All language subtitles for The Crusades.2012.3of3

At the end of the 11th century,

a papal call to arms inspired tens
of thousands of Christian warriors

to march across the face of the
known world,

to reclaim the Holy City of
Jerusalem

from its Islamic overlords.

These were the first Crusaders,

and their seemingly miraculous
victory

ignited two centuries of
religious war,

as legends,
like Richard the Lionheart

and the mighty
Muslim Sultan Saladin,

fought for dominion of the
Holy Land.

In the 13th century,
this titanic conflict

reached a decisive
and shocking conclusion.

But for all its drama, this final
chapter of the Crusades

has been virtually forgotten.

Today, many would have us believe
that the Crusades

were simply a bloody and brutal
struggle

between two diametrically opposed

religions, Christianity and Islam,

an unavoidable clash of
civilisations,

the echoes of which resound
around us to this day.

But the true story of the Crusades
is more complex,

and far more compelling.

In the end, the fate of
the Holy Land was decided

not on the hallowed ground of
Jerusalem,

but in Egypt.

And the ultimate outcome of
the Crusades was dictated

not by Christians,

but by the Mongol successors to
Genghis Khan,

and by a Muslim slave,
a fearsome warrior,

whose story is now all but lost to
Western history.

By the 13th century,

after more than a hundred years of
Holy War,

and thanks to
Richard the Lionheart's Crusade,

Western Christendom retained a
fragile foothold in the East.

As yet, Jerusalem remained in the
hands of Islam,

but three Crusader states survived,

clinging to the coast of
the Holy Land.

These Christian
outposts

were ruled by
bickering warlords,

with little
or no interest

in waging
Holy War.

Weak, ineffective
leaders

incapable of
defending themselves

from any hostile
neighbouring
powers.

As factualism and disunity crippled
the secular

powers of the Crusader states,
the defence of the Holy Land

increasingly fell to others.
Above all, the military orders.

The members of these orders combined
the ideals of knighthood

and monasticism.

They were, essentially,
Christian warrior monks,

the perfection of
the crusading idea.

And they would come to play
an ever more vital role

in the very survival of the
Crusader states.

After the success of the
First Crusade in the 11th century,

Christian knights banded together to
form the legendary Military Orders.

Today, the most famous of these are
the Knights Templar,

but there were others,

including the Hospitallers
and the Teutonic Knights.

Together, they formed
the elite standing army

of the Crusader states,

and they built a series of imposing
fortresses across the Holy Land.

There's something absolutely
wonderful

about coming to a place like this.

It gives you a really physical,
visceral sense of connection

to the Middle Ages, but a castle
like this also reminds you

of what strongholds were supposed
to do for the Crusaders.

They were all about addressing
a critical weakness,

a lack of man power.

Ever since they'd arrived in the
Holy Land,

the Christians were short of men,

and structures like this acted as
nails

driven into the fabric of this world

to hold the Crusader states
together.

Looking at this place,

you also get a sense that this is
a massive undertaking.

It would have taken a huge amount of
wealth to build it,

let alone to garrison it and
maintain it.

Only one group could have built
a structure like this,

the Military Orders.

This stunning fortress at Montfort
stood guard over northern Palestine,

protecting the port of Acre, the
capital city of the Crusader East,

about a hundred miles north of
Jerusalem.

It was here that the Holy Orders
established their headquarters.

And in the heart of the city,

archaeological excavations
have uncovered the remains

of one of their magnificent
command centres,

a demonstration of the Holy Orders'
extraordinary wealth,

which, until recently, lay almost
completely buried underground.

This remarkable complex was
built by the Hospitallers,

one of the greatest military orders.

It's extraordinary to think that
until just a few decades ago,

much of this compound remained
buried beneath rubble,

and it's only been revealed now by
tireless archaeological excavation.

The sheer scale and majesty of this
place revealed the power

and wealth of the Hospitallers.

This is a monument to rival
anything in the Middle Ages.

The Hospitallers began as a
charitable order devoted to

caring for the poor and sick.

But soon, like their
Templar brethren,

they embraced the Crusading ideal.

Eight hundred years ago,

these chambers would have been
a frenetic hive

of military and logistical
organization.

But this complex also stood at the
heart of an international

financial institution, because these
Christian knights were not

just engaged in the business
of Holy War.

The Military Orders received lavish
donations from Europe's nobility,

and also became heavily involved
in trade,

farming, and manufacture.

By the end of the 12th century,

the Templars had developed
such an elaborate

and secure financial system that
they virtually became

the bankers of Europe and of the
Crusading movement.

In what was essentially the first
use of a cheque,

it became possible to deposit moneys

in, say, Paris,

receive a credit note, and then
cash this in the Holy Land.

Alongside the affluence of the
Military Orders,

Acre emerged as a bustling centre of
trade between Islam and Europe,

awash with exotic goods drawn from
the Orient.

The Crusader states had survived
the turmoil of the 12th century,

albeit in a severely weakened
state in political,

military and territorial terms,

but they did have one thing going
for them,

there was one force that
could transcend

the barriers of religious and ethnic
difference, and that was trade.

Through the early 13th century,
commercial contacts between

East and West blossomed

and the amount of money and goods
passing through Acre

increased almost exponentially.

In fact, we now know that the
Crusader states were actually

minting their own money, so that
even in the midst of holy war,

they could trade with their supposed
Muslim enemies.

The whole economy,

basically, of the Crusader Kingdom,

was based on this

imitation gold coin,

and the coins are Arabic coins,

with Arabic script,

and they are basically
imitations made of the coins

that were produced in Egypt.

Except for these gold coins,
the Crusaders also minted

these Western-looking dinars.

This was the typical coin
of the West,

and, besides this one,
we also have...

I brought an example of a coin
which was minted here in Acre,

and which was probably a fraction of
this one again.

So what you see, basically,
on this table is, more or less,

the monetary system of the
Crusader Kingdom at that period,

and these coins are minted
in the millions.

We're taking about a world in which
East and West

are supposed to be pitted against
each other in a...

in a holy war. Why would a Christian
mint a coin that looks like

it's come from a Muslim kingdom?

Well, I think from the beginning,

the moment the Crusaders set foot in
the East,

they, of course, understood that they
had to fit in economically.

To build a castle, the quantities of
money that were involved,

we're talking about two million.

Millions of gold coins,

just in the building of a castle over
a two-year period.

So the investments, what you see
around you of Crusader Acre,

the buildings, the stone,
the masons, the people involved,

it must have cost an enormous amount
of money and it shows that societies

were at war with each other,
but underneath, trade went on.

And it only became bigger and bigger.

Acre became the most cosmopolitan
city in the known world,

packed with sailors, pilgrims and
foreign merchants.

In 1217, James of Vitry,
a devout French priest,

travelled to Acre to become its new
Christian Bishop.

He arrived on this, his first
visit to the Holy Land,

expecting to find
an earthly paradise.

He was about to be shocked.

Through the eyes of James of Vitry,

Acre was a veritable den of
iniquity.

The Bishop likened the city to
a second Babylon,

a horrible place, full of
disgraceful acts and evil deeds,

where crime and even murder were
commonplace.

James was especially scathing about
Acre's residents,

condemning them as sinners

utterly given over to the pleasures
of the flesh.

In fact, prostitution was supposedly
so rife

that even clerics were renting out
their rooms to whores.

Of course, we have to remember that
James of Vitry was a newly arrived,

prudish bishop, but to him, Acre
was nothing less than Sin City.

In the midst of this tide of trade
and earthly transgression,

it seemed the Christians
had forgotten

their sacred struggle for Jerusalem.

At the same time,

the Islamic East had fragmented
after Saladin's death.

His heirs, the Ayyubids,

retained control of Egypt,
Palestine and Syria.

Ruled, in theory, by a sultan
in Cairo,

this was really little more than
a loose coalition of rivals.

Given the vast fortunes to be made
through trade,

by Christians and Muslims alike,

both sides now had a vested interest
in maintaining the status quo.

Back in Europe, the crusading
fire still burned.

But its force was often directed
away from the Holy Land,

as the papacy launched campaigns
against Southern French heretics,

Baltic pagans and
the Moors of Iberia.

For 50 years, those few crusades
that did reach the East

failed to achieve any lasting
conquests.

The Crusade movement was
now in crisis,

and Jerusalem's recapture seemed
like an impossible dream.

What was needed was the leadership
of a great European monarch,

another Richard the Lionheart,

who could spearhead a new campaign
and galvanise support.

The only likely candidate was
King Louis IX of France.

Around 30 years of age, tall,
pale skinned and slight of build,

he was not quite
the storybook crusade hero.

But Louis was born of a line
of kings who had waged a holy war

and his royal blood was infused with
the crusading impulse.

Louis was a fanatically
devoted Christian,

obsessed with the life of
Jesus Christ.

In 1238, he obtained what was
thought to be the actual

Crown of Thorns
worn by Jesus on the cross.

The young king spent a fortune
building this magnificent chapel

in the heart of Paris
to house his sacred relic.

This miracle of Gothic technology,
infused with light and colour,

was designed to cradle the relics of
Christ's passion.

But it also proclaims Louis'
intense personal piety,

and this devotion would be
at the heart of his Crusade.

Even in his youth, the King
was renowned for his intense

spirituality.

But at the age of 30, a grave
personal crisis stirred in him

a profound commitment to
the Crusading cause.

In 1244, Louis IX contracted
a severe fever

that brought him close to death.

In the grip of this dire illness,

Louis declared his unswerving
determination to lead a crusade.

Once the King had recovered,
Blanche, his formidable mother,

seems to have been infuriated by
this pledge,

judging it to be a reckless folly

that endangered both Louis' life
and the realm.

But Louis was not to be swayed.

In fact, he would dedicate his life
to the cause of the Crusades.

Keenly aware of his
crusading heritage,

and spurred on by his piety,

Louis was determined to bring
Jerusalem back

into the Christian fold.

His spiritual fervour echoed that of
the First Crusaders,

some two centuries earlier.

And the King's ardent
dedication reignited

the fire of crusading enthusiasm
in the West.

Not since Richard the Lionheart,
70 years earlier,

had a major monarch launched
a crusade on this scale,

with this degree of determination
and devotion.

In the months that followed,
virtually all the great

nobles of Northern France
enlisted in the coming Holy War.

One of the Crusade's most important
recruits was a young knight

named John of Joinville,

a gifted writer, who became one of
Louis' closest confidantes.

As a participant in
the coming crusade,

John of Joinville came to know
King Louis well,

and witnessed the Holy War
firsthand.

Years later,

he wrote a vivid account of his
experiences on campaign,

albeit one that portrayed
Louis in a saintly and heroic light.

Even today, it's a fabulous read,
packed with human colour

and the kind of visceral
detail that allows us

to recreate the hardships
and the horrors of a crusade.

Describing the agonies of starvation
and disease

later endured by the Christians,
Joinville wrote,

"The epidemic in the camp
began to grow worse.

"Our men had so much dead flesh

"on their gums

"that the barbers had to remove it

"to enable them

"to chew food and swallow.

"It was most pitiful to hear
the moans of men,

"from whom the dead flesh was being
cut away,

"for they moaned just like women
in the pains of child birth."

John of Joinville's King and hero,

Louis IX,

set out to perfect the art of
crusading warfare.

His campaign was driven by the same
spiritual zeal that empowered

the first Crusaders
150 years earlier,

yet was underpinned by the most
meticulous planning.

This fortified town of Aigues-Mortes
in Southern France

became the European base of
operations for Louis' crusade,

and it was here that much of the
logistical preparation

for the expedition took place.

To finance his campaign,

Louis amassed a huge war chest.

Royal accounts indicate that

in two years, he spent
two million livres tournois,

much of it on paying for
his knights.

Given that royal income was around

250,000 livres tournois per annum,

this was a vast commitment.

Louis effectively mortgaged France
to pay for his crusade.

Louis was an astute
military realist,

determined to achieve success
where other crusades had failed.

He combined an eye for the gritty
detail of war

with a dogged belief that he
and his army

must be pure of heart and soul

if they were to win God's support.

Louis spent four years making
meticulous preparations

for the coming crusade,

and the King obviously believed

that success would depend on both
practical and spiritual readiness.

To ensure that he could start his
campaign with a clear conscience,

Louis created a special commission
to root out corruption by the Crown

and its officials,
across the realm of France.

In terms of determination and
pious intent,

Louis IX was the perfect
Crusader King.

In late August 1248,
hundreds of ships set sail,

carrying Louis' troops to war,

a formidable Christian army,
determined to defeat Islam,

and recapture
the Holy City of Jerusalem.

John of Joinville vividly described
the experience of his own departure.

"With all on board, the ship's
captain called forward priests,

"and then shouted
'In God's name, sing!'

"In one voice, they began to chant
the Crusader hymn,

"Veni, Creator Spiritus.

"As far as your eye could behold,

"the whole sea seemed to be covered
by the canvas of the ships' sails,

"whose number, large and small, was
given as 1,800 vessels."

King Louis stood at the head

of the most perfectly prepared
Crusader army ever to depart Europe,

25,000 well-equipped,
professional troops.

But unlike

the great Crusades of the past,

their destination
wasn't Palestine...

..but Egypt.

At first glance, the decision to
launch a Crusader invasion of Egypt,

rather than target Palestine
and Jerusalem directly,

might seem questionable.

But Louis' actions actually made
perfect strategic sense.

Even if some desperate attempt to
take the Holy City succeeded,

Jerusalem could never be held,
given its isolated position.

But by attacking Egypt,

the heartland of Islam's economic
and military strength,

Louis hoped to deliver a telling and
deathly blow

to his enemy's power base.

From now on,

the war for the Holy Land would be
waged here, in Egypt.

Louis' target was Cairo,
capital of the Ayyubids,

the fragmented dynasty

whose grip on the Muslim Middle East
was faltering.

The French King reasoned that
victory here, in North Africa,

would undermine Islam's hold
over the Near East,

ushering in a new age of strength
and security

for the Crusader states,

and opening the road to
Jerusalem's recapture.

On 5th June 1249,

the Christian army arrived

at the mouth
of the River Nile,

where they found

the armies of Islam

waiting for them.

The full array of the Sultan's
forces was drawn up along the shore.

It was a sight to enchant the eye,

for the Sultan's standards
were all of gold,

and where the sun caught them,
they shone resplendent.

All around Joinville,

hundreds of Christian landing craft
were bearing down upon the beach,

many of them brightly painted with
coats of arms

and streaming with pennants,

their oarsmen straining to drive
the army on to battle.

This would be Louis' D-Day,

a daring beach landing
here at Damietta.

The King was gambling the fate of
his entire expedition

on this one moment.

Failure would end the Holy War

even before it had begun.

As the first Crusaders
began to land,

fierce fighting broke out
up and down the coastline.

The Muslims unleashed withering
volleys of arrows and spears

onto the Christian landing craft,

and a desperate struggle
for the beach commenced.

Many boats couldn't get close enough
to land

and, facing the real possibility
that the whole attack might
collapse,

urgent orders went out for
the Crusaders to wade ashore.

When Louis, watching
from his landing craft,

saw his Royal Standard,
the Oriflame,

planted into the sands of Egypt,

he leapt over board into
chest-high water.

Once ashore, with his blood up, the
King had to be physically restrained

to stop him charging
headlong into combat.

In the beach assault, the Muslims

were said to have lost some 500 men,

while the Crusaders suffered
minimal casualties.

For the Christians, the entire
landing had been a startling,

almost miraculous, success.

A beach head had been established

and many believed that they'd been
lifted to victory by
the hand of God.

At a single stroke,

Louis IX had achieved
the initial goal of his campaign,

establishing a foothold on the Nile

and opening the doorway to Egypt.

It was the most stunning first foray
of any crusade,

and overall victory now seemed
all but assured.

Louis' army now marched south along
the Nile.

Some argued for an attack
on the strategically vital

port of Alexandria.

But the King decided to risk

an advance on Cairo itself,

another huge gamble, one that would

strike at the beating heart

of Ayyubid power in the Middle East.

It was said that Louis threw caution
to the wind,

on the advice of his brother,
Robert of Artois,

who argued that to kill the serpent,
you must first cut off its head.

But to reach Cairo,

Louis would first have to defeat
a mighty Muslim army

that had now gathered here, on the
banks of the Nile, at Mansourah.

You could say he was now on course

for a direct confrontation with the
Muslim army,

an encounter that would determine
the outcome

of the entire expedition.

The stakes for the Muslims were
just as high.

One Islamic chronicler recognised
the danger, noting that,

"If the armies at Mansourah
were to be driven back,

"the whole of Egypt would be
conquered in the shortest time."

On the 21st December 1249,

Louis' expedition reached the River
Tanis, a tributary of the Nile.

Thousands of Muslim troops were
camped on the opposite shore,

and beyond them stood the fortified
town of Mansourah.

The water separating the Christians
and Muslims was too deep

and fast flowing to cross.

But just as stalemate seemed
inevitable,

Louis made contact with
an Egyptian traitor

willing to betray his people,

an informant who led the Christians

to a secret crossing of the Tanis
further downstream.

On the 8th of February, King Louis

and a select band of his troops
began to ford the deep river.

The vanguard was led by his brother,
Robert of Artois,

alongside a party of
Templar Knights.

As dawn broke,

the impetuous Robert decided to
launch an immediate assault,

directly contradicting
Louis' explicit orders.

At first, this ploy seemed to work.

The Muslim camp was taken
completely unawares,

and a mass indiscriminate
slaughter began.

The Muslim General, Fakhr al-Din,
was set upon by Templars

and cut down by two mighty
sword blows.

As they rampaged through
the Muslim camp,

it seemed the Crusaders would be
victorious.

But in the heat of battle,

the King's brother made a
catastrophic error of judgement,

urging his troops on to attack
Mansourah itself.

Once inside, the town's gates were
closed behind the Crusaders,

and trapped within, Robert and his
men were butchered almost to a man.

Amidst the chaos,

Louis tried to rally his remaining
men back at the Tanis.

The King stubbornly refused
to retreat,

and for two dreadful winter months,

his Crusaders endured near-daily
Muslim assaults,

sustaining crippling casualties.

The Christians were ravaged by
disease and starvation.

Even the King was struck down
by illness.

When he finally did try to
pull back,

marching north towards Damietta,
Louis' bedraggled army was routed.

At nightfall
on the 4th of April 1250,

Muslim troops eagerly fell upon
the fleeing Christians.

The Crusader King's audacious gamble
had failed.

With the expedition in tatters,

many Crusaders scrambled frantically
onto boats,

hoping to escape to
the relative safety of Damietta.

Among them, John of Joinville.

He now watched in horror

as Muslim troops began pouring into
the Crusader camp.

Wounded Christians,

who'd been left in the confusion to
fend for themselves,

were crawling to
the banks of the Nile,

desperately trying to reach
any ship.

There is a tinge of guilt to
Joinville's account

of this terrible moment.

"As I was urging the sailors

"to let us get away, I watched
by the light of the fires

"as the Saracens were slaughtering
the poor fellows on the banks."

Louis IX's Crusade had collapsed
in confusion.

Reluctant to abandon his men,
but debilitated by disease,

the King was persuaded
to take flight.

Louis, so stricken with dysentery

that he had to have a hole cut in
his breeches,

was spirited away by
a loyal group of lieutenants.

He was eventually forced

to take refuge in a small village,

and there, cowering,
half dead in a squalid hut,

the mighty King of France
was taken captive.

His dream of conquering Egypt

had ended in abject failure
and personal humiliation.

This cataclysm on the Nile stunned
and bewildered Christian Europe.

Never before had a Western King
been taken captive during a Crusade.

Louis was eventually freed after
payment of a colossal ransom

and returned home in shame.

If anything, his piety deepened.

Indeed, he was later canonized
as a Saint.

Yet for all his devotion,

the perfect Crusader King died

without seeing Jerusalem
re-conquered.

Louis' defeat in Egypt

marked the end of the Great Crusades
in the Near East.

It also spelt disaster for
the surviving Crusader states.

For what no-one in the West
yet realised

was that it had been no ordinary
Muslim army

that shattered the French King's
crusading dream.

One of the reasons for Louis'
defeat at Mansourah

was that he faced a deadly new
adversary.

Spearheading the Muslim assault

against him were elite Mamluks,
or slave soldiers.

Taken captive in the Russian Steppes
as boys,

these Mamluks were sold to
Islamic rulers,

indoctrinated in the Muslim faith,

and trained in the arts of war.

These fiercely loyal and highly
professional warriors

would come to play a decisive role

in the final chapter of
the Crusades.

Above all, these slave soldiers were
consummate horsemen.

Schooled in riding from boyhood,
they trained relentlessly,

using an early form of polo
to hone their skills.

At first, they had served
Saladin's heirs.

But in the aftermath of
Louis' defeat,

the Mamluks swept to power in Cairo.

Slaves now became the masters of
the Islamic world.

The advent of these mighty Mamluks

transformed the war for
the Holy Land.

But in the Crusades' final chapter,

Islam's main enemy was not
the Christians,

but another band of
empire-building warriors.

Nomadic tribesmen from
the vast plains of Asia,

who had united under the leadership
of the legendary Genghis Khan,

they were the Mongols.

And it was their titanic clash with
the Mamluks

that would dictate the fate

of the remaining Crusader states
in the East.

The Mongols were a force
unparalleled in the mediaeval world,

perhaps in all human history,

unrelenting, seemingly unstoppable,
and utterly uncompromising.

Their rise was mercurial.

In the space of just 50 years,

they exploded across the face of
the Earth.

By 1260, the vast Mongol empire
stretched from China to Europe,

from the Indian Ocean to the
northern wastes of Siberia.

They had crushed
all who stood in their way,

and now their eyes were fixed on
the Holy Land.

It was Genghis Khan who had put
the Mongol Empire on the map.

By the 1250s, rule had passed
to his successors,

who led an invasion of Iraq.

There, in 1258, they crushed
Baghdad, devastating the city,

putting 30,000 Muslims to the sword.

Only the Mamluks in Egypt could now
prevent a Mongol apocalypse,

engulfing the Islamic East.

In the early summer of 1260,

envoys from
the Mongol General Hulegu,

grandson to Genghis Khan,

arrived here in Cairo,

demanding the Mamluk surrender.

"Only those who beg our protection
will be safe.

"We will shatter your mosques,
reveal the weakness of your God,

"and then we will kill your children
and your old men together.

"At present, you are the only enemy
against whom we have to march."

The Mamluk Sultan Qutuz responded

by ordering the Mongol envoys'
immediate execution.

Their bodies were cut in half

and their heads hung from this
city gate.

With this defiant statement of
intent, the Mamluks went to war.

In midsummer 1260,

Qutuz marched his troops
out of Egypt

to fight a desperate battle
for survival,

and for control of the Holy Land,

not against their familiar
Crusader foe,

but an invincible enemy
from another world.

The arrival of the Mongols was
almost akin to an alien invasion.

This was an enemy force unlike
anything yet seen in the Holy Land.

A foe with whom
you couldn't negotiate,

against whom, it seemed,
your only choices

were abject surrender
or total annihilation.

Sweeping south through Syria,

the Mongols were now just
50 miles from Jerusalem.

For the Mamluks,
the fate of the Holy Land

and the future of Islam itself
was at stake.

And they decided to confront

the Mongol horde head-on

in Galilee,

here at Ayn Jalut.

So, here we are overlooking
the battlefield.

What do you think actually
happened here?

I think, even from the beginning,
it was a far-fetched venture.

The Mongols had a terrible
reputation.

They had already taken most of Syria.

They had behind them, of course,
the entire Mongol empire.

They were virtually undefeated.

Their conquests were accompanied
by destruction,

by death, by massacres,

?and they're the scourge

of the civilized world.

The Mamluks were good soldiers too,
but they,

since their victories against
the Crusaders and...

against Louis in 1249, 1250,

they really hadn't had
any great victories.

So it was a bit of gamble,
and basically,

Qutuz was putting everything into
one pot,

he was betting everything that he had
on this venture.

If I was gambling

in Acre, or in Damascus, or in Cairo,
or in Baghdad,

or anywhere else in the area,

I would probably put my money on
the Mongols.

The Mamluk vanguard was led by
a fearsome general named Baybars,

a blue-eyed, Caucasian
slave warrior,

who had fought against the Crusaders
at Mansourah a decade earlier.

Contemporary accounts describe how
the Mongols launched two

devastating charges that shook the
Mamluk army to the core.

But teetering on the brink of
defeat,

Qutuz managed to rally his troops

and mount a decisive counterattack

that shattered the Mongol lines

and left their commander slain upon
the field.

It's not the first time the Mongols
had been defeated,

but it was the first time
in a long time,

in this area, they'd been defeated.

The Mamluks understood that this
was not the last of the Mongols,

but the Mongols were stopped
for the time being.

So the Mongols are thrown out
of Syria

and the Mamluks take over Syria
up to the Euphrates River

with the exception, of course,

on the coast where the Crusaders are
still found.

Ayn Jalut was perhaps the most
important battle

of the entire Medieval era,

and its outcome had profound and
disastrous consequences

for the Crusader states,

now caught in the crossfire of
a far greater conflict.

Up to this point,
we've been talking about

a contest between
Christendom and Islam

for dominion of the Holy places,

for Jerusalem itself, but now,
we have new powers on the block.

We have the Mongols to the north,
threatening invasion,

the Mumluks based in Syria and Egypt

trying to hold on to
their territory,

and the Crusaders, really,

based along the coast as they are,
are just onlookers.

In some ways, they're almost
a sideshow to these other powers.

And, in truth, the Mongols and the
Mumluks are now the big players.

They are the great super powers of
the nearer Middle East,

and they are the people

who are going to define and decide
the fate of the Holy Land.

Ayn Jalut was an astonishing
triumph for Islam.

Although the Mongols continued to
pose a terrifying threat,

their advance had been halted.

But there was a twist to the tale
of this historic Mamluk victory.

In October 1260, on their victorious
march back south to Cairo,

the Mamluk army decided to stop
in a remote spot in the desert.

Qutuz wanted to indulge his passion
for hare coursing.

He was joined by a small group of
elite Mamluk commanders,

amongst them Baybars, the man who
had led the vanguard at Ayn Jalut.

The count suggests that Baybars
asked the Sultan for a favour,

and when Qutuz agreed, he reached
out to kiss the Sultan's hand.

At this moment,

Baybars gripped the Sultan's arms
to stop him drawing a sword

and another conspirator stabbed
Qutuz in the neck.

The Sultan died beneath a furious
torrent of blows.

Before Ayn Jalut, Qutuz and Baybars
had been bitter enemies,

rivals who briefly put aside their
differences to face the Mongols.

Now, with Qutuz's assassination,

Baybars was free to seize
the reins of power.

After more than a century and a half

of war in the Holy Land,

it would be this remarkable man

who would determine the outcome of
the Crusades.

Baybars' story is all but forgotten
in the West.

No images of him survive.

Few recognize his name today.

And yet this is the true Islamic
champion of the Crusading age.

The man who turned back
the savage Mongol horde,

who bent the Muslim world
to his will,

and who brought
an unparalleled ferocity

to the jihad against Christendom.

Once he had seized power,

Baybars' most urgent concern was the
legitimisation of his own rule

and the consolidation of
Mamluk power in Egypt.

He dedicated the early years of
his reign

to reshaping the Muslim East,

forging a potent and authoritarian
regime.

One of his most cunning
political moves

was to re-establish
the Sunni Caliphate here in Cairo

because the Caliph, as a spiritual
figurehead,

could offer him the legitimacy
he desired.

Once he'd selected
a suitable candidate,

Baybars publicly swore allegiance
to his new puppet

and then pledged to uphold and
defend the faith,

to rule justly, and to wage jihad
against the enemies of Islam.

In return, the Caliph appointed him
as Sultan

of the entire Muslim East,

giving him free reign to forge an
empire and to crush his enemies.

In early summer 1261, Baybars staged
a spectacular procession

through the streets of Cairo,

to proclaim his new power and
authority.

Dressed in his finery,

Baybars and the new Caliph rode in
procession

through the heart of Cairo.

Baybars was to be invested as
the Sultan,

the ruler of Egypt
and the Muslim East.

His subjects would come to love
and fear their new master,

Baybars, the blue-eyed former slave.

Transfixed and terrified by the
spectre of another Mongol invasion,

the Muslim Near East willingly
accepted Baybars' tyrannical rule.

And with unrivalled and absolute
power in his hands,

he set about creating
the perfect military state.

The Mamluks dedicated themselves
to military training, striving to

achieve perfection as warriors.

They were taught to deliver precise
sword strikes

by repeating the same cut
up to a thousand times a day.

Baybars encouraged his troops

to experiment with new weapons and
techniques.

His army became the most highly
trained and disciplined force

of the Crusader era,

more than a match for Mongols and
Christians alike.

Baybars' Mamluks were a force
more numerous,

disciplined and ferocious than any
yet encountered

in the war for the Holy Land.

And one with no interest

in reaching an accommodation with
the Crusader states.

These enfeebled
Christian enclaves,

now encircled by

the Sultan's mighty

Middle Eastern empire,

were horrendously vulnerable

and exposed.

In the spring of 1265,
Baybars marched out of Egypt.

He'd actually mobilised his troops

in order to counter an expected
Mongol invasion of Syria,

but this never materialised.

And ever the ruthlessly efficient
commander,

with his army already in the field,

he turned his gaze on
the Crusader states.

Weak as they were, the Christians
could still turn to the elite

knights of the Military Orders,

and to the formidable fortresses
that had preserved and protected

their fragile foothold in the
Holy Land for nearly two centuries.

Arsuf, like several other

fortresses throughout the Levant,

is a masterpiece.

It is the last word

in military architecture.

The complexity,

the quality of the building here,

the quality of the garrison inside,

it's just a remarkable
piece of work.

Capturing the castle
at Arsuf

would be a
fearsome challenge

for any army.

Yet when Baybars arrived here
in March

and deployed the full force of his
Mamluk military machine,

he quickly proved his mastery of
siege warfare,

down to the finest detail.

Baybars was an incredibly
well-organised sultan.

His logistics are a masterpiece.

When we go back to the archaeological
finds here,

you can see it, you can see how
careful he was about the planning.

So if you look at all the walls
around you,

you look at the foundations of the
castle, you look at the towers,

it is built out of local stone, it's
a very porous type of beach stone.

You look at the catapult stones,
this is not from here.

The catapult stones are made
out of a very, very dense, hard lime,

that comes from the foot hills

of the Samarian hills.

So when he was planning out
the siege, he says,

"I cannot bombard the castle
with the same stones

"that the castles are built here,

"because there's not going to be
any impact."

So he's got somebody, 15 kilometres
away from here,

chipping those stones away.

That is a lot of work. I mean,

it will take at least,

I would say a week, maybe ten days,
just to get your ammunition ready.

Baybars knew he had time.

There was no help that was going to
come from outside.

And because they did not have help
coming from anywhere,

they were fighting a lost battle.

After three days of fierce fighting,
Baybars took control of Arsuf.

Those Christians who survived were
taken into slavery,

and then forced to demolish their
own castle.

In an act of deliberate humiliation,

they were then marched to Egypt,

each wearing a wooden cross around
their necks,

and paraded through the streets of
Cairo.

The Mamluk army was the ultimate
military machine,

created not in response to the
Christian Crusades,

but to counter the Mongols, who had
been turned back at Ayn Jalut,

yet continued to pose a terrifying
threat to Islam.

At the head of this
unrivalled force,

Baybars had the power to dispatch

the remaining pockets of Christian
settlement in the East,

almost at will.

Baybars razed Arsuf to the ground.

Its fate was emblematic of his
revolutionary new strategy.

Other Muslim leaders might have
tried to take possession

of a fortress like this.

He simply wiped it from the face of
the Earth,

ensuring that it would never again
be used by Christians.

Baybars' policy of devastation meant
that the Crusader states

now faced total annihilation.

But the Sultan was not just
a brutal military genius,

he was also a frighteningly
efficient bureaucrat,

who imposed his will
across the Islamic world.

So this is a town called Lod.

In the Middle Ages, this place lay
on a key route through Palestine,

and it still holds one of the great
hidden treasures

of the Crusading era.

The trouble is, it's a little bit
hard to find.

I'm looking for a forgotten monument
to Baybars' mastery of statecraft.

Hi. Do you know where Baybars'
bridge is? Baybars' bridge?

Far from the usual trail of awesome
Crusader castles and mighty cities,

it's nevertheless a potent reminder
of his unique achievements.

For me, it's an unloved
medieval treasure.

So this is Baybars' bridge.

I think it's amazing that
it's still standing

more than 700 years after
it was constructed,

and what's even more extraordinary,
it's still got

traffic running over the top of it.

We know it was constructed under
Baybars' rule

because it bears his famous
lion emblem.

And symbols like this appeared on
scores of bridges

constructed across the Near East
under his reign.

If we look really closely,

we can pick out
a beautiful little detail

that's supposed to have
great symbolism.

There's a tiny rodent, or rat, being
trampled under his raised paw,

and this is supposed to symbolize
the Mamluk state

crushing the enemies of Islam.

It may not look that impressive,
but this unassuming bridge was

just as important to Baybars'
military strength and power

as any of the magnificent weapons
he could bring to bear in war.

Before Baybars,

no-one had been able to rule
the Near East from Egypt

because they were unable
to communicate

with the far reaches of their realm.

Baybars understood this truth

and that's why he threw huge amounts
of money at infra-structure,

building bridges like this
and roads,

and with that communication system
in place,

he was able to create what's known
as his Barid.

This was effectively
a postal service,

a system of elite riders and
messengers,

who would go in relay
from point to point,

bringing messages to
the Sultan himself.

Forlorn and forgotten
as it might look,

this bridge was actually
a key element

in the success of
Baybars' Mamluk state.

When the age of the Crusades began,
200 years earlier,

the Islamic world was in disarray,
divided and disunited.

The First Crusade, and most of the
Holy Wars that followed,

had been waged against an enemy
paralyzed by infighting.

But Baybars' tyrannical rule

united the Muslim world
as never before,

finally bringing Islam
the power to prevail

in the war for the Holy Land,

spelling disaster for the few
remaining Crusader states.

In May 1268, three years after
defeating the Christians at Arsuf,

the Mamluk army arrived at Antioch,

a city of special significance to
the Crusades.

Two centuries earlier,

this mighty metropolis had been the
Christians' first major conquest

in the Holy Land.

Now, it would mark
the beginning of the end.

The first Crusaders had taken eight
months to break into Antioch,

but when the Sultan Baybars turned

the full force of his Mamluk
military machine

against this city,
it fell within a single day.

As his troops poured through
a breach in the defences

near this very spot,

Baybars ordered that
the city's gates be barred

so that no-one would escape.

He then had tens of thousands of
men, women and children butchered.

The last days of
the Crusader states had begun.

The inexorable obliteration
of the Crusader states

continued after Baybars' death
in 1277.

The Sultan's successors conquered
Tripoli in 1289,

and finally seized Acre itself
in 1291.

After almost 200 years,

the war for the Holy Land ended in
a definitive victory for Islam.

Dark, brutal, and savage
as they often were,

the Crusades, nonetheless,

left no permanent mark upon Islam or
the West.

In truth,

the war for the Holy Land had been
all but forgotten

by the end of the Middle Ages.

So why do these distant wars
still seem to exert

a profound influence upon
our modern world?

In the 19th century,

Europe's fascination with
the Crusades was reawakened.

These medieval wars were now recast
as glorious triumphs

that seemed to affirm the capacity
of great powers,

like England and France
to forge empires,

to colonise the supposedly barbaric
Near East.

The desire to reconnect with the
mediaeval past

found its ultimate expression
here at Versailles.

King Louis Philippe of France
dedicated five rooms -

the Salles Des Croisades -
to these monumental,

highly romanticised, paintings of
the Crusades.

Here is crusading history
reshaped in art.

The first Crusaders capturing
sacred Jerusalem.

Richard the Lionheart
crushing the Muslims at Arsuf,

and even King Louis of France,

the saintly monarch brought to his
knees in Egypt,

now portrayed as
an all-conquering hero.

This triumphalist propaganda
eventually found its echo in Islam,

not least in the promotion
of Saladin

as a Muslim hero,
second only to Muhammad himself.

And the misappropriation of the past
continues to this day.

This crusade,

this war on terrorism,

is going to take a while.

When George W Bush
spoke these words,

five days after the terrorist
attacks of 9/11,

many commentators were horrified,

while Islamist extremists,
including Osama Bin Laden,

seized upon the President's
statement

as proof that the West was still
waging a holy war

in the Middle East.

But I don't believe that these
centuries-old conflicts

ignited a fire of inimitable and
unending hatred

between Islam and the West.

The idea of a direct

and unbroken line of conflict
linking the mediaeval

and the modern eras

has helped to give rise

to an almost fatalistic belief

that a clash between Islam
and the West is inevitable.

Yet careful study of
the complex encounter

between Muslims and Christians,
in the age of the Crusades,

reveals that the uneasy mix

of peaceful contact and simmering
conflict was not so dissimilar

to relations between rival powers
anywhere in the Middle Ages.

I do believe that the Crusades have
things to tell us

about our own world,

but most of these lessons are common
to all eras of human history.

How hatred of an alien enemy
can be harnessed,

how trade can transcend
the barriers of conflict,

and how faith can inspire
extraordinary deeds

and horrific violence.

The notion that the struggle for
the Holy Land

has a direct bearing upon
the modern world is misguided.

I think we must examine and seek to
understand these medieval wars,

so that we can counter
the distortion

of our collective history.

And, above all, we must place
the Crusades where they belong -

in the past.

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