Chronology of Crusades
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Invasion1095-1099 |
The First Crusade |
| 1096 | Kilij Arslan, sultan of Nicaea, crushes a crusaders invasion led by Peter the Hermit. |
| 1097 | First great expedition by the Crusaders, known as Franj in Arabia. |
| 1098 | The Crusaders take Edessa and then Antioch, and triumph over a Muslim rescue army commanded by Karbuqa, ruler of Mosul. The incident of cannibalism by the crusaders in Maarra. "For three days they put people to the |
| 1099 | Fall of Jerusalem, followed by massacres and plunder by the crusaders. The population of the holy city was put to the sword, and the |
Occupation1100 |
Baldwin, count of Edessa, escapes an ambush |
| 1104 | Muslim victory at Harran, which checks the Crusaders' eastward advance. |
| 1108 | Two coalitions made up of Crusaders and Muslims confront one another near Tel Bashir. |
| 1109 | Fall of Tripoli after a 2000-day siege. |
| 1110 | Fall of Beirut and Saida. |
| 1111 | Ibn al-Khashab, the qadi of Aleppo, organizes a riot against the caliph of Baghdad to demand intervention against the Frankish occupation. |
| 1112 | Victorious resistance at Tyre. |
| 1115 | Alliance of Muslim and Frankish princes of Syria against an army dispatched by the sultan. |
| 1119 | Ilghazi, ruler of Aleppo, crushes the Crusaders at Sarmada. |
| 1124 | The Crusaders take Tyre. They now occupy the entire coast, except for Ascalon. |
| 1125 | Ibn al-Khashab is murdered by the Assassins sect. |
| 1128 | Failure of crusaders thrust at Damscus. Zangi the ruler of Aleppo. |
| 1135 | Zangi fails to take Damascus. |
| 1137 | Zangi captures Fulk, king of Jerusalem, then releases him. |
| 1140 | Alliance of Damascus and Jerusalem against Zangi. |
| 1144-1155 | The Second Crusade |
| 1144 | Zangi takes Edessa, destroying the first of the four Frankish states of the Orient. |
| 1146 | Murder of Zangi. His son Nur al-Din replaces him in Aleppo. |
Victory1148 |
Debacle at damascus for a new Frankish |
| 1154 | Nur al-Din takes control of Damascus, unifying Muslim Syria under his authority. |
| 1163-69 | The struggle for Egypt. Shirkuh, lieutenant of Nur al-Din, finally wins. Proclaimed vizier, he dies two months later. He is succeeded by his nephew Saladin (Salahuddin). |
| 1171 | Saladin proclaims the overthrow of the Fatimid caliphate. Sole master of Egypt, he finds himself in conflict with Nur al-Din. |
| 1174 | Death of Nur al-Din. Saladin takes Damascus. |
| 1183 | Saladin takes Aleppo. Egypt and Syria now reunited under his aegis. |
| 1187-1192 | The Third Crusade |
| 1187 | The year of victory. Saladin crushes the crusaders armies at Hittin, near Lake Tiberias. He reconquers Jerusalem and the greater part of the crusaders territories. The crusaders now hold only Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch. |
| 1190-92 | Setback for Saladin at Acre. Intervention of Richard the Lionheart, king of England, enables the crusaders to recover several cities from the sultan, but not Jerusalem. |
| 1193 | Saladin dies in Damascus at the age of 55. After several years of civil war, his empire is reunited under the authority of his brother al-Adil. |
| 1194-1201 | The Fourth and Fifth Crusade |
| 1204 | The crusaders take Constantinople. Sack of the city. |
| 1216-1218 | The Sixth Crusade |
| 1218-21 | Invasion of Egypt by the crusaders. They take Damietta and head for Cairo, but the sultan al-Kamil, son of al-Adil, finally repels them. |
| 1227-1229 | The Seventh Crusade |
| 1229 | Al-Kamil delivers Jerusalem to the emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, arousing a storm of indignation in the Arab world. |
Expulsion1244 |
The crusaders lose Jerusalem for the last |
| 1245-1247 | The Eighth Crusade |
| 1248-50 | Invasion of Egypt by Louis IX, King of France, who is defeated and captured. Fall of the Ayyubid dynasty; replaced by the rule of the Mamluks. |
| 1258 | The Mongol chief Hulegu, grandson of Genghis Khan, sacks Baghdad, massacring the population and killing the last Abbasid caliph. |
| 1260 | The Mongol army, after occupying first Aleppo and then damascus, is defeated at the battle of Ayn Jalut in palestine. Baybars at the head of the Mamluk sultanate. |
| 1268 | Baybars takes Antioch, which had been allied with the Mongols. |
| 1270 | Louis IX dies near Tunis in the course of a failed invasion. |
| 1289 | The mamluk sultan Qalawun takes Tripoli. |
| 1291 | The sultan Khalil, son of Qalawun, takes Acre, putting an end to two centuries of crusaders presence in the Orient. |
REFERENCES:
Main reference: The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf, translated by Jon Rothschild, 1984. Al Saqi Books, 26 Wetbourne Grove, London W2.
