With the full support of Pope Innocent IV during the First Council of Lyon, King Louis IX of France accompanied by his brothers Charles d'Anjou and Robert d'Artois launched the Seventh Crusade against Egypt.

[citation needed] After occupying the Egyptian port of Damietta in June 1249, Louis decided to march to Cairo, encouraged by the arrival of reinforcements led by his third brother Alphonse de Poitiers and the news of the death of as-Salih Ayyub.

The Franks succeeded in crossing the Canal of Ashmum (known today by the name al-Bahr al-Saghir) and launched a surprise attack against the Egyptian camp in Gideila, 3 km (2 mi) away from Al Mansurah.

The leadership of the Egyptian force passed to the Mamluk commandants Faris ad-Din Aktai, Baibars al-Bunduqdari and Qutuz, who succeeded in reorganizing the retreating troops.

[18][19][20] King Louis IX and a few of his nobles who survived were captured in the nearby village of Moniat Abdallah (now Meniat el Nasr) where they took refuge.

The crusaders were circulating false information in Europe, claiming that Louis IX had defeated the Sultan of Egypt in a great battle and that Cairo had been betrayed into his hands.

The news (the capture of her husband Louis) terrified her so much, that every time she fell asleep, she fancied that her room was filled with bearded Muslims, and she would cry out, "Help!

While the Mamluks of Egypt and the Ayyubids of Syria turned into conflicting rivals, the Franks and the Cilician Armenians in addition to the Principality of Antioch were allied.

The Mongols, who suddenly erupted out of the Eurasian Steppe, had their armies by 1241 riding westwards as far as the river Oder and the northeastern shore of the Adriatic and during the Battle of Fariskur they were penetrating deep into all adjoining regions.

In 1246, Pope Innocent IV, who fully supported the Seventh Crusade against Egypt, sent his Franciscan emissary Giovanni da Pian del Carpine to the Great Khan of the Mongols in Qaraqorum to seek an alliance against the Muslims.

[37] In 1253, after his defeat in Egypt, King Louis IX sent from Acre another emissary, the Franciscan friar William of Rubruck who accompanied him earlier in his Egyptian expedition, but the outcome of this trip was also not followed by effective action.

[38] In 1258 a Mongol army of perhaps 50,000 soldiers led by Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad and liquidated the Abbasid Caliphate, then advanced to Syria and captured Damascus.

In 1260 an Egyptian army led by the Mamluk Sultan Qutuz and commander Baibars al-Bunduqdari – the same champions of Al Mansurah – annihilated this Mongol force at Ain Jalut.

[citation needed] Later, during the era of Sultan al-Zahir Baibars al-Bunduqdari, the Cilician Armenians and the Principality of Antioch had to pay a huge price for their alliance with the Mongols.

][citation needed] Due to the efforts of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt under Baybars, Islam survived the combined Crusaders and Mongol invasions though it had never been in such great jeopardy at any date since its birth.