I
The sea breeze blowed warmly, waving the yellow flag which in the middle was a black horse. Wind created low waves which smashed against the wooden ship. Sun was rising from the horizon and the sunlight sparkled from the ocean. Morning has arrived.
The ship flotilla navigated slowly forward. In the middle of the flotilla was the biggest ship, also it had the biggest flag. An aside of the biggest ship, slightly behind, was two a bit smaller ships. Behind the three biggest ships came a lot of smaller ships. It was a considerable view; Hundreds of ships navigating slowly forward in the open ocean.
“Milord, we are there!” Robert woke up at once he heard those words. Time has come. He put on his mail armour shirt quickly and on it he put yellow/black tunic. Then he put his belt around his hip and strapped the scabbard to his belt. Robert walked to the deck and went to the bow. There it was mighty city of Jaffa. Great defence walls surrounded the city and in the west side of the wall was twenty defence towers. The city surely looked plentiful. In fact if looked accurately could see soldiers coming out of the city and running toward shore. Saracens had noticed the ship flotilla.
Two boats get closer the biggest ship. After the boats were attached to the bigger ship two men climbed up to the deck from both sides. Man who was coming from the left side was Louis de Provence and the other was Louis de Sicily. De Provence was slightly over twenty. He had very short cutted brown hair and he was tall man. He was neither thin nor overweight. De Provence was a very good soldier and he commanded nearly seven thousand soldiers from southern France. Louis de Sicily was a brother to Robert. He was almost thirty years old and slightly roundish. He was very harsh looking and he was known from his lustful habits.
“Good morning milord!” Both of them said to Robert.
“Morning.” Robert answered wearily and continued with a bit lively voice: “I will keep this short. Muslims had set up defence positions in the shore. Fortunately we have tremendous man superiority so the plan is simple; we glide closer to shore and then jump down to the water and attack against the enemy. Archers shoots from the ships before we attack. I will jump first.”
“Lord, are you sure that you want to involve to the battle? Wouldn’t be better that you wont participate in this fight? It is dangerous, especially if they have archers, they have considerable hit percentage when moving slowly in the water.” De Provence said.
“What kind of king is that who let his countrymen to fight for him and cowardly stay away from the battle?”
“But…” “No buts!” Robert snapped. “Now go.”
Both men bowed to Robert and left to their boats. Robert sent some young soldier under the deck to inform the soldiers about upcoming battle.
Robert gave a sign to the captain and the ship started to glide slowly toward the shore. Enemies in the shore were formed to tight defence formation. The rest of the flotilla moved tightly after the flagship. Suddenly the captain shouts that the water is getting too shallow and the ships cannot move any further. Robert looked his soldiers over his shoulders and heaves a deep sigh after he jumps.
Water was him to his neck, distance to ashore was about fifty meters. Robert heard many splashes few second after he jumped. The archers loosed their arrows from the ships and thinned enemy lines. Enemy archers ran to the shore and loosed their arrows quickly, many arrow hit to their target, but it seemed that Sicilian soldiers jumped endless amount from the ships. Finally first soldiers get to the shore, King Robert among them. They attacked furiously against the enemy lines. More and more soldiers come ashore and attacked with ferocity and penetrated deep in enemy lines. After few minutes fighting some Muslims retreated and then all of them flied. Sicilians tried to catch them up, but it was hard without horses. Muslims retreated very quickly, though Sicilians had mighty man superiority. The battle was over and Sicilians had their first crushing victory.
Robert looked the battlefield motionless. He was sunk to his thoughts. His brother Louis walked behind toward him and put his hand to Roberts shoulder and said quietly:
“You fought well today my king”. “Thank you Louis, as well you showed today why you are my marshal” Robert said with a smile. “Do you know the numbers”? Robert asked.
“Yes… We lost only about two hundred men and the enemy slightly fewer than thousand men.”
“Thank you. Order the men gather the dead bodies and burn them. Then we will siege Jaffa. Also give the signal to the ships so engineers and horses can come ashore.” Robert said.
“Yes, milord” Louis bowed and left.
Robert cleaned his sword and put it back to scabbard.
After the bodies were burned Sicilians surrounded Jaffa and set up tents around it. Engineers started to build siege towers and battering rams and they build them far in to night.
Cold wind breezed from the sea making the night colder than it would normally be. Ambient around the Jaffa was very flat, few trees here and there and indefinitely of sand. Moon mirrored from the ocean and ships swinged in the waves. It was truly weird that the heat of the day turned so cold against for the night.
Robert didn’t get sleep. Too many thoughts circled him. Especially one question; how the northern army clarified in the Acre?
Robert had splitted his army in half when they left from southern Italy. Northern army attacked against Acre by Nicolas de Joinville’s guidance. Nicolas was the count of Korinthos and Achaia, but he was not a good soldier, rather coward than a soldier. Henri Soumenos, the marshal of the Korinthos, was commanding around two thousand and five hundred soldiers in the northern army. Unfortunately he was coward too. Arnaud de Promontorio, good friend of Roberts’s wife Martha, commanded roughly nine thousand soldiers. Gauthier de Brienne, Roberts’s friend and the count of Lecce, lead approximately five thousand soldiers. Arnaud and Gauthier were better soldiers than Henri or Nicolas. Still Nicolas demanded that army under his command.
A lot of depends on did they conquer Acre. Acre was very important chain in this bold attempt and it was a good bridgehead to further attempts.
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Three days later Sicilians started their attack against Jaffa. Siege towers rumbled toward the walls and the ladders was set up in the walls. Saracens had only few hundred men defending the city. Again Sicilians had tremendous man superiority. In this time the King didn’t participate in the battle. Quickly the city was conquered. March 9 1344 was marked to day when Jaffa fell.
King Robert rode to the city and announced to Muslims by assistance of translator that the Muslims can live at peace if they do not harm the Sicilians. King Robert denied flatly killing or robbing from his soldiers.
The city was very beautiful, market in the middle of it where many Muslims traded and people babbled their strange language. What was remarkable was that that here was no filth in the streets, all clean. All building was beautifully made, but what impressed Robert were the mosques, they were impressing.
Robert walked on the west side of the walls watching the sunset. His long brown hair swinged in the fresh sea breeze. Sun was setting down in the horizon and the last beams of the sun dazzled the eyes.
Robert walked along the walls with the small faint of smile in his face. He looked to the sea and noticed that a ship was coming from the north toward Jaffa’s harbour. Robert tried to look in detail, but he didn’t see the flag. He walked fast to the city and continued to the harbour. He took few soldiers with him, in case if the ship was a hostile. Ship came closer and closer. Relief the ship pulls up a yellow flag within a black horse in it. Robert sighed deep and walked closer to a shore. Before the ship was in harbour a man appeared in the bow of the ship and yells:
“Acre is conquered, Acre is conquered!”
Many soldiers who had gathered in the harbour started to celebrate after hearing those words. Robert was relieved, most important link had achieved and March to Jerusalem was about to begin.
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