Whereas the Crusaders developed a healthy respect for the harass and surround tactics of the Turkish horse archers, they tended to discount the effectiveness of the Egyptian armies.

Baldwin was left with no other option than to flee and escaped the tower under the cover of night with just his scribe and a single knight, Hugh of Brulis, who is never mentioned in any source afterwards.

After a day of desperately holding their ground the remaining knights, all but abandoned by their king, decided to launch a suicidal last stand and charged the besiegers.

Almost all of the meagre force was immediately slain including Stephen of Blois, who finally recovered the honour that he had lost when he deserted the Siege of Antioch four years previously.

In order to coax the city into surrender, the Fatimids made the corpse of Gerbod of Scheldewindeke, a knight who had fallen in battle previously,[6] to look like Baldwin I before mutilating the body and parading it in front of the walls of Jaffa.

With Baldwin's forces strengthened by the arrival of a fleet of French and German Crusaders, he was able to assemble an army of eight thousand men[7] and surprised the unprepared Egyptians.