Joseph François Michaud - The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3)

The account of this defeat soon spread alarm among the Crusaders who had remained before the city. Immediately Godfrey, to whom danger gave supreme authority, ordered the leaders and soldiers to fly to arms. [106]Accompanied by his brother Eustace, the two Roberts, and the count de Vermandois, he crossed the Orontes, and hastened to seek the enemy, still engaged in following up their first advantage. As soon as he came in presence of the Saracens, he commanded the other chiefs to follow his example, and rushed, sword in hand, into the thickest of the enemy’s ranks. The latter, accustomed to fight at a distance, and principally to employ the bow and arrow, could not resist the sword and lance of the Crusaders. They took to flight, some towards the mountains, and others towards the city. Accien, who, from the towers of his palace, had witnessed the victorious attack of the Crusaders, immediately sent a numerous detachment to renew the fight. He accompanied his soldiers as far as the gate of the Bridge, which he caused to be shut after them, telling them it should only be opened to them when they returned victorious.

This new body of Saracens were soon beaten and dispersed; and there remained no hope to them but to endeavour to regain the city. But Godfrey, who had foreseen everything, had posted himself upon an eminence between the fugitives and the gates of Antioch. It was there that the carnage was renewed; the Christians were animated by their victory, and the Saracens by their despair and the cries of the inhabitants of the city, who were assembled on the ramparts. Nothing can paint the frightful tumult of this fresh conflict. The clashing of arms and the cries of the combatants would not permit the soldiers to hear the orders of their leaders. They fought man to man, and without order, whilst clouds of dust covered the field of battle. Chance directed the blows of both the conquerors and the conquered, and the Saracens, heaped as it were together by their terror, impeded their own flight. The confusion was so great that several of the Crusaders were killed by their companions and brothers in arms. A great number of Saracens fell almost without resistance under the swords of the Christians, and more than two thousand, who sought safety in flight, were drowned in the Orontes. “The old men of Antioch,” says William of Tyre, “whilst contemplating this bloody catastrophe from the height of their walls, grieved that they had lived so long, whilst the women who witnessed the death of their children, lamented their own fecundity.” The carnage continued during the whole day; and it was not till nightfall that Accien allowed the gates to be opened for the reception of the miserable remains of his troops, still hotly pursued by the Crusaders.

The leaders and soldiers of the army had performed prodigies of valour. Bohemond, Tancred, Adhemar, Baldwin du Bourg, and Eustace had appeared everywhere, leading their warriors in the paths of danger. The whole army spoke of the lance-thrusts and marvellous feats of arms of the count de Vermandois and the two Roberts. The duke of Normandy sustained a single combat with a leader of the infidels, who advanced towards him surrounded by his troop. With one blow of his sword he split his head to the shoulder, and, as the Saracen fell dead at his feet, exclaimed, “ I devote thy impure soul to the powers of hell .” Tancred, says Raoul de Caen, distinguished himself amongst the most intrepid of the knights. In the heat of the mêlée , the Christian hero, as modest as he was brave, made his squire swear to preserve silence upon the exploits of which he was a witness. [107]“Godfrey, who, in this memorable day, had displayed the skill of a great captain, signalized his bravery and vast strength by actions which both history and poetry have celebrated. No armour seemed proof against his trenchant blade; lances, helmets, and cuirasses flew in shivers beneath its strokes. A Saracen of surpassing strength and stature offered him single combat in the midst of the mêlée , and with his first blow dashed the shield of Godfrey in pieces. Indignant at such audacity, the Christian hero raised himself in his stirrups, and rushing on his antagonist, dealt him so terrible a blow on the shoulder, that he divided his body into two parts. [108]The one, say the historians, fell to the ground, whilst the other remained on the horse, which returned to the city, where this spectacle redoubled the consternation of the besieged. In spite of these astonishing exploits, the Christians sustained a considerable loss. Whilst celebrating the heroic valour of the Crusaders, contemporary history is astonished at the multitude of martyrs which the Saracens sent to heaven, and who, on arriving in the abodes of the elect, with crowns upon their heads, and palm branches in their hands, addressed God in these words: ‘Why have you not spared our blood which has flowed for you this day?’” [109]

The infidels passed the night in burying such as had been killed under the walls of the city. They interred them near a mosque built on the outer side of the bridge of the Orontes. After the funeral ceremonies, they returned into Antioch. As, according to the custom of the Mussulmans, these bodies had been buried with their arms, their ornaments, and their vestments, this plunder held out too strong a temptation for the gross multitude that followed the army of the Crusaders. They crossed the Orontes, precipitated themselves in a crowd upon the graves of the Saracens, exhumed the dead bodies, and tore off the arms and habiliments with which they were covered. They quickly returned to exhibit in the camp the silk stuffs, bucklers, lances, javelins, and rich swords found in the coffins; nor did this spectacle at all disgust the knights and barons. On the day following the battle, among the spoils of the vanquished, they contemplated with joy fifteen hundred heads separated from their trunks, which were paraded in triumph through the army, recalling to them their own victory, and the loss they had inflicted on the infidels. All these heads were cast into the Orontes, and, together with the bodies of the Mussulmans drowned in the conflict of the preceding day, carried the news of the victory to the Genoese and Pisans disembarked at the port of St. Simeon. The Crusaders, who, at the commencement of the battle, had fled towards the sea or the mountains, and who had been lamented as dead, returned to the camp, and joined their brethren in the thanks offered to heaven for the triumphs of the Christian army. From this time the chiefs thought of nothing but taking advantage of the terror with which they had inspired the Saracens. Masters of the cemetery of the Mussulmans, the Crusaders destroyed the mosque which had been built outside the walls of the city, and employed the stones of the tombs even in erecting a fortress before the gate of the bridge, by which the besieged made their sorties. Raymond, who had been accused of want of zeal for the holy war, caused the fort to be constructed, and charged himself with the defence of this dangerous post. It was proposed to raise another fortress near the first, and as no other of the leaders presented himself to forward the construction of it, Tancred offered his services to the Crusaders. But, generous and loyal knight as he was, he possessed nothing but his sword and his renown. He asked the necessary money of his companions, and himself undertook the dangers of the enterprise. All were eager to second his courageous devotedness; the labours which he directed were soon finished, and from that period the besieged found themselves completely enclosed within the circle of their walls.

The Crusaders, after having thus finished the blockade of the place, surprised the Syrians who had been accustomed to bring provisions into Antioch, and only gave them liberty and life upon their swearing to supply the Christian army. Having learnt that Accien had sent a great part of the horses of his garrison into a valley at a few leagues from the city, they repaired thither by circuitous routes, and got possession of this rich booty. Two thousand horses, and as many mules, were led in triumph into the camp of the Christians.