Alexius’ brilliance as a negotiator deserves mention: not only did he supply the large, unruly forces from Western Europe, but he also got them to swear their loyalty to him before they resumed their march into Asia Minor. The success of his efforts were soon realized; previous Byzantine possessions that had been lost to the Turks in Asia Minor were returned to imperial control as the Westerners liberated them.

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The four Christian armies that assembled at Byzantium wasted little time in starting their march to Jerusalem. Size estimates of the crusading armies vary from a ridiculous 600,000, to an estimate made by Anna Comnena, Alexius’ literary daughter, of 12,000 horse and 70,000 foot. Though still too high, the latter figure cut by a third to a half would probably be fairly accurate. That was still an incredibly large number of men to attempt to cross hundreds of miles of arid, hostile lands with any number of unknown enemies contesting their progress.

The Crusaders soon plunged into the hostile territories of Asia Minor, held by the internally disrupted but powerful armies of Kilij Arslan’s Seljuk Turks. A small force of Byzantines accompanied the Crusaders as they moved into Turkish territory, as much to report on their progress and condition as to offer military assistance. Before long, the Crusaders would face a new, and to them strange, type of fighter–the mobile Turkish horse archer. The methods of fighting this adversary would be developed in the field, but for now, the fear of the unknown was dissipated by the religious fervor that accompanied the Christian armies as they moved East to promised salvation and glory.

The Crusaders first encountered the Turks at the Anatolian capital city of Nicaea in the spring of 1097. Kilij Arslan, the region’s Seljuk sultan, at first did not take the Crusaders seriously. He had easily destroyed Peter the Hermit’s rabble, and spies had sent him reports of problems among the leadership of the new Christian army. But he soon found that these warriors were different. They besieged Nicaea and bloodily repulsed a Turkish relief army that attacked them. The town held out for more than a month until the Byzantine fleet arrived, cutting off any additional supplies for the garrison, which then surrendered. The loss of this city was a double blow to Kilij Arslan, as both his family and his treasury were there.

The Christians dutifully turned the captured city over to the Byzantines, after receiving a substantial compensation from the grateful emperor. They then continued their march, confident after this initial success. The inhabitants of Nicaea had been spared the usual pillage and violence, though the Crusaders had tossed the decapitated heads of Turkish corpses into the town during the siege as a terror tactic. In fact, respect for their new enemies was growing and would continue to grow as they fought the Turks at Dorylaeum, where the Crusaders would first taste the full impact of the Eastern style of mobile, missile warfare.

The victorious Westerners were two days distant from Nicaea when Bohemond took his Italo-Norman contingents and separated from the rest of the army. Some chroniclers cite a quarrel between the factious leaders; others argue that supply problems dictated a dispersal of the army, forage being in great demand. Whatever the reason, for three days the armies marched in separate columns, several hours apart, with Bohemond’s force numbering at the most 10,000 Crusaders, the majority on foot, along with large numbers of noncombatants. Although of no military value whatsoever, the noncombatants were an ever-present ingredient in early Crusader armies, motivated by the same religious fervor driving the fighters.

Although separated on the march, the two Crusader forces remained within a few miles of each other, in mutual support range if either was attacked. Three days after splitting up, the Christian forces had still not encountered enemy resistance, and fully expected the Turks to shy away from a duel of arms with the soldiers of Christ. On the evening of June 30, 1097, Bohemond’s army made camp in grassy meadows beside a river. Bohemond set up his tents, put out his guards, and retired for the night after covering an incredible 85 miles in four days.

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