India 2001 books

The result was
a complete victory, ten thousand of the enemy falling dead upon the
field. Then the Christian army marched to Iconium, where they found
relief from their hunger and weariness.
After recruiting they marched forward, and on June 10, 1190, reached
the little river Cydnus, in Cilicia. Here the road and the bridge over
the stream were so blocked up with beasts of burden that the progress of
the army was greatly reduced. The bold old warrior, impatient to rejoin
his son Frederick, who led the van, would not wait for the bridge to be
cleared, but spurred his war-horse forward and plunged into the stream.
Unfortunately, he had miscalculated the strength of the current. Despite
the efforts of the noble animal, it was borne away by the swift stream,
and when at length assistance reached the aged emperor he was found to
be already dead.
Never was a man more mourned than was the valiant Barbarossa by his
army, and by the Germans on hearing of his death. His body was borne by
the sorrowing soldiers to Antioch, where it was buried in the church of
St.


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