Military history of the Crusader states

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The military history of the Crusader states begins with the formation of the first such state, the County of Edessa, in 1097 and ends, in the Holy Land, with the loss of Ruad, the last Christian stronghold there, in 1302.

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[edit] War with the Seljuks

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Seljuk-Crusader War

1097–1127

The Seljuk-Crusader War began when the First Crusade wrested territory from the Seljuk Turks during the Siege of Nicaea in 1097 and lasted until 1128 when Zengi became atabeg of Aleppo. At the latter date, the chief threat to the Crusaders from the east and north became the Zengids. The conflict was generally fought between European Crusaders on the one hand and the Seljuk Turks and their vassal states on the other. However, the Muslim Syrian emirates occasionally allied themselves with the Christians against rival states. The war coincided with the initial Crusader conquest of the Holy Land and the immediate period of expansion.

[edit] First Crusade

After the First Crusade captured Nicaea from its Seljuk garrison, the Crusaders plunged into the interior of Anatolia. In the hard-fought Battle of Dorylaeum, they defeated the main Seljuk Turkish army. In 1098 the Frankish host began the Siege of Antioch which they successfully captured. They held onto their conquest by defeating an army sent by the Seljuk Sultan in Baghdad. The bulk of the Latin army moved on, capturing an important town in the Siege of Ma'arrat al-Numan.

After this victory, many of the local emirs cooperated with the Christians in the hope that they would move on and trouble the territory of another ruler. The Crusaders soon moved beyond Seljuk territory and went on to capture the Holy City from Fatimid Egypt with great bloodshed in the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099.

[edit] Crusader setbacks 1100–1104

The string of Crusader successes suddenly came to an end. Bohemond I of Antioch was captured by the Danishmend Turks in the Battle of Melitene in 1100. The Crusade of 1101 ended in disaster when three separate Crusader columns were ambushed and virtually annihilated by Seljuk armies in central Anatolia. Some of the well-armed and well-mounted leaders survived, but the foot soldiers and camp followers were mostly slaughtered or enslaved. A decisive Crusader defeat at the Battle of Harran in 1104 "ended for ever Frankish expansion to the Euphrates."[1]

[edit] Crusader consolidation 1105–1109

In 1105, Toghtekin of Damascus sent a Turkish force to help Fatimid Egypt, but the combined host met defeat in the Third Battle of Ramla. That year in the Battle of Artah, the army of the Principality of Antioch under Tancred won a victory over Fakhr al-Mulk Radwan of Aleppo. This put Aleppo on the defensive over the next few years. The seven-year Siege of Tripoli finally ended in 1109 when the port fell and became the capital of the Latin County of Tripoli.

[edit] Seljuk counterattack 1110–1119

Beginning in 1110, the Seljuk Sultan Muhammad I in Baghdad ordered invasions of the Crusader states for six successive years. "In 1110, 1112, and 1114 the city of Edessa was the objective; in 1113 Galilee was invaded, and in 1111 and 1115 the Latin possessions which lay east of the Orontes between Aleppo and Shaizar."[2]

In the Battle of Shaizar (1111) the Crusaders under King Baldwin I of Jerusalem fought the army of Mawdud of Mosul in an extended skirmish before the walls of the Syrian city. Mawdud defeated Baldwin's army at the Battle of Al-Sannabra in 1113. After a protracted campaign, the army of Bursuq bin Bursuq of Hamadan was routed by Roger of Salerno's Antiochene army in 1115 at the Battle of Sarmin.[3] Henceforth, the Seljuk successor states carried on the war against the Frankish states.

Ilghazi of Mardin and Aleppo destroyed the Antiochene field army and killed Roger of Salerno at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis in June 1119. Baldwin II of Jerusalem retrieved the situation by rapidly reinforcing Antioch with forces from the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli, winning the Battle of Hab that August.[4]

[edit] Crusader consolidation 1120–1128

The year 1124 saw the fall of Tyre to the Crusaders. In 1125, the Crusaders triumphed at the Battle of Azaz, putting Aleppo back on the defensive. However, the Franks were defeated at the Battle of Marj es-Suffar in 1126,[5] losing so many men that they were unable to capture Damascus.[6]

[edit] War with the Zengids

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Zengid-Crusader War

1127–1174
Ba'rin - Edessa - Bosra - Damascus - Inab - Aintab - Lake Huleh - Al-Buqaia - Harim - Crusader invasions of Egypt

The war with the Zengids began when Zengi assumed the rule of Aleppo in 1128 and ended when his son Nur ad-Din, the ruler of Aleppo and Damascus, died in 1174. Though the Zengids were technically Seljuks, they represented a menace to the Crusader states in their own right.

[edit] Zengi

In 1127, Zengi was confirmed as atabeg of Mosul by the Seljuk Sultan Mahmud II. When he also became ruler of Aleppo the following year, the combined resources of the two cities made him a major threat to the Crusader states. However, Zengi first intrigued against the emirates of Hims and Damascus.

In 1135, Zengi moved against the Latin Principality of Antioch. When the Crusaders failed to put an army into the field to oppose him, he captured the Syrian towns of Atharib, Zerdana, Ma'arrat al-Numan and Kafr Tab.[7] He defeated King Fulk of Jerusalem in 1137 at the Battle of Ba'rin. Afterward, he seized Ba'rin castle which the Crusaders never recovered.[8] In 1138, he helped repel a Frankish-Byzantine attack on Shaizar. Because of his continued efforts to seize Damascus, that city sometimes allied itself with the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The crowning achievement of Zengi's career occurred when he moved against the Christian state of Edessa when the bulk of its forces were campaigning elsewhere. In the Siege of Edessa he stormed and captured that city. The western portion of the County of Edessa remained in Crusader hands for only a few more years before being extinguished.

Zengi was assassinated by a Frankish slave in 1146. He was succeeded in Aleppo by his second son Nur ad-Din, while his eldest son Saif ad-Din Ghazi I inherited Mosul.

[edit] Nur ad-Din

Nur ad-Din crushed a brief attempt by the Franks to reoccupy Edessa in 1146. The following year, he helped rival city Damascus repel a Crusader expedition in the Battle of Bosra.[9] In 1148, the Second Crusade was forced to lift the Siege of Damascus when the armies of Nur ad-Din and his brother Saif appeared in the vicinity. He annihilated the army of Antioch at the Battle of Inab in 1149.

Nur ad-Din became overlord of Mosul in 1149. He conquered the rest of the County of Edessa soon after the Battle of Aintab in 1150.[10] For the next few years, he turned his attention to Damascus, except when he briefly seized and held the Crusader port of Tortosa in 1152. In a coup, he finally seized control of Damascus in 1154. For several years afterward he became involved in the affairs of Mosul. In 1157, he defeated the Franks at the Battle of Lake Huleh.[11]

In 1163, King Amalric of Jerusalem began the Crusader invasions of Egypt against the disintegrating Fatimid Caliphate. To counter this, Nur ad-Din sent his own forces to intervene in the Fatimid civil war. That year, he was defeated at the Battle of al-Buqaia in Syria. In 1164 he won a great victory over the Crusaders at the Battle of Harim and went on to capture Banias. In Egypt, his general Shirkuh won the Battle of al-Babein in 1167,[12] but the war dragged on. Shirkuh triumphed in 1169, but died soon after.

Shirkuh was succeeded by his lieutenant Saladin, thus uniting all the Zengid territories into a vast empire. But the new ruler of Egypt refused to act as Nur ad-Din's vassal. Saladin proclaimed himself Sultan in 1171 and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. Nur ad-Din planned to move against the upstart but died in 1174. With his death, the Zengid empire fell apart.

[edit] War with Fatimid Egypt

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Fatimid-Crusader War

1099–1169

The war with Fatimid Egypt began when the First Crusade invaded Fatimid territory and started the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099. Soon after, the Crusaders stormed and captured the city. The war between the newly established Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and Fatimid Egypt continued until Saladin became the effective ruler of Egypt in 1169.

[edit] Jerusalem

Fatimid Egypt had no sooner captured Jerusalem from the Seljuks when the First Crusade appeared from the north. On July 15, 1099, the Crusaders successfully stormed the city and, in a horrific massacre, murdered thousands of Muslim, Jewish and even Orthodox Christian civilians. Not even women and children were spared.

The Crusaders crushed an early attempt by the Fatimids to recover the holy city by winning the Battle of Ascalon in 1099. The Egyptians were nevertheless able to hold onto the key fortress, which served as a launching point for raids on the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem until 1153 when it fell in the Siege of Ascalon.

[edit] Fatimid counterattack

The capable vizier of Egypt, Al-Afdal Shahanshah mounted a series of invasions "almost annually"[13] against the Crusader kingdom from 1100 to 1107. Egyptian armies fought three major Battles of Ramla in 1101, 1102 and 1105, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. After this, the vizier contented himself by launching frequent raids on Frankish territory from his coastal fortress of Ascalon. In 1121, al-Afdal was assassinated.

The new vizier, Al-Ma'mum organized a major invasion of Crusader lands. This came to grief at the Battle of Yibneh in 1123. To protect against the raids from Ascalon, the Crusaders began encircling the strategic port with a ring of castles. Built between 1136 and 1149, the strongholds were at Ibelin (Yibneh) 20 miles northwest of Ascalon, Blanchegarde (Tell es Safi) 15 miles east-northeast, Gibelin (Bait Jibrin) 18 miles east, and Gaza 12 miles south-southwest.[14]

[edit] Fatimid weakness

After the fall of Ascalon, Egypt ceased to be a threat to the Crusader states until the rise of Saladin. The Fatimid regime broke apart into warring factions. From 1163 to 1169, Egypt became the prize of a struggle between King Amalric of Jerusalem and Nur ed-Din of Syria as the Fatimid factions invited one side or the other to intervene in their civil war.

In 1169, Nur ed-Din's general, Shirkuh seized Cairo for the last time and proclaimed himself ruler of Egypt. He died suddenly two months later and Nur ed-Din appointed Shirkuh's young nephew Saladin as his successor. As directed by his sponsor, Saladin ruthlessly stamped out Shi'ite Islam in Egypt, which had flourished under the Fatimids. But, instead of acting as Nur ed-Din's vassal, Saladin consolidated power in his own hands.[15] He deposed the last Fatimid caliph in 1171.

[edit] Crusader armies

A typical Crusader army consisted a hard core of lance and sword-carrying knights in chainmail riding on large horses. These were backed by a much more numerous infantry armed with bows and spears. The charge of the Frankish heavy cavalry developed tremendous shock power. With a bit of hyperbole, the contemporary Byzantine scholar Anna Comnena noted that a Frank on horseback would "make a hole through the walls of Babylon."[16] The knights were sometimes joined by mounted squires or turcopoles who were less heavily armed. While the Crusader cavalry represented the main offensive force in battle, they "would have been absolutely useless had they not been supported by the infantry."[17]

Often, the infantry opened the battle with a volley of arrows, with the horsemen in the rear. When an opportunity for a successful charge appeared, the infantry would open ranks to allow the mailed cavalry to advance. If the horsemen suffered a reverse, they could fall back behind the Latin foot soldiers. The Frankish infantry had considerable defensive power, but it could not hold out for long if unsupported by their heavy cavalry.

[edit] Fatimid armies

Egyptian armies of the period relied on masses of Sudanese bowmen supported by Arab and Berber cavalry. Since the archers were on foot and the horsemen awaited attack with lance and sword, a Fatimid army provided exactly the sort of immobile target that the Frankish heavy cavalry excelled in attacking. Except for the third battle of Ramleh in 1105, when Toghtekin of Damascus sent a contingent of Seljuk Turks to help the Egyptians, the Fatimids did not use horse archers.

Whereas the Crusaders developed a healthy respect for the harass and surround tactics of the Turkish horse archers, they tended to discount the effectiveness of the Egyptian armies. While overconfidence led to a Crusader disaster at the second battle of Ramleh, the more frequent result was a Fatimid defeat. "The Franks never, until the reign of Saladin, feared the Egyptian as they did the armies from Muslim Syria and Mesopotamia."[18]

[edit] References

  • Beeler, John. Warfare in Feudal Europe 730-1200. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1971. ISBN 0-0814-9120-7
  • Dupuy, R. E. & Dupuy, T. N. The Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. ISBN 0-06-011139-9
  • Reston, James, Jr. Warriors of God. New York: Anchor Books, 2001. ISBN 0-385-49562-5
  • Smail, R. C. Crusading Warfare 1097-1193. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, (1956) 1995. ISBN 1-56619-769-4

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Smail, p 178
  2. ^ Smail, p 55
  3. ^ Beeler, p 132-135
  4. ^ Beeler, p 146-147
  5. ^ Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 By John France, pg. 220
  6. ^ Smail, p 182. Smail calls Marj es-Suffar a Crusader "tactical success."
  7. ^ Smail, p 32
  8. ^ Smail, p 33
  9. ^ Beeler, p 140-142
  10. ^ Smail, p 160-161
  11. ^ Smail, p 124
  12. ^ Smail, p 183-185
  13. ^ Smail, p 84
  14. ^ Smail, p 211-212
  15. ^ Reston, p 6-7
  16. ^ Smail, p 115
  17. ^ Beeler, p 124
  18. ^ Smail, p 87