The Battle of al-Mansura

In 1249 King Louis IX of France led a great Crusade against Egypt, the heart of Ayyubid power, landing at Damietta on the coast and then pushing southward up the Nile toward Cairo. His advance was halted before the town of al-Mansura, the Victorious, in the heart of the Delta, where the Ayyubid army barred the way across a branch of the Nile. In February 1250 the Crusaders forced a crossing and the vanguard of their knights charged rashly into the streets of al-Mansura itself, where they were surrounded and almost annihilated in furious fighting; the Turkish Mamluk regiments of the sultan's army, the slave-soldiers who were the elite of the Ayyubid forces, distinguished themselves above all in the defence. The Crusade never recovered. Trapped in the canal-country of the Delta, cut off from their base, and ravaged by disease and famine, the Crusaders were forced within weeks to attempt a retreat that turned into a rout; the army surrendered, and King Louis himself was taken captive and held until he was ransomed for an enormous sum and the surrender of Damietta. It was one of the most complete and famous of Muslim victories over the Crusaders. The crisis had a momentous further consequence: the sultan al-Salih Ayyub (rahimahu Allah) had died during the campaign, and the defence had been held together by his widow Shajar al-Durr and his Mamluk commanders; out of this hour the Mamluks, who had won the victory, rose within months to overthrow the last Ayyubids and seize the throne of Egypt for themselves, founding the Mamluk sultanate that would rule for over two and a half centuries and become the great shield of the Muslim world. This scene depicts the battle of al-Mansura in the Delta; the violence is shown without gore.