History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 85 the Fifth Crusade Roman numeral 4.

Hello again.

Last week we saw the Fifth Crusade grind to a halt in the swamp outside Damietta as the military campaign reached a stalemate.

The Latin Christians occupied their own camp and the former Muslim camp. And the

former Muslim camp and had effectively surrounded the city of Damietta.

But they didn't have enough men to take the city or to defeat the Muslims and proceed upstream to Cairo.

The combined Egyptian and Syrian armies had enough men to stymie any Latin Christian advance, but not enough to

attack and overrun the Christian positions.

So unless one of the armies was joined by reinforcements, the Latin Christians by the German imperial forces under Emperor Frederick the second, which they were hoping would arrive soon, or the Muslim army promised by

the Caliph in Baghdad, then the stalemate would continue indefinitely.

Something had to give and in September 1219 something did.

The Muslims approached the Latin Christians with a proposal for peace. The and while Al-Kimyl knew that the garrison inside Damietta and the citizens of Damietta could not

hold out much longer, he also knew he was powerless to rescue them.

Then in the late summer of 1219 he received some bad news.

The River Nile had failed to flood adequately that year and as a result the Egyptian harvest was poor

and prices in the coming months for grain would be high.

Al-Kamil decided he needed to rain would be high.

Al Camille decided he needed to end this invasion and he needed to do it quickly.

Having received word from his younger brother that work on dismantling the fortifications around Jerusalem was

complete, he came up with a generous offer for the Latin Christians, one that he didn't think they would be able to refuse.

He summoned to captive Latin Christian Crusaders into his presence and told them to take his offer to the Christian leaders.

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