Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades by Roger Crowley


Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades
Title : Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : -
ISBN-10 : 9780300230314
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 304
Publication : First published October 8, 2019
Awards : HWA Non-fiction Crown Longlist (2020)

From a New York Times-bestselling author, a stirring account of the siege of Acre in 1291, when the last Christian stronghold fell to the Muslim army

The 1291 siege of Acre was the Alamo of the Christian Crusades -- the final bloody battle for the Holy Land. After a desperate six weeks, the beleaguered citadel surrendered to the Mamluks, bringing an end to Christendom's two-hundred year adventure in the Middle East.

In The Accursed Tower, Roger Crowley delivers a lively narrative of the lead-up to the siege and a vivid, blow-by-blow account of the climactic battle. Drawing on extant Arabic sources as well as untranslated Latin documents, he argues that Acre is notable for technical advances in military planning and siege warfare, and extraordinary for its individual heroism and savage slaughter. A gripping depiction of the crusader era told through its dramatic last moments, The Accursed Tower offers an essential new view on a crucial turning point in world history.


Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades Reviews


  • Dax

    The familiar Crowley formula is there, but this one felt rushed. Crowley covers the hundred years leading up to the fall of Acre in about 120 pages. That's a lot of time covered in very few pages. The battle itself is well done- as you would expect from Crowley- but this one should have been 400-500 pages rather than the 200+ we get. Not Crowley's best work, but still pretty good. I highly recommend reading 'Conquerors' and 'Empires of the Sea' before this one.

  • Joanne

    I first became interested in The Crusades when I read
    Sharon Kay Penman's books about Richard The Lionheart. Her books about Richard obviously told the story from the European viewpoint. In the last book she wrote, before her death,
    The Land Beyond the Sea, Penman stays in the Middle East with the story. After reading that last year, I started looking for and picking up nonfiction books on the subject, this is one of them.

    The Europeans, from the First Crusade, captured Jerusalem from the Saracens in 1099. That war for the Holy Land lasted nearly 200 years. This is the story of the last crusade and the last battle fought for Acre, a strategically placed harbor city that both sides coveted.


    Roger Crowley certainly does his research and he is a good writer for the arm chair historian. His telling of the tale, for the most part, is easy reading and not too technical. With the exception of the long description and explanations of how the medieval war machines worked, I was easily able to follow and enjoy the story. Studying the drawings of the machines and trying to figure them out, well it gave me a headache more then once.

    This was a "new me to author" and I will give him another try if the opportunity arises. 3 stars for the work and research, 1 star for making it a readable account of history.

  • Charles Haywood

    I often say that the Crusades were a high point of Western civilization. And they were, but they were also an example of flawed glory. Certainly, the goal of the Crusades was peerlessly laudable, and the virtues shown by Crusaders admirable. At the same time, the Holy Land Crusades illustrated key weaknesses of the West, and, after all, if nothing succeeds likes success, nothing fails like failure. In Roger Crowley’s The Accursed Tower all of this is on display, though Christian valor is probably the dominant theme, as it should be. In a sane society, the events of this book would be used for a blockbuster movie featuring the Christians as doomed heroes. Not in today’s society, to be sure, but maybe in tomorrow’s.

    The book’s focus is the final years of the Crusader States, which were founded after the epic success of the First Crusade in reconquering Muslim-occupied Palestine in A.D. 1099, and are generally deemed to have ended with the fall of the ancient city of Acre to the Mamluk sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil in 1291. The Crusader States had been in decline since Saladin’s victory at the Horns of Hattin in 1187, and what intermittent respite the Crusaders had gotten from Muslim pressure came from Muslim disunity, not Crusader gains. Then as now, Muslim discord was the norm (Frederick II took advantage of it to regain Jerusalem by treaty in 1228; it was was lost again in 1244). But off and on, due to religious fervor or political consolidation, which usually went hand-in-hand, pressure on the Christians spiked, so the writing had long been on the wall. In the end, it was simple: the Muslims were both rich and close to Outremer, effectively surrounding it, while at this time the West was relatively poorer and farther away.

    The book’s title comes from one of the towers defending Acre, a sea port defended on its landward side by extensive fortifications, including a double wall and numerous barbicans and towers. (It mostly could not be approached from its seaward side, and its harbor was protected by the chain formerly guarding the Golden Horn in Constantinople, stolen by the Crusaders sacking Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, in 1204.) As Crowley notes, much of the precise layout of both the city and its fortifications can only be conjectured at this point, but all agree that the Accursed Tower (a name of uncertain origin) lay at the crucial bend in the walls, and thus was the key pressure point during the Muslim siege. Acre had belonged to the Crusaders since it was retaken from the Muslims in 1104 (who had taken it from the Eastern Romans in the late seventh century), except for a two-year period after Saladin conquered it in 1187—it was retaken in a brutal siege in 1189, part of the Third Crusade.

    But the Third Crusade failed to free Jerusalem from its occupiers, and the Crusader States for the next one hundred years were sadly diminished, consisting of a string of principalities and fortresses, the latter typically operated by the military religious orders, most famously the Hospitaller citadel at Krak des Chevaliers, north of Acre, near Tripoli (the Outremer Tripoli, not the one in North Africa). Acre became de facto the center of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, the south end of the Crusader States, both for trade and war, thus becoming a very wealthy and cosmopolitan city. It was also, in the way of rich port cities at the crossroads of civilizations, a pit of vice, although no doubt this was somewhat exaggerated by pious Western churchmen shocked upon their first arrival. And like most of the Crusader States, Acre debilitatingly lacked coherent political leadership. The King of Jerusalem was an absentee landlord and the strongest power was the Pope’s representative, the Patriarch of Jerusalem (who lived in Acre, not Jerusalem), but other powers, including the Templars and Hospitallers, were nearly independent.

    Acre’s existence as a Christian stronghold throughout the century was therefore tenuous, but daily life not all that different from a hundred years before, or from any other Mediterranean port. Muslim and Christian merchants struck deals; the Genoese and Venetians traded with everyone, including the enemy, and fought each other; everybody got along in some years and not in others. The Christians talked about retaking Jerusalem and did nothing, but on the other side, chronic Muslim civil war, and the threat of the Mongols, kept the Muslims from concentrating on permanently dislodging the Crusaders. And, often as not, the trade brokered by the Christians was of great benefit to Muslim rulers, reducing their incentive to do more than issue vague endorsements of jihad and in practice to curb Muslim fanatics eager to fulfil the Prophet’s commands for ceaseless war against the infidel. All in all, no doubt daily life was fairly pleasant for most people, contrary to the myth of medieval suffering.

    The first half of the book is a lively narration of the thirteenth century in Outremer. Crowley covers the mid-century Seventh Crusade, where Louis IX’s armies came to grief in Egypt. He covers the Mamluk defeat in 1260 of the Mongols at Ain Jalut, Goliath’s Spring, neither hindered nor helped by the Crusaders, who at least gave the Muslims safe passage to the battlefield. He narrates the takeover of Egyptian power by the military slave Mamluks from their Ayyubid overlords, and their welding into a disciplined conquering force under the sultan Baybars, the “Lion of Egypt,” a puritanical Muslim like so many successful conquerors. (As Crowley notes, because the Christians of Damascus had dared to drink wine and ring bells when the Mongols were admitted to Damascus, Baybars collectively punished Christians by, among other crimes, destroying “the hugely significant church of St. Mary in Nazareth, the supposed site of the Annunciation.”) Most relevantly for the current narrative, Baybars systematically increased pressure on the Crusader States, killing peasants in the fields and intermittently besieging and conquering towns and cities. These included the southern towns of Caesarea, Arsuf, and Jaffa, and the critical northern city of Antioch. He made life difficult for Christians, who were incapable of mounting a unified response, and lacked the military manpower to do much more than man their fortresses and battlements. And he didn’t care much that the Christians provided economic benefits to his realm; jihad was far more important, and this was what sealed the fate of the Crusader States.

    The Christians in Europe were well aware of what was going on, but as so often, mustered only a feeble response accompanied by a great deal of hot air. Henry III’s son, Edward Longshanks (later Edward I, made famous several years back by the movie Braveheart), along with Louis IX, led the Ninth Crusade. Edward landed in Acre with his knights in 1271 (shortly after Baybars finally managed to capture Krak des Chevaliers), and won some major victories over Baybars, but soon enough departed (though he left behind several men who were critical to the final defense of Acre), changing nothing.

    The second half of the book narrows the focus to the Fall of Acre. In 1280, Baybars died (probably poisoned), to be succeeded as sultan (after the usual civil war) by another Mamluk general, Qalawun, who continued what Baybars had accomplished, following much the same religious and political policies. He prepared to attack Acre, but died in 1290, to be succeeded by Khalil, who again continued his predecessors’ program. Men and material, called to jihad with its dual rewards of paradise and booty, swarmed to Khalil from every direction, and he began the siege in April, 1291.

    Unlike towns earlier conquered by the Muslims, however, Acre was very strongly defended (though, due to internal conflict, the defenders had not beefed up the defenses adequately before the siege) and had a full garrison, of infantry, mounted knights, and such ancillary critical personnel as Pisan siege engineers. It could be re-supplied from the sea (the Mamluks never had any navy to speak of) and thus had to be taken by force, not by starving out the defenders. On the debit side of the balance sheet, though, the defenders had unclear military command, and failed to coordinate properly, a problem the Sultan did not face. The man effectively in overall charge was the Patriarch, Nicolas de Hanapes (the only canonized Crusader), but his hold was persuasive, not dictatorial. And, the biggest problem of all, Khalil had functionally infinite resources with high morale and strong incentives, so the result was largely inevitable.

    Crowley does an outstanding job of narrating the siege and the Fall. Attacks and counterattacks; siege machines; mining; sorties by land and sea. He uses fascinating stories from contemporary sources, both Muslim and Christian, most interestingly from the “Templar of Tyre,” an anonymous Arabic-speaking knight who was probably not a Templar but was included within the councils of the Templars. On both sides, the heroism often found in such battles, ancient and modern, was on display—the men from the book Red Platoon, fighting in twenty-first-century Afghanistan, would fit right in here, and the men fighting in Acre would fit in there. Over several weeks, the Muslims wore the Christians down; not enough men arrived to replenish losses, and the Christians grew short of ammunition.

    By mid-May, the battle was nearing its end. On May 18, after bombardment and mining broke in the walls, Khalil’s troops, coming in endless waves of heavily armored, highly disciplined men, overcame Christian resistance at the Accursed Tower, and thereby entered the space between the double walls, which allowed them to spread out to attack the gates. Last-ditch resistance of the city itself was organized by the Marshal of the Hospitallers, Matthieu de Clermont, who is depicted on the cover of the book in a nineteenth-century French painting, which also shows the double walls.

    Clermont and his men rode out and died in the streets, and the Muslims then slaughtered and raped their way through the city, killing or enslaving everyone not able to get away by ship. (Such behavior was the norm in medieval warfare, of course, but is always talked about nowadays as if it was only something Christians did, so it is refreshing to see historical honesty.) A few of the internal citadels, such as the Templar’s castle, held out for a while, but were soon ground down and the same treatment meted out to the survivors. Khalil then demolished much of the city, though its skeleton was a landmark for passing ships for centuries. So ended the Holy Land Crusades, mostly forgotten in the East until resurrected as part of resistance to colonialism in the nineteenth century, and remembered mostly only in distorted fashion in the West, a propaganda tool for Protestants and atheists up to the present day.

    But today I am less focused on politics; today is mostly straight history. One reason I very much enjoyed this book is that I have long had a fascination with medieval weaponry and siege equipment, and Crowley also appears entranced by siege weaponry, especially catapults and trebuchets, about which he talks a great deal. Why I have such an interest, I have no idea, but it has always been true. I had castle-building Lego analogues as a child, with which I played endlessly. I had toy soldiers, knights in armor, one of which now stands by me as I write, wielding a morning star (a real, if rare, weapon, despite occasional modern claims to the contrary). I know from reading Howard Pyle’s Men of Iron at the age of five what a glaive-guisarme is (a weapon consisting of a blade on a wooden pole, used to slash and stab, with a hook on the other side, used in the novel in the climactic duel by the underdog). Perhaps my personal interests made this book more gripping to me than it would be to others, however, so if this type of thing bores you, maybe this book is not for you.

    Accuracy is key for Crowley, to the extent that a narrative of any ancient event can be made fully accurate. Unlike many modern writers, he does not ascribe to Muslims inventions they did not make. He notes that the Chinese invented most of the catapult-type siege weapons used by Khalil, including the traction trebuchet, which the Byzantines had also used. The more powerful counterweight trebuchet, a vital weapon in Khalil’s arsenal, able to topple stonework like the Accursed Tower, was probably invented by the Byzantines, though the record is unclear. (With both stonethrowers and, later, gunpowder, the Europeans took the basic idea that had existed for hundreds of years with incremental improvements, and proceeded to reinvent and massively improve the technology within a few decades. No doubt that is why many of Khalil’s catapults were ifrangi, “Frankish catapults.”) The only error that Crowley does make is to claim, repeatedly, that the Mamluks used Greek Fire, by giving that name to all incendiaries, not actual Greek Fire, a liquid that burned on water and was dispensed under pressure, the secret of which was probably lost by this time even to the Byzantines. But that’s a pretty small and common error, that does not detract from the book.

    Crowley wrote an even better earlier book, Empires of the Sea, which centers on the 1565 Siege of Malta, where the Christians won. I have been to Malta, and there is no experience like standing where such an epic battle took place, seeing in your mind’s eye what it must have been like. That’s not really possible in Acre, anymore, but reading this book nearly puts you there. Strangely, Crowley mentions modern Acre quite a bit, but never once mentions that it is in Israel, and most of its modern population is Jewish. Which goes to show that times change, I suppose. I won’t predict the future for Acre, but looking backward allows the reader to grasp, in outline, the life and death of the Crusades. The Fall of Acre is in many ways a microcosm of that age of action, showing both the good and the bad: heroic men performing acts of glory, and bad men betraying each other and indulging in vice. Often it was the same men. These are the sorts of stories we should tell our children, and, as I say, make movies about. One can hope.

  • Ryan Ripamonti

    A well-written narrative history, if a rather depressing account, of how the momentary reprieve in Mamluk in-fighting allowed Sultan Khalil to destroy Acre in 1291 and sweep the last remaining Crusader fortresses into the sea.

    The book appears to make the case that the Holy Land was lost to Christendom not due to any particular ingenuity of the Muslims, but fundamentally due to a chronic shortage of manpower caused by the proliferation by successive popes of competing means of obtaining the remission of sins. These competing causes included crusades to Sicily, Moorish Spain and Prussia, in addition to the sale of indulgences. In the words of the Templar poet Ricaut Bonomel:

    “For he [the pope] pardons for money people who have taken our cross
    And if anyone wishes to swap the Holy Land
    For the war in Italy
    Our league lets them do so
    For he sells God and Indulgences for cash.”

    It proved to be a fatal error. To quote the final words of Templar Grand Master Guillaume de Beaujeu, upon being pierced by a Saracen javelin while making his last stand in Acre’s defence:

    “Sirs, I can do nothing more, for I am dying. See the wound!”

  • Daniel

    I'm a fan of Mr. Crowley's books, they are usually well written engaging and exciting and this is no exception but my problem with it was that it felt like he padded the book to much. A good 3/4th of the book is not about the siege of Acre, it was instead a brief history of the crusades followed by the fall of the crusader states. When the book is small already, especially by Mr. Crowleys standards this makes the book seem like something that he had to force out for a quota or something along those lines.

    Still a good book and an interesting story. Worth a read but just dont expect Mr. Crowleys usual standard of excellence.

  • عبد الله القصير

    البرج الملعون هو أحد الأبراج المشهورة في قلعة عكا ، وهذا الكتاب يشرح بالتفصيل المئة سنة الثانية من الحروب الصليبية والتي اعقبت الحملة الصليبية الثالثة. المؤلف يركز على الأسباب السياسية والعسكرية التي أدت بالنهاية إلى حصار وسقوط عكا بأيدي المماليك ثم نهاية الوجود الصليبي في الشرق العربي.

  • Sorin Hadârcă

    Roger Crowley's accounts of historical events are craftily painted in vivid colours. However, the fall of Accre is but a final episode of the Crusaders' Era and therefore it lacks the canvas-like space that became familiar through his other writings. More like a chapter. But a well-written one.

  • Hadrian

    Loved the way he painted every aspect of the account like a fine picture, it felt like it was a fictional story even though it was all history. Great read.

  • Mike Adams

    It might be more indicative of my own attention, but I found the actual narrative of the siege a bit harder to stay engrossed in than the other Crowley books I've read. I appreciate this book the most for its background on Acre and the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate, but it's on a tier below 1453 and Empires of the Sea for me overall.

  • Chris

    Roger Crowley is perhaps one of my favorite writers of history. In addition to the prerequisite extensive research, he brings the events alive by providing rich background on the key players; using vivid language; and demonstrating an excited passion for the topics he approaches. His previous works have focused on the Mediterranean and the conflict between Muslims and Christianity in Empires of the Sea and 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West.

    The Accursed Tower brings us to the fall of Acre in 1291. As with his other books, he spends a lot of time setting the scene before events are unleashed. He also brings the reader up close to the battle, hovering and descending across both sides of the battle lines. Although we know the outcome with the hindsight of history, his approach immerses the reader at a personal level to the unknowable struggles of both attackers and defenders.

    However, compared to his other works, this one felt a little rushed and unfinished.

    It’s possible that there is simply a lack of source material from firsthand chroniclers. He is able to give more detail on some well-document characters; however, as to the Templars, Hospitalers, Venetians, and others who occupy the city at the time of the siege, not much information is provided. He is able to spend a little more time detailing the Muslim side of events, but again, not to the level of detail seen in his other works.

    The Accursed Tower remains highly recommended nonetheless, and serves as a good companion to the crusades for other armchair historians.

  • Kelly Kerns

    While I enjoyed the book, it falls short of its title. This is a really good description of the actual battle and technology used (including an in-depth discussion of mining and trebuchets), but didn't really tell the story of the "End of the Crusades"

    Obviously the battle was an overwhelming defeat for the crusaders, but I would have liked a deeper exploration about the political, cultural, and societal contributions that lead to the actual ending of the crusades.

    There is some good discussion of the politics of the sultanate and power dynamics on the Muslim side, but the Christian side of the formula is almost more of a primer or review of some general trends that lead to disinterest in prolonged crusading. That brief discussion is not directly linked to the battle itself leading one to wonder if this just happened to be a final loss coinciding with a decline in appetite for the crusades or was in fact a driver for that decline.

  • Lance Hillsinger

    The Accursed Tower, by Roger Crowley, is great for the true history buff. To use a sports analogy, Crowley gives the reader the pre-game show, the play-by-play, and the post-game show of Muslim siege and conquest of the Christian stronghold in Acre. Given that Crowley wrote about events in the 1200s, the amount of detail he complied is truly amazing. Yet, as he tells of the march of history, Crowley doesn’t lose the reader in obscure facts or side stories. There is “action.” There is “drama.” There are also the author’s well-reasoned insights.

    Still, medieval history is of interest to a relative few. A five-star book needs broad appeal. However, if you are a history buff, or looking for a gift for the history buff in your life, The Accursed Tower, would make a fine choice.

  • Daniel Cooley

    Roger Crowley is one of my favorite historical authors, and I eagerly awaited this book's release. However, it was a bit disappointing. I got the feeling that Crowley was working with less source material than in his previous books. The fall of Acre isn't an event chronicled in as much detail as other sieges such as Constantinople or Malta, with the result that the book often felt stretched to provide a fulfilling narrative. It's a much shorter read than his other works, but even still a lot of space is filled with tangents (he went on about trebuchets for ages). In the end the final battle was quick and anticlimactic. I'd love to see more work by Crowley about the crusades, but I'd recommend one of his other books over this one.

  • Lissa

    I admit that I know next to nothing about the Crusades. This book was a good entry point into learning about them; the author explained (relatively briefly, so I didn't get bogged down the details) the first hundred years of the Crusades before moving onto the fall of Acre, which pretty much signified the end. I learned a good amount, and I left feeling very lucky that I was not alive during this time (which seems very brutal). The very specific details about the siege weapons kind of made my eyes glaze over, but I'm sure other people would enjoy that a great deal, so YMMV. Altogether, it was a good book, and a quick read (the book is only 215 pages long [the rest being notes, indices, sources, etc] and the font was quite large).

  • OldFisben

    Долго ждал эту книгу, однако, получил не совсем то, что хотелось. Вернее, совсем не в тех объемах, кои предполагались. То ли Кроули было нечего рассказать, то ли он не слишком утруждался, однако, ценной информации внутри немного. Нет, все по-прежнему интересно и увлекательно, однако того накала и эпичности, что была в предыдущих книгах, уже нет. Впрочем, стоит признать, что за отдельным исключением и сама Акра не смогла дать мамлюкам достойный отпор, став заключительной точкой в агонии христианских королевств на Ближнем Востоке. Колесо сделало свой оборот и вскоре уже турки топтали европейский континет.

  • Elliot Gates

    This is the second book i've read from Roger Crowley (the first being '1453: The Holy War For Constantinople'). Once again I am impressed with the level of detail and well sourced accounts provided to give an exciting and emotional account of the siege.

    The fall of Acre unquestionably ended the age of crusades and Crowley's style and prose brings the testimonies to the life of those who fell. While the first portion of the book focuses on the preparation for the siege (or lack thereof), and squabbling from the various Monastic Orders and Italian trading colonies.

    A very concise summary of an important moment in history.

  • Sean Malone

    This is an epic telling of the latter part of the Crusader Period from both the Islamic and Christian perspectives. The advances in Mamluke siegecraft set against the increasing isolation and division of the dwindling Crusader states set the stage for a superb climax detailing the fall of Acre.

  • Bradley Somers

    This is great historical writing. It is however not a simple read if your not tweaked by dates, names and a historical build up. I feel like the description oversells and under delivers. But if you are a history buff and want more then a simple summary this is probably your mind-candy.

  • Maarten Markus

    Brilliant historic narrative on the crusades and defense of the last Christian foothold in the middle east in the dark ages. The book is carefully crafted out of a ton of historic writings and despite being nuanced on specificities, it is also thrilling to read.

  • Wes

    Lots of good history and does a good job of describing the tactics of the battles. I just wish it did a little more to describe the story of the actual people.

  • Lázadó Irodalom

    Tartalmas, olvasmányos mű, ami az egyik kedvenc történelmi korszakomon kalauzolt végig.

    Téma iránt érdeklődőknek mindenképpen ajánlom, de azoknak is, akik tanulva vágynak egy kis kikapcsolódásra.