Strategy, Tactics, and Supply: The Art of War in the First Crusade

There can be no doubting the importance of the Crusades to the medieval world. For several centuries after the conflict, men in Europe celebrated the glories of the Holy War in poetry and art. It was believed to have been the most virtuous of causes, demanded by God for the glory of God. William of Tyre in particular stressed the purity of the Holy Cause, calling the Crusaders ‘dominici’, or God’s people. Such praise frequently centres upon the First Crusade, which was the most immediately successful expedition. One historian has even stated that “the first crusade was by far the most outstanding military achievement of the feudal period”. Within four years the crusading host had marched to Jerusalem, captured the Holy city, and established a kingdom in the Holy Land. To the Christians, such a quick realization of their objective confirmed that God was indeed behind the Crusade. During the siege at Antioch, Anselm of Ribemont wrote “we have certainly captured for Our Lord two hundred cities and castles. May our Mother Church rejoice that she has borne men who have won for her such a glorious name ... in such a glorious fashion”. Despite such spiritual rhetoric however, the material grounds for the crusaders’ successes did in fact include spiritual matters, which affected the morale of the army. While the conception of any grand strategy was largely foreign to the leaders of the crusade, they did have some measure of tactical ability which allowed them to overcome the Moslems. Indeed, it must be stated that despite the opinions of some early historians, the First Crusade was a success not because of accidental actions taken by commanders, but because of conscientious decisions taken by those leaders with regard to several tactical considerations. Interconnected with both strategy and tactics are logistical considerations, which for the crusaders almost became of strategic importance. Attending to such details allows one to deviate from the stereotype held by earlier historians; the crusading knight was not a barbarian inspired by God but acting wholly as an individual and without regard for the ‘art’ of warfare.

There is a general consensus among historians that the overall strategy of the campaign was only vaguely understood by the crusade leaders. Certainly, the very existence of four separate divisions of crusaders hindered strategic cohesion, as communication between them was extremely limited. Therefore, any degree of strategic deployment against the Moslems – as occurred at Dorylaeum, where Bohemund’s army was hard-pressed by the Turks until the cavalry of Godfrey de Bouillon and Robert of Normandy arrived – was more a matter of coincidence or accident than forethought. Additionally, the mystical nature of the crusade prohibited the development of any overarching strategy, as the crusaders felt that they were in fact led by divine plans. Yet the most obvious and seemingly unsophisticated notion of strategy held by each of the commanders was also the only guarantee for their success. The sole objective for the First Crusade was the capture of Jerusalem, and the crusaders accomplished this end using the most direct means. The crusading host was never a large force, and was greatly outnumbered by the Moslems, therefore a massive expedition to capture every city controlled by the infidels would not have been possible. As the crusaders approached the Holy City in 1099, two war councils were held to determine the strategy of attack. While some nobles wished to advance along the coast, securing port cities along the way in order to allow reinforcements and supplies to reach the crusaders, a direct attack on Jerusalem itself was favoured. In order to achieve their ultimate goals, the crusaders isolated several cities as key to success in the Holy Land, notably Nicea and Antioch.

Linked with this direct attack was the desire to completely annihilate the enemy armies, not to merely conquer the Moslems in individual battles or to take prisoners for monetary gain. Such strategic vision explains the sorties from Antioch and Jerusalem, which were undertaken to exterminate the remnants of the Moslem armies surrounding the newly captured cities. Indeed, it was by following such a direct and immediate strategy that the crusaders did in fact succeed in capturing Jerusalem. It has been argued that the single-mindedness of the leaders of the First Crusade was due to their divine inspiration; their success in campaigning was indeed a rare exception for the Middle Ages. There were some hindrances and tangents to the crusaders’ strategic goals, however. The most pointed of these was the desire of the nobles to gain territories and extend their own holdings into the Holy Land. Baldwin, brother to Godfrey de Bouillon, had separated from the main host of the crusaders after the capture of Antioch “on the pretext of protecting the flanks of the main army”; certainly his goals were territorial however. These territorial ambitions began to disrupt the crusade, as occurred when sub-divisions of Godfrey’s army led by Baldwin and Tancred contested over control of Tarsus. Yet even such petty ambitions served to further the success of the strategic operation. The territories captured by both Baldwin and Tancred served to protect the crusading host in Syria from Turkish armies west of Edessa. In this regard, the opinions held by many earlier historians that the crusaders’ strategy was largely accidental can be only partially substantiated. The many strategic decisions taken by the crusade leaders demonstrate the opposite however, that they did have some sentience about the operational arts.

Similarly, a primitive awareness of and ability in tactical matters was exhibited by the four division leaders. This was not immediately the case however, as the battle of Dorylaeum proves. When attacked by the Turkish army, Bohemund’s forces pursued conventional European battle tactics. The foot soldiers pitched camp, while the cavalry circled in formation, waiting for a charge against the Moslem horsemen. The Turks did not conform to such tactics however. The strength of the Moslems was their mobility, as they donned light armour if any at all; this was especially true of their mounted archers. They would encircle the crusaders at a distance and let loose a hail of arrows upon them, arresting their cavalry charge until the enemy was wounded and confused. In this instance, Bohemund’s forces were saved only by the arrival of cavalry under Godfrey and Robert. He did not adapt to the changing tactical situation; such was the nature of tactical instruction given to Frankish nobles, however. Certainly, the Byzantine army was knowledgeable of Moslem tactics however: Leo VI the Wise had written a treatise dealing with that very subject, stressing the importance of open field engagements with the Turks. The crusaders, however, were far too distrustful of the Byzantines to adopt their tactical advice. By the siege of Antioch however, the commanders had learned how to deal with Moslem tactics. Success lay in cavalry tactics: a series of regiments in the front line, backed by a reserve regiment guarding the flanks would prevent the crusaders from being turned. Such tactics were in fact adopted by Bohemund during the sortie from Antioch. He divided his forces into six regiments, which formed a front line while Bohemund’s regiment held the rearguard position. The Moslems wished to outflank the crusaders and secure the bridge leading into the city, but were checked by Bohemund’s rearguard. The Moslems then tried a faux-retreat to break apart the crusaders’ formation – a tactic proposed by Leo – but were routed by the crusaders in close combat upon their own disorderly retreat. One cannot focus solely on the cavalry however, as the importance of the infantry was felt at Antioch, Ascalon, and Jerusalem. Initially, they protected the horses of the knights before they charged, then they protected the rear flank; at Ascalon they served as mop-up units, additionally aiding knights who had been wounded or unhorsed. Furthermore, with their greater range crossbowmen kept enemy horse-archers at bay.

Three further aspects of tactical operations that were of vital importance to the success of the crusade were discipline, reconnaissance, and supply. Without adequate control over his troops, a commander would not be able to organize them into formation; in the Holy Land this would have meant the routing of the army. Keeping the crusaders together was perhaps the greatest challenge faced by the commanders. The armies did manage to stay together however, most likely due to the strength of their religious convictions. Morale – an aspect of and contributor to discipline – was similarly raised by religious belief, most pointedly demonstrated by the Lance of Christ found before the sortie from Antioch. Nicephorus Phocas had stated the importance of reconnaissance, mainly for the knowledge of enemy positions. Of equal importance was knowledge of terrain. The crusaders were at a great disadvantage in that they were traversing foreign lands, and indeed, their lack of geographical knowledge had caused several defeats. They were not without recourse, however, as they had access to many spies and traitors to aid them in reconnaissance.

A more grave issue throughout the First Crusade was the supply of the army. Emperor Alexius had promised to supply the crusaders, yet once they were outside his realm his fleet could not reach them because all of the ports were held by Egyptian forces. Consequently, the crusaders were frequently in need of provisions; their dearth became acute during sieges, such as at Antioch and Jerusalem. Indeed, many among the Christian forces began to starve during the siege of Antioch, leading to low morale and a high rate of desertion. Alexius did however finally manage to supply the crusaders with siege equipment and engineers to allow the capture of the city. The peasants who had joined the host did not aid in food collection, but rather were a further burden on the already stretched supplies. The normally fertile areas surrounding the cities in the East had been poisoned by the Moslems to hinder the crusaders, thus forcing food collection parties to wander far from the siege camp to accomplish their task. The crusaders required a fairly high amount of food to sustain themselves: military exertions by knights required a diet high in meat; furthermore, the horses consumed three to four times the weight in food as their riders. Consequently, the sources stress the importance of the “capture of foodstuffs as booty”. Indeed, the knights depended on such booty for their very status. The provisioning of the army had drained their monetary resources, and therefore without the seizure of such booty they could fall into poverty. Many knights had to sell their arms and armour to buy food, instead using arms captured from the Moslems. Additionally, there are numerous instances of knights who had lost their horse in battle being unable to remount and consequently joining the infantry. The crusaders had expected such hardships, perhaps even viewed it as part of their penance as defined by the initial call by Pope Urban II, and therefore despite starvation and poverty, they succeeded in capturing Jerusalem.

As has been stated, the First Crusade was unique in that it almost immediately accomplished its goals. Certainly the religious fervour incited by the Pope’s call-to-arms as well as the many local priests drove the crusading host to realize what they believed to be the wishes of God. A more materialistic reason for their successes can be forwarded, however. It was because of the abilities of the leaders of the crusade on both strategic and tactical levels that Jerusalem was captured with the fairly limited supplies and troops available. There were setbacks to be sure, but the expedition succeeded within a relatively short period, and the Holy City became under Christian control.

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Supplementary

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The Interpretive Framework of Marxist Ideology

It can be argued that the entire cannon of modern socioeconomic theory has emerged either to support or reject the works of Karl Marx. Indeed, his statement that “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” has become a mantra for leftist thinkers and an anathema for more conservative theorists. To a great extent, Marx intended such controversy. His theory is centred upon the concept of an economic base (the production of the basic necessities for a society) which underlies a superstructure (religion, politics, law). It is the interaction and conflicting interests between individuals within this dual structure which gives rise to ideology. Such ideology originates in the socioeconomic status of the individuals which produce it. Generally, the expression of ideology within a society is limited to the dominant class; historically, art and religion exemplify such theory. The oppositions and disparities inherent in the economic base do manifest themselves in a society’s ideological complex, however. History therefore becomes the study of opposing ideologies: conflicting economic interests between the ideologies of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie gives rise to a third ideology which surmounts the initial opposition and itself becomes the dominant ideology. In artistic terms, Marx’s dialectic materialism demands that art both supports and rejects – that it is a function for and a critic of – the dominant ideology. An artistic creation, or more broadly any creation of the superstructure, cannot therefore arise in a society which has a differing ideology than that in which it does arise.

There have been numerous reinterpretations of Marxist thought, yet few have had the influence that the works of Louis Althusser have had. He reinterpreted Marxism to focus on the works of the more mature Marx, which he believed did not correspond with simple dialectic materialism. In his rereading, economy is not the originator of ideology. While the dominant class imposes its ideology upon individuals of the lesser classes, the dominant ideology originates in the means of production and the relations between the classes. Termed in a more Althusserian manner, the Subject controls the subject, but is itself a reflection of the Subject-subject relationship. Particular ideologies were indeed based on material conditions, yet they also had an imaginary aspect: Althusser reads in the later Marx that individuals have an imaginary relation to their means of existence. Ideology does however express itself in materialistic terms: a policeman’s shout, a prayer. Most radically, Althusser challenged the notion of the binary relationship between base and superstructure, which he believed was in fact a simplistic reading of Marx. In between these two categories lies a third concept, the ‘problematic’, which is the unconscious ideology which dictates the forms and content of a discourse. The problematic is the function of both the base and the superstructure. Within this framework, history becomes the study of the subconscious within texts. That which is concealed by the author is of equal importance as the text itself; thoughts cannot arise which are incompatible with the dominant apparatus of ideology.

Juliet Mitchell provides a more concrete example for Althusserian belief. In Femininity, narrative, and psychoanalysis she applies the historical process of Marx-Althusser to a specific definition of history, that of the novel. She describes the novel as primarily the domain of women, beginning with autobiographical works. Novels become for women a definition of and a reaction to their existence within bourgeois society. Through writing, women establish themselves as (Althusserian) subjects, as ‘hysterical’, simultaneously accepting and rejecting “sexuality under patriarchal capitalism” (p. 151). One does get a sense in Mitchell’s work of a parallel with Marx and Althusser, in that women could not think outside of the context of the ideological state apparatuses. In this regard, Mitchell argues that there is no distinct form of women’s writing. Alternately, female novelists are reflections of their repressed existence within a patriarchal society; the very language itself is phallocentric. Thus, in Althusserian terms, women novelists became subject (with the latent double-meaning of the word) to the Subject. Working within the terms of patriarchal capitalism, women nevertheless were able to provide an alternate history for themselves by the very act of writing. They therefore became manifestations of Althusser’s concept of Subject-subject reflection, they became in a sense bisexual.

While Marx’s original maxim can be validly interpreted as it stands, there have been numerous reappraisal of its validity. The consequence of Althusser’s work is the complication of Marx’s original precept to include “subconsciousness as determined by life”. Mitchell subsequently limits the general concepts of Marx and Althusser to a specific example and ideology, that of women novelists writing under early modern patriarchal capitalism. At its most fundamental level however, Marx’s statement remains pertinent.