The siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098, on the crusaders' way to Jerusalem through Syria. Two sieges took place in succession. The first siege, by the crusaders against the city held by the Seljuk Empire, lasted from 20 October 1097 to 3 June 1098. The second siege, of the crusader-held city by a Seljuk relieving army, lasted three weeks in June 1098, leading to the Battle of Antioch in which the crusaders defeated the relieving army led by Kerbogha. The crusaders then established the Principality of Antioch, ruled by Bohemond of Taranto.
Antioch (modern Antakya) lay in a strategic location on the crusaders' route to Palestine through the Syrian Coastal mountain range. Supplies, reinforcements and retreat could all be controlled by the city. Anticipating that it would be attacked, the Seljuk governor of the city, Yağısıyan, began stockpiling food and sending requests for help. The Byzantine walls surrounding the city presented a formidable obstacle to its capture, but the leaders of the crusade felt compelled to besiege Antioch anyway.
The crusaders arrived outside the city on 21 October and began the siege. The garrison sortied unsuccessfully on 29 December. After stripping the surrounding area of food, the crusaders were forced to look farther afield for supplies, opening themselves to ambush. On 31 December, a force of 20,000 crusaders encountered a relief army led by Duqaq, ruler of Damascus, heading to Antioch and defeated them. As the siege went on, supplies dwindled and in early 1098 one in seven of the crusaders was dying from starvation, and people began deserting.
A second relief force, this time under the command of Duqaq's brother Ridwan, emir of Aleppo, advanced towards Antioch, arriving on 9 February. Like the army of Duqaq before, it was defeated. Antioch was captured on 3 June, although the citadel remained in the hands of the Turkish defenders. Kerbogha, atabeg of Mosul, began the second siege, against the crusaders who had occupied Antioch, which lasted from 7 to 28 June 1098. The second siege ended when the crusaders exited the city to engage Kerbogha's army in battle on 28 June and succeeded in defeating them. On seeing the Turkish army routed, the defenders remaining in the citadel surrendered.
Background
There are a number of contemporaneous sources relating to the siege of Antioch and the First Crusade. There are four narrative accounts: those of Fulcher of Chartres, Peter Tudebode, and Raymond of Aguilers, and the anonymous Gesta Francorum. Nine letters survive relating to or from the crusading army; five of them were written while the siege was underway and another in September, not long after the city had been taken.
While there are many sources the number of people on crusade is unclear because they fluctuated regularly and many non-combatants on pilgrimage accompanied the soldiers. Historian Jonathan Riley-Smith offers a rough guide, suggesting that perhaps 43,000 people (including soldiers, armed poor, and non-combatants) were involved in the siege of Nicaea in June 1097, while as few as 15,000 may have taken part in the siege of Jerusalem in July 1099.
Lying on the slopes of the Orontes Valley, in 1097 Antioch covered more than and was encircled by walls studded by 400 towers. The river ran along the city's northern wall before entering Antioch from the northwest and exiting east through the northern half of the city. Mount Silpius, crested by a citadel, was Antioch's highest point and rose some above the valley floor. There were six gates through which the city could be entered: three along the northern wall, and one on each of the south, east, and west sides.
The valley slopes made approaching from the south, east, or west difficult, so the most practical access route for a large number of people was from the north across flatter ground. The city's defences dated from the reign of the Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century. Though Antioch changed hands twice between then and the arrival of the crusaders in 1097, each time it was the result of betrayal rather than inadequacy of the defences.
After the Byzantine Empire reconquered Antioch in 969 a programme of fortification building was undertaken in the surrounding area to secure the gains. As part of this, a citadel was built on Mount Silpius in Antioch. High enough to be separate from the city below, historian Hugh Kennedy opined that it "[relied] on inaccessibility as its main defence". At its fall to Seljuk dynasty in 1085, Antioch was the last Byzantine fortification in Syria. Yaghi-Siyan was made Governor of Antioch in 1087 and held the position when the crusaders arrived in 1097.