Detachments leave the main army in Cilicia

Background

While the main army skirted the Taurus after Ereğli and headed for Antioch via Kayseri and Marash, the Cilician plain was a frontier zone divided between Byzantium, Armenian lords and Turkish garrisons. Contact with the Christian Armenian population there meant both supplies and political opportunity for the crusaders.

Course of events

Tancred passed through the Cilician Gates with a small force, reached Tarsus and persuaded its Turkish garrison to withdraw. Baldwin, arriving with a larger force, demanded the city; Tancred withdrew and turned to Adana and Mopsuestia. The killing by Turks, at night outside the walls, of some three hundred Norman soldiers whom Baldwin had refused to admit to Tarsus heightened the tension between the two armies.

At Mopsuestia armed clashes broke out between the men of Baldwin and Tancred. The two later reconciled; Baldwin returned to the main army but soon left again, guided by his Armenian adviser Bagrat, toward the Euphrates region, Turbessel and Ravendel.

Outcome and significance

The Cilician campaign was useful for the siege of Antioch in terms of a coastal link and sea supply; its real significance, though, is to show how early the pursuit of personal lordships began within the expedition. Baldwin's path led to the County of Edessa in 1098, and Tancred's claim to Cilicia to the later conflicts of the Principality of Antioch with Byzantium and the Armenians.

Sources and debates

The events are described most fully by Albert of Aachen and in Ralph of Caen's Gesta Tancredi, a life of Tancred; each author favours his own hero. The chronicle of Matthew of Edessa reflects the Armenian view. The sources do not fully agree on which city fell to whom and when.