The constant sneering at Alexius’ largess only confirmed the low opinion that most Byzantines had of the westerners. If the nobles appeared arrogant, however, the knights were often even worse. It was customary to stand in the emperor's presence, but one of Godfrey's men had insolently sprawled himself across Alexius' throne instead, a breach of protocol which under normal circumstances would have been grounds for war. Alexius tactfully ignored the offense, but when the knight was gently rebuked by another of Godfrey's men, the stubborn man not only refused to get up, but insulted the emperor's honor.
The Normans, who were so recently open enemies of the empire, could be expected to be equally insufferable, but fortunately Bohemond's ambition kept them firmly in check. To ease tensions, the Norman leader had left his army encamped some miles away, and proceeded to the capital with a small guard. His interview with Alexius was both short and polite. When asked to swear the oath, he did so without a moment's hesitation, vowing to accept the emperor as his overlord and to return any captured territory. As he rose, he smoothly asked to be named ‘Grand Domestic of the East’.
The request put Alexius in an uncomfortable position. Unlike most of the titles he handed out which were impressive sounding but empty, the one Bohemond had asked for was one of the most powerful offices in the empire. The Grand Domestic was commander-in-chief of all imperial forces in Asia, and would have made Bohemond both the de facto leader of the crusade and a potential rival to the emperor himself.
It was unthinkable to put Bohemond in charge of the greater part of the imperial forces, of course, so Alexius was now in the slightly embarrassing position of having to deny the first request his new vassal made. He did it tactfully, saying that the time wasn't quite right, but vaguely hinted that he could earn the position with the right mixture of daring and loyalty. After a few more parting pleasantries – and a promise by Alexius to send troops and food with Bohemond's army – the Norman withdrew and rejoined his army.
All things considered, it had been a remarkable success for Bohemond. He can't seriously have believed that he would be named Grand Domestic, but he now knew that no other noble had been given that distinction either. Furthermore, with the Byzantine supplies and troops traveling with him, it would be that much easier to convince the other crusaders that he had a special understanding with the emperor.
The only thing that marred the smooth relations was the behavior of Bohemond's hot-headed nephew Tancred who bristled when informed that he would have to swear the oath. When he was eventually forced to appear before the emperor, he did so with considerable ill-grace. After the other minor nobles who were with him had sworn, Alexius offered each of them a gift, explaining that if they were displeased they had only to name what they wanted. Perhaps inspired by his uncle's boldness, Tancred rejected the presents, demanding the emperor's tent – filled to the brim with gold – instead.
This was almost worse than asking to be named Grand Domestic. The imperial tent was the symbol of the emperor's authority, a visible reminder of power. Like everything associated with the throne, it was on a massive scale, closer to a palace than something used for camping. A contemporary described it as a 'city with turreted atrium' and its loss in battle was considered equal to the loss of an actual palace. It was based on Alexander the Great's famous banqueting tent, and outfitted with collapsible furniture and enough space to accommodate up to five hundred people.49
Alexius, who had probably expected a request for a gaudy bauble or title, was taken back, but recovered quickly. He dryly asked Tancred how he would transport his gift – the tent normally required twenty fully loaded camels to move – and then took a subtle dig at the crusade. “Undoubtedly,” he remarked, “it will move behind you by some sort of divine will.” It was the skin of the lion, he warned Tancred, that brought ruin to Aesop's ass – a reference to the fable of a donkey's failed attempt to pass himself off as the king of beasts by dressing up in a lion's hide.
“Let your own actions judge you and earn your own tent,” he continued. “When you were quiet I considered you wise, but the moment you opened your mouth you proved yourself a fool.” He finished with a stinging rebuke. 'You are not worthy of being either a friend or enemy to me.’50
Raymond of Toulouse
Alexius had managed to get the Normans out of the capital just in time. The same night that Tancred crossed the Bosphorus to join the main armies in Asia, Raymond of Toulouse, the last of the great Crusading princes arrived in Constantinople with his army.
If Bohemond was the most ambitious of the crusaders, and Godfrey the most well-connected, Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, was the most powerful. Still vibrant in his mid-fifties, he had spent most of his life steadily expanding his power over southern France, and by 1097 had more wealth, lands and armies than most kings – including the King of France. Thanks to a marriage to the beautiful Elvira of Aragon, he was related to the Spanish royal house, and had already participated in several 'mini-crusades' to push back the Islamic invaders there. What’s more he could count Pope Urban among his personal friends, and had in fact been the first great noble to publicly take the cross. The pope had probably discussed the crusade with him in person before Clermont, and Raymond seems to have been deeply moved. After swearing to end his life in the service of Christ, he turned over all his lands and property to his sons, and marched east with his wife and eldest son in tow.
Raymond – like each of the four great nobles – considered himself the obvious leader of the crusade. There was some justification for him to think this. Although Urban had carefully avoided naming a chief, his personal representative – Adhemar of Le Puy – was ordered to travel with Raymond. This made Raymond the Moses to Adhemar's Aaron, the secular authority to complement the pope's spiritual power.
Raymond's army was one of the first to actually leave France, but instead of taking the sea route across the Adriatic he had unwisely chosen to march around its northeastern shore. When the army reached present-day Croatia they discovered that the roads were nearly impassable and the local populations were hostile. Progress became slower the further they went in the Balkans. Distances that should have taken weeks took months, and as the army struggled, ambushes became more frequent. On one occasion Raymond was caught with the rearguard and only managed to halt an enemy charge by building a wall of mutilated prisoners.
When at last they reached imperial territory the army was given an escort and access to imperial markets to buy food, but the locals had nothing left to sell, and in any case were thoroughly tired of crusaders. Discipline had been good – Raymond hadn't lost a single soldier to hunger or battle – but now tempers began to rise. The crusaders resented the heavy imperial guard watching their every move, and several groups split off to plunder the countryside. When the Byzantines attempted to prevent them from doing this, a skirmish ensued and two minor French nobles were killed.
The imperial guard was now on high alert, and in the charged atmosphere it was only too easy to make mistakes. A few days later Adhemar of Le Puy strayed from the road and was attacked and wounded by the imperial escort before he was recognized. To the outraged army this example confirmed the suspected Byzantine perfidy, and that feeling was only strengthened when the same thing happened a short time later to Raymond himself.
Adhemar, who seems to have borne no ill-will for what had happened, urged restraint but was forced to stay behind the army to recuperate. Raymond was of the same mind, and a few days later he received warm letters from Constantinople urging him to come in person to meet with the emperor. He left the army camped a few miles from the capital and entered the city with a small honor guard.
The departure of their two leaders left the army without any restraining influences, and matters quickly spiraled out of control. They immediately started to raid the countryside, taking the supplies by force that they were convinced the Byzantines were refusing to sell them. By this time, a proper imperial army had been summoned and they attacked Raymond's army. The
undisciplined crusaders were quickly defeated and they scattered, leaving most of their weapons and baggage in imperial hands.
News of the disaster reached Raymond just as he was preparing to meet Alexius. The emperor had poured on the usual charm. A luxurious palace had been put at Raymond's disposal and the customary gifts had arrived each day. Raymond, however, was in no mood to be wooed. In addition to the humiliation caused by his scattered army, he was also aware of the oath that his fellow princes had sworn, as well as Bohemond's attempt to be named commander in chief. A rumor had reached him that the Norman had come to some kind of understanding with Alexius, and he was unwilling to take an oath that would make him subservient to Bohemond. When Alexius delicately brought up the matter, Raymond haughtily responded that he had come to serve God and wouldn't take another lord.
Not even the presence of the other great lords, each urging him to take the oath so they could start the crusade, could change Raymond's mind. When Bohemond – still angling for imperial favor – made it known that if the emperor and Raymond came to blows, he would be supporting the Byzantines, Raymond countered by pledging to leave at once if Alexius would lead in person.
The emperor tried to smooth things over by saying that he would, of course, be delighted to lead the crusade, but unfortunately the political realities of the empire made that impossible at the moment. Seeing how frustrated the other crusaders were with Raymond, he then wisely withdrew, leaving it to them to convince their colleague. At last, after five days of haggling, Raymond agreed to a compromise. He swore a modified oath – to respect the life and honor of the emperor and to see to it that neither he nor his men did anything to damage imperial prospects.
With that, Alexius was satisfied, and Raymond's army was transported to join the rest of the crusaders waiting on the Asian shore of the Bosporus. Ironically, Raymond left Constantinople with the warmest relationship with Alexius. While the other crusading princes left to join their men, Raymond stayed behind to wait for Adhemar to arrive from his convalescence. His greatest fear had been being upstaged by Bohemond, but Alexius privately made it clear that there was no special bond between them, and in fact, he would never name the ambitious Norman to the position of Grand Domestic.
With the departure of Raymond, Alexius could finally breathe a sigh of relief. There were a few more nobles who trickled in, chief among them Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Blois – the son and son-in-law of William the Conqueror respectively – but for the most part his job was done.51 Over the past year and a half, more than a hundred thousand people had passed through Constantinople, representing a bewildering number of logistical and diplomatic problems.52 Just feeding and transporting all of them would have overwhelmed nearly all medieval states, but Alexius had juggled them all with impressive dexterity. He had managed to keep them all reasonably happy, shuttled them on their way, and – most importantly – extracted an oath of loyalty from all of them. If it hadn't been a complete success – tensions between eastern and western Christians were notably more strained – he had accomplished far more than he could have reasonably expected at the start.
The crusade, for the moment at least, was serving his purpose, but he had no illusions that it would for long. It was a thunderbolt without anyone controlling it, flung into Asia Minor. If he could just keep it pointed at his enemies long enough to recover some of the major cities of the Roman East, all the humiliations, flattering of bruised egos, and immense cost in time and money would be worth it.
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Chapter 4: The Long March
“If they wish to fight today, let them come like men.”
– Bohemond53
The crusading army that gathered on the eastern shore of the Bosporus must have presented an interesting sight. The size of medieval armies is notoriously difficult to calculate, but there were probably thirty thousand infantry, five thousand knights, and perhaps a comparable number of non-combatants. They were more organized than Peter the Hermit's shambling horde, but were still camped haphazardly, with tents clustered around each noble or minor lord. Only in the Byzantine contingent – Alexius had sent a general named Taticius and a small detachment along as advisors – was there a sense of order, as they were drawn up with their huge siege engines in the same systematic fashion that the Romans had used for centuries.
Despite the chaotic arrangements, the clashing egos of the leaders, and the competing interests of imperial and crusader troops, there was no disagreement about what to do now that the crusade was at last in Asia. If there was any hope of reaching Jerusalem, the roads through Asia Minor had to be cleared and that meant taking the city of Nicaea.
The heavily fortified Turkish capital was situated along a major Byzantine military road on a lake not far from the Propontis, the small sea that separates Europe from Asia. It had been an important city since the fourth century and its impressive four-mile-long walls had been conscientiously maintained by the Byzantines and their Turkish successors. Although its position on the lakeshore made a siege virtually impossible without a navy, leaving it in enemy hands was unthinkable. The crusade would effectively be cut off from any help.
At the beginning of the summer, the crusade set off from their military camp on the coast for Nicaea. Along the way they passed the gruesome remains of the People's Crusade, noting the many bleached-white bones still visible. It was a sobering reminder of the dangers they faced and the price of failure, and it must have been on their minds when they settled down to the siege of Nicaea.
By luck rather than design their timing was impeccable. The Turkish sultan, Kilij Arslan, was busy extending his territory to the east and was reluctant to abandon the effort. He was, of course, well informed of the crusading army, but failed to take it seriously. His experience with Peter's rabble led him to believe that the westerners weren't a credible threat, and the fact that Peter himself had joined this crusade – a bit of news his spies most likely passed on – further reassured him. As a sign of his confidence, Arslan had left his wife, children, and treasury in Nicaea.
The opening days of the siege seemed to bode well for the crusade. Although there was no single leader, the princes and their Byzantine allies acted in concert, forming a ruling council that agreed on tactics without any serious disagreements. The Turkish garrison, which could still receive supplies from across the lake, sent frantic messages to the sultan urging him to hurry home. Kilij Arslan, now realizing he had miscalculated, rushed back with his army, but by the time he arrived, morale was dangerously low.
Just how badly the sultan had underestimated his opponents was made painfully clear on May 21, 1097. In a ferocious engagement that lasted most of the day, the heavily armed crusaders more than held their own, and by nightfall Kilij Arslan had fled into the mountains leaving Nicaea, along with his wife and children, to their fate.
To the crusader's delight, they discovered among the ruins of the sultan's camp the ropes that Arslan had hoped to bind his Christian prisoners with. They proceeded to tie up their own Turkish captives with the same material, and attempted to demoralize the garrison by launching the severed heads of the Turkish dead over the walls.
The garrison, however, showed far more resilience than their sultan. When the crusaders tried to bring down one of the towers by mining it and lighting a huge fire, the Turks managed to repair the damage during the night. The crusaders woke the next morning to the depressing sight of all their work undone. Gradually, it began to dawn on the crusading princes that they would need help. The garrison had enough food and water for several months, and as long as they maintained access to the lake they could sustain the siege indefinitely. If the Byzantine navy didn't close Nicaea's ports, the crusaders would be stuck here for the foreseeable future.
A delegation was sent to Alexius, who instantly54 arranged for a flotilla to be launched across the lake, closing Nicaea's access to the outside world. A general assault was scheduled for a f
ew days later.
When the Turkish garrison saw the imperial standards in the lake, they realized that there was no further point in resisting. The only question now was how to avoid the complete destruction of the city, so they opened up secret negotiations with the Byzantines. In return for a guarantee of the life and property of the inhabitants, and the promise that no crusaders would be allowed in the city, the garrison surrendered to the emperor. That night, the imperial guard was let in by a lakeside gate, and the garrison marched out.
The emperor had recovered an important city without damaging it or estranging his Turkish neighbors. But however prudent this move was – and it was the exact reason he had extracted oaths from the crusading princes in the first place – it confirmed the general feeling amongst the crusader leaders that the Byzantines were slippery. The next morning, the very day of the planned general assault, the crusaders awoke to the bewildering sight of the imperial eagle fluttering over the city. Alexius' representatives hurried to thank the crusaders for their assistance and richly reward the princes, but among the rank and file there was a palpable feeling of being cheated. It was customary for the soldiers to be allowed three days of plundering a captured city. This was the main benefit of being on the winning end of a siege, and denying the reward meant that all the work of the siege was for nothing.
In Distant Lands Page 6
