Siege of Ascalon (1153)

Also known as Crusader capture of Ascalon

For more than half a century after the First Crusade the Fatimid fortress of Ascalon had remained a thorn in the kingdom's side, a permanent garrison from which raiding columns could reach the gates of Jerusalem. From 25 January to 22 August 1153, King Baldwin III mounted the largest siege of the kingdom's history, deploying enormous siege towers against the walls and a fleet of fifteen ships against seventy Fatimid vessels in the harbour. On 16 August the Fatimid garrison set fire to a Crusader siege tower; the wind shifted, blowing the flames back against the city wall, and a section of masonry collapsed. The Templar grand master Bernard de Tremelay rashly led forty Templars into the breach without waiting for the rest of the army; cut off and surrounded, all forty were killed. A larger and better co-ordinated assault three days later forced the garrison to surrender. The capture of Ascalon eliminated the final Fatimid foothold in Palestine and opened the strategic road into Egypt that the kingdom would attempt to walk for the next fifteen years.

Coordinates: 31.6670°, 34.5480°

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