That's weird, I used viamichelin, paying attention to respect roughly crusaders roads and obtained slighty less than 450km.I just banged in Askehir to Antakya into Google maps and it comes up with 660 or so km. The route looks direct enough, there certainly isn't 200km in the diversions through the Taurus.
Go nuts. Aksehir and Antakya are the right places aren't they?
I suspected we were getting our wires crossed.
I've never bothered to work out the timings and distances before, I think it is a profitable exercise.
Alexios would have known that the Crusaders were actually in Antioch. I wonder what would have happened if he hadn't been given the news of a Turk army heading to intercept him.
Both sides at Antioch have time to decide on what to do and act on it, much like the Crusaders did when they took Antioch while Kerbogha approached.
I don't doubt that news of Alexios' approach would weigh on the calculations of both sides, but there was still 3 or 4 weeks between hearing the news of Alexios' approach and his actual appearance on the scene.
While Crusaders remained relativly united up to Antioch (after where the main part of the noble leaders wanted to remain because they had an hard time enough), Kerboga's army was really disunited and himself having a quite bad reputation among the other Muslims leaders.
Their biggest fear (with some reason) was Kerbogha wanted to take back Antioch for himself and hearing news of Byzantine army is likely to put thi question on the calculations weigh : "Are we going to fight the Roumi for Kerbogha's benefit?"
You'll certainly agree that is really different from beating the hell out of a wandering army that had little if not rear bases.
Admittedly, Kerbogha couldn't have all the time the strategic skills of a dead mussel : he may have tried to storm the city as he did the 7 June but I don't think it would be easily won. And, as he couldn't have really tought preserving the city against a Byzantine army, even him could have asked the wisdom of such move.
Now, do we have more precise elements about Alexios' forces? They were apparently considered as "huge", but that's a bit vague.
Indeed it also seems that the Turkish force rumored to be shadowing Alexios' forces (Peter of Aulps carried such news from Antioch) was just that - a rumor. To those on the board of the Byzantinist perspective, does it seem likely that Alexios would have broken through to Antioch by mid July? In that timeframe he could also have deployed a vanguard force by ship while he was marching thru Cilicia. Even if he misses the battle he will arrive will a large army and claim Antioch in the same manner as Nicaea.
If Alexios was attacked by Turks en route, it does not seem likely that they would have stopped him considering the disorganized nature of the Turkish forces in the area in the wake of the Crusader advance, it seems as though Big Al got cold feet at a bad moment. Angold discusses this issue as well in his splendid history, and explicitly states that Alexios made the wrong choice not completing his advance on Antioch, the implication being that Byzantium would have had a stronger eastern policy and better relations with the crusaders (Raymond as King of Jerusalem and a Byzantine ally could be a major butterfly here).