First Crusaders Meet Turks

The strength and valor of the crusaders were soon to be tested. They were now face to face with the Turks, on whose cowardice Urban II had enlarged with so much complacency before the Council of Clermont.

Continuing The First Crusade,
our selection from The Crusades by Sir George W. Cox published in 1898. The selection is presented in nine easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The First Crusade.

Time: 1096-1099
Place: Palestine

While Alexius was busied in dealing with Godfrey and Raymond, Bohemond and Tancred, he was not less anxiously occupied with the task of sending across the Bosporus the swarms which might soon become an army of devouring locusts round his own capital. It was easier to give them a welcome than to get rid of them: and more than two months had passed since Christmas, when the followers of Godfrey found themselves on the soil of Asia.

Godfrey’s men had no sooner been landed on the eastern side of the Bosporus than all the vessels which had transported them were brought back to the western shore. With great astuteness, and at the cost of large gifts, Alexius in like manner freed the neighborhood of his capital from the invading multitudes. As fast as they came they were hurried across, and the Emperor breathed more freely when, on the Feast of Pentecost, not a single Latin pilgrim remained on the European shore.

The danger of conflict had throughout been imminent; and the danger arose, not so much from the fact that the crusaders were armed men, marching through the country of professed allies, but from the thorough antagonism between Greeks and Latins in modes of thought and habits of life. Nor must we forget the vast gulf which separated the Eastern from the Western clergy. The clergy of the West despised their brethren of the East for their cowardly submission to the secular arm. These, in their turn, shrunk with horror from the sight of bishops, priests, and monks riding with blood-stained weapons over fields of battle, and exhibiting at other times an ignorance equal to their ferocity.

The strength and valor of the crusaders were soon to be tested. They were now face to face with the Turks, on whose cowardice Urban II had enlarged with so much complacency before the Council of Clermont. The sultan David, or Kilidje Arslan, placed his family and treasures in his capital city of Nice and retreated with fifty thousand horsemen to the mountains, whence he swooped down from time to time on the outposts of the Christians. By these his city was formally invested; and for seven weeks it was assailed to little purpose by the old instruments of Roman warfare, while some of the besiegers shot their weapons from the hill on which were mouldering the bones of the fanatic followers of Peter. It was protected to the west by the Askanian lake, and so long as the Turks had command of this lake they felt themselves safe. But Alexius sent thither on sledges a large number of boats, and the city, subjected to a double blockade, submitted to the Emperor, who was in no way anxious to see the crusaders masters of the place. The crusaders were making ready for the last assault, when they saw the imperial banner floating on the walls. Their disappointment at the escape of the miscreants, or unbelievers, for so they delighted to speak of them, was vented in threats which seemed to bode a renewal of the old troubles; but Alexius, with gifts, which added force to his words, professed that his only desire now, as it had been, was to forward them safely on their journey. Nor had they to go many stages before they found themselves again confronted with their adversary.

The conflict took place near the Phrygian Dorylaion, and seemed at first to portend dire defeat to the crusaders. More than once the issue of the day seemed to be turned by the indomitable personal bravery of the Norman Robert, of Tancred, and of Bohemond; and when even those seemed likely to be borne down, they received timely succors from Godfrey, and Hugh of Vermandois, from Bishop Adhemar of Puy and from Raymond, Count of Toulouse. Still the Turks held out, and it seemed likely that they would long hold out, when the appearance of the last division of Raymond’s army filled them with the fear that a new host was upon them.

The crusaders had won a considerable victory. Three thousand knights belonging to the enemy had been slain, and Kilidje Arslan was hurrying away to enlist the services of his kinsmen. Meanwhile the Latin hosts were sweeping onward. Hundreds died from the heat, and dogs or goats took the place of the baggage-horses which had perished. At length Tancred with his troop found himself before Tarsus, the birthplace and the home of that single-hearted apostle who long ago had preached a gospel strangely unlike the creed of the crusaders. Following rapidly behind him, Baldwin saw with keen jealousy the banner of the Italian chief floating on its towers, and insisted on taking the precedence. Tancred pleaded the choice of the people and his own promise to protect them; but the intrigues of Baldwin changed their humor, and the rejection of Tancred by the men of Tarsus was followed by an attempt at private war between Tancred and Baldwin, in which the troops of Tancred were overborne. So early was the first harvest of murderous discord reaped among the holy warriors of the Cross. It was ruin, however, to stay where they were; and the main army again began its march, to undergo once more the old monotony of hardship and peril.

A very small force would have sufficed to disorganize and rout them as they clambered over the defiles of Mount Taurus; nor could Raymond, recovering from a terrible illness, or Godfrey, suffering from wounds inflicted by a bear, have done much to help them. But for the present their enemies were dismayed; and Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, hastened with eagerness to obey a summons which besought him to aid the Greek or Armenian tyrant of Edessa. As Alexius had done to his brother, so this chief welcomed Baldwin as his son; but Baldwin, having once entered into the city, cared nothing for the means which had brought him thither, and the death of his adoptive father was followed by the establishment at Edessa of a Latin principality which lasted for fifty-four, or, as some have thought, forty-seven years. Baldwin had anticipated the unconditional surrender of Samosata; but the Turkish governor had some of the Edessenes in his power, and he refused to give up the city except on the payment of ten thousand gold pieces. The Turk shortly afterward fell into Baldwin’s hands, and was put to death.

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