77 Chapter 13: The Battle of Antioch
The holy war is starved and trapped by an army twice its size. Only a miracle can save the Western armies from dying thousands of miles from their home.
“Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms.”
-Jeremiah 51:20
“I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills, your valleys, and your streams filled with people slaughtered by the sword. I will make you desolate forever. Then you will know that I am God.”
-Ezekiel 35:8
Just before Kerbogha’s force encircled Antioch and cut the holy war off from the world, the armed pilgrims managed to send out runners with a life-or-death mission. These raced north to beg the Emperor to deliver the Westerners from certain doom. Unfortunately for the Crusaders Étienne of Blois was already moving through Anatolia with a far different message for Alexios I. Having left Antioch just before its capture, the count of Blois learned that his comrades had gone from besiegers to the besieged as an overwhelming Turkish army took the battle plain. Convinced that the situation was hopeless, Étienne led his men on a long path towards home. Along the southwestern coast he met the Emperor who stood at the head of an army. Étienne surveyed Alexios I’s force and told him that such an army was utterly outmatched by the Turkish multitudes. If at that moment Alexios I had any intention of aiding the holy war, Étienne convinced him against doing so. For Alexios I, the holy war had accomplished all that he had wanted of it: the Western forces had recaptured Anatolia for the Eastern Roman Empire. Having served its purpose, Alexios I would leave the armed pilgrims to their fate.
The Turkish governor of Mosul, Kerbogha, arrived at Antioch too late to save the city. The Crusaders had already slaughtered those inside, killing tens of thousands in their bloodlust. So many bloating corpses littered the streets that the besieging Turks could no doubt smell the gore when an unfortunate wind blew their way. Turkish scouts trekked around the city’s mountain-facing side, bringing them under the walls of the citadel where the last of the city’s defenders remained. Once contact was made, Kerbogha had to decide whether to attack quickly and try to save the city garrison or settle in for a siege and starve out the Christian forces. He opted for the former.
On a sudden the Turkish army assaulted Antioch. The iron men, who had so recently taken the city, became its defenders. The armed pilgrims rushed out to meet the Turks but were overwhelmed. The pilgrims rushed back to the city in such terror that hundreds were killed in the stampede. The pursuing Turks then assailed the walls and gates. Kerbogha ordered attack after attack, believing that his enemies were on the breaking point. Yet, Antioch’s walls held back the Muslim host as it had the Christians, and the Turks retreated with bitter losses. With no way to take the city, Kerbogha had his men settle in until the Christians starved to death.
It did not take long for the iron men to succumb to hunger. Their months’-long siege of the city had choked it of most of its food reserves. What was left was not enough to feed such a great host. Without proper food, the armed pilgrims turned to whatever seemed edible. The Gesta recounts, “So terrible was the famine that men boiled and ate the leaves of figs, vines, thistles and all kinds of trees. Others stewed dried skins of horses, camels, asses, oxen and buffaloes which they then ate.”
The Gesta Tancredi claims that the pilgrims,
“ate poisonous food, including Celtic nard, hemlock, hellebore, sorrel, darnel and cockle. These suffering people died while eating in order to live. Whatever old soles of shoes there were and whatever leather they found left somewhere was thrown into a cooking pot and softened by flames and water. From this, they made meals, and lucky was he to whom fate gave such things. Those upon whom fate looked with jealousy were given over to illness and death. Pressed by these bad conditions, and accustomed to the good life, the noble offspring of dukes, counts and kings were hedged in by the walls in a manner that had never happened before and has not happened since. They feared hunger, and had barely enough water to serve as their nectar. Here there was dysentery and there a fever brought on by a plague. There was no solace, and death was everywhere you looked.”
As is always the case in a brutal siege, rodents were trapped and eaten. The armed pilgrims were not just low on food but also on arms. At night, when the fighting died down, Christian soldiers gathered up the arrows that the enemy had loosed upon them for later use.
While Kerbogha kept his main host in camp he sent out archers to fire on the guards and small sorties to harass the walls. While the Turkish governor likely did not believe he would take the city, his aim was instead to sap the morale of its defenders. He was well-aided by the stupidity of his foes. The holy war’s leaders feared that many of their own men, who had fallen into despair, were hiding in the houses adjacent to the walls, rather than do their duty defending them. To draw them out, and prevent any future hiding, Count Robert of Flanders set fire to the houses. As you can imagine, this fire soon got out of control and burned a fair amount of the city, including many churches.
After a number of skirmishes, some Turkish commanders realized a pattern among the defenders. Along one stretch of walls, a number of German troops maintained a guard at night, then slept during the day. This was due to the Turks fighting at night, when the darkness made it more difficult for the Christians to fire projectiles at them. One day the Turks decided to take the Germans by surprise. They used ladders and crested the defenses. While the Germans groggily awoke to an enemy in their midst, a French force arrived and drove the Turks back, literally hurtling them over the walls. The French were so outraged that their German brethren had let an enemy force in that as they marched back to their own positions they chanted loudly, “Germans are shit.”
With death all but certain, many terrified believers turned to their spiritual leaders. Some, like Foucher of Chartres, claimed that God was angry with them because many men had sexual relations with impure women. It was a strange declaration, given that the city was even then strewn with tens of thousands of bodies, many of which had been left to decay. Still, these men looked for any way to appease an angry God and save themselves from the fate they had so recently delivered to the Antiochenes.
Between the sickening food and the severe hunger some among the Crusaders began to hallucinate. More than a few claimed to have had visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary promising their deliverance. One Provençal soldier named Pierre Barthélemy told Count Raymond that he had been visited by Saint Andrew. The saint had informed Pierre that the Holy Lance, which had pierced Christ’s side while he suffered on the cross, was hidden in the city. Despite objections from Adhémar, Raymond and some of his fellow nobles entered the grounds of the church of Saint Peter and began digging where Pierre had instructed them. They found nothing. Then, Pierre stepped down into the hole the men had dug and pulled out part of a spearpoint, crying out that the Spear of Destiny had been found. News quickly spread throughout the city and soon the Crusaders gained hope.
Such a find proved too much for Bohemond and a handful of skeptics. Yet, these bit their tongue, knowing that their men’s courage had probably passed its breaking point. Already there were reports of men climbing down the walls at night and fleeing to the Greeks on the coast. Even as the giant privately dismissed such foolish superstition, he recognized the power of belief. As the de facto leader of the holy war, Bohemond sent out emissaries to Kerbogha, yet these were all rebuffed out of hand. The governor of Mosul had no interest in parlaying with an enemy he aimed to annihilate.
Weeks passed with on-and-off skirmishes between the Crusaders and their enemies outside the walls and between Christians and the Turks in the mountain citadel. Hunger became starvation. The six lords of the holy war held council. They all recognized that they could not wait for Alexios I to arrive. Their only hope was an all-out attack on their foe. The armed pilgrims ate whatever remaining food they had. What grasses could be found were collected and given to the remaining mounts. For three days the armies recognized, if not celebrated, the Eucharist and took what many assumed would be their last confessions.
On the morning of the 28 June the iron men filed out of the western gate and assembled on the battle plain. Hauberks sagged on shoulders shrunken from malnourishment. Horses with protruding bones hobbled into formation. An army of wraiths assembled before the fortress walls. The hosts were split among the five great lords, since Étienne had betrayed his oaths and the sickened Raymond remained in Antioch. Taking their place were Adhémar of Le Puy and Tancred.
What followed was so miraculous that even the Crusaders later marveled. The armed pilgrims smashed into the first host assembled before them and the Turks broke. Then they met another force and drove it to flight as well. Kerbogha commanded his army to attack but the iron men could not be broken. In contrast, the Turks scattered before Bohemond and his heavy cavalry. On the Orontes plain the starving, sick and wearied Westerners utterly routed a force twice their own size, though with only a small number of tired horses they could not chase down their fleeing enemies. The Turks ran in such haste that the Christians were able to capture their unguarded camp and greedily devoured the stores of food. Many wives of the Turkish leaders were captured with the camp. Rather than rape the women, the Crusaders chose not to defile themselves and instead cut their bellies open.
The Battle of Antioch was one of the greatest victories in medieval history, whose outcome baffled those who witnessed it. In hindsight, we can understand why the armed pilgrims succeeded, despite their small numbers and weakened bodies. First, and this cannot be understated: the Westerners understood that it was kill or be killed. These men had no option other than victory. Like a cornered tiger, this made them ruthless. In contrast, Kerbogha’s army was there to conquer Antioch. Alongside the main host were many allies who had joined him but who secretly feared that victory would make Kerbogha their master. When battle turned against them they had little reason to stay.
This leads into the second reason for the Christian victory: disunity among the Turks. Spies informed Bohemond that many Turkish commanders did not want to be there, given their mutual distrust of each other. Moreover, the various armies were not even joined into a single host, but spread across the plain.
This in turn leads to the third reason for Crusader victory: the Crusaders did not fight the Turkish forces all at once, but instead clashed with one army, then another, then another. Had the Christians faced the entire host at once they almost certainly would have been enveloped and killed. Instead, they were able to break off one force after another, and each wave of fleeing Turks disheartened those who marched forward to take their place.
A fourth reason why the Christians were so successful was the sheer audacity of their plan. According to one chronicle, Kerbogha first heard the French and their allies were assembling while in the middle of a game of chess. Bohemond had succeeded in so many battles through sheer brazenness and this was his most ludicrous gamble of all.
Finally, the iron men were seasoned veterans. These men had marched across Europe, often fighting local forces and Byzantine soldiers, just to reach Asia. Many had fought at Nicaea, at Dorylaeum, at the dozens of small battles across Anatolia and participated in many small skirmishes with local garrisons. These were elite soldiers, each of whom had killed dozens of armed men. Maddened with starvation and utter fanaticism, they were a force of all-encompassing destruction.
The Turkish citadel garrison watched the battle unfold in abject horror. As the Crusaders returned to the city the garrison brokered a deal with Bohemond. In exchange for clemency they opened the gates and let the giant have the mountain fortress. Soon, people from surrounding villages came to do business and pay homage to the Western lords, bringing much-needed food with them.
What should have been a moment of celebration and triumph quickly devolved into a third Battle of Antioch, this one between the leaders of the holy war. This battle was not fought with swords, but with words. Following the victory some wanted to immediately set out for Jerusalem, which lay open before them. However, Bohemond refused to abandon Antioch, proclaiming that he was by rights its new prince. Raymond was outraged and reminded the Italo-Norman that “we swore upon the Cross of the Lord, the crown of thorns and many holy relics that we would not hold without the consent of the emperor any city or castle in his dominion.” In response, Bohemond claimed that the Eastern Romans had betrayed the French, leaving them to die at the hands of the Turks, thus making any oaths to them null and void.
The other great lords could only watch the giant and the old man from Toulouse shout furiously at each other. Bohemond was adamant that he would not leave; despite all pretentions to fighting for God and the Holy Land it was clear that his true motive was to become a great prince. In contrast, Raymond would not betray his oaths to Alexios I, which included specific promises to oppose Bohemond’s attempts to seize power unjustly.
With two great lords at each others’ throats, the other leaders of the holy war began striking out at nearby cities to secure provisions, wealth and glory for themselves. As an added bonus, they could also get away from the sickness that gripped the city. Godefroi, Tancred and even some lesser knights formed their own bands and besieged small cities and large towns. Still other knights abandoned the main host and made for Edessa to attach themselves to the rising power of Baudoin.
Jerusalem lay unguarded a mere 300 miles south, yet the holy war could not move so long as its greatest general and its most popular leader refused to budge. Any hopes of ending the impasse quickly faded when Bishop Adhémar succumbed to plague and died on 1 August 1098. So far from his native France, he was laid to rest at Saint Peter’s. Before his death, Adhémar had named Arnoul de Chocques as his successor, though he was no more effective at unifying the bickering Frenchmen. The discord between Bohemond and Raymond grew so unbearable that rumors spread that some knights planned on tearing down Antioch’s walls to force the armies to move on.
Time did not heal the rift between Bohemond and Raymond; in fact, it only made matters worse. Bohemond decided to strike at Raymond’s renowned faith, which was both his most cherished character trait and a major reason why he was so popular among his men. After having remained silent for so long, the giant openly mocked the discovery of the Holy Lance as a fraud, saying,
“It is a pretty comment that Saint Andrew appeared to a man whom I hear frequents the drinking stalls, scurries about in market places, is a friend to loafers and has a reputation for nonsense. Surely, the saint chose a fitting person with whom to share the secrets of heaven. For is not the place in which this account is fashioned enough to make clear that it is a deception? If a Christian had carried off [the iron] why did he not find a hiding place in a nearby altar? If it were a gentile or a Jew, why inside the walls of a church? Why underneath the altar? What if it were neither of these two, but rather fate which should be invoked, who has found among the historians that Pilate ever came to Antioch? For we know that the lance belonged to a soldier, and that this was one of Pilate’s soldiers.
But what follows is even better. I heard that this discoverer jumped in after the diggers had labored in vain, and it was granted to one man to find in the shadows what had been denied to many in the open. What unsophisticated silliness. What buffoonish credulity. How easy it is to overcome credulity of this type. Let a person merely be honest, then the vicinity to the cross strengthens the claim of the place. Does the most recent fraud of this man not make this clear? If he had walked purely and simply in the path of God, if he had trusted in the apostle to act as his advocate, he would not have to depend on the testimony of his own discovery, but would have deserved other support. For what shall I respond to this outrage that our victory, which rose from and descended from our Father’s light, was owed to his piece of iron as the Provençals claim. The greedy count and his boorish crowd may claim this. However, we conquered and will conquer in the name of the Lord our God and of Jesus Christ.”
Bohemond’s words hit their mark and Raymond was driven to near-murderous rage. The Normans scoffed at the superstitious southerners, leading to brawls in the streets.
As the situation worsened, the other great lords decided that they had to turn to a higher power: the Emperor. It was agreed that Hugues, Count of Vermandois, would travel back to Constantinople. There he delivered an imploring, yet still threatening message: Alexios I needed to travel to Antioch and take command of the city. If he did not, then Antioch might not submit to the Eastern Roman Empire’s authority and the holy war might not be able to march on Jerusalem. Despite Hugues’ warning, Alexios I refused to march as he needed to remain in Constantinople to maintain his power and hold off potential challengers to the throne. Rather than rejoin the holy war, Hugues traveled back to France, becoming the second great lord to abandon his oath to take Jerusalem.
Bohemond took Alexios I’s actions as a sign that everything he had said was true. The Greeks had formally abandoned the holy war; all of its spoils belonged to those who fought, bled and died for them. Anti-Byzantine sentiment reached a fever pitch among the Westerners, though many remained angry at Bohemond for holding them in place. With the Emperor foregoing his leadership role, the great lords asked the pope to decide who should rule Antioch. Yet, His Holiness also refused to travel to Antioch, believing he needed to stay in Italy to maintain his power and ward off antipope Clement III. Instead of ending the stalemate, the pope sent Daimbert of Pisa to replace Adhémar, though he was also incapable of resolving the dispute between the rival lords.
That November Raymond moved his forces to Maarrat an-Numan for the dual purpose of plundering its resources and securing a nearby city, giving him leverage in his fight with Bohemond. When the giant heard about it, he force-marched his army to the city and took it before the Count of Toulouse could. In the ensuing chaos, the Italo-Normans held the walls while the Provençals held the neighborhoods.
During or just after the siege of Maarat an-Numan the armed pilgrims engaged in perhaps their most shameful act thus far: cannibalism. Numerous sources attest to the eating of human flesh, and historians argue that these authors, who were paid to promote the holy war and its leaders, would never fabricate such an incident. When the iron men arrived at the city’s walls they found the surrounding fields had been burned, the wells plugged up and all the livestock gone or slaughtered, leaving nothing but their own scant provisions to eat.
According to the Gesta Tancredi,
“[A] flood brought with it terrible hunger as all of the grain brought into camp rotted. No more was brought in from anywhere and victory was delayed. The bread floated away and hunger increased. It is shameful to report what I heard and what I learned from the authors of this shame. For I heard that they said that they were forced by the lack of food to begin to eat human flesh. Adults from among the gentiles were put into the cooking pot and their youth were fixed on spits and roasted. In devouring them, the Christians looked like wild beasts, like dogs roasting men. They threatened at the end that they would eat the limbs of their own if foreign ones were lacking unless the capture of the city or the bringing in of foreign grain lessened their starvation.”
As 1098 came to a close Raymond finally cracked. No one was more obstinate than the giant. The Count of Toulouse would not give up Jerusalem for this mad contest of wills. He announced that he would move on the holy city. Before they could leave, Godefroi, Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders and Tancred decided to make their own demands for Raymond. The Count of Toulouse’s pockets were deep, while the other lords had exhausted their wealth. As one they told Raymond that they would only march on Jerusalem if the count paid them a significant amount of money. In exchange, Robert (of Normandy) and Tancred agreed to become Raymond’s vassals, though Godefroi and Robert made no such deal. Frustrated, but eager to move on, Raymond doled out generous amounts of gold and silver to the other leaders.
In early 1099 the four great lords and the remnants of the holy war marched on Jerusalem.
Sources used in today’s episode listed below.
Peter Frankopan, The First Crusade: The Call from the East, 2012.
The Gesta Tancredi
Follow: