Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-24398225-20150416161202/@comment-3428312-20150505231414

Lordganon wrote: The battle in question involved the crusaders breaking into a large city, and fighting the vast majority of the Egyptian Army, as well as the locals, inside it, after being trapped and surrounded. While the number may be a little high, it would not by much and it is the commonly accepted number.

More never showed up.

The crusades, overall, failed due more to supply issues, and the foe being more powerful than them. The successful ones, imo, were the ones that faced a divided foe. Luck played very little to do with it. The only source I could find for the 500,000 number was a single article on wikipedia, and it was without a source for the number. Take in note, the entire population of Cairo was only around 500,000 in the early 1300s, and this is the time of Medieval Logistics. Simply put, there is no way the Egyptians could raise an army that large and sustain it in desert fighting in North Africa.

Primarily because the Crusade had failed by then.

With regards to the Islamic world being more powerful, that wasn't true at all by the time of the Crusades. Christendom had more or less fought Muslim expansion to a standstill, with the situation in their favor in Iberia and the Byzantine frontier. Many sources note the suprise throughout the Islamic world when the Europeans launched the very successful first crusade. Luck, internal European divisions, and issues such as logistics as you note played the defining role in it.