Six weeks after this humiliating defeat came a fresh demonstration of the negligence of the region’s leaders, who despite their numerical superiority proved incapable of taking advantage of victory even on the occasions when they triumphed.
The scene unfolded in May 1102. An Egyptian army of nearly twenty thousand men, commanded by Sharaf, son of the vizier al-Afḍal, arrived in Palestine and managed to take Baldwin’s troops by surprise in Ramlah, near the port of Jaffa. The king himself barely avoided capture by hiding flat on his stomach among the reeds. Most of his knights were killed or captured. The Cairene army could perfectly well have retaken Jerusalem that same day, for as Ibn al-Athīr would later note, the town was undefended and the Frankish king in flight.
Some of Sharaf’s men said to him: ‘Let us take the holy city!’ Others said: ‘Let us instead take Jaffa!’ Sharaf could not make up his mind. While he hesitated, the Franj received reinforcements by sea, and Sharaf had to return to his father’s home in Egypt.
Realizing that he had come within a hair’s breadth of victory, the ruler of Cairo decided to launch a fresh offensive the following year, and another the year after that. But some unforeseen event robbed him of victory at each attempt. On one occasion the Egyptian fleet fell out with the land army. On another, the commander of the expedition was accidentally killed, and his death sowed disarray among the troops. He was a courageous general, but very superstitious, Ibn al-Athīr tells us. It had been predicted that he would die as the result of a fall from his horse, and when he was named governor of Beirut, he ordered all paving-stones removed from the streets, for fear that his mount might stumble. But prudence is no protection against fate. During the battle, his horse reared without having been attacked, and the general fell dead among his troops.
Bad luck, want of imagination, lack of courage: every one of al-Afḍal’s successive expeditions ended unhappily. In the meantime, the Franj were steadily continuing their conquest of Palestine.
In May 1104, after taking Haifa and Jaffa, they attacked the port of Acre, whose well-protected natural harbour made it the only place where ships could moor winter and summer alike. Despairing of receiving any assistance, the Egyptian king asked that his life and those of the people of the city be saved, writes Ibn al-Qalānisi. Baldwin promised that they would not be harmed. But the moment the Muslims exited from the city carrying their property, the Franj attacked, plundering them and killing many. Al-Afḍal swore that he would redress this new humiliation. He sent powerful armies against the Franj year after year, but each one met with some fresh disaster. The lost opportunity of Ramlah in May 1102 was never again on offer.
The negligence of the Muslim emirs also saved the Franj from annihilation in the north. The principality that Bohemond had founded in Antioch remained leaderless (and practically without an army) for seven months after his capture in August 1100, but none of the neighbouring monarchs—neither Riḍwān, nor Kilij Arslan, nor Danishmend—dreamed of taking advantage of the situation. They allowed the Franj the time to select a new regent for Antioch, Bohemond’s nephew Tancred as it happened. He took possession of his fiefdom in March 1102, and in an effort to assert his presence, set to ravaging the environs of Aleppo as he had those of Damascus the year before. Riḍwān’s reaction was even more cowardly than that of his brother Duqāq. He sent word to Tancred that he was prepared to satisfy his every whim if he would only leave him in peace. More arrogant than ever, the Franj demanded that an enormous cross be placed on the minaret of the great mosque at Aleppo. Riḍwān did so. It was a humiliation which, as we shall see, was not without sequel.
In the spring of 1103 Danishmend, who was by no means unaware of Bohemond’s ambitions, nevertheless decided to release him without any political recompense. ‘He demanded of him a ransom of a hundred thousand dinars and the release of the daughter of Yaghi-Siyān, the former master of Antioch, who was then being held captive.’ Ibn al-Athīr was scandalized.
Once out of prison, Bohemond returned to Antioch. His people took heart, and before long he had recovered the ransom from the people of the neighbouring towns. Thus did the Muslims suffer such harm as caused them to forget the boon of the capture of Bohemond.
After thus ‘reimbursing’ himself at the expense of the local population, the Frankish prince set about enlarging his domain. In the spring of 1104 a joint operation by the Franj of Antioch and Edessa was launched against the stronghold of Ḥarrān, which overlooks the vast plain stretching to the edge of the Euphrates and in practice controls communications between Iraq and northern Syria.
The city itself was of no great interest. Ibn Jubayr, who visited it several years after these events, described it in particularly depressing terms.
Water is never cool in Ḥarrān; intense heat, like a furnace, scorches its territory relentlessly. Here one finds no shaded corner for a siesta; one breathes in oppressive gasps. Ḥarrān gives the impression of having been abandoned on the bare plain. It lacks the brilliance of a city, and no trace of elegance adorns its environs.
Its strategic value was considerable, however. If the Franj took Ḥarrān, they would be able to advance towards Mosul and even Baghdad itself. In the short run, its fall would mean the encirclement of the Kingdom of Aleppo. Admittedly, these were ambitious objectives, but the invaders did not lack daring—especially since the divisions of the Arab world encouraged their undertakings. The murderous struggle between the two enemy brothers Barkiyaruq and Muḥammad was once more in full swing, Baghdad passing from one Seljuk sultan to the other. In Mosul the atabeg Karbūqa had just died, and his successor, the Turkish emir Jekermish, had not yet managed to assert his authority.
The situation was chaotic in Ḥarrān itself. The governor had been assassinated by one of his officers during a bout of heavy drinking, and the city was mired in blood and fire. It was then that the Franj marched on Ḥarrān, Ibn al-Athīr explains. When Jekermish, the new ruler of Mosul, and his neighbour Sokman, the former governor of Jerusalem, learned of this, they were at war with each other.
Sokman was trying to avenge one of his nephews who had been killed by Jekermish, and both were preparing for the confrontation. But in the face of this new event, they called upon each other to unite their forces to save the situation in Ḥarrān, each stating his willingness to offer his life to God and to seek only the glory of the Almighty. They united, sealed their alliance, and set out against the Franj, Sokman with seven thousand horsemen and Jekermish with three thousand.
The two allies met the enemy in May 1104 on the banks of the River Balīkh, a tributary of the Euphrates. The Muslims pretended to flee, allowing the Franj to pursue them for more than an hour. Then, on a signal from their emirs, they spun around, encircling their pursuers and cutting them to pieces.
Bohemond and Tancred split away from the bulk of their troops and hid behind a hill, from which they hoped to assault the Muslims from behind. But when they saw that their troops were defeated, they decided to stay where they were. They waited there until nightfall and then fled, pursued by the Muslims, who killed and captured a good number of their companions. They themselves escaped, along with six knights.
Among the Frankish chiefs participating in the battle of Ḥarrān was Baldwin II, a cousin of the king of Jerusalem who had succeeded him at the head of the county of Edessa. He, too, tried to flee, but his mount slipped in the mud while he was fording the Balīkh. The soldiers of Sokman took him prisoner and led him to the tent of their master. According to the account of Ibn al-Athīr, this aroused the jealousy of their allies.
Jekermish’s men said to him: ‘What will we look like if the others take all the booty and we sit here empty-handed?’ And they persuaded him to seek out the count in Sokman’s tent. When the latter returned, he seemed deeply moved. His companions were already in the saddle, prepared for battle, but he restrained them, saying: ‘The joy our victory has aroused among the Muslims must not be spoiled by our dispute. I do not want to soothe my anger by granting satisfa
ction to the enemy at the expense of the Muslims.’ He then assembled all the weapons and banners he had taken from the Franj, dressed his men in their clothing, ordered them to mount up, and then headed for the fortresses held by the Franj. It was their custom, whenever they saw their companions returning victorious, to rush out to meet them. They did so this time too, and Sokman massacred them and seized the fortress. He repeated this stratagem in several places.
The victory of Ḥarrān had profound repercussions, as Ibn al-Qalānisi’s unusually enthusiastic tone testifies.
For the Muslims it was an unequalled triumph. The morale of the Franj was deeply affected, their numbers were reduced, their offensive capacity undermined, and their arsenal depleted. The morale of the Muslims rose, their ardour in defence of their religion was enhanced. People congratulated one another on this victory, feeling certain that success had forsaken the Franj.
One Franj—and not one of the less important either—was indeed demoralized by his defeat, and that was Bohemond. A few months later he sailed away, never again to set foot on Arab land.
The battle of Ḥarrān thus removed from the scene the invasion’s principal architect, this time for good. More important, it halted the Franj drive to the east for ever. The victors, however, like the Egyptians in 1102, proved unable to reap the fruit of their success. Instead of advancing together against Edessa, only two days’ march from the battlefield, they separated in a fresh outbreak of their dispute. Although Sokman’s trick had enabled him to seize a few relatively unimportant fortresses, Jekermish was soon taken by surprise by Tancred, who managed to capture several leading members of his entourage. Among them was a young princess of rare beauty; the ruler of Mosul was so enamoured of her that he sent word to Bohemond and Tancred that he was prepared either to exchange her for Baldwin II of Edessa or to buy her back for fifteen thousand gold dinars. Uncle and nephew consulted and then informed Jekermish that, on balance, they preferred to take the money and to leave their companion in captivity—where he remained for another three years. It is not known how the emir felt about this less than chivalrous response from the Frankish chiefs. He nevertheless paid them the agreed sum, recovered his princess, and kept Baldwin.
But the affair was not over yet. Indeed, it was ultimately to give rise to one of the most curious episodes of the Frankish wars.
The scene occurred four years later, at the beginning of October 1108, in a field of plum trees where the last of the dark fruit was ripening. The surrounding lightly wooded hills seemed to stretch out endlessly. On one of them rose the majestic ramparts of Tel Bāshir, alongside which the two opposing armies offered an unusual spectacle.
In one camp stood Tancred of Antioch, ringed by fifteen hundred Frankish knights and foot-soldiers wearing cervellières that covered head and nose, firmly gripping their swords, maces, and sharpened battleaxes. Alongside them stood six hundred long-haired Turkish cavalry sent from Aleppo by Riḍwān.
In the other camp stood Jawali, the emir of Mosul, his coat of mail covered by a flowing robe with brocade sleeves. His army was composed of two thousand men divided into three battalions: Arabs on the left, Turks on the right, and in the centre Frankish knights, among them Baldwin of Edessa and his cousin Joscelin, master of Tel Bāshir.
Could the participants in the titanic battle of Antioch possibly have believed that, a mere ten years later, a governor of Mosul, successor of the atabeg Karbūqa, would make an alliance with a Frankish count of Edessa and that the two would fight side by side against a coalition made up of a Frankish prince of Antioch and the Seljuk king of Aleppo? It had decidedly not taken the Franj long to become full partners in the murderous game of the Muslim petty kings. The chroniclers do not seem in the least astonished. The hint of an amused grin may just be detected in Ibn al-Athīr, but he mentions the quarrels and alliances of the Franj without any change in tone, just as he speaks, throughout his Perfect History, of the innumerable conflicts among the Muslim princes. The Arab historian explains that while Baldwin was being held prisoner in Mosul, Tancred took Edessa, which suggests that he was not all that eager for his companion to recover his freedom. In fact, he had intrigued with Jekermish to have him held as long as possible.
In 1107, however, this emir was overthrown, and the count now fell into the hands of the new master of Mosul, Jawali, a Turkish adventurer of remarkable intelligence, who immediately understood the advantage he could draw from the dispute between the two Frankish chiefs. He therefore freed Baldwin, offered him vestments of honour, and concluded an alliance with him. ‘Your Edessa fiefdom is threatened,’ he told him in substance, ‘and my position in Mosul is scarcely secure. Let us aid one another.’
As soon as he was released, Ibn al-Athīr relates, Count Baldwin (‘al-Comes Bardawīl’) went to see ‘Tankri’ in Antioch and asked him to restore Edessa to him. Tancred offered him thirty thousand dinars, horses, arms, clothing, and many other things, but refused to restore the city to him. When Baldwin left Antioch, in a fury, Tancred tried to follow him to prevent him from uniting with his ally Jawali. There were a number of clashes between them, but after each battle they came together again to eat and chat!
These Franj are crazy, the Mosul historian seems to be saying. And he continues:
Since they had not succeeded in settling this problem, an attempt at mediation was made by the patriarch, who is a sort of imām for them. He appointed a commission of bishops and priests, who testified that before returning to his home country, Bohemond, the uncle of Tancred, had advised Tancred to restore Edessa to Baldwin if he were released from captivity. The master of Antioch accepted the arbitration and the count again took possession of his domain.
Believing that his victory was due less to Tancred’s goodwill than to his fear of intervention by Jawali, Baldwin quickly released all the Muslim prisoners in his territory, going so far as to execute one of his Christian functionaries, who had publicly insulted Islam.
Tancred was not the only leader exasperated by the curious alliance between the count and the emir. King Riḍwān of Aleppo wrote to the master of Antioch to warn him against the ambitions and perfidy of Jawali. He told him that the emir coveted Aleppo, and that if he succeeded in taking it, the Franj would be unable to maintain their positions in Syria. The Seljuk king’s concern for the security of the Franj seems somewhat ludicrous, but among princes understanding is always possible, regardless of religious or cultural barriers. A new Islamo-Frankish coalition was therefore formed to counter the earlier one. Thus it was that in October 1108 these two armies stood opposite one another near the ramparts of Tel Bāshir.
The men of Antioch and Aleppo soon gained the advantage. Jawali fled, and a large number of Muslims sought refuge in Tel Bāshir, where Baldwin and his cousin Joscelin treated them with kindness; they cared for the wounded, gave them clothing, and led them home. The Arab historian’s tribute to Baldwin’s chivalrous spirit stands in sharp contrast to the opinion the Christian inhabitants of Edessa had formed of the count. Upon learning that he had been defeated, and presumably believing him dead, the Armenians of the city thought that the time had come to rid themselves of Frankish domination. On his return, Baldwin found the city being administered by a kind of commune. Uneasy at his subjects’ desire for independence, he had the principal notables arrested, among them several priests, and ordered their eyes put out.
His ally Jawali would dearly have liked to take similar action against the notables of Mosul, who had likewise taken advantage of his absence to revolt. But he had to forgo the urge, for his defeat had discredited him too thoroughly. His subsequent fate was unenviable. He lost his fief, his army, and his treasure, and the sultan Muḥammad put a price on his head. But Jawali did not admit defeat. He disguised himself as a merchant, travelled to the palace of Isfahan, and threw himself suddenly and humbly before the throne of the sultan, holding his own shroud in his hands. Muḥammad was touched, and agreed to pardon him. Some time later, he named him governor of a province in Persia.<
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As for Tancred, his victory of 1108 brought him to the apogee of his glory. The principality of Antioch became a regional power feared by all its neighbours, be they Turk, Arab, Armenian, or Frank. King Ridwān was now no more than a cringing vassal. The nephew of Bohemond dubbed himself ‘the grand emir’!
Just a few weeks after the battle of Tel Bāshir, which sanctioned the presence of the Franj in northern Syria, it was the turn of the Kingdom of Damascus to sign an armistice with Jerusalem. Under the terms of the agreement, the revenue from the agricultural lands lying between the two capitals would be split in three, one third for the Turks, one third for the Franj, and one third for the peasants, notes Ibn al-Qalānisi. A protocol was drafted on that basis. Several months later, the Syrian metropolis signed a new treaty acknowledging the loss of an even more important zone: the rich plain of Bekaa, east of the Lebanese mountains, was in turn divided with the kingdom of Jerusalem. In fact, the Damascenes were reduced to impotence. Their harvests were at the mercy of the Franj, and their trade passed through the port of Acre, now ruled by Genoese merchants. In southern and northern Syria alike, the Frankish occupation was a daily reality.
But the Franj did not stop there. In 1108 they stood on the eve of the most sweeping territorial expansion they had attempted since the fall of Jerusalem. All the great coastal cities were threatened, and the local potentates had neither the strength nor the will to defend them.