Battle of Ramla
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| Battles of Ramla | |||||||
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| Part of the Crusades | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Kingdom of Jerusalem | Fatimids of Egypt | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Baldwin I of Jerusalem | 1st: Saad el-Dawleh[1] 2nd: Al-Afdal Shahanshah 3rd: Al-Afdal Shahanshah 3rd:Toghtekin of Damascus |
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| Strength | |||||||
| 1st: 260 knights, 900 foot 2nd: 500 knights 3rd: Unknown |
1st: 10,000 2nd: 30,000[2] 3rd: Unknown |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1st: One-third 2nd: Nearly 500 3rd: Unknown |
Unknown | ||||||
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The Battle of Ramla can refer to a number of battles in the early years of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Ramla was an important town on the road from Jerusalem to Ascalon, the latter of which was the largest Fatimid fortress in Palestine. From Ascalon the Egyptian vizier, Al-Afdal Shahanshah, launched almost annual attacks into the newly-founded kingdom from 1099 to 1107. It was often the case that the two armies met each other at Ramla.
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[edit] First Battle of Ramleh
The first battle of Ramleh was September 7, 1101. Baldwin had only 260 cavalry and 900 foot soldiers which he formed into six divisions to combat the Egyptian force of about 10,000 strong. The first two divisions were wiped out in the initial attack but when the third division was pursued after being routed by the Egyptians Baldwin attacked the enemy and after vicious close-quarter combat, repulsed them, causing a panicked retreat. After pursuing the fleeing Fatimids to Ascalon, he returned to Ramleh to plunder the Egyptian camp. This success secured the Kingdom of Jerusalem against the Fatimad Caliphate's advances for the campaigning season.
[edit] Second Battle of Ramleh
The second battle took place in 1102. Due to faulty reconnaissance Baldwin underestimated the size of the Egyptian force and rode to battle with only 500 mounted knights to meet the enemy. Seeing the size of the Egyptian force too late and already cutoff from escape many of the knights charged into the heart of the Egyptian lines and were slaughtered but Baldwin and some survivors from the Crusade of 1101 were able to barricade themselves in Ramla's single tower. Baldwin escaped under the cover of night traveling to Arsuf where he convinced an English ship captain to break through the Egyptian blockade of Jaffa which was being besieged by the Fatimids.
With the arrival of a fleet of French and German Crusaders, Baldwin was able to assemble an army of 8,000 men[3]. In the Battle of Jaffa, he led a cavalry charge that once again broke the Egyptian lines and forced the Fatimid forces to flee to Ascalon. Despite the loss of numerous knights, and the capture of Conrad, Constable of Jerusalem, and death of Stephen of Blois in the final charge from the doomed tower of Ramla, Baldwin was able to profit off the plunder left behind by the fleeing Egyptians.
[edit] Third Battle of Ramleh
The third battle took place on August 27, 1105 and is considered the most brutally fought of the three. In this battle, the Crusaders depended on both horse and foot soldiers while the Egyptians were reinforced by a Seljuk Turkish force from Damascus. After withstanding the initial Frankish cavalry charge the battle raged for most of the day. "The Franks appear to have owed their victory to the activity of Baldwin. He vanquished the Turks when they were becoming a serious threat to his rear, and returned to the main battle to lead the decisive charge which defeated the Egyptians."[4] Although Baldwin was once again able to drive the Egyptians from the field of battle and loot the enemy camp he was unable to pursue them any further.
Despite the victory the Egyptians continued to make annual raids into the Kingdom of Jeruselum with some reaching the walls of Jerusalem before being pushed back. The next major engagement between Fatimids and Crusaders was the Battle of Yibneh in 1123.
[edit] Fatimid armies
Egyptian armies of the period relied on masses of Sudanese bowmen supported by Arab and Berber cavalry. Since the archers were on foot and the horsemen awaited attack with lance and sword, an Egyptian army provided exactly the sort of immobile target that the Frankish heavy cavalry excelled in attacking. Except for the third battle of Ramleh in 1105, when Toghtekin of Damascus sent a contingent of Turks to help the Egyptians, the Fatimids did not use horse archers.
Whereas the Crusaders developed a healthy respect for the harass and surround tactics of the Turkish horse archers, they tended to discount the effectiveness of the Egyptian armies. While overconfidence led to a Crusader disaster at the second battle of Ramleh, the more frequent result was a Fatimid defeat. "The Franks never, until the reign of Saladin, feared the Egyptian as they did the armies from Muslim Syria and Mesopotamia."[5]
[edit] References
- Dupuy, R. E. & Dupuy, T. N. The Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. ISBN 0-06-011139-9
- Smail, R. C. Crusading Warfare 1097-1193. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, (1956) 1995. ISBN 1-56619-769-4
- This article used other sources not cited.
