A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 by Steven Runciman Page A

continual
desire to migrate beyond its boundaries. In the tenth century Turkestan was
ruled by the Persian dynasty of the Samanids, whose chief role in history was
their conversion of the Turks of central Asia to Islam. Henceforward the eyes
of the Turks were directed towards the lands of south-western Asia and the
eastern Mediterranean.
    The Samanids were displaced by the first great
Moslem Turk, Mahmud the Ghaznavid, who during the first decades of the eleventh
century built up a great empire stretching from Ispahan to Bokhara and Lahore.
Meanwhile Turkish soldiers of fortune were penetrating the whole Moslem world,
much as the Normans were penetrating Christian Europe. Turkish regiments were
maintained by the Caliph at Baghdad and by many other Moslem rulers. Amongst
the subjects of the Ghaznavids was a clan of Ghuzz Turks from the Aral steppes,
called from the name of a semi-mythical ancestor the Seldjuks. The Seldjuk
princes formed a group of adventurers, jealous of each other but uniting to
secure the advancement of the family, not unlike the sons of Tancred de
Hauteville. But, luckier than the Normans whose compatriots were few, they
could call upon the support of the vast, restless hordes of Turcomans. After
Mahmud’s death in 1030 they rose against the Ghaznavids and by 1040 had driven
them to take refuge in their Indian domains. In 1050 Tughril Bey, the senior
prince of the house, entered Ispahan and made it the capital of a state
comprising Persia and Khorassan, while his brothers and cousins established themselves
on his northern borders, forming a loose confederation that acknowledged his
overlordship and freely raiding the countries around. In 1055, on the
invitation of the Abbasid Caliph, who had been terrified by the intrigues of
his Turkish minister Basasiri with the Fatimids, Tughril entered Baghdad as the
champion of Sunni Islam, and was made king of the East and the West, with
supreme temporal power over all the lands that owed spiritual allegiance to the
Caliph.
     
    The End of
Armenia
    There had been Turkish raids into Armenia as
far back as the reign of Basil II, while the Seldjuks were still under
Ghaznavid rule; and it was to protect his empire against the Turks that Basil
had inaugurated the policy of the piecemeal annexation of Armenia. After the Seldjuk
conquest of Persia the raids became more frequent. Tughril Bey himself only
once took part, in 1054, when he devastated the country round Lake Van but
failed to take the fortress of Manzikert. The raiding armies were usually led
by his cousins, Asan and Ibrahim Inal. In 1047 they had been defeated by the
Byzantines before Erzerum, and during the next years they concentrated on
attacking the Georgian allies of the Empire. In 1052 they ravaged Kars; in 1056
and 1057 they were again in Armenia. In 1057 Melitene was sacked. In 1059
Turkish troops advanced for the first time into the heart of imperial
territory, to the town of Sebastea.
    Tughril Bey died in 1063. He himself had not
taken much interest in his north-western frontier. But his nephew and successor,
Alp Arslan, nervous of a possible alliance between the Byzantines and the
Fatimids, sought to protect himself from the former by the conquest of Armenia
before he pursued his main objective against the latter. Raids into the Empire
were intensified. In 1064 the old Armenian capital of Ani was destroyed; and
the prince of Kars, the last independent Armenian ruler, gladly handed over his
lands to the Emperor in return for estates in the Taurus mountains. Large
numbers of Armenians accompanied him to his new home. From 1065 onwards the
great frontier-fortress of Edessa was yearly attacked; but the Turks were as
yet inexpert in siege warfare. In 1066 they occupied the passes of the Amanus
mountains, and next spring they sacked the Cappadocian metropolis, Caesarea.
Next winter Byzantine armies were defeated at Melitene and at Sebastea. These
victories gave the Turks full control of Armenia. During the