God's War: A New History of the Crusades

The bishops were appealing to the west for reinforcement. In fact, the army was receiving a constant stream of reinforcements from as far apart as Italy, England and Denmark, many travelling with the fleets that arrived in the Levant in 1097–8 providing the besiegers with vital sustenance.²⁴ At no time was the army of God entirely cut off from the west or its Greek paymasters. In the need to replace its devastating casualties as well as its chronic problems of supplies may lie the decision of Tatikios, early in February 1098, to leave Antioch, as he claimed, to seek food and more troops.²⁵ Although later condemned as a doubledyed coward by western observers intent on constructing a justification for the failure to cede Antioch to the Greek emperor, Tatikios may have harboured perfectly legitimate motives. The supply chain to Antioch had broken down; direct consultation with the imperial authorities might have improved matters. Tatikios left his staff behind at Antioch. There were rumours that he had struck a deal with Bohemund, granting him control over the Cilician cities of Mamistra, Tarsus and Adana. This would fit the actual rather than the imagined relations between the Greek general, veteran of commanding western troops in the Balkans, and the probably Greek-speaking Bohemund. They had travelled together in the vanguard to Antioch and remained in close contact. At this stage, Bohemund must have appeared one of the most philhellene of the western princes. A Greek story had Bohemund warning Tatikios to leave in order to avoid an assassination plot hatched against him by the other commanders. At the time, Tatikios’s departure made little impact; contemporary letters fail to mention it. While it is possible that Bohemund may have taken some role in engineering Tatikios’s withdrawal and it is certain that his absence suited the Norman’s schemes, conspiracy charges against either party lack evidence untainted by later propaganda, political posturing or special pleading.

Of greater importance was the military result of the new sense of community. Thanks to Bohemund’s tactics and disciplined cohesion on the battlefield, the relief army of Ridwan of Aleppo was heavily defeated near the Lake of Antioch, some miles north-east of the city, on 8 February 1098. As at Dorylaeum, the battle near al-Bara in 1097, at Antioch itself later in 1098 and Ascalon in 1099, the fate of the crusade rested on the chance and skill of fighting. The Christian troops increased in effectiveness as numbers dwindled to a hardened core of veterans accustomed to strenuous pitched battles between massed forces of cavalry and infantry. The determination for victory existed in direct correlation to the consequences of defeat. In terms of morale, this gave the Christians an advantage. The victory over Ridwan temporarily steadied Christian resolve, while the arrival of an English fleet in early March allowed the blockade of the city to be tightened by the building of a new fort opposite the Bridge Gate, protecting vital access to the port of St Symeon. However, acute problems of food, horses and morale soon returned. Even the weather was terrible, reminding Stephen of Blois of home: ‘What some say about the impossibility of bearing the heat of the sun throughout Syria is untrue, for the weather here is very similar to our winter in the west.’²⁶ Sharp encounters with the Antioch garrison sapped men and energy without disturbing the stalemate. Some optimism for the future may have been derived from the negotiations with Egyptian ambassadors in February and March 1098 and the dispatch of Christian envoys to accompany the Egyptians back to Cairo. By April, all gates of the city faced Christian blockade. However, news of a fresh Muslim relief force exposed the army’s continuing peril.