Defenders and noncombatants in Acre streamed to the harbor, where Venetian vessels waited to rescue them. There were too few ships, however, to save all the fugitives. Those Christians unable to leave the city were slaughtered by the Mamelukes.

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Meanwhile, a desperate standoff developed at the castle of the Templars in the northwest part of Acre. The besieged knights fought valiantly for several days, and were actually offered their freedom–until treachery cut that hope short. Cypriot ships hovered about rescuing women and children from the castle’s seaward wall. Mameluke tunnels, however, crumbled the main landward wall. Sultan Khalil impatiently ordered 2,000 warriors to break through the dazed defenders at the breach. The sagging foundation of the castle suddenly collapsed, burying Christian and Muslim alike. As the dust settled, Acre had finally been returned to Muslim hands.

To make sure Acre never became a Christian bastion again, Sultan Khalil ordered its walls, castles and buildings to be torn down and burned. Boulders were rolled into the harbor to end its days as a port facility.

The fall of Acre to the Christians in 1191 had ignited a new wave of Crusading fervor that bolstered the faltering Latin Kingdoms. Richard I emerged as a larger-than-life hero in one of history’s last great sieges before the use of gunpowder. The city’s ultimate demise in 1291 at the hands of the Mamelukes was a bloody epitaph to 200 years of Crusader warfare.

This article was written by Kenneth P. Czech and originally published in the August 2001 issue of Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!

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