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With these conquests all the lands of the coast were fully returned to the Muslims, a result undreamed of. Thus were the Franj, who had once nearly conquered Damascus, Egypt and many other lands expelled from all Syria and the coastal zones. God grant that they never set foot there again!
Abu’l Fida, a 19-year-old Ayyubid emir who fought with the Mamluks at Acre.
Saladin had used no more than ten mangonels at any siege; at the siege of Acre in 1291 the Mamluks deployed over ninety. In 1272 Persian engineers were employed by the Mongols to destroy the Chinese fortress city of Xiangyang, which had been thought to be impregnable. The Mamluks had both the resources and the technology to bring down Acre’s walls.
Khalil used his father’s funeral to inflame the Egyptians’ fervour for Holy War, before taking the army to Syria in March. Ghazis recruited in Damascus actually outnumbered regular army troopers. Men of the ulama helped to push the mangonels, but snow delayed the journey to Acre and oxen pulling the 100 carts of disassembled parts died of exposure.
Acre’s garrison was bolstered by the arrival of troops from Cyprus, and the Hospitallers and Templars garrisoned in the city had strengthened the city’s walls. Frankish ship-artillery in the harbour fired upon the right flank of the besieging army, until a storm wrecked many of them. The Crusaders also had the courage of desperation and Christian knights rode out daily to offer battle and single combat.
The bombardment of the city lasted six weeks. The Crusaders padded the walls with straw to dampen the missiles’ impact, but the Mamluks fired these with incendiary arrows. Siege engines punched holes through walls and Mamluk infantry moved through the rubble. It was hard going. The bombardment was redoubled and sappers dug at every tower. The Crusaders burnt the Tower of King Hugh on 8 May as it was crumbling away beneath them. The Tower of the English then fell, along with Countess Blois’s Tower. A section of wall above Saint Anthony’s Gate then came down and with it the Tower of Henry II. The Mamluks charged through what was now a gaping hole in the outer walls, but were held at Saint Anthony’s Gate, and denied entry to the city proper by a desperate stand from the Templars and Hospitallers.
On 17 May the Crusaders pleaded for a truce. This was refused, and the negotiations ended abruptly when the Crusaders attempted to kill the sultan with a well-aimed mangonel shot. Khalil ordered a general offensive to the continuous beating of drums. The defenders’ heads were kept down by endless volleys of arrows and every part of the walls was assaulted. The Mamluks forced the Accursed Tower and then fought their way along the walls to secure Saint Anthony’s Gate. The gate was opened and the troops flooded in. Within three hours ghazi banners were flying on every battlement.
One last tower held out. The sultan ordered it mined, and it collapsed, killing everyone inside. Meanwhile a brutal sack was being carried out in the city by the ghazi irregulars. Male inhabitants of the city were killed regardless of their faith, whilst women and children were taken for enslavement. Richer inhabitants could not escape as they had at Tripoli: they were tortured until they revealed where their gold and silver was hidden.
Khalil ordered the destruction of Acre’s walls and then accepted the surrender of Saida, Beirut and Tyre. The war in the Holy Land was over, the Crusades were not.
