As dawn broke on the morning of July 14, 1099, the exhausted Fatimid guards atop the towers and walls of Jerusalem were roused from their brief slumber by the sounds of the Crusader siege tower, once again lumbering toward them to begin the day’s assault. They were stunned, however, to see that the tower was no longer in front of them, but farther north, moving toward a section of the wall that was much lower and thus harder to defend. Cries and shouts of alarm filled the air along the city walls, and the Fatimids scrambled to shift their defenses to the north as the giant siege tower moved ever closer.
The strategy had been a success. The assault with ladders the previous night had distracted the Fatimid guards, who had failed to notice the movement of the tower from behind the camp towa
