Infidels_ A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam - Andrew Wheatcroft [107]
But on June 2, 1098, the Crusaders made as if they were striking camp and set off eastward, apparently to confront Kerbogha. Then, after nightfall, they doubled back, and a small band of knights scaled the northwest walls, which had been left unguarded. Inside the city, they met some of the Christian citizens of Antioch, who led them through the tangle of streets to two of the city’s smaller gates. There they cut down the guards and opened the portals. The whole Crusading army poured through into Antioch. In a single day every Turk, male and female, was killed. By nightfall on June 3, according to the Gesta Francorum chronicle, the Crusaders made an attempt, which failed, to take the citadel. They had blockaded Antioch for eight months. One day after they had captured the city (if not the citadel), the first outriders of Kerbogha’s great host appeared before the walls. The whole Muslim army soon arrived and took over the siege works built by the Westerners. Sandwiched between the citadel above them and the encircling army from Mosul beyond the walls, the Crusaders were trapped in a city that contained no food and little water. Men boiled and ate the leaves of figs, vines, thistles, and all kinds of trees. Others stewed the dried skins of horses, camels, oxen, or buffalo.37
They were saved by a miracle. Inside the city, morale deteriorated day by day, until an extraordinary relic was discovered on June 14. The holy lance that had pierced the side of Christ at the crucifixion was unearthed beneath the floor of the ancient Church of St. Peter. Its location had been revealed in a vision. The find was taken as a message of God’s favor.38 Just two weeks later, after endless sermons, prolonged fasting, and the preparation of the fragile relic as a battle standard, the Crusader army marched, with soaring spirits, out of the Bridge Gate over the river Orontes, and headed straight toward the Muslim force encamped before it. The holy lance was held high in the vanguard for all to see. The army moved at a slow walking pace. Only about 200 of its warhorses were left after the long months of siege.39 But the foot soldiers walking before the few remaining mounted knights were not the nondescript muster of ill-equipped and untrained men, stiffened with a few trained spearmen, who had formed the infantry in earlier battles. Most of those in the line were skilled knights in full armor, whom it proved immensely hard to kill. Accounts told of knights bristling like porcupines with arrows, darts, and javelins, but still moving forward and fighting ferociously. While the mounted knight, the epitome of chivalry, possessed great striking power, the Turks had found that his horse was vulnerable. Against armored infantry, fighting in unison, the traditional Turkish tactics proved much less effective. Western knights were trained to fight on foot or on horseback: this versatility was the Crusaders’ salvation on June 28, 1098.
The Muslims gathered before the Bridge Gate were only a fraction of the main army, which was encamped some miles away to the north of the city. When they saw the army of footmen advancing, they perceived a forlorn and desperate attempt of an enemy on the verge of defeat. They had no reason to know of the Crusaders’ new sense of ecstasy. It seemed impossible that this mob of men on foot could prove as deadly as men on horseback. The Turks attacked, showering the Crusaders with arrows. Many of the camp followers were killed, but very few of the knights. They quickly came upon the Muslim foot soldiers who formed the bulk of the besieging force and cut them down in their thousands.40 They then turned north, keeping close to the river on their right so that they could not be outflanked, and advanced