Siege of Tyre (1111–1112)

Tyre avoided being attacked by Crusaders by paying tribute, when they marched on Jerusalem during the First Crusade. The first king of Jerusalem, Baldwin I, tried to capture Tyre in 1107 for the first time, but he soon abandoned the siege.[1][2]

After the fall of Tripoli and Beirut, hundreds of the Muslim inhabitants of the two towns sought refuge in Tyre which remained a Fatimid enclave.[1] By 1111, the Crusaders were in control of the whole coast with the exception of the two cities Tyre and Ascalon.

In the meantime, Tyre which was in rebellion had refrained from paying tribute to the Crusaders, according to Albert of Aix.[3] However, William of Tyre reported about the city:[4]

Tyre lies in the bosom of the sea like an island closed round about by waters. It is the capital and metropolis of Phoenicia.

According to Ibn al-Qalanisi, Izz al-Mulk, the Egyptian governor of Tyre, persuaded Toghtekin, ruler of Damascus, to come to join its defense,[5] in which the Tyrians offered twenty thousand bezants in exchange for reinforcements.[3] Hence, Toghtekin dispatched a contingent of two hundred horsemen, five hundred archers, in addition to foot-soldiers from Jabal Amil who managed to reach the city and spread across its ramparts.[6]

On 29 November 1111, King Baldwin I laid siege to Tyre, although he had no supporting fleet.[7] He had already gathered all available land troops, and ordered same siege tactics including skirmishes to exhaust the defenders, shatters and blows from the siege engines by using iron grapnels that a refugee from Tripoli manufactured,[8] in addition to building two wooden siege towers, at the expense of Eustace Grenier,[9] higher than the defending stone towers of Tyre. William of Tyre wrote about the besiegers:[4]

They met each scheme by a similar one and strove to repel in kind the injuries that were being inflicted upon them. They brought together great quantities of stones and cement, mounted two towers which were practically opposite our machines, and began to build them higher. Thus within a very short time these rose far above the wooden machines opposed to them outside the walls. From there the defenders hurled fire upon the engines below and were prepared to bum everything, unopposed.

Baldwin was still besieging the town when a Byzantine embassy arrived.[10] The Byzantines had twelve vessels, but they were not ready to take hostile actions against the Fatimids, with whom they had good relations, unless adequate compensation to be paid. Hence, they tried to persuade Baldwin to join a coalition against Tancred to recover their cities lost to him, while he wanted to secure their assistance against Tyre.[10] As they both could not reach a compromise, the Byzantines did not supply the attackers with provisions.[11]

According to Albert of Aix, a knight named Reinfrid who was offered a thousand bezants in reward for his escort of the Tyrian nobles carrying the gifts to Damascus for their assistance, reported to the King who ordered an ambush which managed to capture the spoils from the convoy.[3][lower-alpha 1] Afterwards, the defenders decided to charge from the gates into Crusaders' camp, yet the latter managed to push back, and two hundred knights including William of Wanges entered Tyre, but they were captured and killed.[12] However, the Tyrians succeeded to destroy the siege equipment by adding pitch, sulphur, wax, and fat, mixed together with tow to a big tree, then burning it and letting it fall onto the wooden siege engines.[9][13]

Nevertheless, Toghtekin advanced on Tyre with twenty thousand cavalry, then he defeated a Crusader troop of seven hundred men-at-arms with sixty cavalrymen looking for fodder,[14] which compelled Baldwin to lift the siege and withdraw to Acre on 10 April 1112,[15][16] after about 2,000 of Baldwin's troops had been killed.[17] However, the crusaders took control of most villages in the town's vicinity.[18]

A decade later, the Fatimids sold Tyre to Toghtekin who installed a garrison there. However, the Crusaders did not manage to capture Tyre until the Venetian Crusade in 1122–24.[19]

• Albert of Aix (2013). Susan Edgington (ed.). Albert of Aachen's History of the Journey to Jerusalem. Vol. 2. Ashgate.
• Carter, Terry; Dunston, Lara; Jousiffe, Ann; Jenkins, Siona (2004). lonely planet: Syria & Lebanon (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Lonely Planet Publications. pp. 345–347. ISBN 1-86450-333-5.
• Gabrieli, Francesco (1984). Arab Historians of the Crusades. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520052246.
• Jacoby, David (2016). "The Venetian presence in the crusader Lordship of Tyre: A tale of decline". In Boas, Adrian J. (ed.). The Crusader World. Routledge. pp. 181–194. ISBN 978-0-415-82494-1.
• Jidejian, Nina (1969). Tyre Through the Ages. Dar el-Machreq.
• Lilie, Ralph-Johannes (1993). Byzantium and the Crusader States 1096-1204. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820407-7.
• Maalouf, Amin (1984). The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. SAQI. ISBN 978-0-86356-023-1.
• Prawer, Joshua (1998). Crusader Institutions. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822536-9.
• Runciman, Steven (1989) [1952]. A History of the Crusades, Volume II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-06162-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)