The Franks Take Damietta and the Founding of al-Mansura

Al-Suyuti says that the Franks took the Chain Tower of Damietta in 615 AH, then took Damietta itself in 616 AH. Al-Malik al-Kamil was too weak to resist them, so he founded a city at the meeting of the two seas and named it al-Mansura. ²

Al-Suyuti, quoting Abu Shama, says the tower was "the lock of the land of Egypt", a tall tower in the middle of the Nile from which two chains extended to stop ships from the salt sea. ²

According to Ibn al-Athir, the Franks fought the tower for four months until they held it. Then al-Kamil left his position by night, when the emirs agreed to depose him, so the army lost its sultan and left behind the provisions and weapons. The Franks crossed the Nile on the twentieth of Dhu al-Qa'da 615 AH. ³

The Franks surrounded Damietta, and its people endured until those who remained were too few to hold, and they surrendered it under safe conduct on the twenty-seventh of Sha'ban 616 AH. ³

The "Fragments of Gold" says that the Franks left Damietta at the time of the Nile's flood, that the Muslims let the Nile flood over them, and that they asked for peace in return for handing Damietta over to al-Kamil. ⁴