A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (17 page)

Tancred’s personality does not shine clearly
through the mists of history. He was immensely active and able, a subtle
diplomat and a brilliant soldier; and he grew wiser as he grew older. But he
never acquired the glamour that surrounded his uncle, Bohemond; nor does he
seem to have been popular with his men, apart from his sycophantic biographer,
Radulph of Caen. He was hard, self-seeking and unscrupulous, correct and yet
disloyal towards Bohemond and a faithless colleague to Baldwin of Edessa. But
for the intervention of King Baldwin, his equal in relentlessness and his
superior in width of vision, his particularism might have gone far to wreck the
Frankish East. His aim was the firm establishment and the aggrandizement of the
Antiochene principality; and therein he was superbly successful. Without his
work Bohemond’s foundation would have crumbled. The long history of the princes
of Antioch was the fruit of his energy. Of all the princes of the First
Crusade, only King Baldwin, a penniless adventurer like himself, enjoyed a more
impressive career. Yet, when he was being taken to his burial in the porch of
the Cathedral of St Peter the chroniclers could find few scenes of grief to
report. Only the Armenian Matthew of Edessa wrote warmly of him and lamented
his death.

The accession of Roger as Prince of Antioch — for,
notwithstanding his acknowledgement of the claims of Bohemond’s son, he took
the princely title — brought harmony to the Franks. He was married to Baldwin
of Edessa’s sister, Cecilia; and, though he was a notoriously unfaithful
husband, he was always on affectionate terms with his brother-in-law. His
sister Maria became the second wife of Joscelin of Courtenay. Pons of Tripoli,
who, following Tancred’s wishes, at once married Tancred’s widow, Cecilia of
France, remained his constant friend. And all three princes united in regarding
King Baldwin as their overlord. This rare solidarity, combined with fresh
quarrels among the Moslems, brought the Frankish dominion in northern Syria to
its apogee.

1113: Deaths of
Mawdud and Ridwan

In 1113 King Baldwin began a campaign against
Toghtekin of Damascus, who succeeded at last in securing the aid of Mawdud and
of Ayaz the Ortoqid. The Moslem allies lured the King into Damascene territory,
to Sennabra on the upper Jordan, where, forgetting for once his usual caution,
he was attacked and suffered a severe defeat. He had summoned Pons and Roger to
his aid; and their arrival with all their chivalry enabled him to extricate
himself. The enemy advanced as far as the neighbourhood of Tiberias, but would
not venture to face the whole Frankish army. After a few weeks of hesitation,
Mawdud retired with Toghtekin to Damascus. There on the last Friday in
September, as he was entering the Great Mosque with his host, he was stabbed to
death by an Assassin. Toghtekin promptly put the murderer to death, to
dissociate himself from the crime. Public opinion held him guilty, but gave him
the excuse that Mawdud had designs on Damascus.

Mawdud’s death freed the Franks of a formidable
adversary. It was followed two months later, on 10 December 1113, by the death
of Ridwan of Aleppo. His chilly relations with his fellow-Moslems had done much
to help the establishment of the Franks in Syria; but his elimination did not
greatly benefit Islam. He was succeeded by his son, Alp Arslan, a weak, vicious
and cruel boy of sixteen, completely in the hands of his favourite eunuch,
Lulu. The Assassins, whom Ridwan had protected, found themselves
cold-shouldered by the new administration, at the express orders of the Sultan
Mohammed. His envoy, the Persian Ibn Badi, forced Alp Arslan to issue a warrant
for the execution of Abu Tahir and the other leaders of the sect; and the
populace of Aleppo, who had long loathed the Assassins, set about massacring
all that they could catch. In self-defence the Order had tried unsuccessfully
to capture the citadel while Ridwan lay dying. Soon afterwards sectarians tried
to surprise the citadel at Shaizar, when the emir’s family were out watching
the Christian Easter festival; but the townsfolk joined with the emir against
them. Their one success was to take the fortress of Qolaia, near Balis, where
the road from Aleppo to Baghdad approaches the Euphrates. Elsewhere they went
underground, or fled to the protection of the Franks; but they were still
powerful and began to turn their attention to the Lebanon. Alp Arslan’s reign
was short. He paid a friendly visit to Damascus, where Toghtekin received him
with royal honours; but in September 1114 his wanton behaviour induced the
eunuch Lulu, terrified for his life, to have him murdered in his bed and to
place on the throne his six-year-old brother, Sultanshah. For the next few
years Lulu and his general Shams as-Shawas, ex-emir of Rafaniya, held the
citadel and controlled the army of Aleppo; but the real power was in the hands
of the notables of the city, whose wishes Lulu did not dare to disregard. Its
lack of a strong prince and the small size of its army left Aleppo powerless to
do more than defend its own walls; while, though the Assassins had been
banished, the new authorities were considered by their neighbours to have
dangerously Shian tendencies, due to the influence of Persians in the city. In
consequence Lulu was ready to carry on Ridwan’s policy of subservient
friendship with the Franks of Antioch.

On Mawdud’s death the Sultan gave Mosul to his
representative at the Caliph’s court, Aqsonqor il-Bursuqi, a Turkish soldier of
fortune like his predecessor. It became his duty to direct operations against
the Franks. In May 1114 he led an army of fifteen thousand men against Edessa.
With him were the Sultan’s son, Mas’ud, Temirek, emir of Sinjar, and a young
Turk called Imad ed-Din Zengi, son of an earlier Aqsonqor who had been governor
of Aleppo and Hama in the years before the Crusade. Ilghazi of Mardin had been
summoned to join the expedition but refused. Its first step therefore was to
march on Mardin; whereupon Ilghazi agreed to send his son Ayaz with a
detachment of Turcoman troops. For two months the Moslems sat before Edessa;
but the city was well garrisoned and well provisioned, whereas the ravaged
countryside could not feed the besieging forces. Il-Bursuqi was obliged to lift
the siege and contented himself with ravaging the countryside, till the Armenians
offered him new scope for action.

1116: Fall of
Vasil Dgha

The Armenian plot to hand over Edessa to Mawdud
in 1112 had been followed by a similar plot next year, when Mawdud was about to
invade Frankish territory and Baldwin was at Turbessel, taking over Joscelin’s
fief. It was discovered in time; and Baldwin firmly transferred the whole
Armenian population of his capital to Samosata. Having taught the Armenians a
lesson, he allowed them to return early in 1114; but some had gone on into the
territory of Vasil Dgha, Kogh Vasil’s heir, who was anyhow alarmed by Frankish
attempts on his inheritance. He and his adopted mother now invited Il-Bursuqi
to deliver them from the Franks. Il-Bursuqi sent one of his generals, Sonqor
the Long, to negotiate with Vasil Dgha at Kaisun. The Franks heard of it, and
vainly attacked Sonqor and the Armenians. But before the Moslems could take
advantage of the new alliance Il-Bursuqi quarrelled with Ayaz the Ortoqid and
imprisoned him. Ayaz’s father, Ilghazi, therefore summoned his clan and his
Turcomans and marched against Il-Bursuqi, whom he severely defeated and forced
to retreat back to Mosul. Once again the Moslem counter-Crusade ended in a
fiasco.

The Armenians paid for it. The Franks advanced
to punish Vasil Dgha. They were unable to take his fortress capital at Raban;
but he thought it wise to seek the alliance of the Roupenian prince Thoros.
Thoros, after inviting him to come to discuss a marriage alliance, imprisoned
him and sold him to Baldwin of Edessa. Vasil was only released on a promise to
cede all his lands to Baldwin. He then was allowed to retire to Constantinople.
Having thus annexed Raban and Kaisun in 1116, Baldwin decided to suppress the
remaining Armenian principalities in the Euphrates valley. In 1117 he first
displaced Abu’lgharib, lord of Birejik, who had been established there with the
help of Baldwin during the First Crusade. He gave Birejik to his cousin,
Waleran of Le Puiset, who married Abu’lgharib’s daughter. Next he attacked
Baldwin I’s old friend and later enemy, Bagrat, Kogh Vasil’s brother, who now
possessed a small lordship at Khoros, west of the Euphrates. Finally, he
overran the territory of another of Baldwin’s allies, Prince Constantine of
Gargar, whom he captured and imprisoned at Samosata, where the unfortunate
victim soon perished in an earthquake. The Roupenian prince soon found himself,
to his satisfaction, the only independent Armenian potentate that remained.
But, apart from the Roupenians, the Armenian people lost confidence in the Franks.

Baldwin of Edessa’s Armenian conquests were
helped by a diminution of danger from the East. The previous years had been
full of anxiety. A tremendous earthquake in November 1114 had devastated
Frankish territory, from Antioch and Mamistra to Marash and Edessa. Roger of
Antioch hastily toured his chief fortresses to repair their walls; for there
was a rumour that the Sultan Mohammed was preparing a new expedition.

Mohammed was the last of the great Seldjuk
Sultans. He had taken over a decadent state from his brother Barkiyarok, and he
had restored order in Iraq and Iran, suppressing the rebel Arabs of the eastern
desert in 1108 and keeping the Assassins in check. The Caliph al-Mustazhir,
indolently writing love-poems in his palace at Baghdad, obeyed his authority.
But his attempts to organize a campaign to drive the Franks from Syria had
failed one after the other; and he realized that to succeed he must establish
his authority over the Moslem princes there, whose jealousies and
insubordination had regularly ruined his cause. In February 1115, after
securing the loyalty of Mosul by sending his son Mas’ud to take charge of its
government, he dispatched a large army westward, under the governor of Hamadan,
Bursuq ibn Bursuq, with Juyush-beg, former governor of Mosul, and Temirek, emir
of Sinjar, to aid him.

1115: Expedition
of Bursuq ibn Bursuq

The Moslem princes of Syria were as alarmed as
the Franks. The Sultan’s only reliable vassals there were the Munqidhites of
Shaizar and Ibn Qaraja, emir of Homs. On the rumour of the expedition the
Ortoqid Ilghazi hastened to Damascus to confirm his alliance with Toghtekin,
but on his return he was waylaid and captured by the emir of Homs; who,
however, threatened by Toghtekin, let him go on condition that he sent his son
Ayaz in his place. Ilghazi was able to return to Mardin and collect his troops.
Then he retired westward again to join up with Toghtekin. The eunuch Lulu,
regent in Aleppo, after promising support to both sides, decided that the
Sultan’s victory would not suit him and ranged himself with Toghtekin and
Ilghazi. Meanwhile Roger of Antioch had collected his forces and took up a
position by the Iron Bridge across the Orontes. There, on whose initiative we
cannot tell, he made a pact with Toghtekin and his allies and invited their
army to join his own before the walls of Apamea, a good vantage-point for
watching Bursuq’s movements when he should cross the Euphrates and advance
towards his friends at Shaizar. The Franks provided some two thousand knights
and infantrymen and their Moslem allies about five thousand.

Bursuq met with no opposition as he led his
great army through the Jezireh. He had hoped to make his headquarters at
Aleppo, but, hearing that Lulu had joined his enemies and that Toghtekin was at
their head, he turned southward against the latter. With the help of the emir
of Homs he made a surprise attack on Hama, which belonged to Toghtekin and
contained much of his baggage. The town was captured and pillaged, to the fury
of the local Moslems; and he then marched on the Frankish fort of Kafartab.
Roger would have liked to make a diversion, but Toghtekin persuaded him that it
would be too risky. Instead, the allies appealed for help to Baldwin of
Jerusalem and Pons of Tripoli, who hastened northward, the former with five
hundred knights and a thousand infantrymen, the latter with two hundred knights
and two thousand infantrymen. They entered the camp at Apamea to the fanfare of
trumpets. Bursuq, who was now based on Shaizar, thought it prudent to retreat
towards the Jezireh. His ruse was effective. Baldwin and Pons considered the
danger to be ended and returned home; and the allied army broke up. Bursuq then
suddenly swept back again to Kafartab. After a short struggle he took the
castle and handed it over to the Munqidhites. Lulu of Aleppo, whether from
treachery or cowardice, at once wrote to him apologizing for past sins and
asking him to send a detachment to occupy Aleppo; and Bursuq weakened his
forces by dispatching Juyush-beg and his corps. Roger had not disbanded his
army. He could not wait for help to arrive from King Baldwin nor from Pons, nor
even from Toghtekin. After summoning Baldwin of Edessa to his rescue and asking
the Patriarch Bernard to bless the troops and to send with them a fragment of
the True Cross, he left Antioch on 12 September and marched southward up the
Orontes to Chastel Rouge, while Bursuq marched northward along a parallel line
further inland. Neither army knew the other’s position, till a knight named
Theodore Berneville came galloping to the camp at Chastel Rouge from a scouting
expedition to say that he had seen the Sultan’s army moving through the forest
towards the hill of Tel-Danith, near to the town of Sirmin. On the morning of
the 14th the Frankish army crept over the intervening ridge and fell upon
Bursuq as his troops were carelessly marching on. The baggage animals were in
the van; and already detachments had stopped to erect tents for the noonday
halt. Some of the emirs had taken parties to forage in the neighbouring farms;
others had gone off to occupy Biza’a. When the battle began Bursuq was without
his best lieutenants.