The Fifth Crusade: triumph, disaster and the battle for Egypt
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In 1217, Crusaders launched an ambitious campaign to conquer Egypt, believing it held the key to reclaiming Jerusalem and securing the Holy Land. In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Thomas Smith tells Emily Briffitt why the crusaders targeted Egypt, recounts a dramatic naval assault and siege, and explores how a promising campaign turned into one of the greatest missed opportunities in crusading history. Thank you so much for joining us today to talk all about your book on the 5th. Crusade.
I want to start by asking you, if we were to zoom into the early 13th century, take a look at that world for a moment, can you set the scene for us in terms of the background we'll need for this episode and the wider crusading movements? So I think we probably need to go back to the year 1099, which is when the first crusade conquers Jerusalem. So we see this this mass movement of men, women and children who leave. Western Europe and they march across the face of the world to the Near East, down through Syria and Palestine, and they conquer Jerusalem and they forge four crusader states in the Holy Land, so Edessa, Tripoli, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Now they hold on to these until 1187 when Sultan Saladin of Syria and Egypt
conquers the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the Battle of Hateen. Now, listeners who are familiar with the film Kingdom of Heaven will know this scene from the movie. So he pushes the crusaders effectively into the sea and they're left with a few toeholds on the coastline of the eastern Mediterranean. And this reinvigorates the crusading movement. We see new crusades being launched to try and recover
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