Battle of Ascalon

August 12, 1099

Godfrey of Bouillon's Crusaders caught a Fatimid relief army from Egypt outside the port of Ascalon and routed it in a dawn attack. The victory secured the Latin kingdom against immediate Egyptian counter-attack. Quarrels among the Crusader leaders, however, prevented the capture of Ascalon itself for another fifty years. The fortress port remained a thorn in the Crusader flank, a Fatimid outpost from which raids struck inland for decades.