God's Battalions (19 page)

Even so, the prospects for storming the city seemed grim. Consequently, a trickle of desertion began. It soon swelled to major proportions when Stephen of Blois and a large group of northern Franks defected without warning; they left a day too early, as will be seen. This defection had far more devastating effects than a simple reduction in the crusader ranks. For at this time Alexius, having decided that despite everything the crusaders were going to take Antioch, had quickly led a large Byzantine army south in order to be in on the victory and to claim Antioch. Stephen of Blois and other noble deserters met Alexius at Alexandretta, only about forty miles north of Antioch. There they told Alexius that the situation in Antioch was hopeless. Rather than quickly move on to redress the situation, Alexius decided to stay put while awaiting further information.

Meanwhile, Bohemond was attempting to suborn someone in Antioch who could open a gate so that a bloody and very risky assault on the walls of the city could be avoided. Bohemond’s subversive efforts were made possible by the fact that the city was full of Christians who hated the Turkish commander and thus provided Bohemond with an extensive network for communicating within the city. Even so, the traitor he found was not a Christian; rather, he was a Muslim convert in command of a tower, a postern gate, and a segment of wall on the southeastern side of the city. On the night of June 2–3, a day after Stephen of Blois had deserted, Bohemond led a small group of his Normans through the unlocked gate and took control of ten towers and a long stretch of the wall, whereupon elements of the Christian population of the city attacked Muslim troops from within while the crusaders poured into the city. The Muslim troops were quickly wiped out—even most of those who fled the city, including their commander.

Antioch was again a Christian city. But it appeared to be an empty victory. A very large and imposing Muslim army had been gathering for some time, made up of forces supplied by many sultans and emirs and led by the Turkish sultan Kerbogah. Fearing this development, more desertions took place, including Bohemond’s brother-in-law William of Grant-Mesnil. The deserters reached the Byzantine encampment at Alexandretta just when Alexius, having heard that Antioch had been taken, was about to resume his march south to stake his claim; indeed, Stephen of Blois was getting ready to return to Antioch as well. But news of the impending arrival of Kerbogah’s powerful forces decided the issue. All agreed that it was too late to save the Crusade, and all turned tail and headed north. It should be noted that when Stephen of Blois reached home he was universally defined as a coward, even by his wife, who was so unrelenting in her contempt that in 1101 Stephen recruited a new army, led it back to the Holy Land, and was killed in an ill-advised charge at the Egyptians in the Battle of Ramla. It also should be noted that by his retreat, Alexius had destroyed any remaining credibility he had with the crusaders. When they really needed his support, he had left them to their fate.

Kerbogah’s large, well-trained force arrived at the gates of Antioch on June 9, 1098. The situation appeared hopeless: by this time the crusaders may have been down to fewer than two hundred warhorses.
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Consequently, Kerbogah assumed that the crusaders would go on the defensive and man the walls, necessitating a siege. And that’s what many of the Crusade commanders thought was the only possible strategy other than surrender.

So, for a few days fierce fighting took place between Kerbogah’s attackers and the crusaders defending the walls, with heavy losses on both sides. Then, religion intervened. On June 11 a priest reported that Christ had appeared to him during the night and promised divine aid to the crusaders in five days. In response, the leaders all swore not to abandon their mission. Then, on June 14, Count Peter Bartholomew reported that Saint Andrew had appeared to him in a vision and revealed to him the location of the Holy Lance—this being the spear used by the Roman soldier to pierce the side of Jesus during the Crucifixion. Many of the clergy were skeptical, but several nobles accepted this story and helped Bartholomew dig in the promised spot. They dug up a piece of iron that they proclaimed to indeed be a spearhead, and the news caused excitement throughout the army. With the lance leading the way, they would certainly be invincible. Incredibly, they were!

On June 20, 1098, Bohemond was acknowledged as the overall commander of the crusader army in recognition of his greater experience and the severity of the situation. He immediately prepared the army to sally forth and attack the Turks—not only because of the divine reassurances, but because he realized that this was the best military option, albeit “a dangerous gamble.”
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So, on June 28, with the historian Raymond of Aguilers carrying the Holy Lance, the remaining crusader forces marched through the Bridge Gate of Antioch to face Kerbogah’s far larger host. The Turks attacked immediately but recoiled after colliding with the unmovable, well-armored, disciplined heavy infantry formations, whose members were confident that they were God’s battalions. It was, in many ways, the Battle of Tours all over again. The Muslim forces attacked and died. The crusader ranks seemed impregnable. Soon the Turks began to withdraw and then to flee. The crusaders tromped along in their close formations, overran Kerbogah’s camp, and killed everyone within reach. The only reason some Turkish forces escaped was that the crusaders lacked the horses needed to catch them. To have triumphed so completely against such a powerful enemy seemed incomprehensible to many crusaders, even after the fact. The story spread that a contingent of mounted saints had descended from heaven and joined in the attack.
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So it was that another major Turkish force was destroyed, and now the road to Jerusalem lay open before them. But Bohemond did not plan to march down it. Instead, he began negotiations to become the ruler of a new kingdom based in Antioch. The initial agreement with Emperor Alexius, sworn to by the crusader leaders, acknowledged his claim to all territories that recently had been part of Byzantium. That included Antioch. But, Bohemond argued, when Alexius deserted them, that invalidated all oaths and obligations. Moreover, since Bohemond had arranged for the unlocked gate and had led the troops that took the city, and because he was very popular with the Christian residents of the city, he claimed the right to rule. Although most leaders agreed with Bohemond that Alexius had no claims, they were not prepared to cede him Antioch. The rest of the year was spent in disputes and maneuvers over Bohemond’s claims. This delay did not reflect any loss of determination to take back Jerusalem, and it was agreed that they would wait until early spring before heading south. The crusaders used this interim to write letters to Pope Urban begging him to come and take command of the crusader forces. Some historians suppose that the crusaders knew the pope would not come east, but that writing to him “enabled them to postpone once more the need to decide upon the fate of Antioch.”
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Meanwhile, the army suffered. An epidemic broke out (it may have been typhoid),
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and many died. They ran short of food and began to eat their remaining horses. Soon many were eating “leaves, thistles, and leather.”
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Again, as at Nicaea, many of the poor starved to death. In December, under the leadership of some dispossessed knights, a group of poor men armed themselves with the abundant captured Muslim weapons and formed a fighting brigade. Known as the Tafurs, they were remarkable for their religious fanaticism and ferocity. Lacking the funds needed to buy what little food was available, the Tafurs overwhelmed the Muslim town of Ma’arrat al-Numan. A massacre followed, and, according to some reports, so did incidents of cannibalism
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Finally, in February the crusaders began the march to Jerusalem. Bohemond accompanied them for about fifty miles, as far as Latakia, and then by mutual consent returned to assume full control of Antioch. Latakia was a port, and the crusaders continued along the coast and were several times supplied by fleets from Genoa, Pisa, and even England. The ships kept coming, not only because their owners favored the crusader cause, but perhaps primarily because the crusader leaders had money to pay well for supplies. In addition, each trip brought a few more late-coming crusaders willing to pay for passage. Of course, the ships were able to come because the Byzantine navy controlled the eastern Mediterranean and Alexius was willing to allow the European ships access to his ports on Cypress. Offsetting this gesture was the fact that Alexius had written to the Fatimid court in Cairo to “repudiate any connection with [the crusader] advance” on Jerusalem.
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Later, when the crusaders captured copies of this correspondence, they were astounded at such treachery.

Finally, on June 7, 1099, the crusaders reached the walls of Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM

According to Steven Runciman, “The city of Jerusalem was one of the great fortresses of the medieval world…The walls were in good condition and [it was manned by] a strong garrison of Arab and Sudanese troops.”
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Note that these were not Turkish troops. A year before the crusaders reached the city, it had been captured from the Turks by the Fatimids of Egypt under the command of their grand vizier, al-Afdal, who had taken advantage of the Turkish defeats at Antioch to move against them. With Jerusalem securely in Fatimid hands, the vizier returned to Cairo, leaving Ifitkhar al-Dawla as governor of the city.

When he became aware of the approaching crusaders, Ifitkhar had all wells around the city polluted or blocked, drove away all the livestock, and set workmen to constructing defensive machines such as catapults. He also expelled the city’s Christian population. This was a wise move, as Christians had outnumbered the Muslims in the city, and, as demonstrated by Bohemond at Antioch, they were unlikely to have been loyal to the regime. Sending away the Christians also reduced by about half the demand on Jerusalem’s stockpile of supplies. But Ifitkhar’s hole card was that he did not believe he would need to defend the city for very long because an overwhelming relief force would soon arrive.

The crusader force that gathered to attack Jerusalem consisted of only about thirteen hundred knights and perhaps ten thousand infantry,
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having been reduced by about two-thirds from the crusader army that had besieged Nicaea two years previously. As always, in addition to the fighting men, there were many noncombatants as well. All things considered, the crusaders were reasonably fit, the march down the coast having been both well supplied and leisurely; on average they had traveled only about eight miles a day and had taken many full days of rest.
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Along the way, they were welcomed by some cities; the others they simply bypassed. But now time was of the essence. It was getting hot, and their food and water would soon run out.

So, on June 13, the crusaders launched an attack. Initially things went well as they smashed through the outer defenses. However, it turned out that they lacked the number of ladders needed to make it over the walls in sufficient numbers, and they were repelled. This was a very serious defeat, because there were no materials in the area that could be used to construct more ladders, let alone siege machines such as portable towers. At this critical moment six Christian ships—two from Genoa and four from England—arrived at Jaffa, about twenty-five miles away. All six carried food, but the Genoese ships also had cargoes of ropes, nails, and bolts needed for making siege machines.

Meanwhile, Tancred and Robert of Flanders led expeditions in search of wood and returned with logs and planks, many of them carried by Muslim prisoners captured along the way. As the crusaders set to work on scaling ladders and constructing two wooden towers on wheels and equipped with catapults, they suffered greatly from heat and thirst: they had to send detachments as far as the Jordan River to bring back water. There were desertions, since it appeared to many that even with ladders and siege equipment, the odds were not in their favor, especially since they knew that a huge army had set out from Egypt to attack them. Once again, a solution was sought in religion.

A priest received a vision that promised victory if the crusaders stopped bickering, fasted, and walked barefoot around the walls of Jerusalem. The vision was accepted as authentic, and a three-day fast was observed. Then, on July 8, 1099, the procession began: bishops, clergy, princes, knights, foot soldiers, and noncombatants—all of them barefoot as they marched around the city. Residents of Jerusalem crowded the walls to mock them, but “they gloried in such mockery.”
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The procession ended on the Mount of Olives, where Peter the Hermit (once again in good graces) preached an impassioned sermon.

The next two days were a blur of activity as the siege towers were completed and all the necessary preparations made. During the night of July 13–14 the ditches around the walls were filled in at several widely separated points so the towers could be rolled against the walls. By the evening of the 14th, Raymond of Aguilers’s men succeeded in placing their tower against the south wall. Despite fierce fighting, the crusaders could not gain a foothold. But the next morning, Godfrey of Bouillon’s force was able to place their tower against the north wall. Godfrey is reported to have stood atop the tower firing his crossbow.
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We should assume that many others in his squadron had crossbows, too (see chap. 3), and that their lethal fire enabled Godfrey’s men to be firmly in control of a stretch of wall by noon. This allowed scaling ladders to be set up without resistance, and a strong crusader force mounted the walls and soon was fighting in the city streets. The Muslim forces were overwhelmed, and a massacre began; by the morning of the 16th the city was littered with corpses.

This is the horror story that has been used again and again to vilify the crusaders. Consequently, let us pause here to consider the matter from several perspectives. First of all, it is not only absurd but often quite disingenuous to use this event to “prove” that the crusaders were bloodthirsty barbarians in contrast to the more civilized and tolerant Muslims. Dozens of Muslim massacres of whole cities have been reported in previous chapters, and the crusaders knew of such occurrences. Second, the commonly applied “rule of war” concerning siege warfare was that if a city did not surrender before forcing the attackers to take the city by storm (which inevitably caused a very high rate of casualties in the besieging force), the inhabitants could expect to be massacred as an example to others in the future. That is, had the Muslims surrendered Jerusalem on June 13 when the towers were ready to be rolled against the walls, they would no doubt have been given terms that would have prevented a massacre.