In the May of the year 1100, a leader of the 1st Crusade still in the Holy Land, Raymond of Toulouse, left for the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople to ask the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, for help to carve out his own kingdom around the Seljuk-controlled Levantine city of Tripoli.

When he received reports that the Danishmendid Bey Gazi Gümüshtigin of Sebastea was preparing an expedition to recapture Melitene he sought help from Bohemond and even offered his daughter in marriage.

Godfrey, the King of Jerusalem was busy making the Levantine cities of Acre, Jaffa, Caesarea Maritima, Ascalon, and Arsuf tributaries.

Godfrey had earlier reached an agreement with the citizens of Arsuf after it was known that he intended to stay in Jerusalem and reconciled with Raymond of Toulouse, who was attempting to create a kingdom of his own in the Levant.

[20] After leaving Antioch, the qadi of Tripoli warned Baldwin that the Seljuk emir of Damascus, Shams al-Muluk Duqaq, wanted to ambush him on the narrow road near the mouth of the Nahr al-Kalb River.

[27] Baldwin first raided the surroundings of Ascalon, which was still held by the Fatimid Caliphate, then launched a punitive expedition against the bandits who had their headquarters in the caves near Jerusalem.

[35] Tancred accepted the offer and renounced Galilee in March 1101, but he also stipulated that the king should grant the same land "as a fief" to him if he returned to the kingdom within fifteen months.

The Lombards were led by the archbishop of Milan, Anselm IV, a man who was personally selected by the Pope Paschal II to lead the upcoming crusade.

Albert, Count of Parma, the brother of the Antipope Guibert, was there as a representative of the resolution of the church-state conflicts which enveloped Lombardy in the final decades of the eleventh century.

The army proceeded by land first through the Italo-Alpine region of Carnia, then through Carinthia, with the permission of Duke Henry V, and then went through the Sava valley (part of the Kingdom of Hungary then) before entering Byzantine territory through Belgrade.

But some other sources also claim that this camp did not satisfy the Italian crusaders, and they made their way inside the city where they pillaged the Blachernae palace, even killing Alexios' pet lion.

This army was led by Stephen of Blois, Stephen I, Count of Burgundy, Eudes I, Duke of Burgundy, Joscelin of Courtenay, Baldwin of Grandpré, Dodo of Clermont-en-Argonne, Engelrand of Coucy, Bishop of Laon, Hugh of Die, Archbishop of Lyons, Hugh Bardoul (Bardolf) II of Broyes, Viscount Odo Arpin of Bourges, and Conrad, constable of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

After his defeat at the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097, Kilij Arslan had been creating an anti-Crusader coalition with the purpose of ending more Crusader invasions of Seljuk Anatolia.

At this point, under the threats of the Lombards, the entire army turned away from the possible safety of the Byzantine controlled Black Sea coast and again moved east, through Danishmend territory and getting closer to the rescue of Bohemond.

The battle continued into the next day, when the crusader camp was captured and the knights fled, leaving women, children, and priests behind to be killed or enslaved.

After a bit of resistance, the tired and weakened crusader army succumbed to the Turcoman attack and at Heraclea almost the Niverais was almost completely wiped out, except for the count himself and a few dozen of his men.

According to the only source of the Niverais expedition, Albert of Aachen, the local Byzantine governor offered to provide the William and his companions with an escort of twelve Pecheneg mercenaries to accompany them to the Levant.

But few weeks later, Count William II of Nevers and his companions reached the Antioch under Tancred of Galilee half-naked and unarmed, claiming that the treacherous Pechenegs, who were accompanying them on the orders of the Byzantine governor, had robbed them and abandoned them in the Cilician desert they were crossing.

During these 5 weeks, the Franco-Bavarians stopped hearing information about the Lombard contingent made them start to fear that Alexios was responsible about that, leading to a mistrust of the Byzantines.

False fears of the Anatolia trip induced many pilgrims to sell their horses to pay for a sea voyage, but there were also those who had second thoughts because they were afraid of being intercepted and captured by the Byzantine navy.

The gigantic wave of confusion that gripped the Germans is vividly described by the historian Ekkehard of Aura, one of the civilian pilgrims who chose to remain on board the ships bound for Palestine, where he landed with his companions at the end of a six-week journey.

[47] Ida of Austria disappeared during this ambush and was presumably killed, but according to later legend she was taken into captivity and became the mother of Zengi, a great enemy of the crusaders in the 1140s, which - however - is impossible due to chronological factors.

[52][53] Always in need of funds, Baldwin concluded an alliance with the commanders of a Genoese fleet, offering commercial privileges and booty to them in the towns that he would capture with their support.

So great was the confusion after the battle that around 500 Fatimid troops advanced to the walls of Jaffa, where survivors of the Latin vanguard informed Baldwin's wife Arda that the king and all his men were dead.

Baldwin was left with no other option than to flee and escaped the tower under the cover of night with just his scribe and a single knight, Hugh of Brulis, who is never mentioned in any source afterwards.

Almost all of the meagre force was immediately slain including Stephen of Blois, who finally recovered the honour that he had lost when he deserted the Siege of Antioch four years previously.

Baldwin spent the next two days evading Fatimid search parties until he arrived exhausted, starved, and parched in the reasonably safe haven of Arsuf on May 19.

With Baldwin's forces strengthened by the arrival of a fleet of French and German Crusaders, he was able to assemble an army of eight thousand men[74] and surprised the unprepared Egyptians.

[69][75] After the prelates unanimously stated that Dagobert had almost provoked a civil war and had abused his ecclesiastical authority, the legate allowed them to elect a pious priest, Evremar, as patriarch.

The lack of a safe land route from Constantinople also benefitted the Principality of Antioch, where Tancred, ruling for his uncle Bohemond, was able to consolidate his power without Byzantine interference.