El-Adil was so much engaged with wars against the Moslem princes,--the princes of Nissibis and Mardin,--and also with repulsing El-Afdhal, who wished to recover his lost kingdom, that he was unable to proceed with any force against the Crusaders; he took unwilling measures against them when they actually broke the peace, and was always ready to conclude a new treaty. He took Jaffa by storm when the pilgrims, armed by Henry VI., came to Palestine and interfered with the Moslem devotions, and when the chancellor Conrad thereupon seized Sidon and Beirut, El-Adil contented himself with laying waste the former town and hindering the capture of the fortress Joron; Beirut he allowed to fall into the enemy's hands. Still later he permitted several attacks of the Christians--such as the devastation of the town Fuah, situated on the Rosetta arm of the Nile--to pass unnoticed, and even bought peace at the expense of the districts of Ramleh and Lydda, which had formerly belonged to him. It was not until the year 1206 that he acted upon the offensive against the regent, John of Ibelin, and even then he contented himself with slight advantages and concluded a new truce for thirty years. Shortly before his death, El-Adil, like his brother Saladin, narrowly escaped losing all his glory and the fruits of so many victories. Pope Honorius III. had successfully aroused the zeal of the Western nations for a new Crusade. Numerous well-armed and warlike-minded pilgrims--among whom were King Andreas of Hungary and Duke Leopold of Austria--landed at Acre in 1217, and King John of Jerusalem led them against the Moslems. El-Adil hastened from Egypt to the scene of action, but was forced to retreat to Damascus and to give up the whole of the southern district, with the exception of the well-fortified holy town, to be plundered by the Christians. In the following spring, whilst El-Adil was in Syria, a Christian fleet sailed to Damietta, and besieged the town. The attacking forces were composed of Germans and Hungarians, who had embarked at Spalato on the Adriatic for St. Jean d'Acre, where they spent a year in unfortunate expeditions and quarrels with the Christians of Syria. They were joined by a fleet of three hundred boats furnished by North Germans and Frisians, who, leaving the banks of the Rhine, had journeyed there by way of the Straits of Gibraltar, prolonging the journey by a year's fighting in Portugal. The Christians then in Palestine had persuaded the Crusaders to begin with an attack on Egypt, and they had therefore chosen to land at Damietta. This was a large commercial town to the east of one of the arms of the Nile, which was defended by three walls and a large tower built on an island in the middle of the Nile, from which started the chains that barred the river.