Yaghi Siyan, the aging commander of Antioch’s garrison, watched with trepidation as this large, organized Frankish army prepared to attack his city. He regularly sent out spies to visit the crusader camp with the careful instruction to sell them provisions. These spies then brought back news of Frankish military strategy. Until they were caught in the act by Bohemond. Bohemond took several of these spies as prisoners and declared that he was going to slay and then eat them. Terrified, the spies escaped and fled Antioch, spreading news of Frankish ferocity to their Muslim cohorts everywhere they went.
It was clear to Yaghi Siyan that the Franks were not going to abandon the siege. He had 5,000 skilled and highly trained soldiers at his disposal and was confident in the strength of Antioch’s surrounding wall. But how long would Antioch hold out against the onslaught of Franks? Not all of Antioch’s citizens were Muslim either. In fact, a great many of them were Christian: Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Syrian, all under the yoke of a Greek Patriarch. Yaghi Siyan did not trust any of these Christians.
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The crusaders had traveled as far south without being annihilated simply because of how badly fractured the Muslim powers of Northern Syria were at that time. Ridwan of Aleppo and Duquq of Damascus, brothers, were embroiled in a civil war with each other. The Emirs of Antioch and of Homs were, for their own reasons, also drawn into the conflict. Yaghi Siyan, a vassal to Ridwan, considered himself semi-independent, commanding the garrison at Antioch according to his own best interests.
For that reason, the Muslims did not organize a fierce resistance against the crusaders. To them, the crusaders were nothing more than mercenaries in the service of the Emperor Alexius. Yet, when Yaghi Siyan saw how determined the Franks were to have his city, he put aside his hard feelings against his co-religionists and called on them for help.
Meanwhile, the Turks did not wait for the Franks to strike first. They began to harass the Franks, brutally murdering pilgrims who wandered into the countryside. The crusaders also came under attack by the Turks from Harem, a fortress situated east of Antioch, along the road to Aleppo.
Whether they were ready to attack or not, the crusaders had to stamp out these Turkish raids immediately. So, in the middle of November, Bohemond led an expedition to put an end to these raids. Adopting Turkish strategy, Bohemond ordered his advance guard to hide in the woods near Harem while the rest of his troops rode with him to meet the Turkish force from Harem. Bohemond lured them into an ambush. Many Turks were massacred. “We brought back more than two hundred of their heads into the camp, so that the people of Christ could rejoice,” Stephen of Blois wrote in one of his many letters to his wife, Adela.
That one victory boosted Bohemond’s popularity within the crusader camp, although the other princes did not recognize Bohemond as the commander of the Crusade. In fact, they had chosen Stephen of Blois as its commander simply because of his wealth and his lack of interest in obtaining territorial wealth in the East. But in the eyes of the rank n’ file, Bohemond was the true leader: he had more energy, prudence and military might than Stephen of Blois, Robert of Normandy and Raymond of Toulouse combined.
Sources Used:
Yewdale, Ralph B. Bohemond I, Prince of Antioch. Princeton University Press; Princeton, 1917.
Various contributors. Chronicles of the Crusades: Eye-Witness Accounts of The Wars Between Christianity and Islam. Bramley Books; Portugal, 1997.
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