BOOK VII. BEFORE the last body of crusaders, under Stephen of Blois and Robert of Normandy, had reached Constantinople and submitted to the will of Alexius, Godfrey of Bouillon, who had found the supply of provisions necessary for his forces, deficient on many occasions, even while his own camp stood alone under the walls of Chalcedon, determined to lead on his army towards Nicea, lest the presence of such immense multitudes as were daily arriving should produce a real, instead of a fictitious scarcity. He had already applied frequently, though in vain, to Alexius for assistance, which had been largely promised and rigidly withheld; but it would appear that the Greek Emperor, as soon as he was informed that the troops of Godfrey intended to march forward, did all that was possible for him to facilitate their advance, and to deliver himself from the presence of such troublesome allies. Godfrey, on his part, was willing to abandon all claims upon Alexius, rather than risk, by unseemly strife between Christian princes, the success of the crusade itself; and taking the mildest expedient that suggested itself, he marched onward to Nicea. Tancred, it would seem, accompanied him, as well as Robert of Flanders and the Bishop of Puy; but several of the other princes lingered behind, and Boemond remained to superintend the transmission of provisions which Alexius engaged to supply for the nourishment of the army of the cross under the walls of Nicea. The Greek Emperor, with the same detestable deceit which had characterised all his proceedings, wilfully neglected to fulfil his engagements; no provisions were prepared or sent for so great a length of time, that the price of a loaf of bread in the Christian camp, rose to twenty or thirty deniers, then an immense sum. The threats and entreaties of Boemond, however, in the end, obtained the necessary supplies, and immediately setting forth from Constantinople, he carried abundance with him to the famishing host of the crusaders. None of the great leaders now remained behind, except Raymond of St. Giles,* (who lingered for some weeks in Constantinople, and then halted for a time at Nicomedia,) and the siege was instantly commenced in his absence, one por * Raymond de Agiles says, that Robert of Normandy was the last who came up. tion of the plain around Nicea being left open for his troops. It is scarcely possible to give any exact account of the disposal of the crusading force round the city; for even the eye-witnesses differ from each other regarding the positions of the several armies. It may be enough therefore to say that it was attacked on three sides, the fourth being defended by the Ascanian lake, which bathed its mighty walls and towers, and prevented the approach of the hostile troops. The enterprise now before the crusaders formed a worthy commencement for their efforts; Nicea was already famed in the history of the Christian world; it was strongly fortified, inhabited by a fierce and a warlike race, and as the capital of the Seljukian kingdom of Roum, was the great outpost of infidel aggression. Soliman,* the Sultan of the Seljukian Turks, one of the bravest and most skilful sovereigns of his day, had quitted the city at the first news of the crusaders approach, and had employed a * I do not find this prince called by the name of Soliman in the Arabian historians, who name him continually Kilig Arslan, or the Lion. He was the son of Soliman, a cousin of Malek Shah; and I cannot but think from the general manner in which all the Latin historians call him Soliman, that he must also have borne the same name. I have therefore continued to give it him rather than that assigned to him by the Arabians, as he is best known by it in the history of the crusades. William of Tyre, however, certainly confounds him with his father. considerable time in rousing the warlike tribes under his sway, in order to repel with vigour and determination the efforts of the enemies of his faith. His people responded to his call, and an immense army of well armed and highly disciplined cavalry was soon ready to act under his orders, and attack the host of the cross under the walls of Nicea. On both sides the military movements with which the crusade commenced, approached the marvellous. The strength of Nicea, its peculiar position, the number of its inhabitants, the multitude of warlike and conquering tribes by which it was supported, all rendered the siege of that place one of great difficulty and danger. But the attack of Soliman upon the crusading forces must seem an act of still greater daring, when we consider of what materials the Christian army was now composed. all the various bodies which had commenced their march under celebrated Christian leaders were assembled on the plains of Nicea, even after the first combat with Soliman, the number of fighting men amounted to no less than six hundred thousand, besides an immense train of women, children and priests. Of the soldiers we find that one hundred thousand were knights, and the great cor When * I translate without fear the term Loricati applied to these men, knights, upon the authority of Ducange, who expressly states that it may be always so rendered. Besides these the cavalry comprised men-at-arms, of which no estimate has been given. On this subject Mills makes the following extraordinary poreal strength, activity, and skill of the European chivalry rendered such an army probably the most observation, which seems perfectly unaccountable, as the very author he cites, in the very passage he quotes from, contradicts the statement that he makes, and shews that there was a large force of other cavalry besides the Equites Loricati, which he mentions. The words of Mills, are, "Guibert, p. 491, mentions 100,000 equites loricati. These words must mean, in the instance before us, the general force of the crusading cavalry; and we are prevented from adding to it the men-at-arms, because the Archbishop of Tyre, in another place (p. 693), says, that the horses with which the crusaders commenced the siege of Antioch numbered only 70,000." The words of Guibert, are, "quos in equestri loricatorum galeatorumque decore, hii qui exercituum quantitates pensitare didicerant, centum circiter millia putavêre. Porrò pedestris populositatem turbæ, et illorum numerum qui assectabantur equestribus, posse ab aliquo supputari non æstimo penitùs." Now those "qui assectabantur equestribus," were evidently and beyond all doubt, the ordinary men-at-arms and squires who attended the knights, as the preceding and all the subsequent words of Guibert show, and these were always mounted men. As to what Mr. Mills says in regard to the numbers of horsemen at the siege of Antioch, to calculate from such data is worse than ridiculous. He might as well estimate the forces with which Napoleon marched to Moscow, by the numbers of the same army after the flight from Russia. Did he forget altogether the battle of Dorylæum, where more horses were slain than men, and the terrible march through Phrygia, where the destruction was immense? Or the passage through Mount Taurus, where the horses could be scarcely led at all, and the soldiers were obliged to carry their baggage on their own backs, or to load it upon pigs and dogs, because so many of the horses had perished? Between Nicea and Antioch, the crusaders themselves were reduced, by death and by detachments, to one half their number; and it is very certain that more of the cattle died than of the men. |