Historians of the Seventh Crusade have usually told its story from the perspective of its most famous participant: King Louis IX of France. Chroniclers such as Jean de Joinville, Louis’s friend and biographer, painted the campaign as a tale of Christian courage, royal piety, and tragic defeat. In these familiar accounts, the focus has been almost completely on what the Crusaders did.
But recent scholarship is beginning to shift that perspective.
New research by historian Mohamad El-Merheb draws on Arabic sources to reconstruct the Seventh Crusade not as a clash of civilisations, but as a moment of deep political crisis within the Islamic world. Through chronicles written by contemporary Egyptian and Syrian authors, a different story emerges — one in which Louis IX’s invasion of Egypt coincided with the collapse of the Ayyubid dynasty, a ruthless struggle for power, and the eventual rise of the Mamluks. These sources show that while the Crusaders were seen as a serious threat, they were also used as pawns in an internal contest for control of Egypt.
The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was led by King Louis IX of France, who set out to conquer Egypt. After landing at Damietta in 1249, the Crusaders advanced inland toward Cairo but were soon bogged down at al-Mansura. The campaign ended in catastrophe in February 1250, with the French army defeated and Louis IX captured.
Writing in a two-part article in the journal Crusades, El-Merheb lays out the case that Arabic sources offer much information on this campaign. In an interview with Medievalists.net, he explains that “historians of the Seventh Crusade have generally relied on Frankish sources rather than Arabic texts with few but important exceptions. This includes Peter Jackson who translated some important Arabic texts and Cecilia Gaposchkin who — although not an Arabist — always makes efforts to engage with translated Arabic sources. This trend in ignoring Arabic sources is problematic because most of the ’Frankish’ sources (Latin and Old French) were authored by people close to Louis IX (his friend Joinville for instance or Geoffrey of Beaulieu his confessor) or other sources and testimonies that were written in the context of Louis IX’s canonization process or to praise his saintly attributes (so hagiographical in nature or dynastic praise).”
Arabic sources include writers who were closely connected to some of the high-profile people involved on the Egyptian side. These accounts reveal that a power struggle was emerging within the Ayyubid court as Sultan al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb was dying and his leading military commander, Fakhr al-Dīn, was looking to succeed him. This dynamic allowed for Louis and the Crusaders to have early success when they landed and captured Damietta.
Could Louis IX Ever Have Succeeded?
The Seventh Crusade – BNF MS Francais 9082 fol. 334r
A key question is whether the Seventh Crusade ever had a real chance of success. Western accounts and most historians often suggest that Louis IX’s defeat was tragic, but not necessarily foreseeable. El-Merheb sees it differently.
“I really can’t see how the French army could have succeeded,” he says. “The initial success at Damietta was not a victory but more related to the decision of Fakhr al-Din to abandon the city for unclear reasons. The commander of the army that was stationed near the coast of Damietta as I explain the first part of the two articles could have easily stopped the landing. The Muslims were well informed about the landing target and the movements of Louis IX in Cyprus.”
After taking Damietta, the Crusaders marched southwards to al-Mansura, where they would spend the next several months unable to push past the main Egyptian force based there. It would be here that Louis and his soldiers found themselves bogged down and, eventually, unable to supply themselves.
“One of the main reasons for the destined failure was the battle for the Nile,” El-Merheb says. “The provisions line from Damietta to the French army really depended on Frankish boats sailing upstream and provisioning the army through the Damietta branch of the Nile. The Egyptians were masters of their river and sent boats downstream to al-Mansura and from al-Mansura downstream to block the Frankish boats. The sultan had tasked his trusted amir and friend Ḥusām al-Dīn to build and man boats and send them upstream (the plan was put in place well before the crusader landing in Egypt).
“Most brilliantly, the Egyptians moved boats parts on camels deep in enemy territory northward and assembled them and put on the Damietta branch of the Nile to surprise and ambush from hidden canals and tributaries unknown to the crusaders, and attacked the Frankish provision lines coming upstream from Damietta. So Frankish boats were stuck between the new ambushing boats and the ones coming from al-Mansura — provisioning through the Nile became impossible. On the ground, the situation was equally bad: hostile territory, literally full of canals and tributaries made impossible to provision the Crusader army.”
The Political Crisis Behind the Scenes
While Louis’s forces were running out of supplies, Egypt was undergoing a political earthquake. Sultan al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb’s death in the middle of the crusade created a power vacuum. Competing figures, including the vizier Fakhr al-Dīn, the loyalist Ḥusām al-Dīn, and the sultan’s son Tūrānshāh, scrambled to claim authority. These rivalries were not merely background drama. They shaped the course of the war.
El-Merheb shows how some commanders, rather than immediately confronting the Crusaders, delayed action in hopes of gaining political advantage. Fakhr al-Dīn, for example, initially tried to govern in the name of the late sultan without revealing his death. Ḥusām al-Dīn, meanwhile, sought to bring Tūrānshāh back from exile in eastern Turkey, despite the fact that al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb hated and distrusted his son.
In this context, the Crusaders were both a threat and a political tool. Some Arabic sources suggest that Egyptian leaders even considered negotiating with Louis IX, not for peace, but to buy time or eliminate rivals. That Louis refused to accept generous terms, including the return of Jerusalem, only reinforced the perception among Muslim elites that he was arrogant and politically naive.
El-Merheb’s analysis suggests that Louis IX’s rigidity and misplaced confidence contributed to the failure of the campaign. His refusal to adapt to Egyptian conditions or negotiate effectively made it easier for his opponents to outmanoeuvre him and gain legitimacy from his defeat.
The View from the Other Side
The capture of Louis – Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 22495, fol. 294v
By April 1250, the Crusader army abandoned its position at al-Mansura and attempted to retreat to Damietta, but the Egyptians quickly overwhelmed them, capturing King Louis IX in the process. Arabic chroniclers do not portray the French monarch in a particularly good light, describing him as stubborn, at times foolish, and ultimately a pawn in a wider contest for power. Some even accused him of cowardice in surrendering to save himself while leaving his men to die. Others noted that his obstinacy in captivity delayed the return of Damietta and prolonged negotiations.
What becomes clear in El-Merheb’s study is that the Crusade served as a stage for a much deeper transformation. The Ayyubid dynasty, already strained by internal divisions, collapsed under the weight of succession struggles. Into this void stepped the Mamluks, military elites who had proven themselves in battle against the Crusaders and now had the legitimacy, resources, and power to claim rule over Egypt.
By focusing on Arabic sources — especially contemporaries like Ibn Wāṣil, Ibn al-Khazrajī, and Sibt ibn al-Jawzī — El-Merheb reconstructs a world in which the Seventh Crusade was not only a religious war, but also an internal political one. His work challenges us to read familiar events with new eyes and to recognise that in the crucible of war, the most decisive battles are often fought behind the scenes.
Historians of the Seventh Crusade have usually told its story from the perspective of its most famous participant: King Louis IX of France. Chroniclers such as Jean de Joinville, Louis’s friend and biographer, painted the campaign as a tale of Christian courage, royal piety, and tragic defeat. In these familiar accounts, the focus has been almost completely on what the Crusaders did.
But recent scholarship is beginning to shift that perspective.
New research by historian Mohamad El-Merheb draws on Arabic sources to reconstruct the Seventh Crusade not as a clash of civilisations, but as a moment of deep political crisis within the Islamic world. Through chronicles written by contemporary Egyptian and Syrian authors, a different story emerges — one in which Louis IX’s invasion of Egypt coincided with the collapse of the Ayyubid dynasty, a ruthless struggle for power, and the eventual rise of the Mamluks. These sources show that while the Crusaders were seen as a serious threat, they were also used as pawns in an internal contest for control of Egypt.
The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was led by King Louis IX of France, who set out to conquer Egypt. After landing at Damietta in 1249, the Crusaders advanced inland toward Cairo but were soon bogged down at al-Mansura. The campaign ended in catastrophe in February 1250, with the French army defeated and Louis IX captured.
Writing in a two-part article in the journal Crusades, El-Merheb lays out the case that Arabic sources offer much information on this campaign. In an interview with Medievalists.net, he explains that “historians of the Seventh Crusade have generally relied on Frankish sources rather than Arabic texts with few but important exceptions. This includes Peter Jackson who translated some important Arabic texts and Cecilia Gaposchkin who — although not an Arabist — always makes efforts to engage with translated Arabic sources. This trend in ignoring Arabic sources is problematic because most of the ’Frankish’ sources (Latin and Old French) were authored by people close to Louis IX (his friend Joinville for instance or Geoffrey of Beaulieu his confessor) or other sources and testimonies that were written in the context of Louis IX’s canonization process or to praise his saintly attributes (so hagiographical in nature or dynastic praise).”
Arabic sources include writers who were closely connected to some of the high-profile people involved on the Egyptian side. These accounts reveal that a power struggle was emerging within the Ayyubid court as Sultan al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb was dying and his leading military commander, Fakhr al-Dīn, was looking to succeed him. This dynamic allowed for Louis and the Crusaders to have early success when they landed and captured Damietta.
Could Louis IX Ever Have Succeeded?
A key question is whether the Seventh Crusade ever had a real chance of success. Western accounts and most historians often suggest that Louis IX’s defeat was tragic, but not necessarily foreseeable. El-Merheb sees it differently.
“I really can’t see how the French army could have succeeded,” he says. “The initial success at Damietta was not a victory but more related to the decision of Fakhr al-Din to abandon the city for unclear reasons. The commander of the army that was stationed near the coast of Damietta as I explain the first part of the two articles could have easily stopped the landing. The Muslims were well informed about the landing target and the movements of Louis IX in Cyprus.”
After taking Damietta, the Crusaders marched southwards to al-Mansura, where they would spend the next several months unable to push past the main Egyptian force based there. It would be here that Louis and his soldiers found themselves bogged down and, eventually, unable to supply themselves.
“One of the main reasons for the destined failure was the battle for the Nile,” El-Merheb says. “The provisions line from Damietta to the French army really depended on Frankish boats sailing upstream and provisioning the army through the Damietta branch of the Nile. The Egyptians were masters of their river and sent boats downstream to al-Mansura and from al-Mansura downstream to block the Frankish boats. The sultan had tasked his trusted amir and friend Ḥusām al-Dīn to build and man boats and send them upstream (the plan was put in place well before the crusader landing in Egypt).
“Most brilliantly, the Egyptians moved boats parts on camels deep in enemy territory northward and assembled them and put on the Damietta branch of the Nile to surprise and ambush from hidden canals and tributaries unknown to the crusaders, and attacked the Frankish provision lines coming upstream from Damietta. So Frankish boats were stuck between the new ambushing boats and the ones coming from al-Mansura — provisioning through the Nile became impossible. On the ground, the situation was equally bad: hostile territory, literally full of canals and tributaries made impossible to provision the Crusader army.”
The Political Crisis Behind the Scenes
While Louis’s forces were running out of supplies, Egypt was undergoing a political earthquake. Sultan al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb’s death in the middle of the crusade created a power vacuum. Competing figures, including the vizier Fakhr al-Dīn, the loyalist Ḥusām al-Dīn, and the sultan’s son Tūrānshāh, scrambled to claim authority. These rivalries were not merely background drama. They shaped the course of the war.
El-Merheb shows how some commanders, rather than immediately confronting the Crusaders, delayed action in hopes of gaining political advantage. Fakhr al-Dīn, for example, initially tried to govern in the name of the late sultan without revealing his death. Ḥusām al-Dīn, meanwhile, sought to bring Tūrānshāh back from exile in eastern Turkey, despite the fact that al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb hated and distrusted his son.
In this context, the Crusaders were both a threat and a political tool. Some Arabic sources suggest that Egyptian leaders even considered negotiating with Louis IX, not for peace, but to buy time or eliminate rivals. That Louis refused to accept generous terms, including the return of Jerusalem, only reinforced the perception among Muslim elites that he was arrogant and politically naive.
El-Merheb’s analysis suggests that Louis IX’s rigidity and misplaced confidence contributed to the failure of the campaign. His refusal to adapt to Egyptian conditions or negotiate effectively made it easier for his opponents to outmanoeuvre him and gain legitimacy from his defeat.
The View from the Other Side
By April 1250, the Crusader army abandoned its position at al-Mansura and attempted to retreat to Damietta, but the Egyptians quickly overwhelmed them, capturing King Louis IX in the process. Arabic chroniclers do not portray the French monarch in a particularly good light, describing him as stubborn, at times foolish, and ultimately a pawn in a wider contest for power. Some even accused him of cowardice in surrendering to save himself while leaving his men to die. Others noted that his obstinacy in captivity delayed the return of Damietta and prolonged negotiations.
What becomes clear in El-Merheb’s study is that the Crusade served as a stage for a much deeper transformation. The Ayyubid dynasty, already strained by internal divisions, collapsed under the weight of succession struggles. Into this void stepped the Mamluks, military elites who had proven themselves in battle against the Crusaders and now had the legitimacy, resources, and power to claim rule over Egypt.
By focusing on Arabic sources — especially contemporaries like Ibn Wāṣil, Ibn al-Khazrajī, and Sibt ibn al-Jawzī — El-Merheb reconstructs a world in which the Seventh Crusade was not only a religious war, but also an internal political one. His work challenges us to read familiar events with new eyes and to recognise that in the crucible of war, the most decisive battles are often fought behind the scenes.
Mohamad El-Merheb’s two-part article, “Louis IX and the transition from Ayyubid to Mamluk sultanate,” is published in Crusades. Click here to read part 1 and click here to read part 2.
Mohamad El-Merheb recently became a Visiting Lecturer and Research Fellow at SOAS, University of London. Click here to learn more about him.
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