The first Crusade was one of the most spectacular military campaigns in history to lay claim to the Holy Lands. Ever since the defeat in Manzikert in 1071, where the Christian Eastern Romans practically lost all of their eastern lands to the Muslim Seljuk Turks. The Empire stood on the verge of total collapsed. The Christians were concerned of the long term survival of the Empire. So, in the fateful day of October 1081, Robert Guiscard the foremost commander of the Norman knights in Southern Italy engaged Emperor Alexious in battle of Heracleum. The commander of the Norman Knights was Bohemond of Taranto-the giant of a man if the sources we believe, and one of the most effective military commanders of the age.
By 1100's two decades after the battle of Heracleum, Bohemond had found himself playing an integral role in the largest military expedition since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, he also achieve his goals by carving out himself a kingdom, and establishing a dynasty that would outlast both his father's back in Italy and his kinsman William the Conqueror in England. The First European Crusade were about to begin.
In 1097, Bohemond was campaigning against rebellious Lords in southern Italy when he came into contact with Crusaders fired up by religious fervor passing through his lands on their way to Constantinople. Bohemond decided to take part on these vast religious Crusade being called by the Pope Urban II in the Council of Clermont two years previously to lend aid to Christian Byzantine against Muslim Seljuk Turkic attacks in the East.
Bohemond gathered a large Norman army, one of the finest in the Crusading host. Together, they crossed the Adriatic Sea upon arriving in Constantinople in April 1097 he paid homage to Emperor Alexious. After some brief negotiations the Emperor ferried the army across the Bosphorus into Asia Minor and unleashed them upon the Muslim Turks, after conquering the city of Nicea for the Empire the Crusaders continued on into the harsh unforgiving plains of Anatolia.
Due to his decade of military experience, Bohemond established himself as the de-facto leader of the expedition forming the vanguard of the army. It says much to Bohemond's leadership that the First Crusade succeeded in crossing Asia Minor, where the later Crusades of 1101, 1147 and 1189 all failed to do so. The greatest challenge came out at Doryleaum, when Bohemond's twenty-thousand strong force were ambushed by the Sultan of Rum. Bohemond and Robert with Tancred alongside it held their line and by the time when the rest of the thirty-thousand Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse arrived, he led the charged against the Muslim Turks forcing them into a full retreat. They would not bother the Crusaders again, during their march to the Holy Lands.
The Crusade then continued on, until it eventually arrived at the walls of Antioch, finally in June the City fell and Bohemond installed himself as Prince of Antioch. The rest of the Crusader army continued on into Jerusalem and after a fierce siege-the Holy City fell. Antioch became a unique enclave of Latin and Greek Christianity in the East and the major player in the various Crusades for the next two-hundred years. Bohemond died before ever returning back to Antioch, by the end of his life the Latin dynasty that he established survived there longer than his family members in Italy and his kinsman in England

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