The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East by Nicholas Morton

Author:Nicholas Morton [Morton, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2018-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

In the wake of the battle, it was time for both sides to count the cost. For Ilghazi, the battle at Tell Danith took the shine off his earlier victory at the Field of Blood. He had not exactly been defeated, but despite the size of his army, he had not decisively crushed the principality either. He returned to Aleppo to find that the citizens had received mixed reports concerning the recent battle, some claiming the Turks had been routed, others proclaiming victory.79 To add to his troubles, there was murmuring that some of the city’s elites, who had suffered during Ilghazi’s ascension to power, were starting to plot against him.

To quiet such voices, Ilghazi immediately announced, less than truthfully, that he had won a second great victory, and to stress the point, he had his prisoners tortured and presented to the populace. The nobleman Robert Fitz-Fulk was decapitated by Tughtakin of Damascus, a former friend. His head was carried around Aleppo’s streets and presented at the houses of the rich, who were expected to show their appreciation by making gifts. Robert’s skull was later turned into a drinking vessel. Other prisoners had all their limbs cut off, and their torsos were thrown into public spaces. These were brutal acts of torture and death, but they had a clear political purpose. They sent an unmistakable message to the Aleppan people about Ilghazi’s strength, power, and ruthlessness. Through these events, Ilghazi and Tughtakin had been drinking heavily in their tents, which had been erected outside the city walls.80

Ilghazi’s actions unnerved some of the Islamic elites in his entourage. Both his conduct in war and some of the distinctive tortures he inflicted on his captives were characteristic of the central Asian steppe and would have seemed alien to a local religious leader. A later report by one of the Frankish prisoners is suggestive: Ilghazi had offered a qadi the opportunity to execute Arnulf, seneschal of Marash, but he had refused, seemingly troubled by what was going on, and had handed the blade to a nearby emir.81

Ilghazi’s acts may have worried those religious leaders who had accompanied the army, but to rulers and authorities in more distant parts of the sultanate, he was a hero. He had struck a decisive blow against the Franks, and his deeds in battle were celebrated (generally with the Field of Blood played up and the Second Battle of Tell Danith played down). Verses were created to commemorate his achievements, stressing that they should be understood as acts of holy war carried out by a devout holy warrior against the followers of Christianity:

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