“Battles between Turkish and Frankish armies during this era involved encounters between two very different warcrafts.”

By Nicholas Morton

IN 1125 the fortunes of war in northern Syria hung precariously in the balance. In the spring of that year, Aqsunqur and Tughtakin — the Turkish rulers of Damascus and Aleppo — crossed the border with a combined army, entering the principality of Antioch (one of the Crusader States) and laying siege to stronghold after stronghold. Soon relief forces began to gather, seeking to drive them away and thereby setting the scene for a major confrontation.

The ensuing Battle of Azaz would become not just an example of the cut-and-thrust of frontier politics, but a study in how the tactics of two very different military cultures — Franks and Turks — would come into play.

The Strategic Situation

By 1125 the European Crusader armies had expanded steadily across the Syrian region for almost three decades, their forces suffering little more than occasional setbacks. They first arrived in the area back in 1097 when the armies of the First Crusade advanced out of Anatolia (modern-day Türkiye) and into Syria, en route for distant Jerusalem further to the south.

During this advance the Crusaders established themselves in the city of Edessa — arriving initially at the invitation of the local ruler — and the following year they conquered the great city of Antioch (1098).

These metropolises soon formed the centre-points of the northernmost Crusader States (the territories established by the crusaders), which later became known respectively as: the county of Edessa and the principality of Antioch. The Crusaders’ subsequent conquest of Jerusalem (1099) and later the city of Tripoli (1109) established two further Crusader States further south.

In their early years, all the newly formed Crusader States expanded vigorously on many frontiers. In northern Syria/Southern Anatolia, the county of Edessa conquered many surrounding towns, whilst raiding far and wide. The principality of Antioch seized lands to the north-west in the region of Cilicia whilst conquering many coastal towns such as Latakia, seeking to establish maritime lines of communication stretching to distant Western Christendom. In these ventures, the Crusaders and their descendants (known as ‘Franks’) experienced very few obstructions and continued to seize territory year-after-year. Sometimes they sent aid to support the southern Crusader States and other times they received reinforcements from that quarter, but strategically the general trend was one of steady expansion.

On the other side of the border, the Crusaders’ neighbours struggled to marshal an effective defence. Prior to the First Crusade, the northern Syrian region formed part of the Seljuk Turkish Empire. Back in around the year 1000 many Turkish communities migrated south out of the Central Asian steppe, conquering much of Persia (Iran) and then Iraq. During these years the Seljuk dynasty achieved control over this movement, establishing the Seljuk sultanate which at its height spanned from Central Asia to the Mediterranean.

The Seljuk armies and their satellites reached Northern Syria in the 1070s — only a few decades before the crusaders — displacing the area’s Armenian, Arab and Kurdish rulers and imposing their own control. At this moment the Seljuks looked almost unstoppable but then, with the murder of their sultan Malik Shah in 1092, the empire descended into civil war as various factions sought to impose their own candidate on power. The empire declined rapidly into infighting and many powers sought to take advantage of the chaos. The Crusaders arrived soon afterwards, defeating the local Seljuk governors and weakening their authority sufficiently to prompt a series of rebellions from local communities against Seljuk rule.

In this embattled state, the Seljuks in Northern Syria could mount only sporadic resistance against the Crusader States. Even when a new sultan managed to take power, many local Seljuk governors worked to resist his authority, either because they had backed another faction or because they had grown accustomed to acting independently. Soon the situation became critical. The lynchpin to northern Syria was — and is — the city of Aleppo. This massive and heavily fortified metropolis sat at the centre of the road system, dominating the area’s commerce and acting as a hub for its industries and agriculture. The First Crusaders recognised Aleppo’s strategic significance almost immediately, but it wasn’t until the 1110s that their successors from Edessa and Antioch began to impinge significantly on the city’s neighbouring towns and strongholds. The Frankish cause then took a substantial leap forward in 1118 when they seized the fortress town of Azaz, only a short distance to the north of Aleppo itself.

The following years saw a bitter contest during which the Franks sought to raid and later besiege Aleppo, all the while facing determined resistance both from the city’s Turkish governors and from their neighbouring Turkish allies.

In 1119 the Turkish leader Ilghazi heavily defeated the Franks at a battle called the Field of Blood, breaking the momentum of the Frankish advance in the north. Even so, the Franks managed to resume the offensive in 1124 when a confederation of Frankish, Arab and Turkish contingents tried and failed to besiege Aleppo itself, the balance of power swinging violently from one side to another.

Prelude to Battle

The months immediately following the failed siege of Aleppo was a time of Turkish resurgence. In 1125, the rulers Tughtakin of Damascus and Aqsunqur of Mosul sought to counter-attack against Antioch, looking to seize the principality’s border fortresses and drive the frontier back, away from Aleppo’s farmlands.

This attack began with a series of sieges against Frankish strongholds, including the castles of Kafartab and Zardana. Then Tughtakin and Aqsunqur moved on to attack the strategic town of Azaz.

The Turkish besiegers pressed the Frankish garrison in Azaz hard, assaulting them day and night. Soon it became clear that Azaz could not hold out indefinitely; they needed substantial reinforcements if they were to have any hope of surviving the siege. This then raised the challenge of getting a message out through their encircling attackers.

Eventually the Franks in Azaz fastened their hopes on a single knight, hoping that an unexpected dash could enable him to reach friendly territory. Consequently, they suddenly swung back their gates and the lone knight charged out on the fastest horse in the town. His mount jumped over the first line of enemy infantry and then leaped again over the besieger’s defensive ditch. The Turkish soldiers responded quickly, seeking to intercept him, but he burst through their ranks and made good his escape.

Having received this distress call, a small Frankish relief army arrived soon afterwards, led by King Baldwin II, the current ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and also the regent for the principality of Antioch. His approach caused Tughtakin and Aqsunqur to abandon their encampment outside Azaz and move instead to intercept Baldwin’s army, setting the stage for a major battle.

The Armies Meet

Battles between Turkish and Frankish armies during this era involved encounters between two very different warcrafts. On one hand, Turkish armies consisted largely of light-cavalry archers. They fought organically in a loose arrangement of squadrons, encircling their opponents, swooping down upon them and loosing a barrage of arrows, then wheeling away to evade pursuit. They tended to avoid hand-to-hand combat and their lightly-armoured troops suffered badly in close-quarters against heavily armoured opponents. Their strengths were speed, mobility and archery, wearing down foes with continual volleys of arrows.

By contrast, Frankish armies were very heavily armoured and much slower moving. Their formations consisted largely of infantry supported by small numbers of heavy cavalry. Their infantry often included massed ranks of crossbowmen who could defend themselves against Turkish archers, but the Franks’ main goal was to engage Turkish forces in close combat. The goal for the Franks was to engineer a situation that would force their Turkish opponents into a melee, while for the Turks the goal was to wear down the Franks from a distance and shoot down their horses.

This was exactly the kind of scenario that emerged in the spring of 1125 and, as Baldwin II’s army closed on Azaz, his Turkish opponents avoided a head-on confrontation and ceded their encampment outside the town to the Franks. Even so, this did not end the encounter. Instead, Tughtakin and Aqsunqur created a loose perimeter around the Frankish camp, blocking all access routes and aiming to use their greater mobility to cut off the Frankish army from all supply and communications. In this way both sides played to their strengths and the onus now lay with the Franks to extricate themselves from the situation.

So Baldwin II devised a plan. One day in June (we don’t know the precise date) he set out westwards at first light, giving the impression that he badly needed to find provisions for his hungry army. He also left instructions with Azaz’s garrison to give a signal the moment the Turks set out in pursuit. Sure enough, Tughtakin and Aqsunqur did pursue Baldwin’s army, believing they had forced him into a desperate retreat. Immediately afterwards, the Frankish forces appeared to break ranks and flee, only building the impression that their entire position was unravelling. This display fully convinced the Turkish commanders who gathered their entire force and channelled their energies into pursuing and catching the withdrawing Franks.

Then suddenly a smoke signal rose from Azaz, warning Baldwin of his opponents’ approach. At this moment, Baldwin ordered his trumpets to be sounded. The Frankish army abruptly wheeled about and charged directly at the oncoming Turkish cavalry. Intent on their pursuit, the Turkish cavalry had allowed their ranks to become too closely packed and the Frankish knights drove straight into them. They could not avoid close combat and Baldwin’s warriors inflicted severe casualties; the Turkish leaders themselves only narrowly avoided capture.

Taking Stock

The result was a Frankish victory, but the battle of Azaz holds an interest for military historians far greater than simply being ‘another encounter’ amidst the cut and thrust of frontier politics. It reveals how both Turkish and Frankish commanders adapted to one another’s warcraft with the Turks capitalising on the flexibility and speed of their mounted archers to entrap Baldwin’s army and the Franks looking for stratagems that could draw the Turkish forces into close combat. The tactics deployed by all the commanders in this battle reveal how they sought to adapt in hopes of unlocking one another’s weaknesses. Similar trends can be seen in many other scenarios. These include Turkish commanders defeating Frankish heavy cavalry by fighting battles in marshy ground where the Frankish knights began to sink; they also include the realization among Frankish commanders that Turkish bowstrings loosen in the rain, presumably incentivising them to fight in bad weather. Frankish commanders soon began employing light cavalry archers and Turkish commanders began to raise squadrons of heavy cavalry, thereby enabling them both to compensate for gaps in their own capabilities. As with so many theatres of war however, the key lesson was that victory often went to the commander who adapted first and most efficiently.

As for this battle’s place in Syrian geopolitics, Baldwin II’s victory at Azaz proved rather pyrrhic. He was under pressure at that time to devote his attention to his own kingdom to the south and his later campaigns took place on very different frontiers. As for Aqsunqur and Tughtakin, they suffered few direct consequences from their defeat. Aqsunqur died from an assassin’s knife the following year (for unconnected reasons) and Tughtakin resumed his governance in Damascus until his own death in 1128.

As for Syria as a whole, the advent of a major new ruler called Zangi two years later (1127) and his rapid expansion across this region and neighbouring territories fundamentally redraw the area’s political map, changing the status quo and putting an end to the era of Frankish military expansion. Perhaps the battle’s limited political significance helps explain why the battle of Azaz hasn’t received much attention from historians. Even so it stands as a fascinating example of military adaptation. This was an era when commanders from many different cultures — not just Franks and Turks — sought new ways to improve their effectiveness on the battlefield. Byzantine, Arab, Fatimid (Egyptian), Kurdish and Armenian generals were all part of this ongoing tactical conversation, and they all needed to devise ways to capitalise on their own strengths whilst exploiting their opponents’ weaknesses.

Nicholas Morton is the author of The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187 from Oxford University Press. A specialist in the history of crusading and the Medieval Mediterranean between the tenth and 13th centuries. More recently he has begun to focus specifically upon the theme of inter-faith relations between Christianity and Islam in this region. He has published extensively on topics connected to this subject area, writing a range of books and scholarly articles. He is an associate professor of history at Nottingham Trent University

Further reading (by the author)

Nicholas Morton, The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the remaking of the Medieval Near East (Basic Books, 2018).

Nicholas Morton, The Crusader States & their Neighbours: A Military History (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Nicholas Morton, The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East (Basic Books, 2022).