Siege of Acre (1291) - Background

Background

The main turning point in the Crusades was in 1187 when, after the pivotal Battle of Hattin, the Christians lost Jerusalem to the forces of Saladin. In the same year, Saladin was able to conquer a great part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem including Acre and Jerusalem. This led to the Third Crusade, during which Acre was besieged and eventually fell in the hands of the Christians in 1191; it became the base of operations and capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem for most of the next hundred years. The religious orders had their headquarters in or near Acre, from which they made crucial decisions in military and diplomatic efforts. For example, when the Mongol forces came in from the East in the mid-13th century, the Christians saw them as potential allies, but also maintained a position of cautious neutrality with the Muslim forces of the Egyptian Mamluks. In 1260, the Barons of Acre allowed the Mamluks to pass through their territory unhindered, which enabled the Mamluks to achieve a decisive victory against the Mongols at the pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut in Galilee.

However, most relations with the Mamluks were not as cordial. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt in 1250, an even more dangerous and formidable enemy than the Ayyubids with heavy cavalry to match Crusader knights, the destruction of the remaining Crusader territories gathered pace. They also proved to be much more hostile. After the Battle of Ain Jalut, Mamluk forces began attacking Crusader holdings as early as 1261 under Sultan Baibars. In 1265, Caesarea, Haifa, and Arsuf all fell to the Sultan. The following year saw the loss of all the important Latin holdings in Galilee. In 1268 Antioch was taken.

To help redress these losses, a number of minor Crusading expeditions left Europe for the East. The abortive Crusade of Louis IX of France to Tunis in 1270 was one such attempt. The minor Ninth Crusade of Prince Edward (later King Edward I) of England in 1271–1272 was another. Neither of these expeditions was capable of giving any sound assistance to the beleaguered Latin states. The forces involved were too small, the duration of each of the Crusades too short, the interests of the participants too diverse to allow any solid accomplishment.

Pope Gregory X labored valiantly to excite some general enthusiasm for another great Crusade, but he labored in vain. The failure of his appeal was variously ascribed by the Pope's advisors to the laziness and vice of the European nobility and to clerical corruption. Though each of these factors may have been in part to blame, a more basic reason for the failure seems to have been the debasement of the ideal of the Crusade itself. The use by Gregory X's predecessors of the label and privileges of the Crusade to recruit armies which could fight the Papacy's European enemies had done much to throw the whole movement into disrepute.

In any event, no Crusade of any major importance was forthcoming, despite the Pope's best efforts. Meanwhile the attacks on the Latin East continued, as did also the internal difficulties within what was left of the Latin Kingdom. By 1276, the situation, both external and internal, had become so perilous that the "King of Jerusalem" Henry II withdrew from Palestine altogether to take up his abode on the Island of Cyprus. The desperate plight of the Latin Kingdom worsened. In 1278, Lattakia fell. In 1289 Tripoli was lost in the Fall of Tripoli.

The Mamluks were led by Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil, son of Qalawun. Qalawun had begun preparations for the siege but died in November 1290.