Sack of Damietta (853)
Encyclopedia
The Sack of Damietta in 853 was a major success for the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

. On 22 May 853, the Byzantine navy
Byzantine navy
The Byzantine navy was the naval force of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire. Like the empire it served, it was a direct continuation from its imperial Roman predecessor, but played a far greater role in the defense and survival of the state then its earlier iterations...

 attacked the port city of Damietta
Damietta
Damietta , also known as Damiata, or Domyat, is a port and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the intersection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile, about north of Cairo.-History:...

 on the Nile Delta
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline—and is a rich...

, whose garrison was absent at the time. The city was sacked and plundered, yielding not only many captives but also large quantities of weapons and supplies intended for the Emirate of Crete
Emirate of Crete
The Emirate of Crete was a Muslim state that existed on the Mediterranean island of Crete from the late 820s to the Byzantine reconquest of the island in 961....

.

Background

During the 820s, the Byzantines had suffered two great losses that destroyed their naval supremacy in the Mediterranean: the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Sicily and the fall of Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

 to Andalus
Andalus
Al-Andalus Ensemble is an award-winning husband and wife musical duo that performs contemporary Andalusian music. The ensemble features Tarik Banzi playing oud, ney and darbuka, and Julia Banzi on flamenco guitar...

ian exiles. These losses ushered an era where Saracen
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...

 pirates raided the Christian northern shores of the Mediterranean almost at will. The establishment of the Emirate of Crete
Emirate of Crete
The Emirate of Crete was a Muslim state that existed on the Mediterranean island of Crete from the late 820s to the Byzantine reconquest of the island in 961....

, which became a haven for Muslim ships, opened the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

 up for raids, while their – albeit partial – control of Sicily allowed the Arabs to raid and even settle in Italy and the Adriatic shores. Several Byzantine attempts to retake Crete in the immediate aftermath of the Andalusian conquest, as well as a large-scale attempt in 842/843, failed disastrously.

Byzantine expedition and sacking of Damietta

Thus, in 852/853, the Byzantine government tried a new approach: it assembled a huge naval armament, reportedly of three fleets consisting of 300 ships, and sent them to raid Muslim naval bases in the Eastern Mediterranean simultaneously. One of these fleets, comprising 85 ships and 5,000 men under a general known from the Arab sources only as "Ibn Qatuna", headed for the Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian coast, for it was from Egypt that the Abbasids sent aid to Crete.

The Byzantine fleet arrived before the city on 22 May 853. At the time, the garrison was absent, attending a feast organized by the governor Anbasa ibn Ishaq al-Dabbi in Fustat. Damietta's inhabitants fled the undefended city, which was plundered for two days and then torched by the Byzantines. The Byzantines carried of some six hundred Arab and Coptic women, as well as large quantities of arms and other supplies intended for Crete. They then sailed east and attacked the strong fortress of Ushtun. After taking it, they burned the many artillery and siege engines they found there and returned home.

Impact

Although "one of the brightest military operations" undertaken by the Byzantine military, the raid is completely ignored in Byzantine sources, whose accounts are warped by their hostile attitude to Michael III
Michael III
Michael III , , Byzantine Emperor from 842 to 867. Michael III was the third and traditionally last member of the Amorian-Phrygian Dynasty...

 and his reign. Consequently the raid is known only through two Arab accounts, by al-Tabari
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...

 and Ya'qubi
Ya'qubi
Ahmad ibn Abu Ya'qub ibn Ja'far ibn Wahb Ibn Wadih al-Ya'qubi , known as Ahmad al-Ya'qubi, or Ya'qubi, was a Berber Muslim geographer.-Biography:He was a great-grandson of Wadih, the freedman of the caliph Mansur...

.

According to the Arab chroniclers, the realization of Egypt's vulnerability from the sea led, after a long period of neglect, to urgent strengthening of the Egypt's maritime defences: ships were constructed, new crews conscripted, and Damietta and other coastal sites fortified. This marked the rebirth of the Egyptian navy, which reached its peak later under the Fatimids.
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