The Fall of Acre (1291)

After Ain Jalut, Sultan Baybars and his successors took the Crusader castles of Palestine and Syria one by one. By the late 13th century the Crusaders held only Acre and a few coastal towns. Acre was the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the centre of the military orders.

Sultan Qalawun died while preparing to march on Acre, and his son al-Ashraf Khalil took up the task. In April 1291 a great Mamluk army with many siege engines surrounded the city. After a six-week siege the walls were breached on 18 May and the city fell, though the Templars' fortress held out a few days longer.

With Acre the Crusaders lost their last great foothold in the East, and the remaining coastal towns soon surrendered. The idea of crusading lived on in Europe for centuries, but in the Levant the 190-year history of the Crusader states was over.