There can be no doubt that burning religious conviction
underlay the success of the First Crusade. Time and again when all seemed lost,
at Antioch and at Jerusalem particularly, the army rallied to God’s cause. The
deep conviction that they were the servants of God underlay the boldness with
which they tackled and surprised such formidable enemies as the Egyptians, when
all rational calculation would have advised against it. Indeed, not the least
of the factors which made for their success was the inability of the Middle
Eastern powers to comprehend this all or nothing mentality. But burning zeal
has to be controlled, disciplined and sustained. Ecclesiastical power alone was
not enough, and as in Western society generally so on the crusade, power was
exercised by an alliance of church, in the person of Adhémar, and state in the
persons of the princes. When the ambitions, hesitations and doubts of the lay
leaders disrupted the crusade and ecclesiastical authority collapsed with the
death of Adhémar, the army was plunged into crisis from which it was rescued
only by a zealot minority represented by Peter Bartholemew in alliance with the
count of Toulouse. They owed their power to articulating the feelings of the
overwhelming mass of the crusaders of all ranks, and when Peter was discredited
Godfrey was able to harness this raw power. That religious zeal had a very
narrow and material focus – to liberate Jerusalem. Later crusades would never
suffer from such tunnel vision, but this enormously concentrated the efforts of
the army in contrast to their successors in 1101 and 1147. For ideological
cohesion was a rare phenomenon in the eleventh century, as Gregory VII had
discovered, and it is hard to see how any wider objective could have carried
the concentrated appeal of Jerusalem.
But their spirit and organisation could never have succeeded
without help. Byzantine aid was of enormous assistance. At the siege of Nicaea
it was very much in evidence, but thereafter it appeared to dwindle. This was a
false perspective, for Alexius’s real service to the crusaders was to support
them from Cyprus which formed an offshore base for the siege of Antioch and
operations in North Syria. In addition, Alexius seems to have committed a sizable
fleet to their assistance – far more important than Tatikios’s small
contingent. Without Byzantine help it is difficult to see how the western
fleets could have operated so successfully. The reason for this enormous
Byzantine investment was that this was a joint enterprise. The whole Armenian
strategy promised the restoration of Byzantine power in the old dominion of
Philaretus and the collapse of the Seljuk dominion in western Asia Minor opened
the way for the reconquest of the southern part of the sub-continent. So when
it came to a dispute Alexius could rightly say that he had played his part but
in the end the greatest prize eluded him, for the decision to turn back at
Philomelium gave Bohemond his opportunity and a moral justification for the dislike
of the Greeks which was never far below the surface amongst the Westerners.
And Byzantine help had its influence in another way. The
crusade was enormously assisted by the divisions of Islam. Had the Seljuk
dominion of less than ten years before still existed, it is impossible to see
how they could have succeeded. Alexius almost certainly explained the problems
of the Turks and the divisions of Islam to his allies, for we know it was his
idea to send an embassy to Egypt. But it has to be said that the western
princes took their cue skillfully and played the Egyptians well, and applied
the idea to other Islamic powers. They were more pragmatic than the stereotype
of the crusader in absolute and bitter opposition to all that is Islamic would suggest.
The fanaticism which drove on the great expedition was an underlying force of
enormous power but its influence upon events was continual rather than
continuous. Nor should we forget that although the Islamic powers were divided,
they were each individually very strong and that in every major battle the
crusaders fought against odds. No matter how enthusiastic they were, nor how
well supported, victory in the clash of arms was never inevitable and to
understand that we must turn to more narrowly military factors.
The individual leaders exerted great control over their own
armies. Robert of Normandy is one of the failures of history and this casts a
shadow over him, but at Dorylaeum he rallied the troops at a crucial moment,
and at Ascalon he was at the heart of a charge which swept all before it. This
was military ability of a high order. Robert of Flanders was a brave soldier
who organised the foraging and gathering of materials at Jerusalem. Godfrey was
in the thick of the fighting at the siege of Jerusalem and this was important
in an age when leading by example mattered. Bohemond was an able general whose
aggressive tactics created the victories over Ridwan and Kerbogah. He made the
crusaders use rear-guards – this was by no means an innovation in western war but
it was a development which needed discipline and control, and such qualities
became more evident in the crusader army as time went on. Bohemond’s genius lay
in his aggressiveness – his determination to unsettle the enemy and take them
unawares, and this characterises his victories over Ridwan and Kerbogah. He was
not a tactical innovator – the real innovation was the use of infantry, and
that arose from circumstance as they became better armed and more experienced.
The battle against Kerbogah was an infantry battle perforce – it was only at
Ascalon that the lessons of careful co-ordination were applied. But Bohemond’s
real importance lay in the fact of his appointment as sole commander in moments
of crisis. The divisions of the leaders, their determination to head their own
armies and do jointly only what was agreed jointly, was the real weakness of
this and almost all other crusades. It was their good fortune that when this
co-operation was at its newest and their troops at their rawest, they
confronted the weakest of their enemies, the Turks of Asia Minor. The nomads
were ferocious fighters, but they were not numerous and Kilij Arslan’s tactics
depended too heavily on the moral effect of sudden onslaughts. He allowed his
men, whose genius lay in mobile warfare, to be caught in slogging matches where
numbers counted; in 1101 the Turks would learn patience and close only with a
demoralised enemy. It was luck too that when the leaders were at their most
divided after the fall of Antioch, the Islamic world was demoralised and quite
unable to exploit their problems, so that despite the fragility of their
co-operation they pressed on to Jerusalem.
The leaders were able men who managed to work together,
though only just. Their real ability showed at its best in sieges. Nicaea,
Antioch and Jerusalem were large and well-defended cities such as few
westerners had seen before, but the army set about their reduction
systematically. Probably the siege of Nicaea helped the leaders to settle a raw
army, though at a terrible price in lives. Full credit has never been given to
a leadership which perceived the problems of the siege of Antioch and tackled
them with enormous persistence and eventual success. The experience at Antioch
was an intensification of what they were used to in the West – war of position
rather than the formal investment experienced at Nicaea – the strangling of an
enemy rather than assault against fortifications. The siege of Jerusalem
exemplifies the skills of what was now a highly experienced and coherent
grouping of armies, though the passiveness of the defenders contributed. It was
not technological innovation which made their sieges so successful. All the
instruments they used seem to have been known to their enemies. The western
approach to war which favoured systematic and often clumsy preparation also
favoured good performance in this area. Success was the product of organisation
and command above all.
The Franks enjoyed no technical advantages over their
enemies. Their western horses may have been rather larger than those of the
nomad Turks but probably not significantly so, and they soon died anyway. The
Turks, an element in all the armies that they faced, had the short bow which
dictated their tactics and which the Franks found difficult to counter. They
may even have had a form of quick-firing crossbow unknown to the West. The
Franks probably had rather better armour, but in general their weapons were
very like those of their enemies.
The outstanding factor on the battlefield was the tactical
skill of the Turkish horsemen firing their arrows from horseback. They were
always relatively few and this was critical in Asia Minor. In the Caliphate
they were the cutting edge of armies and supported by diverse and adaptable
forces. The Franks had no technical answer to the problem and their response
was precisely what one would expect – the tactical expedient of solidity of
formation. This is always desirable in both cavalry and infantry, but very
difficult to achieve when there was no formal system of training. In their
first battle the Franks found themselves fighting in close ground near Nicaea,
which frustrated Turkish tactics. At Dorylaeum the enemy was free to manoeuvre
and attacked skillfully, cruelly exposing the Franks who lacked any overall
command. But the chances of topography and direction of attack, and the
determination and skill of the leaders held the armies together. Thereafter the
crusader host became a more coherent group of units and Bohemond was able to
use this experience and skill to great advantage at the Lake Battle. Against
Kerbogah the same cohesiveness was seen amongst the infantry who were also
refined and trained by the experience of war and the lessons of this were
applied at Ascalon where a complex marching formation was adopted, and the
classic pattern of infantry protecting cavalry marked the final deployment.
This was not innovation as such, for similar formations had been used in the
West but here it was used with great success.
It is this growth of the coherence and experience of the
crusader host as a whole which was the key to their military success. In many
ways their overall organisation and weapons were inferior to those of their
enemies and they were ‘away from home’ in a strange climate. But the divisions
of their enemies meant that their weaknesses were never exposed fully and they
were given time in which they became more and more experienced. Crucially the
Turks of Asia Minor failed to stop them. Thereafter what had been a relatively
incoherent host, within which some armies were better ordered than others,
became more coherent and experienced, and more successful.
In a military sense the crusade was a success. It may not
have achieved all that Urban wanted it to achieve in terms of friendship with
the Eastern Empire. Its success was limited in that it established bare
outposts with poor communications with the West and uncertain relations with
Eastern Christendom, but that is our viewpoint blessed as we are with
hindsight. There was no single will directing the crusade; it was the product
of many wills interacting with circumstances, and all that gave it a precarious
unity was Jerusalem. To free it was the task they set themselves and to have
achieved that was remarkable.
The crusade had little immediate impact on western armies at this time. The twelfth century would see the rise of two distinct tactical developments: the mass charge by cavalry, using couched lances for the maximum shock impact, and the rise of highly effective infantry. Discipline and clearly articulated command structures were vital to these developments. Launching a cavalry charge was so difficult even for the Templars with their background of order and discipline that they felt the need to write it all down in detail. These developments were only possible because the monarchies of the West more and more used mercenaries and professional commanders who were able to impose an appropriate discipline on the more ‘regular’ forces which formed the cores of their commands. This, combined with the development of the heavier horses, created the classic medieval cavalry charge, and one of its antidotes – disciplined infantry, who in any case became more and more necessary as castles grew more complex. The conditions of the crusade replicated the conditions of common service and experience which made these armies so efficient. Conditions in the crusader states continued to demand constant military activity which had much the same effect, hence the high prestige of the armies of Outremer in the twelfth century. It is possible that the glory and the prestige of the First Crusade helped to impress upon western commanders the need for discipline and coherence in their armies. In 1106 Robert Curthose found himself brought to bay by his brother Henry at Tinchebrai, rather as he had been by his father at Gerberoi in 1079. As then, he decided to risk battle, on a single coherent charge, but he was heavily outnumbered. However, Henry of Huntingdon says that Robert’s forces fought well and pressed the enemy hard relying on the fact that they were ‘well trained in the wars of Jerusalem’. It was indeed a hard training which produced coherent armies and ferocious fighters. It was this, their belief in God and themselves, and their able commanders which gave them the victory in the East.
