Ch.52Side Story – Samarians, The Innocent Born in Sin

# The Third Great Holy War

(…) The Third Great Holy War ended with the victory of the Empire-Southern Kingdom alliance. The reason for the abundant gossip that followed wasn’t about debating whether the holy war was truly a victory or defeat.

Rather, it was a dispute about the definition and nature of the holy war itself: Should it be viewed as legitimate self-defense against invaders? As a tragedy where massacre was repaid with massacre? Or was it simply an inevitable occurrence that was bound to happen eventually?

From the beginning, the Great Holy War was controversial. Historical texts state that “armed conflict between the Magdeburg garrison and the Western pagan merchant caravan guards served as the catalyst,” but this is only half the truth.

In reality, it began with both sides, unarmed and off-duty, getting drunk at a tavern and engaging in a fistfight. While the Papal Office neither confirms nor denies this, cross-verification between the Magdeburg garrison’s disciplinary records and Western pagans’ historical records confirms that a tavern brawl was indeed the trigger.

Does this mean the Third Great Holy War was merely “an incident that escalated from a fistfight to a holy war”? Not at all. Such a brief statement severely distorts and glosses over the enormous historical truth.

Until the Fifth Great Holy War, no battlefield had seen so many deaths. Compared to holy wars before and after, the ratio of wounded was lowest, but the death rate was excessively high. The civilian casualty rate was also higher than in any other war.

There was no mercy for the wounded, no accommodation for prisoners. Only massacres, executions, and secret burials. No distinction was made between civilians and soldiers, children and the elderly.

It was a fanatical clash between two worlds.

What made this trend particularly pronounced in the Third Great Holy War?

Imperial strategists point to the southern plains that served as the main theater of war. Being flat terrain, large-scale battles were prioritized over mobile warfare, and the distance between frontlines made safe evacuation of the wounded difficult.

They also cite the prevalence of siege warfare focused on cities and fortresses rather than open-field battles as another reason.

Cities and fortresses provide safer conditions for supply, defense, offense, and rest than open fields. The siege-oriented battlefield extended the war’s duration and amplified collateral civilian casualties.

Ironically, the relatively low walls of southern cities (except Magdeburg) worked against them.

Well-built fortresses can withstand enemy attacks for two or three years if food and morale are maintained. However, southern cities and fortresses were primarily trading centers. While they could maintain basic perimeter security, their open structure made them easy to capture but difficult to defend.

Thus, strategists conclude that siege warfare in the south should more accurately be viewed as “high ground warfare.” People crowded into narrow, safe spaces to avoid the exposed open terrain, resulting in higher casualties.

But this explanation is also incomplete.

Let’s examine the records. In the early stages, the war was no different from an ordinary conflict. There was no unnecessary pursuit, and humanitarian treatment of the wounded and prisoner exchanges occurred regularly.

Moreover, as wars drag on, the initial momentum typically weakens for both attackers and defenders. Will decreases while fatigue increases. This is especially true in battlefields like the Third Holy War, where frontlines tended to solidify.

Imperial army request records show that in the early stages, there were many inquiries about prisoner accommodation and treatment difficulties, and guidelines for dealing with civilians.

Yet the Third Holy War showed exactly the opposite pattern. While these principles existed initially, prisoner accommodation, wounded exchanges, and civilian protection disappeared after the middle phase.

Instead, complaints and petitions from Magdeburg’s administrators and residents poured in. They pleaded to stop using civilians for temporary burial of corpses and reported that flies swarmed and waterborne diseases spread because bodies were carelessly thrown into rivers.

This is why the fall of “Masada Fortress” holds significant meaning in the Third Holy War—the very battle that created the idiom “Jericho’s Trumpet.”

In the early stages of the war, Western pagans reached the gates of Magdeburg. Magdeburg, then the southernmost fortress city of the Empire, functioned as the “anvil” against pagan attacks.

The Holy Grail Knights and Mercy Knights dispatched from the Southern Kingdom became the “hammer,” successfully attacking the pagans’ rear and halting their offensive.

Without the valiant command of Shajar al-Durr, the slave-born commander nicknamed “Sword Dancer,” there’s no doubt that a massive encirclement and annihilation formation would have been completed around the Magdeburg fields.

Shajar al-Durr retreated in orderly fashion during the day and used well-trained mounted archer detachments to wear down the Empire-Southern alliance forces at night—a classic delaying tactic.

Such one-sided attacks were possible because of the stark difference in “horses.”

Horses from the western desert regions grew up in harsh climates. Consequently, they had superior lung capacity and muscle mass compared to Empire and Southern Kingdom horses, enabling them to perform tasks that would burst the heart of an ordinary horse.

Thus, Shajar al-Durr successfully retreated with her main forces to Masada Fortress, known as the iron wall shield. Unlike other places, Masada was a well-built frontline fortress that withstood seven offensive attempts.

The equipment, supplies, and troops coming from Emmaus—then more prosperous than Magdeburg in its prime—couldn’t be ignored. Warriors from across the western desert were flooding into the Southern Kingdom.

This posed a difficult problem for the Empire, which had barely resolved its chaotic internal strife.

Until the Third Holy War, Western pagan national power was perceived to be superior to the Empire’s. While the West enjoyed political and religious stability through unity under the Stone-Fire Faith, the Empire was still uprooting remnants of the indigenous “Life Tree Faith,” which bordered on superstition.

Some claim that “the Life Tree Faith had long been extinct, and Emperor Alexios I actually accused nobles who openly opposed him of Life Tree heresy to slander them.”

However, they deliberately exclude the fact that the Life Tree Faith had been openly widespread among the general public since before the Empire, and that many current noble families descended from Life Tree Faith religious leaders or warrior priests.

In doing so, they attempt to tarnish the achievements of my wise and great father, Emperor Alexios I. I must point out here that the behavior of certain professors who betray their beliefs through secret dealings with nobles deserves criticism on both ethical and moral grounds.

Let us rein in this digression. While the allied forces, having encountered fierce resistance at Masada Fortress, took a brief rest, an envoy arrived from the West with a letter from the Caliph, their religious leader.

Excluding the long, complex diplomatic rhetoric, the details were as follows:

The Caliph expressed willingness to cede to the Empire the territory from eastern Masada to Magdeburg, which originally belonged to the Western pagans. In return, he requested that the Empire and Southern Kingdom pay a reasonable amount to resettle the Western Kingdom residents living in those lands.

While this could be seen as selling land for money, the Caliph’s strategy was cunning. He knew the Empire and Southern Kingdom’s issues were political chaos rather than financial problems. He recognized they had both the willingness and ability to pay to reduce political turmoil.

He also knew what the Pope truly wanted was to guarantee the Southern Kingdom’s border security. Before the current borders were drawn, the Southern Kingdom shared considerable boundary with Western pagan territory, creating potential instability for Southern Kingdom merchants.

However, if they received the eastern Masada region, the Southern Kingdom would no longer share any border with Western pagan territory.

My father, Emperor Alexios I, who stood firmly to protect the Empire when needed yet loved peace and stability more than anyone, determined that addressing the Empire’s chaos—caused by noble rebellions and Life Tree heretic resurgence—was the top priority.

Consequently, the frontlines entered a ceasefire, and discussions appeared to progress well. But the situation changed dramatically when Masada Fortress collapsed overnight—the legendary event where Commander Jericho of the Holy Grail Knights allegedly blew his trumpet, appealing to God, causing the walls to crumble.

Commander Jericho definitely blew his trumpet, but it was a signal to the engineering corps, not a divine miracle. While I agree that divine assistance helped the operation succeed, I wish to emphasize that God doesn’t simply deliver miracles without human effort.

Even during ceasefire negotiations, the Southern Kingdom and Papal armies were secretly digging tunnels beneath Masada Fortress—an infiltration so covert that even Imperial forces were unaware of it.

They exploited the Western pagans’ vulnerability to tunnel detection techniques, as people living in vast deserts and plains lacked knowledge of siege warfare.

The Southern Kingdom’s engineering corps dug tunnels beneath Masada Fortress and erected wooden supports. When Commander Jericho blew his trumpet, the engineers doused rotting animal carcasses with oil, set them ablaze, and quickly evacuated.

The tunnel exploded, the supports collapsed, and the walls crumbled. Special detachments of Mercy Knights and Holy Grail Knights entered through the fallen walls, cutting down everyone in sight.

Soldiers and civilians, adults and children, men and women—all were treated the same. The slogan “God wills it—Deus vult” was etched into everyone’s mind like a curse.

Only one person survived: Shajar al-Durr. She didn’t flee but resisted until the end and was captured alive.

Yet this led to even greater calamity. The knights stripped her of all clothing and bound her tightly beneath the blood-soaked banners of the Mercy Knights and Holy Grail Knights. They beheaded her subordinates one by one, poured their blood over her body, and built a pyramid of severed heads before her.

It was meant to force her surrender. Still, she refused.

Defining Shajar al-Durr as a witch who had abandoned human emotions, the knights proceeded to “correct” her—an act so cruel and vicious that even the Pope criticized it as excessive.

They committed atrocities that no person should inflict on another, yet did so casually in God’s name.

No woman could have suffered greater humiliation. No human could have been more brutally trampled. It was an insult to existence itself.

News reached the West. The Caliph was furious. What followed was a slaughter. Blood washed away blood, and vengeance begot vengeance. By then, assigning blame had become meaningless.

The knights tied the naked Shajar al-Durr to a cross, stuffed cloth in her mouth to prevent self-harm, and proudly displayed her on a cart for all to see.

Western pagans rushed in solely to rescue her, and the knights easily defeated them.

The pagans did the same in return. They stripped survivors naked and marched with them hanging upside down from poles. The atrocities escalated, and madness grew without limit.

The knights didn’t win unilaterally. Land that belonged to the knights one night might be reclaimed by pagans the next day. However, the tide gradually turned in favor of the allied forces as Emmaus began running out of supplies.

While reaching Emmaus from the Western Kingdom required crossing a vast, hot desert, the Empire and Southern Kingdom could easily supply troops and provisions through green fields and villages.

Finally, Emmaus fell. The Caliph completely abandoned the eastern desert region. The allied forces, having no desire to invade across the western desert, halted their westward advance.

However, the tragedy of Masada wasn’t repeated because the Caliph and Emperor Alexios I had reached a secret agreement.

While fanatic warriors celebrated the Third Holy War victory, Imperial knights and White Blood Knights arrested all war criminals. This was the moment when the White Blood Knights, once the Empire’s troublemakers, stepped into the flow of history.

The arrests were ruthless, swift, and based on clear evidence.

The battle against corrupt Holy Grail Knights during this process remains a disgrace to the Holy Grail Knights and a source of pride for the White Blood Knights to this day. Just three White Blood Knights slaughtered thirty-six Holy Grail Knights.

The taunt—”No holy grail, not knights, not even a group, just demons obsessed with lust”—remains an indelible stigma for the Holy Grail Knights.

The White Blood Knights thus rescued Shajar. She was still alive, maintained enough mental clarity to testify about the Papal knights’ war crimes, and was near childbirth.

Faced with accusations, testimonies, deepening war fatigue, and deteriorating public opinion, the Pope and Southern Kingdom completely abandoned territorial occupation. Numerous Holy Grail and Mercy Knights received severe beatings and property confiscation from Imperial forces before being expelled beyond the borders.

The Emperor personally handed over the most excessive commanding officers to the Caliph as “symbols of gifts and friendship,” preventing any resistance from the knights.

In exchange, the Pope requested that Magdeburg be designated a holy site and asked for free use of trade routes. The Emperor accepted.

The southern highway, once a trading center, was too devastated to know where to begin repairs, and restoring it as a trade center would have been difficult even with the Empire’s power at that time.

Even today, the border region from western Magdeburg to the desert forms an ambiguous cultural zone that belongs neither to the Empire nor the Western Kingdom. Volunteer armies that participated in the holy war settled there as residents, creating a strange fusion with the indigenous people.

Mixed-blood children between people of the Empire, Southern Kingdom, and Western foreigners increased dramatically around this time.

These children were unwelcome in both the Empire and the West. They were called Samarians, meaning people of Samaria—the capital of an ancient, forgotten kingdom abandoned even by the Western Kingdom. Thus, being a Samarian was essentially equivalent to being “forsaken.”

Shajar al-Durr remained unbending in the Imperial Palace. She never surrendered and spoke relatively coherently. A newborn baby nursed at her breast. Like other children, this baby too was a “Samarian.”

The Emperor didn’t point out her rudeness. He pitied her, praised her high courage, and treated her more as a foreign dignitary than an enemy commander. The Emperor promised her a high position and good doctors. To him, she remained the great general of the West.

However, she politely declined everything. Instead, she requested to settle in Emmaus with the Samarians. The Emperor granted this, personally dispatched Imperial teachers, and prohibited any discrimination against Samarians.

Shajar al-Durr lived in lifelong silence, and the Samarians came to regard Emmaus as their homeland. Though they grew up without parents, they developed safely within the Empire’s embrace and increased their numbers.

Similarly, the Emperor defined the character of the Third Crusade as:

“Active defense.”

Thanks to this excellent expression, the Third Crusade was defined as the Empire and Pope’s active “defensive war” that drove away the Western troublemakers—meaning they attacked the enemy’s bridgehead to eliminate the temptation of attack.

Unknown at the time, the Emperor’s mercy would later be rewarded in another form.

For one of the Seven Heroes who defeated the Demon King, Lady Arianne of “Humility,” was herself a Samarian.

– From “Samarians, Innocent Ones Born in Sin” by Anna Kommodus, Capital Academy Press.