High Middle Ages · Middle East · War

1191

Fall of Acre

July 12, 1191

After a grinding two-year siege sustained by an arriving stream of European reinforcements, the Muslim garrison surrendered. When Saladin was slow to pay the agreed ransom, Richard had some 2,700 Muslim prisoners executed on the plain outside the city. The crusade gained a port; it lost much else. The massacre at Acre horrified the Muslim world and ensured that Saladin's successors would show no mercy when they eventually retook the city.