THE FALL OF NICÆA.
The first objective chosen by the crusaders was Nicæa, a city sacred
with the memories of the first great ecumenical council of the Christian
church, in the time of Constantine. On their march the soldiers of the
cross were saddened by the continual sight of the decayed bodies of
those who had fallen in the ill-advised expedition of Peter and Walter.
A few survivors of this calamity, in rags and semi-starvation, came from
their hiding-places to welcome their brethren. Among them was the Hermit
himself. His tale of woe sharpened their zeal and encouraged their
caution against the skill and bravery of the enemy.
The Infidels were under the command of Kilidge-Arslan, Sultan of Roum,
still flushed with his slaughter of the first crusaders. He had
fortified Nicæa, and had gathered within and about its walls sixty
thousand men, drawn from all the provinces of Asia Minor and from
distant Persia. May 15, 1097, the Christians sat down before the place
and began the siege.
The crusading knights were clad in the hauberk, a coat of mail made of
rings of steel; all wore the casque, covered with iron for common
soldiers, with steel for untitled knights, and with silver to denote the
princely rank. Horsemen carried round, square, or kite-shaped shields;
footmen longer ones, made ordinarily of elm, which protected the entire
body. Helmets of steel or chain hoods covered the head. The weapons of
offence were the lance of ash tipped with steel, the sword, often of
enormous length and weight, to be wielded with both hands, the axe, the
mace, the poniard, the club, the sling, and, what at that time was a
novelty to the Turks and Greeks, the crossbow of steel, which Anna
Comnena called a “thoroughly diabolical device.” The knight’s horse was
usually a heavy beast, whose tough muscles were needed to carry the
weighty armament mounted upon his back, together with his own housings,
which consisted of a saddle plated with steel, gathered as a breastplate
in front and projecting backward so as to protect the flanks and loins.
The horse’s head was likewise hooded with metal, ornamented between the
eyes with a short, sharp pike like the horn of the unicorn. But,
notwithstanding the burden he carried, the knight acquired by discipline
a marvellous celerity of movement, often baffling the anticipation of
the most wary antagonist, while in the crash of conflict he bore down
his foe with superior weight. In the train of the crusading knight were
carried the materials for the erection of rams with which to batter down
walls, catapults to hurl huge rocks, and siege-castles, or movable
towers, which overtopped the opposing defences and were provided with
bridges to let down upon the walls.
The Turkish or Saracen soldier was more lightly accoutred. His horse was
of more slender mould, deep-winded, and fleet of limb. In the encounter
the rider depended upon the momentum acquired by celerity rather than
that of weight. The long but light spear, brandished rather than
couched, the crescent-shaped, slender, but well-tempered cimeter, the
shield of leather, made, where attainable, of rhinoceros’s hide rather
than of metal, the light bow, the quiver filled with nicely balanced
arrows, the many folds of the muslin turban which protected the head
from the Eastern sun—these made an almost ideal contrast with the
appearance of his Western antagonist when upon the march. The armor of
Christian and Moslem, so diverse, necessitated manœuvres in the battle
which in their first encounters were almost equally bewildering to both
contestants.
In the assault upon Nicæa the Christians numbered upward of a quarter of
a million men. Against them Kilidge-Arslan had at least one hundred
thousand and the advantage of the city fortifications. The place was
encircled with a double line of walls, surmounted by three hundred and
seventy towers, and guarded from approach by a deep canal or moat. On
the east high mountains obstructed the way; on the west and south the
Lake of Ascanius prevented attack, while it gave the besieged an outlet
to the sea, through which they could replenish their provisions and
ranks in spite of their foes.
The Christians were divided into nineteen different camps, representing
as many different nations. Their habit of fighting, not on extensive
battle lines, but in groups about the standards of their special
leaders, gave plausibility to the declaration of Kilidge-Arslan, as he
viewed the invaders from his mountain outlook, that “disorder reigned in
their army” and that their very numbers insured their defeat. With
tremendous vigor, he hurled his forces in two divisions upon the camps
of Godfrey and Raymond. The Christians were dislodged from their
defences as bowlders from their places by a spring freshet. It seemed
that they must be swept away in the impetuous torrent, but quickly the
tide of battle turned, and the Turks were driven back to their mountain
fortresses. Again they descended, but only to cover the field with their
dead, as the exhausted freshet leaves upon the ground it has inundated
the débris it brought down from the hills, while the rocks it assailed
still lie near the position where they sustained the assault. The
brutality that distempered the age was illustrated by the Christian
victors, who severed many heads from the bodies of the slain and slung
them as trophies from their saddle-bows. With ghoulish pride, they
hurled a thousand of them from their catapults into the city. One of
these “soldiers of the cross,” Anselme of Ribemont, wrote to the
Archbishop of Rheims: “Our men, returning in victory and bearing many
heads fixed upon pikes, furnished a joyful spectacle for the people of
God.”
One line of walls soon fell beneath the rams of the besiegers, but it
only revealed another within. The Christians dragged vessels overland
from Civitat (the modern Guemlik), and by night launched them upon the
Lake of Ascanius, thus cutting off reinforcement for the garrison within
the city. After seven weeks of almost incredible effort, Nicæa was about
to fall to the reward of its Latin conquerors, when suddenly there
appeared upon the ramparts numerous strange standards. To the amazement
of the Christians, these proved to be not those of the Turk, but of the
Greek. Alexius, conniving with the enemy, had surreptitiously introduced
into Nicæa a detachment of his own troops, and thus secured the
surrender to himself of what had been won by others. The rage of the
crusaders knew no bounds. With the price of their blood they had gained
nothing but the honor of their valor. Only the utmost discretion on the
part of the chieftains prevented the army from declaring war upon
Alexius and marching back to the capture of Constantinople. It
afterwards transpired that Alexius’s movement had been encouraged by
some of the leaders of the crusade, that their armies might not be
weakened by leaving garrisons to hold the captured places.