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The unjustly treated merchants, kiss the earth in the exalted presence of the Lord, the ruler, the Sultan al-Adil, may God prolong his days, unfurl in distant lands of the earth his banners, appoint the heavenly angels to assist his armies, and the kings of the earth to serve as his slaves; They intended to leave [Alexandria], but were prevented from this with the pretext that they were from Cyprus. None of them is from Cyprus, they being Pisans and Venetians and one from Beirut … they had traded the greater part of their merchandise for buri fish, which has perished so that they had to throw it away. They ask for mercy from the sultan …
A petition from Italian merchants to al-Adil describing their complex position. There was war between Egypt and Cyprus, but not between Egypt and Crusader Palestine.
Saladin had seventeen sons and a host of other male relatives. The history of the period following his death is confused and complex, and dominated by internecine warfare between his Ayyubid successors. During this time the unity achieved by Saladin between the major centres of Islamic power, Damascus, Aleppo, Egypt and the Jazira, dissolved. Egypt’s hegemony slowly increased, since it was the only entity that Saladin had had enough time to reconstruct as a sophisticated state, with well-functioning ministries and bureaus. There was also a growing reliance on Mamluks in the armies of the Ayyubids, along with an increasingly large political role for the army in their states.
Of Saladin’s sons, al-Afdal took Damascus, al-Zahir gained Aleppo and al-Aziz acquired Egypt. Al-Adil took the northern territories but used his history with the Salahiyya – the old askari of Saladin – to take Damascus and then usurp Egypt upon the death of al-Aziz. The Crusaders did not interfere, Outremer had been militarily drained by the Third Crusade and détente benefited everyone.
There was some fighting over coastal possessions with the arrival of German Crusaders at the close of the century but a truce of five years was concluded, and as we will see below, though Pope Innocent III called for Crusade against Egypt in 1202, this venture ended up striking Constantinople and not Cairo.
Al-Adil was able to keep the peace despite having to negotiate with two more kings of Jerusalem and among the murky politics of Crusader regencies and thrones held in queens’ names, but could do nothing to prevent the Fifth Crusade landing on Egypt’s shores in May 1218. The Crusaders attacked Damietta over the next 14 months, and al-Kamil took over the defence from his father when al-Adil died. So frantic was al-Kamil that he offered the Crusaders the restoration of all lands west of the Jordan, and upon the fall of Damietta he threw Jerusalem into the pot.
In early spring the Crusaders refused even al-Kamil’s added desperate offer of the return of the True Cross. This was a mistake as a recent rebellion of emirs in the Jazira had finally been put down, which released the forces of Damascus and Mosul for service in Egypt, and the flood season was beginning. In July the Crusaders attempted an advance up the Nile. The army had 5,000 knights and 40,000 infantry, supported by over 600 ships. There was panic in Cairo but al-Kamil turned the Crusaders back and via a tributary of the Nile he managed to get the army of Damascus between the Frankish army and Damietta. By mid-August the Franks were surrounded and running out of supplies. Al-Kamil then launched an attack down the Nile with galleys sailing down the river alongside the army, and opened the Nile floodgates. Lightly-armed Nubian auxiliaries hunted stragglers through the boggy floodplains, as the Crusaders attempted to retreat from the apocalyptic landscape.
The Crusaders still held Damietta, and al-Kamil offered the return of the True Cross and safe passage from Egypt in exchange for its return. The Crusaders had gambled and lost the Holy City, but they would obtain it again through the strangest of circumstances.