A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (18 page)

1115: Frankish
Victory at Tel-Danith

The Franks’ attack was quite unexpected. They
sprang out suddenly from the trees and quickly stormed the half-prepared camp.
Soon the whole Moslem army was in disorder. Bursuq could not rally his men. He
himself barely avoided capture and retired with a few hundred horsemen to a
spur of the hill of Tel-Danith. There he beat off the enemy for a while and
sought to be killed in the fighting rather than face the disgrace of such a
defeat. At last his bodyguard persuaded him that nothing more could be done;
and he rode off in flight to the east. The emir of Sinjar, Temirek, had at
first been more successful and had driven back the Frankish right. But Guy
Fresnel, lord of Harenc, brought up fresh troops; and soon the men of Sinjar
were surrounded, and only the swiftest horsemen escaped alive. By evening the
remnants of the Moslem army were hastening in disorder towards the Jezireh.

The Frankish victory at Tel-Danith ended the
last attempt of the Seldjuk Sultans of Iran to recover Syria. Bursuq died a few
months later, humiliated and ashamed; and the Sultan Mohammed was not prepared
to risk a further expedition. The only danger to the Franks from the East came
now from the semi-independent emirs, who for the moment were disunited and
discouraged. The prestige of Roger, Prince of Antioch, was at its height. His
men quickly reoccupied Kafartab, which had been given to the Munqidhites by
Bursuq. The rulers of Aleppo and Damascus were seriously alarmed. The latter,
Toghtekin, hastened to make his peace with the Sultan Mohammed, who forgave him
but provided him with no material aid. At Aleppo the eunuch Lulu watched
helpless while the Franks consolidated their positions around him. He sought to
make a closer alliance with Toghtekin. But he was generally discredited; and in
May 1117 he was murdered by Turks of his garrison. His successor was a fellow-eunuch,
the Armenian renegade Yaruqtash, who at once sought Frankish support by
yielding to Roger the fortress of al-Qubba, on the road from Aleppo to Damascus
used by the pilgrims to Mecca, and the right to levy tolls on the pilgrims. The
concession did Yaruqtash no good. Lulu’s murderers had acted in the name of
Ridwan’s youngest son, Sultanshah, who would not recognize him. Yaruqtash
appealed for help to Ilghazi the Ortoqid; but when Ilghazi’s troops arrived at
Aleppo they found Yaruqtash fallen and the government directed by Sultanshah’s
minister, the Damascene Ibn al-Milhi. Ilghazi therefore retired, leaving his
son Kizil as his representative in Aleppo and taking over the fortress of Balis
on the Euphrates, which was granted him as the price of his help should
il-Bursuqi, who was now established at ar-Rahba and claimed to have been
allotted Aleppo by the Sultan, try to make good his claim. Ibn al-Milhi then
decided that Ilghazi was too uncertain an ally and handed over Aleppo and Kizil
to Khirkan, emir of Homs, and prepared with Frankish help to recover Balis. But
Ilghazi’s alliance with Toghtekin held good. While the latter marched on Homs
and obliged Khirkan to retire, Ilghazi relieved Balis and entered Aleppo in the
summer of 1118. Ibn al-Milhi had already been displaced by a black eunuch,
Qaraja, who, together with Ibn al-Milhi and the prince Sultanshah, were
imprisoned by the Ortoqid. During all these movements and intrigues Frankish
intervention had been sought by all parties in turn; and though Roger was never
master of Aleppo itself, he was able to occupy the territory to the north of
the city, occupying Azaz in 1118 and early in 1119 Biza’a, thus cutting off
Aleppo from the Euphrates and the East.

About the same time Roger improved his southern
frontier by capturing the castle of Marqab, on its high hill overlooking the
sea behind Buluniyas.

1118:
Schism
in the Jacobite Church

Thus, by the end of 1118, there was an
equilibrium in northern Syria. The Franks had become an accepted part of the
pattern of the country. They were still far from numerous, but they were
well-armed and were building fortresses, and were learning to adapt themselves
to local life. Moreover, for the moment they were united. Roger of Antioch was
by far the greatest of the northern Christian princes; but his hegemony was not
resented by Baldwin of Edessa nor by Pons of Tripoli; for he made no attempt to
be their overlord but like them acknowledged the suzerainty of the King of
Jerusalem. The Moslem princes were numerically stronger, but they were
disunited and jealous. Only the alliance between Toghtekin of Damascus and the
Ortoqids kept them from chaos. The balance thus was slightly tilted in favour
of the Franks. No external power was in a position to upset this balance. King
Baldwin of Jerusalem, with the Fatimid menace in his rear, could not often
intervene in the north. The Seldjuk Sultan of Iran, after the disaster at
Tel-Danith, abstained from further practical attempts to assert authority in
Syria. The two chief powers of Anatolia, Byzantium and the Seldjuks of Rum, for
the moment were balanced against each other.

Even the native Christians maintained a
balance. The Armenian subjects of Edessa and Antioch were disillusioned and
disloyal; but the only free Armenian state that remained, the Roupenian
principality on the Taurus, was ready to work in with the Franks. Its prince,
Leo, had brought a contingent to help Roger of Antioch at the siege of Azaz. A
schism divided the Jacobite Church. In about 1118, its head, the Patriarch
Athanasius, who resided at Antioch, quarrelled with his metropolitan at Edessa,
Bar-Sabuni, over the possession of some sacred books, and placed him under an
interdict. Bar-Sabuni, to make trouble, appealed for help to the Latin
Patriarch of Antioch, Bernard; who summoned Athanasius to discuss the matter at
a synod held in the Latin cathedral. Athanasius came protesting. The
incompetence of an interpreter led Bernard to believe that the dispute was over
a private debt between the two prelates, and he pronounced that it was
simoniacal of Athanasius not to forgive the debtor. Athanasius was infuriated
by a decision whose validity he did not recognize and whose sense he did not
understand. He protested rudely; whereupon Bernard ordered him to be scourged.
On the advice of an Orthodox friend, the philosopher Abd’ al-Massih, Athanasius
appealed to Roger, who had been away at the time. Roger angrily reproved
Bernard for interfering in a matter that did not concern him, and permitted
Athanasius to leave Antioch for his former home, the monastery of Mar Barsauma.
There Athanasius was in the territory of the Ortoqids, who gave him their
protection. He excommunicated Bar Sabuni and placed the Jacobite Church of
Edessa under an interdict. Many of the Edessene Jacobites, thus deprived of the
services of their Church, went over to the Latin rite. Others obeyed the
Patriarch. Peace was not restored for many years, till after the death of
Athanasius.

The Orthodox congregations in Antioch and
Edessa disliked Latin rule, but, unlike the Armenians and Jacobites, they were
never tempted to intrigue with the Moslems. They only sighed for the return of
Byzantium. But the loathing which Armenians and Jacobites united in bearing to
them limited their power.

1111-13:
Byzantine
Negotiations with the West

Nevertheless, though the Franks in Edessa might
rightly fear that some new danger would arise in the East, to the Franks of
Antioch Byzantium remained the chief enemy. The Emperor Alexius had never
forgotten his claim to Antioch. He was prepared to recognize a Latin kingdom at
Jerusalem; and he had shown his good-will by his generous ransom of the
Frankish prisoners taken by the Fatimids at Ramleh in 1102 and by the presence
of his ships at the ineffectual siege of Acre in 1111. King Baldwin on his side
always acted courteously and correctly towards the Emperor, but refused to put
any pressure on Tancred to carry out the terms of the Treaty of Devol. Ever
since the Crusade of 1101 Franco-Byzantine relations had been darkened by
suspicion; while Pope Paschal’s intervention on Bohemond’s behalf in 1106 had
never been forgiven by Constantinople. Alexius was too supple a statesman to
allow resentment to colour his policy. During the years 1111 and 1112 he
carried on a series of negotiations with the Pope, using the Abbot of Monte
Cassino as an intermediary. With the promise to settle the outstanding
differences between the Roman and Greek Churches he induced the Roman
authorities to offer the imperial crown of the West to him or to his son, and
he suggested that he would visit Rome himself. Paschal, who was at that moment
in great difficulties with the Emperor Henry V, was willing to pay a high price
for Byzantine support; but Turkish wars and his own ill-health prevented
Alexius from carrying out his project. The negotiations came to nothing. The
Archbishop of Milan, Peter Chrysolan, visited Constantinople in 1113 to discuss
Church affairs; but his theological argument with Eustratius, Bishop of Nicaea,
did not restore better feeling between the Churches. It is probable that
Alexius himself never took his ambitious Italian scheme very seriously. Papal
friendship was of value to him mainly as a means of putting a break on Norman
ambitions and of enhancing his authority over the Latins in the East.

In the meantime there was little that the
Byzantines could do to recover Antioch. The Emperor’s treaty with Bohemond
remained a dead letter. Tancred had not only disregarded it but had increased
his territory at Byzantine expense. Roger had continued Tancred’s policy.
Alexius had hoped that the Counts of Tripoli would be his agents in Syria, and
he had provided money to be kept at Tripoli for joint Byzantine and Tripolitan
enterprises. But on Bertrand’s death his son Pons worked in co-operation with
the Antiochenes. The Byzantine Ambassador-at-large to the Latin states,
Butumites, therefore demanded the return of the money; and it was only when he
threatened to cut off the provisions that Tripoli obtained from Cyprus that it
was handed over to him. He then judged it prudent to give back to Pons the gold
and precious stuffs that had been promised personally to Bertrand. In return
Pons took an oath of allegiance to the Emperor, probably the oath of non-injury
that his grandfather Raymond had taken. The money recovered by Butumites was
used to buy for the Byzantine army horses from Damascus, Edessa and Arabia.

1112-15: Seldjuk
Wars against Byzantium

It was clear that Pons could not be inveigled
to act against Antioch; while Turkish action prevented the Emperor from making
a direct intervention in Syria. Since the death of the Danishmend Malik Ghazi
Gumushtekin in 1106 and that of the Seldjuk Kilij Arslan in 1107, there had
been no great Turkish potentate in Anatolia; and Alexius was able, as far as he
was not distracted by the Normans, slowly to restore his authority in its
western districts and along the south coast. The leading Moslem emir was now
the Cappadocian Hasan, who in 1110 attempted to raid Byzantine territory, even
advancing towards Philadelphia, with Smyrna as his goal. Eustathius Philocales
had recently been given a land-command in south-west Anatolia, with orders to
clear the province of the Turks. He managed, with the small forces that he
controlled, to catch Hasan’s army when it was divided up into various
raiding-parties, which he defeated one by one. Hasan speedily retired; and the
Aegean coasts were spared further raids. But that same year Kilij Arslan’s
eldest son, Malik Shah, was released from his Persian captivity. He made Konya
his capital and soon held the bulk of his due inheritance, defeating Hasan and
annexing his lands. Warned by his father’s fate he avoided entanglement in the
East, but as soon as he felt strong enough, he set out to recover the territory
lost by Kilij Arslan at the time of the First Crusade. During the early months
of 1112 he began incursions into the Empire, marching on Philadelphia, where he
was checked by the Byzantine general, Gabras. He sued for a truce, but in 1113
he attacked again, sending a hurried expedition through Bithynia to the very
walls of Nicaea, while his lieutenant Mohammed penetrated to Poemamenum,
farther to the west, where he defeated and captured a Byzantine general, and
another lieutenant, Manalugh, raided Abydos on the Hellespont, with its rich
custom-houses. Malik Shah himself attacked and captured Pergamum. The Emperor
set out to meet the invaders, but waited to catch them on their return, heavily
laden with booty. Coming south through Dorylaeum he fell on them near Cotyaeum.
He won a complete victory and recovered all the loot and prisoners that they
had taken. In 1115 there was news that Malik Shah was preparing to renew the
attack; and Alexius spent much of the year in patrolling the Bithynian hills.
Next year, though he was already very ill, he decided himself to take the
offensive. He marched southward towards Konya and met the Turkish army near
Philomelium. Once again he was victorious; and Malik Shah was forced to sign a
peace in which he promised to respect the frontiers of the Empire, which now
controlled all the coast from Trebizond to Cilician Seleucia and the interior
west of Ankara, the Salt Desert and Philomelium. Malik Shah’s attempts at
reconquest had failed; and a few months later he was dethroned and killed by
his brother Mas’ud, in alliance with the Danishmend. But the Turks remained
firmly entrenched in the centre of Anatolia, and Byzantium was still unable to
take effective action in Syria. The chief beneficiaries of these wars were the
Armenians in the Taurus and the Frankish Prince of Antioch.

BOOK II

THE ZENITH