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A trip to Homs would be meaningless if you do not
visit the Krak des chevaliers (Castle of the Knights). You will
reach it by means of an excellent highway and good roads by taxi
(from Homs or Tell Kalakh) or by minibus, which you can catch at the
road station at Homs (Hama Road), (take any bus in the direction of
Kalaat AI-Husn). You go on the Tartous highway, crossing first an
industrial suburb of Homs where you will see an oil refinery.
Then you cross a bare, monotonous countryside and drive up to the
threshold of Homs which at 600 m. separates the Djebel Ansariyeh
from Mount Lebanon to the south. This depression, allows the passage
of clouds, thus conditioning the fertility of this part of the
Syrian plateau where the growing of cereals and sugar beet extends
more than anywhere else at the foot of mountains stretching from the
plains of Aleppo to the Gulf of Aqaba.
The Krak des Chevaliers, the greatest castle in the world, was the
headquarter of the Hospitallers - the knights of St. John. It stands
above sea level and commands the strategic
valley
2.300ft between Homs and Tripoli. The castle was never taken
by storm, it surrendered to the Mameluke Baybars
in 1271.
Visiting the Krak des Chevaliers, you will discover why it is
considered to be a model of perfection in medieval fortification. A
perfection in a strictly functional sense, as the castle was not
built to flatter the tastes of its masters with noble architecture,
but to guard the Homs gap and the northern exit of the plain of the
Bekaa and prevent the Moslems access to the coast then held by the
Franks. However, the efficiency of the buildings, i.e. their perfect
adaptation to the land configuration, is found to enhance their
beauty, equilibrium, and harmony. It is built on a high hill, Mount
Khalil, rising to 750 m., at. about 300 m. above the Homs gap and
the plain of the Bouqaya, where olive and fig trees are cultivated
as well as wheat.
To appreciate the majesty of this fortress, one must proceed beyond
the entrance up to an elevation dominating it at the south. From up
there you will grasp more easily the extraordinary image of power
emanating from this compound of glacis, barbicans, casemates, towers
and bastions, a fantastic accumulation of defensive organs, so
concentrated that they appear as a symbol of invulnerability. Such
is the impression of force one receives from the Krak that nowadays
Arabs use a very revealing pleonasm (Qalaat AI-Husn, the Castle of
the Fortress) to describe it. Moslem former chroniclers called it
the Husn EI-Akrad, the Fortress of the Kurds. The place was actually
given to a Kurdish garrison by an Emir of Aleppo
in 1031. A castle
was erected and was conquered in 1099 by the Count of Toulouse,
Raymond de Saint-Gilles, but taken by Tancrede in 1110. The Knights
of the Hospital occupied it
in 1142 when Atabeg Zeng', the master of
Aleppo, became very threatening. Many times destroyed by earthquakes
during which times the enemies of the Crusaders tried to take
advantage of the situation and conquer it, the Krak was
reconstructed in the early 13th century, and it owes its present
general appearance to these works. On April 8,1271, the Krak, under
repeated assaults lasting more than one month by an army under Ihe
command of the Mameluke Sultan Baybars, surrendered and to achieve
this, Baybars resorted to trickery. A forged letter was conveyed
into the castle, purporting to come from the grand commander at
Tripoli. It instructed the knights to surrender. They did and thus
fell the greatest fortress in history, that had held for 161 years.
Before its fall, the Krak had repelled many attacks from great
Moslem commanders, such as Zengi, Noureddin in 1163 and Saladin a
generation later, who on inspecting its formidable defense, withdrew
without attempting a siege. It had only 300 knights at the time of
its fall.
The garrison of the Krak, about 2,000 knights in normal times, had
not only a defensive, but also an offensive function. It had the
charge or repelling marauders who harassed this small plain of the
Bouqaya where settlers, recruited among the Christians of Syria
provided its regular supplies, but also that of intercepting Moslem
armies marching to Tripoli. From a top the hill where you can look
at the fortress before entering it, you will notice that nothing
took place in the Homs gap that was not seen by the defenders.
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Krak was also used as a basis of attack
against cities of the hinterland, such as Homs and Hama. On
such occasions the place resounded with the tumult and
clamours of about two thousand armed knights of various
orders, Christian, Syrian and Armenian auxiliaries, and
Turcoples, a light cavalry of Moslem mercenaries working for
the Franks under the command of a knight of the Hospital
called Turcopliar.
The ideal thing is to arrive at the Krak early in the
morning to see the sunrise on these stones, more than seven
centuries old, which give the impression of a ghost ship
emerging from the fog. The main entrance, on the east side,
is made in a salient of the outer wall, remarkably restored,
as well as the the rest of the castle, with its round or
square shaped towers, its bretessy salient which the Arabs
altered in the late 13th century. Before entering, take a
walk around, clockwise from the entrance. The southern side,
more exposed than the others to blows of the enemy, is
defended by a strong bastion which was added late in the
13th century by Sultan Baybars, and two other angle
constructions in the shape of a half circle, while a
barbican, and advanced defense construction, was surrounded
by three moats, now filled, in the front of the powerful
Frank wall.
The western side, very regular with its beautiful curtain of
a crenellated wall-walk and buttresses, is strengthened with
five round shaped towers. The northern front includes a
postern between two square shaped towers, the external face
of which was rounded in the late 13th century by the Arabs.
The main entrance is highly impressive: a wide ramped and
vaulted passage that leads to the inner enclosure wall and
to the platform between the two concentric walls. The inner
wall' was erected by the Franks before the arrival of the
Knights of the Hospital, in 1142, but most of the towers
strengthening it were altered later on (end of the 12th
century), as well as some parts of the wall joining the
sides of the two neighboring bastions. This second wall,
much higher, controls all the works of the first one . Large
taluses were added to the west, south, and east, at the
beginning of the 13th century to strengthen the wall and
make it more resistant to earthquakes. The southern front
was also protected by a large cistern or berqil (Birket),
excavated between the two walls. It received water by means
of an aqueduct which provided water to the garrison's horses
and livestock.
Entry to the inner wall takes place by a powerful square
shaped salient, the passage ends on an esplanade under which
are huge silos, stores and reserves. To the right a
Romanesque chapel, barrel-vaulted, forms a slight protrusion
on the curtain with its apse. Of its transformation into a
mosque by Baybars there remain a "minbar" or preaching chair
and three "mihrabs". Opposite the chapel on the southern
front is the recess with three powerful towers partly
covered by the thick talus strengthening the adjoining wall
on this side. The least considerable of the towers, round
shaped, was used as a chamber for the Grand Master of the
order. A spiral staircase leads to a beautiful round shaped
room with a cross- ribbed vault supported by four small
columns sunk into the wall. It is connected to the middle
bastion by a vast two - floored dwelling with double bay,
with Gothic vaulting. The central edifice or keep looks from
the esplanade like a rectangular salient, with large blocks,
while the outer-side is rounded. Three large, very elegant
windows look out from the two floors. The third erection,
the most impressive one, is connected to the keep by a thick
and very wide massif taking the place of an adjoining wall
and forming an armed place on which many war engines could
be placed. From this bastion one dominates a five - sided
erection which was altered at the end of the 13th century by
Baybars to better control an incline giving access to the
second wall and control the platform between the two
adjoining walls.
A door facing that which opens on the inner yard gives
access to the big hall, an elegant construction of the
middle 13th century, which is preceded by a portico with
seven rib-vaulted bays. This gallery, with two doors in the
form of a broken arch and five twin elegant shaped windows,
forms a kind of clositor. The large hall of the knights,
communicating with a 120-meter long hall contained a well, a
round-shaped bakery, and latrines and must have been used as
a dwelling by a part of the garrison as well as for stores.
Just 6 km from the Krak des Chevaliers, you have the Convent
of Saint George, built at the time of Emperor
Justinian
(527-565), which has always been inhabited by Greek Orthodox
monks. The old underground chapel contains beautiful
woodworks and precious icons of the 13th century. The new
church, erected in 1857, has no particularly interesting
feature save for its treasure of numerous icons, crosses of
massive or finely chiseled silver, chalices, silks, etc... |
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