BACK IN JUNE 1229, as Frederick II was arriving back in Italy, the Muslim prince al-Ashraf, nephew of Saladin, succeeded in deposing his own nephew an-Nasir as ruler of Damascus. As a member of the family, an-Nasir was given lands in the valley of the Jordan, with the town and castle of Kerak as his capital, but he was now a vassal subject to the ultimate rule of his uncle, Sultan al-Kamil of Egypt.
Al-Ashraf had barely settled down in his new capital of Damascus when word came to him that the huge horde of Kwarismian horsemen uprooted by Genghis Khan had reached his lands and had already taken one of his frontier castles. The homeless invading army, under its ambitious ruler, Jelal ad-Din, had then turned to attack the Seljuk Turks. Traditionally, the Seljuks and the Syrians were bitter enemies, but since they were now both in danger of being destroyed by the barbaric invaders, al-Ashraf sent envoys to the sultan of the Seljuks to effect an alliance against Jelal ad-Din. The Seljuks agreed, and al-Ashraf personally led his army into the field to join with them against the Kwarismians.
The combined armies outnumbered Jelal ad-Din, as neither would have done alone, and drove him from the field. Now Jelal ad-Din was caught in the middle. He could not move forward, nor could he lead his people back the way they had come, because the all-conquering Mongols were right behind them. He didn’t have that or any other problem for long, however, because a Kurdish soldier took advantage of the confusion of the retreat to satisfy a point of personal and family honor. Jelal ad-Din had killed his brother, so now the Kurd, as required by the rules of the blood feud, murdered the man who had murdered his brother. Kurdish honor was satisfied, but with Jelal ad-Din dead the Kwarismians not only had nowhere to go, they also had no one to lead them. They broke up into rapacious marauding bands. There were many thousands of them, eager to fight, eager to find a new home. They would be ideal mercenaries if properly controlled and motivated, because they had their own horses and weapons and knew how to use them, but for now they were simply huge bands of thieves and murderers.
A few months later, death claimed Templar Grand Master de Montaigu, who had not shown any great ability to control the actions of his men. The new grand master was an abler man, who would die not in bed, but in battle. His name was Armand de Perigord.
Drastic changes in the Muslim states were brought on by a series of deaths. When al-Ashraf died in August 1237, his younger brother Ismail immediately took control of Damascus, but his uncle al-Kamil of Egypt was not going to let him keep it. The sultan took an army out of Egypt to Kerak, where he was joined by an army of his nephew, an-Nasir. Together they marched on Damascus and displaced Ismail, compensating him with the lordship of Baalbek, in modern Lebanon. Then, a few weeks later, Sultan al-Kamil died at Damascus.
Al-Kamil’s older son Ayub, heir to the sultanate of Egypt, was with a small army in the field when he got the news. He immediately marched on Damascus to assert his rule. Concerned that his own force might not be large enough to back his claim, he paid a band of Kwarismian cavalry to assist him. He took Damascus, but he was angry at the news that his most valuable inheritance, the empire of Egypt, had been given in his absence to his younger brother al-Adil. The Egyptian nobles did not want Ayub, although he was the older brother, because his mother was a black Sudanese slave. Rather than follow a half-black sultan, they had put al-Adil on the throne. They regretted the move quickly, as they learned that al-Adil was under the strong influence of a homosexual lover, an unusually handsome young black. Al-Adil worshipped him so completely that he actually turned the government of Egypt over to his lover.
Ayub was determined to push his brother al-Adil off the throne of Egypt, but before he could lead his army out of Damascus, he was himself deposed by a palace plot that had been engineered by his uncle Ismail, who now took Damascus back for himself. Ayub fled to Kerak and pleaded with his cousin an-Nasir to help him regain his patrimony of Egypt. An-Nasir agreed, but before they could start out, a message came that the nobles of Egypt had thrown out al-Adil and his black lover. They now invited Ayub to take the throne as sultan. Ayub hastened to take up his new power, which he immediately used to reward his loyal cousin, an-Nasir, with the government of all the Muslim lands in Palestine.
In summary, the Muslim Middle East was now ruled by the young sultan Ayub of Egypt in bitter rivalry with his uncle Ismail, who ruled Syria from his capital at Damascus. Between them geographically, Ayub’s vassal cousin an-Nasir held Palestine and Oultrejourdain. Ayub was secure in Egypt, but Ismail felt anything but secure in Damascus. Bands of mounted Kwarismian freebooters were spreading terror throughtout northern Syria and eastern Armenia. The Seljuk Turks of Anatolia were encroaching upon Ismail’s lands in Syria whenever they got the chance. To the east and north the juggernaut of the Mongol horde was inexorably moving on all of them. The Muslim rulers had little time to concern themselves with a small Christian element strung out in a few port cities, controlling a narrow strip of coastal land that at no point was more than a few miles wide, except for the area around the Holy City.
As for those Christians, Prince Bohemond VI held Antioch and Tripoli, Richard Filangieri held Tyre, while a commune of citizens ran the city of Acre. Vassals of the kingdom of Jerusalem held the southern ports. The Holy City of Jerusalem belonged not to the kingdom, but to the emperor Frederick. The military orders were by far the strongest military force and by now the greatest landowners. The titular king of Jerusalem was the underage Conrad, who had never set foot in his kingdom and was still living in Italy under the guardianship of his father, Frederick.
Pope Gregory IX called for a new Crusade in the summer of 1239, in anticipation of the expiration of the treaty that had been signed ten years before by the emperor Frederick and Sultan al-Kamil. The pope did not want his enemy Frederick involved in this Crusade, so he sent his preachers into France and England to rally the rulers and the people to take the oath for the Cross.
The response was good, especially in France. By mid-year of 1239 an impressive group of nobles had taken the Crusader vow, including the duke of Burgundy, Count Peter of Brittany, Count Henry of Bar, and the count of Nevers, all to be led by Tibald of Champagne, who was also king of Navarre. A thousand knights would take part in the French Crusade, plus squires, attendants, and men-at-arms.
Frederick II had fresh reasons to be angry with the pope. He considered the Holy Land to be his personal property. His young son Conrad was the rightful heir to the throne, and as Conrad’s guardian, Frederick thought of himself as king of Jerusalem. Even the Holy City of Jerusalem, which he had regained for Christianity, had been given into his personal care. He felt that if the pope had wanted a Crusade, it should have been called only through Frederick II. The other cause for dissension was that this new crusading force was French, as were almost all of the barons of Outremer. Except for the Teutonic Knights, even the military orders were substantially French. Based on cultural and linguistic ties, the locals would be far more likely to cooperate with a French Crusade than they had been with Frederick’s Germans and Italians. There was a real danger that they would all team up against the German emperor to reject his claims in the Middle East.
The treaty with Sultan al-Kamil expired in August 1239. Tibald of Champagne arrived at Acre on September 1. A council was called to coordinate the crusading effort, and this time the Knights Templar, who still held their animosity toward Frederick, were happy to participate. Grand Master de Perigord and his Templar officers explained to the new arrivals the complex maneuvers that had divided the Muslims and the opportunity provided by that division. They recommended that the campaign be directed against Egypt, but many of the European Crusaders present thought that Damascus should be their first objective. The local barons objected because Damascus was still the major trading hub feeding their port cities with commerce. The Templars, who had put surplus funds to work in merchant banking transactions, had a number of Muslim clients in the Syrian capital.
Tibald settled the dispute by agreeing to take both Cairo and Damascus, and he finally decided on a plan to retake Ascalon and Gaza, the Palestinian gateways to Egypt, to be followed by a move against Syria. After a month of discussion and planning, the crusading army headed south toward the Egyptian border and their first target of Gaza. With them went contingents of Knights Templar and Hospitallers, each led by its grand master.
Tibald of Champagne was nominally in charge, but he was not totally in command of the lofty nobles, who looked upon themselves as independent sovereigns. Near Jaffa, Count Peter of Brittany got word of a rich caravan of Muslim merchants nearby. He saw no need to ask permission from anyone and decided to act entirely on his own initiative.
The caravan, following the trade route from Arabia to Damascus, was now in the valley of the Jordan River, in the territory of an-Nasir of Kerak. Hastily assembling a force of two hundred knights eager to go with him, Peter of Brittany was guided to the Jordan ahead of the caravan and prepared an ambush. The caravan was well guarded by light cavalry, who put up a brisk defense, but the heavily armored knights ultimately won the day. They triumphantly drove the flocks and herds back to the crusading army. Fresh food is always welcome to an army on the move, and the expedition had drawn the first enemy blood in a Christian victory. The heroes were very pleased with the loud praises for their deeds.
Off in Kerak, where the gates had been opened to receive the wounded and beaten Muslims, the outraged an-Nasir assembled his emirs and officers to plan a suitable act of vengeance for this bloody incursion into his domain.
The Egyptians, who had been getting good information every step of the way, knew that Gaza was the Crusader objective, and they dispatched an army to meet the Christians there. Unfortunately, the Crusader intelligence was based more on hearsay than on fact, and the Christians accepted the very mistaken report that the Egyptian army was made up of no more than one thousand men. Count Henry of Bar, envious of all the praise heaped on Count Peter of Brittany, decided to take independent action against the Egyptian force, which he thought he could overwhelm with superior numbers. He talked to his friends, all of whom were eager for the fight, and quickly got the cooperation of the duke of Burgundy, the local count Walter of Jaffa, and even one of the Ibelin family, John of Arsuf. As they tallied their followers, they could count on about five hundred knights and mounted sergeants, plus about a thousand infantry, more than enough to soundly defeat an army of a thousand Egyptians.
The news reached Tibald, who hurriedly assembled a small group of supporters and went to plead with Count Henry, who was already marching out of the camp. With Tibald was Grand Master de Perigord of the Knights Templar, who had become one of Tibald’s closest counselors, and Count Peter of Brittany. They begged Count Henry to abandon this expedition in favor of a concerted action by the whole Crusader force. They pointed out that he was taking needless risks. In response, Count Henry accused them all of cowardice and denied that Tibald or anyone else could issue orders to himself or his companions. They were using their best judgment in the circumstances, and that judgment dictated that they should march out to meet the Egyptians. Henry’s friends, true Crusaders, had come to the Holy Land to fight, not to talk. Nothing Tibald or the Templar grand master said could change their minds, and Henry resumed his march into the night.
By dawn, Count Henry’s force came upon a great fold in the sand dunes along the shore near Gaza. He ordered his men to take cover there and rest for the coming battle. After marching all night, most of the Christians gratefully took the opportunity to stretch out and make up the sleep that they had lost in the all-night march. The Christians posted no sentries and sent out no scouts, in the tragic belief that they were resting out of sight of the enemy.
The Egyptian commander was delighted and could hardly believe his good fortune. Not only was his army five times larger than the Christians thought it was, but they had actually exhausted themselves by marching all night to face him, only to relax with no defenses of any kind. They hadn’t even posted sentries. He dispatched archers with orders to crawl around the dunes out of sight to completely encircle the Crusaders. The circle was almost closed when a wakeful Walter of Jaffa suddenly realized what was happening. Knowing the perils of deep, soft sand from years of experience, Walter hastily warned Henry that neither man nor horse could possibly maneuver while staggering ankle deep through shifting ground. He urgently advised an immediate retreat to escape the Egyptian entrapment. That made sense to the other nobles, and when Walter rode out of the huge bowl of sand, they followed him—all except Count Henry, who would not abandon the infantry he had brought to this place, nor the few friends who elected to stay with him. The noble, foolhardy enterprise cost him his life. First came the deadly arrow flights, followed by a fast, hectic battle. The sand soaked up the blood of almost a thousand Christians; they gave their lives discovering the difference between the grassy turf of home and the treacherous, almost liquid ebb and flow of the dry sands in which they now floundered helplessly. About five hundred prisoners were draped in chains and sent marching back to the dungeons of Cairo. The Egyptian casualties were hardly worth counting. For the small crusading army the losses were so severe that the survivors reluctantly abandoned the expedition to Gaza and limped back to Acre.
Now it was an-Nasir’s turn. He decided to punish the Christians for the caravan raid by hitting them where it would hurt the most. He marched on Jerusalem. Frederick had turned its care over to Richard Filangieri, who had been charged with the responsibility of rebuilding the walls, but in his constant angling for power Filangieri had neglected his duties. Most of the wall was still down, so an-Nasir’s army simply rode into the city unchallenged. The citadel called the Tower of David had been repaired, but it was grossly undermanned. An-Nasir chose not to try to storm the citadel, but rather to starve out the garrison. There had been more neglect in providing provisions for the fort, and in less than thirty days the starving garrison surrendered in exchange for an-Nasir’s agreement that they would be allowed to go free. By the end of the year the rebuilt sections of the wall were torn down again, and the Tower of David was completely dismantled.
To the new sultan of Egypt, the Christians appeared to be more a tiresome annoyance than a threat. His serious enemy was his uncle Ismail in Damascus. The Egyptian army, organized for a drive against Syria, would be joined along the way by the Jordanian army of an-Nasir. Ismail considered his options and decided that his best protection was an alliance with the Christians, who had recently moved their army into Galilee. He sent envoys to Tibald’s camp, and now the Knights Templar came into their own.
The Templars had agents in Damascus and had had active banking services there. They knew the politics of the Muslim court and had already provided good counsel and assistance to Tibald of Champagne. Now they were given the responsibility to negotiate a treaty of alliance with Ismail of Damascus. The local barons were eager for a Templar success because they had no desire for a war that would cut off their primary Muslim trading center. The Templars had their own reasons for wanting the alliance: to avoid the prospects of debts they could never collect if their order had to go to war against Syria.
Whatever the motivations, the negotiations were successful. The Christian army would move to the frontier where Palestine joined Egypt to block any aggressive move by the sultan of Egypt. The Christians would also provide a quantity of military provisions to Ismail. In exchange, Ismail agreed to turn over two great castle fortresses: Beaufort, northeast of Tyre, and Safed, a few miles west of Acre. Beaufort went to Balian of Sidon, whose family had owned it before its capture by the Muslims, and as a reward for their valuable services, the Knights Templar got the castle of Safed. The local barons and the Italian merchants were lavish in their praise of the Templars for preserving their important Damascus connection.
Many of Ismail’s followers were angry that he had summarily given away two important Muslim strongholds to the unbelievers, but not nearly as angry as the Knights Hospitaller upon learning that the very strategic castle of Safed and the lands around it were to go to the Knights of the Temple. They would not sign the treaty with Ismail, claiming that for their order the treaty had no validity. The smoldering intensity of their fury drove them to a decision to conduct their own negotiations. If the Templars sided with Ismail of Damascus, the Hospitallers would seek an alliance with Ayub of Egypt. The sultan, delighted to have the opportunity to destroy the Christian alliance with Ismail, made the Hospitallers an extraordinary offer. If the Christians would maintain a position of uninvolved neutrality in the Muslim conflict, he would release all of the prisoners taken at Gaza and give the Christians the city of Ascalon. The grand master of the Hospitallers signed the agreement and led his Hospitallers into Ascalon, but the treaty needed more than the Hospitaller seal to make it valid. The Christian leaders had to ratify it.
The barons of the Holy Land were incensed, both on the moral grounds of flagrant violation of the treaty with Damascus and on the economic grounds of the estrangement of their Syrian trade sources. Tibald of Champagne cared nothing for their trade, nor did the other nobles he had brought with him, but they all had friends, even relatives, languishing in the dungeons of Cairo. This treaty would set them free. It meant breaking their word and their treaty with Damascus, but they rationalized away their quandary by assuring each other that breaking a treaty with the infidel was no sin.
It was more than a sin to the resident nobles: It ruined their major source of revenue. They were loud in their condemnation of Tibald, who had so much abuse heaped upon him, day after day, that he decided to return home. He made a fast visit to Jerusalem to fulfill his Crusader vow, then left the Holy Land in September 1240. Some who had come with him decided to remain in the Holy Land a while longer, mostly because they felt that the job they came to do had not been completed. At least one man stayed in anticipation of acquiring the material rewards he had come for and not yet found. The fortune seeker was the young count Ralph of Soissons, who managed to catch the eye of the wealthy and influential dowager queen Alice of Cyprus. Alice was so wealthy that Ralph found himself quite able to overlook the fact that the queen was more than old enough to be his mother, and they were married a few months later. The count of Nevers stayed because he was ashamed of the behavior of his colleagues. He moved in with the Knights Templar, still hoping to fight for the True Cross.
Tibald could return home with some claims of success. His leadership had been a military failure, since the only battle was the disaster at Gaza and the Holy City had been lost, but it could be counted as something of a diplomatic success because the castles of Beaufort and Safed and the city of Ascalon had been restored to the Holy Land. That success was limited, however, because he had left rivalry and disunity behind him. The Hospitallers now based in Ascalon and Walter of Jaffa were dedicated to maintaining the agreement with the sultan of Egypt. The other faction, led by the Knights Templar and the other resident barons, camped north of Ascalon, determined to preserve the treaty and the friendship of Ismail of Damascus. The Christians, who had benefited from the conflict between the Muslim states, could no longer exploit that split in the enemy ranks because of the split in their own.
Other greater crusading leaders would come to the Holy Land, but while we wait for their ships to arrive we should take a look at a growing military phenomenon in Egypt that would soon have a disastrous impact on the Christian barons, and on the Knights of the Temple.