6.4. 1250 Crusade: the king fell into captivity

The Seventh Crusade lasted six years (1248 to 1254). A major turning point occurred on April 6, 1250, when the French king Louis IX fell with his army to the Saracens. He had to surrender the conquered city of Dimyat on the Mediterranean coast.

In 1248, a Crusader fleet of 1800 ships arrived in Cyprus with the intention of launching the Seventh Crusade against the Muslims by conquering Egypt. The commander, King Louis IX of France, attempted to enlist the OioMongols on his side to launch a coordinated attack. When he failed to do so, the crusading force sailed to the Dimyat. As soon as they arrived, the local population fled. "When As-Salih Ayyub, who was in Syria at the time, heard this, he headed back to Egypt and avoided Dimyat, instead reaching the city of Mansoura. There he organized an army and commandos who harassed the Crusaders," the collective of authors write in their book, History of Islam.

Due to the mounting pressure of the Crusader offensive, Ayyuban's health, already quite ill, was deteriorating. His wife, Shajar al-Durr, called an assembly of all the war generals and thus became commander-in-chief of the Egyptian forces. "She ordered the fortification of Mansurah, ordered a large amount of supplies to be gathered and concentrated the forces. She also organized a war fleet and dispersed it at various strategic points along the Nile River," the History of Islam still states.

However, in 1249, Louis succeeded in capturing Dimyat. He landed in Egypt and advanced towards Cairo. In December, he clashed with a formidable Egyptian army under Fakhruddin, who held the adjacent bank of the Bahr as-Saghir Canal. During dawn on 8 February 1250, the king's brother Robert of Artois led a vanguard of knights across the ford. He immediately attacked the Egyptian camp, killing many Egyptians, including Fakhruddin. The rest of the Egyptian forces fled to the city of Mansoura, where Robert pursued them. The knights made it into the city unopposed, but were subsequently slaughtered by the enemy in the narrow streets.

Outside the city, however, the Christians continued to hold the upper hand. Plagued by disease and pursued by Egyptian forces, the Crusaders attempted to retreat back to the Dimyat. But on April 6, 1250, Louis
IX and most of his army were defeated at Fariskur and fell into Saracen captivity. The king was kept in chains in a house in Mansoura. His brother was killed. Pope Innocent IV responded with appeals for help, ordering public prayers and encouraging the noble captive in every way possible.

However, the king had to pay a very large ransom indeed to be allowed to move around Palestine as a pilgrim. "And besides this, he had nothing to do but to return the Sultan of Dimyat. He did not return to France until four years later," say Drahomír Suchánek and Václav Drška in their book Ecclesiastical History: Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

The king decided to go on the eighth crusade in 1270.

Sources: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, R. G. Grant: Battles - 5000 Years of Warfare
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