A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 (24 page)

Baldwin and
Tancred Invade Cilicia

The Armenians in the Taurus were less exposed
to danger; for the territory in which they were settled was hard of access and
easy to defend. Oshin, son of Hethoum, now controlled the mountains to the west
of the Cilician Gates, with his headquarters at the impregnable castle of
Lampron on a high spur overlooking Tarsus and the Cilician plain. He kept up a
fitful connection with Constantinople and had been given by the Emperor the
title of stratopedarch of Cilicia. Though not, it seems, a member of the
Orthodox Church, he had served under Alexius in the past; and it was probably
with the Emperor’s approval that he had taken over Lampron from its unconquered
Byzantine garrison. He made frequent excursions into the Cilician plain; and in
1097 he took advantage of the Turkish preoccupation with the advance of the
Crusaders to capture part of the town of Adana. East of the Cilician Gates the
mountains were in the possession of Constantine, son of Roupen, with his
headquarters at the castle of Partzerpert, to the north-west of Sis. He had,
since his father’s death, extended his power eastward towards the Anti-Taurus
and had captured the great castle of Vahka, on the Goksu river, from its
isolated Byzantine garrison. He was a passionate adherent of the separated
Armenian Church and, like his father, as heir of the Bagratid dynasty kept up a
family feud against Byzantium. He, too, hoped to use the embarrassment of the
Turks to establish himself in the rich Cilician plain, where already the
population was largely Armenian.

Baldwin of Boulogne had for some time past
interested himself in the Armenian question. At Nicaea he had struck up a close
friendship with an Armenian, formerly in the Emperor’s service, Bagrat, the
brother of Kogh Vasil; and Bagrat had joined his staff. It is probable that
Bagrat was anxious to secure Baldwin’s help for the Armenian principalities
near the Euphrates where his family connections lay. But when at Heraclea
Tancred announced his intention of leaving the main army to try his fortune in
Cilicia, Baldwin decided that it would be unwise to allow any other western
prince to be the first to embark on an Armenian venture, if he was to reap the
advantage of being the chief friend of that race. It is unlikely that he and
Tancred had come to any understanding together. Both were junior members of a
princely family, without any future at home; and both frankly wished to found
lordships in the East. But while Baldwin had already decided upon an Armenian
state, Tancred was ready to set himself up wherever it seemed most convenient.
He opposed the detour to Caesarea because it was a Byzantine suggestion from
which the Byzantines were to benefit; and the presence of a friendly Christian
population close at hand offered him an opportunity.

About 15 September Tancred, with a small group
of a hundred knights and two hundred infantrymen, left the Crusader camp at Heraclea
and made straight for the Cilician Gates. Immediately afterwards Baldwin set
out, with his cousin Baldwin of Le Bourg, Rainald of Toul and Peter of Stenay
and five hundred knights and two thousand infantrymen. Neither expedition
burdened itself with non-combatants; and Baldwin’s wife, Godvere, and her
children remained with the main army. Tancred seems to have taken the direct
road for the pass, travelling as the railway does to-day past Ulukishla; but
Baldwin, with his heavier army, preferred the old main road which came down to
Podandus, at the head of the pass, from Tyana, further to the east. He was
therefore three days behind Tancred in going through the defile.

On descending into the plain, Tancred marched
on Tarsus, which was still the chief city of Cilicia. Meanwhile he sent back to
the main army to ask for reinforcements. Tarsus was held by a Turkish garrison,
which at once made a sortie to drive off the invaders but was severely
repulsed. The Christian inhabitants of the city, Armenians and Greeks, then
made contact with Tancred and begged him to take possession of it. But the
Turks held out till, three days later, Baldwin and his army came into sight.
Then, finding themselves outnumbered, they waited till nightfall and fled under
cover of the darkness. Next morning the Christians opened the gates to Tancred;
and Baldwin arrived to see Tancred’s banner waving from the towers. Tancred was
unaccompanied by any Byzantine official and certainly had no intention of
handing over any conquest that he might make to the Emperor. But in Baldwin he
discovered a more dangerous competitor who was equally careless of the treaty
made at Constantinople. Baldwin demanded that Tarsus should be transferred to
his authority; and Tancred, furious but powerless in face of his rival’s
greater strength, was forced to agree. He withdrew his troops and marched
eastward towards Adana.

Guynemer of
Boulogne

Baldwin had hardly taken possession of Tarsus
when three hundred Normans arrived before the city, having come from the main
army to reinforce Tancred. Despite their supplication, he refused to allow them
to enter inside the walls; and while they were encamped outside they were
attacked at night by the former Turkish garrison, which was now roaming the
countryside, and were massacred to a man. The episode shocked the Crusaders.
Baldwin was blamed for their fate even by his own army; and his position might
have been badly damaged had not news come of the unexpected appearance of a
Christian fleet in the bay of Mersin, at the mouth of the river Cydnus, just
below the city, under the command of Guynemer of Boulogne.

Guynemer was a professional pirate who had been
astute enough to see that the Crusade would need naval help. Collecting a group
of fellow-pirates, Danes, Frisians and Flemings, he had sailed from the
Netherlands in the late spring and, having reached Levantine waters, was
seeking to make contact with the Crusaders. He retained a sentiment of loyalty
for his home town. He was therefore delighted to find close at hand an army
whose general was the brother of his Count. He sailed up the river to Tarsus
and paid homage to Baldwin. In return Baldwin borrowed three hundred of his men
to serve as a garrison of the town and probably nominated Guynemer to act as
his lieutenant there while he himself prepared to march on to the east.

Meanwhile Tancred had found Adana in a state of
confusion. Oshin of Lampron had recently raided the town and left a force there
that was disputing it with the Turks; while a Burgundian knight called Welf,
who had probably started out with Baldwin’s army but had broken off to see what
he could gain, had also forced his way in and now held the citadel. On Tancred’s
arrival the Turks withdrew; and Welf, who welcomed his troops into the citadel,
was confirmed in his possession of the town. Oshin was probably only concerned
in extracting his own men from a risky adventure. He was grateful for Tancred’s
intervention; but he urged him to go on to Mamistra, the ancient Mopsuesta,
where a wholly Armenian population was longing for deliverance from the Turks.
He was eager to see the Franks pass on into the sphere of influence coveted by
his rival, Constantine the Roupenian.

Tancred reached Mamistra early in October. As
at Adana, the Turks fled on his appearance; and the Christians gladly let him
into the town. While he was there, Baldwin and his army came up. Baldwin seems
to have decided already that his future principality would not be in Cilicia.
Possibly the climate, steamy and malarial in September, had deterred him.
Possibly he felt it to be too close to the Emperor’s growing power. His adviser
Bagrat was urging him eastward, where the Armenians were appealing for his
help. He had at any rate damaged Tancred’s chances of founding a strong
Cilician state. Now he was on his way back to the main army, to consult with
his brother and his friends before embarking on a fresh campaign. But Tancred
was reasonably suspicious. He would not permit Baldwin to enter into Mamistra
but obliged him to camp on the far side of the river Jihan. He was ready,
however, to allow victuals to be sent off to the camp from the town. But many
of the Normans, led by Tancred’s brother-in-law, Richard of the Principate,
could not endure that Baldwin should go unpunished for his crime at Tarsus.
They persuaded Tancred to join them in a surprise attack on his camp. It was an
unwise move. Baldwin’s troops were too numerous and too strong for them and
soon drove them back in disorder across the river. The unedifying conflict
provoked a reaction; and Baldwin and Tancred allowed themselves to be
reconciled. But the harm was done. It had become painfully clear that the
Crusading princes were not prepared to co-operate for the good of Christendom
when a chance arose for acquiring personal possessions; and the native
Christians were quick to realize that their Frankish rescuers were only
superficially moved by altruistic sentiment and to learn that their best
advantage lay in the easy game of playing off one Frank against another.

Baldwin and
Tancred Leave Cilicia

After the reconciliation at Mamistra, Baldwin
moved quickly on to rejoin the main army at Marash. News had reached him that
Godveref was dying; and their children too, it seemed, were sick and did not
long survive. Baldwin only remained a few days with his brothers and the other
chiefs of the army. Then, when the main force set out southward to Antioch, he
went off to the east, to try his fortune in the valley of the Euphrates and the
lands beyond. A far smaller company travelled with him than had gone on the
Cilician expedition. Maybe his popularity as a leader had not recovered from
the events at Tarsus; maybe his brothers, anxious for the capture of Antioch,
could not now spare troops for him. He had only a hundred horsemen; but his Armenian
adviser, Bagrat, still was with him; and he added a new chaplain to his staff,
the historian Fulcher of Chartres.

Tancred did not remain long at Mamistra after
Baldwin’s departure. Leaving a small garrison there, he turned southward round
the head of the Gulf of Issus to Alexandretta. As he journeyed he sent envoys
to Guynemer, whose headquarters were probably still at Tarsus, asking for his
co-operation. Guynemer responded gladly and came with his fleet to join Tancred
before Alexandretta. A combined assault gave them the town, which Tancred
garrisoned. He then marched over the Amanus range through the Syrian Gates to
unite with the Christian army before Antioch.

The Cilician adventure had done little good
either to Baldwin or to Tancred. Neither had found it worth while to found a
state there. The small Frankish garrisons left in the three Cilician towns,
Guynemer’s at Tarsus, Welf’s at Adana and Tancred’s at Mamistra, would not be
able to withstand any serious attack. The dispersal of the Turkish garrisons
had, however, been of some value to the Crusade as a whole in preventing the
use of Cilicia as a base from which the Turks could launch a flank attack on
the Franks during their operations at Antioch; while the capture of
Alexandretta provided the Franks with a useful port through which supplies
could pass. But the chief beneficiaries of the whole affair were the Armenian
princes of the hills. The collapse of Turkish power in the plain enabled them
slowly to penetrate its villages and towns and to lay the foundations of the
Cilician kingdom of Little Armenia.

When Baldwin left the main army at Marash, it
was about to start upon its southward march to Antioch; and at first Baldwin
took a parallel road a few miles to the east, so as to protect its left flank.
It was perhaps by promising to undertake this task that he had obtained
permission again to separate from the army; and, indeed, he could justify his
whole expedition for the protection that it would give to the Crusade; for the
easiest road by which reinforcements from Khorassan could reach the Turks at
Antioch lay through the territory that he intended to invade. Moreover, its
rich lands might provide the Crusade with the supplies of food that it
required.

Baldwin Advances
to the Euphrates

At Aintab Baldwin turned sharply to the east.
It is doubtful if he had any planned course of action beyond a general
determination to found a principality upon the Euphrates, which might be of
profit to himself and to the whole Crusading movement. The circumstances were
favourable. He would not have to conquer the country from the infidel; for it
was already in friendly Armenian hands. He was in touch with its Armenian
princes. Through Bagrat he must have entered into relations with Bagrat’s
brother, Kogh Vasil, whose lordship lay due east from Marash. Gabriel of
Melitene, in permanent danger from the Danishmend Turks, was probably appealing
for Frankish aid; while Thoros of Edessa was certainly in communication with
the Crusaders. Indeed, Baldwin’s decision to leave Cilicia was said to have
been due to a message that he or Bagrat received there from Thoros, inviting
him urgently to Edessa. The Armenians had long hoped to obtain succour from the
West. Twenty years before, when Pope Gregory VII was known to be contemplating
an expedition to rescue eastern Christendom, an Armenian bishop had travelled
to Rome to secure his interest. Western allies had always seemed more
attractive to them, even to the princes that bore Byzantine titles, than
anything that might increase their dependence upon the hated Empire. The
presence of a Frankish army fighting victoriously for Christendom on their very
borders offered them the opportunity, for which they had prayed, to establish
their independence once and for all from both Turkish and Byzantine domination.
They eagerly welcomed Baldwin and his men as liberators.