One thing was clear to even the most untalented strategic thinker amongst the Crusaders – they needed to recover at least some of the old Christian inland cities of the Holy Land if they were to create a defence in depth.
If they were able to create a significant bridgehead into the interior, the Crusader States of Palestine and the Syrian littoral would be able to put down roots and mature. In this strategic context, the key issue was how far one could push the envelope. Could the cities of the hinterland, such as Damascus, Aleppo, Shaizar and Homs, ever be recaptured? And, if so, could they be held against the inevitable Muslim counteroffensives?
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Damascus and Defence in Depth
Damascus was an obvious and tantalising objective – King Baldwin II of Jerusalem (r. 1118-1131) was understandably beguiled by the prospect of capturing it. He had a clear focus on the correct strategic objectives of the Crusader States. Having come so close to taking Aleppo in 1124–1125, he next turned his attention towards Damascus. But, as so often, tactical resources were far more of a problem than any lack of strategic insight.
Baldwin certainly prepared for the campaign meticulously, building up experience, ramping up the levels of intimidation and gathering the necessary resources. As with the strategy to capture the coastal cities of the Holy Land, much that appears on the surface to be happenstance was in fact the product of years of diplomacy, negotiations and planning.
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In the autumn of 1125, soon after the withdrawal from Aleppo, for instance, Baldwin launched an attack into Damascene territory and in 1126 he carried out an even more serious invasion. Sensing that Damascus might succumb if sufficient pressure were applied, he also sent diplomatic missions to the West in 1127, to call for help. Operationally, nothing was being left to chance.
Help From the West
One mission was led by Hugh of Payens, founder of the Templars, the poster boys of the new cult of militant monasticism and knighthood. The objective of the mission was explicit and well-understood by contemporaries. Hugh and the other ambassadors were ‘sent by the king and the chief men of the kingdom to the princes of the West for the purpose of rousing the people there to come to our assistance. Above all, they were to try to induce men of influence to come to help us besiege Damascus’.
The second delegation, led by William of Bures, was primarily aimed at offering Fulk, Count of Anjou, the hand in marriage of Melisende, heiress to the throne of Jerusalem. But in practice there was a big overlap between the two missions. Fulk and his followers became part of this new expedition, and the Templars were disproportionately helped by Fulk and his vassals – in May 1128, Fulk and his men took the cross at Le Mans and headed East.
The Assassins – Unlikely Partners
Alongside these preparations to entice new troops from Europe, Baldwin seems to have been in direct contact with factions within Damascus itself, and may have believed that some form of political arrangement could be achieved. The Assassins, a splinter group from the Shi’ite Isma’ilis, were in the ascendant in Damascene politics in the mid-1120s, and by 1126 had even been given the strategically important castle of Banyas for their own use.
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This ascendancy was largely due to the support they received from Tughtigin, the Lord of Damascus, who was sympathetic to their cause. After his death in early 1128, however, the Isma’ilis, entirely correctly, felt that their days were numbered, and opened up negotiations with the Franks: these negotiations may have involved discussions about potentially handing over control of Damascus.
Talks came to an abrupt and bloody end on 4 September 1129. Local politics in twelfth-century Damascus could be volatile in the extreme. The vizier, who was their main supporter in the city, was murdered after a town council meeting. This was taken as a signal for a widespread pogrom to wipe out all the Isma’ilis within Damascus and its territories. Thousands of people were left dead in a particularly vicious eruption of sectarian violence. The possibility of a negotiated takeover of Damascus, if it had ever really existed, was gone.
The Crusader States in 1135 – image by MapMaster / Wikimedia Commons
The Strike on Damascus
Baldwin now felt that he had to move quickly. Damascus was destabilised, and he had well-motivated troops to hand, freshly arrived from the West. If he delayed, Damascus would only get stronger and the unemployed Crusaders would drift off back home after they had performed their religious observances in April.
Advertisement
The army eventually set off at the end of October 1129, very late in the campaigning season. Expeditions did not normally take place in winter, and that was not a coincidence. Roads became more difficult. Fodder for horses became scarcer. Supporting a large army in enemy territory became a logistical nightmare. And with the collapse of Isma’ili power in Damascus, the chances of a negotiated surrender had diminished significantly. But Baldwin seems to have calculated that the opportunities outweighed the risks, and that his enemies would be as badly affected by the weather conditions as his own army.
Certainly, the force he could field was formidable by Frankish standards. Many members of the army were experienced in this kind of warfare, having participated in state-of-the-art sieges such as the capture of Tyre in 1124. And the armies of Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli and Edessa were joined by a new Templar contingent, together with Fulk of Anjou’s men and other crusaders.
Interestingly from a strategic and operational perspective, the success of the different missions in gathering reinforcements from the West is often overlooked. Fulk had used the second half of 1128 to undertake some very active recruitment. He had met up with Henry of England in Normandy and was given treasure to take to the East, and perhaps some soldiers. He also received money from Scotland. Hugh of Payens also gathered a large number of volunteers to join him on the trip. Henry of Huntingdon, for instance, wrote that he recruited many men, while the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle more poetically mentions that he ‘summoned people out to Jerusalem’ while on trips to England and Scotland in 1128.
To help with the preparations, the Isma’ilis, still reeling from the pogroms unleashed upon them by their Sunni neighbours, had handed Banyas over to the Franks, so they could use it as a launchpad for their attack on Damascus. The Christian armies exploited their new base to the full. Having ‘joined forces they halted at Banyas, where they established a camp and set out to collect supplies and provisions for their stay’.
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Barriers to Success
It was not all good news, however. Possession of Banyas was extremely useful, but the emphasis on the need for reprovisioning, because of the time of year, was ominous. The Frankish army had not yet left Christian territory, and foraging was already becoming an issue.
The other problem facing the Franks was not yet apparent. Ironically, the four-year-long strategy of intimidation against the Damascenes had been all too successful, albeit not in the way Baldwin had intended. He had failed to bring them to the negotiating table. But he had also taught them to become extremely fearful of a Frankish field army.
Their concern was so great that they were induced to almost bankrupt themselves by flooding the area with swarms of Turkic nomads and Bedouin allies. The Damascenes were not just offering these mercenaries financial inducements – to sustain such large numbers of light cavalry in the field in wintertime, they also had to deplete the city’s grain reserves and ‘to deliver to them what they required for their food and fodder for their horses’.
This was a high-risk strategy, laying Damascus open to starvation in the event of a close siege, and placing an almost intolerable strain on its exchequer. The legendary unreliability of large numbers of nomadic tribesmen when operating in tandem with small numbers of more regular troops must also have caused a few sleepless nights for the Damascene leadership. But calling for their help was essential. It meant that a massive relief army was already in place before the siege had even begun.
King Baldwin sending orders – Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 770 fol. 313r
The Crusaders Stall
The Crusader army marched towards the city in the classic tight formation needed to ensure protection from large numbers of nomadic light cavalry. In the face of deteriorating weather, dwindling food supplies and increasing enemy resistance, however, the Christian army ground to a halt near Darayya, about 10 kilometres southwest of Damascus.
The professionalism of the Frankish field army was still intimidating. The encampment at Darayya took on the appearance of a large (but inevitably far more scruffy) Roman legionary marching camp. The Damascene army tried, but failed, to taunt the more heavily armoured Christian troops into breaking ranks.
This stalemate could not last. In the middle of winter it was impossible to sustain an army indefinitely in a fixed position. The nomadic mercenaries had access to fodder and other supplies from the nearby depots of Damascus. The Crusaders, however, were stuck in the middle of enemy territory, surrounded by hostile cavalry and with no clear supply route behind them.
The precariousness of the Crusaders’ position was clear to all. It was the tribal mercenaries that had been the deciding factor. The Franks ‘realised that the position was now such that they could not possibly hold on, knowing as they did that the Turkic troops far outnumbered them . . . so they had no choice but to retire.’
A Precarious Retreat
The campaign was over. Baldwin needed to move quickly to extricate his men. The camp at Darayya was abandoned. The siege equipment and non-movable goods were destroyed. The shortage of baggage animals in the army did not help: many had been lost on the foraging expedition and the poor weather and limited supplies had taken their toll. Much that would normally have been taken away was left behind, and they ‘burned their baggage, their train, their equipment and their weapons, since they had no animals left on which to load them.’
The weather, already bad, took a significant turn for the worse. Violent rain, thunderstorms and fog made conditions almost unendurable. William of Tyre, the main Christian source for the campaign, suggests that Baldwin was about to launch a counterattack when the extreme weather conditions, indicative of God’s disfavour, forced them to withdraw. In fact, this was probably a face-saving device. The Franks were now incapable of taking the offensive: William of Bures had lost many of the knights and, just as importantly, almost all the baggage animals.
Ironically, the weather, far from hindering the Franks, was probably the only thing that saved them, though it may not have felt like it at the time. We hear no more of the Turkic mercenaries, who, faced with rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, ‘returned to their homes with copious spoils and rich robes of honour.’
The Damascene regular troops pursued Baldwin and his men as far as they could and ‘the rearguard of the fugitives was overtaken by the ’askar, who killed a number of persons separated from the main body’. But, a few stragglers aside, the demoralised Christian army was able to escape. The Turkic tribesmen always had a tendency to be a ‘one-shot weapon’. They could have turned the retreat into a rout, and a rout into a massacre. Instead, thankfully for the Crusaders, they seem to have felt that they had already achieved enough, and the camp at Darayya provided plenty of plunder without any of the attendant risks of battle.
Strategy and Failure
King Baldwin had done everything he could. He had spent years planning and preparing for the campaign. He had been in discussions with potential Muslim allies. He had sent (highly successful) diplomatic missions to the West, which had brought reinforcements back with them. He had gathered the full muster of his troops, together with a new Templar army. And his negotiations with the Assassins had ensured that his army had access to the vital jumping-off point of Banyas for the campaign.
It was still not enough.
The Franks might have an adroit understanding of the strategic importance of Damascus. They might strain every sinew, call in every favour, gather every ally. But they never had the resources to bring the hinterland back into Christian hands.
Dr Steve Tibble is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and London University. He is a leading authority on warfare and violence in the crusading era.
His recent book The Crusader Strategy (Yale 2020) was received to critical acclaim and short-listed for the Duke of Wellington’s Military History Award. It is our current Book of the Month.
By Steve Tibble
One thing was clear to even the most untalented strategic thinker amongst the Crusaders – they needed to recover at least some of the old Christian inland cities of the Holy Land if they were to create a defence in depth.
If they were able to create a significant bridgehead into the interior, the Crusader States of Palestine and the Syrian littoral would be able to put down roots and mature. In this strategic context, the key issue was how far one could push the envelope. Could the cities of the hinterland, such as Damascus, Aleppo, Shaizar and Homs, ever be recaptured? And, if so, could they be held against the inevitable Muslim counteroffensives?
Damascus and Defence in Depth
Damascus was an obvious and tantalising objective – King Baldwin II of Jerusalem (r. 1118-1131) was understandably beguiled by the prospect of capturing it. He had a clear focus on the correct strategic objectives of the Crusader States. Having come so close to taking Aleppo in 1124–1125, he next turned his attention towards Damascus. But, as so often, tactical resources were far more of a problem than any lack of strategic insight.
Baldwin certainly prepared for the campaign meticulously, building up experience, ramping up the levels of intimidation and gathering the necessary resources. As with the strategy to capture the coastal cities of the Holy Land, much that appears on the surface to be happenstance was in fact the product of years of diplomacy, negotiations and planning.
In the autumn of 1125, soon after the withdrawal from Aleppo, for instance, Baldwin launched an attack into Damascene territory and in 1126 he carried out an even more serious invasion. Sensing that Damascus might succumb if sufficient pressure were applied, he also sent diplomatic missions to the West in 1127, to call for help. Operationally, nothing was being left to chance.
Help From the West
One mission was led by Hugh of Payens, founder of the Templars, the poster boys of the new cult of militant monasticism and knighthood. The objective of the mission was explicit and well-understood by contemporaries. Hugh and the other ambassadors were ‘sent by the king and the chief men of the kingdom to the princes of the West for the purpose of rousing the people there to come to our assistance. Above all, they were to try to induce men of influence to come to help us besiege Damascus’.
The second delegation, led by William of Bures, was primarily aimed at offering Fulk, Count of Anjou, the hand in marriage of Melisende, heiress to the throne of Jerusalem. But in practice there was a big overlap between the two missions. Fulk and his followers became part of this new expedition, and the Templars were disproportionately helped by Fulk and his vassals – in May 1128, Fulk and his men took the cross at Le Mans and headed East.
The Assassins – Unlikely Partners
Alongside these preparations to entice new troops from Europe, Baldwin seems to have been in direct contact with factions within Damascus itself, and may have believed that some form of political arrangement could be achieved. The Assassins, a splinter group from the Shi’ite Isma’ilis, were in the ascendant in Damascene politics in the mid-1120s, and by 1126 had even been given the strategically important castle of Banyas for their own use.
This ascendancy was largely due to the support they received from Tughtigin, the Lord of Damascus, who was sympathetic to their cause. After his death in early 1128, however, the Isma’ilis, entirely correctly, felt that their days were numbered, and opened up negotiations with the Franks: these negotiations may have involved discussions about potentially handing over control of Damascus.
Talks came to an abrupt and bloody end on 4 September 1129. Local politics in twelfth-century Damascus could be volatile in the extreme. The vizier, who was their main supporter in the city, was murdered after a town council meeting. This was taken as a signal for a widespread pogrom to wipe out all the Isma’ilis within Damascus and its territories. Thousands of people were left dead in a particularly vicious eruption of sectarian violence. The possibility of a negotiated takeover of Damascus, if it had ever really existed, was gone.
The Strike on Damascus
Baldwin now felt that he had to move quickly. Damascus was destabilised, and he had well-motivated troops to hand, freshly arrived from the West. If he delayed, Damascus would only get stronger and the unemployed Crusaders would drift off back home after they had performed their religious observances in April.
The army eventually set off at the end of October 1129, very late in the campaigning season. Expeditions did not normally take place in winter, and that was not a coincidence. Roads became more difficult. Fodder for horses became scarcer. Supporting a large army in enemy territory became a logistical nightmare. And with the collapse of Isma’ili power in Damascus, the chances of a negotiated surrender had diminished significantly. But Baldwin seems to have calculated that the opportunities outweighed the risks, and that his enemies would be as badly affected by the weather conditions as his own army.
Certainly, the force he could field was formidable by Frankish standards. Many members of the army were experienced in this kind of warfare, having participated in state-of-the-art sieges such as the capture of Tyre in 1124. And the armies of Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli and Edessa were joined by a new Templar contingent, together with Fulk of Anjou’s men and other crusaders.
Interestingly from a strategic and operational perspective, the success of the different missions in gathering reinforcements from the West is often overlooked. Fulk had used the second half of 1128 to undertake some very active recruitment. He had met up with Henry of England in Normandy and was given treasure to take to the East, and perhaps some soldiers. He also received money from Scotland. Hugh of Payens also gathered a large number of volunteers to join him on the trip. Henry of Huntingdon, for instance, wrote that he recruited many men, while the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle more poetically mentions that he ‘summoned people out to Jerusalem’ while on trips to England and Scotland in 1128.
To help with the preparations, the Isma’ilis, still reeling from the pogroms unleashed upon them by their Sunni neighbours, had handed Banyas over to the Franks, so they could use it as a launchpad for their attack on Damascus. The Christian armies exploited their new base to the full. Having ‘joined forces they halted at Banyas, where they established a camp and set out to collect supplies and provisions for their stay’.
Barriers to Success
It was not all good news, however. Possession of Banyas was extremely useful, but the emphasis on the need for reprovisioning, because of the time of year, was ominous. The Frankish army had not yet left Christian territory, and foraging was already becoming an issue.
The other problem facing the Franks was not yet apparent. Ironically, the four-year-long strategy of intimidation against the Damascenes had been all too successful, albeit not in the way Baldwin had intended. He had failed to bring them to the negotiating table. But he had also taught them to become extremely fearful of a Frankish field army.
Their concern was so great that they were induced to almost bankrupt themselves by flooding the area with swarms of Turkic nomads and Bedouin allies. The Damascenes were not just offering these mercenaries financial inducements – to sustain such large numbers of light cavalry in the field in wintertime, they also had to deplete the city’s grain reserves and ‘to deliver to them what they required for their food and fodder for their horses’.
This was a high-risk strategy, laying Damascus open to starvation in the event of a close siege, and placing an almost intolerable strain on its exchequer. The legendary unreliability of large numbers of nomadic tribesmen when operating in tandem with small numbers of more regular troops must also have caused a few sleepless nights for the Damascene leadership. But calling for their help was essential. It meant that a massive relief army was already in place before the siege had even begun.
The Crusaders Stall
The Crusader army marched towards the city in the classic tight formation needed to ensure protection from large numbers of nomadic light cavalry. In the face of deteriorating weather, dwindling food supplies and increasing enemy resistance, however, the Christian army ground to a halt near Darayya, about 10 kilometres southwest of Damascus.
The professionalism of the Frankish field army was still intimidating. The encampment at Darayya took on the appearance of a large (but inevitably far more scruffy) Roman legionary marching camp. The Damascene army tried, but failed, to taunt the more heavily armoured Christian troops into breaking ranks.
This stalemate could not last. In the middle of winter it was impossible to sustain an army indefinitely in a fixed position. The nomadic mercenaries had access to fodder and other supplies from the nearby depots of Damascus. The Crusaders, however, were stuck in the middle of enemy territory, surrounded by hostile cavalry and with no clear supply route behind them.
The precariousness of the Crusaders’ position was clear to all. It was the tribal mercenaries that had been the deciding factor. The Franks ‘realised that the position was now such that they could not possibly hold on, knowing as they did that the Turkic troops far outnumbered them . . . so they had no choice but to retire.’
A Precarious Retreat
The campaign was over. Baldwin needed to move quickly to extricate his men. The camp at Darayya was abandoned. The siege equipment and non-movable goods were destroyed. The shortage of baggage animals in the army did not help: many had been lost on the foraging expedition and the poor weather and limited supplies had taken their toll. Much that would normally have been taken away was left behind, and they ‘burned their baggage, their train, their equipment and their weapons, since they had no animals left on which to load them.’
The weather, already bad, took a significant turn for the worse. Violent rain, thunderstorms and fog made conditions almost unendurable. William of Tyre, the main Christian source for the campaign, suggests that Baldwin was about to launch a counterattack when the extreme weather conditions, indicative of God’s disfavour, forced them to withdraw. In fact, this was probably a face-saving device. The Franks were now incapable of taking the offensive: William of Bures had lost many of the knights and, just as importantly, almost all the baggage animals.
Ironically, the weather, far from hindering the Franks, was probably the only thing that saved them, though it may not have felt like it at the time. We hear no more of the Turkic mercenaries, who, faced with rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, ‘returned to their homes with copious spoils and rich robes of honour.’
The Damascene regular troops pursued Baldwin and his men as far as they could and ‘the rearguard of the fugitives was overtaken by the ’askar, who killed a number of persons separated from the main body’. But, a few stragglers aside, the demoralised Christian army was able to escape. The Turkic tribesmen always had a tendency to be a ‘one-shot weapon’. They could have turned the retreat into a rout, and a rout into a massacre. Instead, thankfully for the Crusaders, they seem to have felt that they had already achieved enough, and the camp at Darayya provided plenty of plunder without any of the attendant risks of battle.
Strategy and Failure
King Baldwin had done everything he could. He had spent years planning and preparing for the campaign. He had been in discussions with potential Muslim allies. He had sent (highly successful) diplomatic missions to the West, which had brought reinforcements back with them. He had gathered the full muster of his troops, together with a new Templar army. And his negotiations with the Assassins had ensured that his army had access to the vital jumping-off point of Banyas for the campaign.
It was still not enough.
The Franks might have an adroit understanding of the strategic importance of Damascus. They might strain every sinew, call in every favour, gather every ally. But they never had the resources to bring the hinterland back into Christian hands.
Dr Steve Tibble is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge and London University. He is a leading authority on warfare and violence in the crusading era.
His recent book The Crusader Strategy (Yale 2020) was received to critical acclaim and short-listed for the Duke of Wellington’s Military History Award. It is our current Book of the Month.
Steve is the author of Templars: The Knights Who Made Britain (Yale, 2023) and The Crusader Armies, Yale 2018. He is a contributor to ‘The Cambridge History of the Crusades’ and ‘The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades’, both forthcoming in 2024. You can learn more about Steve on his personal website, or follow him on X/Twitter or Instagram.
Top Image: Map of Damascus from the 16th century, by Frans Hogenberg / Wikimedia Commons
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