Crusade of 1101 destroyed at Mersivan

August 15, 1101

Three waves of Lombard, French, and Bavarian pilgrims, swollen with confidence after Jerusalem's fall, marched into the Anatolian plateau and were cut to pieces by Kilij Arslan's Turks. Among the dead were veterans who had walked to the Holy Sepulchre and turned back for more. The catastrophe demonstrated that the First Crusade's success had owed as much to Muslim disunity as to Frankish valor.