God's War: A New History of the Crusades (124 page)

The subtleties of internal organization and material preparations could not prevent the perfunctory nature and mixed military fortunes of the campaigns. Diplomatic achievements depended on continuing divisions between the Ayyubid rulers of Damascus, Transjordan and Egypt. The death of al-Kamil of Egypt in 1238 had left the succession to be disputed between al-Kamil’s sons, al-Salih Ayyub and al-Adil II, and their uncle, al-Kamil’s brother, al-Salih Isma ‘il. Holding the ring as an important powerbroker stood the ruler of the crucial region around Kerak, al-Nasir, the former ruler of Damascus deposed in 1229, who could negate any settlement made by the others as to the future of southern Palestine. In 1240, al-Salih Ayyub, with the help of al-Nasir of Kerak, ousted al-Adil II from Egypt, having previously surrendered control of Damascus to his uncle al-Salih Isma ‘il. The tensions between these rulers provided the Franks with an opportunity at the same time as making any territorial concessions difficult to guarantee. Within the kingdom of Jerusalem, different factions argued for different alliances. Consistency was impossible in the face of such volatile regime changes in the Ayyubid empire. A large, concerted crusader-Frankish army might have exerted considerable influence in the region. But no such force was assembled and, even if it had been, no obvious strategic plan was available.

The crusade that arrived at Acre under Theobald of Champagne in early September 1239 comprised in some near-contemporary estimates well over 1,000 knights. Most of the fleet had left from Marseilles, others using the southern Italian ports. Well stocked with great lords, the army lacked horses, a potential penalty of sea travel. Some knights were apparently reduced to riding donkeys.
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The total number of non-knights could have reached a few thousand. The diplomatic and military options were complicated. Neither Damascus nor Egypt, the main military threats to the Franks, were in control of Jerusalem and southern Palestine during the crusaders’ stay. At the expiry of the truce in 1239,
the Holy City was threatened instead by al-Nasir of Kerak, who eventually occupied it at the end of the year. Yet the council at Acre that accepted Theobald’s leadership agreed a potentially disastrous policy of threatening both Egypt and Damascus. First Ascalon would be refortified to secure the south and perhaps dissuade the Muslims from attacking Jerusalem. Then the Christians would launch a campaign against Damascus. This account of the plan may owe more to subsequent events than to what was decided at Acre.
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However, a policy to unsettle both Damascus and Egypt may have appealed during the unresolved Ayyubid succession conflict. The logic, if any, to this scheme also reflected the divisions and interests within the local baronage. A recent prominent newcomer to Outremer, Walter of Brienne, a vassal of Theobald of Champagne in the west and married to the sister of Henry I of Cyprus, held the county of Jaffa in the right of his mother-in-law, Alice of Champagne. Ascalon traditionally formed part of that county, and Walter held a powerful voice in the local baronage. The concern of many, not least from the merchant community in Acre, lest relations with Damascus be harmed, may also have encouraged a foray southwards, as would the desire of the crusaders to visit the Holy City. Egypt in the winter of 1239–40 may have seemed a softer target than Damascus, while direct assistance for the garrison at Jerusalem would mean aiding the imperialist garrison there. Throughout the proceedings, although Theobald had hoped for a subsidy from Frederick II when he reached Acre, the hostility of the local barons led by the Ibelins ensured that the emperor’s agent in the east, Richard Filangieri at Tyre, would remain excluded from operations.

As in 1228–9, the military manoeuvres of Theobald’s crusade appeared chiefly designed to produce a diplomatic solution. This was achieved, but more by internal Ayyubid politics than Christian action. The march to Ascalon began on 2 November, reaching Jaffa ten days later. En route, the count of Brittany conducted a successful raid on a large convoy of herded livestock bound for Damascus, his success supplying the army with necessary food but feeding internal resentment at his independent action.
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Once at Jaffa, news of an Egyptian army approaching from the south provoked a large division of nobles and knights under the duke of Burgundy, Walter of Brienne and the counts of Bar and Montfort, together with other local barons and members of the military orders, to offer battle. Ignoring warnings and pleas for unity
from Count Theobald they advanced during the night to pitch camp beyond Ascalon, near Gaza. Omitting to post sentries, by morning this splinter expeditionary force found itself surrounded. Some of the leaders managed to break out and escape. The rest, led by the counts of Bar and Montfort, remained to be overwhelmed by the Egyptians. Henry of Bar was killed; Amaury of Montfort and many others captured. The defeat at Gaza, although modest in numbers lost, seriously undermined any potential diplomatic strategy by weakening the crusader army in repute if not materially. It provided the Egyptians with scores of well-connected aristocratic hostages. Hamstrung militarily and diplomatically, Theobald abandoned plans to rebuild Ascalon and withdrew from Jaffa back to Acre, seemingly waiting for something to turn up.

The activity during the rest of the count’s stay was fashioned by events within the Ayyubid empire. In the autumn of 1239, al-Salih Ayyub had been expelled from Damascus by his uncle, al-Salih Ismai ‘il and imprisoned by his cousin al-Nasir of Kerak. At the turn of the year, al-Nasir occupied Jerusalem. In the early months of 1240, the kaleidoscope received a further series of twists. In the north the change of government in Damascus prompted the emir of Hamah, a supporter of al-Salih Ayyub, to offer an alliance with the Franks against the lord of neighbouring Homs, an ally of the new Damascus regime. This prospect drew Count Theobald north to Tripoli, only for his presence to cause the lord of Homs to ease the pressure on Hamah, whose emir promptly withdrew from the promised alliance with the crusaders. While Theobald was being manipulated by political factions in northern Syria, in Egypt al-Adil II was deposed by a new partnership between al-Nasir and his erstwhile prisoner al-Salih Ayyub, who now assumed the sultanate. By May 1240, with no contribution by the crusaders or Franks, the political landscape had altered significantly from the one that Count Theobald had found nine months earlier. Jerusalem was under the control of al-Nasir of Kerak; his new ally al-Salih Ayyub was installed in Egypt, but retained the Gaza hostages won under his ousted predecessor al-Adil II; and the authority of al-Salih Isma ‘il had been consolidated over Damascus and its northern Syrian dependencies. The diplomatic options facing Theobald were thus dictated for him. If he wished to regain the hostages, a treaty with Egypt was necessary. But to secure territorial concessions further north and appease the mercantile interests in Acre, a Damascus alliance was desirable. To acquire lands west of the
Jordan and recover Jerusalem, a deal with al-Nasir of Kerak had to be struck.
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The new ascendancy of al-Salih Ayyub in Egypt inclined a nervous Damascus and the shifty but nimble al-Nasir to reach agreement with Theobald, who launched a brief military foray into Galilee to press his case for a treaty. The details of this and subsequent negotiations remain obscure, victims of highly partisan reporting at the time and later. It appears that Theobald, despite the lack of military success, negotiated a superficially advantageous treaty with al-Salih Isma ‘il of Damascus. Beaufort, the area behind Sidon, much of Galilee, including Tiberias and Saphet, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and, possibly, most of the rest of southern Palestine were assigned to the Franks. Much of this agreement could only be implemented by a parallel treaty that was reached with al-Nasir of Kerak, who was actually occupying Jerusalem and the surrounding region. On completing the treaty with Damascus, Theobald again marched south and possibly visited Jerusalem, manoeuvres which may have persuaded al-Salih Ayyub of Egypt to release some of the Gaza prisoners in August 1240. Without any prospect of further gains, nervous of possible competition for leadership from the impending arrival of Richard of Cornwall and with relations with Damascus fraying, in September 1240 Theobald left Acre for the west, in a hurry, some said.
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He left behind a precarious but viable model of territorial recovery, an imperialist garrison in a restored Jerusalem, the resentment of local barons and the duke of Burgundy, supported by a Champenois garrison, still bivouacked at Ascalon.

A few weeks later, Richard of Cornwall, with a well-equipped fleet, reached Acre. Richard’s crusade marked his coming of age on the international stage as befitted his wealth from Cornish tin and dynastic contacts of birth and marriage. It also provided an opportunity for his distinguished powers of self-publicity. The generally favourable reception of his exploits in the east, trumpeted by sympathetic chroniclers, rested on his own estimation circulated by newsletter on his return to Europe in July 1241, in which he lauded his treaty with Egypt, implicitly denigrating the achievements of Count Theobald.
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In fact, Richard’s brief stay in Outremer from October 1240 to May 1241 remained largely barren of significant results.

Richard possessed some distinct advantages; deep pockets, a close-knit entourage and, remarkably, the approval of both the pope and the
emperor. Supported by papal subsidies, Richard had nonetheless kept Frederick informed of his progress and may even have received some sort of imperial accreditation. Although potentially a source of friction with anti-imperialists in Outremer, this imperial connection offered some hope of a compromise in the debilitating political infighting. In the summer of 1241 it was suggested by the baronial faction that Richard’s brother-in-law, Simon of Montfort, be appointed imperial lieutenant.
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More immediately, Richard faced the same choice as Theobald, whether to shore up the Damascus treaty, as supported by the Templars, or ally with Egypt, the Hospitallers’ choice. Again, in the footsteps of Theobald, Richard’s force of about 800 knights, later possibly joined by the contingent of Simon of Montfort (William of Forz’s expedition probably arriving too late to play a part in Richard’s campaign) marched south to Jaffa in November 1240. There he opened negotiations with Egyptian ambassadors before proceeding to join the duke of Burgundy at Ascalon. While the diplomacy continued, Richard supervised the reconstruction of a new fortress in the citadel at Ascalon, building on foundations laid half a century earlier by his uncle Richard I.
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On completion, the new fortress was handed over to Walter Pennenpié, the imperial agent in Jerusalem.
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This represented a balancing act, on the one hand signalling Richard’s acceptance of imperial authority, on the other pursuing what most local barons wanted, a deal with Egypt. Like his uncle, Earl Richard presumably hoped that the re-establishment of a powerful stronghold on the southern Palestinian coast would encourage Egypt to agree terms. If so, the tactic worked. On 8 February a treaty was settled with al-Salih Ayyub. This ostensibly confirmed the territorial settlement of the previous year between Count Theobald, Damascus and Kerak, giving the Franks control of Palestine west of the Jordan, including Galilee but excluding Samaria and Hebron. In fact, Sultan al-Salih Ayyub had no control over the lands he granted to the Christians. His agreement to the treaty asserted a nominal lordship as part of a longer contest to regain his former lands in northern Syria to which the Franks were merely spectators. More important for Richard’s western reputation than notional territorial gains, the treaty secured the release of the remaining prisoners from the battle of Gaza. Richard used the truce to order the interment of the remains of thirty-three nobles and 500 other troops that lay still unburied on that battlefield.
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A pensioner of the pope, a friend of the emperor, this act of charity made him a hero to
the French. It did nothing at all to reshape the destiny of Outremer, as the treaty with Egypt was entirely dependent on the good will of al-Nasir of Kerak and the acquiescence of the emir of Damascus.

His gestures and building complete, after the customary tour of the Holy Places, Richard departed, sailing from Acre on 3 May 1241. One unimpressed observer remarked: ‘Thus all these men did almost nothing in the Holy Land that was of any use.’
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Despite restoring the kingdom to its greatest extent since Hattin and consolidating a fortified frontier, the crusades of 1239–41 appeared wholly insignificant compared with the great events that were soon to engulf the region, the displacement of the Khwarazmians and the advent of the Mongols. The crusades failed to resolve, hardly address even, the debilitating internal tensions of Outremer. During a period of intense Ayyubid instability, the crusaders appeared by turns bystanders and puppets, manipulated according to the changing ambitions of competing Muslim princes. Yet in organization and awareness of the modest, incremental possibilities of all campaigns except the most massive of western invasion, the crusades of Theobald and Richard confirmed a pattern in western aid. Gregory IX’s scheme for a permanent garrison sponsored by western money became a reality a decade later, forming a vital element in the final defence of the Holy Land. More ambiguously, the experience of the 1239–41 crusades revealed a new professionalism in how the business of the cross could be organized at the same time as showing how its success could so easily be compromised by this very professionalism. The increased distinction between crusade enthusiasm that could be expressed by donations not service and crusade campaigning that depended on complex systems of military recruitment and funding reduced the uniqueness of such enterprises, if not in ambition then in organization. As crusading became ever more firmly a matter for state governments, this at once offered greater prospects of achievement and greater vulnerability to those governments’ distractions, one of the central paradoxes of Holy Land crusading in the later thirteenth century and beyond. Only where a ruler made the Holy Land his main policy could this tension hope to be resolved. In all the thirteenth century, this applied to one monarch alone.