Alexandrian Crusade

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The Alexandrian Crusade of October 1365<ref name="vansteenbergen">Van Steenbergen, Jo (2003) "The Alexandrian Crusade (1365) and the Mamluk Sources: Reassessment of the kitab al-ilmam of an-Nuwayri al-Iskandarani" (PDF)</ref> was a seaborne<ref name="orderofstjohn">A Short History of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem</ref> Crusade on Alexandria led by Peter I of Cyprus.

[edit] History

Peter spent three years gathering soldiers and wealth from across Europe to power and finance this crusade. It set sail in October 1365, making landfall around 7-8 October. King Peter's army defeated the defenders of Alexandria and gained entrance to the city, after which they subjected it to an extensive sack before sailing away when a Mamluk relief army arrived somewhere around the October 12. <ref name="vansteenbergen" />

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[edit] Interpretations

Jo van Steenbergen, citing Peter Edbury, argues that the crusade was primarily an economic quest. Peter's wanted to end the primacy of Alexandria as a port in the Eastern Mediterranean in the hope that Famagusta would then benefit from the redirected trade. <ref name="vansteenbergen" /> Religious concerns, then, were secondary.

Van Steenbergen's description of contemporary Muslim accounts, such as that of Alī al-Maqrīzī, indicates that the crusading force succeeded partially thanks to superior diversionary tactics. The Alexandrian defensive force occupied itself fighting in the area around the western harbor, while the "real" force, including cavalry, made landfall elsewhere in the city, apparently hiding in a graveyard, undetected by the defenders. The crusading force was thus able to attack from both the front and the rear, panicking the Alexandrians, who did not recover from this setback. <ref name="vansteenbergen" />