The Fifth Crusade: triumph, disaster and the battle for Egypt

0:00In 1217, Crusaders launched an ambitious campaign to conquer Egypt, believing it held the key to reclaiming Jerusalem and securing the Holy Land. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Thomas Smith tells Emily Griffith why the Crusaders targeted Egypt, recounts a dramatic naval assault and siege, and explores how a promising campaign turned into one of the greatest missed opportunities in crusading history.

0:34Thank you so much for joining us today to talk all about your book on the Fifth Crusade. I want to start by asking you, if we were to zoom in to the early 13th century, take a look at that world for a moment, can you set the scene for us in terms of the background we'll need for this episode and the wider crusading movement? So I think we probably need to go back to the year 1099, which is when the First Crusade conquers Jerusalem. So we see this mass movement of men, women, and children who leave Western Europe, and they march across the face of the world to the Near East, down through Syria and

1:08Palestine, and they conquer Jerusalem. And they forge four crusader states in the Holy Land. So Odessa, Tripoli, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Now they hold on to these until 1187, when Sultan Saladin of Syria and Egypt conquers the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the Battle of Hattin. Now, listeners who are familiar with the film Kingdom of Heaven will know this scene from the movie. So he pushes the crusaders effectively into the sea, and they're left with a few toeholds on the coastline of the eastern

1:40Mediterranean. And this reinvigorates the crusading movement. We see new crusades being launched to try and recover the Holy Land, most famous of which is the Third Crusade with Richard the Lionheart. But they don't succeed in recovering Jerusalem. And so planning switches now to thinking about how can we actually manage to take this land back and hold on to it. And from the Fourth Crusade onwards, they start to look at invading Egypt, which is the breadbasket of the Near East. It's incredibly wealthy because of the Nile's annual deluge, which floods the land and creates lots of grain, basically, which has

2:16been the case since ancient times. And it's also on some really important trade routes. So the crusaders realized that Egypt is the source of the Ayurids' power in the Near East, and that if they can knock out Egypt, then they can deprive the Ayurids of that wealth. And they can also take that for themselves and use it as a launch pad then to recover the Holy Land and Jerusalem and to hold on to it long term. So planning switches to trying to invade Egypt. Now, the Fourth Crusade diverts to conquer the Christian city of Constantinople, which is not really on the brief

2:47for a crusading expedition. So there's no major crusade that invades Egypt until the Fifth Crusade in 1217. And a lot of planning goes into preparing this expedition, which is the first major expedition to invade Egypt and try out the Egyptian strategy, which has been long discussed at the courts of the West. So at the beginning of the 13th century, we're looking at a world where there's an ongoing crusading movement, which has been established for over 100 years. We've got families in the West who have long traditions of going on crusades and supporting crusades. And we've also got an Ayurved Empire,

3:23which is trying to fend off these crusades and also trying to hold together. It's quite politically fractured after the death of Sultan Saladin. So this is a time of great change and a really great opportunity to really shift the geopolitical situation in the Near East. So when and how did this call for crusade, this Fifth Crusade occur? So the crusade call goes out in 1213. The Pope Innocent III sends a letter known as quia mayor, which goes out and launches preaching and promises the traditional indulgence of remission

3:55of sins. So people who go on the crusades will have the slate wiped clean of their sins. And it's effectively a get into heaven free card. So it's a very attractive offer. And also you have these very long established family traditions of going on crusade. Some people want to go on an adventure. It's really quite an incredible opportunity to travel in this period. And so there's a lot of reasons why people want to go on crusade. The preaching is very successful. It really recruits across Europe. So we're looking at the main contingents of crusaders come from England, from

4:28Germany, from Frisia, what's now the modern Netherlands and Northwestern Germany, Hungary as well, lots from France and Italy. So this is really a pan-European crusading expedition. And are there any key figures that we should know about in this? So what's really interesting about the Fifth Crusade is that you have this really fascinating ensemble cast of characters, a lot of them quite larger than life. The biggest one is Frederick II, who's the German emperor. He takes the cross in 1215 at Ark and at his coronation. And he's really

4:59the figure that looms over the whole of the crusade because he's the most powerful ruler in the West. And he really has the power, the money, the soldiers to be able to win a big crusade in the East. So a lot of it is structured around him. You also got other characters like King John of Jerusalem, who is the titular King of Jerusalem, but he's actually based in Acre because obviously they don't have control of Jerusalem at the time. So he's leading the expedition on the ground in the East. You also got the King of Hungary, Andrew II, who's really been passed over by scholars previously, but

5:32I argue is actually seen as the main leader by the papacy at the beginning of the expedition. So he's a really important leader. So those are the big leaders. There's also a lot, if we go one rung down the social ladder, we're looking at some really important earls and dukes. We get Duke Leopold VI of Austria. We get Ranulf of Chester from England. There's some really big figures as well, just one rung down that ladder. So maybe you could take us into the preparations for this venture. Was this different from previous crusading ventures or was it fairly similar? That's a great question. I think in a lot

6:05of ways, it's very similar to what's gone before. You've got a crusading movement and a papacy, which is very used to organising crusades now. They've been doing this for well over a hundred years. So they have a very slick machine. The cogs turn very smoothly in terms of launching preaching campaigns, signing recruits with the cross and getting them over to the east. There are a few notable changes though. So the first is administrative and it sounds a bit boring, but actually it's really interesting. It's the collection of a tax on behalf of the crusade. So this is a tax of a 20th on church incomes, which

6:37is 5%. So that's a new thing, which is administered really effectively and actually plays a key role in terms of paying for mercenaries and funding the crusade. It's kind of, you know, money is really crucial. It's the lifeblood of crusading. So taxation is actually really important. The other thing is they are preparing special ships to invade the Nile Delta. So they are thinking that the expedition is probably going to attack Egypt. And so they prepare special ships. We're looking at shallow draft, flat-bottomed landing craft, not dissimilar from the Higgins boats that

7:08are used in 1944 during D-Day. So they've got a landing ramp on the bow and they're rode by oars. And so when they invade Egypt, they use these to attack the Delta because you need flat-bottomed shallow draft ships to be able to sail up and operate because the warfare of the fifth crusade is very much amphibious warfare. And so they're preparing these special ships ready to invade Egypt. So otherwise though, it's a normal crusade in terms of the preparation and they've got a very good machine in place in terms of preaching and recruitment. If we pause here for a moment, all the preparations are taking place. What is going on in Egypt at the moment? How much of a threat

7:43was this? Did people know about it? Yeah. So what's really interesting is actually the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Iobid Empire have sealed a truce which is about to expire before the crusade arrives. So they know that they either have to negotiate a new treaty or they're going to go to war. And actually, I think we should see the crusading movement and the warfare that's going on in the Latin East is very much ongoing. You have temporary truces, but actually they're never going to have a permanent peace with each other. And so they know that and they know to prepare then for war. So this treaty is about to expire. So the West is preparing for a crusade to get boots

8:18on the ground by the time this truce expires to really take advantage of that. So the Iobids are preparing for possible invasion. They've been very fortunate in the fact that the fourth crusade diverted to Constantinople before at the beginning of the 13th century. So they didn't have to face that challenge, but they expect that something is going to happen. The big problem is that the Iobid world at this time is quite fractured politically. So if we rewind the clock slightly to the third crusade with Sultan Saladin, he had managed to hammer out this amazingly large and

8:51powerful empire which stretches from Egypt up through Palestine to Syria to Mesopotamia. But he's done that through force of character and through force of arms. It's very hard to hold an empire together of that scale in this period. And really a lot of that is just through Saladin's personality and his power. And at some point that's going to crumble. And after Saladin dies, the line of succession is quite clear, but actually there was competition among the nephews of Saladin to take over power. So the Sultan Al-Adil, who is in power at the time of the fifth crusade, is Saladin's brother. But then during

9:25the course of the crusade, he dies and one of his sons inherits. But there's a threat from those other emirs who have a claim to power in the Iobid empire. So it's facing internal dissension as well as external opposition. So this is a very good time actually for the crusaders to arrive in the Near East and to try and topple the Iobid regime. How and when does this crusade really get going? So it's preached in 1213, but it doesn't set sail until 1217. And there are a few mishaps and adventures on the way, which sap it of some of the power, which it could have had if it assembled

9:59in one place. So the first contingents leave from Northwestern Germany, Frisia, and from England, and they sail around the Iberian Peninsula. So it was modern Spain and Portugal, and they're on their way to the Holy Land, but they stop off in Iberia. And actually they're persuaded there to fight in the holy war that's going on there. And they capture a fortress called Alcazar do Sal, which is a really great victory for them. But actually then some of the crusaders then decide to go home afterwards, and they feel that they fulfilled their crusade vows. And again, we have this question of diversion,

10:30which had plagued the fourth crusade. Not everyone actually wanted to do this. And that campaign did sap the crusade army of some of its power. The rest of the army assemble in Acre in what's left of the kingdom of Jerusalem. And it's there where we see the fractured nature of the political host of the crusade and some of those cracks start to appear. So you have two main leaders at this point who think that they're in command of the crusade. So you have John of Brienne, the titular king of Jerusalem. And you also have Andrew II of Hungary. And both of them are in a struggle for power. And both of them think that

11:04they are supposed to be leading the crusade. And that doesn't work out very well. So there's a clash of personalities there. They launched three raiding campaigns in the Holy Land to try and gather supplies, but also to try and basically wrong foot the Iobids in the region. But Andrew II seems to be frustrated by the fact that he doesn't manage to assume overall control of the crusade. And essentially, he kind of goes off in a huff, basically, and then leaves the crusade and goes back to the west. But he had great potential as a great leader of the crusade. So at this point, John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem, is in firm control of the crusade at this point. But you've lost a

11:39major contingent. The Hungarian contingent was very powerful. And he takes a lot of his knights, almost his knights back with him. So the crusade has been weakened a little already. But they're getting ready then to invade Egypt and for the next phase of the crusade. It does seem from the off, fraught with issues that I'm sure we're going to see playing out as the crusade carries on. Now, one of the most vivid episodes in this crusade is the assault on the chain tower at Damietta. How do we get there to that moment? Yeah, so I love that moment, which is how I opened the books. I just thought it was really

12:13a great way to position the reader in this world and to show what is going on and to really put them in Egypt to make them feel like they're on the crusade on the river Nile. So they decide to invade Egypt and they have those special landing craft ready to invade the Nile Delta. So they operate just like on D-Day. You've got knights fully mounted in armour on their horses on these landing craft, which are rode quickly to shore. The ramps drop down at the front of the ship, the knights clatter out, and they're only opposed by some Bedouin cavalry. And a Frisian crusader has recorded us

12:46doing an amazing martial deed. So they're at a great distance and he drops to one knee, swivels and launches a javelin from great distance and manages to fell one of the Bedouin cavalry, which terrifies the others, and they ride off from the beach. So the crusaders have managed to secure a beachhead very quickly. They set themselves up in a mosque on the west bank of the river Nile as their headquarters, and they get ready to try and besiege the great city of Damietta. So Damietta is a really underappreciated, massively important city in the Middle Ages. Along with Alexandria, it's the most important port on the Egyptian coastline. Recent scholarly analysis has shown,

13:22looking at network analysis, that Damietta is a really crucial port. It's very wealthy. It's bringing lots and lots of goods and people and sending stuff out. So this is really important. It's a really important trade hub and the crusaders need to capture the city because it is the key to unlocking the rest of Egypt. So the plan is ultimately to march south to capture Cairo and conquer all of Egypt. But first they have to have Damietta because they need a port city. They need access to the sea, lifelines back to reinforcements and resupply. So Damietta is an incredibly large city. It's got a triple ring of walls, each higher than the last.

13:57So if you imagine a modern wedding cake, a three-tiered wedding cake, it's kind of a bit like that. It would look like from a distance. So the crusaders have to break down this great fortification, which has also been reinforced using ancient Egyptian pyramids. So the sultan has broken down ancient Egyptian pyramids, including one made of quartz, and used that to re-fortify the city to make it even stronger. So it's very hard to besiege. It also has something called the chain tower, which is really fascinating. It's a stone tower, which stands in the middle of the Nile. It's a really stout construction. You've got 300 hardened Egyptian warriors with loads of food,

14:32and they're ready to defend this tower because the tower controls a chain across the river Nile, which then controls the Nile. So Damietta controls access upriver and to Cairo. So the crusaders realize that they cannot take out Damietta without taking out the chain tower first. So they put all their effort into it. They use stone-throwing trebuchets, huge catapults, to launch massive stones at the chain tower. And so the soundtrack of the crusade at this point is massive rocks thudding into this stone tower and crumbling, throwing dust everywhere. But they don't manage to get very much

15:04further at all. So this is where an interesting character comes into the crusade. And he's our main eyewitness source for the whole crusade. And he's a man out of place. It's a German schoolmaster from Cologne called Oliver. So what is he doing on the crusade? Well, he has played a key role in actually preaching and recruiting the crusade. He's brought a lot of crusaders with him from northern Germany and Frisia. And he actually plays a really key role in some of the decision-making behind the crusade. But he's too humble to admit it. So his source is very modest. And you have to

15:34really pick it apart to work out what he's doing. But he plays a really key role. He realizes they're not going to capture the chain tower using the trebuchets, and they'll have to launch an amphibious assault on it. But it stands in the middle of the Nile. The waters are rushing around it. They've got crocodiles in the water. It's a very dangerous place to be operating. And the defenders are using Greek fire, which is essentially medieval napalm, which they're delivering in ceramic hand grenades. And the crusaders are terrified of this. So he invents a special siege ship using his knowledge of

16:05ancient military manuals. And he funds it using that tax, which is really important. So he gets two ships, lashes them together, and then they build a wooden fortification on top, almost like a tower on top of these two ships. Then they have a huge ladder on the front, which they can lift up and down. And this tower can rotate as well. And they put animal skins coated on the top of the fort to stop this Greek fire from burning through it. They're also carrying on board acidic liquids. So I think we might think of

16:36chivalric crusading warfare as being very glamorous, but it's definitely not because the only two liquids that are acidic enough to put out Greek fire are vinegar and stale urine. So I think we have to imagine these slopping around on deck and someone has a very horrible job of actually dealing with this and using it to put out the Greek fire. So they managed to position this siege engine, this floating siege engine against the chain tower. And the Egyptians are fighting really hard. They're shooting loads of arrows. They're throwing javelins. They're dropping rocks down onto the crusaders. They're also throwing

17:07these Greek fire ceramic hand grenades onto the ship. And the crusaders are trying to put out the fire with their acidic liquids and gravel. So it's quite, there's a lot going on here basically at this point. And there's a crusader who is armed with a very special weapon. It's effectively a medieval nunchuck. So there's a guy called Heo of Fivelgo who comes from Frisia and he's balancing on the end of this ladder in the middle of the river Nile. There's all these arrows are flying past him and rocks from the trebuchets are being shot from both sides. And he's modified this agricultural flail with iron chains to make it

17:40even more deadly. And watching on the bank is Oliver of Cologne who has funded the ship and he's writing this history of the crusades. He writes this incredible narrative of the crusade first as letters, then he writes it up as a chronicle. And that gives us one of the best sources for understanding what's going on. And he then recounts how they storm the chain tower. The guy with the nunchuck takes out the sultan's standard bearer and they managed to capture this. Then it opens up then the siege of Damietta proper and they've now got control of the river Nile. So the Nile is actually really dictating the warfare that's going on in the siege of Damietta.

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18:45may slow when network is busy. See terms. Between rushing water, crocodiles, Greek fire, strong fortifications, it seems like everything is, you know, impossible almost for the crusaders to be able to get into Damietta. But we've got this foothold. How do they then take Damietta proper? So the end of the siege is less glamorous than the siege of the chain tower. So I think a lot of people don't realise is that the siege of Damietta is one of the last great untold stories of the crusades. It's one of the longest sieges from the whole history of the crusades. It goes on

19:18for nearly 18 months. So they launch stones at its walls using trebuchets. They encircle it. Basically, the way they crack the city finally is through the weapon of starvation. So they just cut off access to food for the citizens. And what I've tried to do is to try and recover some of the experiences of normal people on the crusade. And the crusade is not just about knights in armour, but it's also about the normal people who are on crusade as well. So the fifth crusade is really interesting in terms of seeing how crusades affect civilian populations. We also see women on

19:49crusade and also children on crusade as well. So there's loads of really interesting insights that we get into the world of the Near East and the crusading movement, which happened during the siege of Damietta. So if we start with thinking about the people inside Damietta, up to this point, they've had food security. And because the city hasn't been fully blockaded, they've been able to get food in and out. So it hasn't affected them that much really at all. But by this stage, the crusaders actually seal off the city and they start to experience food scarcity for the first time. The crusaders are shooting huge stones into the city with their trebuchets, which obviously are a

20:25great risk to the civilians. They also fire in more gruesome ammunition. So they shoot in decapitated heads as well into the city to try and terrify the population into surrendering. But really, it's the food scarcity that does for the Damiettans. There's the Egyptian sultan Al-Khamil arrives to try and dislodge the crusaders and save them. And there are lots of pitch battles that are fought in the marshes around the city of Damietta on the Nile, but he doesn't manage to dislodge them. And effectively, the crusaders just strangle the city to death. So there is a papal representative

21:00on the crusade called Pelagius, who has command of a special group of troops, and he sends them at night on the 5th of November 1219. And they put ladders up against the walls and they burn through the gates of the outer walls. And when they get over the city and they find out what's inside, they are greeted by an almost apocalyptic scene. There are dead bodies strewn everywhere in the streets, the civilians who have just died of famine and also disease and great pestilence has ripped through the population. So the

21:32population of Damietta was large, probably about 20,000, we estimate, and a huge proportion of them died during the siege just through lack of food. They had grain, but a lot of it is spoiled during the siege. And that's how the crusaders managed to capture Damietta. This is a glittering prize. It's probably one of the most important conquests that the crusaders make in the whole history of the crusading movement. After Jerusalem, this is the first major city they've managed to capture on a big general crusade. So this is a game changer in terms of opening up the geopolitical situation, but it comes at great human cost for the

22:06people inside Damietta. And also the warfare as well that's going on outside is really brutal on both sides. And we get those glimpses during it into ordinary people's lives. And so one of the most interesting things I thought was this will of a dying crusader. So just after they capture the city, there's an Italian crusader called Barcella Maxadros. And he is dying around Christmas time 1219. He makes his final will and testament. And in that he leaves half his tent to his wife, Julietta, his plunder,

22:37and he provides for his wife. And it's really interesting because we get to see then not only what his little world looks like and the kind of armor that he's wearing. He's wearing like a shoulder protector with some chain mail and he's got a sword, but also the experience of his wife, because the main chroniclers of the crusade don't really mention women or children at all on the crusade. But we know from these sources that they are there, they are taking part, and that his wife, Julietta, has actually been awarded plunder as well for her role in the crusade. So women are playing a really key role on this crusade. And I think what's really interesting about the fifth crusade is that we can

23:09draw those out and really flesh them out in a really effective way. And so we get to see into her world as well. And he's really worried that after he dies, that she's going to be dispossessed of her part of the tent by their companions they're living with. So we get to see some of these daily problems and worries that crusaders are going through. Are there any other particularly evocative sources or moments that you think we should talk about? Yeah, one that I think about a lot that stayed with me is what happens to some of the children on the crusade. So we know that there are children on the crusader side who are taking part in this, and they're

23:43virtually never mentioned in the sources, but they pop up at various moments. And to think about what their experiences were like growing up on a crusade is quite incredible, really. But mainly, I was thinking about an episode where there's a churchman called Jack de Vitry. And when they capture places, they often take the Muslim children and they baptize them. So this is effectively, we would see it from a modern perspective as forcible conversion. But he sees it actually as a good deed. He's very proud of what he does. He writes about it prominently in his letters. And he mentions in one letter how he's

24:16sending back these Islamic silks that he's captured, but also that he's sending back some captured Muslim children who he has baptized and converted to Christianity. And he's sending them back to live in a monastic community in Western Europe, which is really fascinating to think about if that actually happens, if they survive. And it's kind of tantalizing to think about what their lives might have been like in the West and how they would have been received by people in Western Europe and what their experiences would have been like. And the fifth crusade is incredible for giving us these amazing glimpses into

24:48aspects of crusading that a lot of other crusades don't, because we have some really incredible sources. So those are some of the moments I've tried to draw out and to show that that's going on alongside all of the brutal warfare as well, that normal people are living quite extraordinary lives in this period as well on crusade. It's a wonderful insight into the history behind the crusades as well as the crusades itself. Now, with the crusaders at Damietta, what is next for them? So the ultimate goal is to march south to Cairo to try and knock out the capital of the

25:21Ibid power in Egypt and then to conquer all of Egypt. In the meantime, they capture a city called Tinnis, which is on Lake Mansala, which is to the east of Damietta. Now, what's really interesting here is actually a connection to Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, because listeners who are fans of the film would know that the Lost Ark of the Covenant's resting place in Indiana Jones was the ancient Egyptian city of Tannis. Now, the crusaders know about Tannis. They refer to it in the sources as an ancient city now lying in ruins. And when

25:52they capture the city of Tinnis, they actually mistake it for Tannis. And so there's a kind of connection there. So they write in their chronicles about how they've captured Tannis, this great ancient Egyptian city, but actually they've captured Tinnis. So there's a quite interesting sort of connection there to that. And I think it just draws out the fact that they are operating in this ancient landscape and they very much see themselves as thinking about themselves walking in the footsteps of the ancient Egyptians, the Romans, the Byzantines who have been there before them, the biblical history, and they're interpreting it through this lens. And that was one

26:23of the things that really captured my interest and excitement about this crusade and really inspired me was this idea, which seemed quite incongruous, of the crusaders operating in the land of the pyramids. And I think that's why it's such an exciting crusade to work on. It's so different from the ones that have gone before. And I hope that readers will enjoy learning about this new world that the crusaders are exploring for the first time. So it really comes through in the sources. So they captured Tinnis and they're starting then to carve out a new crusader state effectively in Egypt. This is a really exciting time for the crusaders because it's really opening up a new part of the map, essentially,

26:56a new part of the game board of the crusades. So they've got obviously the remnants of the crusader states in the Holy Land, but now they've got a brand new embryonic crusader state in Egypt. And this changes everything. So if they can march down and capture Cairo, take control of the rest of Egypt, this is going to solidify their position. It's going to allow them hopefully to defeat the Iobids and then to take out Jerusalem and recapture that. So the aim then is to march south and attack Cairo. And does that happen? Well, they do march south and they do try and attack Cairo. They come breathtakingly close to success,

27:32actually. And I think what I've tried to do in the book is to go back in time and look at the crusade through the eyes of the crusaders as it's unfolding. I think the big mistake is to look at this crusade and see it as being a failure. Actually, it really is one of the most successful crusades up till the end that they've had since the first crusade and held out such promise. And really, I think what we need to do then is try and think about it as things are unfolding. So they start to assemble their army. The crusade has been delayed. After they capture Damietta in November 1219, a period of inaction takes hold. Basically, they're waiting for Frederick II,

28:08the emperor to arrive from Europe with his crusade winning muscle. And he keeps promising all the time that he's going to come and then never turns up. And so they're a bit sort of in limbo really in terms of what they can do with the strategy. But eventually, he sends some really great forces under Count Henry of Malta and a really big imperial contingent with special ships. And they've been ordered to strike the coup de grace and capture Cairo before he arrives. And so he's expected to arrive very soon. So this gives them the stimulus to then march out from Damietta finally. And they do this in the worst

28:42possible time, which is the summer of 1221. Now, they know, at the time that the Nile is about to flood, and this is going to be a problem. But we can only understand the reasoning behind their decision if we look at the power of prophecy, which is circulating in the crusader camp, they've come across an Arabic book called the Book of Clement, which foretells that they will capture two cities in Egypt. And then that will be followed by an emperor from the west coming to Jerusalem, a newly

29:14Christian recovered Jerusalem, who will meet an emperor from the east, who the crusaders identify with the mythical figure of Presta John. And having captured Egypt, and those two emperors coming together, they will bring about the apocalypse. Now, this seems to us, I think, quite a strange thing. Why would you want to bring about the apocalypse? But actually, for the medieval Christians at the time, they see this as being the culmination of biblical history and the present and the future of Christianity. So they actually want to bring this about. And they've been very successful in

29:47capturing Damietta and the city of Tinnis already. And so that fits with the prophecies. And so they think, well, if we're meeting the foretelling of the prophecy, then we should be able to capture Cairo as well, because it has been foretold. So I think that really offers the only real explanation to understand why the crusaders march out of Damietta on the River Nile during the summer of 1221, when the Nile is about to flood, and they know it's about to flood, they have a working understanding of how the Nile functions, and its hydrography. And when they start marching down,

30:21they do this because they are marching to an apocalyptic timetable. So I think that's what explains their strategic decision, which to us, I think, feels very counterintuitive and foolhardy. But actually, to them, it makes a lot of sense. Because if you believe in the prophecy, then actually God will allow them to conquer Egypt, and the floods won't be a problem. But what happens is the floods are a problem. They managed to make it about 40 miles south of Damietta. They've covered a really good distance by August of 1221. They're about 70 miles away from Cairo at this stage. They've undertaken

30:52a fighting march, which has been really well organized. Now, the River Nile has dictated the course of the Crusade up to this point, and it's about to dictate the end of the Crusade as well. The Crusaders have ships on the Nile, which are sailing south, and they're covering the right flank of the Crusade army, which is marching along the riverbank. On the left flank, the Crusaders have infantry, and in the middle, they have cavalry. Sultan Al-Khamil, who is the great opponent of the Crusaders, he is a very wily opponent. He's a very good strategist. And he really emerges from the Crusaders,

31:24the great hero, actually, of the whole Crusade, for the way he defeats the Crusaders. And he is very generous towards them. He's a real paragon of chivalry in the same way, even more so perhaps than his uncle Saladin was. He's attacking the Crusaders all the time. They're marching south, so he's harassing them with horse archers. And the Crusaders managed to make their way down to the tip of what we might think of as a triangular island. If you imagine a downturned triangular island, which is surrounded by two different branches of the Nile, and then there's a small stream

31:56behind them. Now, they had crossed that small stream, and they ended up at the tip of the island. But what they didn't realize is that as the Nile started to flood, that stream behind them became a navigable waterway, and Sultan Al-Khamil lands troops behind them using his ships. So the Crusaders are completely surrounded then on the base of this triangular island. They can't cross over the next branch of the Nile to make it down to Cairo, and they can't retreat now as well. So Al-Khamil has completely surrounded them. And they get into the situation of deciding how can they get out of

32:30this mess, basically. And we know that there are lots of debates and discussions that go on in the Crusade Leadership Council about what their best options are. And they've basically got one or two options. One is to try and retreat to Damietta. The other would be to try and stay put there and wait for Frederick II to arrive. And they debate back and forth. And eventually, they decide to try and fight their way out and make it back to Damietta. Now, the problem is that this is where French wine comes into play. So they have to leave behind all their stores. And during the day before they make

33:05their covert nighttime retreat, a lot of the Crusaders are very reluctant to leave the stores of wine behind. So they do some day drinking, some pretty serious session day drinking, and drink most of the wine before they go. And what happens then is in the nighttime, when they're supposed to be doing this nighttime retreat, a lot of the Crusaders are really drunk. And some of them decide to set fire to their tents as well. And so Sultan Al-Khamil is only on the other side of the Nile, he's got them surrounded. And then he sees their tents go up in flames in the midnight sky, and he realizes what

33:35they're doing. And so his troops fall on them. And the Crusaders are in complete disarray. The primary sources say that some of them are so drunk, the Crusaders, that they walk off into the fields and are never seen again. Some of them can't be roused and are just sleeping in their tents, passed out, some are passed out in the roads, and they just get left behind and killed by Sultan Al-Khamil's troops. The rest try and get on boats, and they try and break through the blockade that Sultan Al-Khamil has established. But that goes really poorly. Some of the ships are sunk, and they lose a lot of men, a lot of

34:05supplies. And basically, it's turning into a complete disaster. As the sun rises, the next day, the Crusaders realize that they have to sue for peace. And then there's a protracted series of negotiations that go on back and forth. And they decide to save their own skins. And they give Sultan Al-Khamil control of Damietta, once again, in return for their lives. And he allows, he spares their lives and allows them to return freely to Europe, despite the fact a lot of his advisors are saying we should kill them all now while we can and stop the Crusaders coming back. But he's actually really generous to a

34:38fault. And he spares them their lives, gives them food, and takes Damietta back. And that's the end of the Fifth Crusade. And I think that it ends as a bit of a damp squib. But actually, if we rewind it to the point before that, actually, they had everything to play for Cairo was on the verge of surrendering, people were evacuating the city. So they only really had to march south and, you know, start to besiege the city. And they had control of Damietta, and they fortified the city to make it even stronger. So they're in this position, which they've started to carve out a new Crusader state

35:10in Egypt. And actually, really, the whole geopolitical situation was changed. And I think the whole history of the Crusades could have played out very differently, if it had ended differently, the Crusade. And I think that we shouldn't lose sight of that, how much it actually achieved before it fails in the marshy floodwaters of the Nile. When you read about this history, it quite often gets pegged as a failure. Lots of bad decisions, lots of things going wrong. You say that's maybe not how we should be doing it. How did contemporaries understand this? What did they think of this kind of big conclusion of the Crusade?

35:42They were very angry about this, because the Crusade by now has become something which is really a community effort. So people at home in the West are praying on behalf of the Crusaders. They've donated arms and money to the Crusade. People have paid this tax of the 20th, which has been very important in keeping the Crusade going and paying for mercenaries. And they're really, really frustrated, actually, that the leaders make this decision, and that they then sacrifice the city of Damietta to save their own skins. And so there's a big backlash. We even have some poetry that's written

36:13blaming the leaders and sort of criticising them. But the fallout is really quite large. What we have to remember is that, you know, a lot of Western Europe has been involved in this Crusade. It's not just about the people who are actually fighting the Crusade themselves, but all their supporters in the West. And this has been going on for several years by the time the Crusade fails. And so this has been a huge effort. And the outcome then is a real source of disappointment. The major blame falls on the Pope. It falls on his papal legate, Pelagius. It also falls on John of Brienne, the titular king of

36:47Jerusalem. And it falls on Frederick II, who really hamstrung the Crusade by always promising to depart and saying that he was on the verge of going on Crusade, but never actually did. So they arrange to meet, they have various colloquia in the West, and they decide to plan a new Crusade, which turns out to be what's called the Sixth Crusade, where Frederick II goes out to the East, and he actually negotiates the recovery of Jerusalem with Al-Kamil. So he doesn't fight at all, he just goes out there and then recovers it through treaty. And the weird thing is, at the time, he's also excommunicated. So he's been

37:20thrown out of the church for his delays to the Crusade, basically, but he goes anyway and recovers Jerusalem. So it's a weird ending to the Crusade, where they kind of get what they want, but not how they intended. Very strange. This Crusade tends to be overshadowed by other Crusades. Why do you think that it's perhaps slipped from popular memory, despite its scale, its drama? And I'm guessing, as you've spent quite a lot of time researching and interested in this particular campaign, I'm guessing you're going

37:52to suggest that this is something that maybe we should correct? Entirely. I think that's a great question. What's going on here is really a massive phenomenon in world history, where they are going out and they're trying to conquer Egypt, they're making a really good stab of it at the start. And actually, they're really changing the geopolitical situation in the Near East. This is something which has a huge impact on the lives of thousands and thousands of people, those who take part in the Crusade, those whose lands are invaded, all of the people that support it. This is a massive event. And actually, it really is the big news story for the

38:26early 13th century, for Western Europe, for the Near East, Egypt. And actually, it's really been mostly forgotten, I think, in popular memory, which doesn't reflect its importance at the time. And I think that if we try and adopt a perspective that's closer to that of medieval people, at the time of the Crusade, it looks very different. And so this is a huge part of world history that's really been forgotten, I think. How should we be thinking about the legacy of this Crusade? What is the legacy of the Fifth Crusade? I think it has a very important legacy, actually. I think what happens is you see Egypt really

38:59becoming the target of the Crusades from this point onwards. So before the Fifth Crusade, this was really a theory that had been debated at the courts of Europe about the Egyptian strategy and how that could work. And because the Fifth Crusade comes so close to success, it shows just how powerful that strategy was. They came very close to toppling the entire Ayubid dynasty at the time. So actually, what happens is afterwards, crusaders begin to invade Egypt again. So you have the Crusade of Louis IX, known as the Seventh Crusade, in the middle of the 13th century.

39:31And he follows the playbook of the Fifth Crusade pretty much exactly. So he invades Egypt, he besieges and takes Damietta, and then he starts to march south towards Cairo as well. So he's following their playbook because actually it was very successful up until the very end of the Fifth Crusade. And I think that's really a powerful testament that what they were doing was a very good strategy. Then you've also got later on as well in the 14th century, the idea of the Egyptian Crusade doesn't die, it just shifts. So in 1365, you have something called the Alexandria Crusade,

40:03where new crusaders try and invade Egypt again, this time besieging the port city of Alexandria, which is to the west of Damietta. So I think the legacy of the Fifth Crusade is not that it's a failure, but actually it comes so close to success, and shows then contemporaries that Egypt is the best way to reconquer the Holy Land and hold it long term, and that the conquest of Egypt should really be the focus of their efforts. Another thing that's really interesting about this crusade and its legacy is actually how the landscape shapes the outcome of the crusade. The River Nile

40:35had dictated the whole course of the crusade, all of this warfare is amphibious siege warfare, or even when they're not actually fighting on the water, they're marching alongside the Nile. And I mentioned that they become surrounded at the end of the crusade by Al-Kamil, and they get flooded out by the rising deluge of the Nile, which happens every year. But also what Al-Kamil does, he's very clever, he opens the sluice gates to the fields around the position of the crusaders, and so this floods them out even more. And so they're inundated with water, and that's really

41:06what actually ends the crusade for them. So it's really interesting to think about how the landscape, how the Nile actually dictates what happens on the crusade. It's one of the most important characters really in the story of the Fifth Crusade, and it is what determines its outcome in the end.

41:24That was Thomas Smith speaking to Emily Griffith. Tom is keeper of the scholars at rugby school, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He also holds honorary research positions at the University of Kent and Royal Holloway University of London. His book is The Fifth Crusade, A History of the Epic Campaigns to Conquer Egypt.

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