First Crusade: Siege of Jerusalem

 | Military History  | 8 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

After abandoning their siege of Arqa, the Crusaders marched easily through the more compliant cities of Tripoli, Beirut and Acre. Shortly after they left the latter city, however, a knight’s hawk caught a pigeon overflying the Crusaders’ camp with a note tied to its leg–an appeal from the governor of Acre to all Muslims to rise in jihad (holy war) against the Franj invaders.

Vizier al-Musta’li now regretted interposing himself between the Crusaders and the Turks. It would take months to raise a suitable army to relieve a siege of Jerusalem, and he sent an emissary to Emperor Alexius I Comnenus at Constantinople, asking him to delay the invaders. Alexius asked the Europeans to wait until he could join them. But they had come to distrust the man whose request for assistance in restoring the Holy Land to Christian rule had led to the Crusades, and their response was scathing: We will go all of us to Jerusalem, in combat formation, our lances raised!

The defense of the great honey-colored fortress was now in the hands of Fatimid governor Iftikhar al-Daula (Pride of State). The walls were in good condition, and his garrison of Arab cavalry and Sudanese archers was strong. Iftikhar was a good general who inspired heroism, and his army was intensely loyal to him. Also, an Egyptian relief column was on its way, and there were ample provisions available until it arrived. As the Crusaders drew near Jerusalem, the governor blocked or poisoned all wells that lay outside the walls, moved all animals inside and expelled all Christians, regardless of denomination. Most of the Jews also left, except for those of a sect for whom it was mandatory to reside in the Holy City. In spite of recent persecutions, Christians far outnumbered the city residents of other religions, and by early June 1099, Jerusalem’s population had declined from 70,000 to less than 30,000.

The Franj force that approached Jerusalem numbered little more than 15,000 people, including women and children, and only about 1,300 of them were knights. Starvation had made them rail thin, and hardship had made them strong. An eclipse of the moon on June 5 was seen as a favorable sign from God, and their morale was high on the 7th, when they first spotted the domes and walls of Jerusalem from the Mosque of the Prophet Samuel atop the hill normally referred to by pilgrims as Montonjoie, the Joyous Mountain.

The Crusaders were too few to invest the entire city, so they concentrated their forces where they could come nearest the walls. Robert, Duke of Normandy, stationed his forces along the northern wall at the Gate of Flowers, or Herod’s Gate. Robert of Flanders was to his right at the Gate of the Column, also known as St. Stephen’s or the Damascus Gate. Godfrey of Lorraine took position at the northwest angle of the city as far as the Jaffa Gate, with Raymond of Toulouse to his south. Tancred later joined Godfrey, bringing with him flocks of sheep that he had taken on his march from Bethlehem. Raymond found that the valley lying between his position and the Jaffa Gate kept him too far from the walls, so after two or three days he moved his forces onto Mount Zion. The eastern and southeastern approaches to Jerusalem were not guarded at all.

The advantage was with Iftikhar. He had a steady supply of water, much more food than the invaders and better weapons. The governor strengthened his towers with sacks of cotton and hay, building them higher each night with stone, while waiting for the Egyptian relief column to appear.

The Crusaders found one untainted source of water, the pool of Siloam below the south wall, but it was so close to the city that drawing water was hazardous. This fountain gushed cool water every third day, an attribute simply ascribed by the Crusaders to the will of God. Soldiers, crazed with thirst, fought each other for access to this pool. Raymond of Aguilers described the scene: Those who were strong pushed and shoved their way in a deathly fashion through the pool, which was already choked with dead animals and men struggling for their lives, and…reached the rocky mouth of the fountain, while those who were weaker were left behind in the filthy water. These weaker ones sprawled on the ground…with gaping mouths, their parched tongues making them speechless, while they stretched out their hands to beg water from the more fortunate ones.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Historical Conflicts

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.