Second Battle of Ramla (1102)

Also known as Ramla 1102

On 17 May 1102, Baldwin I made the worst tactical mistake of his reign. Misjudging an incoming Fatimid army under the vizier's son Sharaf al-Ma'ali as a small raiding force, the king led only 200 knights — with no infantry support at all — directly into roughly 20,000 Egyptian troops at Ramla. The knights were enveloped and annihilated almost to a man. Stephen of Blois, who had returned to the East to atone for deserting the First Crusade, was among the dead; Baldwin himself escaped only by taking refuge in a tower at Ramla and slipping out at night to reach Jaffa. The disaster drove home the lesson that Frankish cavalry could not function without a disciplined infantry line to absorb skirmisher fire — a doctrine the Crusader military rebuilt itself around for the next century.

Coordinates: 31.9320°, 34.8740°

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