| Siege of Tripoli | |||||||||
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| Part of theCrusades | |||||||||
.jpg) Fakhr al-Mulk ibn Ammar submitting toBertrand of Toulouse, 1842 painting byCharles-Alexandre Debacq | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Kingdom of Jerusalem Principality of Antioch County of Edessa County of Toulouse County of Cerdanya Republic of Genoa | Banu Ammar emirate ofTripoli Seljuk Empire Fatimid Caliphate (from 1108) | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Raymond IV of Toulouse (DOW) William II of Cerdanya (WIA) Bertrand of Toulouse Baldwin I of Jerusalem Baldwin II of Edessa Tancred of Galilee | Fakhr al-Mulk ibn Ammar Sharaf ad-Dawla ibn Abi al-Tayyib (from 1108) | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| Unknown number of Crusaders Large Genoese fleet | Unknown | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||||
  Siege of Tripoli (Eastern Mediterranean) Show map of Eastern Mediterranean | |||||||||
Thesiege of Tripoli lasted from 1102 until 12 July 1109. It took place on the site of the present day Lebanese city ofTripoli, in the aftermath of theFirst Crusade. It led to the establishment of the fourthcrusader state, theCounty of Tripoli.
After thecapture of Antioch (June 1098) and the destruction ofMa'arrat al-Numan (13 January 1099), theSyrian emirs were terrified of the advancingcrusaders and quickly handed over their cities to theFranks. On 14 January Sultan ibn Munqidh,emir ofShaizar, dispatched an embassy toRaymond IV of Toulouse, one of the leaders of the crusade, to offer provisions and food for men and horses, as well as guides toJerusalem. In February, the emir ofHoms, Janah ad-Dawla, who had fought bravely at the siege of Antioch, offered horses to Raymond. Theqadi ofTripoli,Jalal al-Mulk, from theBanu Ammar, sent rich gifts and invited the Franks to send an embassy to his city. The ambassadors marvelled at the splendors of the city, and an alliance was concluded. The crusades moved on toArqa,which they besieged from 14 February to 13 May, before continuing south to Jerusalem; they did not attack Tripoli or any other possessions of the Banu Ammar.
Thesiege of Jerusalem was a success and led to the foundation of theKingdom of Jerusalem. Most crusaders returned home afterwards; asecond movement set out, encouraged by the success of the First Crusade, but it was mostly annihilated by theSeljuk Turks inAnatolia. Raymond participated in this crusade as well, and returned to Syria after escaping from his defeat at the hands ofKilij Arslan I in Anatolia. He had with him only three hundred men.Fakhr al-Mulk,qadi of Tripoli, was not as accommodating to Raymond as his predecessor had been, and called for assistance fromDuqaq ofDamascus and the governor of Homs. However, the troops from Damascus and Homs defected once they reached Tripoli, and theqadi was defeated at the beginning of April, losing seven thousand men. Raymond could not take Tripoli itself, but capturedTortosa, which became the base of all future operations against Tripoli.
The following year, Raymond, with the aid ofByzantine engineers, constructedMons Peregrinus, "Pilgrim's mountain" or "Qalaat Saint-Gilles" ("fortress of Saint-Gilles"), in order to block Tripoli's access inland. With theGenoeseHugh Embriaco, Raymond also seizedGibelet. After theBattle of Harran in 1104, Fakhr al-Mulk askedSokman, the formerOrtoqid governor of Jerusalem, to intervene; Sokman marched into Syria but was forced to return home.
Fakhr al-Mulk then attacked Mons Peregrinus in September 1104, killing many of the Franks and burning down one wing of the fortress. Raymond himself was badly wounded, and died five months later in February 1105. He was replaced as leader by his nephewWilliam-Jordan, count ofCerdanya. On his deathbed, Raymond had reached an agreement with theqadi: if he would stop attacking the fortress, the crusaders would stop impeding Tripolitanian trade and merchandise. Theqadi accepted.
In 1108, it became more and more difficult to bring food to the besieged by land. Many citizens sought to flee to Homs,Tyre, and Damascus. The nobles of the city, who had betrayed the city to the Franks by showing them how it was being resupplied with food, were executed in the crusader camp. Fakhr al-Mulk, left to wait for help from the Seljuk sultanMehmed I, went toBaghdad at the end of March with five hundred troops and many gifts. He passed through Damascus, now governed byToghtegin after the death of Duqaq, and was welcomed with open arms. In Baghdad, the sultan received him with great spectacle, but had no time for Tripoli while there was a succession dispute inMosul. Fakhr al-Mulk returned to Damascus in August, where he learned Tripoli had been handed over to Sharaf ad-Dawla ibn Abi al-Tayyib,[1]wali ofal-Afdal Shahanshah,vizier ofEgypt, by the nobles, who were tired of waiting for him to return.
The next year, the Franks gathered in force outside Tripoli, led byBaldwin I of Jerusalem,Baldwin II of Edessa,Tancred, regent of Antioch, William-Jordan, and Raymond IV's eldest sonBertrand of Toulouse, who had recently arrived with fresh Genoan, Pisan andProvençal troops. Tripoli waited in vain for reinforcements from Egypt.
A compromise decided in the course of a dispute beneath the walls of the city, and arbitrated by Baldwin of Jerusalem, allowed the city to be captured: the County of Tripoli would be divided between the two claimants, William-Jordan, as a vassal of thePrincipality of Antioch, and Bertrand, as a vassal of Jerusalem.
The city crumbled on July 12, and was sacked by the crusaders. One hundred thousand volumes of the Dar-em-Ilm library were deemed "impious" and burned. TheEgyptian fleet arrived eight hours too late. Many of the inhabitants were enslaved, the others were deprived of their possessions and expelled. Bertrand, Raymond IV's illegitimate son, had William-Jordan assassinated in 1110 and claimed two-thirds of the city for himself, with the other third falling to the Genoans. Thus Tripoli became a crusader state; the rest of theMediterranean coast had already fallen to the crusaders or would pass to them within the next few years, with the capture ofSidon in 1110 andTyre in 1124.
