By late May 1249, Louis and his army, which consisted of some twenty-five thousand Crusaders, were setting sail from Cyprus. Their destination was the Egyptian port of Damietta, on the basis of the by now standard Crusader logic that Egypt must be neutralized before Jerusalem could be secured.

Considering that Damietta had also been the focus of the Fifth Crusade (1217-1221), none of this came as a surprise to Egyptian sultan al-Salih Ayyub. He sent men under Emir Fahreddin to refortify Damietta’s garrison and hold the coast against any Crusader landing. He also sent a message warning Louis to desist: “No one has ever attacked us without feeling our superiority,” the sultan boasted. “Recollect the conquests we have made from the Christians; we have driven them from the lands they possessed; their strongest towns have fallen under our blows.”

By June 4, the Christian fleet had anchored on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Damietta. Legions of Muslims lined the shore and riverbank, where they “made a loud and terrible noise with horns and cymbals.” A council was held in the king’s ship. Although some said to wait for the other Crusader vessels that had been delayed by a storm, Louis was set on taking the shore now. “Our men,” wrote Gui, one of the knights present, “seeing the lord King’s steadfastness and unwavering resolve, at his bidding made ready…to occupy the shore by force and go on land.” When his counsellors urged him not to join in the initial landing, due to the danger it posed to his person, Louis responded, “I am only one individual whose life, when God wills it, will be snuffed out like any other man’s.”

And so, on today’s date, June 6, 777 years ago, the Crusaders, to a loud battle cry, furiously paddled to shore and “in accordance with the lord King’s strict and most urgent command, hastily leaped into the sea up to their loins.” Clad in heavy iron and slowly plodding toward the coast, they were met by a forbidding hail of arrows. Nevertheless, “of all the ships, the lord King’s put in first,” continues Gui.

“Louis leapt into the water up to his armpits and waded ashore, shield round neck, helm on head, and sword in hand.” Jean de Joinville (1224–1317), a close friend of Louis who participated in the Crusade, continues: “So soon as they [Muslims] saw us land, they came toward us, hotly spurring. We, when we saw them coming, fixed the points of our shields into the sand and the handles of our lances in the sand with the points set towards them.” Confronted by this massive spike-studded shield wall and seeing “the lances about to enter into their bellies,” the Muslims “turned about and fled”—all except one, who, thinking his comrades were charging behind him, was instantly “cut down.”

Thereafter, the Crusaders “fell manfully upon the enemies of the Cross like strong athletes of the Lord,” writes Gui: “The armed Saracens, stationed mounted on the shore, disputed the land with us…maintaining a dense fire of javelins and arrows against our men. And yet our men… pushed on and set foot on the land despite the Saracens.” The more the Muslims gave way, the more the Christians advanced onto dry ground. Before long, horses had been ferried over and mounted, leading to heavy, splashy cavalry charges, all under the cover of missile fire from the Christian fleet.