The military history of the Crusader states begins with the formation of the County of Edessa in 1097 and ends with the loss of Ruad in 1302, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land.
War with the Seljuks
The Seljuk–Crusader war began when the First Crusade wrested territory from the Seljuk Turks during the Siege of Nicaea in 1097 and lasted until 1128 when Zengi became atabeg of Aleppo. At the latter date, the chief threat to the Crusaders from the east and north became the Zengids. The conflict was generally fought between European Crusaders and the Seljuk Turks and their vassals. The Muslim Syrian emirates occasionally allied themselves with the Christians against rival states.
First Crusade In 1097 the Crusaders captured Nicaea from its Seljuk garrison, advancing from there into Anatolia. In the Battle of Dorylaeum the main Seljuk Turkish army was defeated. In 1097 the Frankish host besieged Antioch which fell in 1098. They successfully repelled an army sent by the Seljuk Sultan in Baghdad. The bulk of the Latin army moved on, capturing Ma'arrat al-Numan.
After the siege many of the local emirs cooperated with the Christians in the hope that they would move on and attack the territory of another ruler. The Crusaders soon moved beyond Seljuk territory and went on to capture Jerusalem from the Fatimids in the Siege of Jerusalem.
Crusader setbacks 1100–1104 The Crusader successes suddenly came to an end when Bohemond I of Antioch was captured by the Danishmend Turks in the Battle of Melitene in 1100. The Crusade of 1101 ended in disaster when three separate Crusader columns were ambushed and annihilated by Seljuk armies in central Anatolia. Some of the commanders survived, but most of the foot soldiers and camp followers were enslaved or slaughtered. A decisive Crusader defeat at the Battle of Harran in 1104 "permanently ended Frankish expansion towards the Euphrates."Smail, p. 178
Crusader consolidation 1105–1109 In 1105, Toghtekin of Damascus sent a Turkish force to help Fatimid Egypt, but the combined force was defeated in the Third Battle of Ramla. That year in the Battle of Artah, the Principality of Antioch under Tancred won a victory over Fakhr al-Mulk Radwan of Aleppo and put the city on the defensive. The seven-year Siege of Tripoli ended in 1109 when the port fell and became the capital of the County of Tripoli.
Seljuk counterattack 1110–1119 Beginning in 1110, Sultan Muhammad I of Baghdad ordered counter-attacks on the Crusader states for six years. In 1110, 1112, and 1114 the city of Edessa was targeted; Galilee was invaded in 1113, and in 1111 and 1115 the Latin possessions east of the Orontes between Aleppo and Shaizar."Smail, p. 55
In the Battle of Shaizar (1111) King Baldwin I of Jerusalem fought the army of Mawdud of Mosul in an extended skirmish around the walls of Shaizar. Mawdud defeated Baldwin's army at the Battle of Al-Sannabra in 1113. After a protracted campaign, the army of Bursuq ibn Bursuq of Hamadan was routed by Roger of Salerno's army in 1115 at the Battle of Sarmin.Beeler, pp. 132–135 The Seljuk successor states continued the war against the Frankish states.
Najm ad-Din Ilghazi ibn Artuq's army destroyed the Antiochene field army and killed Roger of Salerno at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis in June 1119. Baldwin II of Jerusalem repaired the situation by rapidly reinforcing Antioch with forces from the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli, winning the Battle of Hab that August.Beeler, pp. 146–147
Crusader consolidation 1120–1128 In 1124 Tyre fell to the Crusaders. In 1125, the Crusaders triumphed at the Battle of Azaz, putting Aleppo back on the defensive. However, although the Crusaders were victorious in the field at the Battle of Marj al-Saffar in 1126, their casualties were significant enough that they were unable to capture Damascus.Smail, p. 182. Smail calls Marj al-Saffar a Crusader "tactical success."
War with the Zengids
The war with the Zengids began when Zengi assumed the rule of Aleppo in 1128 and ended when his son Nur ad-Din, the ruler of Aleppo and Damascus, died in 1174. Though the Zengids were technically Seljuks, they represented a menace to the Crusader states in their own right.
Imad-ud-din Zengi In 1127, Imad-ud-din Zengi was confirmed as atabeg of Mosul by the Seljuk Sultan Mahmud II. When he also became ruler of Aleppo the following year, the combined resources of the two cities made him a major threat to the Crusader states. However, Zengi first intrigued against the emirates of Homs and Damascus.
In 1135, Imad-ud-din Zengi moved against the Latin Principality of Antioch. When the Crusaders failed to put an army into the field to oppose him, he captured the Syrian towns of Atharib, Zerdana, Ma'arrat al-Numan and Kafr Tab.Smail, p. 32 He defeated King Fulk of Jerusalem in 1137 at the Battle of Ba'rin. Afterward, he seized Ba'rin castle which the Crusaders never recovered.Smail, p. 33 In 1138, he helped repel a Frankish–Byzantine attack on Shaizar. Because of his continued efforts to seize Damascus, that city sometimes allied itself with the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The crowning achievement of Imad-ud-din Zengi's career occurred when he moved against the Christian state of Edessa when the bulk of its forces were campaigning elsewhere. In the Siege of Edessa he stormed and captured that city. The western portion of the County of Edessa remained in Crusader hands for only a few more years before being extinguished.
Zengi was assassinated by a Frankish slave in 1146. He was succeeded in Aleppo by his second son Nur-ud-din Zengi, while his eldest son Saif ad-Din Ghazi I inherited Mosul.
Nur-ud-din Zengi Nur-ud-din Zengi crushed a brief attempt by the Franks to reoccupy Edessa in 1146. The following year, he helped a rival city, Damascus, repel a Crusader expedition in the Battle of Bosra.Beeler, pp. 140–142 In 1148, the Second Crusade was forced to lift the Siege of Damascus when the armies of Nur-ud-din Zengi and his brother Saif appeared in the vicinity. He annihilated the army of Antioch at the Battle of Inab in 1149.
Nur-ud-din Zengi became overlord of Mosul in 1149. He conquered the rest of the County of Edessa soon after the Battle of Aintab in 1150.Smail, pp. 160–161 For the next few years, he turned his attention to Damascus, except when he briefly seized the Crusader port of Tortosa in 1152. In a coup, he finally seized control of Damascus in 1154. For several years afterward he became involved in the affairs of Mosul. In 1157, he defeated the Franks at the Battle of Lake Huleh.Smail, p. 124
In 1163, King Amalric of Jerusalem began the Crusader invasions of Egypt against the disintegrating Fatimid Caliphate. To counter this, Nur-ud-din Zengi sent his own forces to intervene in the Fatimid civil war. That year, he was defeated at the Battle of al-Buqaia in Syria. In 1164 he won a great victory over the Crusaders at the Battle of Harim and went on to capture Banias. In Egypt, his general Shirkuh won the Battle of al-Babein in 1167,Smail, pp. 183–185 but the war dragged on. Shirkuh triumphed in 1169, but died soon after.
Shirkuh was succeeded by his lieutenant Saladin, thus uniting all the Zengid territories into a vast empire. But the new ruler of Egypt refused to act as Nur-ud-din Zengi's vassal. Saladin proclaimed himself Sultan in 1171 and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. Nur-ud-din Zengi planned to move against the upstart but died in 1174. With his death, the Zengid empire fell apart.
Wars with Fatimid Egypt
The war with Fatimid Egypt began when the First Crusade invaded Fatimid territory and started the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099. Soon after, the Crusaders stormed and captured the city. The war between the newly established Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and Fatimid Egypt continued until Saladin became the effective ruler of Egypt in 1169.
Jerusalem Fatimid Egypt had no sooner captured Jerusalem from the Seljuks when the First Crusade appeared from the north. On July 15, 1099, the Crusaders successfully stormed the city and violently sacked it.
The Crusaders crushed an early attempt by the Fatimids to recover the holy city by winning the Battle of Ascalon in 1099. The Egyptians were nevertheless able to hold onto the key fortress, which served as a launching point for raids on the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem until 1153 when it fell in the Siege of Ascalon.
Fatimid counterattack The capable vizier of Egypt, Al-Afdal Shahanshah, mounted a series of campaigns "almost annually"Smail, p. 84 against the Crusader kingdom from 1100 to 1107. Egyptian armies fought three major Battles of Ramla in 1101, 1102 and 1105, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. After this, the vizier contented himself by launching frequent raids on Frankish territory from his coastal fortress of Ascalon. In 1121, al-Afdal was assassinated.
The new vizier, Al-Ma'mum, organized a major invasion of Crusader lands. This came to grief at the Battle of Yibneh in 1123. To protect against the raids from Ascalon, the Crusaders began encircling the strategic port with a ring of castles. Built between 1136 and 1149, the strongholds were at Ibelin (Yibneh) 20 miles northwest of Ascalon, Blanchegarde (Tell es-Safi) 15 miles east-northeast, Beth Gibelin (Bait Jibrin) 18 miles east, and Gaza 12 miles south-southwest.Smail, pp. 211–212
Fatimid weakness After the fall of Ascalon, Egypt ceased to be a threat to the Crusader states until the rise of Saladin. The Fatimid rule broke apart into warring factions. From 1163 to 1169, Egypt became the prize of a struggle between King Amalric of Jerusalem and Nur ed-Din of Syria as the Fatimid factions invited one side or the other to intervene in their civil war.
In 1169, Nur ed-Din's general, Shirkuh seized Cairo for the last time and proclaimed himself ruler of Egypt. He died suddenly two months later and Nur ed-Din appointed Shirkuh's young nephew Saladin as his successor. As directed by his sponsor, Saladin ruthlessly stamped out Shi'ite Islam in Egypt, which had flourished under the Fatimids. But, instead of acting as Nur ed-Din's vassal, Saladin consolidated power in his own hands.Reston, pp. 6–7 He deposed the last Fatimid caliph in 1171.
Crusader armies A typical Crusader army consisted a core of heavy cavalry (knights) in chainmail wielding lances and swords. These were backed by a much more numerous body of infantry armed with bows and spears. The charge of the Frankish heavy cavalry developed tremendous shock power. With a bit of hyperbole, the contemporary Byzantine scholar Anna Comnena noted that a Frank on horseback would "make a hole through the walls of Babylon."Smail, p. 115 The knights were sometimes joined by mounted squires or turcopoles who were less heavily armed. While the Crusader cavalry represented the main offensive force in battle, they "would have been absolutely useless had they not been supported by the infantry."Beeler, p. 124
Often, the infantry opened the battle with a volley of arrows, with the horsemen in the rear. When an opportunity for a successful charge appeared, the infantry would open ranks to allow the mailed cavalry to advance. If the horsemen suffered a reverse, they could fall back behind the foot soldiers. The Frankish infantry had considerable defensive power, but it could not hold out for long if unsupported by their heavy cavalry.
Fatimid armies Egyptian armies of the period relied on masses of Sudanese bowmen supported by Arab and Berber cavalry. Since the archers were on foot and the horsemen awaited attack with lance and sword, a Fatimid army provided exactly the sort of immobile target that the Frankish heavy cavalry excelled in attacking. Except for the third battle of Ramleh in 1105, when Toghtekin of Damascus sent a contingent of Seljuk Turks to help the Egyptians, the Fatimids did not use horse archers.