Fifth Crusade
First Victory
The immediate objective was Damietta, a town in the Nile delta that guarded the main route up river to Cairo, the ultimate objective. Alexandria was the other great city of Egypt, but it would bend to whatever wind blew strongest. Cairo was where the Sultan lived; capture his capital and the rest of Egypt would fall. Damietta was the first, crucial step.
The town was two miles up river, protected on west and east by water. A chain blocked the navigable channel, secured on one side by the city walls and on the other by a tower on an island close to the shore. It took the Crusaders nearly a month to capture that little fortress, but it fell on August 17, 1218. With the tower in their hands, the Christians were now able to cut the chain and move up river to attack the city itself.
During this time, the Egyptian vizier, al-Kamil, had raised an army and marched it close by, to al-Adiliya, but he was not strong enough to risk a direct attack. He was forced to content himself with occasional harassment and discouraging extensive raiding. Neither were the Crusaders very strong. They now decided to wait for reinforcements—those armies still in Italy—before risking a siege of Damietta itself. Most of the Frisians now went home, greatly angering the others.
But the Christians were cheered to learn that the Sultan had died. Al-Adil was in his seventies and evidently the news of Damietta's peril was more than he could bear. He died on August 31, succeeded by the commander in the field, al-Kamil.
The expected reinforcements arrived in early September. A number of counts and other lords came with their forces, but the most significant and influential arrival was Cardinal Pelagius, a papal legate. Honorius agreed fully with Innocent's opinion that a Crusade would succeed only when it was led by the Church rather than by lay lords, and he had sent a strong and forceful representative in Pelagius. Despite grumbling from the barons, Pelagius quickly established himself in the councils of war.
With their numbers now greatly increased, the Crusaders advanced to the walls of Damietta and dug in. It was September, 1218.