Children's Crusade. Historical artwork of the Children's Crusade of 1212 on its way to the Holy Land. This is thought to be a conflation of two attempts by child preachers to lead bands of children and juveniles to Jerusalem. The first was a shepherd boy called Nicholas from Cologne, Germany, whose group crossed the Alps to Genoa in Italy. The second was a group led by Stephan, a shepherd boy from Cloyes, France, whose group travelled to Marseille. Neither group went further, though some accounts tell of thousands of children dying on the journeys, in shipwrecks, or being sold into slavery by merchants. This engraving dates from circa 1888.