Seventh Crusade
Advance on Cairo
Having won Damietta, the Crusaders now stopped. The Nile would begin to flood in another month, and everyone remembered the fate of the Fifth Crusade. Moreover, the greater part of the army had not yet arrived. Louis decided to wait out the flood season before considering a further advance up the Nile.
Louis was in his element here, dispensing justice and arrangement the affairs of government. But as the army grew and waiting, it consumed supplies at an alarming rate, and discipline grew slack. Once again the Sultan, who was old and dying of tuberculosis, offered Jerusalem for Damietta. Once again, the Crusaders refused, believing that they had the Egyptians on the run and would be able to win even more.
In Cairo, the political temperature rose rapidly. The Sultan, Ayub, was dying and everyone knew it. He had relied on his slave warriors, known as the Mamluks, for the defense of Damietta and they were now disgraced. They were advocating a palace revolution to restore their position, but Fakhr ad-Din would not lead them.
Ayub did what he could. Al-Kamil had constructed a small town on the site of his victory over the Fifth Crusade, naming it al-Mansourah: the Victorious. Ayub had himself brought in a litter to Mansourah and turned the place into an armed camp. He sent Bedouin raiders out to harry any Christians who dared to venture beyond Damietta and the army camp set up outside it.
September came and went, then October. The floodwaters receded and the way to Cairo opened. Louis received reinforcements from France, commanded by his brother Alfonso of Poitou. After some discussion, it was agreed to advance up the Nile toward Cairo, and the army set out on November 20, 1249. The King left his Queen behind in Damietta, along with the Patriarch of Jerusalem and a strong garrison.
Sultan Ayub died on November 23 at Mansourah. With the Mamluks and other troops already restless, the Sultana managed to hide the fact of her husbands death long enough to recall her son, Turan-shah, from Syria and to make sure that she and Fakhr ad-Din were securely in power. She managed all this even as Louis and his army were advancing up the Nile toward her.