Текст книги "The Crusades. The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land"

Автор книги: Thomas Asbridge

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Текущая страница: 44 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

But by then, tidings of Outremer’s devastation and the emergence of the terrible Mamluk scourge of the Levant had reached the West. Old champions and new were taking up the cross, eyes set to the East, for one last chance to reclaim the Holy Land.

23

THE HOLY LAND RECLAIMED

By the end of the 1260s, little remained of the once mighty crusader settlements of Outremer. The Franks were confined now to a coastal strip running north from the Templars’ Pilgrims’ Castle (south of Haifa), through the likes of Acre, Tyre, Tripoli and Marqab, to the outpost at Latakia. Only a handful of inland castles still stood, including the headquarters of the Teutonic Order at Montfort and the redoubtable Hospitaller fortress, Krak des Chevaliers. Internal rivalry among the Latins was rife, with various claimants contesting the Jerusalemite throne, the Italian merchants of Venice and Genoa fighting over trading rights and even the Military Orders embroiled in petty politics. Centralised authority had devolved to such an extent that each Frankish city functioned as an independent polity. The shock of Antioch’s conquest in 1268 did nothing to arrest this spiralling descent into disunity and decay.

Sultan Baybars, meanwhile, had achieved major victories against the Christians, manifestly affirming his commitment to jihad. His pitiless approach to holy war had reduced the crusader states to a position of almost prone vulnerability. But the sultan had to be mindful of the continued threat posed by the Mongols. The problems that, for years, had left them paralysed in Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and Russia–including protracted dynastic upheavals and the open hostility between the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate of Persia–now were starting to diminish. A forceful new Ilkhan, Abaqa, had come to power in 1265 and immediately initiated attempts to secure an anti-Mamluk alliance with western Europe. Another destructive Ilkhanid assault on Islam threatened. Yet, in spring 1270, even as Baybars looked to deal with this northern menace, news reached him in Damascus that the French were preparing again to mount a crusade from the West. Remembering only too well the havoc caused in Egypt by the last Latin invasion in 1249, the sultan immediately returned to Cairo to brace Muslim defences.

KING LOUIS’ SECOND CRUSADE

Back in Rome, Pope Clement IV was deeply alarmed by the vicious Mamluk campaigning that began in 1265. Recognising that the war for the Holy Land was being lost, in August 1266 Clement started to formulate plans for a relatively small but swiftly deployed crusade. He recruited a band of troops, mostly from the Low Countries–instructing them to depart no later than April 1267–and opened coalition talks with Abaqa and the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII. In late summer 1266, however, King Louis IX of France caught wind of this expedition. A veteran of the holy war, now in his early fifties and ever more stringent in his religious devotions, Louis sensed a chance to lay the troubled memories of Mansourah to rest. That September he privately informed the pope of his wish to join the crusade. In some respects, Louis’ enrolment–publicly confirmed by a crusading vow on 25 March 1267–was a boon, for it promised to result in a far larger and more potent campaign. With this in mind, Clement postponed the smaller endeavour that he had originally envisaged. Somewhat ironically, this delay (the result of Louis’ enthusiasm) left Baybars free to crush Antioch in 1268.

Just as he had done in the 1240s, Louis made careful financial and logistical preparations for his second crusade. Recruitment was not as buoyant for this campaign–the king’s old comrade-in-arms John of Joinville was one who did not enlist. But given the setbacks endured by previous expeditions, and the concerns expressed in some quarters about the papacy’s apparent abuse of the crusading ideal, the number of participants was surprisingly substantial. The most notable figure to take the cross was the future King Edward I of England, then known as the Lord Edward. Fresh from winning the civil war that had threatened the reign of his embattled father King Henry III, Edward committed to the crusade in June 1268 and, putting aside any animosity with France, later agreed to coordinate his expedition with that of King Louis.

In November 1268, however, Clement IV died, and because of divisions with the Church over Rome’s dealings with the ambitious and, by some accounts, untrustworthy Charles of Anjou (Louis IX’s surviving brother and now the king of Sicily), no papal successor was appointed until 1271. During this interregnum, the sense of urgency that Clement had sought to instil in the crusaders quickly dissipated. With momentum lost, the departure was delayed until summer 1270. In the interim, renewed attempts were made to contact the Mongol Ilkhan Abaqa, and in March 1270 Charles of Anjou also took the cross.

After Louis finally embarked from Aigues-Mortes in July 1270, his second crusade proved to be a pathetic anticlimax. For reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained, but may well have been related to the machinations of his scheming brother Charles, Louis detoured from his declared route to Palestine. Instead, he sailed to Tunis (in modern Tunisia), which was then ruled by an independent Muslim warlord, Abu Abdallah. The French king arrived in North Africa seemingly expecting Abu Abdallah to convert to Christianity and collaborate in an attack on Mamluk Egypt. When he failed to do so, plans for a direct assault on Tunis were laid–but the attack never came. In the midsummer heat, disease took hold in the crusader camp and, in early August, Louis himself fell ill. Over the course of three weeks his strength ebbed. On 25 August 1270, the pious crusader monarch Louis IX died, his final act a fruitless campaign far from the Holy Land. Legend has it that his last whispered words were ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem’. The king’s dreams of recovering that sacred city had come to nothing, but his earnest devotion was unmistakeable. In 1297 Louis was canonised as a saint.¹⁵

In the wake of Louis’ demise, efforts were made in mid-November to sail on to the Levant, but when a large portion of the fleet sank in a heavy storm, most Franks returned to Europe. Only Charles of Anjou gained from the whole affair, securing a treaty with Abu Abdallah that brought Sicily rich tribute payments. Edward of England, alone of the leading crusaders, refused to be turned from his purpose and insisted on continuing his journey to the Near East with a small fleet of thirteen ships.

TIGHTENING THE NOOSE

Some six months earlier, in May 1270, Baybars had returned to Cairo to prepare Egypt for King Louis’ expected invasion. He took this threat seriously, putting the Nile region on high alert, and later demolished the battlements at Ascalon and filled its harbour with rocks and timber to render it unusable. But that autumn, news of the French king’s death reached Cairo, bringing relief and leaving the sultan free to ready the Mamluk army for another campaign.

The impregnable fortress

In early 1271, Baybars marched north to target the remaining Latin outposts in the southern reaches of the Ansariyah range–once the border zone between Antioch and Tripoli. This area was dominated by a supposedly impregnable Hospitaller castle: Krak des Chevaliers. Since the crusades began, no Muslim commander had ever made a serious attempt to invest this fortress, perched on a steep-sloped ridge, dominating the surrounding region. Significantly strengthened by an extensive building programme earlier in the thirteenth century, Krak’s defences now stood as a perfect expression of cutting-edge Frankish castle technology. Yet even in the face of this seemingly insurmountable challenge, Baybars was not to be deterred. Arriving in force with an array of ballistic weaponry, he laid siege to the stronghold on 21 February.

Krak could only be approached along the ridge from the south, and this was where the Hospitallers had positioned their sturdiest battlements: double walls, lined with hefty rounded towers; an inner moat, leading on to an angled glacis (sloping stone wall) to prevent sapping. Nonetheless, the Mamluks concentrated their bombardment in this sector and, after more than a month, the barrage eventually told, causing a section of the southern outer walls to collapse. This was not the end of the affair, because the Hospitallers were able to retreat to the inner ward–a compact citadel that was virtually indestructible. Realising that overcoming this keep would probably cost many Muslim troops their lives and would certainly result in structural damage to the castle itself, Baybars switched tactics. In early April he had a forged letter presented to the Latin garrison commander. This missive, purportedly from the Hospitaller master, instructed the knights to seek terms and surrender. It is not certain whether they really were duped by the sultan’s ruse, or merely seized upon this opportunity to capitulate with a modicum of honour. In any case, the Hospitallers submitted on 8 April 1271 and were granted safe passage to Tripoli. After this famous triumph, Baybars was said to have declared proudly that ‘these troops of mine are incapable of besieging any fort and leaving it [unconquered]’. Carefully repaired, Krak des Chevaliers became a Mamluk command centre in northern Syria.

Fresh from his unprecedented success, the sultan amassed troops for a decisive assault on Tripoli. In May, Muslims swarmed over a number of outlying forts and, in a confident mood, Baybars again wrote to Bohemond VI, this time warning the count of Tripoli that chains had been readied for his incarceration. The sultan ordered the main advance on 16 May, but at that same moment he received a report of Lord Edward’s arrival with a crusader host at Acre. Unsure of the precise level of threat posed to Palestine, Baybars called off the Tripolitan invasion and readily acceded to Bohemond’s pleas for truce, agreeing a ten-year peace.¹⁶

The Lord Edward of England

Travelling via Damascus, the sultan moved into northern Palestine, ready to counter an attack from Acre by Edward’s crusaders. It soon became clear, however, that the English prince had arrived with only a limited contingent of troops. Finding himself free to act, Baybars promptly laid siege to the castle of Montfort–the headquarters of the Teutonic Order, in the hills east of Acre. Once again, victory soon followed. After three weeks of heavy bombardment and sapping, the fortress surrendered on 12 June and, in this case, was then demolished.

In July 1271, Edward mounted a short-lived incursion into Muslim territory east of Acre, but soon turned back when his soldiers fell ill, unaccustomed to the heat and the local food. This type of fleeting foray caused the sultan little concern. His main worry was the possibility of an alliance between the English crusaders and the Ilkhanid Mongols. In fact, Christian sources make it clear that, upon his arrival in the Levant, Edward immediately dispatched envoys to Abaqa, but it seems that no reply was forthcoming. Even so, that autumn–whether by coincidence or design–the Mongols and Latins managed to launch offensives that were roughly simultaneous. In October, Ilkhanid troops marched into northern Syria and ravaged the region around Harim. Meanwhile, in late November Edward mounted a second punitive raid into the area south-east of Caesarea. Neither attack was made in force, however, nor was any real determination shown, and, rather than lead in person, Abaqa sent one of his field commanders. Baybars was forced to redeploy a few mamluk divisions, but easily quelled these two minor incursions.

With such limited resources at his disposal, there was little more that Edward could do. When fighting in the West he had proved himself to be a skilled general and a cold-blooded campaigner–qualities that would come to the fore during his reign as king of England–but Edward was given no real opportunity to exercise these talents in Palestine. Even so, the English crusade did benefit Outremer: halting the attack on Tripoli and prompting Baybars to re-evaluate his strategic priorities. The recent Ilkhanid offensive may have been repelled, but it seemed to presage a new era of Mongol aggression and highlighted the potential perils of an alliance between Abaqa and the Franks. With all this in mind, the sultan decided to buy security in Palestine, agreeing a ten-year truce with the kingdom of Jerusalem on 21 April 1272. The deal brought the Latins minor territorial concessions and a pledge of pilgrim access to Nazareth. Baybars was willing to use negotiation to neutralise the kingdom of Jerusalem, but he had already decided to employ more violent means to deal with the lingering and unpredictable threat posed by the Lord Edward.

At some point during the preceding months, the sultan had hired an Assassin to murder the English crusader. Through a slow and painstaking deception, this Muslim gained entry into Acre–claiming to seek baptism–and then inveigled himself into Edward’s service. One evening in May he caught the crusader off guard in his chambers, and attacked him suddenly with a dagger. Reacting instinctively, Edward deflected the blow and the blade inflicted only a minor injury, perhaps to his hip. The assailant was cudgelled to death and, fearing that poison might have been involved, the English prince was immediately given an antidote. This may have been an unnecessary measure; in any case, after a few weeks’ convalescence, Edward was returned to health. Having survived his brush with death, he left the Near East in late September 1272.¹⁷

Shifting focus

With treaties in place binding the Franks to peace in Palestine and Tripoli, Baybars turned his attention to the Mongols. In late 1272 Abaqa launched another, more concerted, offensive that was driven back only after a series of hard-fought engagements in which Qalawun distinguished himself. The sultan now resolved to deal directly with the Ilkhanid problem. Rather than await further invasions, he decided to take the fight to his enemy–returning to Egypt, he began to lay plans for the most ambitious campaign of his career.

In 1273 Baybars endured two distractions. For years, his disreputable sufi confidant Khadir al-Mirani had been a cause of irritation and suspicion for the sultan’s leading emirs. Khadir acquired a well-earned reputation for rampant sexual deviancy and rapacious adultery; he was also given to desecrating the sacred sites of other religions–causing significant damage to the likes of the Holy Sepulchre. In May 1273, the emirs finally pinned him down on irrefutable charges of embezzlement and forced the sultan to recognise his soothsayer’s crimes at a tribunal convened in Cairo. A death penalty was prescribed, but this soon was commuted to imprisonment when Khadir prophesied that his own death would be immediately followed by that of Baybars. In July that same year, the sultan also moved against the Assassins. The Isma‘ili Order had maintained a weakening presence on the western flanks of the Ansariyah range through the thirteenth century. Despite having called upon their services in 1272, Baybars now judged their continued independence to be unacceptable. Mamluk forces were thus detailed to seize possession of the Assassins’ remaining fortresses, including Masyaf, and from this point onwards the remnants of the Order were controlled by the sultanate.

Beyond these minor diversions, Baybars trained the full force of his energy and resources in the mid-1270s towards the preparations for an attack on Ilkhanid territory. Rejecting a frontal strike on Iraq–probably on the grounds that Mamluk and Mongol forces were too evenly balanced for such a blunt strategy–the sultan carefully laid the foundations for an invasion of Asia Minor (now an Ilkhanid protectorate). In early 1277 he led his armies from northern Syria into Anatolia and there scored a startling success–defeating the Mongol host stationed in Asia Minor at Elbistan in April. Leaving behind some 7,000 enemy dead, Baybars immediately had himself proclaimed sultan of Anatolia, but his victory was short-lived. With another large Ilkhanid army on its way, the Mamluks were worryingly isolated and faced the prospect of being cut off from Syria. In a tacit acknowledgement that he had overstretched his forces, the sultan ordered a swift retreat. He had proved that the Mongol menace might be countered, but he had also to accept that they could not be decisively defeated on their own territory.

Baybars’ determination to cripple Ilkhanid Persia had drawn him away from the war against the Franks. That struggle might still have been completed, but upon his return to Damascus in mid-June 1277 the sultan contracted a severe case of dysentery. One of his last acts was to dispatch a messenger, ordering the release of the soothsayer Khadir. On 28 July, Baybars, the Lion of Egypt, died. His message duly arrived in Cairo, but the pardon came too late. Khadir had already been strangled by Baraka, Baybars’ son and heir. Whether by chance, or through Baraka’s superstitious desire to hasten his father’s demise, Khadir’s prediction had come true.¹⁸

Baybars–scourge of the Franks

Sultan Baybars never achieved full victory in the struggle for mastery of the Holy Land. But in the course of his astonishing career he had defended the Mamluk sultanate and Islam against the Mongols and inflicted the most grievous damage upon the crusader states, causing wounds that surely would prove fatal. Historians have long recognised Baybars’ achievements in the jihad, highlighting the stark shift in policy heralded by his reign: the overturning of Ayyubid appeasement and détente; the uncompromising pursuit of war, albeit on two fronts. Less effort has been made to place the sultan in the context of the wider crusading era and to judge his methods and accomplishments alongside those of twelfth-century Muslim leaders.

In a sense, Baybars mixed and perfected the modes of rule adopted by these forerunners. Like the atabeg Zangi, he used fear to pacify his subordinates and maintain military discipline. But Baybars also sought to secure the support and loyalty of his subjects by harnessing the inspirational power of religious devotion and by employing manipulative propaganda–techniques utilised by Nur al-Din and Saladin. In common with all three of these predecessors, Baybars–as a Kipchak mamluk–was an outsider; as they had done, he looked to legitimise his rule and dynasty, and to cultivate a reputation as Islam’s paramount mujahid.

Even so, in many respects Baybars’ qualities and successes surpassed those of Zangi, Nur al-Din and even Saladin. The Mamluk sultan was a more attentive and disciplined administrator, alive in a way Saladin had never been to the financial realities of statecraft and war. At best, the Zangids and Ayyubids had imposed a fragile semblance of unity upon Near Eastern Islam–Baybars achieved near-hegemonic power over the Levant and created an unsurpassed and obedient Muslim army. Circumstance and opportunity undoubtedly played their parts, but perhaps, above all, it was Baybars’ personal traits that set him apart. During the seventeen years of his sultanate, his unbridled energy saw him travel some 25,000 miles, prosecuting thirty-eight campaigns. Martial genius brought him more than twenty victories against the Latins. Most crucially, the sultan was an unrelentingly ruthless adversary, whose ambition was not tempered by the humanity or compassion witnessed under Saladin. Undoubtedly a brutal, even callous, despot, Baybars nonetheless brought Islam closer than ever to triumph in the war for the Holy Land.

TESTS AND TRIUMPHS

Baybars intended the Mamluk sultanate to pass to his son and supposed co-ruler, Baraka, but he proved to be an inept successor, alienating the existing inner circle of mamluk emirs. An unruly power struggle followed, which saw Baraka overthrown and Qalawun emerge from the infighting to claim the title of sultan in November 1279. However, even then Qalawun was not able to assert full control over the Muslim Near East until 1281.¹⁹

Qalawun and the Mamluk sultanate

During his first years in office, Qalawun faced a quickening tide of Mongol aggression. The Ilkhan Abaqa took advantage of the disarray afflicting the Mamluks to send a sizeable raiding force into northern Syria in 1280, prompting the general evacuation of Aleppo. By 1281 it was clear that the full-scale invasion, always feared by Baybars, was soon to begin. This ominous spectre actually enabled Qalawun to enforce a greater degree of unity upon the Mamluk realm, but it also forced him to renew peace treaties with the Franks. The sultan even agreed terms with the Hospitallers in Marqab, in spite of the fact that they had used the opportunity of the Mongols’ 1280 offensive to pillage Muslim territory.

With Mamluk agents embedded in the Persian Ilkhanate reporting that Abaqa was readying his host, Qalawun held his own troops at Damascus from spring 1281 onwards. A massive Ilkhanid army crossed the Euphrates that autumn–perhaps numbering in the region of 50,000 Mongols, plus a further 30,000 allied Georgian, Armenian and Seljuq Turkish soldiers. Even after putting almost every available Mamluk regiment into the field, Qalawun was probably outnumbered; nonetheless, a decision was taken to march north to Homs and confront the enemy. Battle was joined upon the plains north of the city on 29 October 1281. Drawing upon the fearsome discipline and skill-at-arms instilled in the Mamluk war machine by Baybars, Qalawun achieved a second historic victory over the Mongols–echoing the glories of Ayn Jalut–and the broken Ilkhanid horde limped back across the Euphrates. With Mamluk supremacy confirmed, the immediate danger of Mongol attack abated. Qalawun spent the next years consolidating his hold over the sultanate, but by the mid-1280s he was free to redirect his attention to Outremer’s annihilation.²⁰

Turning on Outremer

In spite of recent Mamluk difficulties, the Levantine Franks remained in a vulnerable and disunited state. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was riven by leadership disputes that culminated in the likes of Beirut and Tyre declaring their independence. In the county of Tripoli, Bohemond VII (who succeeded upon his father’s death in 1275) was in open conflict with the Templars–nervous of the order’s excessive power at Tortosa–and faced a rebellion by the southern port of Jubail. Meanwhile, the Italian mercantile states were locked in yet another embittered trade war, this time involving Venice, Pisa and Genoa. By the 1280s, the Genoese were emerging from this fracas as the dominant force and began to establish a stranglehold over eastern Mediterranean commerce.

The crusader states could also entertain little hope of receiving aid from the West. In the early 1270s, while Baybars was focusing his attention upon the Mongols, a new pope, Gregory X, was finally elected as Clement IV’s replacement. At the time of Lord Edward’s crusade and before his elevation to the papal throne, Gregory had visited Acre and was thus only too aware of Outremer’s problems. Once installed in Rome, he set out to energise the Latin West and to address the widespread criticisms levelled at crusading. These included the condemnation of crusades against Christians, cynicism over the redemption of the crusading vow in return for money and disquiet over the excessive burden of crusade taxation. In addition, some dissenting voices suggested that the Levantine Franks actually needed support from a permanent professional fighting force, paid for by the West, and not ill-defined, intermittent crusade expeditions. Pope Gregory instituted a number of enquiries into the state of the crusading movement, but he was also determined to aid the war effort in the Near East. Having convened the Second Council of Lyons in May 1274, Gregory announced plans for a new crusade to begin in 1278. Through force of will he secured the support of France, Germany and Aragon (in northern Spain), and proposed to fund the endeavour by taxing the Church a tenth for six years. But for all its vision, the pope’s grand scheme came to nothing. When Gregory died in 1276, the projected crusade collapsed and concerns about Outremer’s fate once again slipped into the background, amidst the tangled intrigues of western European political life.²¹

Qalawun, therefore, was able to strike against the remaining Frankish outposts with relative impunity from the mid-1280s. Keen to exploit any opportunity to overturn the treaties earlier agreed with the Christians, the sultan condemned the Hospitallers for attacking Muslim lands and launched his own campaign against Marqab in May 1285. Mamluk sappers managed to collapse one of the stronghold’s towers, and the defenders duly surrendered their order’s second great Syrian castle. Just as at Krak des Chevaliers, Marqab was repaired and a Mamluk garrison installed. In April 1287 Qalawun maintained the pressure in the north by seizing Latakia, claiming that the ‘Antiochene’ port was not covered by his pact with Tripoli.

That autumn Tripoli was weakened by its own succession crisis, following the death of Bohemond VII. A civil war broke out, in which the Genoese sought to assume control of the city and thereby establish a new commercial centre in Lebanon. This culminated in a rival group of Italians actually appealing to Qalawun for intervention. Happy to be presented with such a ready excuse both to invade Tripoli and to prevent Genoa from challenging Alexandria’s resurgent economic might, the sultan mustered his forces. The Franks continued with their petty squabbles, oblivious to the imminent danger. Only the master of the Templars, William of Beaujeu–who evidently had his own informers inside the Mamluk world–recognised that Qalawun was about to mount a major siege, but William’s warnings largely went ignored.

The Mamluk host assembled at Krak des Chevaliers and then swooped down on Tripoli, initiating a siege on 25 March 1289. After a month of bombardment, the city was stormed on 27 April and a bloody sack began. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of men were massacred, while the women and children were taken captive. Some Latins escaped on ships down the coast. Others, on smaller craft, took refuge on the tiny island of St Thomas, just offshore, but were hotly pursued by Qalawun’s soldiers and soon butchered. Fighting within the Mamluk army, a noble from Hama named Abu’l Fida later wrote: ‘After looting [the city] I went by boat to this island, and found it heaped with putrefying corpses; it was impossible to land there because of the stench.’

Upon Tripoli’s conquest, Qalawun ordered the city to be razed to the ground and a new settlement built nearby, a move perhaps designed to intimate his willingness to eradicate all memory of the Franks. In the weeks that followed, the last few outposts of the county of Tripoli fell in quick succession; the Latin governor of Jubail was allowed to remain, but only in return for paying a hefty tribute. Like Baybars before him, Qalawun had destroyed a crusader state. His gaze now turned south, to the last vestiges of Frankish settlement in Palestine–to the city of Acre–and preparations began for an all-out attack on the capital of Latin Outremer.²²

1291–THE SIEGE OF ACRE

The shock of Tripoli’s collapse finally caused at least some Latin Christians to recognise that disaster was looming. In Europe, Pope Nicholas IV made strident efforts to rejuvenate Gregory X’s plans for a major crusade. Nicholas also sought to offer immediate aid, sending 4,000 livres tournois to the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and providing thirteen galleys to assist in Acre’s defence. In February 1290 the pope called for a new crusade that would, rather optimistically, aim to achieve the ‘total liberation of the Holy Land’. Banning all commercial contact with the Mamluks, Nicholas announced a departure date for the expedition of June 1293. In response, King James II of Aragon promised to send troops to the Levant, while Edward I, now king of England, sent a military contingent to Acre in 1290, under the command of Otho of Grandson, a veteran of Edward’s crusade in the early 1270s. Around Easter 1290 a contingent of some 3,500 Italian crusaders also set sail for Palestine. Alongside these signs of activity, however, other moves were afoot. Despite his assurances to the pope, James of Aragon negotiated a treaty with the Mamluks, pledging not to aid the crusade in return for promises that Aragonese pilgrims would be permitted to visit Jerusalem. Qalawun also reconciled with the Genoese.²³

By this stage, the Mamluks were busily readying themselves for the campaign, but Qalawun still sought a pretext on which to rescind the standing treaty with Acre. This came in August 1290, when a number of the recently arrived Italian crusaders attacked a group of Muslim merchants in Acre. After the Franks refused to hand over the culprits for summary justice, the sultan declared war. That autumn the Mamluk host was about to march from Egypt when Qalawun fell ill and died on 10 November 1290. For once, his heir al-Ashraf Khalil was able to take power without great difficulty. After a brief interruption, Khalil set himself the task of completing the work begun by his father.

The last battle

Both Qalawun and Khalil recognised that the city of Acre–heavily fortified, with two lines of walls and numerous towers, and densely garrisoned–would be no easy target. The Muslim operation, therefore, was planned with great care and forethought. Mamluk strategy was founded on two principles: overwhelming numerical superiority, with tens of thousands of mamluk cavalry assisted by squadrons of infantry and specialist teams of sappers; and the deployment of the extraordinary arsenal of siege machinery built up since the days of Sultan Baybars. In the last days of winter 1291, Khalil ordered around one hundred ballistic engines to be brought to Acre from across the Mamluk Levant. Some of these weapons truly were monstrous in scale and power. Abu’l Fida was in the siege train of a hundred ox-drawn wagons transporting the pieces of one massive trebuchet nicknamed ‘Victorious’ from Krak des Chevaliers. He complained that, marching through rain and snow, the heavily laden column took a month to cover a distance that was usually an eight-day ride.