capture of Edesssa

Zengi now turned his attention north, where wars among the Turks seemed to provide an opportunity. He attacked Kara Arslan, prince of Diarbekir in 1144, a man who was allied with Joscelin of Edessa. Joscelin raised an army and marched out in November, hoping to trap Zengi between himself and Kara Arslan. Instead, Zengi turned unexpectedly and marched on Edessa, arriving there on November 28. Joscelin retreated to Turbessel, unwilling to risk open battle. After a siege of four weeks, Edessa fell.

This victory made Zengi famous, for he was responsible for the elimination of one of the four Crusader states. He appointed a Turk as governor, killed all the Franj males and sold the rest as slaves. He closed all the Latin churches, but he left all the native Christians in peace. He then moved on to take a number of other Edessan fortresses. Trouble in Mosul forced him to break off his conquest of Edessa, but he was back in Aleppo in May 1146, preparing to invade Syria.

In September he was besieging the Muslim town of Qalat Jabar because it would not recognize him as overlord. On September 14, he caught a Frankish eunuch drinking from his cup and severely upbraided the man in public. That night, the man stole into Zengi's tent and murdered him while he slept.

Zengi's career is important because of his conquest of Edessa, but it is important even more for the fact that he couched his actions against the Christians in terms of a Muslim holy war. He is the first Muslim leader to use the jihad against the Latins as a means of mobilizing forces, gaining popular support, and enforcing unity and obedience among his emirs. It was a formula that would be employed even more effectively by Nuradin, Zengi's second son and successor, and by later Muslim leaders as well. When Islam stood united, the Franj would always be defeated (the Byzantine Empire was a different matter), but Islam was notoriously difficult to unite.

Zengi showed that the jihad was an effective tool. He had the imams proclaim the holy war in sermons and prayers, the matter was discussed in the schools and in princely courts; it was, in short, a propaganda tool. This is not to imply that Zengi was cynical in his use of jihad; on the contrary, he believed strongly in its need. Zengi had given the Turks and Arabs its first permanent victory and a vehicle for achieving more.

The Christians were in a death trap. When they marched up into the angle formed by the Nile and the Bahr as-Saghir, the army had crossed a dry canal. No one thought to consider it a danger. Worse, Pelagius had neglected to bring adequate supplies, thinking to capture the enemy supplies quickly. A Christian fleet of about six hundred ships was in the Nile�enough to keep the army re-supplied at to support its advance. Once it was clear that Mansourah could not be taken quickly, fortifications were built on the other two sides of the triangle.

There were plenty of locals to tell the Crusaders how easily the Muslims could trap them, but Pelagius would not listen. King John again urged acceptance of al-Kamil's terms, but rejecting his advice had become almost automatic by this time. A couple of weeks passed in this manner.

It was August, and the Nile was rising a little every day. Soon, the waters were high enough and water flowed into the canal. Within a few days, the levels were high enough to send ships down it, cutting the Christians off from retreat and from being re-supplied from Damietta. The fleet was trapped, the army was trapped, and there was food enough for only twenty days.

Many in the army urged immediate retreat, before their situation grew worse. At last awakening to the peril, Pelagius agreed. On the night of August 26, without ever having fought a battle, the great army began its retreat.

failed of the Third Crusade

The Third Crusade failed in its main objective: Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands. That it was regarded as a failure can be seen in the actions of Europeans: Henry VI was soon planning a new Crusade set for 1196. Henry died on the very eve of his crusade and Germany fell into civil war, but the leadership was taken up almost immediately by the new pope, Innocent III.

The English and the French were too preoccupied with their struggle against one another to try again right away, so there was no new efforts from that quarter, either. Yet, the Third Crusade did succeed in a very important way: it preserved Outremer. The valiant defense of Tyre by Conrad of Montferrat could not have been kept without reinforcements from the West. And Guy's mad assault on Acre would never have succeeded without those same armies. Because of the Third Crusade, Outremer still clung to a narrow strip of cities along the coast of Lebanon and Palestine, and those cities could serve as the basis for future efforts to reclaim Jerusalem. Moreover, the victories had served as a significant counter-balance to Saladin's early victories, and he emerged from the Third Crusade not quite as invincible as he had at first appeared.

The Third Crusade also led to the acquisition of Cyprus by the Latins. This was a major addition to Outremer and one that outlasted the mainland. Its acquisition was important not only because it created a new crusader state, but also because it had been taken away from the Greeks. With Cyprus in Latin hands, the Byzantine Empire could no longer threaten Antioch from the sea.

The Third Crusade also gave birth to the Teutonic Knights. This military order was formed at Acre by survivors of the German Crusade. They were never as important in the Holy Land as either the Templars or the Hospitallers, but they always maintained a contingent and were there at the end in 1291. The Teutonic Knights played an extremely important role, however, in the conquest of the Baltic Slavs and the history of Poland, Livonia, and Lithuania.

Finally, in failing to regain Jerusalem, the Third Crusade marks the beginning of forty years of almost continuous crusading from Europe. None enjoyed very great success, and certainly none could claim even the modest victories on the field of battle that Richard had won.

this is one of greatest batlle against the crussader

secondCrusade

Defeat and Dispersal

Conrad's army did not provision itself well and was quickly short on water. On the 25th of October, 1147, the army was near Dorylaeum at a small river. The knights had dismounted, to water their horses, when the Turks attacked.

It was a slaughter. The Germans never had a chance to form themselves up for defense, much less for counter-attack. By nightfall, Conrad was fleeing back to Nicaea. He left behind him his entire camp and all its booty, plus nearly all of his army. Those who were not killed were sold by the Turks into slavery.

The German crusade was over. Conrad was still at Nicaea in early November when Louis and the French arrived. After a consultation, Conrad agreed to travel with the French, though he had only a few score knights left to him.

Because he was a king, Conrad continued to play a role in the secondCrusade, but the imperial army was annihilated and the Germans did not contribute significantly to what followed. Englishmen and Flemings would straggle in from Portugal, Germans would participate, but after the loss at Dorylaeum, this was now essentially a French crusade

 Kind of a pathetic death for such a great warrior, god he jumped into the river and drowned infront of his soldiers. Of course you will sink like a rock with all that iron armour. Even if he had survived, I hope he had spare armour, because medieval armour doesn't resist rust very much.

Yes, salam alaikum