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{{Mission
{{Battle
|prev= [[Battle of Forlì]]
|width=
|conc= [[Granada War]]
|prev=
|next= [[Battle of Granada]]
|conc=[[Quest for the Chalice]]
|name=
|next=[[Battle of Arsuf]]
|name=Siege of Acre
|imageBG=
|imageBG=
|image=
|image=Flow_of_Poison.png
|conflict= [[Spanish Inquisition]]
|conflict=[[Third Crusade]]
|objective= Rescue the [[Spanish Assassins]] arrested for heresy by the [[Spanish Inquisition]]
|date=28 August 1189 – July 1191
|date= 1491
|place=[[Acre]], [[Ayyubid dynasty|Ayyubid Sultanate]]
|place=*[[Barcelona]], [[wikipedia:Principality of Catalonia|Principality of Catalonia]]
|result=[[Crusaders|Crusader]] victory
*[[Zaragoza]], [[wikipedia:Kingdom of Aragon|Kingdom of Aragon]]
|result=
*[[Ezio Auditore da Firenze]] manages to save one [[Assassins|Assassin]] in Barcelona and five of six in Zaragoza
*Death of leading Inquisitors in Barcelona and Zaragoza
|BG2=
|BG2=
|side1=Assassins
|side1=[[Crusaders]]
|side2=*Spanish Inquisition
*[[Kingdom of Jerusalem]]
*[[Spain|Crown of Aragon]]
*[[Templars|Knights Templar]]
*[[Knights Hospitalier]]
*[[England|Kingdom of England]]
*[[France|Kingdom of France]]
*[[Holy Roman Empire]]
|side2=[[Saracens]]
*Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt and Syria
----
----
*[[Templars]]
[[Assassins]]
|side3=
|side3=
|side4=
|side4=
|commanders1=
|commanders1=*[[Guy of Lusignan]]
|commanders2=*[[Tomás de Torquemada]]
*[[Conrad of Montferrat]]
*[[Ferdinand II of Aragon]]
*[[Gerard de Ridefort]]†
*[[Robert de Sablé]]
*[[Richard I of England]]
*[[Philip II of France]]
*[[wikipedia:Frederick VI, Duke of Swabia|Frederick VI]]†
*[[wikipedia:Leopold V, Duke of Austria|Leopold V]]
|commanders2=*[[Salāḥ ad-Dīn|Saladin]]
*[[wikipedia:Gökböri|Gökböri]]
----
----
*[[Rodrigo Borgia]]
*[[Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad]]
|commanders3=
|commanders3=
|commanders4=
|commanders4=
|ppl1=*[[Ezio Auditore da Firenze]]
|forces1='''Initially''': 3,000<br>
*[[Raphael Sánchez]]
'''Reinforcements''': ~25,000
|ppl2=*[[Gaspar Martínez]]&dagger;
|forces2='''Garrison''': 6,000<br>
*[[Pedro Llorente]]&dagger;
'''Relief force''': 20,000+
|ppl3=
|forces3=
|ppl4=
|forces4=
|casual1=*unknown number of Barcelonan Assassins
|casual1= 2,500
*1 Zaragozan Assassin
|casual2='''Acre garrison''': 6,000<br>
|casual2=*Gaspar Martínez
'''Relief force''': heavy
*Pedro Llorente
|casual3=
|casual3=
|casual4=
|casual4=
|civilian=}}
|civilian=}}
The '''Siege of Acre''' was the first major engagement of the [[Third Crusade]]—one that would span almost the entirety of the war. With the assistance of the [[Templars|Knights Templar]] and the [[Knights Hospitalier]], the [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]] first launched an assault of [[Acre]] in 1189 before the arrival of the formal [[Crusaders|Crusader]] forces from [[Europe]]. Alerted by the siege, Sultan [[Salāḥ ad-Dīn|Saladin]] of Egypt and Syria hastily rallied his forces to relieve the coastal city only to mire himself in a prolonged stalemate against the besiegers.


The '''Mission to Aragon?''' was a mission undertaken in 1491 by the [[Italian Assassins|Italian Assassin]] [[Ezio Auditore da Firenze]]  to rescue the [[Assassins]] of [[Spain]] after receiving news of their arrests by the [[Spanish Inquisition]]. Though the Inquisition was unaware of the [[Spanish Assassins|Spanish Assassins']] affiliation, they had been supplied their names by [[Rodrigo Borgia]], [[Grand Master]] of the [[Templars]]. Rodrigo, playing on their religious fanaticism, merely informed them that they were atheists, and that was enough for the Inquisition to arrest them for heresy.
The [[Saracens]], faced with their inability to lift the siege, had little recourse but to settle into their own blockade around the Crusaders. As this double siege dragged on into the next year, the impatient Templars began to devise a plot to murder the entire population by poisoning their water supply, hoping that this would force a capitulation. Before the order could be carried out, however, it was sabotaged by the [[Assassins|Assassin]] [[Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad]], who infiltrated their camp and assassinated the commander responsible for the operation.


The purge of the Assassins throughout Spain drove [[Luis de Santángel]] to seek the Assassins of [[Italy]] to protect his friend [[Christopher Columbus]]. It was here that Ezio Auditore heard of the plight of his allies in Spain after aiding Luis and Christopher. Feeling obligated to save them as a fellow Assassin, Ezio put aside his quest for to recovery the [[Ezio's Apple of Eden|Apple of Eden]] from Rodrigo and journeyed to Spain.
Nevertheless, neither this setback nor the demise of many of the Christian leaders proved capable of breaking the siege. In 1191, the arrival of long anticipated reinforcements led by [[Richard I of England|King Richard the Lionheart]] and [[Philip II of France|King Philip II of France]] turned the tide in the Crusaders favor. Armed with greater siege weapons, the Crusaders breached Acre and effected its surrender, scoring a critical victory that would allow them to recover ground lost to the Saracens the previous years.


Arriving at [[Barcelona]] in the Crown of Aragon, Ezio assassinated the prosecutor [[Gaspar Martínez]] and saved an Assassin from execution with the help of the Spanish Assassin [[Raphael Sánchez]]. They then proceeded to [[Zaragoza]], where Ezio repeated his success by rescuing the majority of the Assassins and killing the ''calificador'' [[Pedro Llorente]], thereby disrupting the Inquisition's operations in Aragon.
==Prelude==
The [[wikipedia:Crusader states|Crusader states]] established after the [[wikipedia:First Crusade|First Crusade]] had been vying to wrest control of the [[Levant]] from the Saracens for the past century. Even during the intervals between the crusades, war between the two factions raged on, punctuated by periods of uneasy peace.  


==Background==
In 1187, after Saladin, the Sultan of [[Egypt]], had unified the squabbling Muslim states of the Levant, warfare erupted once more between the Saracens and Crusaders. On 3 July, he baited a massive Christian army led by all its major leaders into the [[Battle of Hattin]], where he dealt a major victory that severely crippled the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem. Among his prisoners were the King of Jerusalem, [[Guy of Lusignan]], and the [[Grand Master]] of the [[Templars|Knights Templar]], [[Gerard de Ridefort]]. Though both were released by Saladin the next year, the defeat was catastrophic for the Crusaders, allowing Saladin to swiftly conquer almost all of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, including [[Jerusalem]] itself.
In 1478, the [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] Monarchs [[Isabella I of Castile]] and [[Ferdinand II of Aragon]], driven by religious zeal, established the [[Spanish Inquisition]] as a means to enforce religious conformity. Under the first Grand Inquisitor [[Tomás de Torquemada]], the Inquisition cracked down on heterodox faiths throughout the country. A great majority of the arrests and prosecutions were conducted against [[Judaisms|Jews]] and [[wikipedia:Crypto-Judaism|crypto-Jews]], those who were thought to be insincere in their conversion to [[Christianity]].


Sensing the opportunity, the Grand Master of the Templars, Rodrigo Borgia, sought to exploit these persecutions to eliminate his Assassin enemies in Spain by proxy. He released the names of Assassins throughout the country to the Inquisition, condemning them as atheists while withholding that they were Assassins. Though an atheist himself, he had a long history of service to the Catholic Church as a cardinal-bishop and was therefore highly trusted by Torquemada.
The fall of Jerusalem ignited calls for a [[Third Crusade]] in [[Europe]] to recapture it. In the meantime, Guy of Lusignan traveled to [[Tyre]], the last stronghold of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, having managed to ward off a major Saracen invasion through the leadership of [[Conrad of Montferrat]]. Conrad, recognizing that Guy's hold on the kingship was tenuous as it derived only from his marriage to [[wikipedia:Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem|Queen Sibylla]], expected that with his newfound prestige, he could seize the throne himself. As a result, he steadfastly refused Guy's entry into the city until the formal Crusader armies led by [[Richard I of England|King Richard I of England]] and [[Philip II of France|King Philip II of France]] arrived to resolve their dispute.


By 1491, the Inquisition had targeted [[Assassin Guilds]] throughout the [[wikipedia:Crown of Aragon|Crown of Aragon]], a systematic purge that left the Assassin [[Luis de Santángel]] without much allies with an expertise in combat. That same year, his friend [[Christopher Columbus]], seeking financial backing for a voyage west across the [[Atlantic Ocean]], was contacted by a man known as the Spaniard—actually Rodrigo Borgia—offering his sponsorship, and the two scheduled a meeting in [[Venice]].
Left without a home or a base to defend himself, Guy resolved to capture [[Acre]] with his forces, thereby initiating the the first major battle of the Third Crusade on 28 August 1189.


Luis, however, suspected that the meeting would be a trap, and urged Christopher against it, but the desperate explorer refused to heed his warnings. The Assassin's intuition had not been wrong. The Templars had become privy to the existence of an [[wikipedia:Americas|entire landmass]] across the Atlantic unknown to the [[Europe|Europeans]]. Hoping to claim the continent for themselves before the other powers—or the Assassins for that matter—they sought to prevent Christopher's voyage by murdering him.
==Siege==
===Battle for Acre===
Acre did not prove easy to conquer, and Guy's assault quickly evolved into a protracted siege. Hearing news of this attack, Saladin promptly gathered a relief force for the rescue of Acre. Meanwhile, newly arriving Crusaders from across the seas rallied to Guy's initiative, even convincing Conrad to do the same with his army of Tyre.


Without Assassin agents left in Spain to rely upon, Luis and Christopher arrived in Venice lacking protection from the Templars. Since Christopher continued to insist on meeting with the Spaniard, Luis contacted the thieves' guild of the city, run by the Assassin [[Antonio de Magianis]]. In response to his request for aid, Antonio recommended Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Because Luis did not initially disclose to Ezio that he, himself, was an Assassin, Ezio considered his request to be mercenary work and was reluctant.
On 4 October, Saladin's army clashed with the besiegers who were trapped between the Saracens of the city and the relief force. In spite of this, the Saracens failed to dislodge the invaders from their position. They did, however, manage to capture Gerard de Ridefort once again. Refusing to repeat his previous act of mercy, Saladin executed the Templar Grand Master by decapitation.


Nevertheless, the [[Florence|Florentine]] Assassin hurried to find Christopher, saving him from a Templar ambush. Luis then issued one final request: for Ezio to recover Christopher's atlas from their lodgings, which had been raided by the Templars. Once this had been accomplished, the grateful pair prepared to return to Spain, but not before Ezio advised them to bring their own protection the next time they were in [[Italy]].
===Double siege===
After this intense battle, both sides settled into their respective blockades. While the Crusaders resumed their investment of Acre, the relief force kept the Crusaders surrounded with no hope of escape. Throughout the next year, reinforcements continued to arrive from various states in Europe to assist the siege, such as the remnants of the [[Holy Roman Empire]] army led by [[wikipedia:Frederick VI, Duke of Swabia|Frederick VI]] whose father, the Emperor [[wikipedia:Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick Barbarossa]], had drowned en route to the Levant.


It was this point that Luis, still concealing that he too was an Assassin, explained that the Inquisition was cracking down on the Brotherhood in Spain. Troubled by this news, Ezio returned to Antonio to inform him that he had resolved to travel to Spain to rescue their allies there, feeling that this was his duty as an Assassin.
In response, the Saracens continued to call in reinforcements of their own, and the number of soldiers involved in the siege massively swelled. Eventually, both the city and the Christian camp were entirely contained by Saladin's forces, a state of affairs that severely impacted the living conditions for the Crusaders. Epidemics broke out and even the Crusader leaders began to succumb to disease, including Duke Frederick VI of Swabia.


==Barcelona==
===Flow of poison===
===Finding the Assassins' Guild===
Sometime in that same year, 1190, the Templars, frustrated with the stalemate, hatched a secret scheme to poison the entire water supply of Acre. Such was the extent of the operation that they expected the entire population of the city to die by the next morning, leaving the city empty for the Crusaders' taking.
{{Quote|How strange to meet a gentleman leaping through these sewers. Are you on the run, or just recreating?|Raphael Sánchez upon meeting Ezio Auditore for the first time|Assassin's Creed II: Discovery}}
When Ezio arrived in [[Barcelona]], he sought to contact the local thieves' guild to learn the extent of the Inquisition's purge. After meeting with two of Antonio's contacts in the city, the Assassin located the guild within the tallest building at the center of the city. As instructed, he entered through a secret hatch on the roof, only to find that—much as he expected—the entire guild had been raided with not an Assassin in sight. His arrival immediately alerted the [[Spanish Army|Spanish soldiers]] who had occupied the premises and declared it a restricted area.


[[File:Raphael Sanchez.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Raphael Sánchez]]
When the ''de facto'' successor to Gerard, [[Basilisk]], was defeated by the Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad in Tyre, however, the Templar leaked the plot to the Assassin in exchange for mercy. As both were in a [[Quest for the Chalice|competition]] for the [[Adha|Chalice]], which they now knew to be a woman hiding in Jerusalem, Basilisk hoped that by playing on Altaïr's conscience to save Acre, he would delay the Assassin long enough for him to reach Jerusalem first.


After killing the surrounding soldiers, Ezio quickly rolled past the guard captain charging at him and out the exit, with more soldiers behind in rapid pursuit. Faced with such an overwhelming force as he raced through the rooftops, Ezio slipped into the underground sewers hoping that this would allow him to escape them only to find that it was already crawling with troops.
Sure enough, Altaïr detoured to Acre, desperate to rescue its people from the massacre that could be carried out at anytime.
 
Through his expert [[freerunning]], he at last managed to lose the guards only to run headlong into a stranger who introduced himself as the Assassin [[Raphael Sánchez]] upon recognizing Ezio's Assassin outfit. Like Ezio, Raphael was conducting a mission to rescue his fellow Assassins, arriving in Barcelona just that morning. While Raphael did not know who betrayed them to the Inquisition, he did learn the name of the prosecutor responsible for their arrests: [[Gaspar Martínez]].
 
===Assassination of Gaspar Martinez===
{{Dialogue|Gaspar|Whoever those men claim to be, it won't matter after today. A public burning is about to commence for one of them. A wilful young man.|Ezio|If he dies, I will keep that fire burning until this town is a cinder.|Gaspar and Ezio, just before the former's demise|Assassin's Creed II: Discovery}}
[[File:Gaspardie.jpg|thumb|right|The Assassination of Gaspar Martinez]]
 
Without further ado, Ezio began his hunt for Gaspar Martínez, tracking him to a grand, stately building adjacent to a castle in the rich district of the city. Gaspar, idling alone on a balcony overlooking Barcelona, was incredibly vulnerable to the Assassin, who merely scaled up from below to confront him.
 
Ezio questioned Gaspar as to the source for the names of the Assassins, baffling Gaspar, who was ignorant that they even still existed. Given the systematic nature of the purge, Ezio doubted his sincerity, but the prosecutor only turned away to end what he thought was a meaningless conversation, for one of these prisoners was to be shortly executed anyways. Gaspar had not understood the threat this stranger posed, and with his back turned, Ezio easily killed him with his [[Hidden Blade]].
 
After recovering a list of six names from his corpse, Ezio rushed across the rooftops to the public square where the young Assassin mentioned by Gaspar was to be burned at the stake. All the while, he was beset by guards throughout the city in retaliation for his assassination. Upon reaching the plaza, he wasted no time to dispatching the soldiers there and freed the Assassin.
 
When Ezio presented the list of names to Raphael, Raphael confirmed that the listed men were Assassins, but that they were in the city of Zaragoza in the Kingdom of Aragon. Ezio therefore determined that Zaragoza would be his next destination, and asked if Raphael would join him. Though Raphael believed his combat skills had diminished with age, he agreed to accompany Ezio to provide aid as a guide. The Barcelonan Assassin saved by Ezio, on the other hand, opted out and only wished them safety in their mission. With that, Ezio and Raphael began their journey to Zaragoza.
 
==Zaragoza==
===Finding the Assassins===
[[File:Pedro.jpg|thumb|181px|Pedro Llorente]]
Upon arrival in Zaragoza, Raphael instructed Ezio to locate the ''calificador'' of the city, [[Pedro Llorente]]. Because he was well known to the locals, Raphael left Ezio to his own devices for the time being, knowing he would need an alibi should Llorente suffer an untimely fate. This was aside from the fact that as the treasurer to Queen Isabella, he was scheduled to attend a finance meeting in Zaragoza that day anyways.
 
Taking Raphael's advice, Ezio began his search at the tribunal building on the far side of town, where he immediately found Llorente. From the windows on the roof, he watched as Llorente, in the midst of interrogating an Assassin, was greeted by the Inquisitor-General Tomás de Torquemada himself. Llorente humbly welcomed his superior, who had arrived unexpectedly, but Torquemada rebuffed his pleasantries and inquired as to the status of the prisoner. Impressed by the Assassin's fearlessness but revolted by his atheism, Torquemada had him executed on the spot, remarking that Rodrigo was right to have him arrest this man and his allies.
 
Hearing this, Ezio understood that—just as he and Raphael had expected—it had been Rodrigo himself who had supplied the names of the Assassins to the Inquisitors. Torquemada immediately departed with Llorente and the executioner, leaving the Assassin to bleed on the ground. In vain, Ezio hurried to save him, only to find that he was already dead.
 
[[File:Tomas.jpg|thumb|left|The Inquisitor General, Tomas Torquemada]]
Determined more than ever to save the remaining Assassins, Ezio tracked his comrades to the underground catacombs. He navigated the labyrinth and rescued four of the Assassins one at a time.
 
News of Ezio's efforts spread quickly, and when Llorente caught word of the Assassins' escape, he was enraged. Berating one of his guard captains, he ordered him to maximize the security over the last remaining prisoner at his palace, threatening to have him "disemboweled" by Torquemada should he fail. Unbeknownst to them, their adversary was lurking just around the corner, slipping into the palace right on after them. The extra security thus proved fruitless, as Ezio easily advanced to the top bedroom of the palace, where the fifth and final Assassin was held, and freed him. He then made his escape via a [[Leap of Faith]].
 
===Assassination of Pedro Llorente===
[[File:Pedrodie.jpg|thumb|180px|Pedro's final moment]]
{{Dialogue|Llorente|The Templars? Surely you're joking, young man. The Templars were disgraced and disbanded two centuries ago. Rumors of their continued activities are as reliable as fairy tales.|Ezio|That's a shame, Padre... if they don't exist, they won't be able to save you.|Assassin's Creed II: Discovery}}
Meeting with Raphael once more, Ezio updated Raphael on his current progress, including that he had learned that Rodrigo was behind the Inquisition's purge of the Assassins. With that he took his leave, hoping to eliminate Llorente as swiftly as possible.
 
As Raphael predicted, Llorente was easy for Ezio to find: at the [[Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar]]. Though access to the cathedral was restricted, Ezio had no trouble infiltrating from its roof. Like Gaspar before him, Llorente was caught by the Assassin alone, but believing the young man to be little more than a trespasser, he felt no peril. Ezio gauged the extent of the Inquisition's collusion with the Templars by casually asking Llorente for help contacting them. The ''calificador'' scoffed at his query, believing that rumors of the Templars were nothing but conspiracy theories. Not having expected any more than that, the Assassin struck down the Inquisitor on the spot and retreated back to Raphael as the [[guards]] sounded the alarm.
 
===Report to Raphael===
Escaping the soldiers, Ezio met back with Raphael to report his assassination and that he had no clue as to Torquemada's whereabouts. Raphael had expected as much and thought it a shame that during his finance meeting, Queen Isabella had failed to mention that the Grand Inquisitor would be in Zaragoza. Since this was the first time Ezio had heard that Raphael was in service to the Queen, he was stunned, amazed that an Assassin could be among the highest ranks of the Spanish royal court.
 
Nevertheless, Raphael acknowledged that while the Assassins had influence over the queen, it was likely that the Templars did as well through other confidants. He offered to explain more along the trip to [[Granada]], but Ezio hesitated, saying it would be best that he returned home to [[Italy]] as he had accomplished his task in Spain.
 
Raphael, however, was adamant, insisting that the Templars had a horrible scheme in the works to assume control of Spain. Thus, putting his priorities aside and surrendering once more to his sense of duty, Ezio followed his brother Assassin south to the [[Moors|Moorish]] stronghold of [[Granada]].
 
==Aftermath==
Because of Ezio Auditore's intervention in Aragon, the Inquisitions' operations there were heavily disrupted. Despite this, the Inquisition remained intact, and all its tribunals, including those of Barcelona and Zaragoza, would persist for the coming centuries. Ezio and Raphael moved on to Granada, where they would then foil a Templar plot to prolong the [[Granada War|war]] between the emirate and Spain indefinitely to exhaust the Castilian treasury from funding Christopher Columbus's voyage. While Ezio returned to Italy afterwards, Luis de Santángel and Raphael Sánchez continued to persevere at swaying the queen from Templar influence or that of the Inquisition.
 
Ultimately, they would fail, with the Inquisition's persecution only intensifying in the next few decades thanks to the Templar Grand Master Rodrigo Borgia's succession to the [[Papacy]] as Pope Alexander VI. Queen Isabella, initially regarded as a potential ally to the Assassins, would fall further and further into the trappings of religious fanaticism, threatening to spread the Inquisition to [[Portugal]]. As a result, Luis would change his stance and resolve to have her assassinated slowly through [[poison]], a process finalized by Ezio's [[apprentices]] in 1503 after Luis's death.
 
<s>
==Granada==
===Weakening of Granada's finest===
Raphael and Ezio Auditore advanced towards the entrance of Granada, according to Raphael Granada (at the time) was unstable and minor battles and wars took place frequently. One side, the Moors, continued to fight; Raphael suggested that the Moors would soon have victory due to their nearly developed siege equipment.
 
Ezio shrugged and asked Raphael of the plan, to which he replied that "''it was nothing serious, but a mere sweep of the area.''" Their goal was to penetrate the guard forces and weaken their command, as well as scout a potential path in order to get closer to Ezio's target.
 
Being marked on his map, Ezio's prey, the captain guards, were easy to find. Stationed on rooftops, Ezio impaled, stabbed and pulled guards off ledges. He was soon approached by Raphael; who said that the job was soon to be done. He explained that almost all guard captains were dead; though some still remained, and that they were bashing civilians in an effort to interrogate them concerning the deaths of their fellow soldiers.
 
Ezio sought justice and Raphael sought peace and a better future for Granada. They both set out to save the civilians. Raphael told Ezio that they would meet in a chapel to the east when their work was done.
 
Hours had passed as Ezio finished the job; the majority of the civilians were saved. Soon before his arrival at the chapel, Ezio was ambushed by over a dozen soldiers. Ezio slew them all, but was almost bested. He walked into the outskirts of Granada, retaining some major injuries that would later be healed by Raphael Sánchez.
 
Upon his arrival at the chapel, Ezio was told by Raphael that a spy was in Granada, fetching information about his King for the Templars (who were to aid the Moors in their siege of Granada).
 
[[File:Juan.jpg|thumb|left|155px|Juan de Marillo, the spy]]Ezio traveled through the city of Granada to search for the spy, who escaped to the underground catacombs. Ezio then traversed the same catacombs to find [[Juan de Marillo]], the spy, and kill him. He stealthily came across Torquemada talking to him, saying that he was surprised that the Queen let the Moor King live. He ordered Juan to expel anyone who denied allegiance to the Pope and kill anyone who refused to leave. He left with Juan's guard captain, leaving the spy alone. Ezio ran up behind the spy and assassinated him before he could do any more harm.
 
He returned to Luis, only to find that Corombo had left for Paris to finance his journey. Ezio found him before he could be harmed and killed his attacker. With the Queen's change of heart, Corombo was financed to travel to the New World safely.
 
===The unexpected events===
[[File:Ezio and Torquemada.png|thumb|right|200px|Ezio confronting Torquemada]]
Ezio was about to leave for Italy to find the Apple, but before he could, Luis was alerted that Torquemada had sent Inquisitors to arrest him. Ezio went around the palace and sealed off all the doors to stop any further attacks. He saved Luis and then left the palace to rescue Raphael. Both told him to bring Torquemada to justice. He infiltrated Torquemada's palace and eventually found him, but before he could kill him some gates barred and blocked him from Torquemada. He then returned to Luis and Raphael with the news, and set off back to Italy.</s>
 
==Reference==
*''[[Assassin's Creed II: Discovery]]''
{{AC2D}}
{{Timeline}}

Revision as of 14:59, 8 February 2017

The Siege of Acre was the first major engagement of the Third Crusade—one that would span almost the entirety of the war. With the assistance of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitalier, the Kingdom of Jerusalem first launched an assault of Acre in 1189 before the arrival of the formal Crusader forces from Europe. Alerted by the siege, Sultan Saladin of Egypt and Syria hastily rallied his forces to relieve the coastal city only to mire himself in a prolonged stalemate against the besiegers.

The Saracens, faced with their inability to lift the siege, had little recourse but to settle into their own blockade around the Crusaders. As this double siege dragged on into the next year, the impatient Templars began to devise a plot to murder the entire population by poisoning their water supply, hoping that this would force a capitulation. Before the order could be carried out, however, it was sabotaged by the Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, who infiltrated their camp and assassinated the commander responsible for the operation.

Nevertheless, neither this setback nor the demise of many of the Christian leaders proved capable of breaking the siege. In 1191, the arrival of long anticipated reinforcements led by King Richard the Lionheart and King Philip II of France turned the tide in the Crusaders favor. Armed with greater siege weapons, the Crusaders breached Acre and effected its surrender, scoring a critical victory that would allow them to recover ground lost to the Saracens the previous years.

Prelude

The Crusader states established after the First Crusade had been vying to wrest control of the Levant from the Saracens for the past century. Even during the intervals between the crusades, war between the two factions raged on, punctuated by periods of uneasy peace.

In 1187, after Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, had unified the squabbling Muslim states of the Levant, warfare erupted once more between the Saracens and Crusaders. On 3 July, he baited a massive Christian army led by all its major leaders into the Battle of Hattin, where he dealt a major victory that severely crippled the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem. Among his prisoners were the King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, and the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Gerard de Ridefort. Though both were released by Saladin the next year, the defeat was catastrophic for the Crusaders, allowing Saladin to swiftly conquer almost all of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, including Jerusalem itself.

The fall of Jerusalem ignited calls for a Third Crusade in Europe to recapture it. In the meantime, Guy of Lusignan traveled to Tyre, the last stronghold of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, having managed to ward off a major Saracen invasion through the leadership of Conrad of Montferrat. Conrad, recognizing that Guy's hold on the kingship was tenuous as it derived only from his marriage to Queen Sibylla, expected that with his newfound prestige, he could seize the throne himself. As a result, he steadfastly refused Guy's entry into the city until the formal Crusader armies led by King Richard I of England and King Philip II of France arrived to resolve their dispute.

Left without a home or a base to defend himself, Guy resolved to capture Acre with his forces, thereby initiating the the first major battle of the Third Crusade on 28 August 1189.

Siege

Battle for Acre

Acre did not prove easy to conquer, and Guy's assault quickly evolved into a protracted siege. Hearing news of this attack, Saladin promptly gathered a relief force for the rescue of Acre. Meanwhile, newly arriving Crusaders from across the seas rallied to Guy's initiative, even convincing Conrad to do the same with his army of Tyre.

On 4 October, Saladin's army clashed with the besiegers who were trapped between the Saracens of the city and the relief force. In spite of this, the Saracens failed to dislodge the invaders from their position. They did, however, manage to capture Gerard de Ridefort once again. Refusing to repeat his previous act of mercy, Saladin executed the Templar Grand Master by decapitation.

Double siege

After this intense battle, both sides settled into their respective blockades. While the Crusaders resumed their investment of Acre, the relief force kept the Crusaders surrounded with no hope of escape. Throughout the next year, reinforcements continued to arrive from various states in Europe to assist the siege, such as the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire army led by Frederick VI whose father, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, had drowned en route to the Levant.

In response, the Saracens continued to call in reinforcements of their own, and the number of soldiers involved in the siege massively swelled. Eventually, both the city and the Christian camp were entirely contained by Saladin's forces, a state of affairs that severely impacted the living conditions for the Crusaders. Epidemics broke out and even the Crusader leaders began to succumb to disease, including Duke Frederick VI of Swabia.

Flow of poison

Sometime in that same year, 1190, the Templars, frustrated with the stalemate, hatched a secret scheme to poison the entire water supply of Acre. Such was the extent of the operation that they expected the entire population of the city to die by the next morning, leaving the city empty for the Crusaders' taking.

When the de facto successor to Gerard, Basilisk, was defeated by the Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad in Tyre, however, the Templar leaked the plot to the Assassin in exchange for mercy. As both were in a competition for the Chalice, which they now knew to be a woman hiding in Jerusalem, Basilisk hoped that by playing on Altaïr's conscience to save Acre, he would delay the Assassin long enough for him to reach Jerusalem first.

Sure enough, Altaïr detoured to Acre, desperate to rescue its people from the massacre that could be carried out at anytime.

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