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His treasures now the prey of others, by his sons and adversaries dismembered. At his death did his enemies ride forth, grasping the swords they dared not brandish whilst he lived …
Ibn al-Qalanasi’s encomium to Zangi.
The Muslim army quickly dispersed and every commander made for a fortified city to claim a share of the spoils. The treasury was raided and Damascus took advantage of Zangi’s death to seize Banyas once more. Raymond of Tripoli raided up to the walls of Aleppo.
Civil war and a regaining of the initiative by the Franj seemed the most likely outcome of Zangi’s sudden death, but this did not occur and this was in part because Zangi’s sons were each able to acquire a major city – Mosul for Sayf al-Din and Aleppo for Nur al-Din – and chose not to interfere with each other’s ambitions in their respective spheres of the Jazira and Syria.
Nur al-Din was pious and reserved, and entirely more trustworthy than his father. His first concern was an attempt made by Joscelin II to recover Edessa. Nur al-Din’s forced march from Aleppo, the sheer pace of which killed a number of horses, was enough, however, to deter Joscelin II from trying to hold onto the city. The speed with which Nur al-Din had established himself in north Syria made him an attractive proposition as a son in-law for Muin al-Din, the senior emir of Damascus, and a marriage contract to the emir’s daughter was swiftly concluded. Muin al-Din then besieged both Sarkhad and Bosra, two fortresses that had rebelled against Damascus and had called on the Franks for aid.
Nur al-Din arrived at Bosra just before the Crusader army under the command of the 16-year-old Baldwin III. Nur al-Din showed himself to be the equal of his father. Camel-loads of arrows were brought to the battle, and their effect was just as deadly as the Afghani Mujahedeen’s anti-tank grenade launchers carried by camels in the late 1980s. In projectile warfare logistics is everything, and camels can carry a heavy load.
Al-Qalanasi described Nur al-Din’s first victory:
The combatants drew up eye to eye, and their ranks closed up to one another, and the askari of the Muslims gained the upper hand over the polytheists. They cut them off from watering places and pasture ground, they afflicted them with a hail of shafts and death-dealing arrows, they multiplied amongst them death and wounds, and set on fire the herbage on their roads and paths. The Franks, on the verge of destruction, turned in flight, and the Muslim knights and horsemen, seeing a favourable opportunity presented of exterminating them, made speed to slay and to engage in combat with them …
The military union between Damascus and Aleppo was only one of convenience and was soon dissolved, but it remained a frightening prospect for the Franj, since dissent between Aleppo and Damascus had been pivotal to the Crusaders’ success in the early years of their campaign.
Furthermore, the Franj now lacked the manpower to take on Nur al-Din. The annihilation of the Crusade of 1101, the second Battle of Ascalon, the Battles of al-Sinnabra and Ager Sanguinis and this last defeat at Bosra had made fielding an army increasingly difficult. There was a growing reliance on the military orders and mercenary forces, but the loss of territory to Zangi in the 1130s had made paying for such troops virtually impossible for the petty lords of Outremer.
A fresh influx of Milites Christi was required.