Antioch, battle of (battle of The Orontes) (1098), an encounter of the First Crusade with important military and political repercussions. On 3 June 1098, an alliance of Frankish leaders seized from its Turcoman occupiers the originally Byzantine city of Antioch, strategically situated within massive walls on the Orontes river in north-west Syria. Almost immediately, a large force under the Turcoman ruler of Mosul in Iraq appeared and took up position on the Orontes in order to invest the city. Preoccupied with a military threat in Anatolia, the Byzantine emperor was unable to assist his Frankish allies in protecting his possession, and their situation became desperate. But the discovery of a supposed holy relic raised the crusaders' morale, and perilous sortie from the city turned into a decisive victory over the besiegers on 28 June. With Antioch relatively secure, the main body of crusaders was able to proceed to their principal goal of recovering the Holy Land. Using the Byzantine emperor's absence from the battle as a pretext, one of the Frankish leaders claimed Antioch for himself, and established an independent principality that was to play an important part in the subsequent history of the Crusades.
Bibliography
- Runciman, Stephen, A History of the Crusades, vol.
1 (Cambridge, 1951)
— David Morray
