The Near East has the longest recorded military history of any region on earth. Having the chance to live in Israel for six months. I am taking every opportunity to visit all the sites of ancient and medieval military history I can find. In the following series of articles I'll describe some of the more interesting places I have visited.

On March 1. 1992 I stood on the plains of Acre (Acco) and visited the Old City, most famous for the two stupendous sieges during the Crusades, 1189-1191, and 1291. Standing on the rebuilt remains of the medieval mole which had once protected crusader ships in the harbor, I could view an area with nearly 4400 years of fascinating military history.

Around 2275 B.C. (or 2350 by the long chronology), an Egyptian army was dispatched by pharaoh Pepi (Phiops) I of the Sixth Dynasty (Old Kingdom) to defeat the rebelling "Sand Dwellers" of Palestine. Five previous campaigns had not not sufficed to conquer them, so a new strategy was devised. One part of the army took the usual Sea Road (Via Marts) along the coast into the plains of Philistia: another sailed by sea under the command of General Uni (from whose funerary inscription we learn of this campaign). Uni's naval force rounded the "Gazelle-nose" (Mount Carmel) and landed in the bay of Haifa not far south of Acre. From my vantage point at the harbor of Acre I could see where the Egyptian navy would have landed, and the Egyptian army debarked - the oldest recorded example of transportation of an army by sea. Uni led his troops southward, catching the "Sand Dwellers" between his force and the other Egyptian army moving northward on the Sea Road, and "every rebel among them was slain."

Acre itself, however, remained an independent Canaanite city-state. first mentioned by name ('Akaya) when it was cursed by the Egyptians around 1800 B.C. in the "Execration texts;" it was first conquered by Tuthmosis III in one of his early campaigns following his famous victory at Megiddo (1482 B.C.). During the Amarna period (c. 1370 B.C.) it had an Egyptian governor. and is said to have sent 50 chariots to the aid of the Egyptian governor of Jerusalem. It did not fall to the initial Israelite conquest, and eventually came under the domination of Phoenician Tyre.

Renamed Ptolemais by the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt in the third century B.C., it became a naval base for the Ptolemies and played a part in the numerous wars between them and the Seleucids. It was also the scene of the treacherous capture of Jonathan Maccabee by Tryphon in 142 B.C. Visited by Caesar in 47 B.C., it served as the headquarters for Vespasian during the Jewish wars from 66-70 A.D.

Under the Arabs. Acre again rose to prominence as a major naval base. The Caliph Mu'awiya created massive naval yards there to build and supply ships for the Arab naval raids in the eastern Mediterranean in the seventh century. From the harbor where I stood ships and troops would have left for the great. but unsuccessful Arab sieges of Constantinople in 674, and 717718. The massive medieval harbor, one of the best in the eastern Mediterranean. was built by Ibn Tulun in the late ninth century. Fortifications were expanded by the Fatimids, for whom Acre served as a major port in Palestine. The Templars were later housed in the former Fatimid citadel.

But it was under the crusaders that Acre became a city of international status. Originally taken in 1104. it quickly became the principle port of the crusaders south of Tyre. Saladin retook the city without a fight in 1187 after his incredible victory at Hattin, only a few miles to the east. Thereafter occurred one of the great sieges in military history. The current walls of Acre were largely built in the late eighteenth century, but from certain vantage points one can see both the remains of the medieval walls, and the plains to the northeast of Acre where the siege occurred. There a small band of crusaders, under the kingdomless Guy, encamped on 28 August 1189 and began earthworks which would eventually develop into a vast trench system completely encircling the city.

Guy's army was not large enough to take the city by storm; the already powerful fortifications had been strengthened by the famous Qarakush. Saladin's military architect who had earlier built the massive fortifications for Saladin's citadel at Cairo (which I also visited recently). Guy therefore began a siege. Crusader reinforcement's trickled in, bringing Saladin himself to stop the siege; and several indecisive battles ensued in which neither side could defeat the other. Both the crusaders and Muslims sent out calls for reinforcements. The armies of the three greatest kings of Europe, Richard Lionheart. Philip of France, and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa were being prepared. Saladin summoned all his vassals, and eventually managed to completely blockaded the crusaders. Two massive Egyptian fleets forced their way into the harbor where I stood on 31 October and 26 December, relieving the garrison.

For a year and a half the two armies faced each other, neither side able to defeat or dislodge the other, nor fully prevent supplies and reinforcements reaching their enemies. Then, in the spring and early summer of 1191. Philip of France and Richard of England arrived with massive armies. Neither Saladin's army nor fleet could not hope to break through to Acre now. The Franks built huge siege engines which steadily shattered sections of the wall as the morale of the besieged deteriorated. Several assaults through breaches were attempted, which were driven off only with great difficulty.

The garrison finally surrendered, being granted their lives in return for an exchange of prisoners with Saladin, the return of the Holy Cross, and 200,000 dinars. When Saladin encountered difficulties in meeting these demands, Richard ordered the massacre of the 2500 prisoners and their wives and children. He then marched south in his ultimately unsuccessful bid for Jerusalem. Looking northeast from the Turkish city walls I could see the plains where all these events occurred, which are now (unfortunately) covered with the modern buildings of the new city.

In the following decades Acre became the capital of the partially restored kingdom. and center of a vast array of intrigues, feuds, assassinations, plots, and battles as Christians squabbled with each other for control over their deteriorating possessions in the Holy Land. All of the great crusaders of the thirteenth century passed through Acre. There Frederick arrived in triumph in 1228; I walked the harbor road where he was pelted with refuge from an unhappy mob as he departed. St. Louis of France landed in Acre on his return from his disastrous Crusade in Egypt in 1250. Marco Polo stayed there on his journey to the Orient; I visited the site of the Venetian "fundus" where he and other Italian merchants would have stayed and traded.

The most significant crusader remains are parts of the massive pillared halls of the palace, church, hospital, and garrison of the Knights of the Hospital. In my eye I could see the black robed knights meeting in the halls, discussing strategy against the Muslims for the last hundred years of the Crusades.

The headquarters of the Templars at Acre has not fared so well. As I walked along the western seawall. I came to the southwest tip of Acre where the great tower of the Temple once stood. The last scene in the history of the Crusades played itself out at here in 1291, exactly one hundred years after Richard took the city. In that year the Mamluk Sultan al-Ashraf raised a massive army (though much less than 200.000 men the crusaders claimed). and one hundred siege engines to take Acre, one of the last crusader cities. Arriving on April ffth, the massive Egyptian army battered and undermined the walls for a month. By May 8 the outer barbicon was untenable. The main attack focused on the salient Accursed Tower. which was finally breached; the Mamluks poured into the city putting it to the sword.

The harbor I visited was the site of a pitiable scene as thousands attempted to flee in a few small boats, many of which floundered under the weight of refugees. Others fled to the southwest Citadel of the Templars, which held out for a few more desperate days. Realizing all was lost, the Templars attempted to come to terms as their great Tower began to crack. Two thousand Mamluks attacked the breach, and the unsteady Tower came crashing down, killing all the crusader defenders, refugees. and Muslim attackers alike. Today nothing remains of that Templar Tower; its ruined stones were used in building projects during subsequent centuries, and the sea has slowly eroded inland until today the site I saw was simply a rocky platform under a few inches of ocean. It was here the Crusades effectively ended on 18 May, 1291. Within three months all other Crusader possessions in the Near East had surrendered.

Destroyed by the Mamluks, Acre remained largely in ruins for centuries, inhabited by only a small population. The city revived in the mid-eighteenth century under a local warlord, and flourished during the reign of terror of Ahmad al-Jazzar (the "Butcher"), who built the massive fortifications which now encircle the Old City. These are the walls which withstood Napoleon's siege in May 1799, saving the Ottoman empire, and dooming Napoleon's dreams of Middle Eastern conquest.

As I walked through the Old City I saw a plaque set up by the British in honor of a British naval officer who died in the town as the British fleet helped the Turks defeat Napoleon.

As I prepared to leave the city my eye was drawn to an antiquity store where a rusty helmet and shield of Mamluk or Turkish armor style were offered for sale, which had been discovered a few years ago buried in the rubble of Acre. History is still for sale at Acre.

(For more details on the crusader sieges mentioned above, see Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades. vol III: the Kingdoms of Acre and the Later Crusades. Cambridge. 1951.)