Any medieval army knew the profound significance of morale amid the slow grind of siege warfare, and exchanges of horrific acts of brutality and barbarism were commonplace. For its part, the Turkish garrison soon retaliated, adopting a rather macabre tactic. The crusaders began to lead direct assaults upon the city and inevitably sustained some losses. One Latin eyewitness was disgusted by the Turks' treatment of these dead: 'Truly, you would have grieved and sighed with compassion, to see them let down iron hooks, which they lowered and raised by ropes, and seize the body of any of our men that they had slaughtered in some way near the wall. None of our men dared, nor could, take the body from them.' These corpses were robbed and then hung from the walls to rot, so as 'to offend the Christians by this inhuman conduct'.15
Closing in
With the first threat from Kilij Arslan repulsed, the crusaders sought to prosecute a direct assault. This would be a dangerous and exhausting process for defender and aggressor alike, and we hear that in the midst of the fighting, 'often, some of the Turks, often, some of the Franks, struck by arrows or by stones, died'. When early attempts to storm Nicaea's defences with ladders had failed, the crusaders concentrated their efforts almost exclusively upon creating a physical breach in the city's walls. This could be achieved through a variety
Of means. The safest, but technologically most advanced, was bombardment from a distance. The Franks built some stone-throwing machines, known as petraria or mangonella, which propelled missiles through the use of torsion or counterweights. Powerful machines could hurl massive rocks against their target, eventually causing walls to buckle and collapse, but at Nicaea the crusaders lacked the skills and craftsmen to build engines massive enough to damage the city's stout walls. Their bombardment was designed, instead, to harass the Turkish garrison and provide covering fire, under which they could employ a second technique.
If a besieging army could not topple walls from a safe distance, then the only alternative was to get in close and undermine the defences by hand. Just approaching the walls was, however, a lethal affair. The Turkish garrison had ballistae - giant crossbow-like devices used to hurl stones - and archers with which to defend their city: 'The ballistae of [Nicaea s] towers were so alternately faced that no one could move near them without peril, and if anyone wished to move forward, he could do no harm because he could easily be struck down from the top of a tower. One crusader knight, Baldwin of Calderun, who had made many 'daring and rash' attempts to assault the city, 'breathed his last when his neck was broken by the blow of a hurled stone'. Another, Baldwin of Ganz, died during 'a careless rush at the city, his head pierced by an arrow'. If a crusader did, somehow, manage to reach the foot of the walls alive, he then faced an onslaught from above, as defenders atop the battlements gleefully rained rocks and a burning mixture of grease, oil and pitch down upon his head.16
The Franks experimented with a range of devices to combat these problems of direct assault, with varying degrees of success. Two prominent Latin lords, Henry of Esch, a member of Godfrey's contingent, and the German Count Hartmann of Dillingen, who had participated in the Jewish pogrom at Mainz, approached the challenge of this first crusader siege with enthusiasm. They pooled their resources and built what one contemporary called a vulpus or fox, to their own design and with their own money. This was apparently some form of bombardment screen, constructed of oak beams, under which infantry troops could advance on the walls, protected from Turkish missiles. Henry and Hartmann shrewdly decided to sit out the first test run of this contraption, and had to look on in horror as twenty of their men were crushed to death when 'the beams, the uprights and all the bindings came to pieces' and the vulpus collapsed at the foot of the walls.17
The Provencals adopted a more professional approach. Raymond of Toulouse employed a master craftsman to design and build a testudo or tortoise, a much sturdier, sloping-roofed bombardment screen. Under this protection, southern French crusaders were dispatched to undermine a tower on Nicaea's southern walls. One eyewitness described how, when they reached the fortification, 'sappers dug down to the foundations of the wall and inserted beams and pieces of wood, to which they set fire'. If carried out correctly, the siege technique they were attempting - that of sapping - could be extremely effective. The idea was to dig a tunnel beneath a section of wall, carefully buttressing the excavation with wooden supports as one went along. Once complete, the void was packed full of branches and kindling, set alight and left to collapse, thus bringing down the wall above it. Raymond's sappers managed to bring down a small section of one tower as night fell on around 1 June, but the Turkish garrison worked through the night to rebuild the defences so that by daybreak 'there was no chance of defeating them at that point'.18
In the end, the crusaders' best efforts at assault were thwarted by Nicaea's almost impregnable fortifications and the sheer energy and ferocity of the Turkish defence. Even Raymond of Aguilers, a chaplain in the Provencal army, was forced to admit that the Muslim garrison had made a 'courageous' effort. We hear, for example, of one unnamed Turkish soldier who went berserk and continued fighting, peppered with twenty crusader arrows. Even after 3 June 1097, when the Latin army was further strengthened by the arrival of the northern French, under Stephen, count of Blois, and Robert, count of Flanders, the city still refused to fall.19
By the second week of June, the crusaders realised that a new strategy was needed. Up to this point they had encircled Nicaea's three landward walls, but the fourth, westward face of the city, on the banks of the great Askanian Lake, lay open and unblockaded. The sheer size of this lake meant that its banks could not be effectively patrolled, and it became apparent that Turkish boats were bringing all manner of supplies into Nicaea without fear of attack. If this situation persisted and the city's walls held, Nicaea's garrison might realistically hope to hold out indefinitely. Around 10 June, the crusader princes met in council to discuss this problem, and within hours a messenger had been sent to the Emperor Alexius, carrying an audacious proposal. Control had to be taken of the Askanian Lake, but no navigable river offered ships access to its waters. The princes' solution sounded simple: if vessels could not be sailed to the lake, they would have to be carried. In practice, of course, the process of portaging large sailing boats almost thirty kilometres from the coast at Civetot to the shores of the Askanian Lake was no mean feat. Alexius agreed to supply the boats, under the command of Manuel Boutoumites and manned by a force of Turcopoles - well-armed Byzantine mercenaries of half-Greek, half-Turkish stock. Special oxen-drawn carts were constructed to bear this strange cargo through the hills of Bithynia. Late in the day of 17 June they reached the lake, but waited until the following dawn to set sail so that a combined lake- and land-based attack could be launched on Nicaea. The plan was to terrify the Turkish garrison into submission, driving home their isolation and the utter hopelessness of continued resistance. To this end, Alexius equipped the small Greek flotilla with more standards than were usual - so that the boats might appear more numerous than they really were - and a selection of trumpets and drums with which to create an intimidating racket. One Latin eyewitness described the scene:
At daybreak there were the boats, all in very good order, sailing across the lake towards the city. The Turks, seeing them, were surprised and did not know if it was their own fleet or that of the emperor, but when they realised it was the emperor's they were afraid almost to death, and began to wail and lament, while the Franks rejoiced and gave glory to God.20
The shock broke the Turkish garrison's will, and within hours they were suing for peace. After holding out for five weeks, Nicaea capitulated on 18 June. It was, however, the emperor's men, Manuel Boutoumites and Taticius, who actually took surrender of the city and raised the imperial standard. After all their efforts, the crusaders were left waiting outside the walls. Byzantine Turcopoles were set to guard the city's treasury and the crusaders were denied any chance of plunder. It was a precarious moment for Alexius' envoys: they may have had nomi
nal authority over the campaign, but they were outnumbered both by the barely subdued Turkish garrison inside the city and by the acquisitive Frankish horde without. Had either side chosen to rebel, the Greeks would have been annihilated. As it was, the crusader princes kept their promise to return the city to the emperor, and the leading members of the Turkish garrison were quickly ferried out in small, manageable groups to Constantinople. There were some complaints among the Latin rank and file, worried that the captured Turks would soon be ransomed and thus free to fight the crusaders on another day, but even these were quickly silenced by the emperor's extravagant largesse. He knew only too well how to keep this 'mercenary' crusading army under control. One Frank recalled that, 'because he kept all [the money from Nicaea], the emperor gave some of his own gold and silver and mantles to our nobles; he also distributed some of his copper coins, which they call tarantarons, to the footsoldiers'.21
The fall of Nicaea was a product of the successful policy of close co-operation between the crusaders and Byzantium. The Franks would probably have enjoyed little success without Greek aid, while Alexius had needed the might of the Latin army to overcome Kilij Arslan s capital.* One contemporary, reflecting upon the siege, wrote, 'Now that the storm of war had thus abated ... the army of the living God spent the day in great rejoicing and exultation right there in the camp, because everything so far had gone well for them'. Their success had, however, been bought at a price. Many crusaders died in battle or from illness during the campaign. An eyewitness in Bohemond's army recalled that 'many of our men suffered martyrdom there and gave up their blessed souls to God with joy and gladness, and many poor starved to death for the Name of Christ. All these entered Heaven in triumph, wearing the robe of martyrdom. Even at this early stage in the expedition to Jerusalem it seems that the crusaders believed that fighting and dying in the name of God cleansed them of sin and brought the gift of everlasting life.22
INTO ANATOLIA
Since passing through Constantinople, the leaders of the First Crusade had, in effect, been working for the emperor, fighting on the eastern border of Byzantium to recover Greek territory. With Alexius'
There were other benefits from Nicaea's fall. Scores of Latin prisoners who had been held in the city were released. Among them was an unnamed nun who had followed Peter the Hermit to Asia Minor. She had been captured by a Turk and repeatedly raped by him and a number of other men. Upon her release, she recognised Henry of Esch among the crusader hosts and begged him to help her find some way to purify her soul. At last Bishop Adhemar himself prescribed a suitable penance: 'She was granted forgiveness for her unlawful liaison with the Turk, and her repentance was made less burdensome because she had endured this hideous defilement by wicked and villainous men under duress and unwillingly. Thus it is clear that, in the eyes of the Church, by being raped she had committed a sin. But this was not the end of the story. According to one contemporary, the nun ran back to her Turkish captor on the very next day. The whole tale may well be a product of Albert of Aachen's imagination, and the nun's final change of heart, which he attributes to the innate and overwhelming lustfulness of females, seems particularly unlikely - how was it that her Nicaean 'lover' was not himself now a captive? - but it does serve as a vivid illustration of medieval preconceptions about women and sex.
primary objective achieved - the recapture of Nicaea - one question remained: what would the crusaders do now?
With this in mind, on 22 June the emperor called the Frankish princes to his camp at Pelekanum to discuss their plans. With the exception of Raymond of Toulouse and Stephen of Blois, who remained behind to protect the Latin camp, the cream of crusader aristocracy attended. By this point, most of the Frankish host shared one deep-held and compelling ambition - to march on Jerusalem and recover the Holy City for Christendom. Alexius probably had no idea what this 'barbarian' horde was capable of achieving. So far they had served his purposes well and, for the time being at least, there was no reason for him not to support their expedition. Once again, he seems to have offered the princes valuable advice on the political and strategic realities of the world they were planning to traverse. From this point on, we know that the crusaders discussed their next major goal on the road to Palestine - the vast, ancient city of Antioch, on the border between Asia Minor and Syria. They also followed Alexius' advice and dispatched envoys by ship to the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt, to discuss a possible treaty.23
There was no question in the emperor's mind that the crusaders would remain his servants. A member of Stephen of Blois' contingent pointed put that the Franks left Nicaea only 'once they had received permission from the emperor to depart'. Alexius also took the opportunity presented by the gathering at Pelekanum to reinforce his primacy. The oaths of allegiance given to him at Constantinople were restated, and any members of the crusader nobility who had managed to slip through the net, such as Tancred and Baldwin of Boulogne, were now pressed into pledging their obedience. Alexius' strategy was to assist the crusaders' cause and, as they marched across Asia Minor, follow in their wake mopping up any territory they conquered. To this end, he ordered Taticius, and the troops he had led to Nicaea, to accompany the Latin host. According to a Greek contemporary, Taticius' duty was 'to help and protect them on all occasions and also to take over from them any cities they captured, if indeed God granted them that favour'. Even at this stage, it is very unlikely that the emperor offered any firm commitment to lead Byzantine reinforcements himself in support of the crusade, although the Franks do seem to have been expecting to be joined by a large Greek army at some later date.24
Alexius' plan for controlled, constructive exploitation of the First Crusade had one major flaw. His power and influence over the expedition were almost absolute as it passed through Constantinople and besieged Nicaea, but, with every Frankish step into Anatolia (Central Asia Minor) and beyond, the crusade passed further out of the orbit of Byzantine authority. The spell of co-operation and subservience would continue to hold for months to come, but the level of collaboration experienced at Nicaea was never again repeated.
The Battle of Dorylaeum
The First Crusade left Nicaea in the last week of June 1097. By 29 June the entire army had assembled at a staging post one day's march to the south, at a bridge over the Goksu river. Its next major target was Antioch, hundreds of kilometres to the east, but to reach this the expedition would have to overcome two challenges. The first was the enormous size of the crusade. An army of roughly 70,000 people might take up to three days to march past a single point. Moving as one massed force would be incredibly unwieldy and place intense pressure on local resources, given that the Franks intended to continue their practice of foraging for food as they went. Logic dictated that the expedition should break into smaller contingents, travelling just as it had en route to Constantinople. But this approach had inherent dangers. The threat posed by the Seljuq Turks of Asia Minor may have been beaten back at Nicaea, but it had not been extinguished. The crusaders must have suspected that Kilij Arslan would, at some point, attempt a counterattack. By splintering into smaller armies the Latin host would lose its overwhelming numerical advantage.
Faced with a difficult choice, the princes elected to divide their forces in two, but maintain relatively close contact during the march. On 29 June, Bohemond's southern Italian Normans and Robert of Normandy's army crossed the Goksu, trailed at some distance by Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert of Flanders, Hugh of France and the southern French. They intended to rendezvous some four days' march to the south-east, at Dorylaeum, an abandoned Byzantine military camp.25
This was just the opportunity that Kilij Arslan had been waiting for. After his humiliating defeat at Nicaea on 16 May, he realised that every scrap of available manpower would be needed were he to have any hope of defeating the huge Frankish army. Putting aside past quarrels, he negotiated a pact with the Danishmendid Turks of northern and eastern Asia Minor and set off to intercept the crusaders. Even with this new larger army, he
could ill afford to risk a full-scale battle against the massed Latin ranks. Instead, he hoped to pick off smaller portions of their army through ambush and guerrilla warfare. On the morning of 1 July 1097 he took his chance.
The first two days of Bohemond's and Robert of Normandy's march towards Dorylaeum had passed without incident. Scouts seem to have reported the presence of a Turkish force in the region as night fell on 30 June, but the princes must have judged this to be a small raiding party, because they took no steps to notify the second crusader force. This proved to be a fateful decision.26
A few hours after dawn on the following day, having just negotiated a small river crossing, the first crusader army reached an area of open ground at the junction of two valleys. Suddenly, a mass of Turkish horsemen appeared. Two Frankish eyewitnesses estimated their number at 360,000, but this is probably another wild exaggeration. Even so, the size of Kilij Arslan's force may have equalled or even exceeded that of this half of the crusading host. The Franks faced an appalling predicament: isolated and exposed, they were about to have their first, terrifying taste of Turkish horsemen in full flight.27
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