God's War: A New History of the Crusades

The negotiations between Alexius and the military leaders of the Jerusalem expedition formed a pivot around which the nature and future perception of the campaign revolved.⁴⁸ Both sides understood the importance of what was agreed, even though they later chose to interpret events very differently. Alexius wished to use the westerners to exploit divisions among the Turks of Asia Minor and Syria to restore a measure of Byzantine control without risking a full commitment of his own military reserves. His dilemma lay in the extent to which he imposed his authority over the crusaders as paymaster and beneficiary while remaining essentially a sleeping partner in the operation. Fully aware of the obsession with Jerusalem, Alexius needed to encourage the idea that he shared the crusaders’ strategic goals while being more interested in undermining Seljuk power in Anatolia and opening stronger lines of political communication with sympathetic Armenians in Cilicia and Syria. Although he may not have been unhappy that Syrian Antioch had been taken from one of his Greek opponents in 1084–5, the fact that this great city had been lost to Islam in his own reign did not look good.⁴⁹ On the other side, while Urban II had clearly envisaged the closest cooperation with the Greek emperor, of greater urgency were immediate logistical considerations. The western armies required Byzantine advice and material aid before they headed out across hostile Muslim territory. If they had doubted it, the disasters at Xerigordo and Kibotos would have persuaded them. However, the westerners lacked unified leadership, a coherent political strategy or an agreed military plan. They knew something of what problems to expect across the frontier with the Turks; they also had no clear view as to how to deal with them. Thus, Alexius was eager to assert demonstrable but indirect leadership over the expedition, while the crusaders were equally keen to accept Byzantine assistance. What needed to be resolved were the terms of that control and the conditions of that assistance.

Traditional Byzantine foreign policy, derived from the techniques of the Roman empire, outlined the best course of action when dealing with barbarians, those outside the empire or those, like the Normans in Italy and Sicily or the Armenians and Turks in northern Syria who, in the timeless Byzantine view of the world, were squatting on former imperial lands. If such tribes threatened the empire, or the emperor wished to use them, the tactics remained much the same: smother them with hospitality; learn their customs and exploit these; divide and rule; forge links of dependence based on profit, golden chains as it were; employ them; Byzantinize them. These were Alexius’s methods in the early months of 1097, to which he added a high dose of flexible opportunism. He was welcoming to all who accepted his hospitality; some, such as Godfrey of Bouillon or Tancred of Lecce, who avoided Constantinople and tried not to meet the emperor, required some small element of coercion; for the rest nothing was too much, as Alexius imposed the authority of fabulous wealth on his bucolic visitors. The oath he wished them to swear to him was, according to Anna, a ‘customary Latin oath’; whatever its details, the reactions of the leaders suggest that they recognized it.⁵⁰ Alexius used Hugh of Vermandois to persuade Godfrey to come to heel and ensured Godfrey and the rest witnessed Bohemund’s oath. Bohemund, Godfrey and Robert of Flanders were cited as wishing Raymond’s adherence to Alexius’s contract. Bohemund was employed to extract agreement from Raymond and to force Tancred to fall into line. Once agreement and acquiescence had been obtained, Alexius lavished gifts on the westeners, whom he now regarded as his servants. The only aspect of the Greek formula that failed, and did so disastrously, was the inability of most of the westerners to become Byzantines. Although they could meet over mutual self-interest in the deals struck at Constantinople, there was a fundamental gulf not so much of understanding but of aspiration.