Battle of Mansurah (1250)

Also known as Al-Mansurah, Mansoura

Louis IX of France's Seventh Crusade had landed at Damietta in June 1249 and then moved up the eastern arm of the Nile delta toward Cairo. On 8 February 1250, the Crusader vanguard under the king's brother Robert d'Artois forded the Bahr el-Saghir branch of the Nile and surprised an Ayyubid camp at Gideila; flushed with success, Robert ignored orders to wait for the main army and pursued the fleeing Egyptians into the narrow streets of the town of al-Mansurah itself. There the elite Bahri Mamluk regiment, commanded by Faris ad-Din Aktai and the future sultan Baybars, trapped the Frankish column from the rooftops and destroyed it. Robert d'Artois and 280 Templars were killed; the Crusader infantry that arrived in the days following held the ground around Mansurah for two months but could not advance. Louis IX's eventual retreat to Damietta in April collapsed into a rout, and the king himself was captured. The defeat triggered the Mamluk coup that would soon overthrow the Ayyubid sultanate.

Coordinates: 31.0430°, 31.3800°

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