THE TEMPLE IN THE EAST 43
was sold to the Emperor of Constantinople, but he was help-
less to defend the territory and the Saracens quickly overran
the whole principality. The capture of Edessa is the turning
point in the war between the East and the West. From then
onwards, the power of the Christians waned steadily; though
at time§ they seemed to recover their strength and small forces
of Franks were yet to put great Moslem armies to flight, the
decline of the Latin states in the East had set in and the
Christians were fighting a losing battle.
The Crusaders had invaded Syria at a time when Islam was
disorganised, and their numbers, their ferocity and daring,
their superior weapons of offence and defence, and their
methods of fighting had won the victory. The courage of
the Franks still remained high, but the appetite for war had
passed among many of them. Only the Templars and a
small proportion of the seculars felt that in fighting the
Moslem they were engaged in a holy war under the leader-
ship of Christ. Neither side now had any advantage in
weapons, and the Moslems had learned the tactics of the
Westerners. The decisive factor was that of numbers. The
Christians had been left with only the skeleton of an army at
the end of the First Crusade, and from the time of Godfrey
de Bouillon had always been vastly outnumbered. The
terror inspired by the original Crusaders had been the best
protection of the Christians for two generations, but the
legend of the invincibility of the warriors of the West was
bound to be disproved when, as happened on several occasions,
a few hundred knights gave battle to a force twenty times as
large. Islam was not yet united—had it been, the Christians
would have been swept out of Syria instantly j but dissension
had multiplied in the Latin states and in the second quarter
of the twelfth century quarrels handicapped the Franks even
more than the Moslems,
To the Temple, the fall of Edessa proved of advantage at
first, as the success of the infidel aroused enthusiasm anew for