Kerbogha

A lot of these guys try that.

Kerboga was trying to do that in the first season.

He failed miserably.

Um, but you know, there are other examples like, uh, Ilgazi.

The reports which spoke of the approach of the Persians were not false.

The Turks within the citadel suddenly found that they were rather besiegers than besieged, and that the Christians were hemmed in by the myriads of Kerboga, Prince of Mosul, and the warriors of Khalija Arslan.

The old horrors of famine were now repeated, but in greater intensity, and the doom of the Latin host seemed to be sealed.

Stephen, Count of Chartres, had deserted his companions before the fall of the city.

Twelve days afterwards he died, and Raymond suffered greatly in his dignity and his influence.

The infidel was doomed, but the crusaders resolved to give him one chance of escape.

Peter the Hermit was sent as an envoy to Kerboga to offer the alternative of departure from a land which St. Peter had bestowed on the faithful, or of baptism, which should leave him master of the city and territory of Antioch.

The reply was short and decisive.

Yet even as the Crusaders finally closed their ring around Antioch, far more terrible news was making its way toward them.

The greatest Muslim power in the region, the ruler of Mosul in distant Mesopotamia, a formidable warlord named Kerbogha, had been persuaded that the Frankish invasion was a threat too dangerous to ignore.

He was gathering an army far larger than anything the Crusaders had yet faced, drawing contingents from across the Muslim East, and he was marching to crush them and relieve Antioch.

If Kerbogha reached the city while the Crusaders still sat outside its walls, they would be caught between the great fortress in front of them and an overwhelming army at their backs, pinned in the open and destroyed.

The siege had become a race.

The Crusaders had to take Antioch, somehow, before Kerbogha arrived, and after more than seven months before its walls, they were no closer to breaking in by force than they had been in October.

It was at this desperate moment that Bohemond revealed the scheme he had been quietly preparing.

The walls of Antioch could not be stormed, but walls are only as loyal as the men who guard them.

But their triumph was to be terrifyingly short-lived.

A mere three days after they had taken the city, a colossal Turkish relief army led by the powerful atabeg of Mosul, Kerbogha, arrived and surrounded Antioch.

The besiegers had become the besieged, trapped inside a city whose food supplies they had already consumed with Kerbogha's massive army outside.

Their situation was now utterly completely hopeless.

It was in this moment of absolute despair that a miracle occurred.

They were destined for victory.

Their morale was transformed from black despair to a state of religious ecstasy.

The starving army of Christ, now armed with a holy relic, prepared to do the impossible, to march out and give battle to Kerbogha's vast, well-fed host.

Oddly enough, guess who traveled with Kurthos way back in 1096? Ivo de Granmenal did.

But why would Evo want to return if he'd already survived a crusade? What was the compulsion there? Well, it seemed that Evo rode with Kurt Hose as far as Antioch, and during the final push, with the threat of the mighty Kerboga looming large just beyond the horizon, Evo and his band of men scaled the walls and escaped Antioch, fleeing all the way back home to England.

That's right, Evo de Granmenal, like Stephen of Blois and so many others, returned as deserters, having abandoned the holiest mission known to the West up to that point.

Evo may have been given his lands in England back under William Rufus, but the shame was real.

Not quite.

In the meantime, Kerbogha, Kerbogha, this is an important name, quite a cool name too, Kerbogha, the atabeg of Mosul, like the leader of Mosul, brings together a relief force to save the besieged Antioch city of around 40,000 men, which completely outnumbers the crusader force, so not so safe.

Looking kind of fucked.

The crusaders get wind of this, and they decide they have to take the city before Kerbogha arrives, otherwise they're, they're squished between two people.

They're completely fucked.

Bohemond cleverly establishes contact with Firouz, an Armenian guard within the city, who agrees to open up the city gates to the crusaders.

The crusaders have taken the outer fortifications and most of Antioch in general, but the citadel of Antioch, the inner, innermost fortifications still remains in the hands of Antioch defenders.

The city is short of food.