Following Orders

[Femme Falchion]

Professor Knights.....am axiously waiting for the lecture on Acre.  The visuals are good to start but how about some background?  Was it common for different orders to live in such proximity of one another?  How did the Accursed tower get it's name?  (perhaps some Knight threw himself off due to unrequited and forbidden love?)




*sob*

[Lady Christina de Pond]

  unrequited love always so sad

[Femme Falchion]

True, True Lady de Pond. 

I must admit that I see why Knights were forbidden to be in relation with women.  Far too dangerous and distracting.  Their crusades required so much sacrifice...

But on the other hand, I prefer to think women of these times and in the "requited love" situation may have thought something along the lines of "don't let the portcullis hit you on the way out beloved"   

[Sir William Marcus]

Acre, Arab rule and the Crusades
The Arabs captured the city in AD 638 and held it until the Crusaders conquered Acre in 1104. The Crusaders made the town their chief port in Palestine. It was re-taken by Saladin in 1187, besieged by Guy of Lusignan in 1189 at the Siege of Acre, and again captured by Richard I of England in 1191. It then became the capital of the remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1192. In 1229 it was placed under the control of the Knights Hospitaller (whence came one of its alternative names). It was the final stronghold of the Crusader state, and fell to the Mameluks in a bloody siege in 1291. The Ottomans under Sultan Selim I captured the city in 1517, after which it fell into almost total decay. Maundrell in 1697 found it a complete ruin, save for a khan (caravanserai) occupied by some French merchants, a mosque and a few poor cottages.

The Crusaders called the city "Acre" or "Saint-Jean d'Acre" since they mistakenly identified it with the Philistine city of Ekron, in northern Philistia, and southern Israel.



The Fall of Acre 1291





With the death of Bohemond VII in October of 1287, the rightful heir apparent of Tripoli was Bohemond's sister Lucia, who resided in Italy. The leaders of the area wanted no part of an absent leader and offered the helm to Sibylla of Armenia, who accepted and tried to install Bishop Bartholomew, whom the Templars held in great contempt for earlier political reasons. While this decision of the rightful heir met with strong objections from local leaders and merchants, she would not back down. The people of Tripoli decreed that the royal line was deposed and that Tripoli would be a commune as was the case in Acre.

Sometime in 1288 Lucia arrived in Tripoli to assert her claim on the land and the new commune did not want to relinquish its newfound power of self-rule. The leaders petitioned the Genoese to make Tripoli a protectorate. This was well received by the Genoese as they welcomed the addition of an important trading partner. War ships were immediately dispatched to defend the city from any forces Lucia might send.

The Venetians backed Lucia and the Templars backed their allies the Venetians. Many of the Templar ships had been built by the Venetians. Soon after a mysterious envoy of Christians arrived on the door of Sultan Kalaun in Egypt requesting that he intervene in the turmoil that was brewing in Tripoli. The envoy was mysterious in that the names of those in attendance are not recorded in history, although some historians suggest that the Templar Grand Master and certainly the secretary of the order was aware of who they were. The argument of the mysterious envoy was that if the Genoese got control of Tripoli, Egyptian trading in Alexandria would be seriously impaired. This met with great approval in the court of Kalaun as he was looking for an excuse to break his treaty with the city. Although the Templar Grand Master was certain of Kalaun's motivations, he could get no serious audience in Tripoli, where everyone seemingly had an unswayable faith in the treaty with Kalaun.

In March of 1289 de Beaujeu's words were finally accepted but it was far too late; some 10,000 Moslem soldiers had surrounded the city. The Venetians and the Genoese who had Galleys were ready to quickly evacuate their people to Cyprus.

Tower after tower soon fell to the steady beat of Moslem war drums as catapults pelted the walls with volley after volley. The Venetians were the first to flee, soon followed by the Genoese, both taking all the supplies their galleys would hold. The remaining citizens were paralyzed with fear as the ships had left to sea taking their only visible means of escape.

When news of the exodus reached the ears of Kalaun, he moved with great haste as he new that the Italians would load their galleys with the richest of materials ahead of their own people. He had desperately wished to plunder the city of its merchandise. Thus he order an immediate assault to halt the further transshipment of goods.

As the Moslem army stormed the walls, they were met with only mild resistance, since Almaric of Cyprus fled the city with four galleys loaded with his own army, the Templar marshal deVanadac and Lucia. The Templar de Modaco was left in charge of the remaining Templars and was slaughtered along with the few remaining Christian forces trying to save the city from a much larger army. When those fighting in the streets were killed the armies of Kalaun began going house to house killing the men and sending women and young boys off in shackles to be sold as slaves. When the city was occupied they set off to do the same on a small island where some had fled in small fishing boats.

After all was said and done Kalaun ordered the walls of the city leveled and Tripoli effectively ceased to exist. The Templars were devastated having lost a sizable contingent of men they could scarcely afford to lose, especially in light of events to come.

Back in Acre, the citizens were in shock at the loss of Tripoli. They had falsely assumed that their trading status with the Moslems was as good a position of safety as any army could be. King Hugh immediately dispatched word to the Pope and the collective monarchs of Europe for military support. The support was not to be forthcoming and the collective opinion was that there was not strong enough need for a new crusade to defend the Holy Land.

Support did eventually come in the form of a rag tag army of mercenary soldiers made up of unemployed Italians and peasants. Since the Venetians had a vested business interest in Acre and an excellent fleet of ships, they transported the unskilled and untested army to Acre.


Disenfranchised that no pay was forthcoming for their efforts the untrained army began to rob the citizens and steal from the merchants. One morning a street fight broke out between the soldiers and a group of Moslems. History does not record the nature of the fracas, but it soon led to a full-scale riot as more and more people took sides in the fight. At the end of the day many Moslems lay dead and the families of the slain wanted revenge and justice.

An envoy of the mourning left Acre for the court of Kalaun. On arriving they were given audience with the sultan and each one in turn told his version of the tale dropping the blood soaked garments of their dead before the Moslem leader. Kalaun vowed justice and immediately set out to use all his resources to prepare every siege engine he could lay hand to and set his army out to mete out the needed punishment. Kalaun did not of course make this decision public and instead sent letters to the Christians demanding that the guilty be turned over to him for proper trial.

The Venetians who had brought the army to Acre were vehemently opposed to this. Their opinion was that it would reflect badly on them to simply turn the men over to the Moslems. Although long time allies with the Venetians, the Templars took the contrary view and felt the men should be turned over to the sultan if peace was to be restored and Acre remain safe. De Beaujeu, the Grand Master of the Templars knew the sultan's motivations and was chastised by the Christians of Acre as being a coward. The citizens felt the Templars were more interested in protecting their growing financial interests and had given up their original role as protectors of the Christina faithful. In this sense they felt the Templars had turned their back on Christ.

The Grand Master's warning was not heeded to and letters were sent back to the sultan. These letters expressed deep regret for the unfortunate incident and laid the blame at those guilty Venetian soldiers and not at the Kingdom of Jerusalem as a whole. While the Christians were using political spin to save their hides Kalaun was building a formidable war machine. As hammers struck wood building more siege engines, word began to trickle through Outremer that war was afoot. To divert their attentions from his true goal Kalaun circulated a story that his war machine was destined for the Sudanese and Nubians who were both late in their tribute payments.

De Beaujeu did not believe the deception for a moment and continued to warn Acre, but his warning again fell upon deaf ears. Since the Grand Master had not given his support to the Venetians over the surrender of the soldiers, the Venetians sought to get even by not lending their support to the Templars on the warnings.

The cards dealt by Kalaun was of little importance because by the time any decision had been made, Kalaun lay dead in his tent never hearing the outcome of the Christian's decision. This did little to stop the ultimate fate of Acre as a new player picked up the cards his father had dealt. Al Ashraf Khalil was ready to carry on what his father had begun. The siege engines were built; swords sharpened and horse hooves shoed. Winter had fallen so it was decided that the advancement of the army would wait until spring.

Meanwhile the Christians at Acre were anxious to learn of the intentions of the new sultan and sent an envoy of one Templar, one Hospitaller, an Arab translator and a secretary who would prepare any paperwork required to cut a new deal. As soon as they arrived they were jailed and word soon came back to Acre that they were dead. The dice had been tossed and it didn't look like good news was on the horizon.

In the spring of 1291 the sultans army set out and the citizens of Acre, who the previous fall had so chastised the Grand Master of the Templars for his cowardice, now begged him to save them from the coming army.

While the Templars held the largest force in Acre and the Hospitallers also had a good-sized army, they were no match for the 160,000 men the Moslems were sending. This army consisted of 100,000 foot soldiers and some 60,000 horsemen. The Templars and Hospitallers always at the ready to wage war, set out to make preparations for the coming battle. The Teutonic Knights who also had a force in Acre were politically ridiculed and embarrassed when their Grand Master resigned in fear of the coming battle. They were able to elect a new leader in time for the battle.

The Genoese loaded their vessels and left before the fighting started. Having nothing to gain from the war and not wishing to aid the rival Venetians they saw no fit reason to stick around.

A great wall surrounded Acre at the time supported by ten towers. While this would seem a secure fortification it was only a temporary means of protection against the many siege towers and catapults the Moslems brought to tear them down.

Since the sultan did not send a fleet the seaside was open to the Christians for supplies. One ship was quickly equipped with a catapult and set to sea to protect the city from any fleet that may come forth.

On April 6th, 1291 the first volley from the catapults began and continued to rein down on the walls and towers day and night. As the battle raged on the Templars quickly became fed up with their role as mere defenders. They had nearly two centuries of attack experience and didn't like being on the receiving end of one. It was soon decided to launch an attack on the Moslem's camp under the cover of darkness.

One evening the St. Lazarus Gate quietly opened and the silence was replaced with the hoof beats of 300 Templar war horses tearing off into the Moslem camp. Unfortunately the cover of darkness meant to provide cover did not provide the Templars with enough visibility to be effective. The horses tripped on tent ropes and the fallen Templars were slaughtered where they stood, further depleting their forces; forces which were already vastly outnumbered by the enemy.

Ever the rivals, the Hospitallers set out to show the Templars how to do the job and on another evening they charged off under the cover of darkness from the St. Anthony Gate, which was in their quarter, to finish the job the Templars had started. This time the Moslems decided to throw a little light on the issue and set brush afire. The Hospitallers seeing there was no chance of success beat a hasty retreat back through St. Anthony's Gate eating a little crow on the journey. Thus ended the nightly forays into the sultan's camp.

With each passing day the walls cracked a little more as volley after volley rang out of the Moslem catapults. By May 16th one tower cracked and the army was able to enter forcing the Christian's back to the inner wall of the doomed city. Clearly they were losing valuable ground in their defense of Acre. Two days later the sultan ordered all the kettle drums to sound and the thundering beat of the advancement was disheartening to the trembling people of Acre. Khalil ordered the forces to storm the walls and deliberately attacked all sides simultaneously, further spreading and weakening the Christian's defenses.

With this attack came the death of the Grand Master de Beaujeu. As thousands of arrows were shot over the walls, one met the unprotected part of the Grand Master's armor as he raised his sword. As he was carried away, the crusaders begged him to stay and press on. His response was that he could do more, he was already dead. True to his own words de Beaujeu died within the day from his fatal arrow wound.

As the battle waged on the Hospitaller quarter was the first to be breached and as the Moslems stormed the wall, the St Anthony Gate was quickly opened allowing more soldiers through. Soon after the Hospitaller Grand Master received a wound but wished to fight on. He had to be forcibly removed by his men and was sent off to sea.

Seeing the writing on the wall many began to flee. Almaric left in his vessels and took many nobles with him. Otto de Grandson, the Swiss leader fighting for Edward I loaded his English army into Venetian vessels and set off to sea as well. The rank and file citizen fought over any thing that would float and also set off to water.

As was the case in Tripoli the men were killed and women and young boys shackled as slaves. The elderly and infants were put to Moslem blades and the army began to plunder the city. Those who could escape made way to the Templar fort at the southernmost tip of the city, where there were about 200 Templars. Rather than flee themselves they vowed to stay and protect the women and children who had sought refuge in the Temple. Of course not all Templars were so valiant. Roger de Flor commandeered a Templar galley and offered safe passage to anyone with the prerequisite financial remuneration for the voyage.

Some five days passed as the Templars held the women and children in the safety of their fort. Annoyed that this one remaining building was obstructing the defeat of the city, Khalil sent an envoy to make a deal with the Templars. If they relinquished the fort, the lives of the women and children would be spared and the Templars could take with them not only their weapons but all they could carry.

Peter de Severy, the commander of the last remaining Templar fortress in Acre, seeing no other possible solution to the stalemate, quickly agreed to the terms. The castle gates were opened and the Moslems entered and hoisted the sultan's banner, but contrary to the deal that had been made, quickly began molesting the women and young boys. This outraged the Templars who obviously felt duped by the negated arrangement.

The doors of the castle were quietly closed, barred and swords silently drew out of sheaths. In true Templar fashion they slaughtered the attackers to a man. The sultan's flag was hoisted down and the Beauseant replaced. The battle was back on and the garrison of Templars shouted that it would continue on until their very deaths.

That evening under the cover of darkness Tibauld de Gaudin, the Temple's treasurer was escorted in to the fort. He loaded the Templar treasure and as many women and children as he could back on his ship and set sail for the Templar castle at Sidon.

The following morning the sultan sent an envoy to the fort and they expressed their deepest regrets for the actions of a few guilty men. This was a similar situation that had once been offered to the sultan by the Christian's to save Acre before the battle ever began. The envoy said that the sultan wished to meet with the commander of the fort to offer his personal apologies and to ensure that the surrender terms would be upheld this time.

De Severy, it seemed, had not learned the lesson earlier taught and selected a few Templars to accompany him on the trip to the sultan's camp. Once the party was outside they were brought to their knees and beheaded as their slack jawed brother knights watched from the walls of the fort.

The sultan's miners continued to work on the foundations of the fort and when all was ready they set timbers ablaze. As the walls began to crack Khalil ordered a party of some 2000 soldiers to storm the fort. The added weight of the attacking forces on the crumbling structure was too great and the entire building collapsed killing all who were inside and those who were trying to get inside.

With the destruction of this last Templar stronghold Khalil's conquest of Acre was completed. Meanwhile de Gaudin, the treasurer received word that he had been elected the new Grand Master. He immediately loaded the treasury and set sail for the island of Cyprus, the main headquarters of the order and an island they had once purchased form Richard I. He vowed to send reinforcement troops, but these troops never surfaced.

As city after city fell to the Moslems, the Holy Land was slipping from the hands of Christendom. All that remained of the Templars in the Holy Land was their castles at Tortosa and Athlit. On August 4th, 1291 Tortosa was abandoned and less than two weeks later on August 14th, Castle Pilgrim at Athlit was left unoccupied. Thus ended Christendom's hold on Outremer and the Crusades were effectively brought to a close.

It is ironic that while the Templars were the last to give up the fight, they would be blamed for the ultimate loss of the Holy Land. Accusations that would feed a growing contempt for the order and see their ultimate demise at the hands of a king destined to capitalize on their growing unpopularity.

Source: www.templarhistory.com

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

Fall of the Accursed Tower (specifics)

The ghosts of Akko will not rest. Even today, the town of Akko -– known as Acre to the Christian crusaders – huddles on a small talon of land on the northern shore of a great bay on the coast of Palestine. The early giants of civilization claimed the rich port in turn as a principal base for their ships of trade and war: Phoenicia, Persia, Macedon, Egypt, Rome. Located half way between the ancient inland capitals of Damascus to the north and Jerusalem to the south, Akko sometimes submitted quietly to usurpation by new masters and opened its gates. Other times, relying upon its strong walls and open port to the sea, the town resisted and was overcome, and a foul stench then wafted over the bay as the slaughtered inhabitants rotted in the streets.

A count of death, however many, is not the mark of tragedy. Nor is tragedy, however great, the mark of human perdition. The eternal coil of death and tragedy, repeated age after age, is the mark of perdition that disturbs the ghosts of Akko. One past moment, perhaps, tells all.

In 1291, William de Beaujeu, the last grand master of the Templar knights in the Holy Land, received advance warning from his spies when a great army from Egypt set out northward to expel the Christian crusaders from Acre. Two years previously, de Beaujeu received a similar warning when an army from Egypt approached Tripoli on the coast farther north – but no one believed his alarm and no preparations were made. Tripoli was razed. Now, at Acre, the most splendid jewel of Frankish Outremer, de Beaujeu's alarm was ignored again. The convincing evidence of his credibility so recently manifest in the fate of Tripoli was disregarded, and de Beaujeu was scornfully rejected, and (as Runciman tells us) "was accused of being a traitor and was insulted by the crowd as he left the hall."

In the memorable words of the philosopher Hegel, the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk. Although one individual, it appears, may grasp the truth of an approaching calamity and seek to prepare for it, the mass of humanity together seems to understand the future only once it has overtaken them. Gray are all theories, quote Mephistopheles, and only the present instant of life is green. The result is tragic for one who gives warning and goes unheeded, and more, is reviled; and who yet then sets about to face the onset with courage and undiminished determination to the end. So it was with the master of the Temple and his knights at the doom of Acre.

One hundred years earlier, responding to the depredations and murder inflicted upon Moslem peoples, the noble Sultan Saladin raised a new standard of holy war, the jihad, against the Christian crusader states, and ejected them from Jerusalem, Acre, Toron, Beirut, Sidon, Nazareth, Caesarea, Nabulus, Jaffa, and Ascalon. Saladin treated the conquered with compassion and eschewed the slaughter practiced by the Christians and by his own Fatimid predecessors, which originally aroused the crusader spirit. The inspiration of Saladin for good passed away too quickly, like a lonely beacon traversing a vast, enshrouding night. The righteous wrath of the crusaders was not spent, and their greed for glory and riches and salvation in the East remained undeterred. Only a few years passed before a new levy of crusader kings smashed through the walls of Acre after a protracted and miserable siege to reoccupy the rich port that yet glittered like a marble in the sun.

The walls of Acre at the time slanted outward from the northern shoreline and turned out sharply in the middle to form a salient that connected at a right angle to the southern wall that reached the bay and covered the harbor. At the inner angle of the salient stood the Accursed Tower, so named, supposedly, because there the coins were minted that passed to Judas to betray his lord Jesus. Twice accursed, the moat outside the tower was also the place where the crusading army attempting to retake Acre from the Moslem forces of Saladin, filled the gap with their own dead, killed by disease that raged through the camp. Through this pool of putrefaction, the crusaders mined the tower until it collapsed, and stormed over the platform of corpses and the rubble of stones to force an entry, and were repulsed.

The Accursed Tower was the most exposed and vulnerable point in the walls of Acre. When the army of Egypt that de Beaujeu had foreseen reached the town, the multitude of siege engines accompanying them concentrated their artillery fire at the Accursed Tower. De Beaujeu with three hundred knights charged out one night to destroy the largest and most damaging of the siege engines, but failed. The Egyptian artillery continued to pound all along the walls unceasingly, and threw containers of explosive fire. Archers poured arrows in massive clouds against the defenders in the galleries and tower platforms. Mines were dug and torched, so the foundations of the outer towers that shielded the Accursed Tower collapsed. A general assault was finally mounted along the whole length of the walls, most forcefully at the salient, where the holy orders of the Templars and the Hospitallers with their grand masters stood and fought side by side.

In a hopeless effort to push back the invaders at the Accursed Tower, de Beaujeu was shot with an arrow in the armpit, where his hauberk did not protect him. Soldiers of the garrison cursed him to rise, but he was done with curses. "My lords," he told them, "I can do no more, for I am dead" – and he raised his arm to show them the wound. His loyal knights carried him away to the Temple, fortified in the far corner of the town by the harbor. Others at that bitter moment fled by sea, leaving the townspeople to their fate. Too late, the green of the present instant overcame the gray of theory, and the owl of Minerva ruffled its wings. The Templar knights alone stayed on and fought to the end from their Temple redoubt, and held back the invaders for two weeks longer, until their walls crashed in ruin.

Exactly one hundred years elapsed, nearly to the day, between the reconquest of Acre by the Christian crusaders in 1191, and the fall of the Accursed Tower when Grand Master of the Temple William de Beaujeu was slain, in 1291. The victorious young Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil proceeded to systematically destroy everything and everyone that existed in the place, so Egypt would never again be threatened by it. Faced by the sultan's unrelenting army, the remaining crusaders at Tyre and Sidon soon capitulated and evacuated the Holy Land forever.

Or so it seemed. Chastened, and faced by the growing might of the Ottoman Turks, the energy of the crusading West evolved a new strategy aimed at the periphery. The crusaders first ejected the Moslems from Spain, and then moved as well as they could into Algeria and North Africa. At last, Napoleon entered Egypt. For two months in 1799, he besieged the rebuilt walls of Akko, and was frustrated. Control at Suez was the principal, unrelinquished target. Finally, in 1918, at the first opportunity that came to them once the Ottomans collapsed, the French retook the Levantine coast of Syria and Lebanon, and the British heirs of Richard the Lion-Hearted retook Akko. The modern grand masters learned cunning in their manner of empire by then, and immediately established a client kingdom of Zion to mask their suzerainty. The new state of Israel occupied Akko in 1948, marking its northern coastal frontier. The Palestinian inhabitants fled.

The fine harbor of Akko, or Akka, or Acre, has now silted up, and today the town exists as a modest fishing village. The centers of strife have shifted, but the depredations and murder inflicted upon Moslem peoples by foreign crusaders in the land persist. A renewed storm of jihad rumbles on the near horizon, awaiting a new Saladin to invest it with virtue. One hundred years have not yet elapsed since the new masters of Palestine have presumed, again, to render their own version of holiness over the people there. One hundred years have not yet elapsed, and perdition calls. The owl of Minerva yet sleeps, awaiting the falling of dusk – and the ghosts of Akko will not rest.

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

Third Crusade: Siege of Acre, a Prelude

To the Christian army besieging the walled Muslim city of Acre in the spring of 1191, the situation appeared nearly hopeless.

While they tightened the noose around Acre, the entrenched Christians were, in turn, being systematically squeezed by a Muslim relief force commanded by the dreaded Saladin (born Salah-ad-Din Yusuf ibn-Ayyub). Two years of warfare on the sandy beaches and plains near the city had decimated their numbers, as had the ravages of disease and starvation. Stubbornly clinging to their siege works, sandwiched between the walls and Saladin, the Christian Franks were in dire need of both reinforcements and quality leadership.

Located on the Mediterranean coast in what is today northern Israel, Acre had been a goal of the First Crusade nearly a century earlier. In that initial attempt to wrest the Holy Land from the Muslims, European Crusaders in 1099 had captured Jerusalem, the focal point of the Christian faith. Other cities, including Acre, were subsequently seized. As the Europeans, or Franks, settled in the Levant, they created Latin kingdoms buttressed by a series of fortified cities that carried on trade both with Europe and with the Muslims in Egypt and the Near East.

Internal Squabbling, however, began to weaken the unity of the Frankish states. The problem of feuding was compounded by the rise of Saladin in the II70s as Islam's greatest military leader. A warrior of relatively low birth, Saladin had seized power through war and diplomacy in Egypt and Syria after the death of the Fatamid ruler Nur al-Din. After defeating jealous nobles, Saladin was quick to distribute his wealth to bind vassals to him. Frankish historian William of Tyre noted that the provinces of Saladin's empire furnished him with 'numberless companies of horsemen and fighters, men thirsty for gold.'

Saladin was quick to take advantage of the weakening Latin kingdoms. After a series of abortive truces, he brought the Frankish army to bay on the parched plain of Hattin near the Sea of Galilee on July 4, 1187. The shimmering heat was almost as great an enemy to the armored Christians as the Muslim blades and arrows, and they died by the thousands. 'When one saw how many were dead, one could not believe there were any prisoners,' wrote Arab chronicler Ibn alAthir, 'and when one saw the prisoners, one could not believe there were any dead. Never since their invasion of Palestine had the Franks suffered such a defeat.' Among those captured was Guy of Lusignan, who had been crowned King of Jerusalem the year before.

By July 10, Saladin had hammered through the Levantine littoral, capturing Jaffa, Haifa, Caesarea, Acre and Sidon. In early September, he captured the stronghold of Ascalon, and by the end of the month he had laid siege to Jerusalem, which capitulated on October 2. Only the well-defended bastion of Tyre, under the capable leadership of Conrad of Montserrat, and a handful of isolated Crusader fortresses maintained resistance.

After the debacle at Hattin, the remaining Franks blamed each other for the defeat. Sensing the Christian despair, Saladin released Guy of Lusignan, hoping to further cloud the already murky political waters of the Frankish states. Guy immediately traveled to Tyre to reclaim his right to command as king of Jerusalem. Conrad, however, would have nothing to do with that proposal, and he abruptly slammed the city gates shut on the shocked Guy.

Feeling in need of a decisive event to bolster his sagging fortunes, Guy collected a small army of 400 horse and 7,000 foot and recklessly marched on the Muslim stronghold of Acre. Rising next to the sea, Acre had well-manned battlements and a pair of towers that dominated the landscape: the Accursed Tower, facing landward, and the Tower of Flies, brooding over the harbor. With its rich maritime trade, the city was a jewel that Guy could not resist. However, considering the relatively puny size of his force and the vast scope of the project, he would have done better to eschew the immobility of siege warfare for a war of movement and maneuver against the Muslims.

Saladin, beset by malaria, was surprised that Guy would attempt such a foolhardy venture. He was even more taken aback when the Franks successfully invested the plains stretching north and east of the city and the beaches of a crescent-shaped bay to the south. About a mile east of Acre's gates, Guy's soldiers pitched their camp on a series of mounds that they named Toron. They dug protective ditches around the encampment and filled them with water diverted from several nearby streams. With a moat established, the Franks constructed an earthen wall around the tents.

Had Saladin been able to marshal his forces immediately, their combined strength undoubtedly would have crushed Guy of Lusignan's army. But distances were great, and by the time troops from Mosul, Sinjar, Egypt and Dujar Bakr had gathered in September, the Franks had received reinforcements from Europe. According to the minstrel-chronicler Ambroise, James of Avesnes from Flanders had arrived with 'fourteen thousand renowned men-at-arms.' Shortly thereafter, 'the fleet of Danemark came with many fine castellans, who had good brown horses, strong and swift.'

These first contingents of the Third Crusade had initially docked at Tyre but had quickly sailed to Acre upon hearing of peace with Guy of Lusignan. So numerous were the Christian ships now moored in the bay and blockading Acre's harbor that their masts reminded one Muslim observer of 'tangled thickets.' Another emir, or Muslim prince, estimated the Franks' numbers had soared to 2,000 horse and 30,000 foot.

Saladin's war council decided it was time to test the Franks' strength. On the morning of September 14, 1189, the Muslims launched an attack, hoping to drive the Christians away from their encampment and punch a hole through to Acre's walls. But the Christians stood firm. Mounting another attack the following day, Muslim cavalry discovered a weak spot in the lines north of the city, and after an hour of desperate fighting, the Franks were driven back. Just as a Muslim victory seemed near, however, several attacking emirs suddenly abandoned the fray to water their horses and seek refreshments. By the time the attack was renewed, the Christians had re-formed and, according to Imad al-Din,'stood like a wall behind their mantlets, shields and lances, with levelled crossbows.'

Unable to dislodge the Crusaders, Saladin extended his lines to press the Christians from the rear–in essence, besieging them! His tight cavalry also opened a channel of supply and communication with the city. What the Muslims were unable to halt, however, was the seemingly continuous flow of fresh Europeans and equipment coming by sea. The heavily laden ships also bore timber for the construction of heavy siege engines.

More alarming to Saladin than Christian siege weapons was the news that Frederick Barbarossa, king of Germany and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, had reached Constantinople in August with an army of 200,000 Crusaders. The Muslim leader sent letters to emirs and caliphs throughout the length and breadth of Islam begging for more troops to counter this new threat. To his despair, he not only failed to garner additional support but he also found the fidelity of some of his vassals wavering. Several emirs left the Muslim camp to prepare to defend their own homelands against Barbarossa.

Rain squalls and heavy mists heralded the coming of winter weather prohibiting all but the most foolhardy from venturing out to sea. For the Franks, the season now meant little in the way of reinforcements until spring. To the daring Armenian Muslim Admiral Lulu, however, it offered a chance to whisk men and supplies into Acre's harbor without having to contend with a heavy Frankish blockade. In December, Lulu led 50 Egyptian galleys into the harbor, brushing aside the few Christian vessels with gouts of Greek fire. Acre's garrison went wild with excitement.

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

No major engagements emerged during the winter months, only several probing skirmishes outside Acre's walls. With the coming of the calming influences of spring, the vast Frankish fleet once more resumed control of the Mediterranean. The influx of fresh troops allowed Guy of Lusignan to stage attacks that broke Saladin's supply line and isolated Acre.

As the days continued to warm and the soggy ground dried out, the Crusaders constructed siege towers with the wood imported by the Italian merchant ships. Four stories high and capable of holding up to 500 men, these movable towers loomed as high as the walls of Acre. They were covered with hides soaked in vinegar and urine, which, it was believed, could provide protection from the deadly Greek fire that had been flung down by the garrison.

By the end of April 1190, the towers were ready. While Frankish bowmen in the crenelated tops dueled archers on the walls, thousands of Christian peasant soldiers and camp followers scurried to fill the city's moat with rocks and fascines of brush. Once the ditch was filled, it was hoped, the towers could be pushed up against Acre's parapets to disgorge their occupants and carry hand-to-hand combat to the enemy.

Boulders and fire pots hurled from Muslim mangonels had little effect on lumbering siege machines, which were reinforced with iron. The garrison was saved, however, by the son of a Damascus coppersmith who developed a new formula for making Greek fire. Initially scoffed at, he was finally allowed to try his creation.

On May 5, the new combustibles were shot from a mangonel and allowed to drench the siege towers. The Christians, believing they had nothing to fear, crowded the towers with archers as they jeered the defenders. Then, according to chronicler Ibn al-Athir, the man from Damascus launched a flaming pot: 'The fire at once spread everywhere, the tower was consumed, and the outbreak happened so swiftly that the Christians had no time to flee. Men, weapons, everything was burned.' Letters to Saladin's camp reported that the moat around Acre had become 'a pool of fire with the tower as a fountain.'

Crusaders and Muslims clashed on eight successive days in June, the heat baking the growing mounds of bodies. Clouds of flies accompanied the terrible stench, and disease gripped both camps. For nearly a month after, little fighting took place.

The Frankish men-at-arms tired at last of the waiting game. On St. James' Day, July 25, they staged an attack on the Muslim lines north of Acre. It was a poorly conceived affair, with few armored knights participating. The Christian surge was primarily made up of peasant soldiers armed with pikes and axes. At-Adil, Saladin's brother and the Muslim commander in that sector, lured the Christians into his own camp, where they broke ranks to plunder the tents. Saladin quickly sent reinforcements of Mosuli and Egyptian troops to hem in the enemy. Had it not been for the courageous efforts of Ralph de Hauterive, archdeacon of Colchester in England, the embattled soldiers might have been wiped out. Surrounded by his personal guard, the heavily armored Ralph cut a line of retreat through the Muslim ranks. The damage, however, had been done. A Muslim officer reported more than 9,000 Franks stain, including the gallant Ralph.

Three days later, on July 28, the besiegers welcomed the arrival of 10,000 men under Henry of Champagne. Henry's army formed the vanguard of a much larger force that King Philip Augustus of France was bringing to the Holy Land. By fall, an English contingent headed by Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, landed with word that King Richard I of England had also embarked on the Crusade. It would be some time, however, before either Philip or Richard arrived at Acre.

While Henry of Champagne planned assaults on the city, including the use of battering rams, Saladin received word that Frederick Barbarossa had died while crossing a shallow river near Armenia. Although leadership fell to Barbarossa's son Frederick of Swabia, the German crusade began to disintegrate. Numerous German nobles returned to Europe. Those who remained with the Duke of Swabia were beset by famine and stain in great numbers by Muslim Seljuk and Kurdish tribesmen. 'We had many dead,' reported a German knight. 'We were obliged to kill our horses and eat their meat, and to feed the fire with our lances.' Only 5,000 ragged survivors reached friendly Tripoli, finally joining the siege at Acre in October.

Frankish fortunes continued to slide. Henry of Champagne's heavy mangonets were destroyed in a Muslim sally from Acre's gates in early September. On September 24, the Christian fleet attempted to destroy the Tower of Flies, which guarded the city's harbor, by ramming vessels loaded with combustibles into it. At a critical moment the wind shifted, and the ships collided with one another and were badly damaged. A specially built Pisan vessel, resembling a floating castle and outfitted with mangonels, was set afire during a sortie from the harbor by a flotilla of small Muslim boats.

Winter arrived early on the coast, temporarily putting an end to Christian naval supremacy. As the winter lengthened, plague and famine stalked the Crusaders' camp. Thousands succumbed to an intestinal fever. Henry of Champagne hovered near death for many weeks. Frederick of Swabia, who had suffered through his father's death and the terrible march from Germany, died in January 1191.

Food supplies had dwindled by early spring. In the Frankish camp, a silver penny bought a handful of beans or a single egg. A sack of corn cost 100 pieces of gold. The common soldier ate grass and chewed bare bones. Ambroise recorded that 'a crowd gathered around whenever a horse was killed, and a dead horse sold for more than it had ever been worth alive. Even the entrails were eaten.' So numerous were the dead that many bodies were carted to Acre's moat to help fill it in.

April finally brought relief to the beleaguered Franks. A ship swollen with grain and corn arrived at the camp, followed on April 20 by King Philip Augustus of France in a fleet of ships crammed with soldiers and war engines. Seven weeks later, in June, King Richard I of England hove into view with 25 ships, fresh from his conquest of Cyprus. En route, they had overtaken a large Muslim supply ship loaded with 650 men for the relief of Acre. Richard's vessel had rammed the enemy ship and sunk it with heavy loss of life. To the English soldiers now surveying the coast as they neared the Crusaders' bay, the vista ahead seemed to promise an army of Muslims covering mountain and valley, hill and plain. Obvious and ominous, too, were the enemy's multitudinous, brightly colored tents pitched everywhere.

The arrival of the new French and English Crusaders renewed Frankish hopes. Philip, eight years Richard's senior, offered leadership based on his experience as French king. He preferred the intricacies of siege warfare as opposed to the hand-to-hand battle relished by Richard. Although the English king lacked ruling experience, he had gained renown as a fierce fighter endowed with great personal courage.

Richard, bearing the famous soubriquet 'the Lion-Hearted,' assumed command of the siegeworks. Attempts to scale the walls had failed, but Philip's sappers had successfully tunneled beneath the Accursed Tower. The timbers supporting the mine shaft were then set on fire. Above ground, a ferocious mangonel bombardment further weakened the tower, which soon collapsed. Committing any able-bodied man who could bear arms to the breach, the Muslim defenders were barely able to fend off the attacking Franks.

Mighty siege engines continued to hurl heavy rocks and fire pots at the weakening city. French engineers constructed a stone-throwing catapult nicknamed the 'Evil Neighbor' and a huge mangonel dubbed 'God's Own Sling.' Together these monstrous machines succeeded in fracturing Acre's walls.

Italian merchant vessels plied the waters around Acre, delivering arms and armor while effectively sealing the city's harbor. A Muslim chronicler bemoaned the fact that Acre's garrison was running short of materiel, while the Franks were 'clothed in a kind of thick felt, and coats of mail as ample as they were strong, which protected them against arrows.'

Sickness, however, struck both Philip and Richard, the latter seriously. Called leonardie by Ambroise, the disease resembled scurvy, with a wasting of body and loss of hair. Weakened, Richard nevertheless ordered that he be borne by litter to the siegeworks, both to inspect operations and to buoy the Crusaders' spirits by his presence.

Saladin was unable to break through the ring of besiegers to relieve Acre. Volunteer swimmers carried messages from the city to the gathered emirs, pleading for help. A final appeal was sent out on July 7. Acre's defenders by then were too weak to man the breach made by Philip's sappers. They probably sensed they would all be massacred if the Christians were forced to take the city by storm. Against Saladin's wishes, the city surrendered to the Franks on July 12, 1191. The great Muslim leader, noted one chronicler, received the news 'like a mother who has lost her child.'

The first siege of Acre had taken nearly two years and may have cost more than 100,000 Christian casualties. The tenacity of the opposing armies, coupled with the bloodletting and abominable living conditions, led at least one historian to liken the siege to the terrible Battle of Verdun in 1916. The final savagery of the siege took place after the city had fallen. Perhaps as revenge for Muslim atrocities against Christians-but more likely because a term of surrender involving the return of the true cross (which had been captured by Saladin at Haddin) and payment of 200,400 gold pieces was not being met-Richard I ordered 2,700 of the survivors from Acre's garrison executed.

Richard the Lion-Hearted then carried the Third Crusade deep into Palestine. Squabbles had already caused contact to be broken with Conrad of Montserrat and Philip Augustus, the latter returning to France, but the Franks still were strong enough to win stirring victories at Arsuf and Jaffa. The recapture of Jerusalem, however, was a goal not to be attained.

Acre knew relative peace and prosperity as a Christian city over the next century. The rise of the Mamelukes, ferocious slave-warriors from Egypt, in the mid- 13th century signaled an end to the Frankish states of the Levant. Under Sultan alMalik Baibars, the Mamelukes took Syria from the rising new Mongol powers. In 1268, Jaffa and Antioch, former Frankish strongholds, were captured. A series of truces kept the Mamelukes at bay until negotiations broke down in 1289. Tripoli was destroyed as the sultan Qalawan turned his attention to driving all Christians out of Palestine.

Acre, by then, had been heavily fortified with double walls and a string of 12 towers set at irregular intervals on both the inner and outer walls. The 14,000 defenders consisted of Acre's citizenry, Pisan and Venetian pilgrims to the Holy Land, a contingent of Cypriots, and a small group of English and Swiss knights. The bulk of the defense rested on the knights of the Teutonic, Templar and Hospitaler military orders.

AI-Ashraf Khalil, the Mamelukes' new sultan, had raised an army of more than 100,000 cavalry and foot. Among his huge siege weapons was a catapult dubbed 'Victorious,' which had to be transported in pieces on a train of specially constructed carts. 'The carts were so heavy,' noted Muslim chronicler Abu'l-Feda, 'that the trip took us more than a month, although in normal times eight days would have sufficed.'

On April 5, 1291, Khalil arrived before the walls of Acre. His siege engines rained stones and fire pots upon the city. A steady fire was returned by the city's mangonels and by a Frankish ship sporting a heavy catapult. The Mamelukes were also peppered with arrows, according to Abu'l-Feda, from 'Frankish boats topped by wooden-covered turrets lined with buffalo hide, from which the enemy fired at us with bows and crossbows.'

Khalil ordered a general assault on Acre on Friday, May 18. Driven by the boom and bang of 300 drums and cymbals, the white-turbaned Mamelukes rushed the walls as mangonels and archers kept up a blistering fusillade. They stormed the Accursed Tower, rebuilt after its destruction a century earlier. A furious counterattack led by Hospitaler Marshal Matthew of Clermont stymied the Mamelukes for a time, but their numbers were too great. Tower after tower fell. The Templars and Hospitalers died in bands, surrounded by the screaming Egyptians. Matthew of Clermont finally fell as the Mamelukes burst into the city streets.

Defenders and noncombatants in Acre streamed to the harbor, where Venetian vessels waited to rescue them. There were too few ships, however, to save all the fugitives. Those Christians unable to leave the city were slaughtered by the Mamelukes.

Meanwhile, a desperate standoff developed at the castle of the Templars in the northwest part of Acre. The besieged knights fought valiantly for several days, and were actually offered their freedom–until treachery cut that hope short. Cypriot ships hovered about rescuing women and children from the castle's seaward wall. Mameluke tunnels, however, crumbled the main landward wall. Sultan Khalil impatiently ordered 2,000 warriors to break through the dazed defenders at the breach. The sagging foundation of the castle suddenly collapsed, burying Christian and Muslim alike. As the dust settled, Acre had finally been returned to Muslim hands.

To make sure Acre never became a Christian bastion again, Sultan Khalil ordered its walls, castles and buildings to be torn down and burned. Boulders were rolled into the harbor to end its days as a port facility.

The fall of Acre to the Christians in 1191 had ignited a new wave of Crusading fervor that bolstered the faltering Latin Kingdoms. Richard I emerged as a larger-than-life hero in one of history's last great sieges before the use of gunpowder. The city's ultimate demise in 1291 at the hands of the Mamelukes was a bloody epitaph to 200 years of Crusader warfare.


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This article was written by Kenneth P. Czech and originally published in the August 2001 issue of Military History magazine.

[Femme Falchion]

Fall of the Accursed Tower (specifics)

So let me get this straight...no forbidden love?

This tale is a great read. 

Love the last line, The owl of Minerva yet sleeps, awaiting the falling of dusk – and the ghosts of Akko will not rest.  

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

Fall of the Accursed Tower (specifics)

So let me get this straight...no forbidden love?

Ha! No! 

[Sir William Marcus]

  Rule 71. Let Them Not Have Familiarity with Woman

We believe it to be a dangerous thing for any religious to look too much upon the face of a woman. For this reason none of you may presume to kiss a woman, be it widow, young girl, mother, sister, aunt or any other; and henceforth the knighthood of Jesus Christ should avoid at all cost the embraces of woman, by which men have perished many times, so that they may remain eternally before the face of God with a pure conscience and sure life

[Lady Christina de Pond]

  Rule 71. Let Them Not Have Familiarity with Woman

We believe it to be a dangerous thing for any religious to look too much upon the face of a woman. For this reason none of you may presume to kiss a woman, be it widow, young girl, mother, sister, aunt or any other; and henceforth the knighthood of Jesus Christ should avoid at all cost the embraces of woman, by which men have perished many times, so that they may remain eternally before the face of God with a pure conscience and sure life

otherwords to die alone without knowing the joy and pain of Love. Without the joy of knowing the crown of creation.

[Sir William Marcus]

  Rule 71 1/2. Let Them Not Have Familiarity with Woman

We believe it to be a dangerous thing for any religious to look too much upon the face of a woman. For this reason none of you may presume to kiss or embrace a woman unless its....

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

  Rule 71 1/2. Let Them Not Have Familiarity with Woman

We believe it to be a dangerous thing for any religious to look too much upon the face of a woman. For this reason none of you may presume to kiss or embrace a woman unless its....

Upon the completion of an emergency session of the Order of the Temple counsel, to address such issues as that mentioned above, the Brothers are in agreement (unanimously, the vote was all for- zero against) with the above statement of Frere William. It is understood that "sacrifices must be made" for the good of the Order. 

[Femme Falchion]

and we thank for you such a fine display of the true nature of the Y chromosome   

*FF thinks to herself, no forbidden love my derrière!"

[Sir William Marcus]

Upon the completion of an emergency session of the Order of the Temple counsel, to address such issues as that mentioned above, the Brothers are in agreement (unanimously, the vote was all for- zero against) with the above statement of Frere William. It is understood that "sacrifices must be made" for the good of the Order. 

AMEN!