Crusaders Defeat Fatimids at Battle of Ascalon

Context

The First Crusade reached its principal objective with the capture of Jerusalem from the Fatimids on 15 July 1099. The Fatimids, who had seized the city from the Seljuks only the previous year, had earlier explored an alliance with the Crusaders against their common Seljuk rivals but refused to cede Palestine itself. Once Jerusalem fell, the Crusaders learned that a substantial Fatimid relief force was already en route from Egypt under the command of vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah.

What Happened

Godfrey of Bouillon, recently named Defender of the Holy Sepulchre, led the remaining Crusader contingents out of Jerusalem on 10 August. The army, roughly 1,200 knights and 9,000 infantry, marched south carrying the relic of the True Cross, with Patriarch Arnulf of Chocques in attendance. On 11 August the Crusaders captured Egyptian scouts who disclosed the location and disposition of the Fatimid camp near Ascalon. At dawn the next day they launched a surprise attack on the still-sleeping enemy. The Fatimid infantry was caught half-ready; their cavalry contributed little before the Crusader knights broke into the center of the camp, seizing al-Afdal’s standard and personal baggage. The vizier fled by ship to Egypt while his army disintegrated.

Aftermath

The Crusaders spent the night in the captured camp before returning to Jerusalem on 13 August with substantial plunder. Godfrey and Raymond IV of Toulouse quarreled over the surrender terms offered by Ascalon’s garrison, which refused to yield to anyone but Raymond; the city therefore remained in Fatimid hands. Most of the surviving Crusaders, their pilgrimage vows fulfilled, soon departed for Europe, leaving only a few hundred knights to defend the new Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Legacy

The Battle of Ascalon secured the immediate survival of the Crusader states in the Levant and demonstrated the effectiveness of disciplined knightly charges against larger but less cohesive forces. Ascalon itself stayed a Fatimid bridgehead and raiding base until its eventual capture by the Crusaders in 1153, shaping the strategic geography of the Latin East for the next century and a half.