It was not just the physical location and the defences of Antioch that were a cause for concern; so was its size. The circuit of walls stretched for five kilometres around the city, encompassing an area of some 1,500 acres. As one observer put it, as long as the inhabitants were supplied with enough food, they would be able to defend the city for as long as they liked.68 In so large a city, enough could be grown within its walls to sustain it almost indefinitely.
Antioch’s governor, Yaghi Siyan, was so confident about the city’s defences that he did little to oppose the expedition when it arrived. This gave the knights precious time to survey the city properly and regroup following the long march. Moreover, the Crusaders reached Antioch at a favourable time of year, when the scorching heat of the summer had dissipated and food was in plentiful supply. They were delighted to find ‘fruitful vineyards and pits full of stored corn, apple trees laden with fruit and all sorts of other good things to eat’.69
To start with, there was a curious normality about the scene. Those in the city went about their business seemingly unworried about the presence of a major army outside the walls; and those who had come to attack it set about making plans, oblivious to the perils and strains which lay ahead. As the chaplain of Raymond of Toulouse wrote wistfully, at the beginning the westerners ‘ate only the best cuts, rump and shoulders, scorned brisket and thought nothing of grain and wine. In these good times, only the watchmen along the walls reminded us of our enemies concealed inside Antioch.’70
The Crusaders established themselves in the surrounding area, taking the city’s port at St Simeon to open up supply lines by sea to Cyprus, where a new Byzantine governor had recently been appointed, after the restoration of Alexios’ authority there, to oversee provisioning of the knights.71 As Tarsos and other coastal towns had been captured already, there was little disruption to maritime traffic, either from Cyprus or elsewhere.
The Crusaders now tried to impose a blockade on Antioch.
Although this initially affected the price of goods in the city, its geography and scale made it all but impossible to seal off completely. As a Muslim chronicler noted, ‘oil, salt and other necessities became dear and unprocurable in Antioch; but so much was smuggled into the city that they became cheap again’.72
The ineffectiveness of the siege was one thing; the other problem was that living conditions soon deteriorated for the attackers. Finding enough food and pasture was a problem for any besieging force tackling a large target. Maintaining a single horse could require between five and ten gallons of fresh water per day, as well as a good supply of hay, and plenty of pastureland. It is difficult to estimate the precise number of horses outside Antioch, but there would have been thousands, with leading aristocrats having brought several mounts with them. The cost and practicalities of keeping so many horses supplied, to say nothing of those who rode them, was substantial.
Ominously, supplies started to run out a few weeks after the army’s arrival at Antioch. The land that had been so pregnant when they reached the city was quickly stripped bare. By the end of the year, conditions became atrocious. As Fulcher of Chartres reported: ‘Then the starving people devoured the stalks of beans still growing in the fields, many kinds of herbs unseasoned with salt, and even thistles which because of the lack of firewood were not well cooked and therefore irritated the tongues of those eating them. They also ate horses, asses, camels, dogs and even rats. The poorer people ate even the hides of animals and the seeds of grain found in manure.’73
By mid-November, those leaving the safety of the camp to seek food – or for other reasons – ran serious risks. One young knight, Abelard of Luxemburg, ‘a very high-born young man of royal blood’, was found ‘playing dice with a certain woman of great birth and beauty in a pleasure garden full of apple trees’. He was ambushed and beheaded on the spot; his companion, seized by Turks, was repeatedly violated and also decapitated. The heads of both were then catapulted into the Crusader camp.74 The Turks demonstrated their confidence no less forcefully by hanging John the Oxite, the patriarch of Antioch, upside down over the walls, beating his feet with iron bars in sight and within earshot of the western army.75
Food shortages were soon followed by disease. According to one chronicler from Edessa, as many as one in five of the Crusaders died outside Antioch from starvation and illness.76 Infection raged through an increasingly malnourished and enfeebled force which was camped close together. Water carried deadly typhus and cholera bacteria. Tents rotting from the endless rain did nothing to improve morale or to stem the spread of disease.77
The situation worsened further when a large army under Duqaq, the emir of neighbouring Damascus, moved to relieve Antioch shortly after Christmas 1097. By a stroke of good fortune, the advancing force was spotted by Bohemond and Robert of Flanders who were on a foraging mission, and decided to engage the enemy. Vastly outnumbered, the western knights held rank and managed to avoid being encircled by Duqaq’s men by breaking through enemy lines.78 The Crusaders’ resistance had a surprising effect on Turkish morale. Duqaq had made for Antioch expecting to finish off a weakened and exposed western army. But Bohemond and Robert of Flanders had shown formidable determination and discipline when they came under attack, which startled the governor of Damascus and his men. Rather than continue on to Antioch, to the westerners’ great surprise Duqaq decided to return home. The first major Muslim army to attack the Crusaders at Antioch had folded at the first opportunity.
The sense of relief in the western camp did not last long. Barely a month later, at the start of 1098, scouts reported that another large relief army, led by Ridwan, the governor of Aleppo, was approaching fast. The principal leaders of the crusading force met in council and decided that some 700 knights would move against the Aleppan force, while the rest of the expedition was to remain at Antioch to maintain the siege as best they could.
Bohemond, Robert of Flanders and Stephen of Blois left camp on 8 February 1098 under the cover of nightfall.79 When they encountered the Aleppan army, Bohemond once more took a leading role in battle. As had been the case with Duqaq’s force, the Turks again threatened to overwhelm the western knights. Bohemond stood firm, urging those close to him: ‘Charge at top speed, like a brave man, and fight valiantly for God and the Holy Sepulchre, for you know in truth that this is no war of the flesh, but of the spirit. So be very brave, and become a champion of Christ. Go in peace and may the Lord be your defence!’80
Bohemond’s ferocious determination inspired his men and startled the enemy. But the Crusaders’ battlefield tactics were also important. Part of the western cavalry hid from view, waiting for the right moment to ambush the enemy. They chose their moment impeccably, successfully dispersing the Turks so they could be picked off in smaller groups. As the Crusaders counter-attacked, Ridwan’s army fell apart. Once again, a miraculous victory had been delivered against all the odds.
The stock of the commanders who had overseen the success rose dramatically. Raymond of Toulouse’s ill health had prevented him from taking part and he had been left in command of those who remained at Antioch. Tatikios and the Byzantine force too could not take any credit for the successes over the governors of Damascus and Aleppo. Bohemond, on the other hand, had been inspirational. As one eyewitness reported, ‘Bohemond, protected on all sides by the sign of the Cross, charged the Turkish forces like a lion which has been starving for three or four days which comes out of its cave thirsting for the blood of cattle and falls upon the flocks careless of their own safety, tearing the sheep as they flee hither and thither.’81 It marked the beginning of a personality cult that was to prove enormously powerful in the years that followed.