The Siege of Acre (1291)

On April 27, 1289, the troops of the Mamluk Sultan Calauna, after a short siege lasting a little more than a month, stormed Tripoli by storm . This was a turning point in the history of the fall of the whole Kingdom of Jerusalem and the starting point in the fall of the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land - the city ​​of Acre . Europe responded in silence to the fall of Tripoli. Is it that Pope Nicholas IV immediately after the fall of the city sent 1,600 Lombard mercenaries to Acre in twenty galleys . His Holiness did not think about who would pay them his salary. And, left without funds, the Lombard mercenaries began to rob the neighboring Muslim settlements.

In August 1290, they staged a real pogrom in Muslim neighborhoods. Everyone who wore a beard was mercilessly killed. The reason was more than weighty - they allegedly heard rumors that a certain Christian was seduced by Saracens. Here is how Gerard of Montreal describes these events:

“When these people were in Acre, the truce that the king concluded with the Sultan was well supported by both sides, and the poor simple Saracens entered Acre and brought their goods for sale, as they already did. By the will of the devil, who eagerly seeks out evil deeds among good people, it happened that these crusaders, who arrived to do good and for the sake of their souls to help the city of Acre, contributed to its destruction, for they rushed through the land of Acre and betrayed to the sword all the poor peasants who carried their goods, wheat and other things for sale to Acre, and which were Saracens from the hedged huts of Acre; and in the same way they killed many Syrians who wore beards and who were killed for their beards, mistaking for Saracens; which was a very nasty act, and this led to the capture of Acre by the Saracens, as you hear ... "

The local knights stopped the looters and took them into custody, but this was reported to Calauna. He was furious, considered that the truce was broken by the Christians, and sent a letter to Acre demanding to punish the guilty. But the city council, under pressure from the former Tyr archbishop Bernard, who was responsible to the pope for this contingent, refused to convict the guilty, indicating that they, as crusaders, are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the pope. Then Guillaume de God , the Grand Master of the Order of the Temple , according to the chronicler, suggested deceiving the Sultan: instead of the guilty, execute the criminals already in the city prison. Gerard of Montreal further says that this proposal did not pass at the city council, and a certain vague message was sent to the Sultan, after which he decided to start a war. The fact that the Sultan seriously decided to take advantage of the precedent and break the contract under any circumstances is evidenced by the fact that he gathered the council of imams for the religious and legal justification of the justice of his actions. Guillaume de God sent another private embassy to Calaun with a request for peace, and he demanded a ransom of one workshop for each citizen. The city council again rejected the offer.

In addition to high moral principles, Calaun was guided by his actions and purely earthly interests. After the capture of Tripoli, he concludes with the king of Cyprus Henry II a truce for two years, two months, two weeks, two days and two hours. In addition, in the spring of 1290, Calaun signed a trade agreement with Genoa , as well as a defensive alliance with the King of Aragon , which radically changed the balance of power in the Middle East . Now, having made his allies the Genoese, the Sultan of Egypt does not need the Kingdom of Jerusalem as a trade gateway between the West and the East, and Acre as a shopping center. To destroy the last stronghold of the Franks in the Holy Land, and they became Acre after the fall of Tripoli, he needed a reason that did not have to wait long.

In October 1290, the sultanate, uniting Syria and Egypt , began the mobilization and preparation of siege equipment. Sultan Calaun swore on the Qur'an not to lower his arms until the last of the Franks was expelled. From the lips of a 70-year-old man, this oath sounded particularly significant. However, the sultan did not succeed in fulfilling it - on November 4, having left Cairo at his headquarters, Sultan Calaun suddenly fell ill, and died on November 10. His death only delayed the advance for several months. The son of Kalown al-Ashraf Khalil, even at his father's deathbed, vowed that he would bury him with honors only when Acre was wiped off the face of the earth. In March 1291, Khalil entered Palestine . Syrian troops will join him in early May.

Sultan chroniclers say that a certain Abul al-Fida , who was then only 18 years old, participated in the battle with his father. He was entrusted with one of the catapults called "Victorious", which had to be transported to the vicinity of the city in an unassembled form.

“... The wagons were so heavy that the transportation took us more than a month, whereas under normal conditions eight days would be enough for this. Upon arrival, almost all the bulls pulling the carts died from exhaustion and cold.

The battle began at once, ”our chronicler continues. - We, the people from Hama, were placed on the very right edge. We were on the seashore, from which we were attacked by the Frankish barges with turrets mounted on them. These structures were protected by wooden shields and cow hides, and enemies fired from them at us with bows and crossbows. We thus had to fight on two fronts: against the people of Acre, who were in front of us, and against their flotilla. We suffered heavy losses when the catapult brought by one of the ships began to bring rock fragments onto our tents. But one night a strong wind rose. Under the blows of the waves, the ship began to sway so that the catapult broke into pieces. On another night, a detachment of Franks made an unexpected sortie and reached our camp. But in the dark, some of them began to stumble on the ropes pulling the tents; one of the knights even fell into the latrine and was killed. Our soldiers managed to recover, attacked the Franks and forced them to return to the city, leaving many dead at the scene of the battle. The next morning, my cousin al-Malik al-Muzaffar, the ruler of Hama, ordered the heads of the dead Franks to be tied to the necks of the horses we took from them and sent them as a present to the Sultan. "

It was an outing of the Templars under the leadership of Guillaume de God, aimed at the destruction of the "Victorious".

“The Sultan of the Sultans, the king of kings, the ruler of lords ... a powerful, formidable, a punisher of rebels, a conqueror of the Franks and Tatars and Armenians, tearing fortresses out of the hands of infidels ... to you, master, noble master of the Order of the Temple, true and wise, hello and our good will . Since you are a real husband, we send you messages about our will and inform you that we are going to your units to compensate for the damage that has been done to us, which is why we do not want the authorities of Acre to send us letters or gifts, for we no longer accept ”- this is an excerpt from the message of Sultan Halil to the Grand Master of the Templar Order Guillaume de God.

In impotent despair, the city fathers still did not find anything better than to send ambassadors to their enemy. Of course, he, as promised, refused, and sent messengers to prison ... From the walls of the fortress, the besieged saw a vast plain around Acre, covered with tents, set up by a rope to a rope.

“And the tent of the sultan, called“ dehliz ”, stood on a high hill, where there was a beautiful tower and garden and vineyards of the Order of the Temple, and which“ dehliz ”was all scarlet, with the door open to the city of Acre; and this was done by the Sultan because everyone knows: where the door of "dehliz" is open, the Sultan must go this way ... "

Together with the sultan, his soldiers passed this road - according to various estimates, from 85 thousand to 600 thousand people. Christopher Marshall in his work “Military affairs in the Middle East 1191-1291”, referring to the chroniclers, calls these figures:

• 70,000 cavalry and 15,000 infantry ("Acts of the Cypriots").
• 40,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry ("Weeping for the fall of Acre").
• 200,000 cavalry and "many" infantry ("Chronicle of St. Petri").
• Total 600,000. (Ludolf Sadheim) ^[1]

But it is likely that the chroniclers, who, moreover, wrote their works already in the XIV century , give figures that do not correspond much to the realities of the era. It seems that the standard “one hundred thousand” were not a counted number, but simply an idiomatic form, like the “darkness” of Russian chronicles. Of course, the Mamelukes outnumbered the Crusader army, but did not pose a greater threat than the Mongols and were not so numerous ^[2]

The composition of the army is even more difficult to determine than its quantity. Mamluks themselves - the selective guard of the Sultan, were one of the most combat-ready military units of their time. Most of the soldiers were bought in childhood in slave markets and specially trained in military craft. The perfect killing machines, in which the fanaticism's impassivity was bizarrely combined with the fierce temperament of the East. The size of this regular army ranged from 9 to 12 thousand people (according to some sources up to 24 thousand people), the basis of which was cavalry detachments under the command of 24 bei from among large feudal lords. It is difficult to say what percentage of the total number of Mamluk troops were mounted and what infantry. Many researchers are inclined to think that cavalry was the majority. The rest of the army was mobilized peasants and townspeople. With its large numbers, it had virtually no combat potential and was used for sapper and utility work.

The Devil’s Cry for the Perdition of Acre cites a devilish number of 666. The author’s Dominican monk Ricoldo de Monte Croce counted so many siege vehicles. Most likely, this figure is also exaggerated. The most probable, both technically and organizationally, is the mention of 92 siege machines - but four giant stone-throwers stood out among them, each of which had its own name, and therefore caused truly sacred horror on the defenders. During the shooting, one car was serviced by at least four people, large cars - about 20 people.

From an economic point of view, even the figure of 100,000 of the total number of campaigners by the sultanate is overstated. The surrounding lands were ravaged and did not allow to feed such an army, and the delivery of food from Syria and Egypt increased the cost of the expedition several times. The army consisted of three components - the army from Hama, the army from Damascus and the army from Egypt. The army advanced to Acre from two sides, from Cairo and Damascus . As an eyewitness testifies, the campus system from Syria stretched to Karmil (20 km) and from Egypt to the Carubian mountains.

Of course, in the spring of 1291, Acre was one of the most modern, and the most powerful fortress of the region. It had excellent fortification of the external walls and intracity architecture, which made it possible to turn almost all of its quarters into separate, well-fortified centers of defense. The outer wall encircled the city from all sides and was single from the sea, and double from the land. The city was divided by a large wall into two parts - directly Acre and the former suburb of Monmazar. At this time, the city was full of refugees from Muslim-captured cities, and was a mixture of a military camp and the largest trading port. It consisted of seventeen separate communities, each of which actually represented a separate fortress within the city walls ^[3] .

As for the number of troops in the city during the siege, and their composition:

• 700-800 horse and 14,000 infantry ("Acts of the Cypriots")
• 900 horse and 18,000 infantry ("Crying for the death of Acre")
• 1,200 knights and a total of 30,000 troops (James Auria, "Annales") ^[1]

Unfortunately, nothing is indicated anywhere that is of main interest for analysis: the number of shooters - archers and crossbowmen, as well as the presence, number and nature of stone throwers. If we turn to indirect sources, we can determine the number and composition of defenders more objectively.

According to experts, in the second half of the 13th century , the Templars and hospitals together had no more than 500 brothers-knights, and in accordance with the general index of the armed forces of the orders, they could put up an army with a total number of up to 5,000 military units.

The Teutons had a certain contingent in Acre, the total number of brothers of the German orders after the defeat in the Baltic states, and the new set in Europe was about 2,000 brothers, most of whom were in the north.

Knights of the Order of St. Thomas of Akrsky - 9 knights and the Master [11, p. 30].

Lazarites, Knights of St. The Holy Sepulcher and the knights of the Order of the Holy Spirit are mentioned as defenders of the city, but in an extremely small number.

For the defense of the city, the walls were divided into four sectors. The Templars and Hospitallers were responsible for protecting the left flank - from the coast to the gates of St. Anthony, and the knights of the "small orders" made up a combined squadron. Next were the troops of the "combined detachment" of the Teutons and Lazarites, then the French contingent along with the knights of the Order of St. Thomas, under the command of the Seneschal Jacques de Gralli, the troops of the kingdom of Cyprus under the command of the Connable Amory de Lusignan . On the right flank were the Venetians and “papal mercenaries” who arrived in 1290 , and behind them the Pisans and the city militia [6, p. 55].

Based on the fact that the responsibility for the walls and towers was distributed proportionally to the forces at their disposal, it turns out that the sectors of the Templars and hospitals accounted for about 40%, and others (orders, French, Cypriots, Venetians, crusaders, pisans, militias) - 60% This calculation shows that the total number of troops was closest to the figure given in the Acts of the Cypriots.

Thus, by the beginning of the siege, the city council elected leader Guillaume de God had at hand no more than 15,000 soldiers, of which 650-700 were mounted knights.

Researchers have long since deduced the “standard” generally accepted for the edged weapon era - 1.2 people per meter of wall and an average of 50 people per tower. The length of the double walls of Acre is about 2 km. They towered 23 towers. A simple mathematical calculation shows that 1,500 people are enough to protect the towers. Protection of 4 thousand meters of walls in three shifts required about 14,500 soldiers. About as many of them were.

The description of the fighting shows that the defenders had a lot of crossbowmen, but nothing was said about urban artillery. The only thing casually mentioned in the chronicles is the use of throwing machines that were installed on ships. The city was released from the sea, had no shortage of fresh water, food, ammunition, had regular water links with the remaining surviving fortresses of the Latin East and the island of Cyprus. The strength, training, and composition of the armaments of the city’s defenders were sufficient for its effective defense, and they made it possible to defend the walls from many times superior enemy forces. However, the defense of Acre was broken by the Mamelukes in just forty-four days.

The chroniclers of the past were not dispassionate - the words of the nameless author mixed the very anger and pain that possessed the defenders of the ancient citadel ...

“Countless people of all nations and languages, hungry for Christian blood, have gathered from the deserts of the East and South; the earth trembled under their footsteps, and the air trembled at the sound of their pipes and cymbals. The glare of the sun from their shields sparkled in the distant hills, and the tips of their spears glowed like countless stars in the sky. As they walked, their peaks resembled a dense forest growing from the ground and covering everything around them ... They wandered around the walls, looking for weaknesses and breakdowns in them; some roared like dogs, others roared like lions, others mumbled and roared like bulls, some beat drums with crooked sticks as usual, others threw darts, threw stones, fired arrows from crossbows. There was no hope of escape, but the sea was open; in the harbor there were many Christian ships and galleys of the Templars and hospitals; nevertheless, two great monastic and military orders found it unacceptable to retreat to the neighboring friendly island of Cyprus. They refused to violate, even at the last extreme, their duty, which they vowed to fulfill to the last drop of blood. For 170 years, their swords constantly guarded the Holy Land from the wicked invasions of Muslims; the holy land of Palestine was everywhere watered with the blood of the best and bravest knights, and, true to their vows and their knightly destiny, they now prepared to bury themselves in the ruins of the last stronghold of the Christian faith. Guillaume de God, the Grand Master of the Templars, a participant in hundreds of battles, took command of the garrison, which consisted of approximately 120 selected Knights Templar and Hospitallers, and a detachment of 500 foot and 200 mounted warriors under the command of the King of Cyprus. These forces were divided into four units, each of which defended its own section of the wall; the first of these was commanded by Hugo de Grandison, an English knight. Old and sick, women and children were sent by sea to the Christian island of Cyprus, and there was no one left in the doomed city, except those who were ready to fight, defend it, or accept martyrdom at the hands of infidels ... "

On April 5, Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil arrived from Cairo, placed his headquarters in the urban suburbs of Tal al-Fukar, and his troops took up their positions. On April 6, the siege of Acre officially begins. Two days later, stone-throwers arrived and were set in position, which on April 11 began regular shelling of walls and towers.

“One of the machines, which they called Khaveben [gab-dan - furious], in other words - Angry, was in front of the Templars; and the other machine, which was throwing at the post of the Pisans, was called Mansour, that is, Victorious; the next, big one, which I don’t know what to call, was thrown into the hospital post; and the fourth car threw into a large tower called the Cursed Tower, which stands on the second wall and which was protected by the royal detachment. On the first night, they put up large shields, and shields made of rods lined up in front of our walls, and on the second night they came closer, so they were approaching, until they came to the water moat, and behind the named shields there were warriors who came down from their horses to the earth with bows in his hands ”[17, p. 316].

From April 11 to May 7, the siege of the city is sluggish by the besiegers. The stone-throwers methodically fire at the walls, the soldiers try to fill the moat, but they are driven away from the walls by crossbowmen. But the defenders on the contrary, are constantly taking active steps. The heavy knightly cavalry obviously could not be used inside the city, and the military leaders are reasonably looking for opportunities for its effective use.

According to some sources, in the first week of the siege, the Templars organized a large sortie, as a result of which 5,000 prisoners were captured and brought to the city. This information, cited by the chronicler Lancrost, differs from what the author of The Acts of the Cypriots writes, but, nevertheless, from these figures it can be concluded that many prisoners were actually captured, which in turn means that the main part of the army the invaders were untrained militias. Nowhere else is the fate of such an incredible number of prisoners mentioned.

Guillaume de God proposed to take out the landing from the city by sea, and give battle under the walls of the fortress in an open field. But spring-specific thunderstorms typical of the Mediterranean region impeded the implementation of these plans. On April 13-14, the crusaders launched a raid on the right flank of the Mameluke troops, but the ships were scattered by the storm, and the commanders preferred not to risk it anymore.

On the night of April 15-16, 1291, the Templars organized a night sortie to the camp of the army of Hama. It started well, but according to the chronicler, horses in the dark got entangled in stretch tents, and a noticeable result was not achieved.

The next sortie was organized by the hospitaliers on the night of April 18-19 against the southern flank, but it also ended unsuccessfully, since the Mamelukes were on the alert and put up guards. After that, it was decided to stop the counterattacks, since they do not bring noticeable results, but lead to large losses.

“And when the day came, our people on the council expressed the opinion to go out from all over on horses and on foot and burn the wooden structure; thus, Monsignor the master of the Order of the Temple and his people, and sir Jean de Granson and the other knights approached the Ladras Gate at night, and ordered the master to one Provencal, who was Viscount of Bort in the district of Acre, to set fire to the wooden structure of the large car of the Sultan; and they went out that night and found themselves near a wooden shed; and the one who was to throw fire was frightened and threw so that [the fire] flew far away and fell to the ground and burned on the ground. All the Saracens who were there, horsemen and foot soldiers, were killed; and our people, all brothers and knights, drove so forward between the tents that their horses got tangled in the ropes of the tents and stumbled, and then the Saracens killed them; and so we lost eighteen horsemen, brothers of the Order of the Temple and lay knights this night, but captured many Saracen shields [large] and small, and trumpets, and timpani <...>

It was bright from the moon like in the afternoon, and the Hama sultan, who was guarding this sector of the front, gathered two thousand horsemen, in front of whom a small detachment of three hundred soldiers, who surrounded the master of the Order of the Temple, had to retreat. The sorties that were proposed to be carried out through other gates of the city did not take place, since the Saracens were warned and prepared for defense.

Another night attack, this time on a moonless night, was no better, “the Saracens were notified and arranged such lighting with flashing lights that it seemed like they had a day <...> and attacked our people with arrows so hard that it seemed that it is rain <...> “” [17, p. 317].

After unsuccessful attacks in the city, evacuation begins.

By the end of April, the engineers of the Sultan were finishing the preparation of the siege equipment, and on May 4 a massive shelling began, which lasted ten days without a break. On the same day, May 4, King Henry arrives in Acre on 40 ships. He brings his troops - about 100 horse and 3,000 infantry.

On May 7, Heinrich sends parliamentarians to al-Ashraf with a proposal for peace, but he demands the surrender of the city, does not stop the bombing, and in the end, almost executing the ambassadors, responds with a categorical refusal. On May 8, a barbichen in front of the royal tower was destroyed by bombing, and the defenders leave it. Al-Ashraf begins the assault on the walls opposite the "royal" sector. It seems that the arrival of reinforcements from Cyprus only increases the pressure from the enemy, and now, on the third day after the negotiations, a cardinal turnaround occurs in the situation. As a result of undermining and bombing, the English Tower fell, the Countess de Blois tower, the walls at the gates of St. Anthony, and the walls of the tower of St. Nicholas (that is, almost the entire part of the fortifications, which were in the Franco-Cypriot sector). On May 15, the outer walls of the Royal Tower collapsed.

The Mameluke engineers created a screen that allowed sappers on the night of May 15-16 at the gates of St. Anthony (at the junction between the hospitaliers sector and the French sector) to break through a wide passage. The Mamluk ruler of Kerak, Baybars al-Mansouri , left his recollections of the siege of Acre in the chronicles known as Zubdat al-Fikra fi Tarikh al-Hijra. He recalls how during the final stage of the siege of Acre, one of the crusader towers was badly damaged by mangels , which made a gap between the tower and the main wall. But this breach was protected by enemy crossbowmen, so that the Mamelukes could not start filling up the moat to get to the breach. At night, Beibars used shields lined with felt from the inside, which he describes as "having the shape of a long white cloud" that were vertically raised using a system of masts and ropes, like rigging a ship. Hiding behind this screen, Beybars and his people bombarded the moat, creating a passage that the army of the Sultan used to storm the city [6, p. 47]. But the troops of the Hospitallers and Templars put a “cat” in the breach, organize a counterattack, and repel the enemy.

King Henry and his brother, Connable Amory, withdraw their troops, load on ships and leave the city. The departure of the troops of Heinrich of Cyprus actually left the central part of the external walls unprotected [10, p. 146], and on May 16 the Mameluke troops advanced forward under cover of shields. At this time, Cypriots, Venetians, Pisans, as well as local residents are loaded on ships.

The Templars and Hospitallers from the left wing repeatedly (at least three times) knock the attackers out of the central sector, left by the defenders, and build barricades. But the Mamluks , taking advantage of the numerical advantage and not taking into account the losses, return back, and in the end, destroy the walls and towers, making a break of 60 cubits in length. After the walls and towers are destroyed, the Sultan appoints a general assault on the morning of May 18.

The attack began at dawn throughout the central sector. Оставшиеся в городе королевские отряды отошли к сектору госпитальеров и тамплиеров, те попытались отбить захваченные стены, но безуспешно. В это же самое время при попытке собрать защитников в контратаку был смертельно ранен Гильом де Боже.

«Магистра ордена Храма случайно настигла стрела, когда магистр поднимал свою левую руку, и на ней не было щита, только дротик в правой руке, и стрела сия ударила ему подмышку, и тростник вошел в его тело».

Магистр вооружился наспех и носил только легкие латы, соединения которых не закрывали хорошо боков. И когда он почуял, что ранен смертельно, он стал уходить, а подумали, что он уходит добровольно, чтобы спасти себя и своё знамя <…> и побежали перед ним, и тогда вся его свита последовала за ним. И поскольку он отходил, добрых двадцать крестоносцев с Долины Сполето подошли к нему и сказали: «Ах, Бога ради, сир, не уходите, ибо город скоро будет потерян». И он ответил им громко, чтобы каждый слыхал: «Сеньоры, я не могу, ибо я мертв, видите удар». И тогда мы увидели погруженную в его тело стрелу. И при этих словах он бросил дротик на землю, поник головой и стал падать с лошади, но его свита спрыгнула на землю со своих коней и поддержала его, и сняла с коня, и положила на брошенный щит, который они там нашли и который был очень большой и длинный. Слуги пронесли его в город по мостику, через водяные рвы и потайной ход, что вели во дворец Марии Антиохийской. Здесь они сняли с него доспехи, разрезав ремни лат на плечах, затем завернули его в одеяло и отнесли на берег. Так как море оставалось бурным, и ни одна лодка не могла пристать, свита перенесла магистра в орденскую резиденцию, протащив носилки через пролом в стене.

И целый день он лежал в Храме, не разговаривая <…>, за исключением одного слова, когда он услышал шум людей, бежавших от смерти, и спросил, что это; и ему сказали, что люди сражаются; и приказал, чтобы их оставили в покое, и с тех пор не разговаривал и отдал Богу душу. И был похоронен перед своим алтарем, то есть престолом, где пели мессу. И благоволил ему Бог, ибо от его смерти был великий ущерб" [17, стр. 320, «Деяния киприотов»].

Часть госпитальеров отплыли на Кипр, увозя своего тяжело раненого Великого Магистра. Вот что писал Великий магистр госпитальеров, Жан де Вильер с Кипра Гийому де Вилларе, приору Сен-Жиль:

«Они [мусульмане] рано утром прорвались в город со всех сторон большими силами. Мы с конвентом защищали ворота Святого Антония, где было несчетное число сарацин. Тем не менее, мы трижды отбивали их, до места, которое обычно называют „Проклятым“. Как в этом, так и в прочих сражениях, братья нашего ордена бились, защищая город, и его жителей и страну, но, мало-помалу мы потеряли всех братьев нашего ордена, которые удостоены всяческих похвал, которые стояли за Святую Церковь, и встретили свой последний час. Среди них пал и наш дорогой друг, брат маршал Метью де Клермон. Он был благородным рыцарем, отважным и опытным воином. Да примет Господь его душу! В тот же самый день я получил удар копьем между плеч, который чуть не стал смертельным, что делает для меня весьма трудным писание сего письма. Между тем, огромная толпа сарацин ворвалась в город со всех сторон, по суше и по морю, продвигаясь вдоль стен, которые были повсюду пробиты и разрушены, пока не добрались до наших укрытий . Наши сержаны, слуги, наемники и крестоносцы и все остальные оказались в безнадежном положении, и бежали к кораблям, бросая оружие и доспехи. Мы и наши братья, огромное число которых было смертельно или тяжело ранено, защищали их столько, сколько могли, Бог свидетель! И так как некоторые из нас притворялись полумертвыми и лежали в обмороке перед врагами, мои сержаны и наши слуги вынесли оттуда меня, смертельно раненого, и других братьев, подвергая себя огромной опасности. Вот так я и некоторые из братьев спаслись по воле Бога, большинство из них ранено и побито без всякой надежды на исцеление, и мы прибыли на остров Кипр. В день, когда написано это письмо мы все еще находимся здесь, с большой печалью в сердце, плененные ошеломительным горем» [2, стр. 301—302].

Тем не менее, уцелевшие тамплиеры и госпитальеры отбили штурм у башни св. Anthony. Вторым очагом обороны остался правый фланг «королевского сектора», который возглавил представитель короля Англии Отто де Грандисон.

В городе началась паника, жители бросились в гавань, чтобы сесть на корабли, но на море начался шторм. Тамплиер Рожер де Флор смог завладеть одним из кораблей, и попытался воспользоваться ситуацией, чтобы заработать деньги, которые он вымогал со знатных дам в обмен на их спасение. Патриарх Иерусалимский, престарелый Николай, пытался достичь кораблей на рейде, но погрузил на свою лодку столько беженцев, что лодка утонула, а вместе с ней погиб и он сам.

В это же самое время, судя по всему, покинули свои позиции и начали эвакуацию венецианцы, пизанцы и городское ополчение. К вечеру уцелевшие защитники города, те, кто не спасался бегством, а также те, кто из-за шторма не смог отплыть и вернулся обратно, собрались в резиденции тамплиеров, и приняли решение сражаться до конца, избрав своим предводителем маршала тамплиеров Пьера де Севри.

В течение двух дней и ночей внутри города царила полная неразбериха. Связь ставки султана с войсками была потеряна и прорвавшиеся в город отряды, вероятно, занялись грабежами, что дало возможность тем, кто принял решение защищать город до конца, перегруппироваться. Все хронисты в один голос отмечают, что пленных было очень мало. Трудно сказать, успели ли беженцы добраться до галер, но очевидно, что множество гражданских лиц и защитников утонуло в море.

До 20 мая все защитники города, блокированные ранее в своих резиденциях, сконцентрировались в крепости тамплиеров. Предводителем был избран маршал ордена Храма Пьер де Севри. Мамлюки на протяжении недели предпринимали попытки взять штурмом Тампль, но безуспешно. За этот период защитники, пользуясь тем, что они имеют выход к морю, эвакуировали гражданское население, а также казну ордена.

28 мая султан предложил тамплиерам почётные условия капитуляции — выход в гавань с оружием в руках. В этот же день условия были приняты защитниками. В гавань вошли галеры, гражданское население города в сопровождении рыцарей покинуло Тампль. Знаком капитуляции служило вывешенное над башней знамя ислама. Но один из эмиров, который рыскал по городу в поисках поживы, увидев флаг, решил, что крепость взята, и напал на беженцев. Защитники применили в ответ оружие и снова заперлись в крепости. 29 мая де Севри с двумя тамплиерами отправился на переговоры к султану. Но Аль-Ашраф счёл крестоносцев нарушителями клятвы, отказался выслушать парламентёров, и приказал их обезглавить.

Оставшиеся в живых защитники забаррикадировались в Магистерской башне. Сапёры в течение суток подрыли её фундамент, 30 мая башня рухнула, мамлюки ворвались внутрь, и добили тех, кто уцелел под обломками.

Сразу же после того, как стало известно о падении стен Акры, 19 мая, без боя сдался Тир . В конце июня был захвачен Сидон , 31 июля сдан Бейрут . Замок Пилигримов и Тортоза были оставлены тамплиерами между 3 и 14 августа. Они отплыли к не имеющему воды острову Руад , который расположен в двух милях от Тортозы, и удерживали его ещё на протяжении двенадцати лет. Аль-Ашраф приказал уничтожить все замки, которые находились на побережье, чтобы франки более не смогли им завладеть.

Около 1340 г. Людольф Садхеймский, немецкий священник, писал, что совершая паломничество в Святую землю , он натолкнулся на двух старых людей, живущих на побережье Мёртвого моря . Он заговорил с ними и выяснил, что они бывшие тамплиеры, захваченные в плен при падении Акры в 1291 г., которые с тех пор жили в горах, оторванные от христианского мира. Они были женаты, имели детей, и уцелели, находясь на службе у султана. Они даже не догадывались о том, что орден Храма был распущен в 1312 году и Великий магистр был сожжён как отказавшийся от покаяния еретик. Эти люди были из Бургундии и Тулузы , они были репатриированы в течение года вместе с семьями. Для того чтобы не допустить скандала, они были с уважением приняты папой, оставлены у него при дворе и там провели остаток жизни.

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