N. of. A.: This chapter is a bit longer than the previous ones. Hope it is an enjoyable read, though. I tried to divide it without breaking the flow of the narrative. Some two or so more installments and we finish the part about the Second Crusade.
___________________________________________________________________________________
As we have seen in previous passages of this Chronicle, the years of 1139 and 1141 were particularly harsh to the populations of the Near East, struck as it was by the wrath of the Four Horsemen.
Famine came to some of them after long spells of drought and cold, that made the pastures barren and the crops lame, and he allied with his brother, Pestilence, always invited to visit both the camps of the soldiers and the camps of the refugees.
War came to most of them, ever delighted by the fact that human societies would inflict on each other so much suffering out of disputes concerning the will and whims of God.
And Death… she came to all of them, being the ultimate empress of mankind, at the same time guarantor and deliverer of human misery.
Photography focusing in the ancient walls of Amida, called Diyarbakir by the Turks. This ancient fortress, at the time of the Second Crusade, belonged to the Turkish Artuqid dynasty before being captured by the Christians
The Rhōmaîon army, led personally by Basileus John II Komnenos, left Antioch in the middle of spring, and followed the a northeastern-oriented ancient road that bordered the Amanus mountains. They were accompanied by some Frankish dignitaries: Count Theodorich of Flanders;
Duke Conan III of Britanny [Breton: Konan Kerne], who had no desire of following the main French army, due to a rivalry with Fulk, Count of Anjou; and Theobald of Champagne, who had enjoyed the stay in Antioch and preferred to join the Greeks; among others.
The other part of the Christian coalition, led by King *Phillip II of France, together with his various vassals and the Outremerine grandees, went from Aleppo, and followed the more direct north-oriented road.
Voyages that could be made in a day and half by a few travelers took three or four times more, because of the logistical complications that such a massive human agglomeration created. It was not only about feeding soldiers and knights. There were many non-combatants, and, among these, women, children and elders with particular necessities. There were draught animals, from donkeys to camels, cattle to be herded, war horses, dogs and so forth, as well as various wagons and carriages. An army could not be sustained solely by faith, and neither only by game from hunt or by whatever resources local communities could spare; those were usually very few. No, one needed a reliable and constant influx of goods from predefined centers of collection and distribution. Aleppo would have been a very convenient point to make it so, but now that it was derelict due to the earthquake, the Christian coalition depended on the influx of resources from Asia Minor and from Latin Syria. Those coming from Anatolia were concentrated into Iconium, and were transported to Adana, and then to Alexandretta or Antioch, while those brought from Lebanon and Syria were directed to Laodicea and Maare [Arabic:
Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān], and from there they would be sent to Samosata. Aliments had their own inherent difficulties; vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy often spoiled without proper preservation; cereals were needed in vast amounts, but were easier to transport than bread and beer. Clothing, accessories and personal utensils never came in enough quantity to be available to everyone. Collective commodities such as various types of wood for construction, iron and other metals, leather, linen and paper, were, conversely, more difficult to transport in large quantities, and had often to be brought by ship from the Mediterranean, by the Greeks or the Italians. For the first time in centuries, the fluvial transport was revived as a primary means of allocation and distribution of resources, and it tells us much the fact that one contemporary Frankish chronicler greatly praises the Orontes river due to the role that it played in conveying goods from the Levant.
The Basileus only permitted the coalition to march into Edessan territory once he ensured that the logistical network had been consolidated. Even so, the expedition was to face various issues as they ventured deep into Armenia, far from their hubs of resources. This, in turn, would provoke various issues, from deprivation to desertions, and severely delay their advances.
The Christian armies reunited in
Hantab [Arabic:
Aintab/Modern Turkish:
Gaziantepe], a city larger and more prosperous than Turbessel - which despite being the former capital of the fief, was merely a castle - and from there quickly went to Samosata, going along the Euphrates course. The land in the region was (to the Franks) surprisingly fertile, especially because in spring, between the floods of winter and the droughts of summer, the plains and pastures were verdant and plentiful. However, the chaos of war provoked substantial migrations and strained local communities, whose resources rarely could be spared.
In Samosata, the Basileus exacted from the Count of Edessa an oath of allegiance, once again symbolically reaffirming his suzerainty over the Crusader principalities, while, on the other hand, Phillip eagerly accepted the release of some minor French barons of their vassalage; they would relinquish their estates in Europe to either the Crown or to the Church, in exchange for the promise of wealth and adventure as lords in this godforsaken frontier, and now joined the service of Edessa. The most notable example was the case of the the priest-knight
Felix of Valois, an illegitimate son of Count Ralph of Amiens, who had recently joined the Templarians and would later found a castle in Gargar.
*****
Historiography commonly divides the Armenian campaign of the Second Crusade in two distinct phases, in the years of 1140 and 1141.
The
first phase consisted in the (re)conquest of the occidental provinces of “royal” Armenia, which would be incorporated into Rhōmania. Concerning military operations, it was wholly uneventful, because they faced little resistance, be it from the locals, be it from external belligerents.
The most notable case was the one of
Melitene [Turkish: Malatya], a populous and rich metropolis that had changed between various Christian and Islamic rulers in the last few decades. Most recently, it had been brought into the dominion of the Danishmends, and under them she saw a brief period of prosperity; once this parvenu Turkmen dynasty fell, however, it devolved into a provincial government under an Armenian prince who, abhorrent of the Imperial regime, recognized Edessan suzerainty. Now, however, after the Seljuq invasion of Edessa, Melitene was de facto independent. It should have easily surrendered to the Basileus when his large coalition arrived, but, to everyone’s surprise, its gates were closed and entry was denied. The ruling prince of Melitene had been victim of a coup only a few months previously, and the new ruler was a charismatic tyrant named Mikail Ghazaryan, a former parochial bishop who now styled himself “Apostle and Patriarch”. His ferocious preaching convinced the denizens of Melitene that the Apocalypse was imminent, and that they ought to live as saints or die as martyrs; with this, he imposed a regime of terror, and actively persecuted both the Muslims and the Chalcedonian Christians, regarded as impure. Now, he claimed that the Basileus was the Antichrist, and ordered the city to take arms against him.
The siege of Melitene was a short and unnecessary affair, but it had to be prosecuted. Seeing that diplomacy could not win capitulation, the allies were forced to act by force, and took the city by storm, destroying the ramparts and later they managed to oust Ghazaryan’s sicarians and impose some measure of order in the metropolis.
In the next few months, the Emperor diplomatically annexed
Harpout [Modern Turkish: Elazığ] and reaffirmed suzerainty over
Kelezene [Modern Turkish: Erzincan], still under the rule of the Turkic client dynasty of the Mengujekids.
Afterwards, the Crusader army was disbanded to the Edessan headquarters in the midst of summer. In the next following months the Basileus worked vividly to impose a semblance of actual military presence in the region, as well as to reignite the bureaucratic and administrative provincial apparatuses. By securing Melitene, the route of goods from Anatolia could follow a direct path into Armenia, and thus the Crusader army would become less dependent on Syria and the Outremer, but there were urgent matters to attend to: the appointment of mayors and fiscal agents in the local provinces, the reconstruction of derelict forts, relay stations and roads, and so forth.
The consecutive months of idleness, however, sparked various conflicts among the Franks, especially after the Rhōmaîon armies too disbanded, going to
Germanicia and Melitene, led by Andronikos Komnenos and Nikephoros Bryennios, respectively. Shortly thereafter, the Basileus himself returned to Constantinople with his trusted marshal, John Axouch.
Then, until the spring of 1141, when the military operations were finally resumed, we see an accumulation of various problems in the camps of the Latins, in the form of various disputes between the distinct cultural groups of armed pilgrims, pitting French against Flemish and Norman, Aquitanian against Provençal, Bavarian against Lombard, and so forth. These troubles were aggravated by common complications of campaigning: deprivation caused by shortage of resources and the difficulty of imposing order in a composition of diverging hierarchies, be them baronial, comital, ecclesiastical or burghese.
On the other hand, non-Catholic minorities, Syrians, Palestinians, Turcopoles and Armenians, were usually ostracized and lacked any say in relevant matters, including the distribution of the goods and spoils of war, and this inspired frequent desertions and, sometimes, outright mutinies. In the span of a few months, the army suffered a substantial reduction in size, without even a single battle being fought.
*****
With a complete disregard for superior orders, and ignoring the exhortation of the Rhōmaîoi to not advance any further into Armenia, some of the French lords, most notably Fulk of Anjou and Odo II of Burgundy, assembled their divisions in the autumn of 1140 and marched against “Siveral” [Modern Turkish:
Siverek], located on the other side of the Euphrates, a city that nominally belonged to the Turkish
Artuqids of
Amida [Turkish: Diyarbakir], but was actually ruled by a Kurdish Sheik. The French, even though they lacked knowledge about the terrain, convinced the Kurds to do battle not far from Siveral and easily vanquished their small party. This, in turn, convinced its local ruler to surrender after being extorted into paying a substantial tribute of gold.
The easy triumph in turn inspired some other French magnates to join their independent expedition, such as Archibald VII of Bourbon [French:
Archambaud de Bourbon], Odo II of Déols and Salon of Sens. This time, they went south to
Constantia [Modern Turkish: Viranşehir], in the region that the ancient Romans used to call “
Osrhoene”. This one too was held by the Artuqids and, this time, the Turks were prepared, having called reinforcements among the Kurds. Once again, the more numerous and seemingly more determined Franks came victorious in the battlefield, albeit they failed to actually wipe out the enemy force, as their individual bands dispersed through the mountains and valleys after being routed.
After the Frankish Dukes besieged Constantia, they were soon joined by the royal army of King *Phillip II, who, in spite of lacking real interest in this expedition, wanted to take part in the division of spoils. He could not forbid his vassals from waging this own petty war; they had, after all, a ducal prerogative to command their own armies and, after the expiration of the usual period of forty days of campaign to which they were obliged to the liege, they were free to depart or to devise their own agenda. In a few days, Constantia fell and was mercilessly plundered.
Nonetheless, seeing its potential as an advanced base beyond Edessan territory, the King of France granted Constantia as a fief to Duke Odo II of Burgundy, who, in turn, enfeoffed it to his younger brother Raymond of Grignon, know christened as Count.
In that very year, they even attempted to besiege the hill-city of
Mardin, one of the former capitals of the Artuqids, but it was a short-lived effort, as the winter approached, and the French army was struck with an epidemic of camp fever.
*****
The
second phase of the Armenian theater of war happened in the next year, of 1141. This time, the Christian armies, once again reunited - the Rhōmaîon once again led in person by its tireless Emperor - issued an official declaration of war against the Artuqids, and demanded immediate and unconditional surrender.
Predictably, the ultimatum was ignored. The Turkmen had already mustered their forces, led by
Bey Husayn ad-Din Timurtash [Turkish:
Hüsameddin Timurtaş], and were joined by
Buri Saif al-Islam, who brought reinforcements from Mosul. They had expected that the Franks would once again attack Mardin, because it was relatively more vulnerable from the western size, but oddly enough the Crusaders opted to advance directly against the Artuqid capital,
Amida [
Diyarbakir].
Amida was a very ancient fortress, which had served well in the constant wars between the ancient Romans and the Sassanid Persians. It was there where the ancient Royal Road of the Achaemenids crossed the Tigris River, and thus it held enormous strategic relevance for the various armies that threaded through Asia ever since the beginning of times. In 1141, it was a shadow of its former self, but it was relevant still as one of the most formidable fortified settlements of Armenia.
The Christians seemed well prepared to prosecute a siege, and brought many engines of war, including the dreaded Greek Fire. It was, though, all but evident that they intended to preserve the fortifications, and made an effort to physically overcome the walls without damaging them, preferring the employment of siege towers and ladders instead of trebuchets and sappers. Being sidelined by the extensive course of the Tigris, they could not completely encircle the circuit of walls, and so their efforts were concentrated against the western side of the fortifications.
In their static position however, while assailing the fortifications, the Latins and Greeks became easy prey for an unending stream of Turkic horse cavalrymen. The Frankish and Rhōmaîon light cavalry and mobile troops, even in their best performance, could scantily repulse the determined Turks, who would ford the river once they were attacked and would then proceed to unleash hundreds of arrows upon any Frank or Greek horseman that attempted to cross the stream in pursuit.
Taking advantage of the sizeable numerical superiority, however, the Crusaders stood ground, in the plains west of Amida, and continued the blockade, all while erecting their own circuit of improvised palisades, ditches and camps to keep the Turks at bay.
Seeing that it was of no use to attempt to expel the Crusaders, Emir Buri changed his strategy and, fording the Tigris downriver, went behind the enemy lines to conduct a large-scale
razzia with the intent of disrupting their supply lines. His men went as far as the Euphrates valley, whereupon they were deterred by a circuit of well-garrisoned bastions erected by the Rhōmaîoi along the fluvial bridges of the Euphrates. To avoid being entrapped there, he turned to the south and from there back to the east, to attempt an attack against the rearguard of the Crusaders.
This, too, failed, and the siege of Amida persisted.
The capital of the Artuqids would fall shortly thereafter. In spite of its numerous population, the battle-ready defenders were relatively few, and were overwhelmed by the assault of the Christians. The native Christians, mostly Pontic Greeks and Armenians, as well as the Muslims, mostly Kurds and Syrians, had grown used to the mild Artuqid regime, but had no true love towards their foreign masters and made little effort to assist the Turkish loyalists once the Franks and Rhōmaîoi penetrated the city. Disheartened and demoralized, many conscripted militiamen simply deserted and barricaded themselves in their own homes while the Artuqid retainers were slaughtered or imprisoned.
Once his wives, children and relatives were made hostages, Husayn Bey, who, at the time, was afield with Emir Buri, had no choice but to capitulate, and sent heralds to the Basileus to attempt to negotiate a secret truce. Saif al-Islam soon discovered about this, however, and immediately turned against Husayn Bey, imprisoning him. The remaining Artuqid soldiers of Amida accepted service in Buri’s army while their former liege was sent in chains to the citadel of Mosul.
Saif al-Islam even attempted to force the Latins into battle after they had entered Amida, but his efforts did not produce results, and, seeing no use in continuing the campaign alone, he preemptively turned against Mardin. Aware that if the Christians captured this one city too, they would be in perfect position to advance against Mosuli territory, Saif al-Islam, after entering Mardin against the wishes of Najm ad-Din Alp Arslan, the local Artuqid dynast, ordered its evacuation, and conscripted the Artuqids into the Seljuq army - at least in name. Najm ad-Din Alp Arslan was also imprisoned and sent as a hostage to Mosul. Afterwards, his soldiers leveled the walls and torched the buildings, and thus the hill upon which Mardin was built became naked once again. Now, the Artuqids, formerly the most formidable of the Anatolian Turkic beyliks, barring the Seljuqs of Rûm, saw their their ignominious fate: reduced to only a minor and poor province further to the north, centered in the castle of Hasankeyf.
Having taken Mardin out of the equation, Saif al-Islam then occupied the ancient fortress of Nisibis [Arabic:
Nusaybin] without great effort, ousting the local Artuqid ruler, and granting it to a loyal Turkish lieutenant named
Imad ad-Din Zengi.
Having apparently secured the northwestern border of his dominion, Buri disbanded his army and voyaged with his cadre of vassals to the court of his ally Sökmen II Shah-Armen, to summon his assistance against the infidels.
*****
In the middle of 1141, the Christian army almost fractured apart due to disputes between their leaders. Once again, the Basileus had voyaged back to Europe, this time to Thessalonica, and, being he the keystone that cemented the cohesion of the army, his absence provoked the resurgence of intestine factionalism. The Rhōmaîoi generals, chief of them being
Sebastokrátor Andronikos Komnenos, wanted to continue their expedition to reduce the rest of Armenia, as far as Lake Van, but the Franks, both the Levantines and the French, lost the interest in this campaign; they wanted to go south and march against Baghdad by following the course of the Euphrates river. The Rhōmaîoi, understandably, were baffled by the realization that the Latins genuinely wanted to march against Baghdad, and vehemently opposed it.
Thus, while the Rhōmaîon host marched eastward to reduce the city they called
"Kephia" [Arabic: Ḥiṣn Kayfa‘/Modern: Hasankeyf], the instead Franks voyaged to the south, back to Constantia, and from there to
Asachia [Arabic: Al-Hasakah], a hill-fort in the Euphrates. The latter was governed by an old Kurdish family that claimed descent from the ancient Arsacid dynasty, the city offered no opposition to the Christians and, in fact, welcomed them and furnished much needed goods.
However, the army, with every kilometer they ventured south, suffered greatly with the insupportable hot climate of the region and, soon enough, with the lack of resources, as well as with malaria and a particularly violent epidemic of dysentery. Grudgingly aware that they could not venture so far without the victual resources of the Empire, they returned north, to a more comfortable position in Amida, and, from there, they returned to Samosata with King Phillip. By then, their ranks had been severely decimated by disease, attrition and malnourishment, to the point that one could say that they had to consecrate a graveyard to the fallen pilgrims in each city of this godforsaken country. Desertions had become frequent to the point that the King had released some of his most important vassals from their oath - they had, after all, already fulfilled their vows - and accepted the others as volunteers instead as conscripts.
*****
It was in Samosata that they were rendezvoused with the Basileus. John II Komnenos, as soon as he heard about the divorce of the Christian armies, and about the Franks’ blundered attempt of marching to Baghdad, immediately sent his envoys to Armenia to convince them to await for his arrival.
Indeed, the Basileus had returned to Constantinople, two months previously, for the second time mid-campaign, in anticipation of the arrival of another Crusader army, this one comprising Hungarians, Serbians and Croatians. Their leaders were
Justiciar George [Hungarian: Cronik fia György],
Macarius, Archbishop of Esztergom [Hungarian: Makár], and the Serbian prince
Desa, the youngest son of the
Uroš I, the old monarch of Serbia.
As it happened, the previous King of Hungary,
Béla II “the Blind”, a religious and pious man, had pledged to join the *Second Crusade, and initiated preparations to join the Basileus’ army in late 1140, before passing away in early 1141; his successor was
Géza II, then a child of 10 years. The enthusiasm in Hungary for the holy expedition almost vanished, especially because Géza’s uncle and regent, the Serbian prince
Beloš, had little interest in crusading. However, the Hungarian Crusade still came to be by the dedicated intervention of
Queen dowager Helena, who eagerly sponsored it. Thus, after some initial delay, many from Hungary and also Serbia and Croatia joined the lordly and ecclesiastical banners.
Now, this force was not particularly large, and, unlike the host of France, it had a less belligerent character, because many of them were civilians who had joined in hope of a direct pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and not of waging a war in Armenia. In any case, they were bound to the will of their lords, and these ones, happy by the promise of fortune and fame, quickly adhered to the Basileus’ grand design.
Now, the King of France, it has been said, became greatly embarrassed when he witnessed the arrival of this new crusading expedition. John Komnenos admonished and exhorted him to bring his arms to the deliverance of the infidels, under the shadow of the True Cross. One Frankish chronicler recounts that King *Phillip II, upon being presented, by the Emperor, with a document signed by the Pope himself, demanding him to honor the legacy of his Carolingian predecessors, was thrown into a frenzy and vowed to sleep everyday with his mail cloth until the Saracens had been vanquished from Armenia.
Only when the French and Hungarian Crusaders and the Rhōmaîoi soldiers crossed the Euphrates, going to Amida, did they discover that the army of
Sebastókrator Andronikos, while attempting to wrestle the fortified city of Kephia [
Hasankeyf] from the Artuqids, had been repealed by a large Turkish army, led by Buri Saif al-Islam and Sökmen II Ahlatshahlah.
According to the Latins, it seemed that, God, in His infinite wisdom, had breathed a holy inspiration into a new wave of Crusaders exactly in the hour of need!
The Mahometans, coming from the region of Lake Van, entered the province of Kephia from its eastern border and relieved the besieged town. Realizing that his position was untenable, Andronikos Komnenos retreated all the way back to Amida, expecting to hold it against a siege by the Turks.
Before putting Amida to siege, however, Saif al-Islam and Sökmen Shah were informed about the approach of the Christian reinforcements, and decided to await, and established an encampment in the entrance of the valley where Kephia is cradled, on the shores of the Tigris river. There, the “Sword of Islam” knew that the fate of Armenia would be decided at last.
On next chapter: the battle between Crusaders and the Turks; and the Latin Principality will see an attempted invasion from Egypt. Can they now fight a war in two fronts?
___________________________________________________________________________________
Notes: Well, well, how about some Hungarians and Orthodox Slavs in the Crusader soup? I guess many of you weren't expecting it, but it is not unprecedented. Keep in mind, though, that their overall relevance will be much smaller than that of the French, so we won't be having Hungarian knights in the Outremer just now. That is, however, certainly in the realm of possibility, considering that, afterwards, there will likely be more interest for crusading among the Balkanic states.
You might be feeling that the chapters about the Second Crusade are dragging a bit long. That's, in part, intentional; not only due to the attention I want to give to interesting details, but also so the reader can try to feel how would be a Medieval war of attrition, unlike the traditional wars that were based in a few engagements and raiding attacks. This alternate Second Crusade is supposed to be a grueling and tiring episode, for all the parties involved. In any case, I'm already nearing the conclusion.