Jack Ludlow: Prince of Legend

The Atabeg set up his main camp a whole league away from the northern walls, this being a disposition all of the Crusade leaders struggled to comprehend when success surely depended on pressing the siege close. Not that such a distance allowed them much freedom of movement; to cross the short distance from the Bridge Gate to La Mahomerie siege fort still required careful observation, and that was ten times more hazardous when sending men to the port of St Simeon, where some ships, unaware of the changed circumstances in Antioch, continued to arrive.

Most of their cargoes ended up stacked on shore for the lack of the means to get them safely to the city. Before either excursion could be attempted it was necessary to see what forces of the enemy were close by enough to interfere, while those holding La Mahomerie were in no doubt that an attack would soon be launched in enough strength to take it from them and cut the route to the coast completely.

High up behind the city the men Tancred had set to constructing a wall toiled away in the tremendous daytime heat, the means to build supplied by an endless stream of reluctant and dragooned citizens, often bearing up the steep hill the stones of their own destroyed dwellings, churches and mosques having been left alone for fear of disturbance.

Running across the face of the hillside all the way to the point where it adjoined the outer curtain wall, there was no mortar to fix the pieces in place; it was drystone at best and flimsy because of that, so much so that, even with buttresses, it might well collapse from the weight of attackers pushing against it.

If days went by without activity, they did not pass without increasing anxiety. Despite strict control of the food supply and a diet ill-equipped to feed the fighting men — the pilgrims and citizens were left to fend for themselves — the storerooms were emptying at a rate that indicated they would struggle to hold out for weeks.

A month, without relief, was impossible, so much time was spent with an eye to the northern horizon for some sight of the armies of Byzantium, though messages getting through — smugglers by trade knew how to circumvent any restrictions by either cunning or bribery — brought no news of any such prospect, which left the besieged nothing to do but wait; all the dice were in the hands of the Turks.

The expected attack of La Mahomerie came first, a furious assault that those not in the siege fort could only watch helplessly from the battlements. The Turks surged around, probing hard and sometimes seeming about to overwhelm the defence. With a courage born of desperation the men led by Robert of Flanders somehow managed to drive them back till the pile of bodies on the perimeter rose to make it increasingly hard for those following to exchange blows and inflict injury.

If the first day was difficult it did not ease in those that followed. Overnight the Turks came to remove their dead and as soon as the light was strong enough the attack was renewed with the same ferocity. It was inevitable that Robert’s men, however stalwart they were, must suffer wounds and losses, added to which the sheer physical effort of maintaining the fight without any chance of being reinforced was debilitating in itself.

That he held out for four days was a feat of brilliance but unsupported it could not go on. As darkness fell on the fourth night, having once more been in combat all day, Robert dipped his banner three times, the signal that he was about to abandon the siege fort and retire through the Bridge Gate. A strong body of Provencal knights had to stand by to provide assistance and they waited until the Turks came for the bodies of their freshly fallen comrades, who by religious decree had to be buried within a day.

Emerging in near silence they slaughtered the gatherers, allowing Robert of Flanders to evacuate his remaining men — those who had died remained within, their souls commended to God — and to set the wooden structure alight, it going up like a torch given the inside of the walls had been soaked from barrels of oil kept for the purpose.

That it burnt bright enough to illuminate the slaughter so recently carried out was not a thing to bring cheer: if holding the siege fort had put a check on the enemy it was not much of one, and for all the Turkish losses they were in affordable numbers. Likewise, if the road to the coast was not actually cut to individuals, nothing more could be brought in from there, even by donkey.

With little left to distract him, Kerbogha finally began to act. He fed men up the eastern slopes of the mountains to crowd into the citadel, which naturally brought crusading reinforcements from Flanders and Normandy to the temporary wall. That it had taken him days to do so surprised Bohemund, but the possible answer to that curious behaviour came when he saw Shams ad-Daulah’s banner being lowered.

The flag of the Atabeg of Mosul soon replaced it. Clearly there had been negotiations: Kerbogha was not prepared to aid the man who held the citadel until he was sure that when Antioch fell his right to it would not be disputed.

‘It seems, Tancred, that I am not the only lord who is wishing for possession of the title of Prince of Antioch.’

Delivered with wry humour, it was a dig at his nephew, who had acclaimed him as that when they had only just breached the walls, it being the designation of the last satrap to hold it for Byzantium. The reply was swift and with no mirth in it at all, for at that very moment the gates of the citadel swung open and with wild cries, trumpets and thumping drums, a whole horde of fighters, Turks by their dress, began to emerge and deploy for an assault.

‘Then let us hope that those who wish to deny you that put as much effort into stopping Kerbogha.’

On command the knights present couched and lowered their lances to set up a frieze of points at the rim of the wall onto which the lead attackers must be impaled. Whatever words of faith had inspired them before the attack required more to sustain them and it was clear that the sight of those sharp metal lances brought a palpable amount of hesitation, yet the Turks were doughty fighters and had proved it many times and not just against this Crusade.

Over a century they had fought and repeatedly defeated Byzantium and the Arabs in their progress west to take and hold the lands they had conquered. So they came on, either through love of battle, a belief in Allah, fear of shame, perhaps Kerbogha, or the sheer pressure of those at their backs, swinging their swords to lop off the lance points while their fellows fired arrows over their heads to disrupt the defence.

Some attackers died from those falling short, others were impaled, this while Bohemund, Tancred, the two noble Roberts and their defenders held their shields over their heads as protection from the falling bolts, where that failed their chain mail deflecting arrows that were losing their velocity. Within a blink it was sword against sword, axe against spear and bloody combat to hold and deny the attackers the way down into the city.

Kerbogha had numbers in abundance; if his losses were high they were a price he was willing to pay for success, no doubt with promises of paradise for those who succumbed and gold for the survivors. That first charge was not repeated in weight, though the assault, if it ebbed and flowed, never let up throughout the whole of the day, the main action taking place across a small depression where the Turks sought to dislodge the defenders from the place where their two points of defence adjoined — the permanent city curtain wall and the drystone and makeshift one.

The women camp followers were as vital as the knights who held the line, fetching water to them in the short pauses between combat to ease throats that had become parched at the very prospect of a fight, the chanting priests encouraging them to pray to God for strength less so. Arms ached from the swinging of great broadswords and heavy axes, but it was tribute to the Norman way of training, applied in both the homeland and Apulia, that men sustained their ability to keep fighting, killing and maiming.