The Templars by Michael Haag

Author:Michael Haag
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-04-23T16:00:00+00:00

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Lonely Outposts

The fall of the Crusader castles to the Mamelukes needs some explanation. How could such magnificent structures, built at such vast cost and effort, incorporating the latest military design of the age, and defended by men of undoubted courage, have so rapidly capitulated or been captured? There is no single answer. Several factors worked in combination.

The Templar castle of Beaufort, overlooking the southern end of the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, fell to Baybars in 1268 with the help of first-class military engineers. They assembled something like twenty-six siege engines, that is battering rams and siege towers as well as catapults, the wooden frames and metal parts bought from Venetian merchants sailing into Egyptian ports. In this case the Templars were overwhelmed by technology. But two years earlier when the Templar castle of Saphet (Safad) fell to Baybars it had been down to treason.

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