Siege of Nicaea
Asia Minor 1097
| date | May 14th to June 19th 1097 |
|---|---|
| place | Nicaea , Asia Minor |
| output | Victory of the Byzantines |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Bohemond of Taranto |
|
| Troop strength | |
|
Crusaders : approx. 35,000 men Byzantines : approx. 2,000 men |
Garrison : unknown Relief Army : approx. 10,000 men |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
unknown |
The siege of Nicaea took place during the First Crusade from May 14 to June 19, 1097 . After the Crusaders had besieged the Rum-Seljuk capital for more than a month, it surrendered to the Byzantines allied with the Crusaders .
background
Nicaea was in 1077 by the Seljuk Turks the Byzantine Empire was rescued and now the capital of the Sultanate of Rum . In 1096, the People's Crusade , the first wave of the First Crusade, had sacked the areas around the city before it was destroyed by the Turks. As a result of this victory, Sultan Kılıç Arslan I initially had the impression that the approaching army of the First Crusade did not pose a serious threat. He left his family and the state treasure in Nicaea while he and his main army went to war for control of Melitene against the Danischmenden .
siege
The army of the First Crusade began to leave Constantinople in late April 1097. The crusader army at this time comprised around 30,000 infantry, around 4,500 horsemen and numerous non-combatants. Godfrey of Bouillon was the first to reach Nicaea. Bohemond of Taranto , whose nephew Tankred , Raymond IV of Toulouse and Robert II of Flanders followed him, there was also Peter the Hermit with some survivors of the People's Crusade and a small unit of Byzantine engineers under Manuel Boutoumites who carried siege engines.
They arrived outside the city on May 6th. They had hardly any food reserves left, but Bohemond took care of their supplies over land and sea. On May 14th they closed a siege ring around the city, which with its 200 towers was ready to be defended. Bohemond camped in the north, Gottfried in the east, Raimund and Adhemar de Monteil , the bishop of Le Puy-en-Velay , in the south. In the west, the city bordered on Lake Askanius.
Defeat of Kılıç Arslan I.
Turkish defenders stormed out of town on May 16 but were repulsed in a skirmish with the loss of 200 men. The Turks sent messages to Kılıç Arslan asking for his return. When he became aware of the strength of the crusader army, he hastily concluded an armistice with the Danischmenden and advanced in forced marches with an approximately 10,000-strong army, which mainly consisted of mounted archers . On May 20, Raimund and Robert von Flanders struck an advance command from the Sultan. On May 21st, Kılıç Arslan's army attacked the crusader army in open battle. The battle raged all day. The crusaders suffered heavy losses, including the Count of Ghent . The losses of the Seljuks were higher and they did not succeed in breaking through to the city. The more rested and heavily armed crusaders had an advantage through the open terrain at the gates of Nicaea. After dark, the sultan withdrew defeated despite the pleading of the Turkish residents of Nicaea.
During the month the rest of the crusaders arrived at the city, Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Blois himself in early June. Meanwhile, Raimund and Adhemar had built a large siege engine that was rolled to the Gonata Tower to tie the defenders to the walls while pioneers sunk the tower. The tower was damaged but no significant progress was made. The town's garrison could not be significantly weakened, especially since the besieged still received supplies from the lake.
Arrival of the Byzantines
The Byzantine Emperor Alexios I did not accompany the crusaders, but later followed them and set up camp nearby, at Pelecanum. The crusaders now asked him to block the city from the seaside with boats. Alexios had already had boats brought in overland for this purpose, but seems to have waited for the crusaders to ask him for help so that they would notice how much they depend on his help. The boats manned by Turkopol , light cavalry , arrived on June 17th and were under the command of Manuel Boutoumites. The generals Tatikios and Tzitas came with 2,000 Peltasts , light infantry . The Greek residents of Nicaea and the Sultan's Turkish court had written to Alexios after Kılıç Arslan's retreat asking for help, whereupon Alexios Boutoumites had been instructed to negotiate secretly to surrender the city without informing the crusaders. Tatikios was ordered to go to the Crusaders and launch a direct attack on the walls, while Boutoumites was to pretend the same to make it look like the Byzantines had captured the city. On June 19, the Turks submitted to Boutoumites.
When the crusaders discovered Alexio's actions, they were extremely annoyed, especially as they had hoped to be able to pillage the city to provide for their onward journey. Boutoumites was made the doux of Nicaea and as such forbade the crusaders to enter the city in groups of more than ten people. Boutoumites chased away the Turkish generals whom he believed to be unreliable (they had taken their Byzantine leaders hostage on the way to becoming emperor). Kılıç Arslan's family were taken to Constantinople and later released without a ransom. Alexios gave the crusaders money, horses and other gifts, which were not enough for them: They believed that they would have earned more if they had conquered the city themselves. Boutoumites would not allow them to move on until they had all sworn an oath of allegiance to Alexios, unless they had already done so in Constantinople. As there, Tankred initially refused here, but in the end he and Bohemond were persuaded to bow to the request.
consequences
The crusaders left Nicaea on June 26th in two groups: Bohemond, Tankred, Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders and Taticius in the lead, Gottfried, his brother Baldwin of Boulogne , Stephan and Hugo of Vermandois behind. Tatikios had orders to ensure the return of the conquered cities to the Byzantine Empire. The news of the liberation of Nicaea was quickly spread to the west and motivated many previously hesitant crusaders, especially in the Italian cities, to subsequently join the movement. The crusaders were also highly motivated: Stephan wrote to his wife Adela that they expected to be in Jerusalem within five weeks if they were not stopped in Antioch. On July 1, the Crusaders defeated Kılıç Arslan with his main army in the Battle of Dorylaum , in October they reached Antioch . However , they did not arrive in Jerusalem until two years after leaving Nicaea.
Individual evidence
- ^ David Nicolle : The First Crusade 1096-1099: Conquest of the Holy Land . Osprey Publishing, 2003. page 32.
- ^ John H. Pryor: Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades . Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2006. Page 40 f.
literature
- Anna Komnene : Alexias. Trans., Included. and with note vers. by Diether Roderich Reinsch. - Cologne: DuMont 1996. ISBN 3-7701-3492-3
- Fulcher of Chartres : Historia Hierosolymitana
- Gesta Francorum (anonymous)
- Raimund von Aguilers : Historia francorum qui ceperunt Jerusalem
- Philipp Endmann : The Battle of Nikaia on May 17, 1097 from a military-historical perspective In: Concilium Medii Aevi 4 (2001) 133–151 ( PDF )
- Hans E. Mayer: The Crusades . Oxford 1965.
- Jonathan Riley-Smith : The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading . Philadelphia 1986.
- Steven Runciman : The First Crusaders, 1095-1131 . Cambridge University Press, 1951.
- Kenneth Setton (Ed.): A History of the Crusades. Madison 1969–1989 ( accessible online ).
- Warren Treadgold: A History of the Byzantine State and Society . Stanford 1997.
- Ralph-Johannes Lily : Byzantium and the Crusades . Stuttgart, 2004.
