Why Baibars of the Mumluks Rise Caused Fall of the Crusader Kingdoms.

Mumluks were Slave Society of Soldiers

1.       The Number of Crusades

Historically listed Crusades usually run from 1^st to 9^th. However, there were other more minor expeditions that historians don’t always count – the reason being that a sub expedition could have formed from one main crusade. Also, a small undertaking, of Crusader origin, may have gone upon a quest during the time of the 1^st to the 9^th official Crusades. An example might be seen from the 1^st Crusade when the Crusader army split in two after capturing Nicaea for the Byzantine Empire. One group went east into the Euphrates and claimed much of today’s Armenia, while another group went to Antioch and on to Jerusalem. I suppose one might say the First Crusade had two expeditions, but they were all really part of the first. It depends on how certain historians report things. Generally, there were nine crusades with many minor ones within, on different quests, over the almost 200 year period of the Christian Crusader Kingdoms existence.

Sometimes the 5^th and 6^th Crusades by Frederick II are counted as one and the 8^th by Louis IX and Prince Edward’s march to Antioch of the same time counts as the 9^th. Sometimes 8^th and 9^th are labelled as one too.

2. Division Among the Crusaders and Gradual Decline of influence.

By the 1260s, the Christian Crusader States were beginning to lose influence. Many of the pilgrims that came to the Holy Land on quests to do God’s work (as they believed) would return home after completing their pilgrimage. The newcomers were often very indiscriminate when killing. (That’s not to say the coloniser Christians were not) Often the visiting Crusaders left behind captured lands that could not be held. They could not always grasp this reality and did not consider the Christian Europeans that settled in the Holy Land. Some were born and raised in the Crusader Kingdoms and never saw Europe. These Middle Eastern-born Caucasian settlers realised that some of the pilgrims from Europe, who sought to do Christian God’s work, could not comprehend the reality of holding some of the possessions gained upon Crusade quests.

The settled Crusader colonists that lived in the Middle East began to develop an understanding of the ways of Muslims and Jews culturally. They even dressed like them and had the same diet. They had become people of the Middle East and to a degree, assimilated themselves to certain understandings. They had developed, whereas visiting Crusader pilgrims had not because the newly arrived perspective of the traveller was defined in much more basic ways of Medieval Christian Good and Evil in the European point of view. Their world was narrow and clearly defined. Over decades of time, there would have developed factions among settled Christians. Visiting Crusader Christians were trying to cleanse their sins by doing religious quests before returning to Europe as new pious people – respected and revered by the populations of Europe – even if they had done bloody murder in the name of God.

During the 3^rd Crusade; Richard the Lionheart had this problem when he marched upon Jerusalem in the hope of retaking the city captured by Saladin the Great at the end of the 2^nd Crusade. He was caught by the divisions of Christian colonists and the Crusader pilgrims who were more enthusiastic to take the Holy city of Jerusalem. The settled Christians argued they could not keep hold of Jerusalem when the Crusader tourists went home upon completion of their religious undertaking. The permanent Christian dwellers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem wanted to consolidate the gains of the seaport cities like Acre and Jaffa. They were confident of holding the narrow strip by the sea.  After two failed moves upon Jerusalem, Richard the Lionheart gave up on the idea of retaking the holy city. He returned to Jaffa and then marched back towards Acre – the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s new Capitol.

Saladin the Great did try to take an initiative. He came out of the city of Jerusalem with his Muslim soldiers and attacked Jaffa to retake the seaport stronghold. Perhaps he thought the Lionheart had lost his enthusiasm. Such was not so for Richard – a touring Crusader. The English king turned and sped back from Acre at the head of an army and defeated the Muslims forces of Saladin at Jaffa. A volatile peace came about and Richard returned home to England – his Crusade complete – his sins gone before God by decree of the Pope. King Richard the Lionheart, would perish fighting in France while Saladin passed away six months after the treaty – his Islamic forces remaining in control of Jerusalem.

The narrow strip of land containing The County of Armenia, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and the Kingdom Jerusalem would carry on in existence into the 13^th century. There would be other Crusades and more trials and tribulations, but during the 1270s other events would come about that Muslims or Christian Crusaders could not have foreseen.

3.  The Great Failure of the 7^th Crusade

During the7^th Crusade led by King Louis IX of France, the campaign met with a terrible disaster, after some initial success. They attacked Egypt and tried to overthrow ruling Ayyubid Caliphate that had a vast army of slave soldiers called Mumluks. The Crusaders wanted to destroy the effectiveness of the Ayyubid dynasty – removing a source of Muslim aid in the Crusader Kingdoms. This unusual Crusade came about because, in the past, whenever Crusader ventures began to get too successful; the ruling Sultan of the Ayyubid Caliphate would send an Islamic Army to thwart Christian Crusader ambitions.

If Egypt – the richest Islamic land in the Middle East could be destroyed, future Crusades might be much more ambitious and achieve greater gains.  A grand plan was derived by the Christian nobles of Europe. King Louis IX of France mortgaged his entire kingdom to go upon this great Crusade to destroy the Caliphate in Egypt. The cost of such a venture was estimated at the equivalent of £2 million in the year 1248. During this time France’s national yearly income was equivalent to £250,000 per year. This 7^th Crusade cost eight years of yearly national French income.

The idea of this grand plan, to attack Egypt instead of driving deeper towards Iraq or Syria seemed to sound in theory. Also, the cost of the Crusade could be reimbursed by the riches the Ayyubid Caliphate of Egypt would yield when conquered and made into the Crusader Kingdom. For the Crusades; the Ayyubid Caliphate, which ruled from Egypt to Syria, had always been the stumbling block that countered the success of the Crusades. Under Saladin the Great, the Islamic peoples had become united against Christian Crusaders, even retaking Jerusalem in 1187 AD. The Crusader Kingdoms needed to reignite the Crusade quests as interest from Europe began to wane.

This 7^th Crusade became a monumental disaster which resulted in a terrible defeat for the Crusaders. The invasion of Egypt went well preliminary, but as the Crusaders tried to march upon Cairo and met with disaster. The Ayyubid Sultan passed away during this time, but the Egyptian forces had a great army comprised of slave soldiers. They were known as Mumluks and among them was a young soldier that would win renown. He was called Baibars and he led an army that defeated and captured King Louis IX of France at the Battle of Fariskur in 1250. The French king was in a wretched state, suffering from dysentery. His ransom was a vast amount of money and although his Crusade was a failure he was made into a Saint by Rome.  

4.   The rise of the Mulmluks

The Mumluk Slave soldier society had seized the Caliphate away from the Ayyubids for themselves upon the death of the last Ayyubid Sultan and Baibars was a high ranking soldier within the Mumluk Society. He had been captured by the Mongols as a youngster upon the steppes in Crimea. He was fair skinned and blue eyed. He was sold into slavery at a young age and had risen within the soldier ranks of the Mumluks.

Baibars is hardly known in the West, which is unusual, for this Mumluk would one day become Sultan of the entire Caliphate. The Mumluks had seized power during a time when new unfolding consequences were happening – a new fighting power was invading from the east. The Crusader Kingdom States would be relegated to minor prominence during the new emergence of the Middle East.

The Mongols wanted control of the Middle East and were ambitious enough to attack the new Caliphate of the Mumluks. The Mongols tried to broker peace alliances with the Crusader Kingdoms and so too did the Mumluks. Even though the Crusader Kingdoms were constantly fighting the Islamic nations, they saw the new Mongol threat as being more serious. They tried to stay out of the fray, allowing the Mumluks to travel through Crusader lands to fight the Mongols. This resulted in the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. Despite heavy losses on the side of the Mumluks; they managed to completely defeat and destroy the Mongol army. This was a gigantic victory and thwarted Mongol ambitions of conquering Egypt.

This prestigious victory by Sultan ad-Din Qutuz also called time on the Christian Crusader Kingdoms. Baibars became Sultan soon after the defeat of the Mongols when Sultan ad-Din Qutuz died in mysterious circumstances while hunting. Baibars became the new Sultan and turned his attention to Acre the Crusader Capitol of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

5.   Beginning of the End for the Crusader States.

In 1263, Baibars attacked Acre, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but was unable to take it. Instead, he moved north to confront a new Mongol army, but the intended invasion never came. Baibars had this vast army at his disposal so he decided to put it to another use – rid the Middle East of all Crusader Kingdoms. The Crusader County of Armenia was closest, and thus in 1266, Baibars decided to invade. He took the Christian fiefdom for Islam.

Many of the Christians captured were put to death. Baibars then moved upon the Principality of Antioch in 1268. He took the great city but despite the assurance of fair treatment; he put vast numbers of the stronghold's inhabitants to death. From here he went to the kingdom of Tripoli and tried to do the same in 1271. This siege was brought to a halt when Baibars had to seek a truce to stop the Crusaders allying with the Mongols. He had caused the 9^th Crusade by trying to systematically destroy the Crusader Kingdoms. Christian forces from Europe landed in Acre to combat the Mumluk slaughter in the Crusader Kingdoms. This new truce only protected what was left of the Crusader Kingdoms. This truce would only buy a little more time for the Crusader lands.

 These were the last and final bloody times of the Crusader Kingdoms. After Baibars burned and slaughtered his way north to south along the Christian Crusaders coastal strip of Christian colony lands - showing no mercy to anyone that stood in the way of the Mumluk Caliphate; the Crusaders became no more than a declining third party of power. The two big heavyweights were the Mumluk Caliphate and the Mongol Empire.

Tripoli fell in 1289 for showing interest in siding with the Mongols. Islam exacted revenge and stormed the Crusader stronghold ending Christian rule there. Acre, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem went the same way in 1291. From this time onwards, Christian Crusader rule was virtually none existent – fading away into obscurity throughout the Middle East.

Why Saladin the Great Opposed the Strange Leper King of Jerusalem

Baldwin IV 16-year-old leper king at Montgisard

This blog is about Saladin the Great’s defeat, before his great victory that echoes throughout eternity. It is not derogatory of the great warrior Sultan but tells the story of a gigantic incident that might have conditioned him better for future conflict. Many people of Europe know of the Crusades, but we fantasise and glory only in the victories and regard the Islamic forces in a dark and sinister light. However, it appears upon greater reflection, that the Crusaders and their Christian Holy war caused great mayhem and slaughter of life. There were heroes and anti-heroes on both sides of the Crusader wars and much is viewed from bigoted perspectives on both sides. Let us pretend that all men are good and can be corrupted and amid such turmoil and confusion. Some people try hard to be good before God in who, they believe. This could be said of many in the Crusader wars on either side of the colossal conflict that Islam eventually won.

Saladin the Great

Saladin the Great is a monument of Chivalry in Middle age history among many Europeans, even though he was an enemy of Europe’s Christian Crusader Kingdom. This is with good reason, of course as the Fatimid Caliphate that governed Jerusalem fell to the European Crusader Christians in 1099. This event drove a wedge through an Islamic territory of the Fatimid Egyptian-ruled Caliphate that stretched across North Africa into Egypt, up through areas of Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and parts of Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It should be noted that over 70,000 Muslims and Jews were massacred by the Christian Crusaders and the violence of the fall of Jerusalem in 1099 AD was horrendous. Many of these wicked slayings were blamed upon Christian Franks.

Perhaps, for this reason – 88 years later, Saladin would not free the Franks that he captured when he retook Jerusalem in 1187, despite the pleas of Balian of Ibelin and the Patriarch of the defeated Crusader Christians. All others were given safe conduct to the ports, while the Franks went into slavery. These are of course things that happened before and after the first of Saladin’s conflicts, as Sultan, with the Crusader Kingdom’s celebrated leper King.

For many centuries, before the Western European Christian Crusaders came; there had been wars with the Byzantine Empire and Western Muslim Caliphates and Eastern Muslim Caliphates. All were wrestling for over dominance of the Holy land territories. Everything was mixed and confused within the Middle East – in other words; business as usual in the Holy Land.

When Saladin the Great was born in 1137 or 1138, the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem had existed for around 39 years – a rule of European immigrant Christians. This newborn Islamic boy noble would one day become a great man and his name was Yusuf. The Muslim land of his birth bordered this conquered land where Christian Crusaders ruled and continuously tried to expand its Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Young Yusuf (Saladin the Great) grew up among a virtuous Islamic family of the eastern Caliphate ruled by Ayyubids. His birth place was Tikrit in Iraq. He would go through a great many periods of learning as a youngster and also was involved in political turmoil before he became Sultan of Egypt and Syria in 1174 aged about 36 or 37. This growing up and coming of age period was full of many notable events in the life of Saladin the Great. He would have been used to all the finery of a Royal Muslim within the finest and highest courts of the world of Islam – resplendent and gloried with fine architecture throughout the lands of the Middle East.

By the same example – yet in Christian courts, another young man was crowned King of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1174 and this Christian King would become an arch enemy, yet a respected foe. This strange young leper king would prove a worthy opponent of Saladin the Great as the new Sultan had to constructively come to terms with the difficulty that the Christian Crusader Kingdom presented to the new Ayyubid Caliphate. From the perspective of the Islamic Caliphate; the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem was an extremely aggressive and temperamental unwanted neighbour that had stolen territory.

At this time of 1174 AD, the young Crusader Christian King of Jerusalem was just 13 years of age. He had been born in the Kingdom of Jerusalem but was a European Christian coloniser begot by Christian Crusader parents. His name was Baldwin and the young King was crowned King Baldwin IV. Many of the Crusader Christians of Jerusalem were extremely radical and fanatic in their Christian belief and found it difficult to compromise with any credence outside of their own. Part of their doctrines believed in humility and humbleness before God, which led to all sorts of twisted ways of regarding people – sometimes for good and sometimes for bad, depending on which perspective these Holy fighters choose to look at a circumstance.

Therefore it is possible that this 13-year-old boy, who was very well educated, could be revered by zealot Christian warriors in a Holy way. These people who believed in the poverty and humbleness of their divine Jesus Christ looked at this blighted young 13-year-old boy and regarded him as something special within the kingdom of Jerusalem. He was not expected to reign for long, but then many of the Holy men of Christendom had died young and supporting great Christian beliefs. The Crusaders looked at their 13-year-old king stricken with leprosy and thought him divine before God and their Holy war and somehow fitting in the new Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Thus the confrontation was set, between the Islamic Sultan of Egypt and Syria – Saladin the Great and the young Crusader Christian King Baldwin IV (The Leper King). The new name that the Sultan was given ‘Saladin’ was an epithet bestowed upon him for his own rightness and devotion to God. His Islamic warriors and people looked upon the Christian leper king’s affliction in a very different way to the Crusader Christians. To many, it was a terrible judgement bestowed upon the Crusader kingdom through their young king.

For some time there were tensions and cross-border raids, this was usual – even a planned naval attack with allied forces of the Byzantine Empire against Saladin in Egypt but nothing came of this. It was all just theory, plan and speculation. Then in 1177 word came to the court of the, now 16-year-old, King Baldwin that Saladin was to launch an invasion of Egypt.

King Baldwin set out to meet Saladin suffering from the aggressive stages of leprosy that slowly ate away at his limbs and flesh, leaving hideous disfiguring deformities. Much of this unsightly blight was hidden beneath a knight’s attire of armour. It is also believed that he wore an elaborate mask too. He had a small number of devoted Templar knights and the leadership of his forces by the unhinged and testing Templar Knight, Raynald of Châtillon who had just been released from 16 years of captivity in Syria. This man was supposed to be a fearsome monster of a Crusader warrior and is portrayed in a more cruel light in this day and age, though he was respected and revered by some Crusaders. To others – Crusader and Muslim alike; he was un-chivalrous, cruel and without charity of any kind. However, he was a fearsome opponent as many Muslims warriors had found out to great cost and just the man for the type of challenge that lay before the army of Jerusalem’s Crusader Kingdom.

Saladin the Great would not have earned the ‘Great’ part of his name at this time and his ill-deserved confidence on this occasion did little to show such promise of the great nemesis of the Crusaders, he would one day become. The Sultan led his army towards Jerusalem attacking various places on route. He knew of the young leper king and the small Crusader army of Templars that had been mustered, but he paid scant attention to the possibility of a threat because his army was vast and overwhelmingly outnumbered the Templar Knights. He did not suppose they would pursue nor have the audacity to attack him. Saladin allowed his army to spread out over a wide area and this was to prove a very big mistake indeed. It is often known that great men learn by their mistakes and become tempered by such things. Perhaps this makes them better prepared for future trials and tribulations and maybe this was so of Saladin when he came upon the young Crusader leper king and his Templar knights at the Battle of Montgisard.

Saladin was unaware of the rapid pursuit of the Crusaders along the coast. He had spread his army out into small groups to pillage and attack scattered locations and the small force he thought he needed to confront the leper king Baldwin IV was inadequate. At a place, sometimes known as Mons Gisardi, the Battle of Montgidard took place.

Saladin’s force was spread out and not in proper formation when the leper king’s Crusader army formed before them under a giant relic of a cross. In the desert heat and by the rolling sea of the coast, the Muslim army began to panic and hurriedly tried to form into battle order.

Among the Templar army of the Christian crusaders, the sick leper king, Baldwin IV was helped down from his horse where he knelt before the relic of the true cross and prayed for a victory. The 16-year-old king’s leprosy was in aggressive and advanced stages, but he was seen by his Templar knights and put back on his mount. He ordered and rode with the charge upon the disorderly Ayyubids army of Saladin.

It is believed that the Templar army numbered around 500 knights with several thousand foot soldiers, while Saladin's army was 26,000. This might not have been the entire amount that was present at Montgisard because many had been dispersed over a wider area and would be raiding and pillaging elsewhere. The Crusaders fell upon the Muslim host with fierce violence and hacked and killed a great many. Amid the turmoil and confusion, the young leper king fought fiercely with his bodyguards about him. His limbs were bandaged to hide the wounds and sores eating away at his blighted flesh and his armour would hide the disfigurement of his confounded condition.

Saladin began to see his bodyguards dwindling as they were systematically dispatched by the fanatical Crusaders. He only avoided capture with moments to spare when he managed to escape by swiftly retreating. The whole affair was a disaster for Saladin and his great Islamic army. His losses were estimated at 23,000. If this is all from the entire battle of Montgisard or perhaps including the mopping up of scattered raiding parties later, one can’t say for sure. However, it is believed that Saladin returned to Egypt with only 10% of his invasion force because 90% perished and most of these would have fallen at Montgisard.

The young Leper King Baldwin IV was propelled to divine status among the Templars of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was the darling boy king, stricken by leprosy yet still able to win victories and do God’s work in the eyes of all Christians that flocked to the Holy land on, what they believed a sacred cause. This was the leper king’s glorifying moment in eternity and he would come up against Saladin again in the remaining eight years he had to live, for he would die from his illness in 1185. With his passing the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem would meet its demise in two years’ time when Saladin – wiser and cautious would reverse the tables and become the nemesis of the Crusader’s at the fall of Jerusalem in 1187.

Saladin would, prior to attacking Jerusalem, kill his arch enemy; Raynald of Châtillon after capturing the man at the Battle of Hattin. Saladin’s chivalry was highly regarded among many knights – Christian and Muslim alike, but he could be fierce and unmerciful to those who he decided were unworthy -   Raynald of Châtillon was one such person.

Eventually, Saladin's monument overshadowed that of the strange leper king – champion of the extinct Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Even in Western Europe where today, Saladin is widely known yet, the leper king is like the vanquished Crusader Kingdom - dust in the desert winds. Baldwin IV the leper king is probably better known among Muslims of the Middle East than he is by Europeans.