THE BATTLE OF MANSURA

[1Sidenote: [1250 A.D.]]

2At the close of November, the army commenced its march to the capital of Egypt. Until their approach to the vicinity of Mansura, they overcame the open and insidious enmity of the Saracens. Soon after his departure from Damietta, the king accepted the proffered aid of five hundred horsemen of the sultan, and commanded his army to respect their guides. Vainly thinking that this order was inflexible to circumstances, the Saracens attacked the Templars, who formed the van of the army. But the valiant knights rallied round their grand master, and invoking God to aid them in this perilous conjuncture, they rushed upon and destroyed their treacherous foes. Fakhr ad-Din, the Egyptian emir, and his army were encamped on the opposite side of the Ashmun canal, which the French in vain endeavoured to cross. They commenced a causeway over the canal; but the Saracens ruined in a day the work of a month; and even crossed the Nile by one of the passages which were familiar to them and gave battle to the enemy.[b]

3It is so hard for the layman to get a true idea of the chaos and disintegrated nature of a battle, that a realistic account of how St. Louis fought the Saracens is well worth quoting, especially from the pen of the lord of Joinville whose sword was busy in these very scenes.[a]