Seljuk-Crusader War

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Seljuk-Crusader War

1097–1127

The Seljuk-Crusader War began when the First Crusade wrested territory from the Seljuk Turks during the Siege of Nicaea in 1097 and lasted until 1128 when Zengi became atabeg of Aleppo. At the latter date, the chief threat to the Crusaders from the east and north became the Zengids. The conflict was generally fought between European Crusaders on the one hand and the Seljuk Turks and their vassal states on the other. However, the Muslim Syrian emirates occasionally allied themselves with the Christians against rival states. The war coincided with the initial Crusader conquest of the Holy Land and the immediate period of expansion.

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[edit] First Crusade

After the First Crusade captured Nicaea from its Seljuk garrison, the Crusaders plunged into the interior of Anatolia. In the hard-fought Battle of Dorylaeum, they defeated the main Seljuk Turkish army. In 1098 the Frankish host began the Siege of Antioch which they successfully captured. They held onto their conquest by defeating an army sent by the Seljuk Sultan in Baghdad. The bulk of the Latin army moved on, capturing an important town in the Siege of Ma'arrat al-Numan.

After this victory, many of the local emirs cooperated with the Christians in the hope that they would move on and trouble the territory of another ruler. The Crusaders soon moved beyond Seljuk territory and went on to capture the Holy City from Fatimid Egypt with great bloodshed in the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099.

[edit] Crusader setbacks 1100-1104

The string of Crusader successes suddenly came to an end. Bohemond I of Antioch was captured by the Danishmend Turks in the Battle of Melitene in 1100. The Crusade of 1101 ended in disaster when three separate Crusader columns were ambushed and virtually annihilated by Seljuk armies in central Anatolia. Some of the well-armed and well-mounted leaders survived, but the foot soldiers and camp followers were mostly slaughtered or enslaved. A decisive Crusader defeat at the Battle of Harran in 1104 "ended for ever Frankish expansion to the Euphrates."[1]

[edit] Crusader consolidation 1105-1109

In 1105, Toghtekin of Damascus sent a Turkish force to help Fatimid Egypt, but the combined host met defeat in the Third Battle of Ramla. That year in the Battle of Artah, the army of the Principality of Antioch under Tancred won a victory over Fakhr al-Mulk Radwan of Aleppo. This put Aleppo on the defensive over the next few years. The seven-year Siege of Tripoli finally ended in 1109 when the port fell and became the capital of the Latin County of Tripoli.

[edit] Seljuk counterattack 1110-1119

Beginning in 1110, the Seljuk Sultan Muhammad I in Baghdad ordered invasions of the Crusader states for six successive years. "In 1110, 1112, and 1114 the city of Edessa was the objective; in 1113 Galilee was invaded, and in 1111 and 1115 the Latin possessions which lay east of the Orontes between Aleppo and Shaizar."[2]

In the Battle of Shaizar (1111) the Crusaders under King Baldwin I of Jerusalem fought the army of Mawdud of Mosul in an extended skirmish before the walls of the Syrian city. Mawdud defeated Baldwin's army at the Battle of Al-Sannabra in 1113. After a protracted campaign, the army of Bursuq bin Bursuq of Hamadan was routed by Roger of Salerno's Antiochene army in 1115 at the Battle of Sarmin.[3] Henceforth, the Seljuk successor states carried on the war against the Frankish states.

Ilghazi of Mardin and Aleppo destroyed the Antiochene field army and killed Roger of Salerno at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis in June 1119. Baldwin II of Jerusalem retrieved the situation by rapidly reinforcing Antioch with forces from the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli, winning the Battle of Hab that August.[4]

[edit] Crusader consolidation 1120-1128

The year 1124 saw the fall of Tyre to the Crusaders. In 1125, the Crusaders triumphed at the Battle of Azaz, putting Aleppo back on the defensive. However, the Franks were defeated at the Battle of Marj es-Suffar in 1126,[5] losing so many men that they were unable to capture Damascus.[6]

[edit] References

  • Beeler, John. Warfare in Feudal Europe 730-1200. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1971. ISBN 0-0814-9120-7
  • Reston, James, Jr. Warriors of God. New York: Anchor Books, 2001. ISBN 0-385-49562-5
  • Smail, R. C. Crusading Warfare 1097-1193. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, (1956) 1995. ISBN 1-56619-769-4

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Smail, p 178
  2. ^ Smail, p 55
  3. ^ Beeler, p 132-135
  4. ^ Beeler, p 146-147
  5. ^ Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 By John France, pg. 220
  6. ^ Smail, p 182. Smail calls Marj es-Suffar a Crusader "tactical success."
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