They were provided with stores, and had skilled workmen capable of making the machines for the siege.

On July 14, 1099, the attack was made, and after resistance gallant and desperate as the assault, the Crusaders burst into the city, massacred the whole of the defenders and inhabitants, calculated at seventy thousand in number, and so became masters of the holy sepulcher.
"The Sultan of Egypt was meanwhile advancing to the assistance of the Mohammedans of Syria; but Godfrey, with twenty thousand of his best men, advanced to meet the vast host, and scattered them as if they had been sheep.

Godfrey was now chosen King of Jerusalem, and the rest of his army--save three hundred knights and two hundred soldiers, who agreed to remain with him--returned to their home.

The news of the victory led other armies of Crusaders to follow the example of that of Godfrey; but as these were almost as completely without organization or leadership as those of Peter the Hermit, they suffered miserably on their way, and few indeed ever reached the Holy Land.

Godfrey died in 1100, and his brother Baldwin succeeded him.
"The history of the last hundred years has been full of fresh efforts to crush the Moslem power, but hitherto it cannot be said that fortune has attended the efforts of the Christians.