ABSTRACT
The Crusaders were accustomed only to one development of tactics—the shock-tactics of heavily-armed cavalry. The infantry were left to guard the impedimenta, the cavalry alone drew up in line of battle. The victorious Crusaders pursued the defeated foe with the greatest energy, prevented them from rallying, seized their richly stored camp, and finally scattered them to the winds. The Egyptians had been in possession of Palestine at the moment of the arrival of the Crusaders, and it was from them that Jerusalem had been wrested. The Crusaders came to hold the Egyptians in such contempt that they neglected the most common precautions against them, and would attack them if they were but one to ten, and even in most unfavourable ground. When the Christians charged, the Egyptian host folded in its wings and fell upon the Crusaders on all sides, attacking the infantry no less than the horse.
