The Sixth to the Ninth Crusade, the Final One

 

In the previous blog we read from the Second Crusade till the Fifth Crusade and saw that Jerusalem was in the hands of Muslims since 1187 and the successive Crusades were notable to recapture it. In this bog we will check on the Sixth Crusade on until the final Crusade the Ninth one and see the further developments.

Sixth Crusade: 1228-1229

This crusade with the objective of recapturing Jerusalem commenced seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade. Gregory IX was the Pope and the king of Germans Frederick II who had earlier promised to take the cross, but couldn’t accompany the Fifth Crusade, for he was involved in a power struggle with the Pope who refused to crown him the Holy Roman Emperor. Finally he was crowned the Emperor in 1220 by the Pope. Thereafter the King tried to take up the cross, but again delayed it and the impatient Pope excommunicated him! Frederick by that time got married to Isabella II, the heiress to the throne of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The King went ahead with the voyage despite the excommunication and set by way of sea with an army of 10,000 infantry and 4000 knights in June 1228. He reached Acre in September 1228.

Surprisingly no fighting took place, but Frederick got Jerusalem back! The Islamic Sultan of Egypt Al-Kamal, son of Saladin, was occupied with siege in Damascus, Syria by his own brother and thereafter by his nephew. Hence he was agreeable to the peace proposal of Frederick and ceded the possession of Jerusalem to the Franks, along with a narrow corridor to the sea coast. The King also received Nazareth, Sidon, Jaffa, Bethlehem and Nazareth. Muslims retained their control over the Temple Mount, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. Sultan also got a ten year no-war truce from Frederick. This treaty was signed at Jaffa in February 1229.

Frederick entered Jerusalem in March 1229; by that time, in May 1228 Isabella had died in child birth leaving the infant child Conrad. This did not prevent the King from crowning himself as the King of Jerusalem, which was disliked by the local lords and nobles and thereafter he returned to Europe in May 1229. That was the only Crusade to succeed without military intervention and papal support. It is called Frederick’s Crusade in honour of the king who accomplished this feat.

Seventh Crusade: 1248-1254

 In August 1244 Jerusalem was retaken by Khorezmians, allies of Ayyubid Dynasty, consisting of cruel nomadic tribes; they brutally murdered the Frankish Christians and desecrated the sacred sites. In October 1244 Ayyubid Muslims defeated the Franks in the battle near Gaza. Ayyubid dynasty was being ruled by al- Salih, the second son of al-Kamil, and grandson of Sultan Saladin. Except for the coastal strip of Levant, the Muslims controlled Egypt, Aleppo, Damascus, and half of Arabia.

The Latin East, the Crusader States in Levant appealed to the West for armed help. Pope Innocent IV responded and called for the Seventh Crusade. Church went preaching the crusade and many nobles, counts and knights responded; most of all King Louis of France took up the cross and led the army to the Holy Land. In a flurry to raise funds for the Crusade, tax hikes were imposed, churches contributed, Jews in France expelled, and their properties confiscated. The army left from the port of Genoa and food and provisions were stockpiled in Cyprus. Knights of Templar and Hospitaller and Teutonic knights joined them. They all added up to 18,000 men including 2500 knights and 5000 crossbowmen. The plan was to capture Damietta, then march to Cairo and having taken Egypt, thereafter to attack the Muslims in Levant and free Jerusalem.

The Egyptians had by now fortified Damietta well. Sultan Salih had the support of Mamluk regiment in Egypt, who belonging to Kipchak Turks and were kidnapped as boys from Russian steppe, and raised as warriors with strict military training and loyalty to the Sultan. Crusaders landed near Damietta and captured it easily in June 1249. If they had immediately attacked Mansourah and thereafter Cairo, they could have made it. But King Louis waited for his brother to join with his forces and it was only by November 1249, they moved against Mansourah, giving the Muslims adequate time to get prepared. The whole army with horses and provisions and tents moved slowly south and camped. An advanced party went to scout but it mounted full attack on the enemy before the other knights could join them. Further they pursued the fleeing enemy and went into the city of Mansourah where in the narrow streets and gullies they got stuck without knowing the terrain and the Muslims regrouped and attacked them and decimated them.

Louis retreated; his army was reduced greatly by disease, starvation and the attacks from the enemy and reached Damietta. There the army surrendered to the Sultan and the King himself was captured. He was ransomed at a heavy price of 400,000 livres tournoi, six times the annual income of the King of France in those days. Still the King, after his release stayed in Levant for four more years, spending the time refortifying Acre and other strongholds of Sidon, Jaffe and Caesarea. The Seventh Crusade was a great flop.

Eighth Crusade: 1270

The then international scene changed rapidly. Mongols were in the ascendency and had captured Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. They had taken Aleppo and Damascus from the Ayyubid dynasty. But they were defeated by the Mamluks under the leadership of Baybars in 1260 in Egypt. The Mamluks captured Caesarea, Arsuf and Antioch by 1268. The Latin East was at the point of obliteration and appealed to the West.

King Louis of France took up the cross again in 1267 and Pope Clement IV backed him up. A general call was made for the nobles and knights in Europe to join and help the Christians in Levant. Preachers went around preaching the crusade message and collected money for the cause. Ships were hired from Marseille and Genoa and in 1969 they boarded. The plan was to attack Egypt from North Africa and then proceed to liberate Jerusalem and the other Crusader States. Crusaders landed in Tunis in July 1270 and set camp at Carthage, but disease and lack of clean water and inadequate provisions ravaged the camp. Unfortunately for them King Louis himself died of dysentery in August 1270; so also his son John Tristan. His demoralized army returned to Europe. King Louis was made a Saint in 1297 for his religious fervo
r and leading two Crusades to free Jerusalem.

Ninth Crusade: 1271-1272

This was but an extension of the Eighth Crusade and the main actor was Lord Edward of England who took the cross in 1268. He and his army left Dover by ship in 1270. He arrived at Tunis in November 1270 with 1000 crusaders and 225 knights. There he learnt that king Louis had died and that his army had returned to Europe. However Edward opted to continue and reach the Holy Land. He arrived at Acre in May 1271. His presence made the Muslim forces to temporarily retreat. Edward made a truce with Muslims in May 1272 that they should protect the Christian held States. By that time he received news that his father, King in England had died and also his young son; so he returned immediately to England and was crowned the King of England in August 1274.

This was the last Crusade. In 1291 Acre, the last of the Crusader States, fell to Muslims and the Latin East or the Crusader States effectively came to an end. What was established as Crusader States in Levant by the European counts and nobles, mostly from France in 1095 came to an end in 1291. It can be described as the end of a major historical event with huge repercussions. Jerusalem will remain in the hands of Muslims till the Ottoman Empire disintegrated after the First World War, 1919. Mandate of Jerusalem was given to Britain and in 1948 under pressure from Zionist, and the Nation of Israel was formed as the homeland for the war-ravaged Jews. Effects of that event are still reverberating in the Middle East. 

We will see the repercussions of these Nine Crusades in the next blog.

Till then Good bye and God keep you blessed.