The Accursed Tower

by Roger Crowley

  He evidently knew the nationality of Qalawun’s visitors—“I could tell you who they were if I were so inclined”—but he was not saying.2 In all likelihood, they were Venetians, and the merchants who would be particularly disadvantaged by a Genoese coup in Tripoli would be their own. The hostility between the three Italian city-states had continued unabated since the War of St. Sabas, with the Venetians and the Pisans generally siding together and the Genoese striving to reestablish their lost position on the coast. The two Venetians were probably there to finalize negotiations for Venice’s own trade privileges with the Mamluks, which were accorded in November of that year, and the opportunity to discredit the Genoese was one not to be missed. Their report provided Qalawun with the incentive and opportunity to proceed against Tripoli, since his truce with the city had been agreed to personally with its ruler Bohemond VII. With his recent death, it was now void. Continuous factional disputes were helping to shake the remnants of Outremer apart.

  IN JANUARY 1289, the Mamluk army began to assemble near Cairo, and logistical preparations were made for a campaign. Following the practice of Baybars, no objective was stated; but in Acre, Guillaume de Beaujeu was soon aware that Tripoli was to be the target. The source of all the information leaking out of the Mamluk court was one of Qalawun’s own emirs, Badr al-Din Bektash al-Fakhri. The Arabic-speaking Templar of Tyre was quite frank about Beaujeu’s arrangements with this man. “This emir was the Emir Silah [in charge of the weapons], and he was used to warning the master of the Temple of matters profitable to Christendom, when the sultan wished to harm Christianity in any way, and this service cost the master valuable presents, which he sent him each year.”3 The game of spies was played by both sides. Qalawun had his own informants within Acre, including a man called Jawan Khandaq, who reported back on crusader maneuvers.

  When the grand master of the Templars, Guillaume de Beaujeu, warned Tripoli, he was not believed. The grand master was notorious for his political machinations. It was thought to be a ruse. Meanwhile, the Mamluks advanced with their usual thoroughness; supply dumps were established along the way, wood cut for siege engines and protective screens, volunteers rallied to the cause. Beaujeu sent a second messenger, but the factional intrigues continued unabated until the sultan’s army was almost in view of the city in late March 1289.

  Last-minute reinforcements marched up the coast from Acre. The Templars and the Hospitallers each sent detachments under the command of their marshals, Geoffroi de Vendac and Matthieu de Clermont. A French detachment went under Jean de Grailly, and Henry II, king of Jerusalem and Cyprus, sent his younger brother Amalric, only about seventeen years old at the time, with knights and four galleys.

  Tripoli was not an easy place to besiege without a fleet, and Qalawun did not have one. In the description by the Syrian nobleman Abu al-Fida, who was present at the siege, “The sea surrounds most of this city and no land engagement is possible except on the east side, where there is little space.”4 However, the Mamluks’ practiced siege craft was formidable, and the sultan had assembled a sizeable army. According to the Templar, “The sultan set up his siege engines, both great and small, and erected his buches [wooden protective screens] in front of the town and his carabohas [smaller siege engines] and devastated the surrounding countryside and tunnelled his mines underneath the ground and got inside the first defensive ditches.”5

  Despite Tripoli’s spirited resistance, the skills and resources of the Mamluks were impossible to match. They quickly identified the weakest spot—the aging Bishop’s Tower. “The siege engines battered it so fiercely that it was completely shattered,” reported the Templar. “Similarly, the Hospitallers’ tower, which was very strong and newly constructed, was so badly split apart that a horse could pass through the middle. The sultan had so many men that at each position twenty Saracen archers were deployed to shoot, so that none of our crossbowmen dared expose themselves to fire either bows or crossbows. If they tried to, they were immediately hit.”6

  With the city’s situation deteriorating, the Venetians, largely responsible for the debacle, were the first to leave. They loaded their ships and sailed off, quickly followed by their rivals the Genoese. Morale drained away. On April 26, Qalawun ordered a general assault and overwhelmed Tripoli’s resistance, “because it lacked sufficient defenders, who one by one had abandoned the defence.”7 There was a rout and a rush for the port. The nobility got away—the Templar and Hospitaller lords; the nominal ruler of Tripoli, Countess Lucia; Jean de Grailly; and Prince Amalric. It was the poor who bore the brunt. Most of the men were slaughtered, the women and children taken captive. As a last-ditch refuge, many took rowing boats or swam to the small offshore island of St. Thomas and sheltered in its church, but there was no escape. “I was a witness of the siege,” wrote Abu al-Fida. “When Tripoli was taken, a vast number of Franks and women fled to the island and its church. The Muslim army plunged into the sea and swam across to the island on horseback. They killed all the men and took the women and children as booty. After the people had made an end of plundering, I crossed to this island in a ship and found it full of the slain, so that one could not stay there because of the stench of the slain.”8

  Qalawun demolished Tripoli and founded a new city a few miles inland. The intention was clear: to extirpate the infidels from the shores of Palestine and to make any return impossible, and the plunder had whetted the popular appetite for new conquests. Abu al-Fida piously recorded precisely, if somewhat inaccurately, the occupiers’ tenure of Tripoli. “The Franks had captured Tripoli on 11 Dhu’l-Hijjah [July 1, 1110] and it remained in their hands until the early part of this year 688 [1289]. So, the space of time it remained with the Franks was about 185 years and some months.”9 Twelve hundred men were retained for forced labor and marched off to Alexandria to work on building the sultan’s new arsenal.

  BOTH CHRISTIANS AND Muslims recognized the significance of Tripoli’s fall. It had been the Franks’ longest continuous possession in Palestine. Its loss seemed like the harbinger of an end game, and the news reverberated around Europe. Now only the coastal strip of the kingdom of Jerusalem remained, with Acre as its one stronghold. In 1283, Qalawun had signed a truce with the kingdom, its duration being “ten complete years, ten months, ten days and ten hours, beginning on Thursday, 3 Haziran 1594 of the era of Alexander, the son of Philip the Greek.”10 The Muslims generally abided devoutly by such legal agreements, sworn in the name of God, but these were always of limited duration—and there were always loopholes. There could be a truce but never permanent peace. With theological belief in the eventual universal spread of Islam, an underlying state of war with infidel peoples was a basic tenet of its jurists.

  However, during the negotiations of 1283, Qalawun had privately acknowledged the ongoing economic advantages of peaceful relations with the Latin Kingdom, “for Acre is a caravanserai to which our merchants resort, a place from which comes a wider range of choice for us,” and this line of thinking prevailed in Acre.11 It had become complacently accepted that the Frankish presence there would remain tolerated because the commercial benefits that it provided to the Islamic world rendered it too valuable to annihilate. The fate of Tripoli now suggested otherwise. Within the Mamluk army, there was considerable enthusiasm for an attack on Acre. Both the spirit of jihad and the lure of booty had given the notion considerable momentum, and the survivors’ tales shocked the complacent merchants of Jacques de Vitry’s corrupted and luxury-loving city. For those who could see, the writing was on the wall.

  Three days after the fall, King Henry himself came to Acre from Cyprus to find an envoy of Qalawun already there, complaining that the aid sent to Tripoli had been a breach of the 1283 truce. He was outflanked on a technicality: the truce had only applied to the kingdom of Jerusalem. If it had applied also to Tripoli, Qalawun had broken the truce first. The logic of Henry’s case was unimpeachable. He sent an embassy back to Qalawun in Damascus requesting a further ten-year extension to the truce, to whic
h the sultan agreed, lulling suspicion while he dealt with trouble in Nubia. A better justification would be required for Qalawun to mount a final assault. Within the year, his secretariat would be given a more favorable opportunity to scrutinize the terms of the truce, in which the commercial interests of Muslim merchants would again be at stake.

  Henry sailed back to Cyprus in September, leaving his young brother Amalric, lord of Tyre, as constable of Jerusalem and regent of Acre. At the same time, he dispatched Jean de Grailly to Europe to warn Western potentates about the severity of the situation. Grailly arrived in Rome to meet the recently elected pope, Nicholas IV. Nicholas was intensely keen on a major new crusade involving the titled monarchs of Europe, but the difficulties were immense. Europe was completely preoccupied by the contest between King James II of Aragon and the Angevin kingdom in southern Italy, supported by the papacy, for the lordship of Sicily. The so-called Wars of the Sicilian Vespers split Europe down the middle. Great hope was invested in Edward I, now king of England and the only monarch with crusading experience, who expressed continuous commitment to the Holy Land. He had taken the cross again in 1287 with the intention of proceeding east but was preoccupied with attempts to conquer Scotland. Others were pursuing their own interests. Just as Nicholas was trying to rally a crusade, emissaries from Aragon were in Cairo, signing a treaty with Qalawun. As far as any support for Acre was concerned, a critical clause read,

  if one of the Franks of Acre, Tyre, the Coastlands or elsewhere, being in truce with our lord the Sultan, break the conditions of the truce established between himself and them, thereby annulling the truce, the king of Aragon and his brothers, horsemen, knights and the people of his territory shall not assist them with horses, horsemen, weapons, treasure, aid, supplies, vessels, galleys or otherwise.12

  At the same time, the Genoese, having launched a bad-tempered raid on Alexandria, had patched up their relationship and also signed a new commercial arrangement with Qalawun. The trade advantages to both sides, including the supply of war materials, were considerable.

  The Genoese, who had been largely excluded from Acre since the War of St. Sabas, had few commercial interests in the city. The Venetians, however, had many. They were quite happy to see the Genoese lose their base in Tripoli, a loss in which they were implicated. Acre was a different matter. The pope’s attempts to coax the crowned heads of Europe and the supporting sea power of the Italian maritime republics into a major crusade was doomed to fail in the short run, but the urgency of the situation called for some response, even if more limited in scope. Four months after the fall of Tripoli, the call to crusade was being preached in Venice, throughout northern Italy, and along the Adriatic coast. Nicolas de Hanapes, the newly appointed bishop of Acre, was invested with powers to oversee the whole venture. These included the right to excommunicate those in Acre who proved intransigent. The funds that the pope had entrusted to Nicolas de Hanapes were put to use repairing and strengthening walls and outworks, gathering munitions and armaments, and for the construction of powerful trebuchets. Further finance was raised from church taxation and bankers. Emissaries from the Mongols had also visited Rome, increasing the pope’s hopes of a vast anti-Mamluk campaign, but none of these grander plans came to fruition. In January 1290, the pope issued a general encyclical exhorting people to take the crusade.

  This call had little effect. It had become impossible to unify the leaders of Christendom around crusader projects. The Venetians provided twenty galleys under the command of Niccolò Tiepolo, a son of the doge. Edward I, who still hoped to come on crusade, ended up sending his trusted lieutenant, Othon de Grandson, both a capable organizer and a good fighter, with just sixty knights, with the intention that he would take charge of the English knights of the Order of St. Thomas in Acre. The Aragonese king of Sicily, James II, had offered to provide 30 galleys and 10,000 infantry, but political wrangling with the papacy cut this number ultimately to just five galleys and a small Spanish force—and without James himself.

  The popular response to a crusade was similarly unpromising. Northern Italy was the only region to participate, and none of the great barons, who could contribute professional soldiers and inspiration, signed up. Instead, the main recruits were most likely from Tuscany and Lombardy, a mix of urban militias, mercenaries, and citizens, together with a less-disciplined contingent of peasants and the unemployed. Religious piety was mingled with the idea of adventure and the possibility of booty. This contingent did not inspire confidence.

  The pope sought information on the preparation of the fleet for which he had laid out money, and he was not impressed by what he learned. The fitting out had been inadequate, and the supply of weapons (particularly crossbows) left a lot to be desired. Unsatisfactory as these resources might be, they were all that were available. In January 1290, the fleet was considered ready to sail, with at best 3,000 men. Tiepolo was its captain, while the command of the crusaders was shared among Nicolas de Hanapes, Jean de Grailly, and Bernard, bishop of Tripoli, who had escaped the city’s final collapse. Hanapes was the central figure of the expedition and would prove to be the sole unifying force within Acre itself. His triple offices of bishop, patriarch, and papal legate—the latter title giving him automatic authority over the military orders in the pope’s name—granted him a key position in Acre. The pope had already written to all the city’s factions, to Amalric, to the masters of the military orders, to the leaders of the Venetian and Pisan communities, and to the community of Acre at large, urging them to stand firm in the defense of the Holy Land and to lend support and wise counsel to Hanapes. But it appeared to the patriarch upon arrival that his ability to exert control over the city, despite his sweeping powers of interdiction and his triple authority, was quite limited. His reception was little better than the one Jacques de Vitry had received eighty years earlier. He quickly became aware of the lack of any coherent plan of action or strategy for facing an approaching storm. His reports about the disunity of Acre stunned the pope, who wrote back chiding the authorities there.

  At Sicily, the expedition was met by the five galleys of King James—evidently not banned from mounting this token expedition, as Acre’s truce with Qalawun had not formally been broken. The fleet, eventually consisting of only thirteen ships, reached Acre in the spring, and Tiepolo and James’s galleys departed fairly soon after. “There landed at the gates of Acre 1600 pilgrims and soldiers, aggressive men,” some eyewitnesses recorded later.13 They probably docked on April 2, 1290, Easter Day. This was the traditional time for pilgrims and Western merchants to come to the kingdom of Jerusalem, and Muslim merchants from Damascus would also visit, as if to a trade fair, along with local Muslim peasantry bringing produce to sell. The newly arrived pilgrims, who stepped ashore with a heightened religious zeal to fight for the faith, found themselves in the bustling, confusing metropolis of Jacques de Vitry’s description, among unfamiliar-looking people in all kinds of oriental dress, the temptations of a port city, and the presence of Muslims. When no immediate attack from the Mamluks was forthcoming, many of the crusaders sailed home, leaving behind a group of the poorer members of the expedition, who were without funds or purpose. It was a recipe for trouble.

  At some time during this trading season, most likely August, in circumstances that have never been clearly established, the ill-disciplined adventurers, “common people” from northern Italy, it was reported, attacked some of the Muslim merchants and killed them.14 The Templar of Tyre, who was probably on the scene, gave his account:

  And when these people came to Acre, the truce which the king had made with the sultan was being well maintained between the two parties, and the poor Saracen peasants came to Acre, bringing their goods to sell, as they had been accustomed to do. It happened, by the workings of the Enemy from Hell, who desires to stir up evil among good people, that the crusaders who had come to do good and to bring their arms to help the city of Acre, brought it to destruction, because one day they rampaged through Acre, put to the s
word all the poor peasants carrying their merchandise to Acre to sell—both wheat and other things. These were Saracens from the villages around Acre, and they also killed some Syrians who were of the law of Greece [the Greek orthodox church]. They killed them because by their beards they were mistaken for Saracens.15

  Inactivity and frustration, drunkenness, the fact that they had not been paid a promised stipend, religious fervor, the desire for action—multiple motives were ascribed. Other variant accounts were given. “They cut down nineteen Saracen merchants in Acre in a place called Lafunda near the exchange,” the royal market where the Muslim caravans arrived.16 Some of the Arab accounts suggested that the culprits were driven by greed, that the merchants had been on their way to Cairo with military slaves from the Black Sea and had been murdered for their goods and the slaves stolen. The citizens and authorities of the town attempted to rescue those being set upon by the mob and secured all whom they could in the royal castle. In yet another version, the ill-disciplined rabble “early in the morning, unable to be restrained by the townspeople and without danger to themselves, left the city armed and with flags unfurled, and made their way to the farms and villages up toward the hills. They indiscriminately killed without pity all the Saracens they came across—men who believed they were peacefully secure—then carried back all the trophies they had with great rejoicing. ‘Alas, what grief,’” was the coda to the chronicler’s account. “That dance of joy was transformed into mournful danger and sorrowful misfortune for the city of Acre and the Holy Land.”17