First Crusade

The Levant or Arabic: المشرق العربي‎ al-Mashrīq al-'Arabiyy is a... geographic and cultural term referring to the region of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt". The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Cyprus, Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the historic area of Greater Syria; precise definitions have varied. The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean and northeast Africa". In earlier periods, the Levant encompassed all the "Mediterranean lands east of Italy". The term Levant, which first appeared in English in 1497, originally meant the East in general. It is borrowed from the French levant 'rising', that is, the point where the sun rises. Similar etymologies are found in Ancient Greek Ἀνατολή , Germanic Morgenland and in the Hungarian Kelet which literally means the place of rising. Most notably, "Orient" and its Latin source oriens meaning "east", is literally "rising", deriving from Latin orior "rise".
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Anatolia rise"; also Asia Minor, from Greek: Μικρὰ Ἀσία Mikrá Asía "small Asia"; in modern... Turkish: Anadolu is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west. The Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Iskenderun and the Black Sea, approximately corresponding to the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. However, since Anatolia is now often considered to be synonymous with Asian Turkey, its eastern and southeastern borders are widely taken to be the Turkish borders with the neighboring countries, which are Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq and Syria, in clockwise direction,.
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The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099 during the First Crusade. The Crusaders stormed and captured the city from Fatimid... Egypt. After the successful siege of Antioch in June 1098, the crusaders remained in the area for the rest of the year. The papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy had died, and Bohemund of Taranto had claimed Antioch for himself. Baldwin of Boulogne remained in Edessa, captured earlier in 1098. There was dissent among the princes over what to do next; Raymond of Toulouse, frustrated, left Antioch to capture the fortress at Ma'arrat al-Numan in the Siege of Maarat. By the end of the year the minor knights and infantry were threatening to march to Jerusalem without them. At the end of December or early in January, Robert of Normandy and Bohemond's nephew Tancred agreed to become vassals of Raymond, who was wealthy enough to compensate them for their service. Godfrey of Bouillon, however, who now had revenue from his brother's territory in Edessa, refused to do the same. On January 5, Raymond dismantled the walls of Ma'arrat, and on January 13 began the march south, barefoot and dressed as a pilgrim, followed by Robert and Tancred.
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The Siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098. The first siege, by the crusaders against the Muslim-held city, lasted... from 21 October 1097 to 2 June 1098. Antioch lay on the crusaders' route to Palestine, and anticipating that it would be attacked the Muslim governor of the city, Yaghi-Siyan, began stockpiling food and sending requests for help. The Byzantine walls surrounding the city presented a formidable obstacle to its capture, so the leaders of the crusade decided to besiege Antioch. The crusaders arrived outside the city on 21 October and began the siege. The garrison sortied unsuccessfully on 29 December. After stripping the surrounding area of food, the crusaders were forced to look farther afield for supplies, opening themselves to ambush and while searching for food on 31 December, a force of 20,000 crusaders encountered a relief force led by Duqaq of Damascus heading to Antioch and defeated the army. However, supplies dwindled and in early 1098 one in seven of the crusaders was dying from starvation and people began deserting in January.
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The Siege of Nicaea took place from May 14 to June 19, 1097, during the First Crusade. Nicaea , located on the eastern shore of Lake İznik, had... been captured from the Byzantine Empire by the Seljuk Turks in 1081, and formed the capital of the Sultanate of Rüm. In 1096, the People's Crusade, the first stage of the First Crusade, had plundered the land surrounding the city, before being destroyed by the Turks. As a result, Sultan Kilij Arslan I initially felt that the second wave of crusaders were not a threat. He left his family and his treasury behind in Nicaea and went east to fight the Danishmends for control of the Melitene. The crusaders began to leave Constantinople at the end of April 1097. Godfrey of Bouillon was the first to arrive at Nicaea, with Bohemund of Taranto, Bohemond's nephew Tancred, Raymond IV of Toulouse, and Robert II of Flanders following him, along with Peter the Hermit and some of the survivors of the People's Crusade, and a small Byzantine force under Manuel Boutoumites. They arrived on May 6, severely short on food, but Bohemund arranged for food to be brought by land and by sea.
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The Battle of Ascalon took place on August 12, 1099 shortly after the capture of Jerusalem, and is often considered the last action of the First... Crusade. The crusader army led by Godfrey of Bouillon defeated and drove off the numerically-superior Fatimid army, securing the safety of Jerusalem. The crusaders had negotiated with the Fatimids of Egypt during their march to Jerusalem, but no satisfactory compromise could be reached — the Fatimids were willing to give up control of Syria but not Palestine, but this was unacceptable to the crusaders, whose goal was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was captured from the Fatimids on July 15, 1099, after a long siege, and immediately the crusaders learned that a Fatimid army was on its way to besiege them. The crusaders acted quickly. Godfrey of Bouillon was named Defender of the Holy Sepulchre on July 22, and Arnulf of Chocques, named patriarch of Jerusalem on August 1, discovered a relic of the True Cross on August 5. Fatimid ambassadors arrived to order the crusaders to leave Jerusalem, but they were ignored.
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