ago an English saint was taken from Egypt, or why an English king
was fighting in Palestine. They merely have a vague idea that George
of Cappadocia was naturalised much in the same way as George of Hanover.
They almost certainly suppose that Coeur de Lion in his wanderings
happened to meet the King of Egypt, as Captain Cook might happen
to meet the King of the Cannibal Islands. To understand the past
connection of England with the near East, it is necessary to understand
something that lies behind Europe and even behind the Roman Empire;
something that can only be conveyed by the name of the Mediterranean.
When people talk, for instance, as if the Crusades were nothing
more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget
in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive
raid against the old and ordered civilisation in these parts.
I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; as will be
apparent later, I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it;
but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom
that was the thing invaded. An Arabian gentleman found riding
on the road to Paris or hammering on the gates of Vienna can hardly
complain that we have sought him out in his simple tent in the desert.
The conqueror of Sicily and Spain cannot reasonably express surprise at
being an object of morbid curiosity to the people of Italy and France.
In the city of Cairo the stranger feels many of the Moslem merits,
but he certainly feels the militaristic character of the Moslem glories.
The crown of the city is the citadel, built by the great Saladin
but of the spoils of ancient Egyptian architecture; and that fact
is in its turn very symbolical. The man was a great conqueror,
but he certainly behaved like an invader; he spoiled the Egyptians.
He broke the old temples and tombs and built his own out of fragments.
Nor is this the only respect in which the citadel of Cairo is set
high like a sign in heaven. The sign is also significant because