Acre

The Crusades were a series of enormous Medieval military campaigns against the Fertile Crescent, the area regarded by European Christians to be the Holy Land. Many small states, called the Crusader States, created by European nobles and knights were formed along the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. They remained in the Holy Land for roughly 200 years, until the fall of Acre in 1291.

This article will focus on the depiction of Europeans’ reaction towards the destruction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the symbol of the legitimate rule of crusaders in the Middle East, especially the self-reflection of Henry II, the last king of Jerusalem.

1291, in Acre.

Acre was the last city which the crusaders owned in the Holy Land. The crusaders were glorious. They went on the Crusade and captured the lands in Middle East, establishing a series of Crusader states by the Mediterranean Sea. However, after about two centuries, almost all the territories they had conquered were lost to the Muslims, especially to the Mamluks.

Mamluks used to be the slave soldiers under Arabian states, for example, the Ayyubid Sultanate, and the crusader states, for instance, the Kingdom of Jerusalem. After gaining independence, Mamluks established their Egyptian government in 1250, seemingly unstoppable when conquering territories. Having their own country, they were powerful enough to defeat the people who used to enslave them.

Attacked by Mamluks, Acre seemed to fall at anytime. As a weak city, it could not stand the fierce attack imposed by the Mamluks. Hundreds of crusaders were killed during the protection against aggressors. The crusaders had never been so powerless.

“Do not leave anyone in the city alive,” Al-Ashraf Khalil, the sultan of Mamluks commanded, “those invaders had made us slaves before. It is time to punish them.”

Henry II, King of Jerusalem, was lost in thought. Looking back on the 192 years’ history of this Crusade state, he found that the pure intention of Crusade had been changed. At first, the aim of establishing the Crusade states and conquering the Holy City Jerusalem, was to save Christian people from Muslim high-handed policy that was to persecute the believers of Jesus Christ. However, crusaders did not carry out their promise to those citizens. They kept on burning, killing and plundering, for their own benefits of having individual properties abroad, which violated the principles they should comply with.

“Maybe, Jesus Christ just wants to punish us for our faults.”Said Henry, “maybe, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land, should never have been territories for us, the betrayers of the Christ.”

The last stronghold of the crusaders was captured. All crusaders fell into agony. Tears bursted from their eyes. They could not believe that, the Crusade, considered to be the most justified and the most illustrious thing, was finally a failure.

“Let’s escape,” Henry II spoke to his crusaders, “this is not the land we deserve.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, please forgive us. We fought for the liberation of your believers in the Holy Land, and all our soldiers had tried our best to bring their most sincere love to the people. We admit that we have done many wrong things, but we could not bear the high pressure that the fellow countrymen had given us. They entrusted their hopes of going to Holy City to us, but we have not fulfilled our duty. Now, we are to be expelled from the Holy Land. I, Henry, the king of Jerusalem, have acknowledged all my mistakes, begging you to pardon me.”

Perhaps, Crusade, was just a flash in the pan. None of its achievements in the Middle East was preserved. But when we read the history of it, we could still feel the religious zeal crusaders had.