The First Crusade (36 page)

As soon as the Bridge Gate was opened, Kerbogha, encamped some kilometres to the north, was alerted by the raising of a black flag above the Muslim-held citadel. At this moment he was presented with a critical tactical decision: to deploy his main force immediately, attacking the crusaders while they debouched from the city; or to wait and then meet them in a full-scale pitched battle on his own ground. In these crucial first minutes Kerbogha hesitated, undecided. Looking back on the battle, the crusaders simply could not understand why Kerbogha failed to react. One later reflected that 'he could have blocked them', but was distracted because he was in the midst of
'playing at chess within his tent'. The princes themselves later recalled in a letter to the pope that, as they marched out of Antioch, 'we were so few that [the Muslims] were assured that we were not fighting against them, but were fleeing'.
³⁷

Writing many years later, the Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athir invented the following discussion between Kerbogha and his advisers to explain events: 'The Muslims said to Kerbogha: "You should go up to the city and kill them one by one as they come out; it is easy to pick them off now that they have split up." He replied: "No, wait until they have all come out and then we will kill them.'"
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Ibn al-Athir roundly condemned this strategy, but, although it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to criticise such a sluggish response, Kerbogha was plagued by reasonable doubts about the wisdom of rushing into battle. Catching the crusaders in mid-deployment might well have led only to short-lived skirmishing, followed by a Latin retreat within the city and a return to stalemate. It was in Kerbogha's interests to bring the siege to a rapid conclusion. What he wanted was a full-scale confrontation.

In the end, however, Kerbogha made the worst of all decisions. With the chance for a rapid strike gone, he should have held his ground for battle; instead he chose to make a rather panicked, tardy advance. His timing was disastrous, for just as his men approached Antioch the tide of the battle began to turn.

The crusaders, having forced their way on to the Antiochene plains, almost immediately faced a counterattack from the Muslims who had been guarding the Bridge Gate, and this was quickly followed up by troops rushing from their positions before the Gates of St Paul and the Duke. Then, perhaps most dangerously of all, the crusaders were attacked from the rear by a force coming from the blockade of the Gate of St George. At this decisive moment, facing encirclement in open battle, the crusaders held their ground. Reinhard of Toul was dispatched with a squadron of northern French and Lotharingians to act as rearguard. He met the attack coming from the south-east with such ferocity that his opponents fled the field, setting light to the battleground to cover their escape. Reinhard's infantry suffered massive casualties, but the rear had held. At the same time, the Franks at the front line held formation as Muslim attacks swirled around them:

As was their custom, they began to scatter on all sides, occupying hills and paths, and, wherever they could, they wished to surround us. For they thought they could kill all of us in this manner. But our men having been trained in many battles against their trickery and cleverness, God s grace and mercy so came to our aid that we, who were very few in comparison to them, drove them all close together. Then with God's right hand fighting with us, we forced them so driven together to flee, and to leave their camps with everything in them.
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Unable to break the crusaders' resolve, the first wave of attackers -those who had been blockading Antioch - began to panic. With the Franks advancing to press home their advantage, these Muslims turned tail and fled. At that same moment, Kerbogha arrived at the head of his secondary force and ran straight into his own routed comrades. Now in headlong retreat, they shattered the formation of his troops, and soon the entire Muslim army was thrown into disarray. At this moment a commanding, charismatic general might have been able to save the day, but Kerbogha was not up to the challenge. He failed to rally his army, and one by one the contingents that had followed him to Antioch cut their losses and fled the field. In the end, the shock of a sharp, powerful attack and the unwavering solidity of the crusader formation exposed deep-seated fractures within the Muslim army. After only a brief engagement Kerbogha was forced into retreat and ignominious defeat. Disgraced, he returned home to Mosul. One Muslim chronicler wrote in shock: The Franks, though they were in the extremi
ty of weakness, advanced in battl
e order against the armies of Islam, which were at the height of their strength and numbers, and they broke the ranks of the Muslims and scattered their multitudes
.
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Although the Latins had killed only a fraction of his army, the threat posed by Kerbogha had been neutralised. His main camp was overrun and thoroughly ravaged by jubilant crusaders: The enemy left his pavilions, with gold and silver and many furnishings, as well as sheep, oxen, horses, mules, camels and asses, corn, wines, flour and many other things of which we were badly in need
.
One Latin chronicler reported that, when their women were found in the tents, the Franks did nothing evil to them except pierce their bellies with their lances'. This comment seems extraordinarily callous, but its author was actually trying to tell us that these women were not raped. In the opinion of this clerical writer, slaughter carried out in the name of God was infinitely preferable to the heinous sin of fornication with dehumanised 'infidels'.
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Within hours the Muslim garrison of Antioch's citadel surrendered and the whole city was at last truly and safely in Latin hands. The significance of the Great Battle of Antioch cannot be overstressed. It was, without doubt, the single most important military engagement of the entire expedition. The crusaders had, throughout June 1098, faced the very real possibility of annihilation. The Muslim army was both larger and better equipped than that of the Latins, containing a sizeable cavalry element. The crusaders took an enormous, but arguably necessary, risk in meeting this force. Zealous conviction, gifted generalship and a healthy dose of luck brought them victory against all the odds. To contemporary writers, this achievement was so extraordinary that it could only be explained as a miracle. They argued that the Franks had been saved from certain defeat by only one thing: direct, palpable intervention by the hand of God. Numerous 'miracles' were recorded. Raymond of Aguilers recorded that 'in the beginning of the march out to battle the Lord sent down upon all His army a divine shower, little but full of blessing. All those touched by this were filled with all grace and fortitude and, despising the enemy, rode forth as if nourished on the delicacies of kings. This miracle affected our horses no less.' An eyewitness, who actually fought in the battle, added:

there came out of the mountains, also, countless armies with white horses, whose standards were all white. And so, when our leaders saw this army, they were entirely ignorant as to what it was, and who they were, until they recognised the aid of Christ, whose leaders were Ss George, Mercurius and Demetrius. This is to be believed, for many of our men saw it.
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The crusaders certainly did fight the battle in an atmosphere of fervent spiritual conviction. As they marched out to fight, priests lined the walls of Antioch reciting blessings. Others, carrying crosses, marched out in the very midst of the troops, 'chanting and praying for God's help and the protection of the saints'. Raymond of Aguilers himself carried the Holy Lance in among the southern French

contingent led by Bishop Adhemar, and it was said that Kerbogha was literally paralysed by the sight of the relic. Religious devotion did have a huge effect on the outcome of the battle. With their resolve reinforced by Christian ritual, empowered by a powerful sense of divine sanction, the .crusaders' nerve held even as they were surrounded by the enemy. A less devout or desperate force might have broken, but, bound together by their steadfast resolve, these men kept formation and so won the day.
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After immense sacrifice and suffering, the crusaders were at last in possession of Antioch. For nine months the city had stood like an impenetrable wall before them, barring their way forward. Now, finally, the road south was open and the Holy City of Jerusalem beckoned.

8

DESCENT INTO DISCORD

In the first days of July 1098 the crusaders could look upon their achievements with some satisfaction. They had just won a seemingly miraculous victory in the Battle of Antioch. That city was now conquered and pacified. Jerusalem, their ultimate goal, lay only three weeks' hard march to the south. No overwhelming obstacles stood in their way. After the brutal sack of Antioch and spectacular defeat of Kerbogha, those Muslim-held cities and towns that did stand on the road to Jerusalem were now terrified of the Franks and unlikely to offer serious resistance.

Many crusaders must have felt that the end of their pilgrimage was almost in sight. They were wrong. The Holy City may have been only weeks away, but no crusader was to see its walls for more than a year. Ironically, in that interval, thousands of Latins who had had the strength and fortune to survive the testing journey from Europe and the savage ordeal of Antioch's siege fell victim to disease, hunger and small-scale fighting, never to reach Palestine. At a time when the crusade seemed on the verge of success, the entire expedition stalled, fragmented and almost dissolved.

DELAY
AND
DISSIPATION

On 3 July a council of crusader princes made a fateful pronouncement: They dared not enter into the land of the pagans, because in summer it is very dry and waterless, and so they decided that they would therefore wait until the beginning of November
.
Judging their troops to be exhausted and their lines of supply extended, they chose to delay any attempt to march south towards Jerusalem until 1 November. The Provencal crusader Raymond of Aguilers, for one, did not approve: We believe that, if the Franks had advanced, not one city between Antioch and Jerusalem would have thrown a rock at them, so frightened and weakened at this time were the Saracen cities following the defeat of Kerbogha
.
He may have been right, but in truth the crusaders were immobilised by more fundamental and far-reaching problems.
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The contest for Antioch

The princes were now confronted by an inescapable question: what to do with the city of Antioch. Back in the spring of 1097 almost all the crusader princes had sworn an oath at Constantinople promising to return any former Byzantine territories that they might capture to the Emperor Alexius. Antioch was at the top of the wish-list of cities that Alexius was hoping to recover in this way. However, just before the city fell to the crusaders, Bohemond convinced his colleagues to guarantee possession of Antioch to whomever could engineer its capture. Therefore, in July 1098 there were two claimants to the city -Alexius and Bohemond. Modern historians have often cast the latter as the villain of this contest, arguing that in the struggle for Antioch Bohemond revealed his true character. Driven by greed and ambition, he was determined to possess the city, no matter what the cost.

In part, this is an accurate picture. In his defence, one could argue that someone would have to stay behind to govern Antioch after the crusaders had gone to such lengths to capture it. Bohem
ond had long
believed he was the only man for the job. He had harboured designs on Antioch ever since the crusade arrived in northern Syria, and perhaps even earlier. Back in October 1097, at the start of the siege, he had taken up position before one of Antioch's most important gates, that of St Paul, ensuring his troops quick access to the city once it fell. Speed was of the essence, because the crusader princes had agreed to observe the rule of'right by conquest' - that is, whoever was first to take possession of property or territory was deemed to have legal rights of ownership. When towns or cities fell crusaders literally sprinted in to grab whatever they could. Bohemond's priorities were further demonstrated by his management of the Firuz affair, as he revealed the renegade's existence only once the promise of Antioch had been made. Then, as soon as its defences were breached, Bohemond rushed to have his blood-red banner raised above the city as proof of his claim.
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Perhaps most significantly, Bohemond managed to take possession of Antioch's citadel in the immediate aftermath of the battle against Kerbogha. This was a crucial step because, as the crusaders had discovered, the city was really untenable without control of its fortress. Bohemond was, however, almost beaten to this prize by another crusader - his increasingly vocal rival Raymond, count of Toulouse. While his fellow princes were marching out of Antioch to do battle with Kerbogha on 28 June, Raymond, suffering from another of his frequent bouts of illness, remained within the city to guard against an attack from the citadel. Feigned or not, his infirmity put him in an excellent position to receive the citadel's surrender. According to one eyewitness, he tried to do just that: