French and south German armies, under the Kings Louis VII and Conrad III respectively, marched to Jerusalem in 1147 but failed to win any major victories, launching a failed pre-emptive siege of Damascus, an independent city that would soon fall into the hands of Nur ad-Din Zangi, the main enemy of the Crusaders. On the other side of the Mediterranean, however, the Second Crusade met with great success as a group of northern European Crusaders stopped in Portugal, allied with the Portuguese King Afonso I of Portugal, and retook Lisbon from the Muslims in 1147.
