How one man’s betrayal led to the fall of the mighty fortress of Antioch on 3 June 1098.
Let’s get innit.
No you haven’t. Not this angle.
Our story this week is set within the complex backdrop of the First Crusade (1096–1099), the colossal Christian quest to capture the city of Jerusalem. Considered by the Scottish historian David Hume as “the most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation,” the First Crusade has forever gripped the fascination of mankind since the Middle Ages. Because it’s just so bloody crazy. The scope of the so called war of the Cross is breathtaking, and has inspired an endless body of epics, romances, myths, legends, and more recently Hollywood blockbusters.
(Spoiler: I’ve got no romances for you, sorry. Just a fascinating look at how individual agendas shape the world, literally.)
Lying on the slopes of the Orontes Valley, at the foot of the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range (modern day southern Turkey), is a mammoth fortress that would tell Helm’s Deep to sit down and shut up. Antioch covers more than 3.5 square miles (9 km²) and “…is so protected…
