The First Crusade
Counter-Siege
The situation was hardly better than it had been for the Crusaders. While they were able to hold off an initial assault on 9 June, they had few supplies and Kerbogha was able to seal the city off. He would starve the Christians into surrender.
Alexius Comnenus very nearly came to the rescue. The Greeks had secured western Anatolia, and the Emperor was on the march to Antioch, likely to make sure the Crusaders turned over the Byzantine territories as promised. In any case, he was met on the road by Stephen of Blois
and other deserters who told him that the Crusaders were hopelessly trapped and that Antioch would fall any day. Moreover, the Danishmends were forming up again. Faced with the prospect of a Turkish army ahead of him and behind him, Alexius turned around and went home. To the Crusaders, it seemed as if the Emperor had abandoned them to the infidel. Stephen of Blois was branded a coward and upon his return to France his wife was so ashamed she refused to have anything to do with him.
Kerbogha continued to press the city hard. On 12 June he nearly captured one of the towers. The Crusaders were starving and struggled just to hold the four hundred towers that lined the city walls.
And then, even as the situation seemed hopeless, a miracle occurred.