Capture of Jerusalem

After a month of siege punctuated by unsuccessful assaults, the crusaders relaunched the attack on July 15, 1099: the siege tower moved during the night by Godfrey and Tancred opened a breach near the gate of Saint-Étienne, while Raymond of Saint-Gilles fixed the defenders on Mount Sion. The Frankish troops then swept through the northern districts and, after two days of street fighting and massacres, Jerusalem fell, marking the triumphant completion of the First Crusade. Kingdom of Jerusalem founded; Fatimids had retaken the city from the Seljuks in 1098 (English Wikipedia).

The march from Antioch to Jerusalem, marked by the capture of Arqa and the crossing of the coast, ended in June 1099 in front of a city recaptured by the Fatimids the previous year. The crusaders suffered cruelly from thirst and had to draw water from Bethlehem; However, a Genoese convoy landed in Jaffa brought wood, craftsmen and provisions. Penitential processions, command disputes between Raymond and Bohemond and the installation of catapults punctuated the siege before Iftikhar ad-Dawla refused any surrender.

English Wikipedia Siege of Jerusalem (1099) notes: Iftikhar expels Christians, poisons wells, cuts trees. North front (Godfrey, Flanders, Tancred) / south (Raymond). First assault 13 June fails (lack of wood). Genoese/English matériel at Jaffa (~17 June); Guglielmo Embriaco and Gaston of Béarn build 2 towers, ram, mantlets. Assault 14–15 July: north breaks through; Ludolf of Tournai first on the wall (EN); south fierce then Provençal breach. Not only corpus “St Stephen’s Gate” as sole breach. Massacre at Temple / synagogues; Godfrey elected Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre.

The fall of Jerusalem led to the creation of the Latin kingdom: Godfrey accepted the title of “advocate of the Holy Sepulcher” and installed a mixed garrison around the Temple, while the Latin patriarchy was restored and the major relics were distributed among the princes. The massacre of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants lastingly shocked the Middle East and pushed the Fatimid vizier Al-Afdal to raise the army which would confront the crusaders at Ascalon a few weeks later; the echo of victory triggered in the West the preaching of the crusade of 1101. Kingdom of Jerusalem founded; Fatimids had retaken the city from the Seljuks in 1098 (English Wikipedia).