Krak des Chevaliers: The Castle Saladin Could Not Take

Written by Simon Williams

Krak des Chevaliers withstood Saladin, who took one look and marched away in 1188. It took Mamluk sultan Baibars a month long siege and a forged letter to finally capture it in 1271, ending nearly 130 years of Hospitaller rule over history's most admired castle.

• Location: The Homs Gap, Syria
• Original fortress: Kurdish garrison built for the Emir of Aleppo, 1031
• Granted to the Knights Hospitaller: 1142, by Raymond II, Count of Tripoli
• Defining defence: Withstood Saladin's siege, May 1188
• Fell to: Sultan Baibars, 8 April 1271, after a forged surrender letter
• Legacy: Called the finest castle in the world by T.E. Lawrence

In May 1188, Saladin led his army up to the walls of Krak des Chevaliers, looked at what stood in front of him, and marched away. This was the same commander who had annihilated the Crusader field army at Hattin the previous year and recaptured Jerusalem itself. A single castle garrison stopped him without a fight.

It would take another eighty three years, a different enemy entirely, and a forged piece of paper before Krak des Chevaliers finally fell. Even then, the men who had held it for nearly a century and a half were never actually defeated in the field. They were tricked into surrendering a castle that, by every account, could probably have held out much longer.

This is the story of the fortress T.E. Lawrence, writing eight centuries later, called the finest castle in the world, and the two very different ways enemies eventually learned to deal with it.

A Kurdish Fortress Before the Crusaders

Long before the Hospitallers made it famous, the rocky spur overlooking the Homs Gap in Syria already held a fortress. Kurdish troops garrisoned there under the Mirdasid dynasty built the first defences around 1031, on behalf of the Emir of Aleppo, to control one of the few practical routes through the coastal mountains between the Mediterranean and the Syrian interior. The Arabic name for the fortress, Hisn al-Akrad, meaning Fortress of the Kurds, preserved this origin long after the garrison itself had changed hands.

That strategic location, controlling a gap that any army moving between the coast and inland Syria had to pass through, is the single fact that explains almost everything about the site's later history. The First Crusade's forces took control of the immediate area in the late 1090s, and the position remained too valuable for either side to leave lightly defended for long.

Into Hospitaller Hands

In 1142, Raymond II, Count of Tripoli, granted the fortress to the Knights Hospitaller, the military order that had begun as a hospital foundation caring for pilgrims in Jerusalem and had increasingly taken on a military role defending the Crusader states. The Hospitallers did not simply occupy the existing structure. Between 1142 and 1170 they rebuilt it almost entirely, wrapping the original fortress in a new outer stone circuit and turning the earlier structure into an inner ward.

The result was one of the finest examples of concentric castle design anywhere in the medieval world: two complete rings of defensive walls, one inside the other, so that an attacker who breached the outer wall still faced a second, higher fortification overlooking the ground they had just captured. At its peak the castle could garrison around two thousand people and was designed to withstand a siege of years rather than weeks.

The Castle Saladin Wouldn't Fight

By 1188, Saladin had every reason to feel confident. He had destroyed the Crusader field army at Hattin the previous summer and recaptured Jerusalem itself that October. Krak des Chevaliers, still held by the Hospitallers deep inside territory Saladin now dominated, was exactly the kind of remaining Crusader stronghold his campaign should logically have targeted next, and by most measures he had both the momentum and the manpower to attempt it.

He brought his army to the castle in May 1188, assessed its defences, and chose not to attack at all. Instead he marched on to besiege the Hospitaller castle of Margat, which he also failed to take. Saladin's decision to walk away from Krak des Chevaliers without a fight is, in its own quiet way, as strong a testament to the castle's design as any siege it actually survived, and it stands out precisely because so little else stopped him during that same campaign season.

The Siege of 1271

The castle's eventual fall came under entirely different circumstances, and against a different kind of enemy. In February 1271, the Mamluk sultan Baibars arrived at Krak des Chevaliers with a combined force drawn from his own troops and allied contingents from Hamah, Saone, and the Ismaili territories of Jabal Bahra. Unlike Saladin, Baibars committed to a full siege, deploying miners and sappers who dug beneath the castle's towers on three separate faces.

On 30 March, one of the mined towers finally collapsed, opening a breach that let Mamluk troops into the castle's lower ward. Even then, the Hospitaller garrison withdrew into the inner fortification and continued to hold out. What finally ended the siege was not further fighting. Baibars forged a letter, purporting to come from the Hospitallers' own Grand Master, instructing the garrison to surrender. Believing the order genuine and seeing no realistic prospect of relief, the defenders requested terms on 8 April 1271, and Baibars granted them safe passage out.

A castle that had never been defeated in open battle, and had turned away Saladin without a fight, was ultimately talked out of itself by a single piece of forged paper.

The Best Preserved Castle in the World

Krak des Chevaliers survived the collapse of the Crusader states by more than six centuries, remarkably intact, eventually earning UNESCO World Heritage status in 2006. T.E. Lawrence, who studied it as part of his university thesis on Crusader fortification before his more famous career in Arabia, called it perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world, a judgement that held for the better part of a hundred years after he wrote it. Few other Crusader fortifications anywhere in the Levant survived so completely intact for so long. By the early twentieth century a village of around five hundred people had grown up inside the castle walls itself, and French Mandate authorities eventually bought the site outright in 1933, compensating the villagers to clear the fortress for restoration and conservation as a monument in its own right rather than a lived-in settlement.

Damage and Recovery in the Modern Era

That record was interrupted by the Syrian civil war. The castle sustained direct damage from shelling and airstrikes in 2012 and 2013, including to its main staircase and the historic Hall of the Knights, before Syrian government forces recaptured the site in 2014 and restoration work began. UNESCO placed it, along with Syria's other World Heritage sites, on its List of World Heritage in Danger in 2013. Readers who want to explore the wider Crusades collection, including the castles and knights who built and defended sites like this one, will find it at the Histories and Castles store, alongside a free illustrated guide to Richard the Lionheart.

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This article is part of the Crusades series. Read all articles at https://historiesandcastles.com/blogs/the-crusades.

Deepen Your Understanding

→ The History of the Crusades: the full sweep of the crusading era, from Urban II's call at Clermont to the fall of Acre in 1291

→ Saladin: The Sultan Who Recaptured Jerusalem: the commander who took one look at these walls and chose not to fight

→ Who Were the Knights Templar?: the military order that built and garrisoned fortresses like this one alongside the Hospitallers

→ The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople: how the crusading ideal this castle was built to defend was transformed within a century of its construction

→ The Crusader Kingdoms: Daily Life in Outremer: the wider network of Crusader states this castle was built to defend

People Also Ask

Why couldn't Saladin capture Krak des Chevaliers?

Saladin brought his army to Krak des Chevaliers in May 1188, fresh from destroying the Crusader field army at Hattin and recapturing Jerusalem, but chose not to attack after assessing its defences. The castle's concentric design, with two complete rings of fortification, made a direct assault prohibitively costly, and Saladin marched on to besiege the Hospitaller castle of Margat instead, which he also failed to capture despite the momentum of his recent victories.

How did Krak des Chevaliers finally fall?

Krak des Chevaliers fell to the Mamluk sultan Baibars in 1271 after a month long siege involving extensive mining beneath the castle's towers. When one tower collapsed on 30 March, Mamluk forces broke into the outer ward, but the Hospitaller garrison withdrew into the inner fortification and continued resisting. Baibars ended the siege by forging a letter purporting to order the garrison's surrender, which the defenders believed and acted on, surrendering on 8 April 1271.

Who built Krak des Chevaliers?

The site was first fortified around 1031 by Kurdish troops garrisoned there for the Emir of Aleppo, giving it the Arabic name Hisn al-Akrad, Fortress of the Kurds. The castle most visitors recognise today was built by the Knights Hospitaller, who received the site in 1142 from Raymond II, Count of Tripoli, and rebuilt it almost completely between 1142 and 1170, adding the outer defensive ring that made it one of the finest examples of concentric castle design in the medieval world.

What did T.E. Lawrence say about Krak des Chevaliers?

T.E. Lawrence, who studied Crusader castles as the subject of his university thesis before his career in Arabia during the First World War, described Krak des Chevaliers as perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world. His assessment, made after direct study of the site, has been widely repeated by historians and remains one of the most quoted judgements on any Crusader fortification anywhere in the Levant.

Is Krak des Chevaliers still standing today?

Yes, though it sustained damage during the Syrian civil war. The castle took direct hits from shelling and airstrikes in 2012 and 2013, damaging its main staircase and the historic Hall of the Knights, before Syrian government forces recaptured the site in 2014 and restoration work began. UNESCO, which granted the castle World Heritage status in 2006, placed it on its List of World Heritage in Danger in 2013 alongside Syria's other heritage sites.

Primary Sources and Further Reading

• Lawrence, T.E. (1936): Crusader Castles, based on his 1910 Oxford thesis on the military architecture of the Crusades. The source of the most famous modern assessment of the castle, written by a scholar who studied the site directly before his more famous career.
• Kennedy, Hugh (1994): Crusader Castles, Cambridge University Press. The standard modern academic study of Crusader fortification across the Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Tripoli, and Principality of Antioch.
• Barber, Malcolm (2012): The Crusader States, Yale University Press. Situates Krak des Chevaliers and the Hospitaller military order within the wider political and military history of the Crusader States.

Note: the exact wording of Baibars's forged surrender letter has not survived, and its precise content is reconstructed from later chronicle accounts of the siege's outcome rather than the document itself. Some details of the castle's earliest Kurdish-era fortifications are drawn from limited archaeological and textual evidence rather than extensive contemporary documentation.

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