A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 (29 page)

While they were still at Constantinople the
Emperor Alexius had advised the Crusaders to arrive at some sort of
understanding with the Fatimids of Egypt. The Fatimids were uncompromising
enemies to the Turks; they were tolerant towards their Christian subjects and
had always been ready to treat with the Christian powers. The Crusaders
probably had not followed this advice; but in the early spring an Egyptian
embassy arrived at the camp before Antioch, sent by al-Afdal, the all-powerful
vizier of the boy Caliph, al-Mustali. His proposal seems to have been that a
division should be made of the Seldjuk empire; the Franks should take northern
Syria and Egypt should take Palestine. Al-Afdal no doubt regarded the Crusaders
merely as the mercenaries of the Emperor and assumed therefore that such a
division, based on the state of affairs before the Turkish invasions, would be
perfectly acceptable. The western princes received the ambassadors with
cordiality, though they did not commit themselves to any specific arrangement.
The Egyptians stayed for some weeks at the camp and returned home accompanied
by a small Frankish embassy and laden with gifts, chiefly derived from the
booty captured in the battle on 6 March. The negotiations taught the Crusaders
the advantages that might emerge from intrigues with the Moslem powers. Laying
aside their religious prejudices they next, on the news of Kerbogha’s
preparations, sent to Duqaq of Damascus, asking for his neutrality and
declaring that they had no designs on his territory. Duqaq, who regarded his
brother Ridwan of Aleppo as his chief enemy and saw that Ridwan had reverted to
his former neutrality, did not acquiesce with their wishes.

The Plot to
Capture Antioch

Early in May it was known that Kerbogha was on
the march. Besides his own troops, men had been provided by the Sultans of
Baghdad and of Persia and from the Ortoqid princes of northern Mesopotamia;
Duqaq was waiting to join him; and at Antioch Yaghi-Siyan, though hard pressed,
was still holding out. Amongst the Crusaders tension grew. They knew that
unless they captured the city first they would be crushed between the garrison
and the huge relieving army. The Emperor Alexius was now campaigning in Asia
Minor. A desperate appeal was sent to him to hurry to their rescue. Bohemond,
determined to win Antioch for himself, had special cause for worry. If the
Emperor arrived before Antioch fell or if Kerbogha were defeated only with the
Emperor’s help, then it would be impossible not to restore Antioch to the
Empire. Most of the princes were prepared to give Bohemond the city; but
Raymond of Toulouse, probably supported by the Bishop of Le Puy, would not
agree. Raymond’s motives have often been discussed. He, alone of the princes,
was not bound by an explicit oath to the Emperor; but he had left
Constantinople on good terms with the Emperor; he hated and suspected Bohemond
as his chief rival for the military leadership of the Crusade; and both he and
the legate may have considered that if the oath was invalid, the Church, of
which Adhemar was the representative, should alone be able to allot territory.
After some discussion and intrigue a compromise was reached. If Bohemond were
the prince whose troops first entered the city, and if the Emperor never came,
he should receive it for himself. Even so, Raymond demurred, but Bohemond
already had reason to be satisfied.

Kerbogha’s own miscalculation gave the Crusade
a breathing-space. He did not like to advance on Antioch leaving a Frankish
army in Edessa in a position to threaten his right flank. He did not realize
that Baldwin was too weak for offensive action but was too strong in his great fortress
to be easily displaced. For the last three weeks of May he paused in front of
Edessa, vainly attacking its walls, before he decided that the effort and the
time lost were not worth while.

During these three precious weeks Bohemond was
hard at work. At some time he had established a connection with a captain
inside the city of Antioch, whose name was Firouz. Firouz was apparently an
Armenian converted to Islam, who had risen to a high position in Yaghi-Siyan’s
government. Though outwardly loyal he was jealous of his master, who had
recently fined him for hoarding grain; and he kept in touch with his former
co-religionists. Through them he reached an understanding with Bohemond and
agreed to sell the city. The secret of the transaction was well kept. Bohemond
took no one into his confidence. Instead, he publicly emphasized the dangers
ahead in order to increase the value of his coming triumph.

His propaganda was only too successful. At the
end of May Kerbogha abandoned the profitless siege of Edessa and continued his
advance. As he approached, panic began to spread in the Crusaders’ camp.
Deserters began to slip away in such numbers that it was useless to try to stop
them. At last, on 2 June, a large body of the northern French took the road to
Alexandretta, led by Stephen of Blois. Only two months before Stephen had
written cheerfully to his wife from the camp, to tell her of the difficulties
of the siege but also to describe the triumphant battle of 6 March and to
emphasize his own importance in the army. But now, with the city still untaken
and Kerbogha’s host at hand, it seemed to him mere folly to await for certain
massacre. He had never been a great fighting man, but at least he would live to
fight another day. Of all the princes Stephen had been most enthusiastic in his
admiration for the Emperor. Bohemond must have smiled to see him go; but he
could not foretell how useful this flight would be to his cause.

The Eve of the
Assault

Had Stephen delayed his departure for only a
few hours he would have changed his mind. On that very day Firouz sent his son
to Bohemond to say that he was ready for the act of treachery. It was later
rumoured that he had been hesitating right up till the evening before, when he
discovered that his wife was compromised with one of his Turkish colleagues. He
was now in command or the Tower of the Two Sisters and the adjoining section of
the wall of the city on the outside, facing the castle of Tancred. He therefore
urged Bohemond to assemble the Crusading army that afternoon and lead it out
eastward, as though he were going to intercept Kerbogha; then, after dark, the
troops should creep back to the western wall, bringing their ladders to scale
the tower where he would be watching for them. If Bohemond agreed to this, he
would send back his son as a hostage that evening as a sign that he was
prepared.

Bohemond took his advice. As the day drew on he
sent one of his infantrymen, whose name was Male Couronne, round the camp as a
herald to bid the army be ready to set out at sunset for a raid in enemy
territory. Then he invited the chief princes to see him, Adhemar, Raymond,
Godfrey and Robert of Flanders, and, for the first time, told them of his plot.
‘Tonight’, he said, ‘if God favours us, Antioch will be given into our hands.’
Whatever jealousy Raymond may have felt was left unspoken. He and his
colleagues gave their loyal support to the scheme.

As the sun set the Crusading army set out
eastward, the cavalry riding up the valley in front of the city and the
infantry toiling over the hill-paths behind it. The Turks within the city saw
them go and relaxed, in expectation of a quiet night. But in the middle of the
night orders were given throughout the army to turn back to the west and
north-west walls. Just before dawn Bohemond’s troops arrived before the Tower
of the Two Sisters. A ladder was placed against the tower; and, one after the
other, sixty knights climbed up, led by Fulk of Chartres, and entered through a
window high on the wall into a room where Firouz was nervously waiting. As they
first entered he thought their numbers insufficient. ‘We have so few Franks’,
he cried out in Greek, ‘where is Bohemond?’ He need not have worried. From the
Two Sisters the knights took over the other two towers under his control,
enabling their friends to set ladders against the intervening stretches of the
wall, while an Italian infantryman went to tell Bohemond that it was time for
him to climb into the city. The ladder broke behind him; but while some of the
soldiers ran along the wall, surprising the garrisons in their towers, others
descended into the city and roused the Christian inhabitants and with their
help flung open the Gate of St George and the great Gate of the Bridge, across
which the bulk of the army was waiting. The Crusaders now poured in through the
gates, meeting with little opposition. Greeks and Armenians joined them in
massacring all the Turks that they saw, women as well as men, including Firouz’s
own brother. Many Christians perished in the confusion. Yaghi-Siyan himself,
awakening to the clamour, at once concluded that all was lost. With his
bodyguard he fled on horseback up the gorge that led to the Iron Gate and out
on to the hillside. But his son Shams ad-Daula kept his head. Gathering what
men he could find he made his way up to the citadel before the Franks could
overtake him. Bohemond followed but failed to force an entrance; so he planted
his purple banner on the highest point that he could reach. The sight of it,
waving in the light of the rising sun, cheered the Crusaders far below as they
entered into the city.

When he had gathered enough men Bohemond
attempted a serious assault on the citadel. But he was driven back and was
himself wounded. His men preferred to return to the more agreeable task of
sacking and looting the city streets; while he was soon consoled by receiving
from an Armenian peasant the head of Yaghi-Siyan. Yaghi-Siyan had been thrown
from his horse on a mountain path as he fled. His escort had deserted him; and
as he lay there exhausted and half-stunned some Armenians had found him and
recognized him. They killed him at once; and while one earned a handsome reward
by bringing Bohemond his head the others sold his belt and his scimitar-sheath
for sixty bezants apiece.

The Capture of
the City

By nightfall on 3 June there was no Turk left
alive in Antioch; and even from neighbouring villages to which the Franks had
never penetrated the Turkish population had fled, to seek refuge with Kerbogha.
The houses of the citizens of Antioch, of Christians as well as of Moslems,
were pillaged. The treasures and the arms found there were scattered or
wantonly destroyed. You could not walk on the streets without treading on
corpses, all of them rotting rapidly in the summer heat. But Antioch was
Christian once more.

CHAPTER IV

THE POSSESSION
OF ANTIOCH

‘He hath put
forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken his
covenant
.’
PSALMS LV, 20

The capture of Antioch was an achievement that
gladdened Christian hearts. But when their triumphant frenzy died down and the
Crusaders took stock of their position, they found themselves little better off
than before. Great advantages had been gained. They had the city
fortifications, undamaged in the battle, to protect them from Kerbogha’s hosts;
their civilian followers, numerous still in spite of disease and desertion,
were sheltered and no longer the liability that they had been in the camp. The
Turkish army that the city had contained was almost annihilated and no longer a
steady threat. But the defence of the long line of the walls needed more men
than they could now afford. The citadel was untaken and must be picketed.
Though its garrison was too weak to take the offensive, from its summit every
movement in the city could be watched; and it was impossible to prevent it from
establishing a liaison with Kerbogha. In the city the Crusaders found none of
the stores of food that they had hoped for, and themselves in their
intoxication had destroyed most of its wealth. And though the Moslems were
slain the native Christian population could not be trusted. The Syrians, in
particular, had been treacherous in the past and had little sympathy for the
Latins. Their treachery provided a far greater risk to an army defending the
city than to one encamped outside. Moreover, the victory brought to a head a
question that already showed signs of splitting the Crusade: to whom should the
city be given?

Kerbogha’s
Approach

At first there was no time to spare to debate
the city’s future. Kerbogha was advancing; and it must be defended against this
present attack. Bohemond, whatever he might be planning, had not the troops to
man the walls without the help of his colleagues. All must share in the
defences; and each of the princes took over a section of the fortifications.
The army’s immediate task was to clear up the city and to bury the dead
quickly, before the decaying corpses started an epidemic. While the soldiers
were thus engaged, the Bishop of Le Puy arranged for the Cathedral of St Peter
and the other churches that the Turks had desecrated to be cleaned and restored
to Christian worship. The Patriarch John was released from his prison and
replaced on the Patriarchal throne. John was a Greek, who disliked the Latin
rite; but he was the legitimate Patriarch of a see still in full communion with
Rome. Adhemar was certainly not going to offend against legitimacy and local
sentiment by ignoring his rights. Nor did any of the Crusaders, aware of John’s
sufferings for the Faith, resent his restoration; except, perhaps, Bohemond,
who may have foreseen its inconvenience to himself.

The Crusaders were barely able to install
themselves in the city before Kerbogha came up. On 5 June he reached the
Orontes at the Iron Bridge; and two days later he encamped before the walls, on
the very positions that the Franks had recently occupied. Shams ad-Daula at
once sent envoys from the citadel to ask for his help. But Kerbogha insisted
that the citadel should be taken over by his own troops. Shams begged to be
allowed to retain command till the city should be retaken, but in vain. He was
obliged to hand over the fortress and all its stores to Kerbogha’s trusted
lieutenant, Ahmed ibn Merwan.

Kerbogha’s first plan was to penetrate into the
city from the citadel. Foreseeing the danger, Bohemond and Raymond had
constructed a rough wall to cut it off from the city fortifications. As it was
the most vulnerable sector of the defence, it seems that the princes took turns
to man it. After a little reconnoitring Ahmed ibn Merwan launched an assault on
this sector, probably early on 9 June. Hugh of Vermandois, the Count of
Flanders and the Duke of Normandy were in charge of its defence, and were
almost overpowered; but in the end they drove him back with heavy loss. After
this Kerbogha decided that it would be less costly to blockade the Franks more
closely and attack them later when they were weakened by starvation. On the
10th he moved in to encircle the city completely. The Crusaders sought to
hinder him and made a fierce sortie but were soon forced to retreat again to
the safety of the walls.

The failure of
their effort cast the Crusaders into gloom. Their morale, raised for a while a
week before by the capture of the city, sank now to its lowest depths. Food was
again short. A small loaf cost a bezant, an egg two bezants and a chicken
fifteen. Many men lived only on the leaves of trees or on dried hides. Adhemar
of Le Puy vainly tried to organize relief for the poorer pilgrims. Amongst the
knights there were many who thought that Stephen of Blois had chosen the wisest
course. During the night of the 10th a company led by William and Aubrey of
Grant-Mesnil and Lambert, Count of Clermont, managed to pass through the enemy
lines and hurried down to the sea at St Symeon. There were Frankish ships in
the harbour, probably some Genoese and some belonging to Guynemer’s fleet. When
the fugitives arrived and announced that the Crusading army was inevitably
doomed, they hastily weighed anchor and set out for a safer port. The fugitives
sailed with them for Tarsus. There they joined forces with Stephen of Blois,
who had planned to return to Antioch when he heard of its capture but had been
deterred by a distant view of Kerbogha’s army. William of Grant-Mesnil had
married Bohemond’s sister Mabilla; and the defection of so close a relative of
the Norman chief could not fail to impress the army.

Alexius on the
Road to Antioch

It seemed now to the men inside Antioch that
their only chance of salvation would be the arrival of the Emperor and his forces.
It was already known that Alexius had started out from Constantinople. During
the spring John Ducas had advanced from Lydia into Phrygia as far as the main
road down which the Crusaders had travelled and at some time had reopened the
road to Attalia. Alexius therefore judged it safe to take his main army on into
the heart of Asia Minor in order to bring help to the Crusade, though many of
his advisers disliked an expedition that would take him so far from his capital
through country that was not yet cleared of the enemy. By the middle of June he
was at Philomelium. While he was preparing to march on, Stephen and William
appeared at the camp. They had sailed from Tarsus together, and on their
journey, probably at Attalia, they heard of the Emperor’s whereabouts. Leaving
their men to go on by sea they hurried northward to Philomelium to tell him
that the Turks by now were certainly in Antioch and the Crusader army
annihilated. About the same time he was joined by Peter of Aulps, who had
deserted his post at Comana, east of Caesarea, to report that a Turkish army
was advancing to strike at Alexius before he could reach Antioch. Alexius had
no reason to doubt their stories. Stephen had been a loyal and reliable friend
in the past; and such a disaster was by no means improbable. The news forced
him to reconsider his plans. If Antioch was taken and the Franks had perished,
the Turks would certainly continue their offensive. The Seldjuks would
undoubtedly attempt to regain what they had lost and they would have the whole
victorious Turkish world behind them. Under such circumstances it would be
madness to proceed with the expedition. As it was, his left flank was
dangerously exposed to Turkish attacks. To lengthen his communications at this
juncture, for a cause that was already lost, was unthinkable. Even had he been
an adventurer such as the princes of the Crusade, the risk would hardly have
been worth while. But he was responsible for the welfare of a great and
vulnerable Empire; and his first duty was to his subjects. He summoned his
council and told them that it was necessary to retire. There was a Norman
prince on his staff, Bohemond’s half-brother Guy, who had been for many years
in his service. Guy was moved by the thought of the Crusaders’ plight and begged
the Emperor to march on, on the chance that they could still be saved. But no
one supported his plea. The great Byzantine army retreated north-ward, leaving
a cordon of waste land to protect the newly-won territory from the Turks.

It would have been well for the Empire and for
the peace of eastern Christendom had Alexius listened to Guy’s pleading; though
he could not have reached Antioch before the decisive battle had been fought.
For when the rumour came to the Crusaders that the imperial army had turned
back, their bitterness was intense. They saw themselves as the warriors of
Christ against the infidel. To refuse to hurry to their aid, however hopeless
it might seem, was an act of treason towards the Faith. They could not
appreciate the Emperor’s other duties. Instead, his neglect seemed to justify
all the suspicion and dislike that they already felt for the Greeks. Byzantium
was never forgiven; and Bohemond found it all to the profit of his ambition.

The Intervention
of the Supernatural

The Crusaders realized that Stephen of Blois
was also to be blamed. Their chroniclers talked angrily of his cowardice; and
the story soon reached Europe. He himself returned by easy stages home, to a
wife who was furiously ashamed of him and who never rested till she had sent
him out again to the East, to make atonement.

Meanwhile Kerbogha continued to press on
Antioch. On 12 June a sudden attack almost gave him the possession of one of
the towers on the south-west wall; which was preserved only by the bravery of
three knights from Malines. To avoid the recurrence of such risks, Bohemond
burnt down whole streets of the city near to the walls, thus enabling the
troops to manoeuvre with greater ease.

At this juncture the spirits of the Christians
were raised by a series of events which seemed to them to show God’s special
favour. The soldiers were hungry and anxious; the faith that had hitherto
sustained them was wavering, but it was not broken. It was an atmosphere in
which dreams and visions thrived. To the men of the Middle Ages the
supernatural was not considered impossible nor even very rare. Modem ideas of
the power of the subconscious were unknown. Dreams and visions came from God,
or, in some cases, from the devil. Scepticism was confined to a flat disbelief
in the word of the dreamer. This attitude must be remembered in considering the
episode that follows.

On 10 June 1098, a poorly dressed peasant came
to Count Raymond’s tent and demanded to see him and the Bishop of Le Puy. His
name was Peter Bartholomew, and he had come on the Crusade as the servant of a
Provencal pilgrim called William-Peter. He was not entirely illiterate, despite
his humble origin, but he was known to his fellows as a rather disreputable
character, interested only in the grosser pleasures of life. His story was that
during the last months he had been tormented by visions in which Saint Andrew
had revealed to him where one of the holiest relics in Christendom could be
found, the Lance that had pierced the side of Christ. The first vision had occurred
at the time of the earthquake of 30 December. He had been praying in terror
when suddenly there appeared an old man with silver hair, accompanied by a tall
and wonderfully beautiful youth. The old man, saying that he was Saint Andrew,
bade him go at once to see the Bishop of Le Puy and Count Raymond. The Bishop
was to be reproved for his neglect of his duties as a preacher; while to the
Count was to be revealed the hiding-place of the Lance, which the saint now
proposed to show to Peter Bartholomew. Peter then found himself borne, dressed
as he was only in his shirt, to the interior of the city to the Cathedral of St
Peter, which the Turks were keeping as a mosque. Saint Andrew led him in
through the south entrance to the southern chapel. There he vanished into the
ground to reappear carrying the Lance. Peter wished to take it at once but was
told to return with twelve companions after the city was taken and to search
for it in the same place. He was then wafted back to the camp.

Peter
Bartholomew’s Visions

Peter disregarded the saint’s commands; for he
feared that no one would listen to so poor a man. Instead, he went off on a
foraging expedition to Edessa. At cock-crow on 10 February, when he was staying
in a castle near Edessa, Saint Andrew and his companion appeared to him again,
to reprove him for his disobedience, for which he was punished with a temporary
malady of the eyes. Saint Andrew also lectured him about God’s special
protection of the Crusaders, adding that all the saints longed to resume their
bodies to fight by their side. Peter Bartholomew admitted his guilt and
returned to Antioch; but there his courage failed again. He did not dare accost
the great princes, and was relieved when in March his master, William-Peter,
took him on a journey to buy food in Cyprus. On the eve of Palm Sunday, 20
March, he was sleeping with William-Peter in a tent at St Symeon, when the
vision occurred once more. Peter repeated his excuses; and Saint Andrew, after
telling him not to be afraid, gave instructions which Count Raymond was to
follow when he came to the river Jordan. William-Peter heard the conversation but
saw nothing. Peter Bartholomew then returned to the camp at Antioch but was
unable to obtain an audience with the Count He therefore left for Mamistra in
order to continue his journey to Cyprus. Saint Andrew came to him there and
angrily ordered him back. Peter wished to obey; but his master made him embark
to cross the sea. Three times the boat was driven back and at last went ashore
on an island near St Symeon; where the journey was abandoned. Peter was ill for
a while; when he recovered Antioch had been captured; and he entered the city.
He took part in the battle on 10 June and he narrowly escaped death from being
crushed between two horses; whereupon Saint Andrew made another appearance and
spoke to him so sternly that he could no longer disobey. He first told the
story to his comrades. Despite the scepticism with which it was received, he
came now to repeat it to Count Raymond and the Bishop of Le Puy.