The Second Crusade and its failure
The Fall of Edessa, 1144
By the 1130s the political landscape of the Muslim world was changing. Zengi (also written Zenghi or Imad al-Din Zengi) had emerged as the powerful ruler of Mosul and Aleppo. Unlike the fragmented Muslim rulers who had allowed the crusader states to survive their first decades, Zengi was methodically consolidating power in northern Syria. His aim was to unite Muslim forces against the crusader presence in the Levant.
In late November 1144, Zengi besieged Edessa. The city’s count, Joscelin II, was absent with much of his military force. The remaining garrison could not hold against Zengi’s army. On 24 December 1144, Edessa fell — the first crusader state to be recaptured by Muslim forces. The Latin population was slaughtered or enslaved; the city’s churches were converted back to mosques. The shock in the Christian West was enormous. Jerusalem itself now seemed under threat.
The fall of Edessa on 24 December 1144 was the first major Muslim recapture of crusader territory. It shocked Western Christendom and directly triggered Pope Eugenius III’s call for a Second Crusade in December 1145. The event demonstrated that Outremer was not permanently secure.
The Call for a Second Crusade
Pope Eugenius III issued his call for a new crusade in the papal bull Quantum praedecessores (December 1145). What made the Second Crusade different from the First was its backing from two of the most powerful monarchs in Europe. Louis VII of France was deeply pious and had private reasons for penitence after ordering the burning of a church at Vitry-en-Perthois. Conrad III, Holy Roman Emperor, also committed to the crusade.
The crucial recruiter was Bernard of Clairvaux, the most influential churchman in Europe. At Vézelay in March 1146, Bernard preached in the presence of Louis VII with such passion that the crowd reportedly tore up cloaks and banners to make crosses for themselves. Bernard then toured France and Germany, everywhere generating enormous enthusiasm for the new crusade. The scale of recruitment was impressive; the results would be disastrous.
Conrad III’s German army arrived in Byzantine territory first. Relations with the Byzantines were immediately strained — the crusaders plundered Greek villages for supplies and the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos was suspicious of their intentions. Conrad pressed forward into Anatolia without adequate preparation and was ambushed and heavily defeated by the Seljuks at the Battle of Dorylaeum in October 1147. His army was shattered; Conrad himself was wounded and retreated with a small remnant to the coast.
Louis VII’s French army fared only slightly better. Marching through Anatolia following a coastal route, the French suffered a serious defeat at the Cadmus mountain pass in January 1148 when the rear guard — which Louis commanded — was cut off and badly mauled by Turkish forces. The army reached the port of Adalia in poor condition. Lack of shipping meant most of the foot soldiers were left behind; Louis and his knights sailed on, arriving in the Holy Land with a much smaller force than he had started with.
The Council of Acre and the Decision to Attack Damascus
When the remnants of the two crusading armies arrived in the Holy Land in spring 1148, a council was held at Acre in June. The assembled leaders — Louis VII, Conrad III and the leading nobles of Outremer — had to decide where to strike. The logical target was Aleppo or another city in the north, closer to the objective of recovering Edessa. Instead, they chose to attack Damascus.
Damascus was ruled by Unur, the powerful atabeg of Damascus, who had maintained a cautious alliance with the Kingdom of Jerusalem for years. Attacking Damascus was strategically incoherent: it would drive Unur into Zengi’s successor’s arms and destroy the one reliable Muslim buffer between Outremer and the more dangerous enemies further north. Historians debate why the decision was made — the lure of a wealthy, prestigious city, pressure from newly arrived crusaders who had not made accommodations with local Muslim rulers, and poor strategic judgment all played a part.
The decision to attack Damascus rather than recover Edessa was the central strategic blunder of the Second Crusade. Damascus was a long-standing ally of Jerusalem. Attacking it made no military sense and united Muslim Syria against the crusaders, rather than dividing it.
The crusade army arrived before Damascus on 24 July 1148. The initial position was promising — the crusaders camped in well-watered orchards to the west of the city and began to make progress. But within two days they abandoned this strong position, moving to a barren plain to the east with no water or food. The reasons for this disastrous redeployment are disputed: later sources suggest the local lords of Outremer accepted bribes from Damascus, though this may be a way of explaining an inexplicable decision.
A Muslim relief army arrived from Aleppo and Mosul. Exposed in the open with no water, the crusaders had no choice but to retreat. On 28 July 1148, after just five days, the siege was abandoned. The Siege of Damascus had lasted less than a week. The two kings withdrew to Europe shortly afterwards. The Second Crusade had achieved nothing and had, arguably, left the crusader states worse off than before by antagonising Damascus.