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an army large enough to deal with this increasingly provocative enemy whom they regarded as Byzantine mercenaries.33 Spies lured the pilgrims out of their camp with tales that the largest and richest city in the region, Nicaea, only a few miles away, was ripe for seizure. At dawn on October 21 the entire force—of about 25,000 men on foot and 500 mounted knights—set out for Nicaea. Barely three miles from the camp they were ambushed by the Turks, who had hidden in woodland either side of a river valley. They were showered with arrows, and battered by sudden attacks by the Turkish horsemen, and all order broke down, with knights riding down their own men in an attempt to escape.

The popular Crusades that ended so disastrously were not the pilgrimages that the pope had envisaged when he issued his appeal at Clermont.34 Urban II had stipulated Constantinople as the meeting point for the pilgrims and by the spring of 1097 four columns of knights and men-at-arms, and a mass of armed camp followers, had converged on the city. By early June an army of 50,0–60,0 had been transported across the Bosphorus by the Byzantine navy. This large figure gives a misleading sense of the Crusade’s military strength. Only some 7,000 of this number were heavy armored cavalry, western Europe’s particular contribution to the art of war. Some of the remainder were experienced spearmen and a few archers, but the vast bulk were poor pilgrims, men and women, lured by the cross and the promise of plunder. Each armored knight (miles) was the nucleus of a miniature war band. He was supported by a retinue, some mounted and some on foot, but all well armed and loyal to their leader. In turn, most of the knights owed allegiance to one of the great lords or rulers who were in charge of the expedition. But it was a loose structure with little coherent sense of direction, an army managed by a committee of commanders. In the West, most warfare was local, and while many had been on pilgrimage, only the Normans from southern Italy had any experience of an Eastern way of war. Yet even they had no knowledge of the vast distances in Asia Minor, of the harsh climate, with deserts of salt where nothing could grow, and of a powerful enemy unlike any they had previously encountered.

West and East approached the conduct of war from different perspectives. The Western style was based on close combat, on the impact of an armored knight riding at full speed at his enemy, often with his retinue around him. European warhorses were larger and heavier than those in the East, and while Crusaders normally fought from horseback, with a heavy spear and a long straight sword, the versatility of Christian knights was remarkable. Their heavy chain-mail hauberks, like long shirts, reached to midcalf. An iron cap, often studded and reinforced, would deflect almost any blow. The late medieval image of the lumbering man in armor who had to be winched into the saddle did not apply to these armies. Mounted or on foot, a company of mailed Crusaders could cut a swathe through most Eastern formations.

While Western knights rammed themselves into the heart of the enemy ranks, the Turks usually stood off from their opponents, raking them with arrows and javelins from a distance, before darting in at speed to deliver the coup de grâce. The incomparable Turkish recurved bow was made from layers of horn and sinew; in the hands of a skilled man it could send arrows to punch holes through mail or an iron helmet. One account tells of a Crusader shot in the leg: the Turkish arrow went through two layers of mail and so deeply into the horse’s flank that it dropped dead, with the rider still pinned to its corpse. The Turkish horse archer could fire three shots in a few seconds, while riding at full speed, either charging forward or in retreat. Moreover, the armies of the East possessed specialized troops not yet developed in the armies of the West. Horse archery was the most notable skill of the Turks; the Syrians produced light horsemen (faris) skilled with the lance; the Persian cavalry were heavily