The rout of Ridwan’s army was a major boost to morale. Equally, it was a huge shock to the city’s inhabitants who were presented with the sight of Turkish heads on posts in view of the city’s gates. It was a grim reminder of what would happen to them if they continued to hold out.82
Three times now, in their encounters with Kilidj Arslan, Duqaq and now Ridwan, the Crusaders had come within a hair’s breadth of catastrophe. While they had survived on each occasion, the odds of them succeeding each time an army set out against them diminished. The governors of Nicaea, Damascus and Aleppo might have failed. But there were other local rulers, to say nothing of the mighty sultan of Baghdad and the vizier of Cairo, who were likely to intervene sooner or later. The question was whether the Crusaders could break Antioch before their good fortune ran out.
10
The Struggle for the Soul of the Crusade
Even after repelling Ridwan’s attack, the Crusaders were still highly exposed. And the longer the siege went on, the more vulnerable the western army, depleted by illness and disease, grew. The struggle for Antioch in the first half of 1098 now fuelled dangerous levels of discord within the leadership of the expedition. The careful balance of interests between east and west – Byzantine reconquest and Christian Crusade – was thrown off-kilter by the loss of morale and the competing personal ambitions that emerged outside the walls of Antioch.
In an attempt to break the deadlock, Adhemar of Le Puy urged the knights to fast for three days and march in a solemn procession around the city walls. He decreed that Mass be celebrated and psalms be recited more frequently, and suggested that fortunes might improve if everyone shaved their beards.1 He also thought that too few Crusaders were wearing a cross and insisted that all should attach the symbol to their garments.2 For the bishop there was a clear link between the terrible suffering in the camp and the lack of piety shown by the Crusaders.
As morale was plummeting, desertion became commonplace among the rank and file. The Crusade leadership took an uncompromising line, with severe punishments handed out to anyone found trying to flee. When Peter the Hermit, Walter the Carpenter and William of Grantmesnil were discovered slipping away, they were caught by Tancred and taught a humiliating lesson: Walter was made to lie on the floor of Bohemond’s tent ‘like a piece of rubbish’ before being chastised in front of the rest of the force.3 Those who abandoned the siege were fit for the sewers, wrote one commentator.4 So fragile was morale in the Crusader camp that even the leaders took oaths, promising each other that they, at least, would not leave until Antioch had been taken.5
These commitments were a way of binding together the most senior figures, some of whom were now developing misgivings about the siege. Bohemond, for instance, had threatened to leave early on in the blockade, complaining not only about the loss of life amongst his men, but also protesting that he was not wealthy enough to provide for his force as food prices rocketed.6 Others were less direct. Stephen of Blois retired to Tarsos, ostensibly to regain his health – a euphemism for not having the stomach to endure the suffering at Antioch.7 Robert of Normandy too felt he would rather view proceedings from comfortable surroundings, and had withdrawn to a more hospitable location on the south coast of Asia Minor by Christmas 1097.8 Although it took repeated attempts to encourage him back to the siege, at least he did not leave for home. One contemporary chronicler was surprised that Robert did not give up and return to Normandy, given his weakness of will, his prodigality when it came to money, his love of food, and general indolence and lechery.9
The burning question was how to provision the Crusader army. The nearby city of Tarsos had been retaken by forces loyal to Byzantium in 1097; so too had Laodikeia, the last remaining Turkishheld port on the southern coast. Alexios now established Laodikeia as the primary supply base for Antioch, the hub for ‘wine, grain and great numbers of cattle’ being sent from Cyprus.10 Operations were overseen by the island’s governor, Eumathios Philokales, who also took charge of Laodikeia by the spring of 1098.11
Yet although the threat of pirate raiding had all but disappeared, Cyprus was not able to supply resources in great enough quantities to keep thousands of men and horses nourished through the lean winter months. There were two solutions to the dilemma: either to improve supply lines dramatically or increase the number of men at Antioch so the city could be properly cordoned off and the siege brought to an end. As Bruno of Lucca put it when relaying news of the situation in the east to the inhabitants of his hometown, Antioch had been surrounded by the Crusaders, ‘but not very well’.12
It fell to Tatikios to take the initiative. The Byzantine commander had been responsible for quartermastering the Crusader army and ensuring smooth progress to Antioch. At the end of January 1098, he left the Crusade, promising to send ‘many ships laden with corn, barley, wine, meat, flour and all sorts of required provisions’. Yet although he left his possessions in the camp, he did not return.13
Tatikios’ departure became notorious, and was used later to show that he – and therefore the emperor Alexios – betrayed the Crusaders, abandoning them to their fate at Antioch. He set off, said one chronicler, ‘in false faith ... to carry a message about the promised relief, which he had not done faithfully at all, since he did not return to Antioch again’.14 In the words of Raymond of Aguilers, who was present during the siege, Tatikios left ‘with God’s curse; by this dastardly act [of not returning], he brought eternal shame to himself and his men’.15 ‘He is a liar’, was the verdict of the author of the Gesta Francorum, ‘and always will be.’16
These judgements were unjustified. On 4 March 1098, a few weeks after Tatikios had left, a fleet put in at St Simeon’s port bringing essential foodstuffs, provisions, reinforcements and materials to use against Antioch’s formidable defences. The timing of the fleet’s appearance was no coincidence. Nor was its identification by Bruno of Lucca, who sailed with it, as English; Alexios had established an English garrison in Laodikeia after its recapture, and it was presumably these men who now brought emergency supplies to Antioch.17 Tatikios had delivered what he had promised.
The reason why this was not acknowledged by the Crusaders and their chroniclers was that misgivings had already started to grow about the Byzantine role in the expedition. For one thing, with Tatikios absent, it was not clear to whom Antioch should be handed if and when it was taken, in accordance with the oaths given to Alexios in Constantinople. This led to unease amongst the western force, which began not only to question whether the Byzantines had lost faith in the operation, but also why the city was being besieged in the first place, at such heavy cost to the westerners.18 Antioch did have Christian significance; after all, it was the original see of St Peter. But its capture had little to do with the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre; why not simply advance to Jerusalem and leave Antioch to one side?