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Special pages :
Acre
| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 24 July 1857 |
Reproduced from The New American Cyclopaedia
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 18
Acre, St. Jean dâ, Acca, Ptolemais, or Acco, a harbor of Syria, at the foot of Mt. Carmel, lat. 32° 54â N. long. 35° 4â E., population about 15,000. It is the best bay on that part of the coast, although very shallow. The place is renowned for its desperate sieges and defences. In 1104 it was taken by the Genoese, from whom Saladin retook it in 1187. The assault upon it by Richard CĹur de Lion in 1191 was one of the most daring feats in the Crusades. It remained until 1292 in the custody of the Knights of St. John,[1] who fortified it strongly, but were compelled to evacuate it by the Turks. It was here that the Turks, supported by the chivalric Sydney Smith and a handful of British sailors, kept Napoleon and the French army at bay for sixty days, when he raised the siege and retreated.[2] In 1832 Ibrahim Pasha, after a six monthsâ siege, took it by storm when Mehemet Ali revolted from the Porte, and seized upon Syria. In 1839, however, Syria was restored to Turkey, and Acre again, felt the bitterness of war, Ibrahim refusing to evacuate until after a bombardment by the combined British, Austrian, and Turkish fleets, Nov. 4, 1840.[3]
- â Acre was captured by Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191 during the third crusade (1189-92). The crusades were military colonialist expeditions by the big West European feudal lords and Italian trading cities under the religious banner of recovering Jerusalem and other âHoly Landsâ from the Mohammedans. Peasants also took part in the crusades, hoping thus to be freed from feudal oppression. History knows eight main crusades (1096-99, 1147-49, 1189-92, 1202-04, 1217-21, 1228-29, 1248-54 and 1270). Not only Mohammedan states in Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Tunisia but also the Christian Byzantine Empire were the objects of the crusadersâ aggressive strivings. The crusadersâ conquests in the Eastern Mediterranean were not lasting, and were recovered by the Mohammedans. The Knights of St. John (also Hospitallers)âmembers of a Catholic military order founded by the crusaders in Palestine early in the twelfth century. After the defeat at Acre in 1291 they transferred their seat to Cyprus, then, early in the fourteenth century, to Rhodes and in 1530 to Malta (from that time on it was also called the order of Malta); since the nineteenth century its seat has been in Rome.
- â The abortive siege of Acre by the French (from March 21 to May 20, 1799) was an episode in the Egyptian expedition of the French army and navy under General Bonaparte, started in 1798 with a view to conquering Egypt and Syria from Turkey and preparing a base for a blow against the British possessions in India. Napoleonâs successes in Egypt were reduced to naught by the destruction of the French fleet by the British squadron under Admiral Nelson at Aboukir on August 1, 1798, the victories of the Russo-Austrian forces under Suvorov over the French in Northern Italy, and the successful actions of the Russian squadron under Admiral Ushakov in the Mediterranean. Napoleon returned to France in the autumn of 1799 and the army left in Egypt was forced to capitulate to the British in 1801.
- â A reference to the military clashes between Turkey and the Egyptian ruler Mehemet Ali, who revolted against the Sultan. Syria was seized by Egypt during the Turkish-Egyptian war of 1831-33, but was restored to Turkey with the military support of the European powers during the war of 1839-41.