by Jack Ludlow
Their first task was to turn Bohemund’s temporary bastion on the slopes of Mount Staurin into a more robust fortress and if it could not match in strength the walls of Antioch it was well built enough to completely secure that flank and obviate the risk of what many feared, a mass attack being launched down that slope in an attempt to sweep the Crusaders into the river. Needing to be named, as did everything structured in the siege, the men who manned it called their temporary fort Malregard, a reference to the fact that it was still an exposed and dangerous position.
Yet if that arrival lifted the spirits it soon became clear just how short a period any food they had brought would last, and the ships were quick to depart once unloaded, with those who knew of the sea aware that they would not be seen again till spring, so dangerous was the Mediterranean for lengthy winter voyages. They still had Cyprus, much closer, but even there the crossing could be suspended for weeks due to storms, and in anticipation of dearth Bohemund sent half his horses away to the north where there was more pasture, an act which his fellow princes declined to emulate.
That still left him with enough mounts to be active in the ensuing sorties and the one most pressing was the need to counter the interdiction of supplies by roving raiders from the eastern hinterland. It was not just the loss of food to the Crusaders – every time a force sought to impede supplies getting in through the Iron Gate they faced not just the defenders of Antioch but a strong mounted force which threatened their rear and on more than one occasion had caught the Frankish lances unawares and inflicted heavy casualties.
As the contingent who would find it easiest to disengage and recross the Iron Bridge, the council deputed the Apulian Normans to seek to remove this threat, to find out where these raiders were camped and either destroy them or so harry them they would have to move further away to a point where their depredations would cease to be effective. From being static before the St Paul’s Gate – only the other contingents had seen much work mounted – Bohemund’s lances, one thousand strong, were delighted to move out on horseback. Tancred was left in charge of the rest of the host and Robert of Salerno taken along as second in command.
Across the bridge and riding east Bohemund was aware that the terrain to him was unknown. The plain he was on consisted of rolling hills, grassed after the recent rains, until far in the distance was an escarpment he knew was called Jalal Talat and the fortress of Harim. He suspected that somewhere in between there was a Turkish camp and a force of an unknown number, but one seemingly big enough to raid close to Antioch as well as far and wide to block the routes to the siege lines, so highly mobile and operating in country which they clearly knew well.
‘Let us show them respect, Robert.’
That such a feeling did not come naturally to the Lombard showed on his face, but he kept any words to himself.
‘We will split up. I want you to ride ahead at walking pace with half our lances and seek to flush out our enemy. As soon as they think you will discover their encampment they will be obliged to try and drive you off.’
‘Happily.’
‘You are not to offer them anything other than token battle. Make sure the fellow with the horn knows that you intend to retreat shortly after making contact.’
‘I could tell the men.’
‘Then you would have five hundred generals instead of one, best keep your own council. Understand this, Robert, I sense in you a desire to be popular and that is laudable in a leader, but my father taught me it is just as important to know your own mind and to be equally sure that no one who is not in your trust does not. Half the time in combat he was the only person who knew what he intended and that was total in his dealings with men off the field of battle.’
‘Like my grandfather?’
‘I only knew Prince Gisulf a little, Robert, but I can tell you he makes Count Hugh of Vermandois look like Alexander the Great, he was such a military dolt.’ Seeing that it sounded like a slight on his bloodline, Bohemund softened his tone, which had been unsympathetic. ‘You are not he and today, if we combine well, you will prove it. We may not see battle but if we do I want you to stand as well in my eyes as Tancred.’
‘I thank you for that.’
‘Robert, it is an aim I extend to all my captains, without exception. Now ride ahead and spread your men out to cover as much ground as the landscape allows without any loss of contact.’
‘How will I let you know if we do find the enemy?’ Bohemund just looked at him without answering, the obvious point that this was something he should be able to sort out himself and Robert acknowledged that. ‘Men to the rear who will alert you?’
‘I need numbers and how willing they are to fight. If, as I hope, they see you as meat for their table you are to take flight as if beaten, the rest will fall to me.’
Watching them depart there was a moment when Bohemund doubted the wisdom of giving Robert command; his lust for some kind of glory was high – he had a need to wipe out the stain of his inheritance being taken from him by the Guiscard, that made even more disagreeable by the fact that Duke Robert’s wife, his Aunt Sichelgaita, had been a party to the removal of her own father – seeking fame, Robert might disobey his instructions. That thought had to be smothered; he had handed over responsibility and there was no point in fretting upon it. Instead he must look to how he was going to exploit what he expected to happen.
When the first half of his force was out of sight Bohemund ordered his men to dismount and walk; he wanted his mounts to be as fresh as possible for what he hoped was coming and it was a long time before that anticipation turned to frustration for there was no sign of Robert making contact, sending a hard-riding messenger to alert him to the approaching Turks. Throughout the morning they walked, exercising strict control over their horses when it came to cropping pasture or drinking, for a full belly was not an advantage in an equine when it came to rapid movement.
The sun was well past the zenith and he was getting closer to that escarpment called Jalal Talat when Bohemund realised he had made an error in thinking the fortress of Harim was too far off to trouble the siege of Antioch. So close had they come that a separate camp would have been unnecessary, indeed folly, much more vulnerable than even a small walled fort. Given cause to admire his enemies before, he was in that position again, there being no point in being upset that they failed to conform to his own tactical thinking.
‘Mount up,’ he called as he saw a rider, or rather the dust cloud in which he was near enveloped, his gaze ranging round for some way to keep his presence partly hidden. He wanted the Turks so fully committed they could not avoid contact and he spied to his side a low hill that, if it would not hide his men completely from anyone on an elevated slope, would serve to obscure their number. Riding slowly – he did not want dust in the air to alert the enemy – he led his men to where he had chosen to wait.
Robert was a long time coming, again raising the spectre of him acting for his own reputation, but eventually the ground began to vibrate with the effect of so many hooves and the one man Bohemund had put as lookout began to signal that the fleeing Normans were approaching and assured him that there were upwards of a thousand men in their wake. The lances went down as soon as the men had crossed themselves.
Now it was not vibrations but noise, a thundering and increasing cacophony of fast-riding horses, and then came the distant but faint whoops of excited and triumphant Turks, the same sound they had originally emitted at Dorylaeum. The forward element of Robert’s section, the fastest riders, began to fly past the vision of the waiting Normans and yet Bohemund held still, for his presence remained unknown and that surprised him. Surely the Turks would have the sense to divert some of their pursuers to high ground to alert them to a possible trap, and if they did they could not fail to see what was waiting for them even if it was too late to avoid.
The sight of the bulk of his men riding by, neck over their withers, was soon followed by the first Turks, nearly everyone with a sword out and looking
straight ahead, until those with wiser heads could not fail to see, by a flicking glance, what was on their flank. That they tried to pull up caused confusion throughout the Turkish ranks and that to Bohemund was the time to move. He led his men out at a fast canter, trusting the conroy leaders to exercise the requisite control, and they hit the first Turkish riders, spread out as they were, almost at once.
Robert must have been looking back, for as soon as Bohemund moved he had the horn blown and his men spun round to join in, with their young leader showing good judgement by leading them to the left flank of the Turks, the opposite side to which they were being assaulted by Bohemund. Riding flat out in pursuit it was near impossible for the Turks to either turn to meet the enemy in any disciplined manner or to easily realise how precarious their position was and retreat.
They sought to fight, but the odds were numerically against them as well as the tactical situation; they were disordered whereas the Normans were in close to full control, and that was not improved when they started to go down in droves to the couched lances. If there was a leader he had lost the battle before it started, for he could exercise no command that would save his men other than individual flight and, worse for his survival, those to the rear of his leading cavalry, unaware of what they faced, came on pell-mell into the battle, pushing forward their fellows into the rapidly closing jaws of the Norman maw.
The Turks died in droves; forced in upon themselves they fought as bravely as they could, but once more, when it came to even numbers the Normans, in their physical attributes and weapons, outmatched them in every way. For every one that died, another two were wounded to become a prisoner and when the battle was done the Turks had lost so many men to both that Bohemund knew the threat from Harim to be quashed.
The prisoners were brought back to Antioch to be paraded before the walls, a taunt to the defenders to tell them that their situation had gone from sound to questionable: without the support from Harim, the Crusaders’ supplies would increase and theirs would diminish. The Turks jeered at that, so to still their mockery the men Bohemund had captured were brought into plain view and beheaded by a single blow of a Crusader sword, their heads then catapulted over the battlements.
The Turks, if they could not match the numbers, sent out a sneak sortie and caught a high divine, the Archdeacon of Metz, sharing an assignation with a comely young Armenian girl in one of the apple orchards. The cleric, clearly bent on seduction, lost his head immediately, the girl and his skull being taken back into Antioch, she to be, the besiegers were informed, a sound receptacle of the juices of Islam. They knew what that meant: she had been raped into stupefaction. Then she was beheaded like her potential lover, both their heads fired back along with contempt.
Day after day the Armenian patriarch of Antioch, an elderly man as befitted his office, was brought to the walls to be hung upside down while the soles of his feet were beaten with rods, an affliction he bore with more fortitude than those who observed his ill-treatment. Designed to drive good Christians to fury, it succeeded better than the Turks could have supposed and fired up the very people they sought to taunt to a level of barbarity that flew in the face of their stated beliefs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
For all the successes enjoyed by the besiegers, hunger soon became the abiding curse; all their plans for regular supplies foundered on the inability of those who had promised to deliver, and that continued even after the threat of Turkish interdiction had been removed. Then there came weather that was a surprise to the majority if not those who had a wider knowledge of the world; not just rain and cold, which they thought the region free from, but heavy falls of snow that completely cut off the routes to Antioch for even those trying to meet their commitments.
Supplies by sea, even after the Crusaders had captured and opened the southern port of Latakia, on a benign wind a day’s sailing from Cyprus, were delayed by storms, and it had to be added that the island was a place of no abundance. The locals fed themselves first and no amount of payment would tempt them to risk hunger for the sake of a cause of which most of them had no notion. Foraging, from an area that had borne a heavy burden already, was producing less and less and the store of available sustenance was so depleted as to cause serious concern.
Naturally the fighting men were fed first, which meant that the pilgrims without the means to buy at inflated prices starved, and all the pleas of people like Peter the Hermit fell on deaf ears when it came to the Council of Princes. They worried about the health of their soldiers and it was far from good – disease always stalked siege lines and Antioch was no different, but if the men were weakened by hunger the death toll would escalate to dangerous proportions.
With no reinforcements coming in because of the season it was vital to maintain the numbers they could now muster and, with that in mind, it was decided that the act of foraging had to be extended beyond what would be considered safe or advisable in normal times. The decision was not unanimous that it should be so, especially given the lack of fit horses due to the need to put the feeding of men before equines, and it was this over which Raymond of Toulouse and the Normans came into open conflict.
‘You are talking about sending away a high proportion of our cavalry strength and half our milities. What of Antioch?’
‘The Count of Toulouse,’ said Robert of Normandy in reply, ‘does not seem to accept that without we can feed our men, there will be no siege to press home.’
‘While the Duke of Normandy cannot grasp that Antioch must be in as dire straits as we. It is no time to relax our grip. If we must send men away let it be to a place where there is food.’
‘Would not that equally deplete our strength?’ Bohemund enquired.
Raymond had taken a position on the matter and over the preceding weeks he had become fixed in his opinion that he knew how to press home a siege better than his peers, which gave Adémar a real dilemma, for he lacked the knowledge to know who was right and who was wrong. This made what he saw as diplomacy and some saw as fence sitting harder to maintain.
‘At least, Count Bohemund, we might see those we favour back to good health.’
‘Good! When they return they can bury the bones of those left behind.’
While Raymond sought to impose his views, Godfrey de Bouillon had moved to a position of much influence for his sound common sense as well as his complete lack of conceit and, while Adémar had seen his authority diminish, that of the Duke of Lower Lorraine had risen to the point that when he spoke all listened.
‘The stocks of food are low and they are not being replenished in enough quantity. I would also remind you, My Lords, that we have another duty, which if it does not transcend what we are engaged in must have an effect on our thinking.’
‘These pestilential pilgrims,’ Vermandois spat. ‘They eat food that should go to the men who fight. If you had listened to me after Nicaea it is a burden we would have shed.’
‘Would it matter,’ Godfrey responded, ‘if they starved in Bythnia or here in Syria?’
‘The Emperor would have fed and cared for them.’
‘As he did previously, Count Hugh? Do you not recall we walked over their bones on the road to Nicaea? I would like to see you put that point to the sainted Peter who led them. He was in my pavilion today pleading that his pilgrims be treated equally and as Christians.’
‘We lack the stores,’ Robert of Normandy insisted. ‘We have no more than a week of half rations and no idea of what will come in the days ahead.’
‘I must have a formal proposal,’ Adémar insisted, ‘so I can put it to the vote.’
That got him a jaundiced look from Raymond, who expected support from the papal legate who had, to his mind, come here on the tail of his surcoat. But the Bishop was on the horns of a dilemma, still seeking to maintain harmony when he could see it fracturing before his eyes. It had come to the point that without Godfrey de Bouillon to aid him in keeping the peace there would have been constant dissent and disagreement.
‘I propose,’ said Normandy, ‘that we send out every pack animal and ox cart we can muster, with men to both protect and lead them, to proceed to the plateau known as the Jabal as Summaq, in which we are told food is plentiful, and bring back enough to help sustain us until the spring.’
‘Ten days to get there, ten to forage and ten back at least,’ Raymond protested. ‘Do you not think our Turks watching from their citadel will not notice?’
Bohemund spoke up then. ‘Are you saying we cannot contain them even with half our strength?’
That flummoxed Raymond; if he believed he could not hold them he was admitting to the fact the siege was an error – the host outnumbered the defender six to one at even the most limited estimate.
‘I would undertake to do that,’ Bohemund added, which stung the Provençal magnate’s pride. ‘There is no need when my knights are present. They alone can seal the walls.’
‘Then, Count Raymond,’ interjected Robert of Normandy, ‘you will not object to your foot soldiers driving the carts?’
‘Do you intend to lead, Duke Robert?’
That gentle enquiry from Godfrey de Bouillon got a shake of the head. ‘I will put forward my brother-in-law of Flanders.’
‘An excellent choice,’ Adémar exclaimed, with such faux enthusiasm he made it sound the very opposite.
Godfrey spoke next. ‘Would you, Count Bohemund, agree to share the venture?’
‘Surely it is the turn of others?’
‘How can it be, my friend, when you so recently defeated our enemies in open conflict?’
‘I am willing to serve as the council directs.’
