The second siege of Antioch was to be a desperate affair. From the outset it was clear that it would be very different from the first siege, for both sides must have recognised that it would be fairly short. The crusaders had broken into a city with food supplies depleted after a nine-month siege. Some effort was made to purchase food at St Symeon, but the speed of Kerbogah's arrival meant that there was simply no time. Sitting out the siege was, therefore, not an option for the crusaders. In any case their military situation was quite different from that of the earlier defenders for the enemy controlled the citadel which was commanded by Kerbogah's man Ahmad ibn-Marwan, and far outnumbered the crusaders even if seven to one is an exaggeration. It is unfortunate that there are no good estimates of the size of Kerbogah's army but it was very large. The crusader army must have been very reduced and even before the fall of Antioch there were further desertions when news came of the approach of Kerbogah's army, although they were in part compensated for by troops coming in from outlying places. Their numbers cannot have been as high as 30,000, including non-combatants, and were probably much lower so Kerbogah's army could quite credibly have been twice or three times the size.