Bohemond's Great Defeat: the Battle of Harran, 1104

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The Battle of Harran, 1104

With the triumph of the First Crusade, Bohemond was Prince of Antioch: the most powerful ruler in the northern Crusader states. In 1104, Baldwin of Bourcq, who ruled the County of Edessa to the east of Antioch, sent an urgent request for help to his Norman neighbor. Two Turkish lords, Soqman ibn-Ortuq and Jikirmish of Mosul, had, according to the chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi, “made a solemn agreement with one another to prosecute the Holy War against the Franks,” selecting Edessa as their target. Bohemond, with his nephew Tancred, raised an army and marched to Baldwin’s relief before the Turks could invest Edessa.
With Edessa safe, Bohemond and Count Baldwin now decided to head off the Turks by attacking Harran itself. Mustering his own army, Baldwin II of Edessa joined Bohemond for the campaign. Harran was the obvious object of expansion east for the northern Crusader States, and Bohemond had been eying it for some time. Now with their combined armies, they marched with a force of some three thousand Frankish knights and six thousand mostly Armenian infantry.
The crusader coalition arrived at Harran to find the garrison demoralized and ready to discuss terms of surrender. However, the combined armies of Soqman and Jikirmish now quickly advanced on Harran, and Bohemond and Baldwin were obliged to meet them. The stage was set for battle.
The battle would occur close to the River Balikh. Bohemond devised a strategy that had often brought him success during the First Crusade: he sent the Edessan army ahead under Baldwin to draw in the Turks. Meanwhile, Bohemond kept the Antiochene army in reserve behind a low hill, ready to ambush the enemy.
When Baldwin advanced, he encountered a Turkish force, which quickly turned and fled. For some reason, Baldwin now broke with Bohemond’s plan and ordered a pursuit, crossing the river with his knights to chase the Turks. But Baldwin himself ran right into a trap. The main Turkish body under Soqman and Jikirmish suddenly appeared and attacked. The Edessans were horribly outnumbered, and suffered heavy casualties. The survivors fled in panicked disorder back toward the river.
Meanwhile Bohemond, on the other side of the river, had driven off a Turkish advance guard, but he’d also lost contact with the Edessan army. Feeling uneasy, he marched ahead to assess the situation, only to find a stream of Edessan refugees fleeing across the river.
Bohemond, in his usual decisive command style, judged the situation lost, and immediately ordered a retreat. While virtually the whole of the Edessan contingent was destroyed, Bohemond managed to withdraw with the Antiochene army intact back into Christian territory.
The Turks had won a great victory over the crusaders. Count Baldwin himself was captured in the fighting, leaving Edessa defenseless. Jikirmish tried to attack Edessa, but Tancred rushed to the city’s defense, repulsing the Turks. Baldwin would remain in captivity until 1108, at which point he would return to ruling the County of Edessa.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Harran, Soqman and Jikirmish’s alliance fell apart, and the Turks weren’t able to follow up their victory with any considerable territorial gains. But the greatest impact of the battle was the fact that the crusaders were not able to capture Harran itself. A Christian-held Harran would’ve made the long-term defense of the County of Edessa far easier.

Image Credits:

Portrait of Bohemond by Gordon Napier:
https://dashinvaine.deviantart.com/ar...

Views of Harran:
by Alen Ištoković
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ca...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ca...

Location of the River Balikh
by Jcwf
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ca...