The Franks were helpless in the face of the Mamluk
onslaught. They simply did not have the resources or the defensible borders necessary
to win a military confrontation with armies drawn from the entire region and subject
to centralised, professional control. Nor could they win a diplomatic game with
a power uninterested in coexistence or even economic self-interest.
It did not help that, except for Cyprus, the
crusader states had started to rot away from the inside. The problem was twofold.
On the one hand, the increasingly urban character of the state and the growth
in commercial activities had resulted in the Italian merchant states with their
poisonous rivalries playing a more dominant role. On the other hand, ever since
Frederick II had sailed away, the ruling dynasty had been absent from the
kingdom and disinterested in its fate.
The unity of the kingdom was shaken when the
bitter rivalry between the Venetians and the Genoese erupted into open warfare.
Not only did the parties engage in bloodshed on the streets of Acre, but the
militant orders took opposite sides, and the barons of the kingdom were
divided. Since there was no king present in the country, there was no forceful
central authority to enforce a settlement. The war ended with a sea battle
between the fleets of the respective rivals in which the Genoese lost half
their ships and an estimated 1,700 men. That hardly strengthened the kingdom,
even if it ended the immediate bloodshed.
The issue of absentee kings was arguably the
single most important factor that undermined the internal viability of the
crusader states in the thirteenth century. Even the long drawn out civil war is
only imaginable in the absence of the king. Had Frederick II been prepared to
stay in the Holy Land or to send his son Conrad to grow up and live there, the
rebel barons would not have stood a chance of effectively defying his
authority.
After the capture of Tyre, the barons recognised
as regent the closest relative of the absent Hohenstaufen monarch living in the
Holy Land. This is usually portrayed as a cynical attempt to retain control of
affairs, but instead should be seen as an effort to find a ruler with a stake
in the kingdom. The first of these regents had been the Dowager Queen of
Cyprus, Alice of Champagne. Alice was followed by her son King Henry I of
Cyprus until his death in 1253 and then by his son King Hugh II. The latter two
kings appointed regents of the Kingdom of Jerusalem who resided there and could
exercise a modicum of weak power, but they were not comparable to a resident
king such as those Jerusalem had throughout most of the twelfth century. Yet
worse was still to come.
In 1268, Conradin of Hohenstaufen died without
heirs, and a succession dispute broke out between King Hugh III of Cyprus and
Maria of Antioch. With a mercenary disregard for the well-being of the kingdom,
Maria of Antioch sold her claim to Charles d’Anjou, the younger brother of King
Louis of France. Charles, like the latter Hohenstaufens, never set foot in the
kingdom. He merely sent a baillie who successfully exploited self-interest and
personal vanity to undermine King Hugh’s authority. As a result, the latter abandoned
the Kingdom of Jerusalem in disgust and returned to Cyprus. By the time Charles
d’Anjou died in 1284, enabling Henry II of Cyprus to be recognised and crowned as
undisputed King of Jerusalem, the kingdom existed in name only.
Baybars and Qalawun had been systematically chipping
away at the substance of the kingdom, not only by open assault but by cutting
deals with individual lords and cities in a classic example of ‘divide and
conquer’. All these separate treaties were short-sighted as it must have been
obvious to all that no one city could withstand the Mamluks on their own. Yet
fear and weakness misled individual lords to cling to illusions even as the
world unraveled around them. Other lords gave up altogether, selling out to the
military orders, which were the only institutions that appeared to have the necessary
resources – based on their vast networks in the west – to stand up to the Mamluks.
By 1282 the kingdom had been reduced to nothing
but a collection of isolated cities and castles with little connection between
them, let alone a common government and policy. It was no longer possible to
travel overland between the various cities without a sizeable, armed escort. While
the cities became larger with walls enclosing larger urban areas, the
countryside became first depopulated and then hostile.
In 1285 the Mamluks captured the renowned Hospitaller
castle at Marqab. In 1287 the port of Latakia was taken. In 1289, despite a
truce then in effect, Qalawun attacked and captured Tripoli. As usual, he slaughtered
the men, enslaved the women and children, and then destroyed the harbor, castle
and fortifications, as well as the churches and other structures. In 1290
Qalawun died, but he was succeeded by a son as ruthless as himself, al-Ashraf
Khalil, who quashed several rebellions among his own emirs. The assault on the Franks
continued.
In April 1291, the siege of Acre began. At
this time, Acre had a population of roughly 20,000, and the walls had been
reinforced both by King Louis following his first crusade and by Edward of
England, who had briefly campaigned indecisively in the Holy Land in 1271-1272.
The Mamluks held an 11 to 1 manpower advantage and had brought numerous siege
engines and engineers to undermine the walls. The outcome was never in doubt. All
that was left to the Franks was what Balian d’Ibelin had promised Saladin at
Jerusalem in 1187: to die fighting and take as many of the enemy with them as
possible.
The Genoese didn’t feel like martyrs and
withdrew by ship at once. With them went those women, children and other
non-combatants who could afford passage. Left behind were predominantly
fighting men — the reverse of the 1187 situation in Jerusalem. Those willing to
fight and die for the honour of their already dead kingdom were the Venetians,
Pisans, Templars, Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights. The Templars and
Hospitallers were both commanded by their respective masters. Total forces are
estimated at roughly 14,000 fighting men, of which 700 were knights.
The Mamluks opened the siege with their
engines and conducted repeated assaults. On the night of 14-15 April, the
Templars attempted a night sortie against the Mamluks led by the Master William
de Beaujeu; the Hospitallers did likewise a few days later. Neither had any
significant impact on the enemy. Thereafter, the knights resigned themselves to
a defensive battle.
On 4 May, King Henry arrived from Cyprus with
several hundred knights and 500 infantry, but these forces were insufficient to
alter the balance of forces. Furthermore, the walls had been undermined, and
the hammering of the siege engines was taking its toll. King Henry tried to
negotiate and received a brusque rejection.
On 18 May, one of the towers collapsed after
being mined, forcing the defenders to abandon the large suburb of Montmusard.
They retreated to the old city but were unable to hold the onslaught that swept
in after them. Fighting became hand-to-hand and street-to-street. The Templar
Master took a mortal wound in the armpit, and two of his brothers carried him
on their shields to the Templar headquarters where he died. The Hospitaller
Master was also wounded, but not mortally. He was carried to a Hospitaller ship
in the harbor, which then put to sea. King Henry likewise took ship and
returned to Cyprus with as many of his men as he could collect. The Patriarch
of Jerusalem tried to depart, but he allowed so many swimmers into his longboat
while rowing out to a waiting galley that it capsized and sank.
With so many fleeing for the port, the defence
of the city collapsed altogether, and a bloodbath ensued. Those who could
sought refuge behind the walls of the Templar citadel, located in the southwest
corner of the city, backed up against the sea to the west and the harbor to the
south. It is unknown how many people ultimately found refuge here, but it must
have been hundreds, if not thousands. For five days, they remained inside while
Acre was looted and burned around them.
On 25 May, the Templar marshal negotiated a
surrender that would allow those inside to depart unharmed. When the gates were
opened, and the Mamluks entered, however, they began molesting the women and
children. This was either a misunderstanding, i.e., the Mamluks believed the
safe conduct applied only to fighting men, or the emir accepting the surrender
did not have control over his troops. The Templars, who were still armed,
responded by killing all the Saracens within their headquarters and then
defiantly raising the black-and-white Baucent over the ramparts again. As they
did so, they must have known that they thereby sealed all hopes of surrender.
The sultan sent for the Templar marshal the
next day, allegedly to renegotiate. The marshal, either foolish or seeking
martyrdom, went to meet his fate and was beheaded within sight of those in the
Templar citadel. The Mamluks undermined the walls of the citadel, causing a
breach on 28 May. As thousands of Saracens rushed in triumphantly, the entire
Temple crashed down, killing defenders and attackers alike.
Meanwhile, Tyre — which had withstood two
sieges by Saladin and provided the beachhead for the Third Crusade — was
evacuated May 19. This meant that all that remained of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
were Sidon, Beirut and the Templar castles of Tortosa and Athlit (Castle
Pilgrim). Sidon fell to assault in June. Beirut surrendered July 31, and the
Templar castles were evacuated August 3 and 14, respectively.
Unlike 1187, there was no foothold left from
which to launch a new crusade, and the loss of Acre did not trigger one. The
crusading spirit had become too diffused and weakened over the previous
century. Meanwhile, the Mamluk policy of economic destruction ensured that the
trading routes that had once passed through the Levant had shifted north across
what is now Turkey or south to Egypt. The once great cities were left in ruins,
plundered for stone by the peasants and reclaimed by the dunes, or partially
rebuilt as provincial towns. Once a flourishing crossroads of goods, technology
and culture, the entire region became a forgotten backwater for centuries to
come.
Of the crusader states, Cyprus alone remained
in Frankish hands. It took in the refugees of all religions and ethnic groups,
and for roughly a century, Famagusta became the commercial heir to Acre. But
that is another story.
The bulk of this entry is an excerpt from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.
Dr.
Helena P. Schrader is also the author of six books set in the Holy Land
in the Era of the Crusades.
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