A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (36 page)

The loss of Damietta had shocked the
Moslem world. But, while the Franks hesitated, the dying Sultan took action.
Like his father thirty years before, he offered to buy back Damietta with the
cession of Jerusalem. The offer was rejected; King Louis still refused to treat
with an infidel. Meanwhile Ayub punished the generals responsible for the loss
of the city. The emirs of the Banu Kinana were executed, and Fakhr ad-Din was
disgraced, along with the chief Mameluk commanders. The Mameluks wished to
carry out a palace-revolution. But Fakhr ad-Din dissuaded them; and
his loyalty restored him to the
Sultan’s favour. Troops were rushed up to Mansourah, the town whose name means ‘victorious’,
built by Sultan al-Kamil on the site of his triumph over the Fifth Crusade.
Ayub himself was carried there in his litter to organize the army. Bedouin
guerrilla-fighters were let loose on the countryside and would creep right up
to the walls of Damietta, killing any Frank that strayed outside. Louis was
obliged to erect dykes and dig ditches to protect his camp.

The Nile waters went down at the end of
October. About the same time, on 24 October, Louis’s second brother, Alfonso of
Poitou, arrived with the reinforcements from France. It was time to advance on
Cairo. Peter of Brittany, supported by the barons of Outremer, then suggested
that it would be wiser to attack Alexandria. The Egyptians would be surprised
by such a move. The Crusaders had enough ships to cross the branches of the
Nile; and once they had taken Alexandria they would control the whole
Mediterranean littoral of Egypt. The Sultan would be forced to make terms. But
the King’s brother, Robert of Artois, passionately opposed such a project, and
the King took his part. On 20 November the Frankish army set out from Damietta,
along the southern road to Mansourah. A strong garrison was left behind in the
city with the Queen and the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

1249: The Crusaders Advance towards Mansourah

Fortune seemed to favour King Louis; for
Sultan Ayub was now on his deathbed. He died at Mansourah three days later, on
the 23rd. He had been a grim, solitary man, with nothing of the affability, the
liberality or the love of learning of most of his kin. His health was
consistently poor; and it may be that his Sudanese blood set him consciously
apart from the rest of his family, whose Kurdish descent was unimpaired. But he
was an able ruler and the last great member of the great Ayubite dynasty. His
death
threatened
the Moslems with disaster; for his only son, Turanshah, was far away, acting as
Viceroy in the Jezireh. Egypt was saved by the widowed Sultana, the
Armenian-born Shajar ad-Durr. Confiding in the eunuch Jamal ad-Din Mohsen, who
controlled the palace, and in Fakhr ad-Din, she concealed her husband’s death
and forged a document under his signature which appointed Turanshah as heir and
Fakhr ad-Din as generalissimo and viceroy during the Sultan’s illness. When the
news of Ayub’s death eventually leaked out, the Sultana and Fakhr ad-Din were
firmly in power, and Turanshah was on his way to Egypt. But the Franks were
encouraged to hear of it. It seemed to them that this government of a woman and
an aged general would soon collapse. They pressed on their march towards Cairo.

The road from Damietta was cut by
numberless canals and branches of the Nile, of which the largest was the Bahr
as-Saghir, which left the main river just below Mansourah and ran past
Ashmun-Tannah to Lake Manzaleh, thus cutting off the so-called Island of
Damietta. Fakhr ad-Din kept the bulk of his forces behind the Bahr as-Saghir,
but sent cavalry to harass the Franks as they crossed each canal. None of these
skirmishes was successful in holding up the Frankish advance. King Louis
proceeded slowly and cautiously. There was a battle near Fariskur on 7
December, where the Egyptian cavalry was repulsed, and the Templars, in
defiance of the King’s orders, insisted on pursuing the fugitives too far and
had some difficulty in rejoining their comrades. On 14 December the King
reached Baramun, and on the 21st his army encamped on the banks of the Bahr
as-Saghir, opposite to Mansourah.

For six weeks the armies faced each other
across the wide canal. An attempt by the Egyptian cavalry to cross into the
island of Damietta lower down and attack the Franks in the rear was beaten off
near the camp by Charles of Anjou. Meanwhile Louis ordered the construction of
a dyke to bridge the stream; but, though he built covered galleries to protect
the workmen, the Egyptian bombardment from the other bank, and in particular
the use of Greek fire, was so formidable that the work was abandoned. Early in
February 1250, a Copt from Salamun came to the King’s camp and offered to
reveal for 500 besants the whereabouts of a ford across the Bahr as-Saghir. On
8 February, at dawn, the Crusaders set out across the ford. The Duke of
Burgundy was left with strong forces to maintain the camp; while King Louis
travelled with the advancing army. His brother, Robert of Artois, led the van,
with the Templars and the English contingent. He was given stern orders not to
attack the Egyptians till the King gave permission. The difficult passage was
successfully achieved, but it was slow. Once he was himself across the river
with his men, the Count of Artois feared that unless he attacked the enemy at
once, the element of surprise would be lost. The Templars vainly reminded him
of his instructions; but when he insisted on advancing, they agreed to
accompany the charge. His rashness was justified. The Egyptian camp, some two
miles out of Mansourah, was beginning its daily round quite unsuspecting, when
suddenly the Frankish cavalry thundered into its midst. Many of the Egyptians
were slaughtered as they hurried to find their arms. Others fled half-clad to
the safety of Mansourah. The generalissimo Fakhr ad-Din had just left his bath
and a valet was dyeing his beard with henna when he heard the uproar. Without
waiting to don his armour he leapt on to his horse and rode out into the
battle. He found himself in the midst of some Templar knights, who hacked him
down.

1250: Battle of Mansourah

Robert of Artois was now master of the
Egyptian camp. Once again the Grand Master of the Temple begged him to wait
till the King and the main army were over the ford and had joined him, and
William of Salisbury too advised caution. But Robert was determined to capture
Mansourah and finish off the Egyptian army. After denouncing the Templars and
the English as cowards, he rallied his men and charged once more into the
fleeing Egyptians; and once more the Templars and William felt obliged to
follow him. Though Fakhr ad-Din was dead, the Mameluk commanders managed to
restore discipline among their troops; and the ablest of them, Rukn ad-Din Baibars,
surnamed Bundukdari, ‘the arbalestier’, took control. He stationed his men at
crucial points within the town itself, then let the Frankish cavalry come
pouring in through the open gate. When the French knights, with the Templars
close behind them, swept up to the very walls of the citadel, the Mameluks
rushed out on them from the side-streets. The Frankish horses could not easily
turn in the narrow space and at once were thrown into confusion. A few knights
escaped on foot to the banks of the Nile, only to drown in its waters. A few
others managed to extricate themselves from the town. The Templars fell
fighting in the streets; only five out of their two hundred and ninety knights
survived. Robert of Artois barricaded himself and his bodyguard in a house, but
the Egyptians soon burst in and massacred them all. Amongst the knights that
fell in the battle were the Earl of Salisbury and almost all his English
followers, the Lord of Coucy and the Count of Brienne. Peter of Brittany had
been with them in the vanguard, and was severely wounded on the head. But he
succeeded in riding back out of the town and hurried to warn the King.

The Crusading army had almost entirely
crossed the Bahr as-Saghir. On hearing of the disaster Louis at once drew up
his front line to meet an attack, and meanwhile sent his engineers to make a
bridge over the stream. The corps of crossbowmen had been left on the far side,
in order that they could if necessary cover the crossing; and he was anxious
for them to join him. As he expected, the victorious Mameluks soon charged out
of the town into his lines. Louis firmly held back his men while the enemy
poured arrows into their ranks; then, as soon as the Mameluks’ ammunition began
to run short, he ordered a counter-charge. His cavalry swept the Saracens back;
but they soon re-formed and charged again, while detachments tried to hinder
the building of the pontoon. The King himself was almost forced back into the
canal, but another counter-charge saved him. At last, towards sundown, the pontoon
was finished and the bowmen crossed over. Their coming gave the King the
victory. The Egyptians retired again into Mansourah; and Louis set up his camp
on the spot where they had camped the night before. It was only then that he
learned from the Acting Grand-Master of the Hospital that his brother had been
killed. He broke down in tears.

1250: Turanshah takes Command of the Moslems

The Crusaders were victorious, but it had
been a costly victory. Had Robert of Artois not led his wild foray into Mansourah,
they might have felt strong enough to attempt to attack the town later, though
they would have been opposed by war-engines better than their own. As it was,
there was nothing to be done. The situation was ominously reminiscent of the
Fifth Crusade, when the Christian army that had captured Damietta was held up
close to the same spot and at last forced to retreat. Louis could not hope now
for a better fate, unless troubles at the Egyptian Court might induce the
government at Cairo to offer him acceptable terms. In the meantime he fortified
his camp and strengthened the pontoon. It was wise; for three days later, on 11
February, the Egyptians attacked again. Reinforcements had arrived from the
south, and they were stronger than before. It was one of the fiercest battles
that the men of Outremer could remember. Again and again the Mameluks charged,
firing a cloud of arrows as they came; again and again Louis restrained his men
till it was time to counter-charge. Charles of Anjou on the left wing and the
Syrian and Cypriot barons in the left centre held their ground firmly, but the
remnants of the Templars and the French nobles in the right centre were
wavering and the King himself had to rescue them in order not to lose contact
with the left. The Grand Master William, who had lost an eye at Mansourah; lost
the other and died from it. At one moment Alfonso of Poitou, who was guarding
the camp, on the right wing, was encircled and was rescued by the cooks and the
women camp-followers. At last the Moslems wearied and retired in good order
back to the town.

For eight weeks King Louis waited in the
camp before Mansourah. The hoped-for Egyptian revolution never occurred.
Instead, on 28 February, Turanshah, son of the late Sultan, arrived at the
Egyptian camp. As soon as he heard from his stepmother of his father’s death,
he had left his capital at Diarbekir and rode swiftly south. He spent three
weeks at Damascus, where he was proclaimed Sultan, and reached Cairo towards
the end of February. His arrival at Mansourah was the signal for new activity
by the Egyptians. He caused a squadron of light boats to be made, which were
transported on camel-back to the lower reaches of the Nile. There they were
launched and began to intercept the vessels that brought food to the Crusader
camp from Damietta. More than eighty Frankish ships were captured one after the
other and on 16 March a convoy of thirty-two were lost at one swoop. The Franks
were quickly threatened by famine. Famine was followed by disease, dysentery
and typhoid.

At the beginning of April King Louis
understood that he must extricate the army as best he could from the miasmas of
the camp and retreat to Damietta. Now, at last, he brought himself to open
negotiations with the infidel, and sent to offer Turanshah the exchange of
Damietta for Jerusalem. It was too late. The Egyptians knew now how precarious
was his position. When his offer was rejected, Louis called his officers
together to discuss the retreat. They begged him to slip ahead himself with his
bodyguard to Damietta. But he proudly refused to leave his men. It was decided
that the sick should be sent by boat down the Nile and the able-bodied should
march along the road by which they had come. The camp was struck on the morning
of 5 April 1250, and the painful journey began, with the King in the rearguard
to encourage the stragglers. The Mameluks in Mansourah saw the movement and set
out in pursuit. They found that the Franks were all across the Bahr as-Saghir,
but the engineers had forgotten to destroy the pontoon. They hurried across and
soon were harassing the Franks from all sides. Throughout that day their
attacks were beaten off, as the Franks moved slowly on. The King’s own
gallantry was beyond all praise. But that night he fell ill, and next morning he
could scarcely keep himself on his horse. As the day dragged on, the Moslems
closed in round the army and attacked in full force. The sick and weary
soldiers scarcely tried to resist them. It was clear that the end had come.
Geoffrey of Sargines, who commanded the royal bodyguard, took the King into a
cottage in the village of Munyat al-Khols Abdallah, just north of Sharimshah,
in the centre of the fighting. The French knights could not bear to admit
defeat; but the barons of Outremer took control and sent Philip of Montfort to
negotiate with the enemy. Philip had almost succeeded in persuading the
Egyptian generals to allow the free departure of the army in return for the
surrender of Damietta, when suddenly a sergeant called Marcel, bribed, it was
thought, by the Egyptians, rode through the Christian ranks telling the
commanders in the King’s name to surrender without conditions. They obeyed this
order, of which Louis himself knew nothing, and they laid down their arms; and
the whole army was rounded up and led into captivity. About the same hour the
ships conveying the sick to Damietta were surrounded and captured.