Turkish (Seljuk) heavy cavalryman equipped with spear and round shield. (Photo and copyright by Les Seigneurs d’Orient)
The Turkic people, or Turks, were one of the most important and powerful nomadic peoples of the Middle Ages. Following the migrations of the Huns, they gradually expanded across the vast plains of Central Asia. During the central decades of the sixth century, after having lived in a state of tribal anarchy, the Turks finally created a first form of unified state that became known as the First Turkic Khaganate. The Khaganate’s main enemy, from the outset, were the White Huns. The Turks allied themselves with the Sasanian Empire ruled by Khosrow I in order to obtain a decisive victory over the Huns of Asia. In 557, at the Battle of Bukhara, the powerful alliance comprising Turks and Sasanians defeated the White Huns. The Huns never recovered from this clash, their empire soon fragmenting into several semi-independent principalities that had little military power. These principalities paid tribute to the Sasanians or the Turks, so were not fully independent. The Sasanians and the Turks established a frontier for their zones of influence in Central Asia along the Oxus River, with the White Huns’ principalities functioning as buffer states between the two large empires. After the death of Khosrow I in 579, the White Huns revolted against the Sasanians, but their rebellion was soon crushed by the Turks, who were the new overlords of the nomadic peoples living in Central Asia. In 588, after having collaborated with the Sasanians for several decades, the Turks decided to invade Sasanian lands by crossing the Oxus River. The White Huns joined forces with the Turks and invaded a significant portion of the Sasanian territories, but were eventually repelled by the bulk of the enemy forces. The decades following these events saw a progressive decay of the Sasanian Empire, which had to wage war on several fronts against multiple enemies. In 606, there was a new war between Sasanians and Turks, which saw the participation of the Huns on the Turkic side. The nomads again obtained some initial victories until the Sasanians could mobilize their full military potential. Around 625, the eastern principalities of the White Huns permanently lost what remained of their political freedom, being annexed by the ever-expanding Turkic peoples. By the end of the seventh century, the Turks had created an immense empire in the steppes that extended from Manchuria in the east to the Caucasus in the west.
Turkish (Seljuk) heavy cavalryman equipped with spear and round shield. (Photo and copyright by Les Seigneurs d’Orient)
Turkish (Seljuk) heavy cavalryman wearing corselet of lamellar armour. (Photo and copyright by Les Seigneurs d’Orient)
After coming into contact with the Arabs, who had conquered the Sasanian Empire during the early part of the seventh century, the Turkic peoples converted to Islam and gradually started to settle on the territories of present-day Iran. Thanks to their superior military capabilities, the Turkic warriors soon began to be employed as mercenaries by many Muslim rulers of the Middle East. The fighting methods employed by the Turks were extremely effective for the Arabs, so increasing numbers of nomadic warriors became part of the Muslim states’ armies. During the early decades of the eleventh century, one section of the Turks – the mighty Seljuks – started migrating westwards from their homeland in Central Asia. By taking advantage of the regional rivalries that divided the various Arab states, the Seljuk Turks rapidly conquered the whole of present-day Iran and entered the Middle East. Within just a few years, they defeated on several occasions the Arab forces that tried to stop their expansion, meaning they could occupy vast areas of the Levant (including Syria and Palestine). The Seljuks, after defeating the Arab Caliphate of the Abbasids, conquered Mesopotamia and the flourishing Abbasid capital of Baghdad. They deployed massive cavalry armies of skilled horse archers, who were all equipped with the powerful composite bow of the Eurasian steppes, which gave them a marked military superiority over their Arab opponents. After having become the ruling power of the Muslim Levant, the Turks began attacking Byzantine territories in Anatolia in 1067. For some time, Byzantine armies were able to repel the offensives of the Seljuks, but the Turks were determined to conquer Anatolia for themselves. On 26 August 1071, a major pitched battle was fought between the Byzantines and the Turks at Manzikert in eastern Anatolia. The Byzantine troops, commanded by Emperor Romanos IV, consisted of 20,000 men (including large numbers of Norman mercenaries), whereas the Seljuk army of 30,000 horse arches was led by the expert commander Alp Arslan. During the battle, the Turks employed their elusive light cavalry tactics with great success and inflicted severe losses on the Byzantine forces, who were completely routed and could not prevent the capture of Romanos IV by the Seljuks.
After their brilliant victory, the Turks occupied the whole of Anatolia and almost caused the total collapse of the Byzantine Empire, which had been greatly weakened by the loss of its rich Anatolian provinces. In 1091, the Turks even besieged the imperial capital of Constantinople, but they were swiftly repulsed by the Byzantines. In 1092, Malik-Shah, the powerful warlord who had guided the Seljuks during the victorious campaigns of the previous years, died. This led to the outbreak of several bloody civil conflicts within the Turkic territories of the Middle East, which ended with their political fragmentation. The Anatolian territories of the Turks were organized as the Sultanate of Rum, while the Syrian lands now made up a separate state. In 1095, the Syrian state was divided into two rival emirates, one centred around Aleppo and the other on Damascus. As a result of the events outlined above, when the crusaders invaded the Middle East in 1096, they found the Muslims of the region divided among various rival states: the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia, the Seljuk Emirate of Aleppo in northern Syria, the Seljuk Emirate of Damascus in southern Syria, the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq (what remained of it) and the Arab Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. In March 1095, at Piacenza, a council took place of ecclesiastics and laymen of the Roman Catholic Church. During this meeting, Pope Urban II held talks with ambassadors sent by the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, who described to the synodal assembly the situation in which their state now found itself. The Byzantine envoys explained to the representatives of the Western Church how the Seljuks were in the process of invading the southern Balkans from Anatolia, menacing the imperial city of Constantinople. It was feared that the arrival of the Turks would be accompanied by massacres of Christian civilians, as had already happened in Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Due to their military weakness, caused by the long wars fought against both the Fatimids and the Normans of southern Italy, the Byzantines were in no condition to organize an effective resistance against the Seljuks. Consequently, Alexius I had no alternative but to ask for help in Western Europe, where he hoped that the Christian leaders would decide to assist him by sending some troops.
After receiving full details of the difficult situation facing the Byzantine Empire, the pope decided to organize a new council in France during which he would ask the aristocracy to assemble a military expedition for the defence of Byzantine lands. This council took place at Clermont, in central France, in November 1097. The Kingdom of France was at this time the country of medieval Western Europe with the highest number of warlike nobles and knights. These, especially during the eleventh century, spent most of their time fighting against each other and thus had a very violent lifestyle. Urban II knew full well that the warlike feudal warlords represented a great military resource for the Christian world, since they were skilled warriors who loved fighting. The Pope felt that all the French aristocrats needed was a just and holy cause for which to campaign, possibly far away from their homelands that had already been devastated by too many feudal wars. Religious zeal was strong among the French knights, most of whom were true believers. Indeed, many of them feared that their violent lifestyle could have led their souls to damnation after death, and were consequently searching for a way to purify themselves of their many sins. At Clermont, in front of the most important aristocrats of France, Urban II proclaimed the Truce of God, an official decree by the Church that prohibited fighting among feudal lords for a specific period of time. After doing this, the pope invited the warlike nobles to turn their attentions and energies away from feudal conflicts in order to defend the survival of the Christian faith in the eastern Mediterranean. He described how the Seljuk Turks had invaded Byzantine Anatolia and reached the Mediterranean, becoming a severe threat to the Christian world. These nomads of the steppes had killed or enslaved thousands of Christian people, devastating religious sites and slaughtering many members of the clergy. Having impressed his audience with his powerful words, Urban II issued a call to arms: all Christian people of whatever social condition – nobles or commoners – were asked to go to the aid of their Christian brothers in the Byzantine Empire.
Turkish (Seljuk) armoured horse archer. (Photo and copyright by Les Seigneurs d’Orient)
Turkish (Seljuk) corselet of lamellar armour. (Photo and copyright by Les Seigneurs d’Orieni)
The ensuing conflict was to be, according to the pope’s words, a ‘holy war’: its main objective not being simply to defend the Byzantine Empire but to retake the Byzantine lands conquered by the Muslims during the previous centuries. The response of the nobles who were present at Clermont to Urban II’s call to arms was spontaneous and enthusiastic: it was said that they cried Deus vult’ (‘God wills it’) in front of the pope, expressing their will to leave their homeland for the glory of religion. They soon became known as crusaders, from the Latin words cruce signati (‘bearers of the cross’), since they started to wear crosses on their clothing and armour as a mark of distinction. Urban II hoped that the knights and peasants would fight together against the common enemy represented by the Muslims by forming a single Christian army that would head for Constantinople. However, this did not happen since two separate expeditions were organized. One, conducted by commoners, was known as the People’s Crusade, while the other, involving some of the most powerful aristocrats of Western Europe, became known as the Princes’ Crusade. The two expeditions were collectively known as the First Crusade. The People’s Crusade was organized without the official permission of the Papacy by a charismatic monk and powerful orator named Peter the Hermit, who came from the French city of Amiens. Peter was well known in every corner of France for travelling around the countryside on a donkey and dressing in simple clothing. He was a true ‘predicator’, a poor monk who lived among the peasants and experienced their humble living conditions. Peter preached the crusade throughout northern France and Flanders, claiming to have been appointed to do so by Christ himself. The charismatic hermit eventually assembled a large number of peasants and low-ranking knights, who made up a giant band of illiterate pilgrims who had no idea of how to reach the Holy Land but still decided to launch a crusade of their own. Around 100,000 crusaders, including women and children, were under Peter’s orders when the People’s Crusade began in the summer of 1096. After having enlarged his army with many German commoners, Peter marched to the Danube, where his forces were split in two: some of them decided to continue by boat down the river, but most preferred continuing overland and entered Hungarian territory. In Zemun, not far from the border with the Byzantine Empire, a serious incident took place between the newly arrived crusaders and the local Hungarian population, which led to the storming of the city and the killing of more than 4,000 Hungarians (mostly civilians). The commoners then moved on Belgrade, which was evacuated by the Byzantines in order to avoid further massacres. The city was pillaged and burned by the crusaders, who continued their march across Byzantine territory.
The armed pilgrims from Western Europe behaved more violently and destructively than an invading army, raiding the countryside in search of supplies and killing everyone who tried to stop them. The Byzantine military authorities were forced to intervene to restore order and attacked the crusades, killing almost 10,000 of them. After this clash, the remaining 30,000 armed pilgrims were escorted by the Byzantine troops to Constantinople. Alexius I had no idea how to employ this army of peasants that had reached his lands, fearing – correctly – that Peter’s men could cause more devastations to his territory. As a result, he quickly ferried the crusades across the Bosporus and landed them on the Anatolian coastline. Knowing that most of them had no military capabilities to speak of, he hoped that the Seljuks would soon slaughter them. Once in Anatolia, the commoners began pillaging all the settlements that they encountered until they reached Nicomedia. Here, Peter the Hermit completely lost control of his army, with two new leaders being elected by the crusaders: one for the French and another for the Germans. The German commoners, numbering around 6,000, marched on Xerigordos and captured the fortress there. However, they were soon besieged in their newly conquered stronghold by the Seljuks. The outcome of the siege was decided by the lack of water among the crusaders, who after surrendering were all captured or enslaved by the Turks. The main crusader army, now consisting of approximately 20,000 French, built a large camp not far from Nicaea, where women and children could rest while the armed men patrolled the surrounding countryside in search of supplies. Three miles from the camp, along a road that entered a narrow and wooded valley, the Seljuks assembled a large cavalry army consisting of mounted archers. These ambushed the crusaders, massacring them in just a few minutes with a rain of deadly arrows.
Turkish (Seljuk) warrior wearing helmet decorated with Islamic inscriptions. (Photo and copyright by Les Seigneurs d’Orient)
Whereas the People’s Crusade was little more than a disorganized mass pilgrimage, the Princes’ Crusade was a well-planned military expedition. Under the direction of the Papacy, it started in August 1096 and consisted of four distinct armies that took different routes to Constantinople. According to modern estimates, around 100,000 individuals participated in the Princes’ Crusade: 7,000 knights, 35,000 foot soldiers (mostly feudal peasant levies) and 60,000 civilian non-combatants (including women and children). The spiritual leader of the expedition was Adhemar of Le Puy, one of the most important French bishops, who had been chosen by the pope because of his military competence and great experience. There were many military leaders of the crusade, most of them coming from the dominant aristocratic families of France: Raymond IV of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin of Boulogne, Hugh of Vermandois, Stephen II of Blois, Robert II of Flanders and Robert Curthouse. Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, was the most powerful noble of southern France, while Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, was one of France’s most experienced military commanders. Baldwin of Boulogne, Count of Verdun, was Godfrey of Bouillon’s younger brother; Hugh of Vermandois, Count of Vermandois, was the younger brother of the King of France Philip I; and Stephen II of Blois, Count of Blois and Chartres, was one of the most powerful aristocrats of northern France and had married William the Conqueror’s daughter, Adela of Normandy. Robert II, Count of Flanders, controlled one of Europe’s richest regions located between France and Germany, while Robert Curthouse, Duke of Normandy, was the eldest son of William the Conqueror and the older brother of the King of England, William II. In addition to these leaders, there were two from southern Italy: Bohemond of Taranto and Tancred of Hauteville. Bohemond was the son of Robert Guiscard (the leader of the Norman adventurers who had conquered southern Italy) and was the Prince of Taranto; Tancred was a nephew of Bohemond and an ambitious young leader. The four crusader armies all headed for Constantinople, where they expected provisions from Alexius I. The emperor, in return for food and supplies, asked the western nobles to swear fealty to him and promise to return to the Byzantine Empire any land recovered from the Seljuks. Thereafter, the crusaders were ferried across the Bosporus by Byzantine naval forces.
After entering Turkic territory, the crusaders marched across Anatolia without encountering serious opposition. Their first target was the city of Nicaea, the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. The Seljuks had already defeated the People’s Crusade and did not expect the arrival of another European expedition. Their monarch, Arslan, was campaigning against a local enemy in central Anatolia and was not available to stop the advance of the crusaders. The western knights besieged Nicaea with all their forces, intending to seize the city in order to transform it into their main logistical base in Anatolia. Arslan, after having been informed of the threat to his capital, assembled all the forces that were at his disposal and advanced towards Nicaea. On 16 May 1097, the Turkic relief force attacked the crusaders, but was defeated during a bloody night battle. Both sides suffered severe losses, but the Seljuk army had no choice but to leave Nicaea to its destiny. Following this clash, some Byzantine troops joined the besieging crusaders. Alexius I feared that the westerners would keep Nicaea for themselves after taking it. Following the arrival of the Byzantine soldiers, being in a desperate situation, the defenders of Nicaea decided to surrender. However, they gave up the city to the overall commander of the Byzantine troops and not to any of the crusader leaders. Many of the crusaders were unhappy at this, as the Byzantines forbade them from entering Nicaea in groups larger than ten men at a time. Tension started to grow between the crusaders and the Byzantines, especially with the former having suffered significant losses in seizing the city. Alexius I gave the crusaders money and rich gifts, hoping that this would be enough to placate their indignation. Nicaea fell on 18 June 1097; eight days later, the crusaders left to continue their liberation of the Middle East from Muslim rule.
The western knights resumed their march in two contingents: one, comprising some Byzantine troops, was commanded by Bohemond and formed the vanguard; the other, including the best French troops, was under the orders of Godfrey and acted as the rearguard. While they reorganized themselves after the conquest of Nicaea, Arslan gathered a new and much larger army from his Seljuks. He then started to closely follow the movements of the crusaders’ vanguard, awaiting the right opportunity to launch an ambush. On 1 July 1097, outside the settlement of Dorylaeum, Bohemond’s Norman and Byzantine troops were surrounded by the Turks. Arslan launched a surprise attack while Bohemond’s men were in their newly constructed camp. The crusader leaders had agreed that upon reaching Dorylaeum, their vanguard would halt and waited for the arrival of the rearguard. Initially, Bohemond’s Normans suffered significant casualties, coming under a rain of arrows, but they soon recovered, mounted their horses and began to launch their own counter-attacks against the fast-moving Seljuk horse archers. The mounted bowmen, however, were much faster than the heavily armoured western knights and could not be caught by them. The Turks then rode into the enemy camp, cutting down large numbers of non-combatants and foot soldiers, who were unable to deploy in battle formation. At this point of the clash, to protect his infantry and civilians, Bohemond ordered his knights to dismount and form a defensive line. The foot soldiers and the non-combatants were gathered into the centre of the camp, where they tried to support the milites (knights). The Seljuks attacked the crusaders’ defensive positions in their traditional style, charging in and shooting volleys of arrows before quickly retreating. Being on foot, the Norman knights could no longer mount effective counter-attacks and were instead obliged to play a passive tactical role. The Turkic arrows caused little harm to the armoured milites, but inflicted serious casualties to their horses, which were being kept in the centre of the defensive formation. Finding himself in an increasingly difficult situation, Bohemond sent messengers to the rearguard commanded by Godfrey and tried to resist for as long as possible. He was forced back to the banks of the Thymbris River, where the marshy terrain obliged the Seljuks to slow down their assaults. The knights formed a circle around the foot soldiers and civilians, but small groups of them occasionally broke ranks and charged the enemy, only to be slaughtered by the Turks. Despite being surprised by the ability of their opponents’ armour to withstand the hail of arrows, the Turks controlled the battlefield and could move across it unimpeded because the crusaders had no missile troops to respond to the Seljuk archers. Just after midday, with the Bohemond’s position started to become desperate, small groups of Godfrey’s reinforcements began to reach the battlefield. After seven hours of fighting, Raymond IV arrived with a substantial number of milites and launched a surprise charge against one of the Seljuks’ exposed flanks. This allowed the dispersed crusaders to rally and form a well-organized line of battle. The line of knights was rapidly deployed on the field in an offensive formation and launched a mass charge against the Turks in which all the most prominent crusader leaders participated. The Seljuks were surprised by the violence and power of their enemies’ charge, having never before seen feudal cavalry in action. Hundreds of unarmoured Turkic horse archers were slaughtered, particularly when further western reinforcements under Adhemar of Le Puy arrived on the battlefield and invested the Seljuk camp. Finding themselves surrounded and having no remaining hope of victory, the Turks started to flee. The Battle of Dorylaeum, against all the odds, ended in victory for the crusaders. Soon after the end of the battle, the crusaders looted the enemy camp and captured the rich treasury of Arslan. The Seljuk ruler, being in no condition to fight another battle against the invading milites, burned and destroyed everything he left behind in his army’s flight, employing effective scorched earth tactics since it was the middle of summer and the crusaders had very few supplies with them in Anatolia. The local population of the region, who did not see the crusaders as liberators, did not help them by providing supplies. The crusader army was extremely numerous and needed huge amounts of water and food to continue their campaign. But with southern Anatolia not being particularly rich in such supplies, it proved a very inhospitable land for an invading force.
Turkish (Seljuk) heavy infantryman. (Photo and copyrigh by Les Seigneurs d’Orient)
After passing through the Cilician Gates, the main crusader army marched on to Antioch, one of the Middle East’s most important and richest cities, situated midway between Constantinople and Jerusalem. Well-fortified and having a large population, it had to be taken by the crusaders if they wanted to continue their march across Syria. Upon reaching Antioch, the crusader leaders saw that it would be impossible for them to storm the city since its defences were too strong, so they started siege operations in the hope of forcing it to capitulate without having to suffer large losses. The siege began on 20 October 1097 and the crusaders quickly started to experience serious difficulties. First of all, they did not have enough troops to fully surround the city, so it was able to stay partially supplied. The army besieged Antioch for eight months without achieving anything; thousands of crusaders died of starvation, the supplies available to them being insufficient to sustain such a large force operating in a foreign country. Meanwhile, the Seljuk rulers of Aleppo and Damascus – two brothers who were waging war against each other – sent separate relief armies against the crusaders, both of which were easily defeated. Realizing that the western knights were too weak to conquer Antioch, the Turks decided to put aside their political differences and to raise a single relief army under the command of a leader named Kerbogha. Meanwhile, the leading crusader milites besieging Antioch spent much of the time quarrelling among themselves, each of them planning to transform the city into one of his personal domains. Bohemond, in particular, was determined to gain control of Antioch as it was the gateway to Syria. Stephen of Blois left the crusader army during the height of the siege and informed Alexius I that the Byzantine cause in the Middle East was lost, since the other crusader leaders had no intention to free any land for the Byzantines. Alexius I had assembled an army to support the western knights in their siege of Antioch and was marching through Anatolia when he was informed by Stephen about the real intentions of the crusader leaders. Now wishing the crusaders to be defeated by the Seljuks, the Byzantine emperor returned to his capital without sending any reinforcements or supplies to the western army. On 2 June 1097, however, an Armenian traitor living inside Antioch, having been paid by Bohemond, opened a gate of the city and helped a small party of crusader knights to enter. Seeing this, the Christian inhabitants of Antioch opened the other gates of their city in order to help the crusaders. After months of suffering virtual starvation, the besieging crusader forces acted with extreme violence after penetrating into the city. They sacked and killed with no mercy, causing significant loss of life, even among the Christian civilians of Antioch. The citadel of the city, however, remained in Turkic hands and continued to resist thanks to its strong fortifications.
On 4 June 1097, the vanguards of Kerbogha’s army of 40,000 men finally arrived outside Antioch. The crusaders, taken by surprise, had little time to improvise a defence of the city they had only just captured. Fortunately for them, though, Antioch’s walls had not been seriously damaged during the lengthy siege operations. From 10 June 1097, for four days, Kerbogha’s troops assaulted Antioch’s walls from dawn until dusk. The crusaders, despite being heavily outnumbered, managed to hold out. The city gates were barred to prevent desertions and the civilian population was forced to support the crusaders in every way they could. Having been repulsed several times, the Turks halted their assaults and settled down to besiege the city in the hope of starving the crusaders into surrender. Morale inside Antioch soon plummeted, especially when hundreds of soldiers and civilians started to die of starvation. Once again, the crusaders did not have enough supplies with them and had failed to effectively plan the logistical aspect of their military actions. When everything seemed lost, a peasant visionary who was with the crusader army – named Peter Bartholomew – claimed that Saint Andrew had shown him the location of the Holy Lance that had pierced Christ on the cross. The Holy Lance was found exactly where Peter Bartholomew searched for it, and this boosted the morale of the exhausted defenders. Having by now run out of supplies but being full of religious zeal, the crusaders marched out of Antioch in four groups on 28 June 1097 to engage the enemy in a decisive – albeit desperate – pitched battle. Kerbogha did not try to stop the deployment of the enemy army, as he wanted to destroy the crusaders as quickly as possible and was confident of his soldiers’ superiority. Kerbogha’s troops, however, did not consist only of Seljuks, also comprising large numbers of nonprofessional fighters. Consequently, when the crusaders deployed out of Antioch, the Muslims launched a disorderly attack against them. The crusaders, knowing that their destiny depended on the battle, charged headlong into the Muslim army with violent desperation and quickly killed hundreds of them. The besieging army of Kerbogha was completely destroyed, the survivors being forced to withdraw from the region. Following the success of the western knights, the defenders of the city’s citadel decided to surrender. It had been a complete victory for the crusaders, and especially for Bohemond, who thereafter became the ruler of Antioch.
Turkish (Seljuk) sword. (Photo and copyright by Les Seigneurs d’Orient)
Bohemond soon argued that Alexius I’s decision to abandon the crusaders to their destiny had invalidated all their oaths to him, so following the conquest of Antioch they began to act independently from the Byzantines and the whole crusade assumed a new nature. They were now fighting to conquer the Holy Land for themselves, not to restore the Byzantine presence in the Middle East. After occupying Antioch, the crusaders again began quarrelling between themselves and remained passive for several months. Now that the expedition had turned itself into a campaign of conquest, all the various leaders wanted to create their own states in the Middle East. While they discussed how best to continue the campaign, a plague broke out among the ranks of the crusader army and killed many hundreds, including Adhemar, who had tried to limit the ambitions of the various warlords and to keep the crusade under the direct control of the pope. The crusader forces were in no condition to continue their march across the Middle East, having halted at Antioch for so many months; they now had very few horses and suffered from a chronic lack of supplies. The Muslim peasants living in the countryside around Antioch refused to give them food, and all the nearby areas had already been pillaged during the previous months. Once again being on the verge of starvation, the crusaders had no choice but to restart their advance towards the heartland of the Holy Land in early 1099. They encountered little resistance during this phase of their expedition, the local rulers of the area between northern Syria and Palestine preferring to make peace with them and to furnish them with supplies rather than seeing their lands devastated. The successes of the crusaders caused the rapid collapse of the Seljuk military presence in the Levant, aided by the Fatimids having taken advantage of the Turks’ difficulties to invade Palestine from Egypt. A few months before the arrival of the western knights in front of its walls, the Holy City of Jerusalem was occupied by the Fatimids, who expelled the Seljuks. Following the crusaders’ conquest of Jerusalem and the end of the First Crusade in 1099, the Turks’ domains in the Middle East fragmented into a series of minor states that had little political importance or military capability. These states had all disappeared by 1157, except for the Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia, which continued to exist until 1308, after which it fragmented into a series of minor Turkic states, including the early Ottoman one. By 1194, all the Seljuk territories in Iran and Central Asia had also lost their independence, to the advantage of a new Muslim state – the Khwarezmid Empire – that was later destroyed by Gengis Khan.
The personal panoply of a Turkish (Seljuk) warrior, including two composite bows and a quiver with arrows as well as a small round shield. (Photo by Attila Kiss and Tômôr, copyright by Kȍmíves Nelli Admira)
The society of the early Turks was structured on clans, each of which comprised a variable number of families. The various clans were themselves assembled into larger tribal groups, each of which was guided by a warlord known as a ‘beg’. The different tribes were led by a supreme military ruler called a ‘khan’, which later became the Arab title of ‘sultan’ after the Seljuks conquered the Muslim Middle East. All able-bodied Turkic men were warriors and were expected to serve in times of war. According to contemporary written sources and to archaeological finds, the early Turkic cavalry armies consisted almost entirely of lightly equipped mounted archers, with only the noble warriors equipped as heavy cavalrymen. The standard Turkic horse archer was armed with a composite bow and curved sabre, so Turkic tactics were based on repeated archery attacks and feigned retreats. The Turks were also famous for being able to organize deadly ambushes. Daily life was extremely harsh for these nomads, who were used to enduring all kinds of hardships. They lived in heavy tents made of felt and their diet was based on milk and meat. Each Turkic man had at least ten horses, which were extremely well-trained and had incredible endurance. Once in battle, every Turkic horse archer always had a fresh mount at his disposal, enabling him to move much more rapidly than his enemies. While on campaign, each Turkic horse had a bag hung on his nose in which fodder was put, meaning that Turkic warriors could travel long distances with their horses by day or night without having to stop moving.
During the eleventh century, as a result of their conquest of the Middle East and their partial transformation into a sedentary people, the Seljuk Turks had to modify their traditional military organization. The Seljuk armies started to comprise two main categories of troops: those belonging to the central army of the sultan and those under the orders of the provincial military commanders, or ‘amirs’. Members of the Seljuk central army were known as ‘askar’ and were a full-time professional force that was paid in cash or according to the ‘iqta’ system. This had a quasi-feudal nature, since it consisted of assigning grants of land to soldiers in exchange for their military service. The iqta could be a hereditary benefice, passing from father to son, or just a lifetime one. It was transferable from province to province, since unlike the feudal fiefs of Western Europe, it did not represent a personal estate but a payment in land revenues for the military services rendered. The askars who received the largest and richest land grants usually acted as amirs or provincial commanders; these had to raise a specific number of fighters from the territories that were under their control, usually slave-soldiers who were bonded to their warlords for lifetime service or foreign auxiliaries who were recruited from the local communities that had been submitted by the Seljuks (such as the Kurds, who lived on mountainous terrain and provided warlike foot skirmishers). After establishing themselves in the Middle East, the Seljuk Turks started to include significant numbers of foot soldiers in their military forces. These were provided by the foreign auxiliaries mentioned above or by the ‘ahdath’ (‘urban militias’) that existed in many of the cities which had been conquered by them. The slave-soldiers, or ‘ghulams’, who made up the bulk of the provincial cavalry mostly came from the ethnic groups that had been submitted by the Seljuks: Daylamis, Khorasanians, Georgians and Turcomans. The latter were also known as Oghuz Turks, being those Turks who had remained in Central Asia (in the original homeland of their people) after the Seljuks migrated westwards to invade Iran. The Turcomans were wilder than the Seljuks and often terrorized the crusaders. As a result, the Seljuk sultans settled thousands of them on their territories in order to have sizeable numbers of Turcoman fighters at their disposal. The ghulams were purchased as slaves while they were still young males and grew up with the Turks, who trained them in the use of arms. A ghulam was instructed and educated at his master’s expense and could earn his freedom through dedicated service. Over time, especially following the First Crusade, these slave-soldiers became the core of the Muslim armies of the Middle East because of their reliability. They also gradually replaced the askars in the central army of the Seljuk sultans and started to receive land grants according to the iqta system. Consequently, the Seljuk and Turcoman slave-soldiers were a fundamental component of Saladin’s forces during the Third Crusade. The ghulams were the direct predecessors of the famous Mamluks of Egypt and the mighty Janissaries deployed by the Ottoman Turks. After the Mongols conquered the whole of Central Asia, thousands of nomadic warriors – mostly Cumans and Kipchaks – migrated to the Middle East, where they offered their military services to the local Muslim states as ghulams.
Turkish (Seljuk) composite bow and leather quiver with arrows. (Photo by Attila Kiss and Tömör, copyright by Kȍmíves Nelli Admira)
Turkish (Seljuk) composite bow. (Photo and copyright by Les Seigneurs d’Orient)
Turkic clothes were made from sheepskin, generally including a pointed cap trimmed with fur and a knee-length tunic. The tunic was often trimmed with wool and was usually worn under a long topcoat. Turkic trousers were quite baggy and were worn tucked into comfortable leather boots that covered the whole knee. The Turkic composite bow was carried in a case, which was used together with a quiver that could store a significant number of arrows. Each Turkic warrior also had a sabre, which was single-edged and had a slightly curved blade. The few nobles wearing cuirasses usually had a corselet of scale or lamellar armour that was occasionally worn over a padded jacket of quilted armour (aketon) or with a camail of chainmail. Sometimes, two iron discs, fastened on leather straps, could be worn over the shoulders or on the chest for additional protection. Turkic helmets had a sphero-conical form and a rectangular cut-out above the face, which was sometimes covered by a face mask also serving as a protective visor. The Turks also had shields, which were oval in shape and quite small since they were designed for protecting their user from enemy arrows. Turkic horse equipment did not include any protective element, but comprised a wood-framed saddle. The Turks were famous for their short whips, which were employed to control the horses but also to strike enemies at close range.
