Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/365

EXPANSION OF CHRISTENDOM 315 In Bohemond, however, they had an able military com- mander, who, by waiting with a reserve force of cavalry and then making an attack at the critical point at the critical moment, won most of the battles in which they engaged with the Turks. Alexius must have been astounded when he heard from the pope that three hundred thousand men would be on their way to Constantinople. He was perhaps Attitude still more amazed when the motley following Byzantine of Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless emperor arrived. Both in their case and that of the better equipped armies which arrived later, his policy was to get them out of the city and across the Straits into Asia as rapidly as possi- ble and before their numbers should be too greatly swelled by further arrivals. In the case of the later, well-organized armies he also endeavored to have all the leaders take an oath of fealty to him and agree to hold all conquests that they might make as fiefs of the Byzantine Empire. This they were naturally loath to do, and he had to attack some of them and bribe others to secure their oaths, while some never took the oath. In brief, Alexius' position was that he would allow the crusaders to reconquer for him the territory which he had not been able to prevent the Turks from tak- ing away from him, and which he unaided would probably have been quite unable to recover. When the various bodies of crusaders had finally joined forces in Asia Minor before the walls of Nicaea, not far from Constantinople, and were just on the point of The taking reducing it, Alexius procured by secret negotia- of Nlcaea tions that the city should surrender to him rather than to the crusaders, whom he refused to admit within the walls, although he tried to satisfy some of the leaders with presents. Thus he showed that he did not trust the pledges which the crusaders had recently made, and the result was that hence- forth they did not trust him. He had been offended by the insolent manners of some of them at his court in the city, and by their plundering the country as they marched through his territories. They had against him the deeper