| Battle of Jaffa (1197) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Crusade of 1197 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Kingdom of Jerusalem |  Ayyubid Dynasty | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Renauld Barlais | Al-Adil I | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Heavy | Unknown | ||||||
The Battle of Jaffa in 1197 was a military engagement between the Ayyubid army and the Crusaders outside the city of Jaffa. The Crusaders were defeated and lost Jaffa in the end.
In 1195, the German king, Henry VI took the cross and launched a new crusade to the holy land. This time the Germans took a route by sea, avoiding the dangerous route his father has taken during the Third Crusade. [1] Arnold of Lübeck states that the Germans had an army of 60,000, which is indeed an exaggeration; the Germans probably had a quarter of that number. A bulk of Germans arrived early in September while the main force stopped at Cyprus to crown Aimery. The German force made a raid into Galilee; however, they were surrounded by the Ayyubids led by Al-Adil, and only the intervention of King Henry saved them. [2] [3]
Soon, Al-Adil left Acre and headed towards Jaffa, as the truce of 1192 had ended. [4] The city of Jaffa was ruled by Renauld Barlais. The Crusaders, probably out of rashness, marched out of Jaffa and went to meet the Ayyubids. The Crusaders attacked the Muslims; however, the Ayyubids fought back against them and put them on the run. The Crusaders retreated from the battlefield towards Jaffa again. However, the Crusaders found the gates to be shut. The garrison closed the gates out of fear of a potential attack on the city. All the crusaders outside were subsequently massacred. The Ayyubids then laid siege to the city. [5] [6]
The Ayyubids assaulted the walls and forced the garrison to retreat. The defense was weak. The Crusaders were forced to retreat to the citadel, but the Ayyubids managed to breach it and kill all the defenders inside. King Henry heard the news of this attack and dispatched his army to relieve the city; however, on September 10, in an unexpected accident, Henry fell from a window and died. At the same time, Jaffa had already fallen to the Ayyubids, and upon hearing the death of their king, the Crusader relief army withdrew. [7] [8] [9]
The Ayyubids destroyed the city, took lots of spoils and captives, and left. [10]
The city of Jaffa remained in Muslim hands until 1204, when it was returned to the Crusaders as part of a truce agreed with Al-Adil. But despite it's return, it remained deserted until 1228. [11]
Aimery of Lusignan, erroneously referred to as Amalric or Amaury in earlier scholarship, was the first King of Cyprus, reigning from 1196 to his death. He also reigned as the King of Jerusalem from his marriage to Isabella I in 1197 to his death. He was a younger son of Hugh VIII of Lusignan, a nobleman in Poitou. After participating in a rebellion against Henry II of England in 1168, he went to the Holy Land and settled in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Latin Kingdom, was a Crusader state that was established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 until the fall of Acre in 1291. Its history is divided into two periods with a brief interruption in its existence, beginning with its collapse after the siege of Jerusalem in 1187 and its restoration after the Third Crusade in 1192.
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.
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The Fifth Crusade (1217–1221) was a campaign in a series of Crusades by Western Europeans to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering Egypt, ruled by the powerful Ayyubid sultanate, led by al-Adil, brother of Saladin.
The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was the first of the two Crusades led by Louis IX of France. Also known as the Crusade of Louis IX to the Holy Land, it aimed to reclaim the Holy Land by attacking Egypt, the main seat of Muslim power in the Near East. The Crusade was conducted in response to setbacks in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, beginning with the loss of the Holy City in 1244, and was preached by Innocent IV in conjunction with a crusade against emperor Frederick II, Baltic rebellions and Mongol incursions. After initial success, the crusade ended in defeat, with most of the army – including the king – captured by the Muslims.
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