Second Crusade (1147-1149): The Failure at Damascus

The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was the great expedition launched after the fall of Edessa in 1144, led by King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of Germany and preached by Bernard of Clairvaux. Both royal armies suffered disastrous losses in Anatolia, and in July 1148 the survivors abandoned a four-day siege of Damascus. Its failure discredited crusading in the East for a generation, though related campaigns in Iberia and the Baltic had more lasting results.

Background: the loss of Edessa

The fall of Edessa on 24 December 1144 to Zengi, ruler of Mosul and Aleppo, was the first major defeat for the states founded after the First Crusade. Envoys from the Latin East reached Pope Eugenius III in 1145. On 1 December 1145 he issued the bull Quantum praedecessores, addressed to Louis VII and the French nobility, promising remission of sins to those who took the cross.

Initial response in France was lukewarm, and the pope entrusted the preaching to Bernard, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux and the most influential churchman of his day.

Preaching and recruitment

On 31 March 1146, at Vézelay in Burgundy, Bernard preached before Louis VII and a large crowd; the king and many nobles took the cross. Bernard then toured Flanders and the Rhineland. There a monk named Radulf had been inciting attacks on Jews, and Bernard intervened to condemn the violence. At Speyer, around Christmas 1146, he persuaded Conrad III to join, although the pope had not expected the German king to take part.

The movement widened. In 1147 the pope authorised crusades against the Muslims of Iberia and against the pagan Wends (Slavs) east of the Elbe, so that the expedition came to be seen as a war on several fronts.

The march through Anatolia

Conrad’s army left in May 1147, travelled down the Danube through Hungary and reached Constantinople in September. Relations with the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos were tense, as Manuel had just made a truce with the Seljuk Turks and feared the crusaders’ intentions. Conrad crossed into Asia Minor quickly and, on 25 October 1147, his army was routed by the Seljuks near Dorylaeum, losing most of its infantry and pilgrims.

Louis VII followed by the same land route, reaching Constantinople on 4 October 1147. Joined by Conrad and the German survivors, the French took the longer coastal road through western Anatolia. Conrad fell ill and returned to Constantinople, later sailing to the Holy Land. In early January 1148 the French army was badly beaten in the mountains near Mount Cadmus after its vanguard lost contact with the main body. Louis reached the port of Attalia, where he took ship with his nobles for Antioch, leaving many foot soldiers and pilgrims to their fate.

Antioch and the decision to attack Damascus

Louis arrived at Antioch in March 1148. Its prince, Raymond of Poitiers, uncle of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, urged an attack on Aleppo, the base of Zengi’s son Nur ad-Din. Louis refused, and his departure from Antioch was soured by rumours about Eleanor’s closeness to her uncle and her talk of ending the marriage.

On 24 June 1148, at a great assembly near Acre, Louis, Conrad, the young King Baldwin III of Jerusalem and the leading barons decided to attack Damascus. The choice remains controversial. Damascus, governed by the regent Mu’in ad-Din Unur, had often been an ally of Jerusalem against Zengi’s dynasty, but it was rich, close at hand and a prestigious prize.

The siege of Damascus

The combined crusader army, whose size is uncertain and variously estimated by historians, reached Damascus on 24 July 1148. It advanced through the orchards to the west of the city, which offered water and food but also cover for defenders who harassed the attackers from behind walls and trees. After fighting their way to the river, the crusaders camped close to the walls.

On 27 July the leaders moved the army to the plain east of the city, where the walls were thought weaker. The new position lacked water and shelter, and news arrived that Nur ad-Din and his brother Sayf ad-Din were approaching with relief forces. Disputes broke out over who would rule Damascus if it fell. On 28 July 1148 the crusaders retreated, harassed by Turkish horse archers.

Contemporaries blamed treachery, accusing local barons of taking bribes from Unur. Modern historians stress the poor choice of target, the bad position on the eastern side and the danger from the relief armies.

Key people

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), abbot of Clairvaux, was the crusade’s voice. His letters and sermons reached audiences across France, Flanders and Germany, and his prestige persuaded two kings to take the cross. After the failure he argued that God’s purposes were hidden and that the crusaders’ own sins had brought defeat.

Pope Eugenius III (pope 1145–1153), a former Cistercian monk and Bernard’s disciple, issued the crusade bull and later approved the campaigns in Iberia and the Baltic. He spent much of his pontificate in exile from Rome because of the city’s communal revolt.

Louis VII of France (reigned 1137–1180) was young, devout and inexperienced as a commander. His decision to sail from Attalia, leaving many of his followers behind, was criticised even by sympathetic writers such as his chaplain Odo of Deuil, whose account is a main source for the French march.

Conrad III (reigned 1138–1152), the first Hohenstaufen king of Germany, was never crowned emperor. He went east despite unrest at home and, after recovering from illness, was treated generously by Manuel I, to whom he was linked by marriage alliances.

Mu’in ad-Din Unur (died 1149), the Turkish regent of Damascus, defended the city skilfully, using its orchards and irregular troops, and played the crusaders off against the approaching armies of Nur ad-Din.

Aftermath and the other fronts

Conrad left for home in September 1148, after a further plan to attack Ascalon came to nothing. Louis stayed in the Holy Land until after Easter 1149. In Europe, Bernard of Clairvaux defended himself by blaming the sins of the crusaders, while many blamed the Byzantines. Louis and Eleanor’s marriage was annulled in 1152.

The crusade’s real successes came in the West. An Anglo-Norman, Flemish and German fleet bound for the Holy Land helped King Afonso Henriques of Portugal take Lisbon after a siege that ended in October 1147. Almería fell to Castile and its allies in 1147 and Tortosa to Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona in 1148. The Wendish Crusade of 1147 gained little immediately but opened a long era of German and Danish expansion along the Baltic.

Consequences

The failure at Damascus pushed the city into the arms of Nur ad-Din, who took it peacefully in 1154 and united Muslim Syria. Distrust between the crusaders and Byzantium deepened, and no major royal crusade went east for forty years, until Jerusalem itself fell in 1187.

Timeline

• 1144, 24 December: Zengi captures Edessa.
• 1145, 1 December: Pope Eugenius III issues Quantum praedecessores.
• 1146, 31 March: Bernard of Clairvaux preaches at Vézelay; Louis VII takes the cross.
• 1146, December: Conrad III takes the cross at Speyer.
• 1147, 25 October: Conrad’s army is defeated near Dorylaeum.
• 1147, October: Lisbon surrenders to Afonso Henriques and northern crusaders.
• 1148, January: The French are defeated near Mount Cadmus.
• 1148, 24 June: The assembly near Acre decides to attack Damascus.
• 1148, 24–28 July: Siege of Damascus ends in retreat.
• 1149: Louis VII returns to France.

Why it matters

The Second Crusade showed that even the greatest kings of the West could fail in the East, and its collapse strengthened the Muslim powers that later produced Saladin. It also widened the idea of crusading to Iberia and the Baltic, a pattern that shaped European expansion for centuries.