Heaven On Earth
Emperor Alexius I: Horrors Unimaginable
(Mood Music)
During the Siege of Jerusalem, the city of Alexandria was also being sieged. The city wasn’t very well fortified. Since its founding, it was an academic city, filled with the brightest minds from Archimedes to medieval times. So it’s no surprise that it fell to the Orthodox army quite easily. In fact, the non-Latin residents of Alexandria rioted in the city until the gates were forced open by the populace and in marched the forces of Orthodoxy to crush the weakened Latin army.
The commanders of the Orthodox forces in Egypt made sure to follow Alexius I’s example of benevolence and not slaughter the city. They granted religious freedom onto the inhabitants of the city and only killed the soldiers that fought against them. And again, the Latin residents were allowed safe passage to the port and were allowed to leave. A massive procession of Catholics marched out of the city, celebrated a last mass at the docks, and solemnly boarded the ships back to the Papacy and their respective homes in Western Europe.
Catholic priests celebrating a last mass at the port of Alexandria, just before they boarded the ships back to Rome.
And so, with the anticlimactic and near bloodless capture of Alexandria, the two Orthodox armies converged in Egypt. The leaderless Levantine Empire had already collapsed. And the Latin troops in Nubia were left abandoned. Finally, in the early months of 1105, Alexius and 75,000 Orthodox troops stood poised to enter Nubia and destroy the 20,000 Latin troops there.
But with the news of their entrapment, the Latins in Nubia turned to barbaric and suicidal tactics and started to slaughter the Nubian Copts. When news reached Alexius I, he force marched his army into Nubia at record speed. But it was too late. When they came to the large cities of Nubia like Dongola, they only saw smoldering remains. They discovered that all the people were gone. Going further into Nubia, they finally found the Copts, though not in the form they expected.
The aftermath of a Nubian massacre.
Hundreds of piles of skulls were scattered across the Nubian land. These “skull mountains,” as Alexius I and his men came to call them, were so vile, that some Orthodox troops fell sick at the sight of them. The surviving Copts of Nubia were starving and poor. Alexius I did everything in his power to help Nubia recover, but it wouldn’t be until years after his reign that the region would become what it had once been.
And to add insult to injury, it seemed as if the Latin army had disappeared completely. No one knows where the Latins went, though there are many theories. Some say that they sailed across the Red Sea to Arabia and started a new life there. Others say that they went to Ethiopia and raided cities there. Still others theorize that the 20,000 Latins were abducted by aliens, or that they traveled across the Sahara.
One thing is certain; they were not in Nubia, and Alexius I never found them. The most likely theory is that the Latins realized the futility of staying in Nubia, so they massacred the Nubians and sacked all the cities, and tried to migrate to a new land, most likely dying out in the Sahara. Though recent archeological expeditions show that there may be evidence that the Latins raided cities in Ethiopia before being killed.
By the end of 1105, Alexius I had done all he could to rebuild Nubia. So finally, the Orthodox army returned home. From 1103 to 1105, over 75,000 soldiers had died. And the numbers of killed Nubians are estimated at over 50,000. The unimaginable horrors for Orthodoxy had ended. But the horrors for the Catholics had just begun.