A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 (22 page)

The Sultan, when he retired, had told the
garrison to do as it thought best, as he could give no more aid. When it saw
the Byzantine ships on the lake and understood that the Emperor was fully
assisting the Crusaders it decided upon surrender. This was what Alexius had
hoped. He had no wish to add a half-destroyed city to his dominions nor that
his future subjects should undergo the horrors of a sack, especially as the
majority of the citizens were Christians; for the Turks comprised only the
soldiers and a small court nobility. Contact was re-established with Butumites,
and the terms of surrender were discussed. But the Turks still hesitated,
hoping, perhaps, that the Sultan would return. It was only on the news that the
Crusaders were planning a general assault that at last they gave in.

The Capture of
Nicaea

The assault was ordered for 19 June. But when
morning broke the Crusaders saw the Emperor’s standard waving over the city
towers. The Turks had surrendered during the night; and imperial troops, mainly
Petcheneg, had entered the city through the gates on the lakeside. It is
unlikely that the Crusading leaders had not been informed of the negotiations;
nor did they disapprove, for they saw that it was pointless to waste time and
men on storming a town that would not be theirs to hold. But they were
deliberately kept in ignorance of the final stages; while the rank and file
considered themselves cheated of their prey. They had hoped to pillage the
riches of Nicaea. Instead, they were only allowed in small groups into the
city, closely surveyed by the Emperor’s police. They had hoped to hold the
Turkish nobles up to ransom. Instead, they saw them conveyed under escort, with
their movable possessions, to Constantinople or to the Emperor at Pelecanum.
Their resentment against the Emperor grew more bitter.

To some extent it was mitigated by the Emperor’s
generosity. For Alexius promptly ordered that a gift of food should be made to
every Crusading soldier, while the leaders were summoned to Pelecanum, to be
presented with gold and with jewels from the Sultan’s treasury. Stephen of
Blois, who travelled there with Raymond of Toulouse, was awe-stricken by the
mountain of gold that was his portion. He did not share the view, held by some
of his comrades, that the Emperor should have come in person to Nicaea, for he
understood that the demonstration that the liberated city would make to receive
its sovereign might prove embarrassing to him. In return for his presents
Alexius required the knights who had not yet taken the oath of allegiance to
him to do so now. Many lesser lords, about whom he had not troubled when they
passed through Constantinople, complied. Raymond was not, it seems, asked to do
more than he had already done; but Tancred’s case was taken more seriously.
Tancred at first was truculent. He declared that unless the Emperor’s great
tent was given to him filled to the brim with gold, as well as an amount equal
to all the gold given to the other princes, he would swear nothing. When the
Emperor’s brother-in-law, George Palaeologus, protested at his rudeness, he
turned roughly on him and began to manhandle him. The Emperor rose to
intervene, and Bohemond sharply reproved his nephew. In the end Tancred
grudgingly paid homage.

The. Crusaders were shocked by the Emperor’s
treatment of his Turkish captives. The court officials and the commanders were
allowed to buy their freedom; while the Sultana, the daughter of the Emir
Chaka, was received with royal honours at Constantinople, where she was to
remain till a message should come from her husband stating where he wished her
to join him. She and her children were then to be dispatched to him without
ransom. Alexius was a kindly man, and he well knew the value of courtesy to a
defeated enemy; but to the western princes his attitude seemed double-faced and
disloyal.

The Roads Across
Asia Minor

Nevertheless, in spite of some disappointment
that they had not themselves captured the city nor helped themselves to its
riches, the liberation of Nicaea filled the Crusaders with joy and with hope
for the future. Letters went westward to announce that this venerable place was
Christian once more; and the news was received with enthusiasm. The Crusade was
proved to be a success. More recruits came forward; and the Italian cities,
hitherto rather cautious and dilatory with their promised aid, began to take
the movement more seriously. In the Crusader camp the knights were eager to
continue their journey. Stephen of Blois was full of optimism. ‘In five weeks’
time’, he wrote to his wife, ‘we shall be at Jerusalem; unless’, he added, more
prophetically than he knew, ‘we are held up at Antioch.’

From Nicaea the Crusaders set out along the old
Byzantine main road across Asia Minor. The road from Chalcedon and Nicomedia
joined the road from Helenopolis and Nicaea on the banks of the river
Sangarius. It soon left the river to climb up a tributary valley to the south,
past the modem Biledjik, then wound over a pass to Dorylaeum, near the modem
Eskishehir. There it split into three. The great military road of the
Byzantines ran due east, probably by-passing Ancyra to the south, and dividing
again, after it crossed the Halys, one branch continuing straight past Sebastea
(Sivas) into Armenia, the other turning towards Caesarea Mazacha. From there
several roads led across the passes of the Anti-Taurus range into the Euphrates
valley, while another road doubled back to the south-west, through Tyana to the
Cilician Gates. The second road from Dorylaeum led directly across the great
salt desert in the centre of Asia Minor, just south of Lake Tatta, from Amorium
to the Cilician Gates. It was a road that could only be used by swiftly moving
companies; for it passed through a desolate country entirely lacking in water.
The third road skirted the southern edge of the salt desert, running from
Philomelium, the modem Akshehir, to Iconium and Heraclea and the Cilician
Gates. One branch road led from near Philomelium to the Mediterranean at
Attalia, another from just beyond Iconium to the Mediterranean at Seleucia.

Whichever road the Crusading forces should
decide to take, they must first reach Dorylaeum. On 26 June, a week after the
fall of Nicaea, the vanguard began to move, followed during the next two days
by the various divisions of the army, to reassemble at the bridge across the
Blue River, where the road leaves the Sangarius valley to climb up into the
plateau. A small Byzantine detachment under the experienced general Taticius
accompanied the Crusaders. A certain number of the Crusaders, probably for the
most part those that had been wounded at Nicaea, stayed behind and took service
with the Emperor. They were put under Butumites and employed to repair and to
garrison Nicaea.

By the bridge, at a village called Leuce, the
princes took counsel. It was decided to divide the army into two sections, in
order to ease the problem of supplies, one section to precede the other at
about a day’s interval. The first army consisted of the Normans of southern
Italy and of northern France, with the troops of the Counts of Flanders and of
Blois and the Byzantines, who were providing the guides. The second army
included the southern French and the Lorrainers, with the troops of the Count
of Vermandois. Bohemond was regarded as leader of the first group and Raymond
of Toulouse of the second. As soon as the division was made, Bohemond’s army
set out along the road to Dorylaeum.

The Battle of
Dorylaeum

After his failure to relieve Nicaea the Sultan
Kilij Arslan had withdrawn eastward, to gather his own forces and to conclude
peace and an alliance with the Danishmend Emir against this new menace. The
loss of Nicaea had alarmed him; and the loss of his treasury there had been
serious. But the Turks were still nomadic by instinct. The Sultan’s real capital
was his tent. In the last days of June he returned towards the west, with all
his own troops, with his vassal Hasan, Emir of the Cappadocian Turks, and with
the Danishmend army, under its Emir. On 30 June he was waiting in a valley by
Dorylaeum, ready to attack the Crusaders as they came down over the pass.

That evening the first Crusading army encamped
in the plain not far from Dorylaeum. At sunrise the Turks swooped down over the
hill-side, shouting their battle-cry. Bohemond was not unprepared. The
non-combatant pilgrims were quickly assembled in the centre of the camp, where
there were springs of water; and the women were given the task of carrying
water up to the front line. Tents were quickly dressed, and the knights were
told to dismount from their horses. Meanwhile a messenger was sent galloping
down to the second army, urging it to make haste, while Bohemond addressed his
captains, telling them to prepare for a difficult fight and to remain at first
on the defensive. Only one of them disobeyed his orders, the same knight that
had boldly seated himself on the Emperor’s throne at Constantinople. With forty
of his men he charged the enemy, to be driven back in ignominy covered with
wounds. The camp was soon surrounded by the Turks, whose numbers seemed to the
Christians to be infinite, and who followed their favourite tactics of running
archers to the front line to discharge their arrows and then at once to make
room for others.

As the hot July morning advanced the Crusaders
began to doubt whether they could hold out against the ceaseless rain of
missiles. But, surrounded as they were, flight was impossible and surrender
would mean captivity and slavery. They all determined if need be to suffer
martyrdom together. At last, about midday, they saw their comrades of the
second army arrive, Godfrey and Hugh and their men in front and Raymond and his
men close behind. The Turks had not realized that they had not entrapped the
whole Crusading force. At the sight of the newcomers they faltered and could not
prevent the two armies from making a juncture. The Crusaders were heartened.
Forming a long front with Bohemond, Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Blois on
the left, with Raymond and Robert of Flanders in the centre, and with Godfrey
and Hugh on their right, they began to take the offensive, reminding each other
of the riches that they would acquire if they were victorious. The Turks were
unprepared to meet an attack and were probably running short of ammunition.
Their hesitation was turned to panic by the sudden appearance of the Bishop of
Le Puy and a contingent of the southern French on the hills behind them.
Adhemar had himself planned this diversion and found guides to take him over
the mountain paths. His intervention ensured the Crusaders’ triumph. The Turks
broke their lines and soon were in full flight to the east. In their haste they
abandoned their encampment intact; and the tents of the Sultan and the Emirs
fell, with all their treasure, into the hands of the Christians.

The Franks and
the Turks

It was a great victory. Many Christian lives
had been lost, including those of Tancred’s brother William, of Humphrey of
Monte Scabioso and of Robert of Paris; and the Franks had been taught to pay a
proper respect to the Turks as soldiers. Perhaps to enhance their achievement,
they willingly gave to the Turks an admiration which they withheld from the
Byzantines, whose more scientific methods of warfare they regarded as decadent.
Nor did they acknowledge the share taken by the Byzantines in the battle. The
anonymous Norman author of the
Gesta
considered that the Turks would be
the finest of races if only they were Christians; and he recalled the legend
that made the Franks and Turks
akin,
being both the descendants of the
Trojans — a legend based rather on a common rivalry against the Greeks than on
any ethnological foundation. But, admirable though the Turkish soldiery might
be, their defeat ensured the safe passage of the Crusaders across Asia Minor.
The Sultan, robbed first of his capital city and now of his royal tent and the
greater part of his treasure, decided that it was useless to attempt to hold
them up. Meeting in his flight a company of Syrian Turks who had come up too
late for the battle, he explained that the numbers and strength of the Franks
were greater than he had expected and that he could not oppose them. He and his
people took to the hills after pillaging and deserting the cities that they had
occupied and ravaging the countryside, that the Crusaders might find it
impossible to feed themselves as they advanced.

The Crusading army rested for two days at
Dorylaeum, to recover from the battle and to plan the next stages of the march.
The choice of the road to be taken was not difficult. The military road to the
east ran too far into country controlled by the Danishmends and by Emirs whose
power had not been broken. The army was too large and too slow-moving to cut
straight across the salt desert. It had to follow the slower road along the
edge of the mountains to the south of the desert. This was no doubt the advice
given by Taticius and the guides that he provided. But, even so, the road was
uncertain. With the Turcoman invasions and twenty years of warfare, villages
had been destroyed and fields gone out of cultivation; wells had become impure
or been allowed to dry; bridges had fallen or been destroyed. Information could
not always be extracted from the sparse and terrified population. Yet if
anything went wrong the Franks at once suspected the Greek guides of treachery,
while the Greeks were embittered by Frankish indiscipline and ingratitude.
Taticius found his role increasingly unpleasant and difficult.

Across the
Anatolian Desert