The first objective chosen by the crusaders was Nicæa, a city sacred with the memories of the first great ecumenical council of the Christian church, in the time of Constantine. On their march the soldiers of the cross were saddened by the continual sight of the decayed bodies of those who had fallen in the ill-advised expedition of Peter and Walter. A few survivors of this calamity, in rags and semi-starvation, came from their hiding-places to welcome their brethren. Among them was the Hermit himself. His tale of woe sharpened their zeal and encouraged their caution against the skill and bravery of the enemy.
The Infidels were under the command of Kilidge-Arslan, Sultan of Roum, still flushed with his slaughter of the first crusaders. He had fortified Nicæa, and had gathered within and about its walls sixty thousand men, drawn from all the provinces of Asia Minor and from distant Persia. May 15, 1097, the Christians sat down before the place and began the siege.
The crusading knights were clad in the hauberk, a coat of mail made of rings of steel; all wore the casque, covered with iron for common soldiers, with steel for untitled knights, and with silver to denote the princely rank. Horsemen carried round, square, or kite-shaped shields; footmen longer ones, made ordinarily of elm, which protected the entire body. Helmets of steel or chain hoods covered the head. The weapons of offence were the lance of ash tipped with steel, the sword, often of enormous length and weight, to be wielded with both hands, the axe, the mace, the poniard, the club, the sling, and, what at that time was a novelty to the Turks and Greeks, the crossbow of steel, which Anna Comnena called a “thoroughly diabolical device.” The knight’s horse was usually a heavy beast, whose tough muscles were needed to carry the weighty armament mounted upon his back, together with his own housings, which consisted of a saddle plated with steel, gathered as a breastplate in front and projecting backward so as to protect the flanks and loins. The horse’s head was likewise hooded with metal, ornamented between the eyes with a short, sharp pike like the horn of the unicorn. But, notwithstanding the burden he carried, the knight acquired by discipline a marvellous celerity of movement, often baffling the anticipation of the most wary antagonist, while in the crash of conflict he bore down his foe with superior weight. In the train of the crusading knight were carried the materials for the erection of rams with which to batter down walls, catapults to hurl huge rocks, and siege-castles, or movable towers, which overtopped the opposing defences and were provided with bridges to let down upon the walls.
The Turkish or Saracen soldier was more lightly accoutred. His horse was of more slender mould, deep-winded, and fleet of limb. In the encounter the rider depended upon the momentum acquired by celerity rather than that of weight. The long but light spear, brandished rather than couched, the crescent-shaped, slender, but well-tempered cimeter, the shield of leather, made, where attainable, of rhinoceros’s hide rather than of metal, the light bow, the quiver filled with nicely balanced arrows, the many folds of the muslin turban which protected the head from the Eastern sun—these made an almost ideal contrast with the appearance of his Western antagonist when upon the march. The armor of Christian and Moslem, so diverse, necessitated manœuvres in the battle which in their first encounters were almost equally bewildering to both contestants.
In the assault upon Nicæa the Christians numbered upward of a quarter of a million men. Against them Kilidge-Arslan had at least one hundred thousand and the advantage of the city fortifications. The place was encircled with a double line of walls, surmounted by three hundred and seventy towers, and guarded from approach by a deep canal or moat. On the east high mountains obstructed the way; on the west and south the Lake of Ascanius prevented attack, while it gave the besieged an outlet to the sea, through which they could replenish their provisions and ranks in spite of their foes.
The Christians were divided into nineteen different camps, representing as many different nations. Their habit of fighting, not on extensive battle lines, but in groups about the standards of their special leaders, gave plausibility to the declaration of Kilidge-Arslan, as he viewed the invaders from his mountain outlook, that “disorder reigned in their army” and that their very numbers insured their defeat. With tremendous vigor, he hurled his forces in two divisions upon the camps of Godfrey and Raymond. The Christians were dislodged from their defences as bowlders from their places by a spring freshet. It seemed that they must be swept away in the impetuous torrent, but quickly the tide of battle turned, and the Turks were driven back to their mountain fortresses. Again they descended, but only to cover the field with their dead, as the exhausted freshet leaves upon the ground it has inundated the débris it brought down from the hills, while the rocks it assailed still lie near the position where they sustained the assault. The brutality that distempered the age was illustrated by the Christian victors, who severed many heads from the bodies of the slain and slung them as trophies from their saddle-bows. With ghoulish pride, they hurled a thousand of them from their catapults into the city. One of these “soldiers of the cross,” Anselme of Ribemont, wrote to the Archbishop of Rheims: “Our men, returning in victory and bearing many heads fixed upon pikes, furnished a joyful spectacle for the people of God.”
One line of walls soon fell beneath the rams of the besiegers, but it only revealed another within. The Christians dragged vessels overland from Civitat (the modern Guemlik), and by night launched them upon the Lake of Ascanius, thus cutting off reinforcement for the garrison within the city. After seven weeks of almost incredible effort, Nicæa was about to fall to the reward of its Latin conquerors, when suddenly there appeared upon the ramparts numerous strange standards. To the amazement of the Christians, these proved to be not those of the Turk, but of the Greek. Alexius, conniving with the enemy, had surreptitiously introduced into Nicæa a detachment of his own troops, and thus secured the surrender to himself of what had been won by others. The rage of the crusaders knew no bounds. With the price of their blood they had gained nothing but the honor of their valor. Only the utmost discretion on the part of the chieftains prevented the army from declaring war upon Alexius and marching back to the capture of Constantinople. It afterwards transpired that Alexius’s movement had been encouraged by some of the leaders of the crusade, that their armies might not be weakened by leaving garrisons to hold the captured places.
CHAPTER XIII.
BATTLE OF DORYLÆUM—TARSUS—DEFECTION OF BALDWIN.
From Nicæa the Christians advanced (June 29, 1097) through Asia Minor towards the Holy Land. Their march was over a roadless country, threading the ravines and climbing the precipices of mountains, across plains desolated by the retreating foe, under the burning heat of the midsummer sun, and exposed to the guerilla attacks of a half-beaten enemy, whose main army was rapidly recruiting and waiting with double its former numbers to renew the battle.
In order to procure provisions, the crusaders divided their forces—one band under Bohemond, Tancred, Count Hugh, and Robert of Normandy, the other under Godfrey, Raymond, Adhemar, and Robert of Flanders. The former had camped with confident security in a little valley near Dorylæum in Phrygia. On the morning of July 1st sudden clouds of dust appeared on the height above, and a storm of arrows and missiles announced the attack of Kilidge-Arslan. Bohemond had scarcely arranged his people for battle when the Turks were upon him. With their lighter armor and swifter steeds, they circled about the Christians, delivering volleys of arrows, and escaping before the assault could be returned, as hawks might assail a lion. If a valiant band of Christians pursued them they dispersed in every direction, only to form again in a circle and repeat their murderous attack. Many of the most valiant Christian knights fell without being able to return a stroke. The Turkish numbers were being constantly augmented by new arrivals. Kilidge-Arslan, at the head of a body of his braves, made a sudden raid upon the Christian camp, massacring the men and children and carrying off the women for his seraglios.