Page 77 - All About History - Issue 186-19

Battle of Antioch
number were soldiers. The calibre of those troops
varied considerably: many of those from the lower
strata of society had little military training, whereas
those of wealth and prestige had been trained since
a young age in the art of war. Of the 50,000 fighting
men that set out across Anatolia, 5,000 were
mounted knights.
The First Crusade was not led by a single
commander-in-chief, but rather by a ‘council of
princes’ who often disagreed on the best tactical
approach to a situation. Each of the senior princes
led an army recruited from his territory. Four major
armies from Western Europe formed the First
Crusade. Counts Robert of Normandy, Robert of
Flanders and Hugh of Vermandois led a Franco-
Flemish army; Duke Godfrey of Lower Lorraine led
a Lorraine-Burgundian army; Count Raymond of
Toulouse and Adhemar of Le Puy led an Aquitanian-
Provencal army; and Duke Bohemond of Taranto led
an Italian Norman army. The most important junior
leaders were Godfrey’s younger brother Baldwin
of Boulogne, and Bohemond’s nephew Tancred. In
order to reach Jerusalem, the crusaders had to fight
their way through Anatolia, most of which was ruled
by Seljuk Turks.
Kilij Arslan, who ruled the Sultanate of Rum
branch of the Great Seljuk Turks, ambushed the
vanguard of the crusader army at Dorylaeum
with 6,000 horsemen on 1 July. Reinforced by the
main body, the crusaders repulsed the Turks and
continued their eastward trek. When the crusaders
arrived at Antioch in October 1097, their numbers
had been nearly cut in half.
At the time of the arrival of the crusader army
the Great Seljuk Empire was in flux. The empire was
growing increasingly decentralized and the Sunni
Seljuks were losing ground in Palestine to their chief
regional rivals, the Shiite Fatimid Dynasty of Egypt.
Yaghi-Siyan commanded a small Seljuk garrison
that ruled the Greek and Armenian Christians of
Antioch. The Byzantines had built Antioch’s great
stone walls in the 6th century. The Turks had taken
Antioch in 1084 from a waning Byzantine Empire.
The city’s outer walls, which were studded with
towers, enclosed an area three-and-a-half square
miles in size that included pastures and orchards.
The crusaders knew they had to capture Antioch
because it lay astride their line of communications
to Constantinople. Two of the senior commanders,
Count Raymond of Toulouse and Duke Bohemond
of Taranto, had different strategies for capturing
Antioch. Raymond favoured storming the walls,
while Bohemond wanted to starve the Turks into
submission. The latter approach was flawed given
that the crusaders did not have enough men to
completely surround the walled city, but Bohemond
held sway and there was no immediate attack. As
the weeks stretched into months, the crusaders
skirmished not only with Yaghi-Siyan’s troops, but
also with local Muslim forces from Aleppo and
Damascus. During this time the crusaders suffered
from exposure to the elements and starvation.
Owing to these factors, the crusader army continued
to shrink in size.
In early spring 1098 Yaghi-Siyan had sent an
urgent dispatch to Kerbogha, the Seljuk governor
of Mosul, requesting a relief army large enough to
drive off the enemy. The garrison was running low
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on provisions, so Yaghi-Siyan requested that the
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