A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (12 page)

Next May the Genoese armada of seventy galleys
which had helped Raymond of Toulouse to capture Jebail sailed into Haifa.
Baldwin met its leaders there and secured their alliance for the reduction of
Acre, promising the usual fee of one-third of the booty and commercial
privileges and a quarter in the bazaar. The allies began the siege on 6 May. The
Fatimid commander, the mameluk Bena Zahr ad-Daulah al-Juyushi, put up a
stubborn resistance; but he received no aid from Egypt. After twenty days he
offered to capitulate, on terms similar to those granted at Arsuf. Such
citizens as wished could leave safely with their movable belongings; the others
would become subjects of the Frankish king. Baldwin for his part accepted and
kept to these terms, even allowing a mosque to be reserved for his Moslem
subjects. But the Italian sailors could not bear to see so much wealth escape
them. They fell on the emigrants, slaying many and robbing them all. Baldwin
was furious. He would have attacked the Genoese to punish them had not the
Patriarch Evremar arrived and patched up a reconciliation.

1105: Third
Battle of Ramleh

The possession of Acre gave Baldwin what he
sorely needed, a harbour that was safe in all weathers. Though it was more than
a hundred miles from the capital, it at once became the chief port of the
kingdom, replacing Jaffa with its open roadstead. It was moreover the chief
port through which merchandize from Damascus was shipped to the West; and its
conquest by the Franks did not interrupt this traffic, to which the Moslems
still resident in Acre gave encouragement.

In the summer of 1105 the vizier al-Afdal made
a final attempt to reconquer Palestine. A well-equipped army of five thousand
Arab horsemen and Sudanese infantry, under his son Sena al-Mulk Husein,
assembled at Ascalon at the beginning of August. Profiting by the lessons of
their previous failures, the Egyptians decided to ask for the co-operation of
the Turkish rulers of Damascus. In 1102 or 1103 Damascene help would have been
invaluable. But Duqaq of Damascus had died in June 1104 and his family disputed
the inheritance with his atabeg Toghtekin, while Ridwan of Aleppo came south to
seek a share of it. Toghtekin first placed Duqaq’s one-year-old son Tutush on
the throne, then replaced him by Duqaq’s twelve-year-old brother, Irtash.
Irtash soon suspected his guardian’s intentions, and fled to the Hauran, whose
leading emir, Aytekin of Bosra, gave him asylum. From Bosra he appealed to King
Baldwin, who invited him to Jerusalem. Under these circumstances Toghtekin was
glad to help the Egyptians but could not venture to send a large force to join
them. He sent his general Sabawa south with thirteen hundred mounted archers.
In August the Egyptian army moved up into Palestine, where the Damascene troops
joined it, after having come down through Transjordan and across the Negeb.
Baldwin was waiting at Jaffa. When the Egyptian fleet hove into sight he took
up a position on the inevitable battlefield of Ramleh. Jaffa was kept under the
command of Lithard of Cambrai, with three hundred men. With Baldwin was the
young Damascene pretender, Irtash, and the whole of the rest of the Frankish
troops in Palestine, the garrisons of Galilee, Haifa and Hebron as well as the
central army, five hundred horsemen and two thousand infantry. At Baldwin’s
request the Patriarch Evremar came down from Jerusalem with one hundred and
fifty men that he had recruited there and with the True Cross.

The battle took place on Sunday, 27 August. At
dawn the Patriarch rode up and down in front of the Frankish lines, in his full
robes, the Cross in his hand, giving his blessing and absolution. Then the
Franks attacked. A counter-attack by the Damascene Turks nearly broke their
ranks; but Baldwin, taking his standard into his own hands, led a charge that
scattered them. The Egyptians fought more bravely than usual; but their left
wing had gone off in a vain attempt to surprise Haifa, and returned too late.
By evening the Moslems were beaten. Sabawa and his Turks fled back to their own
land, and the Egyptians retreated on Ascalon, whence their commander, Sena
al-Mulk, hurried back to Cairo. Their losses had been heavy. The governor of
Ascalon was slain, and the ex-commanders of Acre and Arsuf captured and later
ransomed at a high price. Fulcher of Chartres could not help regretting that
Sena al-Mulk had escaped, because of the rich ransom that he would have
commanded. But the Frankish losses also were heavy. After pillaging their camp
Baldwin did not further pursue the Egyptians. Nor did he continue his support
of the young Prince Irtash, who retired disconsolate to ar-Rahba on the Euphrates.
The Egyptian fleet sailed back to Egypt, having achieved nothing except the
loss of some ships in a storm.

1106-8: Attacks
on the Moslem Coastal Cities

This third battle of Ramleh ended the last
large-scale attempt of the Fatimids to reconquer Palestine. But they still were
dangerous to the Franks; and a smaller raid in the autumn of 1106 nearly
succeeded where their greater armies had failed. That October, when Baldwin was
engaged on the Galilean frontier, some thousand Egyptian horsemen suddenly
attacked a pilgrim camp between Jaffa and Arsuf and massacred its inhabitants.
They then rode on Ramleh, which was defended only by eight knights, who were
easily overwhelmed. The governor of Jaffa, Roger of Rozoy, went out against
them but fell into an ambush and only extricated himself by flying headlong
back to Jaffa. So hotly was he pursued that forty of his foot-soldiers were
caught outside the gates and slain. Next, the Egyptians rode up towards
Jerusalem, and attacked a small castle, Chastel Arnaud, that Baldwin had not
quite completed to guard the road. The workmen surrendered, but were killed,
with the exception of their commander, Geoffrey, Castellan of the Tower of
David, who was taken off to be ransomed. But by now Baldwin had heard of the
raid and marched south in force. The Egyptians retired to Ascalon.

The following year an Egyptian expedition
nearly captured Hebron, but was driven off by Baldwin in person; and in 1110
the Egyptians penetrated to the walls of Jerusalem, only to retire at once.
Similar raids on a lesser scale took place from time to time during the next
ten years, rendering life unsafe for Christian settlers and pilgrims in the
coastal plain and in the Negeb; but they became little more than reprisals for
Baldwin’s own raids into Moslem territory.

Baldwin therefore felt free to continue his
attempt to expand the kingdom. His chief objectives were the coastal cities,
Ascalon in the south and Tyre, Sidon and Beirut in the north. Both Ascalon and
Tyre were strong fortresses with a large permanent garrison; their reduction
would need careful preparation. In the spring of 1106 the presence in the Holy
Land of a large convoy of English, Flemish and Danish pilgrims induced Baldwin
to plan an expedition against Sidon. The governor of Sidon, learning of this,
hastened to send the King an enormous sum of money. Baldwin, always in need of
money, accepted the gift; and for two years Sidon was left in peace.

In August 1108 Baldwin marched out again
against Sidon, with the support of a squadron of sailor-adventurers from
various Italian cities. The governor at once hired the support of the Turks of
Damascus for thirty thousand besants, while a powerful Egyptian squadron sailed
up from Egypt and defeated the Italians in a sea-battle outside the harbour.
Baldwin was obliged to raise the siege. Thereupon the Sidonians refused to
admit the Turks into the city, fearing, with some reason, that Toghtekin had
designs on it. The governor even refused to pay the promised besants. The Turks
threatened to summon back Baldwin; but when he showed signs of returning they
agreed to retire, with nine thousand besants as compensation.

Next summer Baldwin assisted Bertrand of
Toulouse to capture Tripoli; and in return, early in 1110, Bertrand sent men to
help Baldwin attack Beirut. Genoese and Pisan ships were at hand to blockade
the town; and Tripoli provided them with a convenient base. Fatimid ships from
Tyre and Sidon tried in vain to break the blockade. The siege lasted from
February till mid-May, when the governor, despairing of further help, fled by
night through the Italian fleet to Cyprus, where he gave himself up to the
Byzantine governor. The city that he had abandoned was taken by assault on 13
May. The Italians conducted a general massacre of the inhabitants before
Baldwin could restore order.

1110: Capture of
Sidon

During that summer further naval reinforcements
reached Baldwin from the West. In 1107 a fleet set out from Bergen in Norway
under Sigurd, who shared the Norwegian throne with his two brothers, and,
sailing across the North Sea and round by Gibraltar, calling on the way in
England, Castile, Portugal, the Balearic Islands and Sicily, arrived at Acre
just as Baldwin was returning from the capture of Beirut. Sigurd was the first
crowned head to visit the kingdom; and Baldwin received him with great honour,
conducting him personally to Jerusalem. Sigurd agreed to help the Franks to
besiege Sidon. The allies began the siege in October. Sidon was vigorously
defended. The Norwegian ships were nearly dispersed by a powerful Fatimid
flotilla from Tyre, but were saved by the arrival of a Venetian squadron, under
the command of the Doge himself, Ordelafo Falieri. Meanwhile, the governor of
Sidon devised a plan for Baldwin’s assassination. A renegade Moslem in Baldwin’s
personal service agreed for a large sum to undertake the murder. But the native
Christians in Sidon heard of the plot and shot an arrow with a message fixed on
it into the Frankish camp to warn the King. Sidon eventually capitulated on 4
December, on the same terms that had been granted to Acre. The notables of the
town left with all their belongings for Damascus; but the poorer folk remained
and became subjects of the Frankish king; who promptly levied from them a tax
of twenty thousand gold besants. The Venetians were rewarded by the gift of a
church and some property at Acre. Sidon was entrusted as a barony to Eustace
Gamier, who was already governor of Caesarea, and who soon after consolidated
his position by his politic marriage to the Patriarch Arnulf’s niece Emma.

The Franks now controlled the whole of the
Syrian coast, with the exception of the two fortresses of Ascalon at the
southern end and Tyre in the centre. The governor of Tyre was nervous. In the
autumn of 1111 he sent to Toghtekin at Damascus to hire from him for the sum of
twenty thousand besants a corps of five hundred archers, and at the same time
he asked permission for himself and his notables to send their more valuable
possessions to Damascus for their preservation. Toghtekin agreed; and a rich
caravan containing the money and the goods set out from the coast. As it had to
pass through the country held by the Franks, the Tyrian governor, Izz al-Mulk,
bribed a Frankish knight called Rainfred to guide it and to guarantee its safety.
Rainfred accepted the terms and promptly informed Baldwin; who fell upon the
unsuspecting Tyrians and robbed them of all their wealth. Encouraged by this
windfall Baldwin brought up his whole army at the end of November to attack the
walls of Tyre. But he had no fleet to help him, apart from twelve Byzantine
vessels under the Byzantine ambassador Butumites; and the Byzantines were not
prepared to take hostile action against the Fatimids, with whom their relations
were good, unless they were given serious compensation. They demanded that
Baldwin should in return help them to recover the cities that they had lost to
the princes of Antioch. As Baldwin hesitated to commit himself, the Byzantines
did no more than supply the Frankish army with provisions. The siege of Tyre
lasted till the following April. The Tyrians fought well, burning down the huge
wooden siege-towers that Baldwin had constructed; but at least they were
reduced to seeking aid from Toghtekin. Before taking this step Izz al-Mulk
wrote to the Egyptian court to justify his action. Toghtekin’s first attempt to
establish contact failed, as a carrier-pigeon was intercepted by an Arab in
Frankish service. His Frankish comrade wished to let the bird go, but he took
it to Baldwin. Men were sent in disguise to meet the Damascene ambassadors, who
were captured and put to death. But nevertheless Toghtekin advanced on Tyre,
surprising a Frankish foraging party and besieging the Franks in their camp
while he raided the countryside. Baldwin was obliged to lift the siege and to
fight his way back to Acre.

1105:
Castles
in Galilee

He was equally unsuccessful at Ascalon. He had
marched against the fortress immediately after his capture of Sidon. The
governor, Shams al-Khilafa, being commercially minded, was weary of all this
fighting. He bought an armistice for a sum which he then tried to levy from the
people of Tyre, which was under his jurisdiction. His actions were reported to
Egypt; and al-Afdal sent loyal troops there with orders to depose him. Shams al-Khilafa,
suspecting their purpose, refused to admit them, and even dismissed those of
his troops that he suspected of Fatimid sympathies, recruiting Armenian
mercenaries in their place. He then went himself to Jerusalem to put himself
and his city under Baldwin’s protection. He returned with three hundred
Frankish soldiers whom he installed in the citadel. But this treason shocked
the Ascalonites. In July 1111, with help from Egypt, they staged a
coup d’etat,
murdering Shams and massacring the Franks. Baldwin hurried down to rescue his
men but arrived too late. Ascalon was to remain a thorn in the Franks’ flesh
for another forty years.