The Crusaders were now free to push forward the siege by every artifice known to the Romans and directed by the skill and energy of the Greeks. They allowed the garrison no rest, and the defence was as furious as the attack. The Turks covered their ramparts with formidable weapons which hurled destruction on their assailants. They shot forth darts, wooden beams and enormous stones which daily destroyed the labor of the Crusaders whose rashness and imprudence cost them many precious lives. Hundreds died from poisoned darts, and others, venturing too near the walls, were caught by grappling hooks, dragged alive over the walls to be shot back, stark naked, into the Christian camp. The tales of personal, single-handed prowess place Christian and Turkish chief on equal footing as to strength, courage and splendid daring.
After seven weeks had passed all hope for successful defence departed. The wife of the Sultan and her two children were captured in trying to escape, and consternation siezed the garrison. Just at this crisis the emissaries of Alexius entered the city, and by creating in the inhabitants a dread of the terrible vengeance that would be inflicted by the Crusaders, persuaded them to surrender to the Emperor of Constantinople.
While the Crusaders were preparing for what was intended to be their final assault, the standard of Alexius suddenly appeared on the ramparts. The wily Emperor had secured without the loss of a man the fruits of a victory won at terrible cost of life to the Crusaders. He succeeded in quieting the wrath of the soldiers by distributing among them largesses equal in extent to the booty they expected from the looting of the captured city. He also restored to the Sultan his wife and children, and thereby won his friendship. He also by this crafty stroke of policy secured the lives of the Greek Christians scattered throughout the cities of Asia Minor; but won the lasting hatred of the Crusaders.
The siege of one city is like the siege of all, and we must hasten to Jerusalem, in the spring of 1097. Passing by the battlefield of Dorylaeum, where the newly gathered army of David, the Sultan, numbering two hundred thousand men, met with an awful defeat and the loss of nearly twenty-five thousand men; all the treasures of his camp, provisions, tents, horses and camels, and riches of gold and silver, falling as spoil into the hands of the Crusaders:--passing by the terrible march through "Burning Phrygia," desolated by order of the Sultan, we descend through the mountain passes of the Taurus range into the fair and fertile and wealthy plains of the province of Antioch. The armies were soon gathered for the siege of this historic city, which lasted seven months and was finally captured through the assistance of an Armenian within the walls.