On the morning of the 28th of June 1119, a fierce battle was fought out in the borderlands

between the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Antioch. It was a confrontation waged during a time of gradual Antiochene expansion into the adjacent

territories and towns of the east. And whether either side realized it at the time, it was a battle

that would go on to define the entire future history of the Crusades. It was the critical turning point when the Franks

might have become masters of the entire region by conquering the metropolis of Aleppo.

Or fail and be gradually pushed back to the sea unless they could conquer another strategically important city like

Damascus or Cairo. Yet, much to the dismay of the Crusaders, the battle went the

other way. On the dust and sands of that brutal field, later remembered simply as the

field of blood due to the ferocity of the fighting,

an entire generation of warriors was cut down.

Nearly the entirety of the elite Antiochene army.

Knights and warriors who had served the city for two decades, Many of them having followed their liege lords

all the way from the bloodbath of southern Italy,

across Anatolia and into Syria.

On that day, on a desolate plain

near the border town of Samada,

their journey came to an end.

Unhorced by Wave Aux Their journey came to an end. Unhorsed by wave after wave of howling Turkmen warriors,

reigning down arrows upon him and his men that blotted out the sky.

The heavily armoured Prince of Antioch, Roger of Salerno,

the last Norman leader of the glory days of Giscard and Bowman, continued to fight valiantly atop the hill, surrounded by loyal Armenian and Frankish knights.

As he swung his great long sword about him, his giant cross banner resplendent in the air above, Roger was cut down in the thick of the fighting,

...