Read A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 for Free Online

by the road had been blocked by the Turks. As
they approached Heraclea, weary and weakened, they were ambushed and surrounded
by the whole Turkish army, which outnumbered them by far. After a short battle
their resistance was broken. The entire French force fell on the field, with the
exception of Count William himself and a few mounted knights, who broke through
the Turkish lines and after several days of wandering in the Taurus mountains
arrived at the Byzantine fortress of Germanicopolis, north-west of Isaurian
Seleucia. There the Byzantine governor seems to have offered them an escort of
twelve Petcheneg mercenaries to convey them to the Syrian border. A few weeks
later Count William and his companions entered Antioch, half-naked and unarmed.
They said that the Petchenegs had despoiled them and abandoned them in the
desert through which they were passing; but what really happened is unknown.
    The Count of Nevers had hardly crossed the
Bosphorus before another larger army, composed of Frenchmen and of Germans,
arrived at Constantinople. The French contingent was led by William IX, Duke of
Aquitaine, who was the most famous troubadour of his time and who was
politically the bitter rival of Raymond of Toulouse; for his wife, the Duchess
Philippa, was the daughter of Raymond’s elder brother and should have inherited
his County. With him came Hugh of Vermandois, who had left the First Crusade
after the capture of Antioch and was anxious to fulfil his vow to go to
Jerusalem. The Aquitanian army set out from France in March and travelled overland,
through southern Germany and Hungary. On its way it was joined by Duke Welf of
Bavaria, who after a long and illustrious career in Germany planned to spend
his declining years fighting for the Cross in Palestine. He brought with him a
well-equipped army of German knights and infantry; and he was accompanied by
Thiemo, Archbishop of Salzburg, and by the Dowager Margravine Ida of Austria,
one of the great beauties of her day, who, now that her youth was over, sought
the pious excitement of a Crusade. Their united armies marched together down
the Danube to Belgrade and on by the high road across the Balkans. They were an
unruly crowd; and by the time that they reached Adrianople their behaviour was
so bad that the Byzantine authorities sent Petcheneg and Polovtsian troops to
block their further progress. A regular battle began; and it was only when Duke
William and Welf intervened in person and guaranteed the future good conduct of
their troops that they were allowed to proceed. A strong escort accompanied
them to Constantinople. There William and Welf and the Margravine were
cordially received by Alexius, who provided men to transport their men as soon
as possible across the Bosphorus. Some of the civilian pilgrims, including the
historian Ekkehard of Aura, took ship direct for Palestine, where they arrived
after a six weeks’ voyage.
    It should have been possible for the two Dukes
to have caught up with the Count of Nevers and have strengthened their army by
the inclusion of his forces. But the Count of Nevers wished to unite with the
Count of Burgundy, and Duke William could not be expected to combine with an
army led by his old enemy, the Count of Toulouse, while Welf of Bavaria, an old
enemy of the Emperor Henry IV, probably had little liking for Henry’s
Constable, Conrad. The Count of Nevers hastened ahead to Ankara, while the
Aquitano-Bavarian army waited for five weeks by the Bosphorus, then moved
slowly along the main road to Dorylaeum and Konya. By the time that it reached
Dorylaeum the Nivernais army had already passed through the town on its return
journey and was well on the way to Konya. The passage of another army along the
road a few days previously did not make things easier for the Aquitanians and
the Bavarians. The small available supplies of food had already been taken; for
which, characteristically, the Crusaders blamed the Byzantines. Like the
Nivernais, they