Battle of Azaz (1125)

Also known as Azaz

Following the catastrophic Frankish defeat at the Field of Blood in 1119, the Principality of Antioch was hanging by a thread, and Baldwin II of Jerusalem assumed the regency of the northern Crusader states to prevent their collapse. On 11 June 1125, near the small town of Azaz north of Aleppo, Baldwin assembled a coalition of 1,100 knights and 2,000 infantry drawn from Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli. They faced a Seljuk-Artuqid army of perhaps 15,000 under Aq-Sunqur il-Bursuqi and Toghtekin. Using disciplined feigned retreats to draw the Turkish horsemen out of formation, the Crusaders shattered the coalition for the loss of only 20 of their own — 5 of them knights — against between 1,000 and 5,000 Muslim casualties. The victory bought the northern states a decade of breathing room and demonstrated that European massed heavy cavalry could decisively beat Turkish horse-archer tactics when properly supported by infantry.

Coordinates: 36.5870°, 37.0410°

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