The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East

by Nicholas Morton

  Having firmly asserted himself against his son, Ilghazi turned to the Franks. In June 1122 he set out to reconquer Zardana supported by his nephew and Turkmen ally Balak and by Tughtakin of Damascus. At that moment Baldwin was at Tripoli, but he hurried north on receiving news that Ilghazi’s troops, equipped with catapults, were besieging this vital frontier town.

  The resulting encounter was an impasse. Baldwin adopted a shadowing strategy, occupying defensible locations that were close to the Turkish foes but too strong to be attacked, while refusing to give battle. This ploy prevented his enemies from making incursions into Christian territory without risking the uncertainties of a full-scale engagement. Baldwin’s approach succeeded, and having achieved nothing, Ilghazi’s conglomeration of forces withdrew and dispersed.6 This was another inglorious operation for Ilghazi, and it was also his last. He became ill during the campaign and died soon afterward in November 1122.

  With Ilghazi’s passing, a power vacuum emerged in northern Syria. Ilghazi had long been a dominant voice, both in the Jazira and further afield, and the Turkmen tribes respected his authority. Now the field was open to new contenders. The first to exploit this opportunity, predictably, were the Franks. They attacked immediately, pushing far to the east of Aleppo toward Bales until they were bought off in April 1123 with the concession of the much-coveted al-Atharib. They were not strong enough to attack the city directly, so they concentrated on strengthening their hold on the hinterland.

  Ilghazi’s death proved to be a major boon for the Franks, but—as Baldwin would soon discover to his cost—the Turkmen tribes of northern Syria did not have to wait long for a new champion. Their new leader was Balak, Ilghazi’s nephew and an experienced commander. Like his uncle, Balak had been operating in northern Syria for decades, and had enjoyed a lively career, waging war against multiple enemies with the support of loyal Turkmen tribesmen.

  Balak had first encountered the Franks during the First Crusade. At the time he had been ruling the town of Saruj (modern-day Suruç) in the name of another uncle named Sokman. Saruj was a wealthy and prosperous town lying to the southwest of Edessa. It had only been in Turkish hands since 1095, when it was wrested from the Arab Banu Uqayl tribe. By 1098 Balak was struggling to maintain control over the populace, and when he learned that Baldwin of Boulogne (future Baldwin I of Jerusalem) had become the ruler of Edessa, he sought his aid against the local Muslim populace, who were refusing to render tribute payments. Baldwin set out for Balak’s lands, but the proposed alliance swiftly broke down in acrimony (a Frankish writer claimed that Balak had been conspiring secretly against Baldwin with the support of another Turkish warrior in Frankish service).7 Whatever the cause of their disagreement, the result was that Baldwin marched on Saruj with a train of siege engines. The people had no especial loyalty to Balak, so they yielded the city to the Franks and forced their former ruler to leave. Sokman was unable to retake the town a few years later, even after a prolonged struggle.8

  This early encounter set the tone for Balak’s subsequent dealings with the Franks. Like the region’s other Turkish rulers, he harbored no distinctively anti-Frankish agenda, and he was prepared to fight them or ally with them depending on his evolving interests. In 1101 he joined forces with a group of Turkish rulers to attack a crusading army that was seeking to cross Anatolia, but by October 1103 he was in northern Iraq, where he besieged the Arab town of Ana on the banks of the Euphrates.9 He seems to have been looking for a new base of operations, but his attack failed in the face of staunch resistance from the local Arab tribes.

  He next appeared serving with his uncle Ilghazi during his sojourn as governor of Baghdad. Balak’s role in his uncle’s service was to prevent the various Turkmen tribes in the region from attacking the merchant caravans transporting their wares to Baghdad from the Far East. He performed this task well, and he later supported Ilghazi in the Jazira, fighting against local Turkish rulers and, in 1114, resisting the sultan’s attempts to draw the region under his control.10

  During this time, in about 1113, Balak acquired the town and fortress of Kharput in central Anatolia, and he used this base to launch a devastatingly effective raid on the Byzantines in the early 1120s. By this point, it had been many years since Balak had last taken the field against a Frankish army, yet in 1122 he thrust himself decisively back into the fray by supporting Ilghazi in his attack on the Principality of Antioch, joining him with a large force of Turkmen.11 The expedition was indecisive, but it seems to have whetted Balak’s appetite for war with the Franks. Soon afterward, in September 1122, he launched a raid into Edessan territory toward his former stronghold of Saruj. The incursion was an act of opportunism, seemingly intended merely as a glancing blow on his return to his fortress of Kharput, but it proved to be a spectacular and unexpected success.

  Soon after Balak entered Edessan territory, the Edessan ruler, Count Joscelin of Courtenay, set out to track him down with a company of one hundred knights. Balak had eight times that number of horsemen at his disposal, so despite the Frankish cavalry’s formidable reputation, he was prepared to meet Joscelin in battle. More importantly, he had an innovative ploy to defeat the Christian cavalry charge. He picked his battlefield carefully, leading the Franks on a long chase ending in an area of low ground near a river. Joscelin’s cavalry arrived soon after Balak, already exhausted by their long pursuit. The Turks then incited the Christian knights to launch their charge across marshy terrain. The horses, carrying heavily armored knights, sank into the mud and were immobilized. It was then easy work for the Turks to shower the Franks with arrows until their leaders capitulated. This was a minor skirmish, but it won Balak a valuable prize: Count Joscelin was now his prisoner. Initially he hoped to capitalize on his high-value captive by demanding that he surrender Edessa, but Joscelin flatly refused. As a result, Joscelin was ignominiously sewn inside a camel skin and transported to Balak’s stronghold of Kharput.12

  This encounter was a notable success for a Turkish chieftain who had previously been virtually unknown, and it is striking that contemporaneous writers from multiple cultures now started to take a closer interest in Balak. For Balak, this was a great victory, and his power only grew when, following Ilghazi’s death, he received many of his uncle’s former territories. Armed with this might, he launched attack after attack on Frankish and Armenian territory.

  His first move was to besiege the Frank-controlled town of Gargar. Baldwin II hurried north to its relief in April 1123, but Balak set a successful ambush for the king, who was riding ahead of his army with only a light escort. Baldwin was taken prisoner and placed in Kharput along with Joscelin.13 With this second unexpected victory, Balak now had two of the most important Frankish rulers in his custody, rendering Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa leaderless. Such heavy and sudden blows against the Franks fully committed Balak to the struggle with the Franks.

  Balak’s next move was equally ambitious. Like so many other successful warlords in northern Syria—Frankish or Turkish—he set out to secure the greatest prize of all: Aleppo. Balak wanted to assert himself as Ilghazi’s successor and disenfranchise any other claimants. Control of Aleppo would give him the resources to aspire to region-wide dominance, and he pursued this goal with the utmost ruthlessness. In May 1123 he began his approach on the city by seizing the town of Harran, to the northeast of Aleppo and on the eastern banks of the Euphrates. In late May he reached Aleppo’s hinterlands, where he burned the crops (apparently his signature tactic) and blockaded the city, provoking a famine. He raided the surrounding villages and enslaved the populace. By late June 1123, the city’s defenders had suffered enough. They opened the gates and admitted Balak as their new ruler.14

  Like Ilghazi’s before him, Balak’s ascension to power was brutal. Interestingly, however, Balak was more moderate as governor than he was as conqueror. His methods for seizing strongholds may have been ruthless, but once installed he could see the value of more restrained policies. Eastern Christian authors speak favorably
of his virtues, observing that Balak was a stern protector of his subjects’ rights and was even prepared to execute fellow Turks if he caught them stealing.15 His Frankish opponents also fully recognized his abilities.16

  By June 1123 Balak had been campaigning, scarcely without pause, for almost a year, yet his thirst for war was unsated. No sooner had he conquered Aleppo than he flung himself on the Principality of Antioch, conquering the town of Apamea. By this stage, his relentless attacks, both against Franks and against fellow Turks, were as unremitting as they were successful. A new power had risen, and the leaderless Franks were at a disadvantage. Under repeated attack and with Baldwin and Joscelin in prison, Aleppo was steadily receding as an achievable goal, and Antioch’s own frontiers were under threat.

  Yet in August 1123 Balak’s gaze was suddenly drawn away from the frontier by an act that was as daring as it was unexpected. Baldwin, Joscelin, and the other prisoners at Kharput had received covert assistance from a group of Armenian fighters, overthrown their Turkish guards, and conquered their fortress prison.

  By the time of the First Crusade, the Armenians had been long accustomed to invaders. Since the time of Christ they had often found themselves on the frontier between competing enemies—Romans against Persians, Arabs against Byzantines—and more recently they had been in the path of the Turkish onslaught. Their communities had lived for centuries in the much-contested lands that stretched between the mountains of the Caucasus and the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, but in the tenth century large numbers of Armenians had also begun to travel west into the coastal regions of Cilicia and the Amanus mountain range. The catalyst for this movement had been the Byzantine Empire’s sustained effort to push its border south into Syria and toward the Holy Land. In these wars, the coastal regions of northern Syria and southern Anatolia were retaken and settled by large numbers of Armenian soldiers serving in the Byzantine army. It was these western Armenian communities that first encountered the crusaders, and both the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa possessed a substantial Armenian population.

  The Armenians were a Christian people of long standing; in 314, King Tiridates III had been the first Armenian ruler to accept the faith. Since then Christianity had spread rapidly among their number, and they formed their own distinctive Armenian Church.17

  In the decades directly preceding the First Crusade, the Armenians had been deeply affected by the Turkish invasions. The Turks had swept across Byzantium’s borders (from about 1029), scoring a series of victories against the imperial armies. As Byzantine authority began to recede, many Armenian communities, which had formerly been within the empire’s borders, found themselves caught on the front line of the fighting. In later years, as the Turks pushed further west toward Constantinople, these same lands degenerated into a chaotic melee of competing local rulers, whether Turkmen, Armenian, or Byzantine, each vying for control. Even before the crusade, there were Frankish mercenaries who joined the contest, seizing the chance to carve out their own states.

  The arrival of the First Crusaders shortly afterward represented a potential opportunity for the subjugated Armenians. Some among their number at first saw the crusaders’ arrival as the long-awaited fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecies made by the Armenian hermit Yovhannes Kozern, who had foretold that the Franks would arrive, conquer Jerusalem, and usher in the end-times.18 But many Armenian leaders seem to have sought to gain the greatest advantage and security possible from the arrival of this unexpected army. Some appealed to the Franks for protection, including the people of Edessa, who asked Baldwin of Boulogne to become their ruler. Others saw an opportunity in the catalog of Turkish defeats to throw off their Seljuk and Turkmen rulers and assert their independence.

  The Franks, for their part, were not gentle in imposing their control on Armenian areas as the Crusader States steadily took shape, and the relationship between the two could be tense. Ultimately, the crusaders were conquerors in a politically fragmented land, and when they sided with one Armenian warlord, they often found themselves at odds with others. Also, clear differences separated the Franks from their Armenian subjects. Both groups were Christian, but they were divided by culture, language, religious denomination, and the many hundreds of miles separating their homelands.

  Nonetheless, in the years that followed, there were attempts to narrow the cultural divide where possible, stressing their common Christianity while trying to overlook their theological differences. In perhaps the greatest markers of cross-cultural integration, Franks and Armenians intermarried freely and marched side by side into battle. Many Armenian warriors became knights in the Crusader States (an elite social rank), and the Frankish counts of Edessa likewise adapted themselves to their Armenian subjects, observing local customs, marrying Armenian noblewomen, and showing respect for the Armenian Church (and indeed for the other Eastern Christian churches in the area).19 Still, for all these efforts, their worldviews were only ever in partial alignment, and though Armenians could rise to high office in Frankish service, there was never any doubt about who was fundamentally in charge. Both groups wanted to cooperate, yet neither quite saw the other as being “one of us.”

  The Franks and the Armenians may have had their moments of friction, but generally relations were sufficiently positive to instill a deep sense of loyalty to the Franks among at least some of the Armenian populace. One particularly devoted group of fifteen Armenian warriors respected Baldwin and Joscelin enough to attempt to rescue them from Balak’s stronghold of Kharput with an exceptionally daring plan.

  Upon learning of their masters’ captivity, this band set out to Kharput and started to reconnoiter their surroundings. They quickly discovered that the stronghold’s guards were lazy and could be duped. More importantly, the Turkish commander was currently holding a banquet and was already drunk. They approached the gates pretending to be peasants involved in a local dispute and seeking a resolution from the Turkish authorities. They demanded to speak to the commander and were taken to the guardroom to wait while a message was sent to the banqueting hall requesting the commander’s presence. When the guards were distracted, the Armenians seized their weapons and cut their way into the fortress. They freed the imprisoned captives and took control of the castle. The rescue was incredibly bold, but it placed the former Frankish captives and their Armenian saviors in a new predicament. The castle was far from help, and Balak’s local forces swiftly gathered around Kharput’s walls, preventing all egress. Meanwhile, fast messengers were dispatched to Balak, requesting his immediate return. He was in Aleppan territory at the time, but he hurtled back to Kharput upon hearing the news.20

  It took Balak fifteen days to make the journey, and by the time he arrived, events were far advanced. Joscelin had managed to slip out through the ring of besieging forces and set out for Christian territory, skillfully evading Turkish patrols and crossing the Euphrates at night with the help of two inflated bags (he could not swim).21 En route he received assistance from a farmer, who helped disguise him as a peasant by traveling with him, giving him an ass to ride, and putting a young daughter before him on the saddle to create the impression that this was simply a family group. When Joscelin reached Turbessel, he quickly put together a relief force. He had promised Baldwin that he would come to his aid as soon as possible.22

  Nevertheless, Balak reached Kharput long before Joscelin. He tore down the walls with siege engines and miners, forced the defenders to surrender, and flayed the Armenians alive. Only the senior prisoners were spared.23 Learning that he was too late, Joscelin traveled through the Crusader States, assembled a great force, and staged a series of vicious attacks on Balak’s lands. Enraged, he plundered Aleppan territory mercilessly, destroying tombs, mosques, orchards—anything in his way. He beat off every Aleppan attempt to drive him away. Joscelin’s bitter incursions provoked an equally furious reaction from the citizens of Aleppo, who demolished several Christian churches in the city and converted others into mosques. Only two church
es remained. The Orthodox bishop was forced to take refuge with the Arab Banu Uqayl in Qalat Jabar.24

  Joscelin’s rampage, however, was far from over. He crossed the Euphrates and plundered the Turkmen tribes and seized their cattle. He waylaid trading caravans and used fire to drive refugees out of caves where they were hiding. His anger was terrible, and his men inflicted untold suffering, but it did little to help the imprisoned king of Jerusalem.

  Meanwhile Balak had learned of Joscelin’s attacks to the south, so he hurried back to Aleppo. Balak’s presence initially compelled his adversary to withdraw, but before long the conflict escalated still further. Two other Turkish commanders—Aqsunqur and Tughtakin—were moving north to assist Balak’s forces against the Franks. This powerful conglomeration assembled in January 1124 and staged an attack on the Antiochene border at Azaz.25 The siege was unsuccessful, but there was some bitter fighting before the Turks decided to retreat.

  No sooner had Balak left Azaz than he set out on a new campaign, this time against a rebellious emir called Hassan who ruled the town of Manbij to the northeast of Aleppo. Joscelin, who had been observing his movements closely, saw this new Turkish expedition as a chance to finally meet Balak on the battlefield. Joscelin had clearly been craving a head-to-head confrontation with Balak for some time, and he got his chance on May 5, 1124. Hassan had solicited Joscelin’s support, giving him an additional advantage. Nevertheless, after some fierce fighting, Balak finally gained the upper hand and drove Joscelin from the battlefield.26