The great Crusader port of Acre - today Akko - is about one hour north of Haifa, Israel. Much of the old city of the Crusaders still exists, incorporated into later Islamic architecture. It is a fascinating warren of narrow streets, shops, squares and impressive buildings erected by merchant groups long ago. Yet it remains a working city with schools, restaurants, workshops and mosques all tucked away in the middle of the medieval stone buildings. But its modern peacefulness hides the violence which it saw over nine hundred years ago.
     The crusader kingdom of Jerusalem was born at the very end of the eleventh century. On 15 June 1099, around noon, the crusaders poured over the battered walls of Jerusalem. They had been fighting for two nights and a day; they had walked for three years from Europe; they had endured sieges, battles, and starvation; they were tired, they were angry, and they wanted revenge.
     For three days the crusaders slaughtered all the Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem. The chronicles are blunt: eyewitness Raymond of Aguilers described visiting the Temple Mount where he had to ‘pick his way through corpses and blood that reached up to his knees.’ ¹
     Muslims were shocked. Previously they had been happy to form alliances with the Christian crusaders since the Muslim world’s alliances were much fragmented but this was a lesson in brutality which was never forgotten. At the least, the Muslims determined to expel the crusaders who now held large swathes of territory from North Syria to Southern Israel.
     Acre, ruled by an Egyptian Governor, was a key port; it was the only safe haven whatever the weather. It also commanded the two main roads to Jerusalem: the seaward route via Caesarea and Jaffa and the highland route via Nazareth. And at the time it was a base for Muslim ships raiding crusader vessels; it was important that the crusaders capture it - which they managed in May 1103. Acre quickly became the main port of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
     But in October 1187, after defeating the Christian army at Hattin, near Tiberias, the Muslim forces under Saladin recaptured Jerusalem; eventually he was to hold over fifty crusader castles as well as the important ports including Acre which had been taken in July. The Crusaders’ logistics networks were either destroyed or extremely vulnerable since with the loss of the hinterland territories the men and food to sustain the kingdom had to arrive by sea from the West.
     The military Orders, the most prominent being the Knights Templar, and the Knights of St John, realised that maintaining pragmatic alliances with the Muslim states was the only way to survive - truly those who lived in the Middle East, many of whom were born there, had a very different perspective to those recent arrivals from the west filled with bloodlust seeking instant glory in battle.

THE PORT CITY OF ACRE

Acre was recaptured by the crusaders in July 1191 and thereafter became the capital of the kingdom and the seat of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. It also held the headquarters of the major military Orders: the Knights Templar, the Knights of St John - whose great citadel still exists today - the Teutonic Knights, the Knights of St. Lazarus and the Knights of St. Thomas of Acre.
     The Templars’ quarter was well fortified with an elaborate palace for the Grand Master as well as a large church and its own small harbour. At the entrance to the Templar base was a large tower with walls twenty-eight feet thick and surmounted by a turret on each corner; at the top of each turret was a huge gilded lion.
     Acre itself was also very well fortified by a double defensive wall with towers behind a deep moat. The main harbour of Acre was double; the inner harbour - still in use today - was for coastal shipping and could be blocked by a huge chain slung across the harbour mouth. The outer harbour, for vessels trading overseas, was protected by a long mole ending in a defensive tower. The mole has long since disappeared but the remains of the tower still exists - ‘the Tower of the Flies’.
     Trade was everything to Acre: the Pisans, Genoese and Venetians especially had their merchant fleets constantly visiting; they were the middle-men between the Christian west and the Muslim east. Each had their quarters with hostels and storehouses; and the Pisans, like the Templars, had their own small harbour.
     But Acre had its own industries too, particularly the production of sugar, preserved peaches and high quality stained glass, for which ready markets existed in Europe.
     Acre had a reputation for vice and immorality: drinking and gambling were daily distractions, prostitution was widespread - even the Church rented out rooms since prostitutes paid a higher rent.
     Opium was readily available in the markets as were sophisticated poisons, both were purchased openly in the street; murders were a daily occurrence.
     Acre stank. It was filthy. Pigs wandered everywhere and the stench from piled refuse and sewage was so great that travellers all seemed to comment on it.
     Sailors said that you could smell it far out at sea long before you could see it. And it was so crowded that almost everyone was renting out rooms, even doorways, for people to sleep in.
     The town was also filled by beggars, many of them missing an arm, or ears, or nose, or even blinded in both eyes - not only from battle but from the Courts which commonly applied mutilation as a punishment; and by way of public entertainment, trial by combat and public hangings were common.
     But life at the grander end was good: there were orchards, vineyards and market gardens near to Acre. The hunting was good, Muslim style public bathhouses existed. And as a great luxury, drinks were chilled by the addition of snow brought down from the Lebanese mountains.
     In general, there was a good relationship between the Christian settlers and the Muslims: many spoke Arabic and in times of peace would go hunting together. The Master of the Templars had an Arab scribe and this was not uncommon practice. There were several hostels in Acre reserved for Muslims and part of a Mosque continued in use for them. Muslim traders regularly sold food and manufactured goods in the markets of Acre.
     While those recently arrived from the West did not take such a benign and pragmatic view of such a relationship there was much money to be made from a continuing peace with the Arab states.
     Caravans would arrive in Acre from Damascus and elsewhere bearing gold, silver, textiles, food, medicines, leather goods and spices all of which meant great profits to be made in Europe for the traders. Only a fool would want to disrupt this trade. Unfortunately, there is always a fool.

THE END OF THE CRUSADER KINGDOM

In August 1290 a large number of Italian crusaders landed in Acre: they were drunk, uncontrolled, and quickly went on the rampage, bursting through the streets killing every Muslim trader they could find. The Sultan of Egypt was outraged and declared war on the Christians. He shortly thereafter died but was succeeded by his son who, in April 1291, appeared before the walls of Acre at the head of a vast army.
     For seven weeks the army of the young Sultan besieged the city. By 28 May 1291 Acre was finished. Following heavy fighting the city lay in ruins; its streets filled with tumbled buildings and bodies. Beyond the ruins of the city only the great sea tower of the Templars stood undamaged.
     Crammed inside the tower were those who had survived together with fifty or sixty Knights Templar - the last remnants of what was once a great fighting force -. under the command of the Marshal as their Grand Master had been killed in the furious fighting. They waited. There was nothing else they could do. No one was coming to save them.
     Fighting again erupted with such intensity that even the Templars despaired and when the Sultan offered to let all the knights and civilians depart unharmed if they abandoned the castle, the Templar Marshal agreed.
     He allowed a group of Arab warriors to enter the castle and raise the Sultan’s standard above it. But the Arab troops soon began to molest the women and boys. In fury, the Templars killed them and hauled down the Sultan’s standard.
     The Sultan saw this as treachery. The next day he repeated his offer of safe passage. Again it was accepted. The Marshal of the Templars together with several knights visited him under a truce to discuss the terms. But before they reached the Sultan, in full sight of the defenders, they were arrested and executed. There were no further offers of surrender from the Sultan and none would have been considered by the Templars: it was to be a fight to the end.
     That day the Arabs began their assault. The walls of the Templar castle, undermined by Arab miners, started to crumble. Two thousand white-robed mameluk warriors crashed their way into the breach made in the Templars’ tower.
     Its structure, compromised by weeks of assault, gave way. With a sudden roar the stones fell, tumbled down upon themselves crushing and burying both attackers and defenders. When the stones stopped moving and the dust settled the silence proclaimed that it was all over. After almost two hundred years the dream of a Christian kingdom in the Holy Land had been destroyed.
     But perhaps, for a state which had been born in extreme violence, such a catastrophic ending was inevitable.

Photographs and text © Michael Baigent, 2007.

¹ Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol.I, p.287.