Victory in the East

by John France

  We have, therefore, two views of the battle – that of Raymond of Aguilers who portrays it as a defensive struggle in which the crusaders stood between the river and the lake, and that of Albert and Ralph who portray it as an ambush. The account of the Anonymous is very much that of one caught up in the event and, while undoubtedly true as far as it goes, lacks context and could be read as corroborating either view. In fact, the crucial factor is location. What is certain from the information of Ralph is that the battle was fought beyond the Iron Bridge and that a hill featured in it. To this we can add that the army was between the river and the lake, according to the Anonymous and others. The land beyond the Orontes is a rolling plain with elevations between 86 metres and 90 metres crossed west-east by the Antioch-Aleppo road which climbs very gently away from the Iron Bridge. To the north and below the 81 metres contour line was the great Antioch Lake (Amikgölu) whose southern shore was then quite close to the road, probably on the 86 metres contour line. A little over two kilometres east of the Iron Bridge, and on the north side of the road is a hill, the Tainat Höyügü (Arabic, Tell Tayinat), rising to 101 metres, and 622 metres long and 503 metres wide. It was surely here that the battle took place, for this site agrees perfectly with what Ralph and the other sources tell us – a small hill between the river and the lake (see fig. 9).45 By taking up this position just north of the road Bohemond was placing the enemy towards the river, as the Anonymous suggests. It was a terrible risk, for behind and to his left lay a marsh, and the only retreat back to the Iron Bridge would be cut if the enemy broke through along the road. But if the crusaders had wanted to block Ridwan’s path and fight a grinding battle they would surely have chosen to do so at the Iron Bridge where geography gave them advantages and where their infantry would have been very useful. It is evident that the crusaders, and specifically Bohemond, decided to attack Ridwan before he was prepared, hence the secret departure by night and the decision to take only cavalry whose mobility would enable them to prepare an ambush. In any case the battle was extremely well conceived. The crusaders could not afford to stand on the defensive and they outmanoeuvred Ridwan by marching by night and ambushing him. Their troops were marshalled in squadrons which made control easier. They obviously kept together and because of surprise and the wet weather which inhibited the use of bows, they were able to close with the enemy in what seems to have been a tight compact formation. Ridwan’s main force was preceded by two squadrons, according to the Anonymous, and it would have been these that the initial charge of Bohemond’s five forward units took in the flank. These two squadrons fell back and became enmeshed with the main body. At this point the sheer mass of the enemy army threatened to break through the crusader army, but Bohemond recognised the crisis of the battle and unleashed his reserve whose charge finally crushed the disordered enemy. This was generalship of a very high order and shows the crusaders maximising their resources and learning from the enemy. The use of a reserve quite clearly held back to engage the enemy main force once committed is the salient feature of Bohemond’s dispositions. The Anonymous and Albert speak of a sharp charge in squadrons, and Ralph of Caen adds that this occurred, erectis hastis – the suggestion is of a classic charge of knights with couched spears falling upon an exposed enemy. The coherence and discipline of the crusader army enabled it to destroy a much larger force which may well have expected them to fight defensively on the Iron Bridge. It was the aggressive tactics of Bohemond which won the battle. But there was here a further point of some importance for the future. This was the first time the crusaders had fought a major engagement under single command: at Dorylaeum nobody was in command, while there was a similar problem in December 1097. This raised the question of an overall leader. It was perhaps no coincidence that shortly after this Stephen of Blois seems to have been chosen as overall commander.46

  Fig. 9 The Lake Battle: 9 February 1098

  The success at the Lake Battle ushered in the third and decisive phase of the siege, during which the crusaders were able to tighten the screw on Antioch (see fig. 10). It must have been a great relief that Harem, commanding the approaches to the Iron Bridge now passed to the Armenians.47 The defeat of Ridwan happened at a happy moment, for in the crusader camp were envoys from Egypt who had come in response to the embassy they had sent by sea earlier. This delegation was given the heads of slain enemies as tokens of victory. They seem to have stayed for some time according to the Anonymous who mentions their presence in the camp on 9 February and at St Symeon in the wake of the victory over the garrison on the St Symeon road on 6 March. Stephen of Blois actually says that some kind of understanding was reached with them: ‘the Emperor of Babylon … established peace and concord with us’, while Albert of Aix describes this as a friendly meeting and in the context of the siege of Jerusalem accuses the Fatimids of having broken the agreement then made. Islamic tradition strongly asserts that at this time the Egyptian Vizir, al-Afdal, pursued a policy of friendship towards the Franks and that indeed he later regretted this.48 From the Fatimid point of view the westerners could offer important aid against the Turks and indeed in July 1098 in the wake of Kerbogah’s defeat they were able to seize Jerusalem. The question of Jerusalem was of course an important stumbling block for only twenty years before it had been in Egyptian hands. Raymond of Aguilers, who gives the only clear account of the terms of discussion, reports that the army was willing to agree to ally with al-Afdal and restore to him all that he had lost to the Turks, provided that he would give them Jerusalem and the lands around it. However, if al-Afdal saw the crusade as primarily a Byzantine expedition it was possible to see this demand for an arrangement there in the light of the past Byzantine protectorate over the city.49 It is clear that some kind of modus uiuendi was reached with the Egyptians which perhaps anticipated, rather than agreed, the formation of a protectorate over Jerusalem on earlier Byzantine models. A crusader delegation returned to Cairo with the Egyptian emissaries and was to spend a year there.50 This may well have contributed to the inactivity of the leaders in the summer and autumn of 1098 and increased their reluctance to attack the Fatimid sphere of influence, something which was undertaken only reluctantly.

  Fig. 10 Siege of Antioch, March–May 1098

  It was the arrival of an English fleet at St Symeon on 4 March 1098 which enabled the crusaders to take the next step in tightening the siege. The following day a meeting of the leaders resolved to build a counterfort outside the Bridge Gate, and Bohemond and Raymond of St Gilles were dispatched to escort the sailors and reinforcements bringing up material from the coast. It is hardly surprising that this evoked a very sharp response from the garrison who ambushed the convoy and dispersed it, only to be defeated when reinforcements were called up. This action received considerable and detailed attention, as we have noted, because it took place close to the crusader camp. Albert of Aachen says that it was Godfrey, acting on the orders of Adhémar, who organised the counter-attack. He sent out ten knights to reconnoitre, and these were challenged by twenty Turks. When thirty knights were sent the enemy responded with sixty and, as a result, a general mêlée developed and the garrison was drawn into a sharp battle in front of the Bridge Gate and driven back onto it. Godfrey commanded this and distinguished himself by hacking a Turkish knight in half despite his hauberk. Raymond of Aguilers says that Godfrey played a very notable part cutting the enemy in two and adds that early in the action a Provençal knight, Ysoard of Ganges, led an infantry charge against the enemy with distinction.51 Ambushes of this kind were the staple of Turkish warfare and in particular of the war of attrition. This kind of action continued even after the establishment of the Mahommeries Tower which was confided to the care of Count Raymond. So important was the Bridge Gate that the Turks attacked the new fort savagely, forcing an action in which the count distinguished himself. It was presumably in an effort to prevent this kind of thing that the leaders attempted to destroy the bridge with a penthouse and all but succeeded.52 The Mahommeries Tower, as the crusade
rs called it, was built on a hill, the site of a Moslem cemetery, close to the Bridge Gate. The entire west side of the Orontes is now a built-up area with considerable alterations to its topography. However, about fifty metres beyond and to the right of the bridge the land slopes quite sharply northwards: by contrast, there is only a gentle rise to the left. It is likely that the tower was erected in this area where, in the nineteenth century, there was still a Moslem cemetery.53 With the Bridge Gate blocked, the crusaders were then able to complete the siege by establishing Tancred at a monastery outside the St George Gate on 5 April 1098 where shortly before a crusader raid had captured a rich booty of horses (see fig. 10). He would soon capture a rich caravan attempting to enter the city. Because he was a secondary leader Tancred had to be subsidised to the tune of 400 silver marks, of which 100 were provided by Raymond of Toulouse.54

  The active role of Raymond of Toulouse at this time is very notable. Raymond of Aguilers says that he had been ill earlier in the siege and was seeking to re-establish his reputation, and there may be truth in this. However, he had led a foraging expedition, albeit abortive, into Syria, played a major role in the fighting on the St Symeon road and taken responsibility for the Mahommeries tower which was bound to be a flashpoint, as well as subsidising Tancred. He seems to have been wealthier than the other leaders and to have had the largest army, for Tudebode remarks that he was given the new counterfort ‘because he had more knights in his household and also more to give’.55 Bohemond also had a formidable reputation at this time; he had led the expedition against Harem, accepted custody of Malregard, led the foraging expedition, commanded the army which defeated Ridwan of Aleppo and played a major part in the fighting on the St Symeon road.56 By any standard these were the two leading princes in the army, so it is very odd that in his second letter to his wife Stephen of Blois announced that he had been made by the other princes ‘lord and director and governor of all their acts up to the present time’ and this is supported by other sources.57 Unfortunately, we do not know when this election was held, though the natural sense of the passage in Raymond of Aguilers suggests fairly shortly before the capture of the city in June 1098. Certainly Stephen did not command any major military action of which we know. The suggestion that he was a kind of quartermaster is seductive, but hardly in accord with the terms used by the sources, the Anonymous’s ductor and Raymond’s dictator.58 It can only be a guess but perhaps he was chosen to chair the meetings of the leaders, possibly at Easter 1098. He seems to have been ill shortly after that and so never exercised any real authority. Certainly such an appointment would have been logical by the spring of 1098, for the blockade of the city was now very tight and needed a high degree of co-ordination for its maintenance. The council of leaders was probably the only way in which final authority could be exercised, but the near-disaster of the foraging battle and the success in the Lake Battle exposed its limitations. The army needed a single commander, even though such a dominance was alien to the leaders, and this was a step towards giving it one. They agreed on Stephen of Blois who never seems to have been a masterful personality.

  The blockade was not, of course, perfect. It could not be because access to the city via the mountains was always possible. However, the key importance of the steps which they had taken, and especially of the blocking of the Bridge Gate, was clearly recognised. Albert has a long imaginary passage in which Sulayman advises Yaghisiyan to seek aid from Kerbogah, and messengers are sent all over the Moslem world to such exotic places as Samarkand and Khorasan. It is a piece of high drama, signally poetic and interesting because it refers to many real people, amongst them Balduk of Samosata. The drama of the piece underlines the point made at the start – the building of the new counterforts meant that the fate of Antioch now lay in the hands of its allies.59 Even so, there was still much hard fighting for the crusaders. Albert describes the sufferings of the army and in particular the dearth of horses. Baldwin sent help from Edessa, including horses and arms. It was at this time that Nichossus of Tell-Bashir sent a tent to Godfrey, but this was seized by his rival Bagrat of Cyrrhus who diverted it to Bohemond. This caused dissension in the crusader camp as Godfrey and his ally Robert of Flanders confronted the Norman; probably the story reflects Frankish involvement in the rivalries of the Armenian princes.60 The supply situation must have been considerably eased by the establishment of outposts around Antioch by some of the leaders: Raymond of Toulouse continued to hold Ruj in Syria, while Godfrey and Robert of Flanders dominated the ’Afrin valley, and Tancred may have been charged with Harem and perhaps ’Imm (both of which he held in the summer of 1098) on the Aleppo road. But there was also much fighting. After the attempt to destroy the bridge with a penthouse, Peter Tudebode tells us that Raynald Porchet, a knight who had been captured, was led onto the wall of the city and, in the sight of the Christian army required to renounce his religion. When he refused he was beheaded at the order of Yaghisiyan who also burned to death other prisoners held in the city.61 Of course such savagery served a political purpose – to make it difficult for any of the garrison to betray the city by exacerbating hostility and, in this case, playing on religious hatred. A little later, Anselm tells us that some of the enemy pretended to be willing to surrender the city, then trapped and killed the crusaders, including Guy the Constable, who tried to receive their surrender.62

  The story of the capture of Antioch is a familiar and dramatic tale of betrayal. Perhaps the crusaders knew that Antioch had fallen to a similar act of treachery in 969 and that the Turkish capture of 1086 also owed much to treachery.63 The story as told by the Anonymous has been generally accepted by historians. He reports that one Pirus (translated as Firuz), the commander of three towers, ‘struck up a great friendship with Bohemond’ who approached the other leaders and suggested that a single commander should be appointed who should be given control of the city. Anna Comnena says that Bohemond, confident in his arrangements with Firuz, proposed a competitive siege with the winner being given the city, and Kemal ad-Din says much the same.64 This idea was rejected on the grounds that all had shared in the labour and all should share in the rewards. Shortly after news came of an enemy relief army, in fact that of Kerbogah Atabeg of Mosul, and an assembly of the leaders agreed that if Bohemond could seize the city he should have it, providing that the emperor did not come to their aid. Bohemond then got in touch with Firuz who sent him his son as a hostage, and suggested that on the next day the army should pretend to prepare to go out into the Saracen lands. Then, in council with Godfrey, Robert of Flanders, Raymond of Toulouse and the Legate, it was arranged that the forces of knights and foot in this expedition should separately approach Firuz’s towers, the former by the plain, the latter by the mountains. There followed an exciting episode, in which the Anonymous clearly participated, as the crusaders got into the city. In all this the only date mentioned is the fall of the city on the night of 2–3 June 1098.65

  The identity of Firuz and his reasons for betrayal are naturally interesting. The Anonymous tells us nothing about him except his name. Raymond of Aguilers says that he was an unnamed Turk, on which point Fulcher agrees but tells a fanciful story of him being commanded to betray the city in a vision. Albert tells us nothing about the betrayer but says that a converted Turk called Bohemond was active in the negotiations, and he appears to be repeating camp gossip when he says that it was believed that Bohemond had captured the betrayer’s son in a skirmish. Bar-Hebraeus says that a Persian betrayed the city.66 Ralph of Caen gives no name but says that the betrayer was a rich Armenian whose wealth had been confiscated by Yaghisiyan, and that he sent word to Bohemond because of his high reputation, although the towers held by himself and his family were some distance away. Anna Comnena agrees that the traitor was an Armenian renegade and this is supported by Michael the Syrian who simply says that Armenians betrayed the city. This identification receives support of a kind from Matthew of Edessa who describes the traitor as one of the chief men of the city but gives no nati
onality.67 The Damascus Chronicle describes the betrayer as an armourer in the service of Yaghisiyan called Firuz, information also adduced by Ibn al-Athir. Kemal ad-Din names the armourer as Zarrad and says that he was punished by Yaghisiyan for hoarding.68 In a city with a polyglot population such confusion is not unnatural and it is tempting to see attrition working upon a man of uncertain loyalty, perhaps Armenian, straining his relations with his master – hoarding is a classic crime of shortage. However, we cannot be certain of the truth of such an elegant and symmetrical explanation, although we can be reasonably sure that Ralph’s remark that Bohemond had promised him great wealth and honour is a better explanation for his behaviour than are the friendship proposed by the Anonymous and the miracle reported by Fulcher.69

  But the question of the dating of events is rather difficult and a matter of some importance. The date of the fall of Antioch on the night of 2–3 June 1098 is not in doubt.70 What the chronology of the Anonymous would suggest is that Bohemond opened the question of Antioch at an unspecified date before its fall, then reopened the question when news had come of the approach of Kerbogah’s army. At this council he was promised the city. A few days of exchanges ensued, then Firuz suggested that ‘on the morrow’, i.e. 2 June, the army set off on its feigned march. As it happens, the date of this council of leaders can be fixed, because Albert of Aachen says that rumours of the approach of Kerbogah’s army had caused the leaders to send out reconnaissance forces in all directions. These reported the presence of the enemy to an assembly of leaders which met and promised Bohemond the city, seven days before Kerbogah’s arrival – 29 May 1098.71 According to Fulcher of Chartres, Kerbogah’s army besieged Edessa for three weeks before moving on to Antioch where we know its first elements arrived the day after the crusader capture of the city on 4 June. Matthew of Edessa confirms that there was such a siege but gives no dates other than to say that the siege lasted until the harvest time. Albert says that the attack on Edessa lasted a mere three days, but Fulcher was most certainly present at Edessa at this time. If we allow a week for the army to reach Antioch from Edessa, this suggests that the siege lasted from 4–25 May 1098.72 The problem is that as we have noted, the crusaders were in close touch with Edessa and its outlying fortresses were only a day or two’s march away, yet they appear to have been entirely ignorant of the enemy attack until late May; if we allow four days for the reconnaissance force to go out and return, then their ignorance still lasted until 21 May, by which time, Albert says, rumours were causing consternation in the crusader camp. The approach to Edessa of such a huge army as that credited to Kerbogah could hardly have been a secret affair, and indeed Albert says that Baldwin knew enough of it to arrange to attack its advance guard ‘with the bows of the Armenians and the lances of the Franks’ very successfully.73 It is quite extraordinary that the crusaders should have been unaware of the presence of an enormous and hostile army only a few days march away. It is true that they seem to have bumped into the relief force of Duqaq in December 1097 but that was coming up from deep in hostile Syria. They certainly had to plan hastily for the approach of Ridwan in February 1098 but Aleppo was fairly close – Raymond of Aguilers says only a two day march away – and they did not control the approaches along the road.74 Baldwin of Edessa was aware of Kerbogah’s approach – he was clearly not taken by surprise.