When it comes to sieges, which group was the most successful in the medieval Middle East: Crusaders, Turks or Mongols?
Reviewing the military history of the Crusades and the Crusader States, there is one conclusion that really stands out – the Crusaders weren’t very effective at besieging fortifications. Their standard strategy generally commenced with a fair amount of preparatory raiding, followed by the establishment of a formal blockade and the creation of a besieging encampment. Then they typically spent a few weeks building siege catapults and siege towers before attempting an assault on the walls. This process repeats itself in many crusader sieges from the time of the First Crusade through to the late thirteenth century and, while it proved successful at times, it was nearly always slow and frequently ineffective.
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Overreliance on siege towers raised many problems for the Franks (Western Europeans) fighting wars in the Middle East. For a start, they took a great deal of time to build. The whole process could take weeks – even months – which was more than enough time for their opponents to raise a relief army and lift the siege. Even if the crusaders managed to defy a relief army (which was rare) and press home their attack they often found their tinder-dry siege towers falling prey to Greek fire and other incendiaries hurled from the walls. Of course, siege engineers could cover their towers with flame-retardant materials, yet it was always difficult to protect a siege tower at all points.
Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 9081 fol. 44r
There was also the problem of timber. Siege towers required vast numbers of beams and planks, most importantly the four big corner posts which would support the entire structure. These weren’t always readily available in the Middle East where forests were scarce. The Crusaders’ most successful sieges took place on the coast, where they conquered many towns such as Beirut and Tripoli, using towers. Timber was more plentiful near the sea, partly because it enjoyed a higher rainfall (and therefore more lush vegetation) and partly also because the Crusaders could break up ships supporting their siege to help them construct their war machines.
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Away from the coast the Franks struggled to source sufficient materials. Their use of siege towers at the siege of Jerusalem in 1099 was only possible because they discovered a cache of timber left over from the Egyptian Fatimid Empire’s siege the previous year. Later, the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s (one of the Crusader States) siege against the town of Banyas in 1140 was only possible because their ally Unur of Damascus sent back to his city for more timber supplies. In many other cases, where they couldn’t source sufficient timber for towers, besieging Frankish armies simply blockaded inland castles and fortified towns, hoping their opponents would run out of food and capitulate, a long and drawn-out process with a low probability of success.
The purpose of this very broad overview of Frankish siegecraft is to open a conversation about the different approaches to siege warfare adopted by various cultures across the Middle East. My point here is that other societies were generally a great deal more effective in these kinds of operations and this should in turn inform any conclusions we draw about the broader military history of the Middle East. We shall now turn to the tactics employed by the Seljuk Turks and also by their various successor dynasties, including the Kurdish Ayyubids (Saladin’s dynasty).
Turkish siege tactics were very different in nature. Typically Turkish and Ayyubid armies opened their sieges with a massive barrage conducted by thousands of archers supported by catapults. This opening bombardment wasn’t necessarily intended to be decisive; it aimed merely to drive the defending archers and engineers away from their battlements, arrow slits, and war machines. While it lasted, this phase probably involved very high casualties among the attackers but nonetheless – with the suppression of the defending archers – they could then embark on the next stage in far greater safety. This involved sending forward miners to: undermine the ramparts, create a breach, and thereby clear an approach for the assault troops.
The main military virtue of this approach was speed. Assault troops could get inside a castle’s walls in a matter of days – rather than weeks – and, when Saladin’s forces attacked the outer walls of the town of Tiberias in July 1187 (directly before his famous victory at Hattin), they broke through in a single night forcing the defenders to take refuge in the town’s citadel. By extension, the swiftness of this method posed a serious challenge for the defenders who often struggled to maintain a defence for long enough for relief forces to arrive.
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Admittedly such stratagems did not always achieve their desired goal. Fortifications constructed directly onto bedrock often proved difficult to undermine. Visitors to the castle of Montfort (a castle belonging to the Teutonic Knights in the Galilee region) can still see the Mamluk Empire’s unsuccessful attempts to undermine the castle’s ramparts in 1271 by digging directly into the bedrock. Castle architects also adapted their designs to combat these tactics – by thickening fortresses’ ramparts and broadening their foundations; techniques intended to make the miners’ task more difficult. Nevertheless, despite these countermeasures, castles continued to tumble through undermining across this period.
One slight mystery in the history of Frankish/Crusader siegecraft is the question of why they didn’t adopt these tactics themselves. Very occasionally the sources mention the use of miners by Frankish and crusader forces. In 1197 a German crusading army employed silver miners to undermine the fortress of Toron (in modern southern Lebanon), although their attempt ultimately proved unsuccessful. Even so, such references are scarce. Perhaps they struggled to source sufficient miners – unfortunately the sources don’t tell us.
If the Seljuks and their successors proved highly adept in their siegecraft, the Mongols were even more effective. They had many advantages which lent them an additional cutting edge. Perhaps most importantly, the Mongols proved exceptionally capable in their use of new techniques and weapons. They adopted many siege machines during their conquests in China and Central Asia which they later employed in their campaigns elsewhere, including the Middle East.
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The Mongol Siege of Baghdad - a depiction from c. 1430 - Wikimedia Commons
During the campaign which led to the Siege of Baghdad (1258) they gathered siege engineers from across their empire who deployed a wide range of siege weapons including large numbers of powerful wagon-mounted siege crossbows which hurled massive burning arrows propelled simultaneously by three thick bowstaves. Likewise, when the Mongols set out to complete their conquest of China, their ruler Qubilai Khan requested Muslim siege engineers who could instruct him in the creation of counterweight trebuchets (devised during the wars between the Ayyubids and the Franks), which later proved highly effective.
The Mongols had no ‘standard’ approach to siegecraft and they demonstrated considerable flexibility in their choice of stratagems. In many cases they could deploy sufficient troops to entirely surround a besieged city, often staging a relentless cycle of attacks to weaken the defenders’ resolve. At times, they used miners to bring down the walls, but they could use other approaches too. According to one account, when the Mongols besieged the town of Shemakha in the Caucasus, they heaped the corpses of cattle against the walls until they formed a ramp that allowed their troops to access to the city. Other sources speak of the Mongols using other stratagems such as diverting a watercourse to swamp a besieged city, or driving thousands of prisoners of war ahead of their own assault troops to absorb the defenders’ arrows and projectiles.
The sheer variety of Mongol stratagems speak both of their inventiveness and their brutal efficiency, but also perhaps of the considerable experience they built up during the decades-long expansion of the Mongol Empire. These strengths were in turn augmented by the terror inspired by the Mongols during their - at the time - seemingly endless conquests which would have disincentivised many garrisons from offering protracted resistance, whilst strongly incentivising them to seek terms.
Comparing these techniques – Crusader, Turkish and Mongol - while some Frankish sieges succeeded and some Mongol sieges failed, it is noticeable that the Franks met with success far less frequently than their Turkish or Mongol neighbours. Frankish siege towers could be decisive battle-winning devices, but they were also slow to construct and vulnerable to fire. Indeed, it is noticeable that the Franks, who adapted their warcraft very effectively to the exigencies of Middle Eastern warfare in other respects, never really managed to adapt in this area. Turkish armies by contrast – relying on miners supported by an archer/artillery barrage – were generally far more effective, and the Mongols even more so. Very occasionally Seljuk armies employed siege towers themselves, but such cases were rare; presumably they saw little incentive to adopt siege weapons proven to be less effective than their more customary approaches.
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An overriding conclusion that comes across clearly when examining warfare in the Middle East during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is the importance of speed. Both the Turks and the Mongols could trace their roots back to the Central Asian steppe where warfare took place almost solely on horseback. Their wars involved lightning raids and stinging attacks by highly mobile units of mounted cavalry – hit and run. It seems they brought a similar ethos to their sieges, looking to break through their enemies’ defences as quickly as possible whilst adopting the techniques best suited to facilitate this approach.
Frankish warcraft was very different, perhaps in turn reflecting the slower pace of campaigning in Western Christendom, which often revolved around very lengthy sieges. Theirs was an ethos centred on armoured cavalry, wagon trains and slow-moving infantry. Such troops could win pitched battles, but in other scenarios they struggled badly when seeking to replicate the pace set by their nomadic opponents.
Top Image: A depiction of a siege in a 13th-century copy of William of Tyre's History of the Crusades - Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 9081 fol. 77r
By Nicholas Morton
When it comes to sieges, which group was the most successful in the medieval Middle East: Crusaders, Turks or Mongols?
Reviewing the military history of the Crusades and the Crusader States, there is one conclusion that really stands out – the Crusaders weren’t very effective at besieging fortifications. Their standard strategy generally commenced with a fair amount of preparatory raiding, followed by the establishment of a formal blockade and the creation of a besieging encampment. Then they typically spent a few weeks building siege catapults and siege towers before attempting an assault on the walls. This process repeats itself in many crusader sieges from the time of the First Crusade through to the late thirteenth century and, while it proved successful at times, it was nearly always slow and frequently ineffective.
Overreliance on siege towers raised many problems for the Franks (Western Europeans) fighting wars in the Middle East. For a start, they took a great deal of time to build. The whole process could take weeks – even months – which was more than enough time for their opponents to raise a relief army and lift the siege. Even if the crusaders managed to defy a relief army (which was rare) and press home their attack they often found their tinder-dry siege towers falling prey to Greek fire and other incendiaries hurled from the walls. Of course, siege engineers could cover their towers with flame-retardant materials, yet it was always difficult to protect a siege tower at all points.
There was also the problem of timber. Siege towers required vast numbers of beams and planks, most importantly the four big corner posts which would support the entire structure. These weren’t always readily available in the Middle East where forests were scarce. The Crusaders’ most successful sieges took place on the coast, where they conquered many towns such as Beirut and Tripoli, using towers. Timber was more plentiful near the sea, partly because it enjoyed a higher rainfall (and therefore more lush vegetation) and partly also because the Crusaders could break up ships supporting their siege to help them construct their war machines.
Away from the coast the Franks struggled to source sufficient materials. Their use of siege towers at the siege of Jerusalem in 1099 was only possible because they discovered a cache of timber left over from the Egyptian Fatimid Empire’s siege the previous year. Later, the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s (one of the Crusader States) siege against the town of Banyas in 1140 was only possible because their ally Unur of Damascus sent back to his city for more timber supplies. In many other cases, where they couldn’t source sufficient timber for towers, besieging Frankish armies simply blockaded inland castles and fortified towns, hoping their opponents would run out of food and capitulate, a long and drawn-out process with a low probability of success.
The purpose of this very broad overview of Frankish siegecraft is to open a conversation about the different approaches to siege warfare adopted by various cultures across the Middle East. My point here is that other societies were generally a great deal more effective in these kinds of operations and this should in turn inform any conclusions we draw about the broader military history of the Middle East. We shall now turn to the tactics employed by the Seljuk Turks and also by their various successor dynasties, including the Kurdish Ayyubids (Saladin’s dynasty).
Turkish siege tactics were very different in nature. Typically Turkish and Ayyubid armies opened their sieges with a massive barrage conducted by thousands of archers supported by catapults. This opening bombardment wasn’t necessarily intended to be decisive; it aimed merely to drive the defending archers and engineers away from their battlements, arrow slits, and war machines. While it lasted, this phase probably involved very high casualties among the attackers but nonetheless – with the suppression of the defending archers – they could then embark on the next stage in far greater safety. This involved sending forward miners to: undermine the ramparts, create a breach, and thereby clear an approach for the assault troops.
The main military virtue of this approach was speed. Assault troops could get inside a castle’s walls in a matter of days – rather than weeks – and, when Saladin’s forces attacked the outer walls of the town of Tiberias in July 1187 (directly before his famous victory at Hattin), they broke through in a single night forcing the defenders to take refuge in the town’s citadel. By extension, the swiftness of this method posed a serious challenge for the defenders who often struggled to maintain a defence for long enough for relief forces to arrive.
Admittedly such stratagems did not always achieve their desired goal. Fortifications constructed directly onto bedrock often proved difficult to undermine. Visitors to the castle of Montfort (a castle belonging to the Teutonic Knights in the Galilee region) can still see the Mamluk Empire’s unsuccessful attempts to undermine the castle’s ramparts in 1271 by digging directly into the bedrock. Castle architects also adapted their designs to combat these tactics – by thickening fortresses’ ramparts and broadening their foundations; techniques intended to make the miners’ task more difficult. Nevertheless, despite these countermeasures, castles continued to tumble through undermining across this period.
One slight mystery in the history of Frankish/Crusader siegecraft is the question of why they didn’t adopt these tactics themselves. Very occasionally the sources mention the use of miners by Frankish and crusader forces. In 1197 a German crusading army employed silver miners to undermine the fortress of Toron (in modern southern Lebanon), although their attempt ultimately proved unsuccessful. Even so, such references are scarce. Perhaps they struggled to source sufficient miners – unfortunately the sources don’t tell us.
If the Seljuks and their successors proved highly adept in their siegecraft, the Mongols were even more effective. They had many advantages which lent them an additional cutting edge. Perhaps most importantly, the Mongols proved exceptionally capable in their use of new techniques and weapons. They adopted many siege machines during their conquests in China and Central Asia which they later employed in their campaigns elsewhere, including the Middle East.
During the campaign which led to the Siege of Baghdad (1258) they gathered siege engineers from across their empire who deployed a wide range of siege weapons including large numbers of powerful wagon-mounted siege crossbows which hurled massive burning arrows propelled simultaneously by three thick bowstaves. Likewise, when the Mongols set out to complete their conquest of China, their ruler Qubilai Khan requested Muslim siege engineers who could instruct him in the creation of counterweight trebuchets (devised during the wars between the Ayyubids and the Franks), which later proved highly effective.
The Mongols had no ‘standard’ approach to siegecraft and they demonstrated considerable flexibility in their choice of stratagems. In many cases they could deploy sufficient troops to entirely surround a besieged city, often staging a relentless cycle of attacks to weaken the defenders’ resolve. At times, they used miners to bring down the walls, but they could use other approaches too. According to one account, when the Mongols besieged the town of Shemakha in the Caucasus, they heaped the corpses of cattle against the walls until they formed a ramp that allowed their troops to access to the city. Other sources speak of the Mongols using other stratagems such as diverting a watercourse to swamp a besieged city, or driving thousands of prisoners of war ahead of their own assault troops to absorb the defenders’ arrows and projectiles.
The sheer variety of Mongol stratagems speak both of their inventiveness and their brutal efficiency, but also perhaps of the considerable experience they built up during the decades-long expansion of the Mongol Empire. These strengths were in turn augmented by the terror inspired by the Mongols during their - at the time - seemingly endless conquests which would have disincentivised many garrisons from offering protracted resistance, whilst strongly incentivising them to seek terms.
Comparing these techniques – Crusader, Turkish and Mongol - while some Frankish sieges succeeded and some Mongol sieges failed, it is noticeable that the Franks met with success far less frequently than their Turkish or Mongol neighbours. Frankish siege towers could be decisive battle-winning devices, but they were also slow to construct and vulnerable to fire. Indeed, it is noticeable that the Franks, who adapted their warcraft very effectively to the exigencies of Middle Eastern warfare in other respects, never really managed to adapt in this area. Turkish armies by contrast – relying on miners supported by an archer/artillery barrage – were generally far more effective, and the Mongols even more so. Very occasionally Seljuk armies employed siege towers themselves, but such cases were rare; presumably they saw little incentive to adopt siege weapons proven to be less effective than their more customary approaches.
An overriding conclusion that comes across clearly when examining warfare in the Middle East during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is the importance of speed. Both the Turks and the Mongols could trace their roots back to the Central Asian steppe where warfare took place almost solely on horseback. Their wars involved lightning raids and stinging attacks by highly mobile units of mounted cavalry – hit and run. It seems they brought a similar ethos to their sieges, looking to break through their enemies’ defences as quickly as possible whilst adopting the techniques best suited to facilitate this approach.
Frankish warcraft was very different, perhaps in turn reflecting the slower pace of campaigning in Western Christendom, which often revolved around very lengthy sieges. Theirs was an ethos centred on armoured cavalry, wagon trains and slow-moving infantry. Such troops could win pitched battles, but in other scenarios they struggled badly when seeking to replicate the pace set by their nomadic opponents.
Nicholas Morton is an Associate Professor of History at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. He is the author or editor of several books covering different aspects of Medieval Near Eastern history, including The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East.
Click here to read more from Nicholas
Nicholas' online course, Mongol Invasion: Mamluks, Crusaders, and Mongols and the Struggle for the Middle East (1218- 1323), begins April 18th. Click here to sign up
Top Image: A depiction of a siege in a 13th-century copy of William of Tyre's History of the Crusades - Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 9081 fol. 77r
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