The First Crusade A New Path to God I The First Wave Spring of 1096 o Was led by two leaders Peter the Hermit and Walter Sansiwa o Walter s army was small and ways made up of knights from France and the H R E and marched through Hungary Did not plan in advance and poorly supplied Ran out of supplies in Hungary The army started to pillage the towns in Hungary to regain supplies and the leader at the time had to pay Walter off to leave Walter s army left so early that in the Byzantine Empire wouldn t let them pass through this later leads the army to run slow on supplies and so they start attacking again The word gets back and the Byzantine Empire let them through with an escorted guard The army stays in the Empire for a while because Walter was smart and need to resupply his troops o Peter the Hermit Army Said it was his idea for the crusades He starts to preach about the crusades and find a lot of followers to go with him 25 000 were in his army Had a few knights and foot soldiers but it was mostly pilgrims Was not blessed by the church Followed in Walter s footsteps The army looked very bad when they get to the Empire The king saw this and said that they could come in but they have to The people don t like that and start to settle down and they start to The army of the empire fight back and win and start to destroy all the move on through fight with the people people Peter s army was later let into the empire but because they were so sickly that the empire could take care of them They tried to loot and get back supplies but kept losing The leader of Nease saw this and helped out Peter s army but says they have to leave after it Then Peter s army leaves and meets with Walter s army and join The people of the army grew restless and soon grew tired of each other and started to look like they were going to fight each other The Leader of Constantinople ships them out of the empire to Muslim controlled land and they get destroyed The two leaders make it alive and return to the empire but later die in forces shame II Second Wave August 15 1096 To Constantinople o Left because the Pope told them to followed the route that the empire set for them so that supplies and other things could be set up o Long and expensive travel o Came from H R E and France o Noble leaders that could actually follow directions o Hugh of Vermandois was the best of all the leaders he would sell everything he had to make sure he could pay for everything on the crusades o Had a plan to go to Italy and take the ports to travel o This was a good plan but it was tragic because the boats were blown off course and shipwrecked o The Byzantine Army finds them shipwrecked and they were confused by this and took them as prisoners because they were not expecting them o The next group to set out were two brothers Godfrey of Bouillon the eldest son of his father and was entitled to everything of his father only went because he wanted absolution and gained a lot of Knights Baldwin of Boulogne his younger brother joined with him he did it to get wealthy and for land o Godfrey took the overland route and ended up in Hungary and the king of Hungary says he will not let him in because of what happened in the past Godfrey promises that his men will not do anything and just want to pass through but the king still says no o Godfrey then offers his younger brother as a hostage that if they did anything along the way through he could kill them o Godfrey never told Baldwin about this plan beforehand but this plan goes o Godfrey then gets word that the Byzantine s are holding Hugh he lets his army go crazy all over the empire because of that o Hugh is let go after 1 week of this pillaging o Duke Robert of Normandy Count Robert of Flanders and Count Stephen of over wells Blois III From Constantinople to Antioch o They are joined by Bohemond of Taranto with a small army of knights Tancred joined with ships at the same time Raymond of St Gilles Count of Toulouse left with the biggest army from the empire he did this for religious reason o All together it was roughly 40 000 people only half made it to the final battle in Constantinople o The Byzantine Emperor Alexis the 1st still didn t think this was the army that would take back the holy land and the people at the time thought that the empire had an army to help their army but this wasn t the case o Half way to the Antioch the Byzantine army leave and go home because they don t want to battle o They big army just lost a huge part of the army and the leader for all the armies o Raymond then takes the leadership role and says he will lead the armies now and they can win o When they get to Antioch they find a well defended city and it would have taken more armies to starve out the people o The winter then hits and it makes the armies lose people every day this leads to Bohemond bribing a person to let them into the city o He then calls for a council and says he want to attack and the other leaders say he is crazy and he says that he will lead the army of his knights and if he gets into it first then the city after the battle will become all his o Bohemond sends 60 knight to attack and the gates open for them and everyone is dazed and the city fell fast but this was a liability for them o This was because there was a Muslim army that was supposed to resupply the ones inside the city and they now surround the city and forced the people to defend it o Inside the city it was not great and the armies start to get unhappy with the living conditions so the people in the army start to leave and they are killed because on the now invading army Two Important things happen be a victory i A visionary tells them all they have to do is repent and the crusades will ii Another visionary says he had a vision of St Andrew and he said that there is a relic in the city the Holy Lance that pierced Jesus and it was found in a trench that the people for water IV From Antioch to Jerusalem This boost the morale of the army and they start to attack the army and they find a …