a citizen of the EU, is greatest among the young (particularly those in the age group 15–24), among the better educated and among professionals and the self-employed. 11 A distinction needs to be made between soft scepticism (qualified opposition to the direction being taken by integration) and hard scepticism (a belief that integration is fundamentally wrong and needs to be abandoned). 12 A distinction also needs to be made between diffuse opinions about European integration and more specific opinions about the EU itself13; it is possible, in other words, to support integration in principle while being critical of the institutional design and the particular policies of the EU.
Euroscepticism has grown in particular since the passage of the Maastricht Treaty (signed in February 1992), which pushed integration beyond the single market and raised troubling questions about the implications for national sovereignty. British resistance was exemplified by the decision of the UK to remain outside the euro when it was launched in 1999, and reflected in the rise of UKIP, whose origins lie in criticism of Maastricht and which won its first seats in the European Parliament in the 1999 elections. Critical opinions have since hardened in the wake of the euro zone crisis, eurosceptic thinking coalescing around three broad charges:
•Integration threatens national sovereignty by impinging upon the capacity of Britain to make law and policy, the biggest concern being that the EU is headed down the dangerous path to becoming a federal European superstate at the expense of the self-determination of its member states. There are concerns, too, about what integration means for British national identity.
•The EU institutions are undemocratic and elitist, and insufficiently open or responsive to the opinions of the citizens of the member states. Criticism is directed particularly at the European Commission for being unelected while also having the authority to draft new EU laws. And for many Britons, there is a popular view that the EU represents only the interests of the wealthy –particularly bankers and big business – and that small business and the poor have been left behind.
•Integration is inefficient, in that instead of opening up the marketplace and expanding the range of economic opportunities available to British business, it has meant a greater regulatory burden. Harmonization has reduced the ability of national governments to respond to the distinctive economic problems of their countries and does not take sufficient account of national policy needs and differences.
To summarize, then, we find the discussion about Europe mired in a toxic stew of pessimism, denial, hesitancy, myth and scepticism. It is hard to think of a public debate that has been both so consequential and yet also so abundantly plagued by misinformation; the contradictions in the eurosceptic case for leaving the EU were ‘glaring’, noted The Economist in October 2015.14 It is also hard to think of one where there has been such a conspicuous gap between the supportive sentiments of so many ordinary people and the critical positions of so many opinion leaders. If there is a single root cause of these problems, it is the knowledge deficit or the gap between what the EU does and what most Britons know and understand about its work. The phenomenon of the uninformed citizen is nothing new, nor is it unique to the EU; there is an extensive body of research dating back decades that confirms how little most people know about most public issues.15 But few initiatives have suffered quite so abundantly from confusion and uncertainty as the European Union. There is a view in the academic world that we need not worry. Researchers tell us that as levels of knowledge about an issue fall, we rely on experts – including the media, political leaders, political parties and interest groups – to fill in the gaps by offering us cues.16 But other researchers tell us that even the experts can make mistakes, will rarely admit them and can be blindsided by events.17 They are, furthermore, often bad at predicting outcomes because of their poor
understanding of probability and uncertainty18 and will often be driven in their analyses by narrow political agendas. As the audience for those analyses, we can do little more than decide which we find the most instinctively compelling or which fits best with our own knowledge, direct experience and biases. But when it comes to understanding something as unusual, as complex and as unpredictable as the European Union, the challenges grow exponentially. This book is a response to the scepticism and the doubts about Europe in the context of the UK referendum. In the chapters that follow, I set out to show how and why Europe matters to Britain and to make the particular case for the European Union. I argue that integration has been good for Britain, for Europe and for the rest of the world, and I show how and why this is so. I conclude that integration has given us a new way of doing political, economic and social business that is more peaceful and productive than anything the member states of the EU could achieve in isolation and that it has welcome implications not just for Europe but for the rest of the world.
I focus on how European integration has improved life in real and tangible ways for real people and also on how it has brought deeper changes that are not always immediately obvious. I offer counterfactuals by speculating about what life might have been like without European cooperation and might be like for the UK if it was to leave. I also address the most dangerous and persistent myths in the debate about Europe, showing how the debate has been undermined by false allegations. Finally, I offer suggestions on where Britain and Europe might go from here. The EU is quite different from what it was 10 or 20 years ago and doubtless will be quite different 10 or 20 years hence. I will argue that we today have the opportunity to embark on a programme of informed and sensible reform and that the most desirable option is a reordering based on recognizing the EU as a confederal union of states, albeit with some federal qualities. My central arguments can be summarized thus:
•The debate about Europe in the UK can be fruitful only if Britons have a better understanding of the EU and the process of integration, unclouded by myth.
•Europe abundantly illustrates the benefits of free trade and of carefully reducing the barriers to the free movement of people,
money, goods and services. Once the problems of the euro are resolved (as they will be, if for no other reason than that the costs of failure will be too great), we will better appreciate the benefits and advantages of a single currency.
•There is majority support for integration among Europeans, and there are numerous channels through which their interests are represented and protected. While democracy is messy and imperfect, talk of a European-level democratic deficit is exaggerated.
•There is a community of Europe that is easier to define than most people believe, and Britons have much more in common with their European partners than most realize.
•The European political model has encouraged compromise, consensus, higher standards and improved protection and is an effective means to the resolution of shared problems.
•The EU stands as an exemplar of a global player that uses inclusive and soft tools to achieve its policy objectives in a world where many retain an unhealthy fascination with military power.
•There are problems to be sure, but rather than leaving and hoping for the best, the UK needs to work for an improved Europe, meaning that we need to build on those areas where integration works, repair those that do not, fill in the gaps and make sure that Europe is better understood.
It is one thing to give up on a project because it is not working but quite another to throw in the towel having never really understood what we were doing or where we were headed. It is time to turn down the volume on British euroscepticism, to look at Europe more carefully, to give credit where it is due, to fix the problems and to make decisions on the basis of an informed and carefully considered understanding of what Europe means. Thanks mainly to integration, Europe is more peaceful, prosperous and positively influential than it has ever been in its history; it could achieve even more if we were to take care of its many items of unfinished business; and it is in the interests of the UK, Europe and the wider world that we understand this and build upon the achievements.
1What Is Europe?
The debate about Europe suffers from a single, acute handicap: most people know little about how the European Union works, and most of the rest cannot agree on what it is or what it might become. There are many opinions but few hard certainties, and the result has been a turmoil of confusion and misrepresentation, begging the obvious question of how we can have an informed or productive exchange without understanding just what we are discussing. It is much like the Indian parable of the group of blind people who try to determine what an elephant looks like by touching it and then comparing notes; how we understand the EU depends on how we look at it, how we define its work, and our points of comparison.
Even those best placed to help us understand – the university scholars who base their careers on studying and explaining the EU – have stumbled. In their well-meaning efforts to pin down its character, they have offered such uncongenial labels as multi-level governance , consociationalism and quasi-federal polity, to each of which other scholars have been quick to offer strings of objections. Many have avoided the question altogether by describing the EU as sui generis (unique) before moving on to other conversations. Even Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission, had to concede that the EU was an ‘unidentified political object’.
But a Chinese proverb tells us that the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name, and what we think of Europe depends very much on how we brand it. Today’s EU began life in 1952 as a slightly unusual international organization with six members whose interests were defined and defended by their national governments with little public involvement. It then evolved in 1958 into a more ambitious effort to build a European single market, but was still an international organization in which most Europeans took little interest. It was only with the passage in 1992 of the Treaty on European Union (otherwise known as the Maastricht Treaty) that the debate
moved into a higher gear with concerns that new efforts were being made to build a federal United States of Europe, which had always been the goal of the most committed Europeanists.
While the new European Union still had some of the qualities of a standard international organization, it had accumulated treaties, permanent administrative institutions, an expanding body of law, a court that interpreted the treaties, and a directly elected Parliament. Critics charged that this amounted to a new level of government with independent powers and a troubling desire to nibble away at the sovereignty of its member states. A backlash began, euroscepticism accelerated, and alarm bells began ringing more stridently in 2009 as the curtain went up on the Greek sovereign debt crisis.
There had already been plenty of European crises, including the collapse of an ambitious French-led effort to create a European Defence Community in 1954, Charles de Gaulle’s unilateral dismissal of two British applications to join the European Economic Community in the 1960s, and the failure in the early 1970s of efforts to create a European single currency. A troubled Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of Europe, was prompted to warn in his 1978 memoirs that ‘Europe would be built through crises’ and would be ‘the sum of their solutions’.1 He also introduced what came to be known as Monnet’s law: ‘people only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them’.2
More crises followed Monnet’s warning, including repeated problems with plans for the single currency and surprise national votes against new EU treaties, but the euro zone crisis was clearly the most serious of them all. Having failed to meet the terms of membership, Greece should not have been allowed to join the euro, but even Germany and France rode roughshod over the rules they had themselves designed to keep the euro stable. And while the euro had design flaws, it also suffered pressures from the global financial crisis of 2007–10, years of economic mismanagement in Greece, and a debtfuelled boom in southern Europe. But its problems illustrated a wider and more fundamental point: even after more than 60 years of efforts to integrate Europe, remarkably little was understood about the character, needs, effects, functioning or possibilities of integration.
Fanned by the winds of the euro zone crisis, the flames of the debate about Europe have never burned brighter than they do today,
but the uncertainties continue unabated. They are reflected in the wide range of scenarios that have been suggested, which run the gamut from some light strategic tinkering to the creation of a twospeed Europe, an accelerated drive towards a federal Europe, tactical exits by more eurosceptic states such as Britain, or perhaps even the collapse of the entire endeavour in an atmosphere of bitterness and recrimination. Wilder voices have even suggested that the end of the euro might mean the erosion of democracy, the collapse of the European social and economic model, a new German domination, and a return to political conflict and extremism.3 In all the uproar, the voices of scepticism and dismissal have become louder, and reminders of the positives that Europe has brought have become harder to find.
Before getting to grips with the advantages and achievements of the EU, then, we need first to be clear about what it is and how it works, which means a brief review of the work of the European institutions. We need to pay particular attention to the European Commission, the one institution most often derided by eurosceptics for myriad and usually imaginary misdemeanours. We also need to address the knotty question of how best to understand the political personality of the EU, and for this we already have a handy term available that is all but ignored in the debate over Europe: confederation, meaning a union of states that works together on matters of mutual interest but remains at heart a club of member states rather than a system of government in its own right. The EU has some federal qualities, to be sure, but for now at least it is best regarded as a looser confederal arrangement.
Understanding Europe
When it comes to large-scale political organization, the most common unit of administration is the state. The world is divided up into nearly 200 of them, their core features being a territory, a population, sovereignty, a government, legitimacy and independence. But no state is truly independent, because each is bound to others by political, economic and social ties; they share critical resources (such as energy, minerals, water supplies and clean air); and they routinely cooperate with each other (or abuse each other) in the meeting
rooms of international organizations. The state has its advantages, including the institutions it provides by which its residents govern themselves, make laws, manage economies, deal with other states, and ensure public safety and national security. States also give people a sense of belonging and identity. However, they are also far from perfect:
•They impose artificial political divisions on human society, encouraging people to pursue narrow and sometimes imagined interests at the expense of broader welfare. At worst, state-driven patriotism and nationalism can encourage a sense of superiority, exclusivity and distrust.
•They have borders that impede the free movement of people, money, ideas, goods and services, and while this sometimes makes organizational sense it can also handicap economic and social development.
•Their efforts to guarantee the security of their citizens has often encouraged them to use threats and intimidation against other states, the resulting tensions occasionally leading to conflict and war.
•They have often done a poor job of working together to address shared problems such as terrorism, trans-boundary pollution, illegal immigration and the spread of disease.
•They have often been unable to meet the demands of their residents for justice, prosperity and human rights, or to manage their economies and natural resources to the benefit of all their residents. Their democratic records have been mixed, and even the wealthiest and most progressive of states still often struggle with poverty and social division.
•States often oblige people with different national, racial, religious, political and economic backgrounds to live together in tense and artificial political arrangements rather than being allowed independence and self-determination.
States have also not been with us that long. We were almost all born and raised with them, and thus can be forgiven for thinking of most of them as ancient and venerable, but the modern state system has roots that go back only to the early modern era (roughly the 1600s), and most states are recent creations: nearly 80 per cent were
formed during the twentieth century. So there is little that is either permanent or enduring about the state, and even today large question marks hang over the future of the UK, Belgium, Spain and other European states with active independence or secessionist movements. Adding to their problems and weaknesses, the place of states in the global system has been altered since 1945 by two key developments.
First, there has been a new focus on international cooperation in response to the growth in political and economic interdependence. This is reflected in the signing of treaties and the rise of international organizations based on voluntary cooperation, communal management and shared interests. There were no more than a few hundred of these bodies in existence before the Second World War, but thousands more have since been created, ranging from large intergovernmental bodies whose members are states (the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and so on) to non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and the International Red Cross, and multinational corporations such as Ford, Toyota, BP, ING, Allianz and HSBC. Their number and their power have combined to reduce the reach and independence of states, and their existence has made cooperation on shared needs and problems quite normal.
Second, there has been the spread of globalization, or the process by which politics, economics, culture, technology and the provision of services have been blended across state borders. Never before has the degree of such blending been so great as it is today, or the daily lives of so many people been so impacted by decisions taken in other states and on other continents. We trade with one another, jobs have been outsourced, multinational corporations make many of the decisions once restricted to governments, technology places us in almost instant touch with developments all over the world, we can be immediately impacted by events in other countries, and – for the global middle class at least – homes are full of goods made all over the world, and international travel has become routine. Where states were once the masters of markets, argues Susan Strange, the roles have in many respects been reversed.4
The European Union works at the confluence of states and international organizations, so it is important to make a distinction between its intergovernmental and supranational qualities: in other words, how much is it still a club of states and how much is it a new
level of government with powers and authority of its own? The short answer: it is more the former than the latter. The parent of today’s EU was the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), founded in 1952 with an appointed High Authority charged with removing barriers to free trade in coal and steel, and an appointed Court of Justice that could rule on disputes. Both were supranational in character, meaning that they worked above the level of the member states, and with the broader interest of their six member states in mind. But real power to make decisions rested with the Council of Ministers, which was intergovernmental in the sense that it was where government representatives from the member states could negotiate with one another and could protect national interests.
This formula was passed on in 1958 to the European Economic Community (EEC), which had an appointed Commission, an appointed European Court of Justice, and a weak and unelected European Parliament. The focus of decision making lay with the Council of Ministers, where national interests continued to be defended by permanent representatives and government ministers, the latter taking votes on all new legislative proposals. Few Europeans paid much heed to the work of the EEC, and few of those who did had much cause to worry that national interests were not being protected by their home governments. Those interests were again to the fore in the 1970s with the creation of a new institution –the European Council – within which the heads of government of the member states meet to make the broad, strategic decisions on integration. Table 1 gives an overview of the EU system. What we have in today’s EU, then, is the following:
•A European Council made up of the heads of government of the member states, that acts as something of a steering committee or board of directors for the EU, and where the interests of the member states are very much on show.
•A European Commission whose leaders (the commissioners) are appointed by the governments of the member states; it has the power only to propose and dispose (it cannot make decisions on new laws and policies, only draft them and oversee their execution), and is charged with serving the needs of the member states in areas defined and limited by the treaties.
Table 1 A guide to the EU institutions
InstitutionMembershipCharacterFunction
European Elected heads of IntergovernmentalA steering Councilgovernment of the committee charged member states, with making broad overseen by an decisions on the appointed process of presidentintegration
European Commissioners SupranationalProposes new laws Commissionnominated by and policies, and national oversees their governments, execution once overseeing 33,000 enacted by the career bureaucratsCouncil of the EU and Parliament
Council of the Government IntergovernmentalShares power with European Unionministers from the Parliament over the member statesenactment of proposals for new laws
European Elected SupranationalShares power with Parliamentrepresentatives the Council of the from the member EU over the statesenactment of proposals for new laws
European Judges appointed SupranationalEnsures that the Court of Justiceby the member actions of statesindividuals, organizations and governments fit with the terms of the treaties
•A Council of the European Union where permanent representatives of the member states vet all proposals for new laws before passing them on to the national government ministers, who share powers with the European Parliament on final enactment.
•A European Parliament whose members are elected every five years in competitive elections, who represent voter interests, and
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Passing through Cilicia, the advance under Tancred captured Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul. But Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, contested with Tancred the honor of its possession and a share of its spoil. Tancred refused to allow either his own men or those of Baldwin to loot the place, saying that he had not taken arms to pillage Christians. His flag was torn from the ramparts and flung into the ditch. By a display of moral courage equal to his physical prowess, Tancred restrained his resentment, that the Christian host might not be divided. Baldwin, left in possession of a part of the town, refused admission to a company of crusaders, who, thus left exposed without the walls, were massacred by the Turks. Popular indignation ran high against Baldwin, which he ultimately assuaged by taking a horrible vengeance upon the Turks remaining in Tarsus, not one of whom he left alive.
The crusaders at Tarsus received reinforcements by the arrival of a fleet of Flemish and Dutch pirates, who, by the bribe of expected spoil, were induced to sew the cross upon their garments.
Leaving a garrison in this city, Baldwin followed eastward in the track of Tancred, whom he overtook at Malmistra. The rage of the soldiers of Tancred against him could not be checked by the mild counsel of their leader, whom they taunted with weakness. For once the selfrestraint of Tancred gave way. He led his men against Baldwin. A pitched battle ensued, followed on the morrow by the embrace of the leaders in the presence of their troops, and vows to expiate their mutual offences in fresh blood of the common enemy.
The popularity of Tancred ill suited the ambition of his rival. Baldwin, seemingly stung by the withdrawal of the confidence of his brethren, nursed the project of leaving the crusading army and setting up a kingdom for himself. He offered his aid to Thoros, the Armenian Prince of Edessa, in Mesopotamia, who was at that time warring on his own account against the Turks beyond the Euphrates. None of the crusading chiefs seconded Baldwin’s project. With eighty knights and one thousand foot-soldiers, he traversed the deserts. Upon his arrival at Edessa, in the strange custom of the country the aged Thoros and his wife pressed the count to their naked breasts, thus acknowledging him as son by adoption. The fable of him who had
warmed a serpent in his bosom only to feel its sting was repeated in this case. With Baldwin’s knowledge, if not with his connivance, an insurrection was stirred against Thoros, which resulted in his being flung from the wall of his own castle.
Baldwin, thus installed in chief authority, confirmed his hold upon the people by marrying an Armenian princess. All Mesopotamia acknowledged him, and a Frankish knight was seen reigning on the Euphrates over the richest part of ancient Assyria.
The defection of Baldwin was not ultimately detrimental to the crusades, since his kingdom made a barrier on the north and east against the Turkish and Saracenic hordes, and prevented their interfering more readily with the Christians’ march upon Jerusalem, of which Baldwin himself was one day to be king.
CHAPTER XIV. BEFORE ANTIOCH.
The crusading hosts passed, with incredible toil and suffering, through the remainder of Asia Minor. The perils of the Taurus chain of mountains nearly brought them to despair. Borne down with their heavy arms, encumbered with thousands of women and children, they passed along paths which the practised feet of mountaineers were alone fitted to tread. In the defiles were left many who could not climb the precipitous rocks, which thus became the walls of their tomb. At the base of the palisades were heaps of armor, which their wearers were too spiritless to recover. But in spite of the despair of many, the leaders evidently did not leave the spoil of war to rust or decay in the cañons of the Taurus. Stephen of Blois wrote to his wife a few weeks later than the events we are describing: “You may know for certain, my beloved, that of gold, silver, and many other kinds of riches I now have twice as much as your love had assigned to me when I left you.”
At length the survivors emerged to look down from the mountains upon the borders of Syria. The sight inspired them as that from Pisgah did the invader of old. Courage revived, and with joy they hastened southward. Hard by was the battle-field of Issus, where Alexander the Great, the man from the West, had broken the power of the East under Xerxes—an omen of its repetition. Soon Antioch, the city built to commemorate the fame of Antiochus, one of Alexander’s generals, stood before them. The rumor of their invincibility had served the crusaders in the stead of battles, and October 21, 1097, they sat down unmolested for the siege of the Syrian capital.
This city, where a thousand years before believers were first called Christians, still wore in the reverence of all the world the honor of that initial christening. It was called the “Eldest Daughter of Sion,” and was the seat of one of the original patriarchates into which the early church was divided. It had been the third city of the Roman world, and those who were unimpressed with its sacred story could
imagine its splendor when it was called the “Queen of the East.” Paganism once worshipped obscene divinities in its famous groves of Daphne. About it still stood the enormous wall built by the Emperor Justinian five hundred years before, on every tower of which were mementos of sieges when it had been captured alternately by Saracen and Greek, and now, but thirteen years before the crusaders’ coming, by Solyman, the Turk.
The natural defences of Antioch, supplemented by those of art, made it impregnable, except to the enthusiastic faith of such men as now essayed its capture. On the north it was guarded by the river Orontes, on the south by natural heights of several hundred feet, on the west by the great citadel, and on the east by a castle. The wall which bound together the various fortifications was nine miles in extent, strengthened by three hundred and sixty towers. A deep cleft in the southern height poured a mountain torrent through the city to the Orontes. Accian, grandson of Malek-Shah, had twenty thousand Turks within the walls, who behind such battlements were presumably the match for the three hundred thousand crusaders who are said to have been without.
To the sanguine enthusiasm of the Christians the city seemed like a ripened fruit ready to fall into the hand at a touch. Guards appeared upon the walls, but the challenge of their camps provoked no response. This the Christians interpreted as a sign of the feebleness and dismay of the garrison. They were disposed to wait for the fruit to fall of itself. The genial influence of the climate soon wrought its softness into nerve and spirit. Discipline was relaxed; knights whose shields showed many a dent of conflict spent the hours among the vineyards, where the luscious clusters still hung upon their stems. Adventure found its pastime in discovering the vaults in which the peasants had hidden their grain. If we could believe the theory that good and evil people leave in the places they frequent an atmosphere of virtue or vice, to invigorate or infect the souls of those who come after them, we might think that the soldiers of the cross had succumbed to the influence of the votaries of Venus and Adonis, who anciently revelled in the grove of Daphne; for the Christian host became infatuated with unseemly pleasures; they were given over to
intemperance and debauchery An arch-deacon was not ashamed to be seen in dalliance with a Syrian nymph.
If the leaders did not yield to the prevalent vice, they seem to have been infected with that intellectual dulness and lethargy of purpose which follows license. They neglected to prepare their siege machinery, and when a momentary enthusiasm led them to attack the walls they paid for their temerity with failure. The enemy became correspondingly emboldened, and retaliated with fearful forays through the Christian lines. With the approach of winter the crusaders had exhausted their provisions, and the country about furnished no more. Heavy rainfalls reduced their camps to swamps, in which the bow lost its stiffness, and the body its vigor, making the men the prey of diseases which kept them busy burying their dead.
Stories of disasters to the cause elsewhere floated to them, until the air seemed laden with evil omens. Sweno, Prince of Denmark, had advanced through Cappadocia. At his side was Florine, daughter of Count Eudes of Burgundy, his affianced bride. Together they fought their way through countless swarms of Turks, until, with all their attendant knights, they were slain. The body of this heroic woman showed that seven arrows had penetrated her armor. News also came that fleets of Pisans and Genoese, their allies, had withdrawn from the coast, lured by better prospects of gain than in bringing succor to what seemed a ruined cause.
Such was the moral depression that Robert of Normandy deserted for a while, until shame brought him back. His example was followed even by Peter the Hermit, “a star fallen from heaven,” says Guibert, the eye-witness and chronicler. Peter, however, returned at the entreaty of Tancred, whose heart was as true in trouble as his eye was keen in the mêlée. The Hermit was made to take oath never again to desert the cause he had once so eloquently proclaimed. The piety of Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, instituted fasts and penitential processions around the camp, to purge it of iniquity and to avert the wrath of Heaven. The practical judgment of the chieftains enacted terrible punishments to curb the unreasoning debauchery. The drunkard was cropped of his hair, the gambler branded with a hot iron, the adulterer stripped naked and beaten in the presence of the
camp. The Syrian spies who were caught were, by order of Bohemond, spitted and roasted, and this proclamation was posted over them: “In this manner all spies shall make meat for us with their bodies.”
About this time there arrived in the camp an embassy from the caliph of Egypt. The race of Ali hated the Turks as the usurpers of the headship of their faith, and proposed alliance with the Christians to expel them from Jerusalem. They stipulated for themselves the sovereignty of Palestine, and would grant to the disciples of Jesus perpetual privilege of pilgrimage to the sacred places. If this offer of the caliph was declined, the ambassadors presented the alternative of war, not only with the Turks, but with the combined Saracen world from Gibraltar to Bagdad. The Christian reply was bold. Their orators taunted the Egyptians with the diabolical cruelty they had once practised when Jerusalem was under Hakim, and declared that they would brave the wrath of the Moslem world rather than permit a stone of the sacred city to be possessed by an enemy of their faith. This reply was saved from seeming bravado by an opportune victory. Bohemond and Raymond met and cut to pieces a Moslem force of twenty thousand horsemen, who were advancing from the north for the relief of Antioch. As the ambassadors of Egypt were embarking, they were presented with four camel-loads of human heads, to impress their master with the sincerity of the Christian boast, while hundreds more of these ghastly tokens were stuck upon pikes before the walls or flung by the ballistæ into the city to terrorize the defendants.
The fearfulness of their extremity animated the courage of the Turks as it had often done that of the Christians; for brave hearts are the same, under whatever faith and culture. They sallied from the gates, which by the orders of Accian were closed behind them until they should return as victors. At nightfall, however, but few lived to seek the entrance.
Their valor was doubtless as fine as that of the Christians, the exploits of whose leaders have come to us in story and song. Tancred’s deeds were so great that, either from excessive modesty or the fear that nobody would believe such wonders, he exacted a
promise of his squire never to tell what his master had wrought. If his great actions were like most reported of his comrades, we can admire his wisdom as well as his humility; for the legends of the battle tell, among other wonders, of a monster Turk who was cloven in twain by the sword of Godfrey, and one half of whose lifeless body rode his charger back to the gate. A less glorious exploit is mentioned. The Christians rifled by night the new-made graves of the Moslems, and paraded the next day in the clothes of the fallen braves, carrying upon their pikes instead of garlands fifteen hundred heads they had severed from the corpses. A more romantic scene makes a pleasant foil to this: the children of either side, drilled by their seniors, engaged in battle in presence of both armies. Hands that could not use the sword thrust with the dagger, and the poisoned tip of the arrow was not less deadly because it was sent from a tiny bow.
CHAPTER XV. THE FALL OF ANTIOCH.
After seven months of valorous assault and defence, Antioch at length was gained. It fell, however, not as the prize of honorable conquest, but as the price of treachery, disgraceful to both those within and those without the walls. Phirous, an Armenian Christian, had abjured his faith in order to secure promotion in the Turkish service. In reward he was given position, and now commanded three of the principal towers. Divining a similar, if not equal, unconscionableness in Bohemond, Phirous made known to him his willingness to recant his new vows as a Moslem and again betray his trust for larger reward in the Christian ranks. Bohemond announced to the other chiefs his possession of a secret by which Antioch might easily be taken, but refused to reveal it except upon their agreement to assign to him the independent sovereignty of the Syrian capital. The proposal at first met with the contempt and rage of his fellowleaders, which were expressed to his face in the hot words of Raymond, who declared that Bohemond proposed to “repay with the conquests of valor some shameful artifice worthy of women.” Bohemond was as brazen as he was brave, and endured this insult. Reports became rife that Kerbogha, Sultan of Mosul, was advancing to the relief of his coreligionists. Bohemond, through his emissaries, magnified the alarm until the besiegers anticipated the attack of an army of two hundred thousand, whose cimeters were dripping with the blood of victory over all the peoples west of the Euphrates. Under this menace the chiefs chose the valor of discretion, and, not without lamentation at the shameful necessity, yielded to the ambition of their comrade.
The scheme of Phirous came near miscarriage at the very moment of execution. Accian, the commandant at Antioch, suspicious of treachery, ordered all the Christians in the city to be seized and massacred that very night. Summoning Phirous, he subjected him to severest examination, but the shrewdness of the wretch completely veiled his duplicity. Phirous tried to induce his own brother to join him
in his treachery The man refused, and, lest he should reveal the plot, Phirous plunged his dagger to his heart.
A comet, which had appeared in the early evening sky, was regarded as an omen favorable to the scheme. The subsequent dense darkness of the night and the roar of sudden storm shielded the forms and drowned the footfalls of the plotters. At a given signal Phirous dropped from the wall a ladder of leather, which was quickly mounted by one of Bohemond’s men. As the traitor Phirous stood by the parapet conversing with the intruders, he was startled by the glare of a lantern in the hand of an officer making his round of inspection, but his ready tact diverted suspicion. The agent of Bohemond descended the ladder and reported all in readiness for the assault; but the Christians were held back by a strange spell. Men who were accustomed to brave death without a question at the command of their princes, could not be prevailed upon by either threatening or promise to venture into this unknown danger. Moral courage is the strongest stimulus to physical daring, and this treacherous project failed to supply the heroic incentive. Bohemond himself was compelled to set the perilous example; but no one followed until he descended to assure them by his presence that he had not fallen into some deadly trap. Then one by one the bravest knights, such as Foulcher of Chartres and the Count of Flanders, emulated Bohemond’s bravery. The parapet was overweighted by the assailants, who were massed upon its edge, and gave way, precipitating many upon the lance-points of those below them. But the thunders of the storm drowned the crash of the falling masonry Securing the three towers of Phirous’s command, the crusaders opened the city gates to the dense ranks that waited without.
With the cry of “Deus vult! Deus vult!” the infuriated multitude poured into the city. The Moslems, as they came from their homes and barracks at the rude awakening, were slaughtered without having time for resistance. Through all houses not marked by some symbol of the Christian faith the crusaders raged; cruelty and lust knew no restraint. The dawn revealed over six thousand corpses in the streets. Accian escaped the Christian soldiers, only to meet a less honorable death at the hands of a woodman while in flight through
the forest. Phirous was abundantly rewarded for his treachery, but two years later he reëmbraced Moslemism in expectation of larger gains. In the anathemas of Christian and paynim he was consigned to the hell in which both believed.
CHAPTER XVI. THE HOLY LANCE.
The elation of the crusaders over the possession of Antioch was of briefest duration. Their three days’ license, in the enjoyment of what they had so ingloriously won, was terminated on the fourth day by fearful menace. Kerbogha was really coming. To his own veteran experience he added the wisdom of the most redoubtable sultans and emirs of Syria, Asia Minor, and Persia, who commanded an army of one hundred thousand horse and three hundred thousand foot. So stealthily had they approached that the news was conveyed to the Christians only by their observing from the walls the advance of the mighty host as it dashed through the camps but recently consecrated to the cross. Quickly the Moslems completed their investment of the city. The Christians could make no foray over the fields, and no provisions were allowed to reach them from the port. To add to their fears, the citadel of Antioch had not fallen into their hands with the rest of the city, and was still occupied by watchful foes. They were thus assailed from without and from within the walls.
The gay robes, costly gems, and arms which the Christians had taken were no compensation for the lack of provisions. Godfrey paid fifteen silver marks for the flesh of a half-starved camel. Knights killed for meat the proud chargers they loved oftentimes more than they did their companions in arms, who were now their greedy contestants for what scanty provision remained. Common soldiers gnawed the leather off shoes and shields, and some dug from the graves and devoured the putrid flesh of the Turks they had slain. We might doubt this horrible deed were not similar acts of cannibalism confessed by Godfrey and Raymond in a letter to the Pope, written a year later. Every morning revealed the numbers of those who had deserted during the night, among whom were some of the most famous warriors, such as the counts of Melun and Blois and Chartres. In the general despair even faith gave way. Men cursed the God who had deserted them while they were defending His cause, and the priests hesitated to perform the rites of religion
among a people who had become as infidel as the foe they sought to destroy.
The Greek emperor, Alexius, started out from Constantinople with an army, but upon hearing of the desperate straits of the Latins returned, leaving them to their fate. The Christians, it is said, offered to capitulate to Kerbogha upon condition of being permitted to return to Europe in abandonment of the crusades. Godfrey and Adhemar, the one in the name of all that was valiant among men, the other as the representative of the Pope, presumably speaking for Heaven, remonstrated in vain. The refusal of even so much mercy by the Moslems alone prevented the consummation of this disgrace. The warriors who had won the applause of Europe then sat sullenly in their houses and could not be prevailed upon to fight along the walls, believing that additional wounds would only protract their woe without averting the final catastrophe.
In this hour of abject despair the besieged were reinspirited by an occasion which is as much the marvel of the psychologist as of the historian. In the prostration of bodily nature through hunger and disease, imagination often tyrannizes the faculties. Man becomes the prey of unrealities; his dreams create a new world, generally of terror, but often of hope. Then it is that the demons and angels of theory materialize into seeming facts. Thus the emaciated men in the beleaguered camp were ready to believe the story of a priest, who related that Christ had appeared to him, denouncing destruction upon His faithless followers, but that at the intercession of the Virgin Mary the Lord was appeased, and promised immediate victory if the soldiers of His cross would once more valiantly endeavor to merit it. At the same time two deserters returned to the camp, relating how the Saviour had met them and turned them back from flight. But the crowning miracle was revealed to the priest, Peter Barthelemi. St. Andrew appeared to him and said, “Go to the church of my brother St. Peter in Antioch. Near the principal altar you will find, by digging into the earth, the iron head of the lance which pierced the side of our Redeemer. Within three days this instrument of salvation shall be manifested to His disciples. This mystical iron, borne at the head of the army, shall effect the deliverance of the Christians and shall
pierce the hearts of the Infidels.” For two days the people fasted; on the morning of the third day twelve trusty knights and ecclesiastics dug at the appointed spot, while the multitude remained in silence and prayer about the church. All day long they waited. At midnight there was no response to their expectation. As the twelve ceased their labors, and were bowed in renewed petition around the excavation, Peter Barthelemi suddenly leaped into the hole. In a moment he reappeared bearing a lance-head in his hands. The news spread through the city as if shouted by angels. The effect upon the desponding minds of the soldiers was like the revival of life in the dead bodies of Ezekiel’s valley of vision. Some, it is true, shook their heads, or, like Foulcher of Chartres, declared that the lance had been concealed by Barthelemi in the designated place. Whether really credulous, or shrewd enough to try any new expedient, the leaders were loudest in heralding the discovery as miraculous.
Peter the Hermit was sent to announce to the Moslems the decree of Heaven for their immediate overthrow. Sultan Kerbogha, however, proved a match for the zealot in vituperative bravado and religious devotion. He haughtily declared but one condition of his raising the siege, namely, the acknowledgment by the Christians that “Allah is great, and Mohammed is His prophet.” “Bid thy companions,” said he to Peter, “take advantage of my clemency; to-morrow they shall leave Antioch only under the sword. They will then see if their crucified God, who could not save Himself from the cross, can save them from the fate I have prepared for them.” With that he drove Peter and his band of deputies back to their walls.
The Christians ate that night what they deliberately called their last supper in Antioch. With the remnant of bread and wine they celebrated mass. At dawn the city gates were thrown open, and in twelve divisions the host marched out, following the standard of the Holy Lance. The clergy went first, as in the days of Jehoshaphat, singing their faith in coming victory. The words of the psalm, “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered,” seemed to be answered by invisible hosts on the mountains, who took up the crusaders’ war-cry of “Deus vult!” Excited imaginations saw the
mountains filled with the chariots of the Lord, as in the days of Elisha. But to the eye of flesh the Christian host presented a sorry spectacle. Many limped with wounds or trudged slowly from weakness; most were in rags, many were stark naked. The prancing charger had been changed for a camel or ass, and many a knight was reduced to the condition of a foot-soldier, and shouldered his spear.
Sultan Kerbogha haughtily refused to leave a game of chess he was playing, to listen to what he supposed would be an entreaty for mercy from the entire Christian army, that was coming to throw itself at his feet; but he was soon undeceived. With sudden dash, Count Hugh attacked and cut to pieces two thousand of the enemy who guarded the bridge before the city. The main body of Christians formed against the mountains and, thus shielded from a rear attack, advanced steadily upon the foe. The surprise of Kerbogha did not prevent that experienced soldier from seeing the advantage gained by his assailants. Under flag of truce he proposed to decide the issue by battle between an equal number of braves selected from either side. The enthusiasm of the Christian host forbade such a limitation of the honor of attaining what seemed to all a certain victory. Heaven gave manifest token of favor in a strong wind, that sped the missiles of the crusaders, while it retarded those of their foes. In vain did Kerbogha storm them in front, while Kilidge-Arslan, having climbed the mountain, attacked their rear. The Turks had fired the bushes to bewilder the Christians, but through a dense smoke there appeared a squadron descending the mountains, led by three horsemen in white and lustrous armor. These were recognized as St. George, St. Demetrius, and St. Theodore, the same materialized spirits that had been seen upon the plains of Nicæa. With a superhuman fury and strength, the Christians broke upon the Moslems as a tornado upon a forest, making through the opposing ranks a path of utter destruction. When this breath of heaven had passed one hundred thousand Infidels lay dead upon the field. Fifteen thousand camels, a proportionate number of horses, immense stores of provisions, and priceless treasures enriched the victors. The tent of Kerbogha, capable of covering over two thousand persons, glowing like a vast gem with jewels and tapestries, was
taken and sent to Italy, where the sight of it inflamed the greed of new bands of crusaders.
Those who are disinclined to believe in the heavenly portents that aided the Christians may content themselves with the explanation which the Moslem writers give of their defeat. They relate that the Arabs had quarrelled with the Turks, and retired from the field before the battle; that the latter pursued their coreligionists more bitterly than they fought the common enemy. The credulity of the Christians also abated when they discovered that the camps of Kerbogha were more adorned than fortified. Then, too, they recalled the skill and courage of their own assault, and listened to the thousand stories of the Christians’ exploit from the lips of the performers. Pride, if not reason, triumphed over superstition, and the Holy Lance fell into disparagement. A letter from the leaders to Pope Urban, written from Antioch just after this battle acknowledged that the divine weapon “restored our strength and courage”; but the writers are more particular to tell how “we had learned the tactics of the foe” and, “by the grace and mercy of God, succeeded in making them unite at one point.” Later the Christian host was divided into two parties, who contended violently for and against the credibility of the miracle. Normans and the crusaders from the north of France were rationalistically inclined, while the men from the south adhered to the story as told by their geographical representative, Peter Barthelemi, the priest from Marseilles, who had discovered the sacred symbol. The veracity of Peter was finally subjected to trial by Ordeal. A vast pile of olive-branches was erected. A passage several feet in width was left through the middle of the heap. When the wood had been fired, Peter appeared, bearing the Holy Lance. As he faced the flames a herald cried, “If this man has seen Jesus Christ face to face, and if the Apostle Andrew did reveal to him the divine lance, may he pass safe and sound through the flames; but if, on the contrary, he be guilty of falsehood, may he be burned.” The assembled host bowed and answered, “Amen.” Peter ran with his best speed down the fiery aisle. The furious heat impeded him. He seemed to have fallen, and disappeared amid the crackling branches and smoke. At length, however, he emerged at the other end of the flaming avenue amid the cries of his partisans, “A miracle! a
miracle!” Yet the test was indecisive, for, while Peter succeeded in running the gantlet, he was terribly burned, and was carried in mortal agony to the tent of Raymond, where a few days later he expired. It is to be noted that from that time the Holy Lance wrought no more miracles, even in the credulity of its most reverent adorers.
CHAPTER XVII. ON TO JERUSALEM.
The zeal of the mass of crusaders urged them to an immediate advance upon Jerusalem. This, however, was opposed by the discretion of Godfrey, who predicted the hardship of the campaign in a Syrian midsummer. The evident dissensions among the Moslems and their apathy in further warfare, if they gave opportunity for rapid conquest by the Christians, at the same time allayed the feeling of necessity for immediate advance. It was therefore resolved to postpone the enterprise southward until November.
While waiting for the order to march, an epidemic broke out in the camps, which was more fatal than would have been any perils of the journey. Upward of fifty thousand perished in a month, among them Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, the special representative of the Holy Father, and the spiritual head of the crusade. Idleness also engendered strife among brethren. Bohemond and Raymond threatened each other with the sword. Common soldiers fought in opposing bands for the possession of the booty captured in their raids. Restless spirits, disgusted with the general apathy, joined Baldwin, now the master of Edessa. Some made alliance with such Moslems as were at war with their fellow-Moslems. Even Godfrey fought for the emir of Hezas against Redowan, Sultan of Aleppo.
Heaven also seemed to have become impatient at the inaction of the crusaders. A luminous mass, as if all the stars had combined their fires, like a suspended thunderbolt, glared down from the sky upon the quiet ramparts of Antioch. Suddenly it burst and scattered in sparks through the air. Did it mean that God was about to thus disperse the Christians, or that He would scatter their enemies? The omen, though not clearly interpreted, sufficed to rouse the indolent host.
Raymond and Bohemond, with worthy compeers, assaulted Maarah, between Hamath and Aleppo. A novelty of the defence of this place was the hurling upon the assailants of hives filled with stinging bees.
The resistance of the inhabitants, however, proved unavailing, and was punished by their indiscriminate massacre when the city had been gained. A dispute between Raymond and Bohemond for sole possession of what they had jointly conquered delayed further operations, until the soldiers who were left in Maarah with their own hands destroyed the fortifications, and thus rendered it useless to the ambition of either of the leaders.
It was not until far into the year that the united host took up the march southward. Everywhere they were lured from their grand objective, the sacred city, by the sight of goodly lands and strong towers, the spoil or possession of which might compensate the sacrifices of the campaign. Raymond laid siege to Arkas, at the foot of the Lebanons; others captured Tortosa.
While detained before the walls of Arkas they were met by an embassy from the caliph of Egypt, composed of the same persons that had previously visited the camp at Antioch. They narrated how they had been thrown into prison because of the failure of their former mission, when their master heard of the straits of the Christians; and how they had been liberated and sent back upon his hearing of the subsequent triumph of the Latins. They announced that Jerusalem had recently come into the hands of the Egyptians, and as its new possessors, proposed peace and privilege of pilgrimage to all who should enter the city without arms. They offered splendid bribes to the chieftains in person; but these worthies rejected the proposal.
The fame of the Christians’ victory at Antioch brought new crusaders from Europe, among them Edgar Atheling, the last Saxon claimant of the crown of England against its possession by William the Conqueror.
On the way southward the hosts harvested the groves of olives and oranges, and the waving fields which have always enriched the western slopes of Lebanon. They discovered a rare plant, juicy and sweet, refreshing like wine and nourishing as corn. The inhabitants called it zucra. The later crusaders introduced it as the sugar-cane into Italy. Proceeding along or near to the coast, that they might be
able to receive succor from over the sea, they traversed the plain of Berytus (Beirut) and the territory of Tyre and Sidon. Many pilgrims, whose zealotry had led them to settle in the Holy Land notwithstanding its hostile possession, hailed their brethren with benedictions and provisions. On the bank of the river Eleuctra their camp was invaded by hosts of serpents, whose bite was followed by violent and often mortal pains. At Ptolemaïs (Jean d’Acre) the commanding emir averted assault by pledging himself to surrender the place as soon as he should learn that the Christians had taken Jerusalem. His pretence of peaceableness was singularly exposed. A hawk was seen to fly aloft with a dove in its talons. By strange chance the lifeless bird fell amid a group of crusaders. It proved to be a carrier-pigeon, whose peculiar instinct was then unknown to Europeans. Under its wing was a letter written by the emir of Ptolemaïs to the emir of Cæsarea, containing the words: “The cursed race of Christians has just passed through my territories and will soon cross yours. Let all our chiefs be warned and prepare to crush them.” This timely revelation of the treachery of their assumed ally, coming literally down from the sky, was regarded as a special sign of Heaven’s favor.
Pressing still southward, they captured Lydda and Ramleh, on the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Here the enthusiasm of the Christians blinded their judgment. It was with difficulty that the more cautious leaders restrained the multitude from moving against Egypt, in the vain expectation of conquering not only Jerusalem, but the ancient empire of the Pharaohs, at a single swoop. The credulity as to Heaven’s favor was matched by an equal display of very earthly motives. The crusaders devised a system for dividing the spoil. Whatever leader first planted his standard upon a city, or his mark upon the door of a house, was to be regarded as its legitimate owner. This appeal to human greed led many to leave the direct march upon Jerusalem, which was but sixteen miles away, and to expend in petty conquests or robberies the ardor which for weary months had been augmenting as they approached the grand object of the crusades. A faithful multitude, however, pushed on. They took off their shoes as they realized that they were on holy ground. Tancred, with a band of three hundred, making a circuit southward
by night, set the standard of the cross on the walls of Bethlehem, to signal the birth of the kingdom in the birthplace of its King.
On the morning of June 10, 1099, the sight of the Holy City broke upon the view. The shout of the host, “Deus vult! Deus vult!” rolled over the intervening hills like the “noise of many waters.” Had a host of angels filled the sky, it would have seemed to their enthusiastic souls but a fitting concomitant of their approach. The joy of the apparent accomplishment of their purpose was, however, followed by the affliction of their souls, as the most devout among them reminded the others of the spiritual significance of the scene before them. Jerusalem had witnessed the death of their Lord. For a while the soldier remembered only that he was a pilgrim; knight and pikeman knelt together and laid their faces in the dust.
