Soldier of Crusade

by Jack Ludlow

  The plateau referred to by the Duke of Normandy lay well to the south-east of Antioch and as had already been stated it was, for the kind of cavalcade led by his brother-in-law and Count Bohemund, a long and slow march to get there. Both commanded large bodies of knights, some three hundred each in number, enough to cow the locals into cooperation as well as to deal with any groups of Turks they might encounter.

  Where Bohemund had come to enjoy common ground with Duke Robert on the way to Dorylaeum, he found the Count of Flanders less forthcoming in that regard, he being aloof and much concerned that he was as much a knight and commander as the Norman and that his authority over his own lances should not in any way be compromised. Added to that, those on foot were Raymond of Toulouse’s men and they proved unruly, their captains just as unwilling to bow the knee to Norman or Frank.

  The success of their mission made such a situation tolerable; while acting in concert they operated in a semi-independent fashion, ranging far and wide over what was a land full of milk and honey compared to Antioch, loading up their beast of burden and their carts until they were fully laden, eventually coming together to camp side by side with the intention of starting back for Antioch on the next morning, the troops of Flanders to the east and the Normans to their rear.

  It was never established whose duty it was to send out scouts, each man blamed the other for the failure to do so and that continued all the way to the later chronicles of the Crusade; all that mattered was there were none, or too few to give warning of the threat that was approaching the foraging force. The sight of a large party of Turks at dawn, observing their positions, was in itself alarming and set the camp into a rush to get ready to move. Riding out to assess the level of danger Bohemund got a shock greater than any he had ever experienced, for, from an elevated observation point, he could see that the land to the east was covered in marching men; this was no roving squadron but a full-scale army, obviously headed for Antioch, and one that massively outnumbered the Crusaders.

  Hastening back to the lines he harried the drovers and milities to get their carts and animals into motion in the hope of putting some distance between them and the Turks, quick to curse the Count of Flanders for the fact of such a force being a surprise. There were grounds for that, if they were slender – the mounted men of Flanders had operated close to the enemy line of march – but it was, in truth, the fault of both men to allow themselves to feel so secure that no duty for protection had been discussed.

  To say it was a race to get clear was risible; the sole hope was that the approaching Turkish host would have in mind some other objective and that the sight of the foraging Franks would not divert them from that. It proved to be a false dream almost before they cleared the overnight encampment, as Turkish cavalry appeared on the far hillsides in numbers, clearly intent on forcing battle. With sinking hearts the two leaders knew the Muslim foot would be hot on their heels. Worse, the mounted warriors split into twin columns and set off with the clear intention of getting ahead of the Crusaders before coming together and blocking their route to the west and there was little either Count could do to prevent it.

  Running for the whole foraging party was not an option; too many were foot bound, quite apart from their encumbrances, so they were ordered to make a corral with their wagons, into which they should lead their donkeys, mules and packhorses, and to then form a defence around that while the knights sought to drive off the enemy enough to create a corridor of escape. To the west the Turks were coming in from both the pincers to close the gap, leaving the lances no choice but to seek to force a way through.

  Robert of Flanders declined to give first chance to the Normans – or was it their commander, for whose fame and reputation he now openly demonstrated his disdain? Gathering his knights he set off to stop the completion of that encircling movement, Bohemund electing not to join him but determined to hold his men together so that he could react to whatever came next. The knights of Flanders did good service, crushing the line of Turks before them, which allowed Bohemund to split his forces and attack the two wings which were now in confusion, thus opening the potential for flight by all.

  With their weight superiority the Crusader knights were doing great slaughter and driving back the enemy so that the route west was clear. Hard as they fought to hold open that corridor, and despite an order to move, abandoning wagons and animals, including the stores they had worked so hard to collect, it soon became clear that the milities felt safer in their wagon-bound enclave than in the open and when they should have moved they stayed put. Never having the discipline of their mounted confrères, regardless of where they came from, no amount of browbeating would make them budge.

  Both Bohemund and Robert of Flanders were in a bind: if they went to the rescue of their Provençal milities they would be riding back into the Turkish trap, and pouring towards that square of wagons were thousands of Turkish foot, too many for a force of five hundred knights to beat off unless they could be induced to panic. Why would they do that when on either flank they still had mounted men ready to fall upon their enemy?

  It had to be attempted, there was no choice; mounts which had already been in action once were kicked into motion once more to filter round the wagons on both sides, one half of the field the ragged lances of Flanders, the other the near-to-neat line of Normans. The effect was immediate in that the Turks halted their onward progress, yet they were numerically so superior that the hoped for wave of dread and flight did not materialise; they formed a firm line ready to resist the charge of heavy cavalry under command of men who held them steady.

  For their bravery the men at the front died in droves, speared, sliced, cut and trampled by the sheer weight of what hit them, and soon the knights were doing execution in staggering quantities, though not without losses of their own. Bohemund, in between slaying his foes, realised that the cavalry they had driven back were now re-formed and about to repeat their previous manoeuvre, only this time they would be close to and in support of their own foot, a potentially deadly combination.

  Much as he hated the notion there was no choice but to withdraw or die in a situation where preservation of the mounted part of the crusading host was paramount. Added to that was the frustration that the Provençal milities had still not moved; this they could have done at a run and then at least he and Flanders could have acted to protect their back. Nor was he sure that his fellow leader would discern the same dilemma as he, leaving him no choice but to disengage independently, an act which left the Count of Flanders no option but to do likewise, a later cause of increased recrimination.

  To get clear was not simple; the Turks did everything they could to hamper their efforts, but find space they did, riding hard towards the wagons, Bohemund yelling that there was still a slim chance to flee, a faint hope the Turks would not come on at speed. Now, as the knights rode by them without stopping – they could not without they sacrifice themselves – these Provençal foot soldiers finally realised the extent of their plight and some emerged to grab the stirrups of their knights so as to be dragged to safety.

  Most remained, and when the mounts were blown and the knights stopped on the crest of a hill, it was to look back at a scene of slaughter as the milities fought and failed to hold off the Turks. For those who did not fall, slavery would be their lot, but nearly as depressing was the fact that all the supplies they had gathered were now in Turkish hands. Painful to watch, it had to be witnessed and it sat heavy on their souls as they rode back to Antioch, only to find there that the Turks had taken advantage of their absence to sortie out and attack the siege lines, inflicting a serious check using the tactic of the false retreat.

  Emerging in numbers from the Bridge Gate they had enticed the Crusaders under Raymond and Adémar to cross the bridge of boats and seek to chase them off. It seemed to have been initially successful, but it was a trap and once the knights were on the wrong bank of the Orontes the Turks had turned upon them and engineered a rout, not a serious one in terms
of dead and wounded, but a dent to their pride and also their faith: the Turks had taken the blue and gold Virgin banner of Bishop Adémar, which was held to be a thing no Christian God should have allowed.

  Hope in any army is of paramount concern and the losses in men and food reported when the two Counts returned, added to the recent defeat before the Bridge Gate, sent that plummeting and it was not assuaged in the weeks that followed as food grew ever more scarce. First the non-combatant pilgrims began to die, and many of those who could not cling to life set off north in the hope of at least getting home. With soldiers reduced to eating berries and weeds death stalked the lines too and every morning produced more copses. The morale of the host led even powerful knights to seek succour: Stephen of Blois, claiming to be too ill to continue and his purse to be bare, removed himself to Alexandretta.

  Every leader was emptying his purse to buy what could be purchased from those with food and they were selling at rapacious prices, this while the wind blew, the rain lashed down every few days and the occasional snow reduced the whole effort to stark misery, a state of which Yaghi Siyan took full advantage. No body of knights was safe, especially on starving, unfit horses, and even the trickle of supplies coming in from the ports of St Simeon and Latakia were subject to constant raids, all launched from the three Antioch gates the Crusade could not block.

  Then Tacitus declared he must go north and seek reinforcements from the Emperor, a move that was greeted with much encouragement. That faded when it was realised he had taken his troops with him, abandoning his own possessions and much of their equipment to facilitate a fast march, the conclusion obvious: it was very doubtful if he intended to return.

  Such gloom reached its nadir when it was discovered that even Peter the Hermit, that talismanic figure, in the company of a pious knight called William, Lord of Melun, had set off for Constantinople too and that could not be borne. Tancred was sent after him and he did bring both men back. Tempted to string them up, Bohemund, who was given the power of decision over their fate, felt he had to release them after no more than a stern lecture; to punish either severely would, in Peter’s case, upset the pilgrims who saw him as their spiritual leader, and as for William of Melun, the knights in the host were restive enough without firing that up anymore, though he was treated as dirt and a carpet for the whole of the time he spent in Bohemund’s tent.

  Bleak as it was in want and dearth, there were occasional bright spots: the arrival of a fleet from England bearing supplies raised hope of assuaged hunger, until it was realised that most of the cargo was large quantities of oak and along with that came the woodworkers who could fashion it. Still, there was food too, and since oak was important, a large escort, hundreds of knights, went to bring it in safety to the siege lines, an indication of how difficult that was the fact that there were half a dozen small engagements on the way.

  It was decided to use the oak to construct another fortress opposite the Bridge Gate, the site chosen that of a ruined mosque and a still used cemetery. If it was heartless of the Crusaders to disinter the bodies of the Muslim dead and throw them into an open pit, the fact that that caused great lamentation from the walls of Antioch was to the good – anything that lowered Turkish morale was to be welcomed. Soon the fortress stood four-square to block the exit. It was not intended to be so secure it did not need support, but it did mean that those who manned it could hold off the enemy in some safety until help arrived.

  What was left went towards strengthening a derelict building opposite the St George’s Gate, into which Tancred moved as an independent command. If he could not entirely blockade the entrance he could reduce the flow of goods going through it to a trickle, which left Yaghi Siyan only the Iron Gate for resupply, and mobile patrols made that risky. When the weather began to turn the Council of Princes found themselves in command of a much diminished force both in terms of man and horsepower.

  If it was that, some comfort had to be taken from the hardiness of those who remained; these were the tough ones, the fellows whose faith or sheer tenacity had seen them through. If it was a lean force now, no more than thirty thousand strong and seriously short of horses, it was a resilient one and it had to be, for news came from their scouts of yet another Muslim army coming to the relief of Antioch under Ridwan, the son of the Sultan of Baghdad, which brought up a stark choice: to meet and defeat them or lift the siege of Antioch.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  If the number of reported Turks coming their way under Ridwan of Aleppo had to be an exaggeration, there was no doubt the Crusaders faced a massive force equal to their own and they could only detach so many from the siege to face it. Added to that their main weapon, the mounted knight with lance, was now so constrained by a lack of fit horses that doubts existed as to how effective it could be. When counted, it was realised that only some six hundred equines could bear a human load enough to do battle and they could not all be taken away from the defence of their siege lines.

  At least they knew exactly where the Turks had camped, around the fortress of Harim, and they now had a greater grasp of the terrain than their enemy, which Bohemund pointed out allowed them to choose where any battle would be fought. This could provide a crucial advantage, for he still maintained, even after what had occurred so recently on the foraging expedition, that the Turks were not stalwart and the key to defeating them was the kind of surprise that threw their undisciplined levies into disarray.

  ‘They are a mob, even the cavalry,’ he insisted. ‘Look how they acted at Nicaea. Let us commit them to battle and then shock them.’

  ‘Mounts,’ Vermandois said, and for once it was treated as a valid interjection.

  ‘Most of our knights will have to fight on foot, Count Hugh,’ Godfrey de Bouillon stated. ‘That we have already established.’

  ‘We must use our horses to good effect, and no one is more adept at that than we Normans.’

  Even saintly Godfrey was put out by that comment from the Duke of Normandy, it being so crass, which was nothing as to the reaction of Raymond, who positively bristled; he had yet to forgive Bohemund and Robert of Flanders for the loss of his Provençal milities.

  ‘It would be fitting if certain people were to accept that we are equals in combat.’

  ‘Except in one regard, Count Raymond,’ Bohemund interrupted, albeit softly. ‘We Apulians have more fit horses than anyone else, the Duke of Normandy included.’

  Two spectres were raised by that: the Count of Taranto had sent many of his horses away at the approach of winter where others had declined to do so and, if they had not all fared as well as he hoped, the number that came back battle-ready, some two hundred mounts, was significant. The second point did not have to be stated: there was no chance whatever that the Normans of South Italy would hand these horses over to anyone else. If there were to be a use of mounts in the coming encounter it would be led by Bohemund.

  ‘My Lords,’ he continued, ‘even on foot, we knights mailed are a match for the Turks, as you, Count Raymond proved at Nicaea, which I again take leave to mention.’

  ‘And there,’ Godfrey added, ‘we chose where to fight.’

  ‘That is our best hope,’ Raymond agreed, his high mood assuaged slightly by Bohemund’s reference to his previous success. ‘So we now must spend time in the choosing.’

  This time they were poring over maps that had been drawn by their own scribes; anything Roman after the desertion of Tacitus was seen as tainted. The obvious tactical need was a valley and one high sided enough to make it difficult for Ridwan to get over the slopes to outflank them, though given the numbers they could deploy it was hoped he would not even consider such a stratagem. The use of a false retreat was examined and discarded; the Turks employed that manoeuvre themselves and might not fall for it when used against them.

  ‘Fighting on foot, cohesion is all,’ declared Raymond. ‘If we try to back away we will lose that and will struggle to re-form our line if they decline to follow. No, if we fall back, i
t must be pace by pace and decided by a single banner.’

  ‘And once they are committed,’ concluded Adémar, ‘it is down to you, Count Bohemund.’

  ‘Might I suggest the Count of Toulouse to command the knights on foot?’

  Florid Toulouse was obviously taken with that notion and he glared at everyone present, Bohemund apart, daring them to decline him the honour.

  ‘I am happy for you to lead,’ Godfrey said, that backed by Hugh of Vermandois, who had lost some of his ambition since the start of this siege. Only the Duke of Normandy looked reluctant as he agreed.

  In the event it was classic in its execution; Ridwan was so sure of his numerical superiority he came on as if he had already triumphed, to meet a line of mailed knights on foot, with shields and weapons at the ready, men who stood and suffered the attack by mounted archers and did not flinch. Then came the mass of Turkish foot, shoulder to shoulder and in deep and multiple lines that stretched across the valley floor, their kettledrums beating a loud tattoo and their cries to the Prophet rending the air.

  At first the Crusaders were immovable, until Ridwan sent in several supporting waves so that the battle area became a crowded mass. The Crusaders took their first backward step, only one and in unison, each man eyeing the banner of Raymond so as to be sure that what order had been given was just that – one step and no more. Encouraged, Ridwan sent in more men and again, after a fierce fight the Crusader line went backwards, not much, but heartening to the Turkish general. Sure that one final push would break the Crusaders’ spirit he committed all of his men and backed them up with his mounted archers. The whole milled about in the rear, ready for the pursuit, which was bound to follow.

  Bohemund did not show restraint as he entered the fray; cresting the right-hand slope, he and his lances came over as a body and for once he let the slope dictate the pace of his attack, which was made at the full gallop over what was a short distance. To hold a line on such an incline was impossible, just as unlikely as that a force of a mere two hundred knights could put to flight an army numbered in the tens of thousands. Yet shock and astonishment are potent weapons and that was what fell upon the Turks now, and if the sight of these charging horsemen was not enough to dent their confidence, the sudden reversal of the actions of the mailed knights to their front was.