Funny that Zoe should bring up “levant” and Jeff “The
Levant.” My plan has been to bring up
that area of the world today.
In the course of researching the British in East Africa at
the beginning of the Twentieth Century, I came across the phrase “Not since the
Siege of Acre,…” I hadn’t the vaguest
knowledge of what that could mean.
I know; I show my ignorance.
Readers often disbelieve my claims to have hated studying history in
school, considering that I now write historical mysteries. But I did loathe it. No doubt my teachers tried to teach me about
the several sieges of Acre. But I was probably
daydreaming or absorbing the facts only long enough to pass the test. So when I came across that phrase, I had to
look it up. It turned out that the Siege
of Acre means nothing to the story I am writing. So was learning about it a waste of
time? Not at all. Isn’t this what blogs are for—to tell what I
learn that I can’t use in a mystery novel.
Here it is:
The city of Acre is one of the oldest inhabited sites in the
Middle East. It has been by turns
Egyptian, Judean, Roman, and on and on.
All the many conquerors who swept through the territory vied for
it. Today it is part of Israel.
The town has been put under siege at least three times. First in the late 12th Century,
when it fell to the Christians and became their prime base in the area for the
next hundred years. It was the capital
of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The most famous siege was one of the most important battles
of The Third Crusade. For most of the second
half of the 13th century, the Mamluks had been taking Christian
strongholds in the Holy Land left and right.
Europe sent in French and English knights to shore up their positions,
largely to no avail. The powerful of
Europe were, by then, pretty much done with fighting the Pope’s battles, and
nothing Gregory X said could get their backs up to go and fight the Muslims,
again.
By 1276, Henry II, the “King” of Jerusalem absconded to
Cyprus and the Latin Kingdom was pretty much done for. The Franks made their last stand at
Acre. The Muslims took the
challenge. They brought in all their
many siege engines—catapults, mongonels, --and four armies from Egypt, Syria,
and Tripoli.
Acre had been in the hands of the Franks for a century, but
after only 43 days, the Muslims had taken all but the Templars seaside
fort. There ensued one of those insane
battles over nothing. The Templars
negotiated free passage out of their fort to Cyprus, but instead of just
leaving, they killed the Sultan’s men who came to escort them out. Afterwards, when the Templar leader went to
meet the Sultan, he was executed in turn.
The Muslims attacked the fort, breached its walls, and killed everyone
inside. With that, but for a few minor
skirmishes, the Crusaders completely lost control of the Holy Land. That was end of the Crusades.
 |
| Commodore William Sidney Smith |
Then in 1799, the French arrived. Napoleon was bent on conquering the Holy
Land. He figured he would take Acre in
two weeks and be on his way to Jerusalem. The citizens of Acre had other ideas. They knew that before moving north to besiege
them, the French had savagely sacked Jaffa and massacred thousands of Albanians
on the seashore. Acre’s people were not
about give up only to be hacked to death by Napoleon’s troops. They had Haim Farhi, the Pasha’s Jewish
advisor to help them stiffen their defenses.
And the British Royal Navy weighed in on Acre’s side. Between the city’s stubborn defenders and the
blockade put up by the English ships, Napoleon came out the loser, having
sacrificed 2000 of his soldiers in the process.
He decamped to Egypt. A myth arose that he had one of his cannons
shoot his hat into the city before he left.
It is still a source of civic pride in Acre that it once
withstood an attack by the most famous general in history.
Annamaria Alfieri - Monday
