Nick Holmes - The Byzantine World War

Copyright 2019 Nick Holmes

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Matador

9 Priory Business Park,

Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,

Leicestershire. LE8 0RX

Tel: 0116 279 2299

Email: books@troubador.co.uk

Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 978 1838598 921

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

In memory of my parents,

for their kindness, patience and wisdom.

Byzantine Empire in 1060

Byzantine Empire Under Attack, 1040

Seljuk Raids, 1048

Romanus First Campaign, 1068

Romanus Second Campaign, 1069

Romanus Third Campaign, 1071

The Battle of Manzikert, Phase

The Battle of Manzikert, Phase

Europe and the Middle East on the Eve of the First Crusade, 1095

First Crusade Routes Across Europe, 1096

First Crusade from Constantinople to Jerusalem, 1097

Crusader States, 1135

In the interests of accessibility, I have used familiar Latinate forms of proper names for the more famous characters rather than their Greek, Turkish or Arab originals. For example, Romanus Diogenes is used rather than Romanos Diogenes, as it would be in Greek. However, for less well-known figures, I have used the original spelling or as close to it as I can achieve.

With smoke billowing around him, Ludolf of Tournai felt he could almost touch the walls of Jerusalem.

But they stood beyond his reach a vision of brilliant white stone in front of his siege tower. He knew that if he raised his head above the parapet, a swarm of iron arrowheads would shatter his skull. The city had been in Arab hands for over 400 years. No Christian army had come close to it for centuries. Now these men, the first crusaders, were at their last gasp. Reduced to some 14,000 from over 100,000 that had marched east, they barely had the strength to mount this last desperate attempt to capture the holy city.

To the south, the crusaders only other siege tower attracted a hail of Arab incendiary missiles. Riddled with burning pitch shot by catapults, the tower was a smoking wreck. The soldiers inside stumbled out, dazed and despairing. It seemed as if God had abandoned them in their final hour.

Now it was up to Ludolf. Little did he know it, but in a few minutes he would become one of the heroes of the Middle Ages. That morning, he and his men had managed to push their siege tower right up to the walls, miraculously surviving the missiles from the Arab catapults. Now they were too close for the catapults to strike them. For the last hour, they had exchanged shots with the defenders: arrows, crossbow bolts, rocks, whatever each side could get their hands on.