Frederick was elevated to the Sicilian throne when he reached his majority in 1208. Judging the young monarch to be a trustworthy and pliable pawn, Innocent III decided to back Frederick’s candidacy as crown ruler of Germany and he was proclaimed as the new king in 1211. His royal status was later reinforced by a crowning ceremony in Aachen (the traditional seat of power) in 1215. At this point Frederick II made two pledges: he took the crusading vow; and he promised not to exercise joint rule of Germany and Sicily, granting the latter to his own infant son Henry (VII). By this means, Pope Innocent believed that he had secured invaluable support for the holy war and safeguarded Rome from the dreaded threat of Hohenstaufen encirclement. The pope died still thinking that this deal would hold, but events would prove that he was sorely mistaken. It soon became clear that Frederick II had every intention of creating a unified Hohenstaufen realm–indeed, he aspired to rule a grand and expansive Christian empire, the strength and scale of which would surpass anything yet witnessed in the Middle Ages. His astounding career would cast a long shadow over the crusading movement.13
In 1216, with Innocent III dead and his successor Honorius III in power, Frederick began angling for his own advantage. His initial goal was to secure the imperial title–something that would require papal involvement in his coronation–without having to cede control of Sicily. To persuade Honorius of this arrangement’s dubious merits, Frederick used his crusading vow as leverage, making it clear that he would only embark on the campaign once anointed as Hohenstaufen emperor. Delicate and prolonged negotiations followed, leaving the tantalising, and potentially disruptive, prospect of Frederick’s involvement hanging over the Fifth Crusade.
THE FIFTH CRUSADE
While Frederick II and Pope Honorius haggled over terms, the first contingents of crusade troops from Austria and Hungary began to arrive in Palestine. In 1217 the Latins prosecuted three inconclusive forays into Ayyubid territory, but these early feints were mere precursors to the main expedition. With the arrival in summer 1217 of Frisian and German crusaders–among them the German preacher and scholar Oliver of Paderborn–the stage was set for a full attack. John of Brienne (now claiming the title of king of Jerusalem), the Military Orders, the Frankish barons of the Levant and James of Vitry, bishop of Acre, all joined the endeavour. By 1218 the Fifth Crusade was ready to set its sights on a new target.
The campaign’s stated aim was still the recapture of Jerusalem from the Ayyubid Sultan al-Adil, but the Franks elected not to march against Muslim Palestine. Instead, in the words of James of Vitry: ‘We planned to proceed to Egypt, which is a fertile land and the richest in the East, from which the Saracens draw the power and wealth to enable them to hold our land, and, after we have captured that land, we can easily recover the whole kingdom of Jerusalem.’ This strategy echoed the plans formulated by Richard the Lionheart in the early 1190s, and, according to some of its leaders, the Fourth Crusade had also intended to strike against the Nile region before the expedition was rerouted to Constantinople. In fact, an Egyptian offensive probably had featured from the start in Pope Innocent III’s conception of this new crusade.14
The Christians’ primary objective was the city of Damietta, about one hundred miles north of Cairo–an outpost that Oliver of Paderborn described as ‘the key to all Egypt’. The crusaders arrived by ship on the North African coast in May 1218, landing on the west side of a major branch of the Nile Delta, where it ran into the Mediterranean Sea. The heavily fortified city of Damietta lay a short distance inland, between the east bank of the Nile and a large inland body of saltwater known as Lake Mansallah. According to Oliver, the metropolis was protected by three lines of battlements, with a broad and deep moat situated beyond the first wall and a circuit of twenty-eight towers reinforcing the second.
Having elected John of Brienne as leader, the crusaders established a camp on the west bank of the river, opposite the city. Meanwhile, al-Adil’s son al-Kamil, the emir of Egypt, marched north from Cairo and positioned his forces to watch over Damietta on the east side of the Nile. The first challenge confronting the Franks was to gain free access to the river. Their way was blocked by a sturdy chain, running between the city and a fortified island, known as the Tower of the Chain, in the mid-stream of the Nile. This chain prevented any ships from sailing upriver (and the section of the Nile between the tower and the west bank had become so silted up that it was impassable). Through the summer the crusaders made a number of fruitless attempts to capture this outpost, using fireships and bombardment. Eventually, the resourceful Oliver of Paderborn fashioned an ingenious waterborne siege tower out of two ships, with drawbridges controlled by a pulley system–what he described as ‘a work of wood the likes of which had never before been wrought upon the sea’–and the Franks used this floating fortress to prosecute a successful attack on 24 August 1218. Cutting the chain, the crusaders assumed control of the river.
The Nile Delta
The Franks appeared to have the upper hand that summer. Their move to attack Egypt had taken al-Adil by surprise. It also coincided with a distracting, if ultimately ineffective, attempt by Saladin’s exiled son al-Afdal to seize control of Aleppo with the aid of the Anatolian Seljuqs. Having spent the summer stabilising Syria, al-Adil was just marching into Egypt when he fell ill and died on 31 August. When the crusaders heard of his passing, they thought the shock of their recent success at the tower had killed him, and Oliver happily concluded that the late sultan would be ‘buried in Hell’. Al-Adil had been a great champion of the Ayyubid cause, but although his demise weakened Islam, it did not prompt a collapse of Muslim resistance. Al-Kamil was well placed to step into the void left by his father–the only question was whether al-Kamil’s brothers, al-Mu‘azzam in Damascus and al-Ashraf in the Jazira, would lend him their full support. If not, al-Kamil might have to decide where his priorities lay: in resisting the crusaders; or in securing his supremacy over the Ayyubid realm.15
Cardinal Pelagius
From a position of strength in late summer 1218, the Fifth Crusade quickly lost momentum. In large part this was due to a new feature of the campaign. Thanks to the administrative and financial reforms introduced by Pope Innocent III, the expedition was relatively well funded and closely supported by an extensive fleet. This meant that crusaders were able to return to Europe without too much difficulty, even as new troop contingents arrived from the West to replace them. On the face of it, this practice seemed sensible because it allowed for the campaign to be rejuvenated by injections of fresh manpower. In reality, however, it had a detrimental effect upon the morale of those Franks who remained on the front line and hindered the development of the bonds of trust and familiarity between crusaders that had proved so essential to earlier expeditions.
The coming and going of Latin contingents also brought changes in leadership and associated shifts in strategic thinking. As the summer of 1218 drew to a close, a large number of Germans and Frisians sailed for home. At the same time, the Spanish churchman Pelagius, cardinal-bishop of Albano, arrived in the crusader camp along with forces from France, England and Italy. Pelagius–a forceful and stubborn character–came to the siege of Damietta as the papal legate, hoping to realise Innocent III’s ambition for a Church-led crusade. Some modern historians have given the cardinal a withering press, one scholar declaring that he was ‘hopelessly shortsighted [and] uncommonly pigheaded’. It also has been suggested that he immediately assumed overall command of the Fifth Crusade. Neither view is entirely accurate. In fact, Pelagius’ authority and influence grew only gradually and, to begin with at least, he cooperated effectively with other prominent figures like John of Brienne. The cardinal’s ecclesiastical leadership also helped to engender a renewed sense of religious devotion within the army, raising spirits and morale. This would prove to be an important factor amid the trials to come.
In the months that followed Pelagius’ arrival, the Latins faced a challenge confronted by many crusader armies before them: a winter siege. Hudd
led on the west bank of the Nile, across from Damietta, they endured manifold torments. On the night of 29 November rough seas caused waves to break over the land and flood the Frankish camp, so that crusaders woke to find fish in their tents. Poor diet led to the outbreak of scurvy. Oliver of Paderborn described how ‘corrupt flesh covered the gums and teeth’ of those afflicted, ‘taking away the power of chewing [and causing] a horrible blackness [to darken] the shins’, while James of Vitry recalled seeing crusaders suffering from this wasting disease slip into a deathly coma, ‘like those falling asleep’. All of the Christians were said to have been sick of the sight of sand, wishing only to behold fields of grass. Of course, the populace of Damietta were also suffering, as was al-Kamil in his encampment to the south. In early 1219 he was forced to return to Cairo to head off a coup, but the welcome arrival of his brother al-Mu‘azzam averted the danger and al-Kamil was able to return to the siege before the Franks could take any meaningful advantage.16
Deadlock
The first eight months of 1219 passed in stalemate. The crusaders were sufficiently entrenched on their side of the Nile to be safe from attack, but they lacked manpower and resources either to overcome Damietta’s defences or to drive al-Kamil from the field. The Latins’ position worsened when a further wave of troops returned to the West in May. Throughout much of this period, hopes were high for the imminent arrival of Frederick II. All of the crusaders, including Pelagius, were waiting for the Hohenstaufen ruler to appear at the head of a vast, indomitable army–one that would trample all Ayyubid resistance under foot. The problem was that Frederick was still in Europe, wrangling with Rome over the coronation, and news eventually reached Egypt that he would not be joining the campaign until March 1220 at the earliest. James of Vitry recalled the mood in the army when he wrote: ‘The majority of our men were in the grip of despair.’17
This period witnessed one of the strangest ever visitors to a crusading theatre of war. In summer 1219 the revered living saint Francis of Assisi–advocate of the mendicant principles of extreme poverty and ecstatic evangelism–arrived in the Christian camp. He had made his way to Egypt in the tattered rags of a holy man, believing that he could bring peace to the world (and success for the crusade) by converting the Muslims to Christianity. Crossing the lines of conflict under terms of parley, St Francis implored the bewildered Egyptian troops to lead him to al-Kamil. Taking him for a mad but harmless beggar, they agreed. In the bizarre audience that followed, al-Kamil politely refused Francis’ offer to demonstrate the power of the Christian God by walking through fire, and the saint eventually went home empty-handed.
In spite of this remarkable sideshow, the siege ground on and the late summer brought further troubling developments. The relative success of the Egyptian harvest had always been closely linked to minor fluctuations in the annual Nile flood. That year the river failed to break its banks in many areas and this caused huge increases in the price of grain and food shortages. By September al-Kamil had recognised that Damietta’s exhausted garrison was on the brink of collapse and, therefore, he offered the crusaders terms of truce. In exchange for an end to the siege he promised to return Jerusalem and most of Palestine to the Franks, and may also have pledged to hand back the True Cross. The castles of Kerak and Montreal in Transjordan were to remain in Ayyubid hands, but as compensation the Muslims would pay a handsome annual tribute.
This extraordinary proposition confirmed that the Ayyubids’ real priorities lay in Egypt and Syria, rather than Palestine. The proposal also seemed set to bring the Holy Land back under Christian control, breathing new life into the kingdom of Jerusalem and all Outremer. Yet, at this critical juncture, the first clear sign of dissension among the expedition’s leaders appeared. John of Brienne and the Teutonic Order expressed vocal support for the pact, as did many crusaders. But in the end, the views of Cardinal Pelagius–endorsed by the Templars, Hospitallers and Venetians–prevailed, and al-Kamil’s offer was declined. Legitimate concerns were expressed about the defensive viability of a Frankish kingdom shorn of its Transjordanian fortresses–although, realistically, Kerak and Montreal were just as crucial to al-Kamil’s hopes of maintaining secure lines of communication between Egypt and Damascus. The Venetians may also have been more interested in the commercial potential of Damietta than in Jerusalem’s recovery. But the key consideration behind Pelagius’ decision was the earnest belief that Frederick II’s eventual arrival would facilitate even greater and more decisive gains.
With the close of negotiations, summer’s end brought a further disruptive round of departures and arrivals for the crusader army. In early November 1219, al-Kamil made one last attempt to dislodge the Franks, launching a major offensive, but his troops were driven back. By this point, Damietta’s populace was in a desperate state. On the night of 5 November, some Italian crusaders realised that one of the city’s partially ruined towers had been left undefended. Rushing forward with a scaling ladder, they mounted the walls and soon called more troops forward. Within, the Latins were confronted by a ghastly spectacle. Oliver described how they ‘found [the] streets strewn with the bodies of the dead, wasting away from pestilence and famine’ when houses were searched, enfeebled Muslims were discovered lying in beds beside corpses. The crusaders’ eighteen-month investment had exacted a horrific toll upon the defenders–tens of thousands had perished. Nonetheless, the Franks celebrated their long-awaited success, plundering large amounts of gold, silver and silks. James of Vitry, meanwhile, supervised the immediate baptism of the surviving Muslim children.18
Once al-Kamil realised that Damietta had fallen, he hurriedly retreated some forty miles south along the course of the Nile, to retrench his position at Mansourah. In the event, he had more than enough time to prepare his defences, because, fresh from the flush of success, the Fifth Crusade was paralysed by indecision. The first contentious issue was the fate of Damietta itself. John of Brienne thought to claim it for himself–and later even minted coins affirming his right to the city–but Pelagius wished to hold Damietta (and the lion’s share of the amassed spoils) in the interests of the papacy and Frederick II. A temporary compromise was eventually brokered that allowed John to hold the city until the German king appeared.
More problematic still was the issue of future strategy. The crusade had attacked Damietta as a means to an end, but intractable questions were now raised about the next step. Should the city be used as a bargaining chip to secure the return of the Holy Land on even more favourable terms than those already offered? Or might the Fifth Crusade consider a fully fledged assault on Egypt by marching up the Nile to crush al-Kamil and conquer Cairo?
To grasp victory
In an unprecedented feat of woeful indecision, the Fifth Crusade spent the next year and a half ensconced in Damietta considering these issues–ever haunted by the spectre of Frederick II’s promised arrival. John of Brienne left Egypt, in part to pursue a claim to the crown of Cilician Armenia following the death of King Leon I, but also to supervise Palestine’s defence against renewed attacks from al-Mu‘azzam. As the months passed, however, John began to face widespread criticism for his absence from the crusade.
Back in Damietta, Pelagius assumed control of the remaining Frankish armies and did his best to maintain order. It was around this time that the cardinal had a mysterious book in Arabic–supposedly shown to the crusaders by Syrian Christians–translated and read aloud to the host. The text was purportedly a collection of prophecies written in the ninth century, relating revelations from St Peter the Apostle. The book appeared to ‘predict’ the events of the Third Crusade, as well as the fall of Damietta. It also declared that the Fifth Crusade would be brought to victory under the leadership of ‘a great king from the West’. The whole episode might sound utterly fanciful, but Oliver of Paderborn and James of Vitry took the ‘predictions’ of this tome very seriously. Pelagius certainly used them to justify his continued refusal to negotiate with the Ayyubids and his determined patience in awaiting the adv
ent of Frederick II.19
At last, on 22 November 1220, Pope Honorius III gave in to Frederick’s demands and anointed him as emperor of Germany. In return, Frederick renewed his crusading vow. The coming of spring in 1221, therefore, seemed to herald a new dawn for the Fifth Crusade. That May, the first wave of Hohenstaufen crusaders arrived under the command of Ludwig of Bavaria and, bolstered by these reinforcements, Pelagius finally made the decision to push south and attack al-Kamil’s now heavily fortified camp at Mansourah. Unfortunately for the Franks, the prosecution of this campaign was criminally inept. Even once the choice had been made, the Christians were slow to act, and the advance only began on 6 July 1221. The next day John of Brienne returned to Egypt and joined Pelagius’ and Ludwig’s force. A proportion of the crusader host was left to defend Damietta, but the Latins still mustered some 1,200 knights, around 4,000 archers and many other infantrymen. Their southward march down the east bank of the Nile was also shadowed by a sizeable Christian fleet.
The problem was that Pelagius had little knowledge of the terrain around Mansourah and seems to have been entirely ignorant of the Nile Delta’s hydrology. By contrast, al-Kamil had chosen the location of his new encampment with great care and foresight. Positioned just south of a junction between the Nile and a secondary tributary–the Tanis River–running to Lake Mansallah, the Ayyubid base was practically unassailable. In addition, any attacking army would find themselves penned between two watercourses. The annual Nile flood of August was also fast approaching. This meant that if the crusaders tarried, their assault might be blunted not by Muslim swords, but by the unstemmable waters of the great river.
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