This article is taken from the July 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here.
As far as Crusades go, the Fifth (1217-21) does not rank high in name recognition. Lacking the beginner’s luck of the First, the celebrity cast of the Third or the peripeteia of the Fourth, the Fifth Crusade is today the province of specialists.
And yet, as becomes clear by the end of Thomas Smith’s new book on the expedition, the Egyptian crusade deserves to be better known as it permanently shifted the balance of power in the Near East in favor of the Muslim states.
By the early 13th century, the military and geopolitical situation of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem was dire. After the Third Crusade (1189-92) had failed to retake Jerusalem, the Frankish realm in the Holy Land was reduced to a thin coastal strip centred on the heavily fortified city of Acre. The rest of the Near East was in the hands of the Ayyubids, the successors of Saladin.
In response to Ayyubid encroachment, in 1213 Pope Innocent III called for a new holy war to reinforce the Kingdom of Jerusalem and reclaim the Holy City for Christendom. The bulk of the expedition was recruited in the Holy Roman Empire, whose young emperor, Frederick II, the wonder of the world himself, ostentatiously took up the cross. He was, however, in no hurry to join his countrymen in the east.
Learning from their bitter past experiences, this time around the Crusaders adopted a novel strategy. Instead of focusing their efforts on the Holy Land, the Christians targeted Egypt, the political and economic heartland of the Ayyubids.
The Crusader army’s first port of call was the coastal city of Damietta, which, after a lengthy siege, fell in 1219. This was a major victory for Christendom: Crusaders had not captured a city of Damietta’s size, wealth and strategic importance since the fall of Jerusalem in 1099.
The Ayyubid Sultan Al-Kamil, under pressure from Mongol attacks at the rear, now offered attractive peace terms that included the return of Jerusalem to the Christians. The Crusaders, overconfident and under orders from the absentee emperor, rebuffed Al-Kamil and instead decided to march on the Ayyubid capital of Cairo.
Here, the crusade took a shambolic turn. The Christians wasted precious months awaiting the arrival of Frederick II, but the emperor never bothered to show up (Smith might have called his book “Waiting for Fredot”). By the time the Crusaders finally began the march south, Al-Kamil had gathered his strength, and the Franks were quickly outmanoeuvred by the Sultan, who used his superior knowledge of the Nile’s flooding patterns to trap them against the river.
The Crusaders reacted by launching an all-out assault on their substantial wine provisions so that, when the Muslims attacked, the Christian army disintegrated in a drunken rout.
In the ensuing peace deal, Al-Kamil regained Damietta, in return for giving safe passage back to Europe to the Christian survivors.
Unbelievably, despite the utter failure of the Fifth Crusade, the Franks did not learn their lesson and 30 years later came back to Egypt for round two. The Seventh Crusade (1248-54) followed the exact same trajectory as the Fifth: the capture of Damietta, the rejection of an advantageous peace agreement that included the return of Jerusalem, and the subsequent destruction of the Crusader army.
Throughout this well-researched book, Smith displays an admirable command of a wide range of sources — both Christian and Muslim — and introduces the reader to some unlikely characters, such as St Francis of Assisi, who unexpectedly showed up to the Crusader camp in 1219. The mendicant friar then asked to meet the Sultan so that he could convert him to Christianity. Remarkably, Al-Kamil not only granted an audience to Francis but even sent him back unharmed.
Unfortunately, this otherwise illuminating book is frequently let down by recurring stylistic infelicities. Smith sets out to write a dynamic narrative history, but the author’s blending of academic and vernacular styles often leads to overwritten trivialities and even downright absurdities. We read, for instance, that Crusaders in Egypt and Christians in Europe “were united in multifaceted means of participation”. Tom Holland, this is not.
Ultimately, however, The Fifth Crusade serves as an object lesson and not just in the perils of Middle-Eastern adventurism. Reading about the Crusaders’ haughty rejection of the Sultan’s peace terms, one is reminded of the admonition of the Carthaginian cavalry commander Maharbal to Hannibal, after the general annihilated the Romans at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC: “You know how to win a victory, Hannibal, but you do not know how to use it.”
