Chapter 13
Richard’s wars in Palestine lasted another year. For posterity this is the high romantic period of the Crusades. Arab and Christian sources alike are full of anecdotes about the dealings between the two great champions. A genuine and close friendship grew up between Richard and Saladin’s brother al-Adil Saif-ad-Din, known to the Christians as Saphedin; but there was fraternisation among the lesser emirs and knights also. Just as the king girded al-Adil’s twelve-year-old son with the belt of knighthood and banqueted with his father on Frankish and Arab cuisine, so the Frankish nobility had grown into eastern ways. Respect could sometimes soften contempt on both sides.
The original armies from Europe had been officered by an ambitious and ruffianly nobility and the troops had been recruited from the riff-raff of a society where brutality was commonplace. A German writer in these early days observed that ‘most of the knights are brigands’, and others accused the nobility of taking the Cross with all solemnity but abandoning their vows once the Saladin tithe had been levied on their tenants. A recruiting drive in Wales for the Third Crusade was considered a great success when the region’s most hardened thieves and murderers opted for freedom with the army in Palestine rather than imprisonment at home. Later Pope Gregory X had to instruct the Frankish clergy not to defend crusaders who had committed ‘theft, homicide or rape simply because they had crusading indulgences’.
The more sophisticated European visitors were ashamed of the Frankish society that generations of such recruits had produced in the Holy Land. The German Dominican Burkhard wrote: ‘Our own people, the Latins, are worse than all the other people of the land…. And thus is the place of our redemption brought into contempt.’ With Germany one of the least numerous of the European nations in Palestine, Burchard would have a natural antipathy for its predominantly Latin population. Yet he was by no means the only traveller to complain at the shameless way the Christians overseas exploited their fellow Catholics, on pilgrimage from Europe. Westerners were willing to believe any tale about the Franks across the water. In Jerusalem. it was said, there was not a man, whether rich or poor, who thought twice about exposing his daughter, his sister or even his wife to the lust of the pilgrims for money.
Yet even this did not evoke such outrage as the fraternisation between Christian and Muslim. The ideological conflict, so important to Europeans, was kept artificially alive in the kingdom and principalities by the appointment of Europeans to all the senior posts in the church. Throughout the century, William Archbishop of Tyre was the only native-born churchman to reach the bench of bishops. No doubt it was necessary to keep the Faith overseas pure and fervent with regular injections of untainted blood; left to themselves men showed a disturbing willingness to live in peace and to accept their differences. At Damascus itself there was a holy image that healed Jews, Christians and Muslims equally; while Muslim and Christian together venerated the spring where the Virgin Mary had washed the clothes of the infant Christ and the palm that had bent its boughs to give her food. Where even the saints and the shrines could be held in common, the cause of sectarian solidarity needed constant nurturing.
The luxury of eastern life seemed as wicked as the all too frequent tolerance of the foreign religion. Knights and nobles who could boast the lineage of the greatest families of Europe were to be seen wearing the outlandish burnous and turban, and riding into battle with their armour covered by a long surcoat and their helmet by a flapping kefieh. Gentlemen of middling rank and the nouveaux riche Italian merchants covered their houses in mosaic and marble; carpets lay on the floors and rich damask hangings graced the walls. Inlaid furniture, meals served on gold and silver, elegant cutlery and the new-fangled convention of eating meat with a fork, regularly laundered bed linen and fresh water brought on tap through the great aqueducts built by the Romans, contributed to make a way of life that the hardy European found alien and suspected as effeminate.
Visitors were also shocked by the way that commerce seemed to govern everything. The wealth of the kingdom largely depended on the trade passing from the Muslim hinterland to the ports of the coast. Muslims had to be allowed free access and given the protection of the law. The Italians – Genoese, Venetians, Pisans, Amalfitans – and French merchants from Marseille, had their business in every city of importance, with special districts in Antioch, Tripoli, Beirut, Tyre and Caesarea in which they were subject to their own customs and administered their own laws. Their ships transported the pilgrims and the armies of the kingdom – at a price. They had little interest in religion; it was said that a man of Venice would rather help a Muslim than a Genoese. Venetians, Pisans and Genoese were with the Sicilian fleet at Alexandria in 1174, but Saladin noted they fought half-heartedly.
One of Saladin’s long-term objectives had been to lure the Italian trade from the Syrian to the Egyptian coast. For the fact was that, despite their abominable religious beliefs, the Christians had brought a heavy increase in the trade of the Palestinian coastal cities and had also provided a prompt and efficient merchandising operation to get the goods to the new markets in Europe. Trade brought Christian and Muslim together as nothing else could; Saladin had little difficulty in negotiating treaties with Genoa and Venice and once commented to an adviser that there was ‘not one of them [the Italians] which does not supply our land with its materials of war … and treaties of peaceful intercourse have been negotiated with them all’. Even the Knights Templar, who by the latter part of the twelfth century had developed their immense assets and endowments to become rich and powerful bankers, operated regular accounts for Arab clients.
It was all a far cry from the bloodthirsty days of the First Crusade. The chaplain of King Baldwin I (d. 1127) had commented in the very early days: ‘We have become true Easterners. The Roman and the Frank are transformed into the Galilean or Palestinian, the native of Rheims or Chartres into a citizen of Tyre or Antioch.’ The rhetoric of religion, important to the fanatics and statesmen of both sides, made little impression on merchants or local politicians who criss-crossed the lines of ideology in their single-minded pursuit of wealth and power.
In the minority, and representative of a more backward civilisation, the Franks moved more easily to assimilation. There were many who could speak Arabic and a few, like Raynald of Sidon, who even took an intelligent interest in Arabic literature. Muslim chroniclers, on the other hand, display little interest in the history of the Crusader states and no interest at all in their countries of origin; though they do show considerable concern with the histories of the high civilisations of the Near and Far East and, in the thirteenth century, even analysed the origins and motives of the Mongols. For the Christian newcomers, their prevailing mood came to be one of contempt: ‘The Franks (May Allah Render them Helpless!) possess none of the virtues of men, except courage.’
Some Muslim comments on Christian customs and religion were as obtuse and ignorant as European invective against Islam. The belief in the Trinity was branded polytheism and the adulation of the True Cross, when it was taken into battle, seemed the rankest idolatry. ‘They set it up and then bow the knee to it and prostrate themselves…. It is coated in red gold, and encrusted with pearls and precious stones. At times of danger, or during great festivals the priests present it to the people who … pray to it as if it were a god, bowing their faces in the dust and singing hymns of praise to it. There are numerous others like it which they set up in their houses to do honour to.’
Even the sophisticated Usamah, prince of Shaizar, whose memoirs provide a full and fascinating insight into life in twelfth-century Palestine, was sometimes nonplussed by the strange doings of the Franks. He spent many years at the court of Damascus, during the middle years of the century when it was frequently in alliance with Jerusalem, and he travelled a good deal, both as tourist and diplomat, in the Christian states. He made a number of friends, but he never really understood them. When he came to recount the cases ‘regarding the Franks’, he disclaimed all responsibility for the tall stories that were to follow, piously commenting, ‘Mysterious are the works of the Creator, the author of all things!’ Usamah had friends among the Templars who were the custodians of the Aqsa mosque; they reserved one of the porches for Muslim worshippers who were regularly to be seen at the appointed times of prayer bowing in the direction of Mecca, that is southwards. One day Usamah was brutally interrupted in his devotions when a Frankish pilgrim, horrified by his first sight of an infidel practising his abominable creed, rushed up to him and swung him roughly round to face the East, crying out: ‘This is the way thou shouldst pray.’ Although he was pulled off by a group of highly embarrassed knights, he returned to the attack as soon as their backs were turned, determined, apparently, that at least one Muslim should learn the right way to pray. This time he was thrown out of the church and the Templars attempted to mollify their friend by explaining that the offender had but recently come from Europe. For his part Usamah was not only shocked by the experience but also, it would seem, a little frightened ‘at the conduct of this devil of a man, at the change in the colour of his face and his trembling’.
Such fanaticism was a little out of place in cosmopolitan Jerusalem, but the average Muslim would at least recognise the Christian’s religious fervour. But when it came to the sexual mores of the Franks a Muslim was completely at a loss for words. Women not only walked openly in the streets with their husbands, but if they happened to meet a friend, the husband stood patiently by while they had their chat. If the conversation dragged on, the Frank thought nothing of leaving his wife with the man while he went about his business.
Frankish behaviour was still more unconventional in the public baths. They thought it absurdly prudish to wear a towel round the waist as the modest conventions of the East required. One day a boisterous young gentleman whipped off the towel being worn by one of the attendants. Stopping in his tracks he stared in astonishment, for the man’s pubic hair had been shaved. The narrator continues: ‘He shouted for me, “Salim!” As I drew near he stretched out his hand over the place and said, “An excellent idea. By the truth of my religion do the same for me.” Accordingly he had himself shaved after the Saracen fashion.’ What then followed might cause a few raised eyebrows even in a uni-sex sauna. Ordering his servant to bring his lady to the hot room the knight there and then had his wife’s skirts pulled up and personally supervised the bath attendant as he shaved off her pubic hair.
Eccentricities like this must have afforded hours of entertainment round the dinner tables of Usamah and his friends. But on one occasion his ears were affronted by words ‘that would never come from the lips of a sensible man’. He got on to such good terms with a Frankish pilgrim that the two called one another ‘brother’. When the time came for the European to return home he took Usamah aside and solemnly urged him: ‘“Send thy son with me to our country, where he can see true knights and learn wisdom and chivalry. When he returns to you he will be a wise man.” Such were his words, yet even if my son were to be taken captive, he could not suffer a worse misfortune than to live in the land of the Franks. However, I replied as follows: “By thy life, this has been exactly my idea. But the fact is, his grandmother, my mother, is so fond of him that she exacted an oath from me that I would return him to her.” Thereupon he asked: “Is thy mother still alive?” “Yes,” I replied. “Well,” said he, “disobey her not.”’
The obtuseness of this well-meaning Christian was positively enlightened compared with the attitudes of many churchmen to the hostile faith. The similarities between Christianity and Islam convinced some writers that Muhammad began his career as a Christian heretic, while others believed he was subject to fits of demonic possession. In view of the religion’s fierce antipathy to all images, whether of the godhead or of the prophet, it is barely credible that one of the commonest Christian charges against Islam was that of idolatry. The legend grew up that the crusaders had found a silver idol of Muhammad in the Temple at Jerusalem, and in 1200 we find the Frenchman Jacques Vitry asserting that: ‘as often as the followers of Muhammad possess the temple of Solomon they set up his statue there’. Yet more accurate information was to be found. Burkhard, the German who had served on a mission from Frederick Barbarossa to Saladin, reported the tolerance he had seen shown to the Christians of Egypt and contradicted many of the prevailing European myths about Islam. Although polygamy was permitted to Muslims, he found that most had only one wife. Like other unprejudiced observers he was greatly impressed by the Muslim’s strict observance of the hours of prayer, and reported that they believed in one God who had created heaven and earth, as did the Christians, and that they even revered Jesus Christ as one of the prophets. Whereas these similarities indicated to some Europeans that Muhammad was but a renegade Christian, to Burchard they seemed signs of hope, and to a local Frankish bishop they seemed to be proof that God was leading the Infidel to himself in his mysterious divine plan for the universe.
On their side, the Muslims had equally mixed notions of their enemies and some equally admiring views. Saladin, who had to maintain the whole Muslim war effort from his own territories, spoke admiringly of his Christian enemies who came from all parts of Europe to fight for their Faith. Whereas they drew volunteers from Scotland, England, Italy, Germany and from all over France, he could win the support of the armies of Mosul only when he had conquered its prince and forced him into submission. If courage was the only manly quality which some of the Muslims conceded to their enemies, no one denied that they had it to the full. Watching the heroic march of the Christian army to Arsuf, one of Saladin’s staff wrote: ‘One cannot help admiring the patience displayed by these people, who bore the most wearing fatigue without having any part in the management of affairs or deriving any personal advantage.’
These dogged fighting qualities and the faltering enthusiasm for the war among his own emirs made the period of King Richard’s campaigns in Palestine one of constant tension for Saladin. In August 1191 the glorious triumph at Jerusalem was four years in the past, and since that moment he had been fighting to defend his conquests. The longterm situation was swinging in his favour. During the siege of Acre Guy and Conrad had continued their rivalry for the kingship. Even after the loss of the city, Saladin could have stabilised the frontiers if Richard of England had returned with the French king after the Christian victory. As it was, during the next thirteen months Saladin was almost constantly in the field, and when at last a treaty was settled with Richard he had less than six months to live.
The halo of chivalry which surrounds the rival champions is not merely the invention of posterity. Saladin and his emirs, bred in the tradition of the Muslim gentleman, delighted to entertain the Franks with all the luxury of eastern courtliness, and had come to respect the courage and brilliance of the European fighting man, while their enemies were enthralled by the burgeoning European cult of knighthood, and intensely admired the dashing style of Turkish warfare. The air of glamour and excitement gripped the leaders. Saladin and his brother al-Adil were obviously fascinated by their great antagonist, while Richard was in his element where chivalry and military problems were so richly compounded.
But in the weeks immediately after Acre the air of mutual admiration was poisoned for ‘Saladin was terribly wroth at Richard’s massacre of the prisoners at Acre’. Frankish stragglers brought into the camp were unceremoniously killed after interrogation, and many horribly mutilated. It is doubtful whether Saladin would have been obeyed had he tried to intervene. The slaughtered garrison had had family and friends in the army, and these troops had fought bitterly all that cruel August day to save their comrades. Then they had been beaten back by the Franks; now a few defenceless prisoners were the anguished victims of their pent-up fury. Saladin did not doubt the justice of the deaths: vengeance was part of the code all men lived by, but wanton cruelty was not in his nature. Years before he had refused his young sons permission to kill a prisoner in cold blood because it was not right they should learn the habit of killing men before they learnt the ways of justice. Even in the fervid weeks after Acre he managed to save some of the victims from mutilation.
The news the prisoners brought in was disquieting. Since marching out of Acre on 22 August Richard’s army had made only slow progress on its way south along the coast road, but this it emerged was because the king was keeping in touch with the fleet and its supplies. This was not a rash gamble like the march of Guy to Acre but a measured opening to a long-term strategy with ambitious objectives. The target was Jerusalem. Richard planned to march down the coast to Jaffa and, with this port as a base, to strike inland at the Holy City. But Jaffa was more than sixty miles away along a difficult road with eight river crossings and the march was in the height of the Mediterranean summer. It was shadowed by a massive Muslim force in the nearby hills.
For two weeks the Christians marched doggedly southwards, the sea on their right and the Muslims on their left. They made barely five miles a day. Richard had divided his force into three divisions parallel to the sea. In the centre was the cavalry, to protect the horses from the Turkish arrows, the baggage and the standard. This was a wagon carrying ‘a tower as high as a minaret from which floated the banner of the people’. Since the capture of the True Cross the Christians had been searching for a new rallying symbol. At Acre Guy had been preceded into battle by an illuminated copy of the Gospels under a canopy carried by four knights. Perhaps this had been changed because it was unfortunately reminiscent of the Muslim custom of carrying the Koran into battle. Either side of the Christian centre were two columns of foot, the one on the right being protected by the sea, the one on the left carrying the weight of the Muslim attacks. Periodically the two changed stations so that each had a chance to rest from the fighting. Under their regulation mail shirts the troops wore heavy felt jerkins so that the hail of arrows caused little damage. The brunt of the battle fell on the rearguard, which had to march backwards, fighting as best it could. The Christian crossbows inflicted terrible wounds on the Muslims, but there were not enough of them.
For the most part the Christians had to trudge on in the dusty heat, powerless to strike back at the Muslim archers and light cavalry. Men died of heat stroke, of fatigue, of chance arrows in the face. Yet day after scorching day they kept formation, to the angry admiration of Saladin and his staff. As we have noted what impressed them about ‘the patience displayed by these people’ was that they ‘bore the most wearing fatigue without having any participation in the direction of the campaign or deriving any personal advantage.’ It was a rueful comparison with the position of Saladin, who had to consult his emirs over every decision. Too often, as we have seen, they overrode him and robbed him of victory.
On 30 August the Christians reached Caesarea. Now their ordeal intensified. Saladin had already reconnoitred the terrain and settled on the approaches to the port of Arsuf for a massive assault; here the coastal plain widened to give additional manoeuvrability to his horsemen. On 7 September the running action reached the dimensions of a major battle. Over the blaring trumpets and rolling kettledrums, over the sound of rattles, gongs and cymbals, rang out the strident battle cries of Turks, Arabs, Bedouin and blacks. Saladin was at the centre of the action. With arrows flying round his head and accompanied by pages leading two reserve horses he rode slowly up the line between the two armies, urging his men on to break the enemy formation. Under the wild fury of the assault the Christians at last began to falter. Knights who had swallowed their pride and kept their station throughout the march now begged Richard to authorise a charge. Still he held them back, waiting until Saladin’s skirmishers and cavalry were too far committed to withdraw; nevertheless the knights began to break through the wall of infantry all along the line. ‘The knights gathered together in the middle of the infantry; they grasped their lances, shouted their war cries like one man and rushed in a great charge, some on our left, some on our right and some on our centre.’ The charge was only moments before he had intended it but Richard gathered and led it with a vast momentum that shattered the Muslim ranks and sent men flying for their lives. Saladin stayed firm by his standard with only some supporters; once again he had to rally his force to prevent a rout.
The Christian success at Arsuf was not a crushing victory. It enabled Richard and his army to make their way safely into Arsuf, certainly, but Saladin’s army re-formed at near full strength. What the action had done was to undermine fatally the whole tactical assumption on which Saladin’s campaign was based – that the way to defeat the Franks was to lure them into a battle of movement and break their formation. The triumph at Hattin had flowed from careful manoeuvre, brilliantly calculated and executed to drive the enemy into a position of multiple disadvantage; Arsuf demonstrated that without such preparation the defeat of a Christian army – well armed, well disciplined, and professionally led – was beyond the resources at Saladin’s disposal. The blow to Saladin’s reputation had been far heavier than the military consequences. Seeing now the real possibility that Jerusalem itself might be lost, he fell back to Ramlah to block Richard’s road from Jaffa.
But at the moment Richard had no intention of moving to the next stage of his campaign until Jaffa had been properly secured. In any case his army was not in a fit state to fight. After the hazards of the last few weeks his men relaxed into the luxury and night life of Jaffa as completely as they had at Acre. Not a few made their way back up the coast road that they had helped to clear, to renew the acquaintance of those ‘lovely Frankish women’ we have already heard about. A few of these had sailed down to Jaffa, but obviously it was considered a little provincial in comparison with Acre. There was little fighting. While Richard was strengthening his base at Jaffa, Saladin was at Ascalon. Barely credible though it may sound, he was supervising the systematic destruction of the defences and large areas of the city itself.
The reverses at Acre and Arsuf had totally demoralised the Muslims. Now Saladin feared that Richard, if he could make a firm foothold in Ascalon as he had done in Jaffa, would be poised for an attack on Egypt. The nightmare that the whole of his life’s work might be overturned did not seem beyond possibility. The night before the decision to raze Ascalon he slept fitfully and discussed the pros and cons of the case with his son al-Afdal into the small hours. ‘I take God to witness,’ he said, ‘that I would rather lose all my children than cast down a single stone from the walls.’ The recapture of Ascalon, that once great Egyptian outpost in Palestine, had been one of the proudest moments of the 1187 campaign. To destroy it was a bitter admission of weakness. Yet Saladin recognised that after his army’s past performance he could not rely on any garrison to hold it. Once the decision had been made, this stern man did not shirk the seeing it through. Accustomed all his life to supervise his subordinates in everything he regarded as a top military priority, he was now to be seen going up and down the streets of this prized city helping personally in the recruiting of the workmen, and assigning portions of the ramparts to groups of labourers or towers to an emir and his troops. Fearing Richard would reach the city before the job was completed the sultan forced himself to urge on the demolition squads just as he had exhorted his troops in the heat of the battle.
The destruction of Ascalon was a full military vindication for Richard’s barbarous massacre of the Acre garrison. Saladin himself was bitterly opposed to the demolition, as we have said, but when he proposed defending it to his council of war the emirs rejected the idea. ‘He invited the Muslims to lock themselves up at Ascalon to defend it.’ So wrote Ibn-al-Athir. ‘No one responded to this appeal but they all said: “If you wish to defend it, go in with us or have one of your sons go in with us; otherwise not one of us will lock ourselves up here for fear of what happened at Acre.”’ There could hardly be more telling proof that without Saladin the achievements of the 1180s would have been impossible. After Ascalon, a number of fortresses in the southern part of the former kingdom were destroyed – there were just not enough troops to hold all these strong points the year round.
For the moment Richard held the initiative, but he also had problems. With Philip of France back in Europe, Richard feared for the security of his own vast French domains. He was also beginning to have doubts about the quality of his army. Guy had been sent back to Acre to round up the deserters with little success and soon Richard himself would have to go there to roust them out. Even the troops who remained loyal to the colours saw themselves as pilgrims. If they could fight their way to Jerusalem and visit the Holy Places they would be content. They were unlikely to stay on in the East to hold the conquered lands. On 17 October Richard opened negotiations with al-Adil. Saladin was not prepared to compromise his dignity and bargaining position by a meeting with Richard, but agreed that his brother might communicate with the enemy commander. The two had struck up such a close understanding that Richard looked on al-Adil as a ‘brother and friend’. At Richard’s request al-Adil sent his secretary to discuss preliminaries.
The first stage was the statement of extreme bargaining positions. Pointing out that the war was a wasting sickness damaging both sides equally, the king proposed the time had come to put a stop to it. Then, as the price of peace, he demanded Jerusalem, all the lands between the coast and the River Jordan, and finally the True Cross, ‘which for you is simply a piece of wood with no value, but for us is of the highest importance’. Since these were the very three points at issue in the war it is hardly surprising that Saladin, his army still in the field, refused outright. What followed was a compromise solution which horrified contemporaries on both sides and has never ceased to fascinate historians. It was proposed that a marriage be arranged between Richard’s sister Joanna, the widow of King William II of Sicily, and al-Adil. From her brother Joanna was to receive all the lands in Palestine under his control while al-Adil was to be made lord of all the remaining territory at present held by Saladin. Only the places held by the Templars were to be excluded from the arrangement. The couple should rule jointly from Jerusalem. In addition Saladin would hand over the True Cross and there was to be a complete exchange of prisoners.
Before continuing the negotiations on this astonishing line, al-Adil got the explicit approval of Saladin. It was willingly given ‘because he knew quite well that the King of England would never agree to such terms’. But he was wrong. Whatever may have been Richard’s motives for embarking on the Crusade, we can be fairly sure that religious piety was not chief among them – according to legend his family was descended from the devil. When building the castle of Gaillard in Normandy, he ignored protests from the Archbishop of Rouen who owned the land and is reputed to have replied: ‘If the angel of God himself should try to stop this building he would be met by a curse.’ If the marriage of his sister to a Muslim would settle the Palestine question and allow him to get back to his own affairs he was willing to consider the matter. However, he fully realised the impact on public opinion. His sister seems to have raised some forceful objections too, but these were less influential than the fact that ‘The Christian people disapprove of my giving my sister in marriage without consulting the Pope…. Accordingly I have sent a messenger to him…. If he authorises the wedding, so much the better. If not, I will give you the hand of one of my nieces.’ Saladin refused to consider any bride but the king’s sister, though if that could be arranged he was happy to go through with the proposal. It is obvious that he was only protracting the negotiations to win time. Whatever the motives of King Richard, Saladin would never have permitted the marriage of his own brother and an infidel. But with winter drawing on he may have hoped that the end of the conventional campaigning season would give him a breathing space.
And Saladin had another card. Simultaneously with the negotiations with Richard he had received an approach from Conrad of Tyre. The emissary was Raynald of Sidon, who, despite their encounter at Beaufort two years before, was well received by Saladin. Ever since his intervention at Tyre, Conrad’s policy had been entirely self-seeking – to extend his own power with little thought for the well-being of the Christian cause as a whole. Philip of France, his strongest patron, had returned to Europe, and Richard was openly hostile to his claims on the monarchy of Jerusalem. He was not the only native Frank who was worried at the way the European newcomers were taking control in Palestine, and seems to have gathered quite a following in addition to Raynald. He now offered to help Saladin recapture Acre if the sultan would guarantee Sidon and Beirut to him and his allies, though he refused a straight answer when asked if he would take up arms against Richard himself. Courted by both sides from the Christian camp, Saladin consulted the council as to which he should come to terms with. On balance they favoured Richard as marginally the more trustworthy, but both sets of negotiations were continued. Al-Adil, who revelled in the diplomatic complications, would sometimes be seen riding with Raynald past Richard’s camp. Desultory talks continued with Conrad, but for the time being Richard saw there was little point in his negotiations.
At the beginning of November, Saladin had to release the eastern contingents. The small winter army could not hope to match Richard in the field, even if the rains and mud had not made serious fighting virtually impossible. Saladin withdrew to Jerusalem. But Richard led his army on towards Jerusalem and occupied Ramlah. For six weeks they camped there, fending off the attacks of Saladin’s skirmishers; then, to his consternation, they pushed on still nearer, to occupy the fort of Beit Nuba only twelve miles away. In that first week of January 1192 the hills around the Holy City were lashed with storms that snapped the tent poles in the Christian camp and turned the roads into quagmires. But with the object of their pilgrimage so close the morale of the Christian troops was as high as ever it had been. For his part Saladin hourly expected an assault and began dividing the defence of the walls among his emirs.
A week after the Christians had made their camp at Beit Nuba Saladin’s scouts reported that they were marching back down the road towards Ramlah. The decision to retreat had stretched Richard’s authority almost as much as the decision to stay had Saladin’s. The European contingents were straining to attack, but the Palestinian lords confirmed the king’s own gloomy diagnosis. Even if, despite the appalling weather and the Egyptian forces camped in the hills, he succeeded in taking Jerusalem, his pilgrim troopers would head for home when the city was won. The Christian army was bitterly disappointed. Against the odds and against the weather they had fought a way to their goal. Now, through driving hail and snow, over marshes and swamps that sucked down men and horses, they marched away, beaten without a battle. There were many deserters, ‘the greater part of the French went off in anger to Jaffa and lived at ease’, others to Acre, where supplies were abundant, and some took service with Conrad at Tyre. Now was the time for Saladin to strike. But although Richard had defied the appalling weather to get to Beit Nuba the conditions did put a major battle out of the question. It was not merely a matter of the terrain. Archers were Saladin’s main offensive arm and the rain would soon have slackened their bow-strings. In addition his army was depleted by the seasonal leave to half strength and demoralised by the failures of the previous months. To have held them together had been an achievement; now he could only wait for the weather to improve and the troops of Mosul and its region to return. It is an interesting light on Saladin’s swelling reputation among his enemies that some Christians attributed his inaction to his chivalry.
Events did not stand still. Richard led his army to Ascalon where they ‘could barely struggle through the gates over the heaps of rubble’ left by Saladin’s labourers. The next four months saw these fortifications rebuilt. All that Saladin had won by the agonised decision to destroy the place was a little time. By May, Ascalon was once again an effective Christian garrison town. But the enemy could not deploy his advantage. Conrad refused to join Richard at Ascalon. The French contingent led by the duke of Burgundy was still disaffected, the Pisans had taken over Acre in the name of King Guy and held it against the combined forces of Conrad, Burgundy and Genoa. Once again Saladin’s enemies were doing his work for him.
In March he and al-Adil at last brought the negotiations with Conrad to an offensive/defensive alliance, and immediately made a handsome offer to Richard which, shrewdly enough, included Beirut, one of Conrad’s prime objectives. In addition the Christians should retain their conquests, have back their cross and be allowed the right of pilgrimage to the Holy Places where Latin priests were to be installed. Saladin had long ago written off his ineffective ally at Constantinople. Al-Adil led the delegation to the plain outside Acre where Richard was working to restore some unity among his allies. On Palm Sunday, 29 March, ‘amid much splendour’, as a sign of respect for his ‘brother and friend’ Richard girded al-Adil’s son with the belt of knighthood.
The terms were good and should have been acted on. Both sides wanted peace. Saladin was troubled by reports of trouble in al-Jazirah, where one of his nephews was stirring up discontent. Richard was hearing disquieting reports of conflicts between his ministers in England and his ambitious brother, Prince John. He could not afford to stay out east much longer, and early in April called a full council of the kingdom to settle the dispute between Conrad and Guy. Although he had favoured Guy’s claim, when the council unanimously voted for Conrad he agreed. It was what the Marquis had been waiting for. He agreed in turn to join the army at Ascalon after his coronation in Acre. Then, on 28 April, Conrad was struck down by two Assassins, sent by Sinan, ‘The Old Man of the Mountains’. He had a private grievance against Conrad and may also have recognised that he alone was able to rebuild a powerful state in the Christian lands. But rumour told different stories. Some said that Saladin had asked Sinan to arrange the deaths of both Richard and Conrad; later, rather confused Assassin tradition held that the murder was at Saladin’s request. But since it tells how the men killed Richard, it can be discounted. The Christians, remembering the antagonism between Richard and Conrad, favoured the view that Richard had ordered the killing. Since, barely a week before, Richard had at last settled his quarrel with Conrad and had even got his agreement to join the common fight against the Muslims, this is, if possible, still more unlikely. In any case, he made no attempt to rehabilitate Guy. When the people of Tyre acclaimed Henry of Champagne as the successor to their dead hero, Richard again acquiesced. On 5 May, just one week after her husband’s death, Queen Isabella married Henry. The speed of the operation raised a few eyebrows in the Christian camp, while Muslim opinion, hardened as it thought to the barbarous morals of the enemy, was disgusted to learn that the marriage had been consummated even though the queen was already pregnant.
During all this time Saladin had been content to watch the confusion of his enemies. The situation in the east was too uncertain for him to commit himself to a campaign and he was still awaiting the return of his emirs. He no doubt thought the provisional agreement with Richard would hold long enough for them to come up. But Richard had now heard reports of Saladin’s rebellious family and he may also have heard the rumour that Guy’s assassins had hoped to kill him. More probably his military mind saw the chance of a quick, cheap and important gain. In mid-May he advanced by land and sea down from Ascalon to the important fortress town of Darum, twenty miles further on the road to Egypt, and by the 28th it was once again in Christian hands. Still worse from Saladin’s point of view was the news that Richard, stirred by the exhortations of his chaplain, had put off his return to Europe yet again.
The eastern contingents were at last flooding back to join the army, but when Richard advanced once again to Beit Nuba Saladin did not feel strong enough to do more than harry the outposts of the Christian force, which stayed in its advanced position for a month. The Christians were as perplexed as Saladin about the next stage of the campaign. The arguments that had persuaded Richard to retreat in January still held good, and now Saladin was stronger. However, another success soon came. A great caravan was making its way slowly up Egypt to the Holy City. We are told by Baha’-ad-Din that Richard himself reconnoitred the position before dawn disguised as an Arab. The result was that his men were able to take the convoy completely by surprise, and only a baggage train belonging to the sultan himself was saved from the disaster – thanks to the heroism of its commander, Aybak-al-Aziz. The military significance of the episode was not unimportant. Among the immense booty the Christians had taken thousands of horses and camels, and once again Saladin’s standing with his own people had suffered heavily. Now, he was convinced, Richard would move in for the kill. With a heavy heart Saladin convened his emirs once more to screw their courage to the sticking point of resistance. He called a council of war.
The proceedings opened with an oration from Baha’-ad-Din reminding the emirs of their duty to the Holy War and exhorting them to stand firm. When he had finished the company sat in silence waiting for the sultan to speak. Minutes passed. Then Saladin rose slowly to his feet. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘you are the support of Islam. Only you among the Muslims can stand up against this enemy. If you fail – which God forbid–they will roll up this land like the rolling up of a scroll, and you will be answerable, for it was you who undertook to defend it. You have received money from the public treasury and now the safety of the Muslims throughout the land rests with you.’ In that assembly the mention of cash was timely. There was not a man there who had not received richly of the sultan’s largesse, who had not at some time had valuable warhorses given him in replacement for the mounts lost in the Holy War. Many of the emirs had already criticised the plan to stay in Jerusalem. The shadow of Acre still hung heavily in the air, and there were plenty of voices in favour of risking a pitched battle rather than waiting cooped up for what they regarded as the inevitable fall of the city. The argument was dressed in specious military reasoning, but Saladin well knew that if once he left the place his cause would be lost. Any garrison left to hold it would fall apart, for ‘the Kurds will not obey the Turks and the Turks will never obey the Kurds’. As to the main army, once it was in the open field it would melt away as the emirs looked for safety for themselves and their possessions behind the Jordan.
When he had sat down no one attempted to open up the debate. He was answered by al-Mashtub the Kurd. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘we are your servants and slaves. You have been gracious to us and made us mighty and rich, we have nothing but our necks and they are in your hands. By God, not one among us will turn back from helping you until we die.’ After this Saladin called for the usual evening meal to be served, and when they had eaten his captains withdrew. The whole episode smacks of careful stage management. The uplifting call to the jihad, followed by a reminder of the practicalities of the situation, and the whole rounded off by a declaration of loyalty from the leader of the Kurdish squadrons with the hint that defaulters would have them to reckon with. Yet again Saladin had held a crumbling situation together. And for the second time, as if by divine intervention the Muslims were to be spared. Richard, always a soldier first and pilgrim second, saw that the situation was as it had been in January, with the additional hazard that Saladin had poisoned the wells. On Sunday, 5 July, he ordered the retreat, and Saladin, with his emirs, rode out to watch their enemy trudging disconsolately southwards.
Two days later, to Saladin’s astonishment, a message arrived from Henry ‘King of Jerusalem’, demanding the return of all ‘his’ lands. He was curtly informed that as the successor to Conrad the best he could hope for was the return of Tyre and Acre. In fact, we are told, Saladin was so outraged by the impudence of the demand from an enemy who had completed his retreat that the messenger was lucky to escape unhurt. He was followed by a more diplomatic embassy from Richard, now at Jaffa and determined at last to get back to Europe. He asked the sultan to forgive the rashness of the young king and to consider once more terms of peace that would bring honour to both sides. Saladin’s emirs were as keen as Richard to put an end to the damaging and inconclusive campaigns of the past year, and agreement seemed in sight. But neither Saladin nor Richard would yield on the matter of Ascalon. The one insisted that the fortifications be dismantled, the other refused to surrender the one major achievement since Acre.
Richard in fact was so sure that agreement would be reached that he had moved his army to Acre and was pushing along his preparations for departure. Unprotected, Jaffa was too valuable a prize to Saladin for him to let it slip while the final peace was still awaiting settlement. On 27 July he marched down from Jerusalem and three days later his troops were storming through the streets looting and killing. The garrison in the citadel had agreed to capitulate in return for their lives, but this Saladin could not guarantee until the orgy of pillage in the town had exhausted itself. In the meantime the news of the disaster had been brought to Acre, where Richard was on the point of embarking. The exhausted messenger had not completed his report before the king was rallying the fleet and his knights. On 31 July he was sighted off Jaffa with a fleet of galleys. Because of the chivalry of Saladin and his officers the garrison were still safe in the citadel while their enemies tried to pacify the rioting soldiery. When they saw help at hand they took up their arms prepared to hold out until the king of England came to their aid.
There were already Muslim banners on the walls of the city, and for a time Richard hesitated. Then a soldier from the garrison made his way to the king’s ship and told him the place was still being held. Waiting no longer, Richard, still wearing his sailor’s deck shoes, plunged into the sea followed by some eighty knights and, under the astonished eyes of Baha’-ad-Din, who was still acting as negotiator between Saladin and the garrison, cleared the harbour of the Kurdish and Turkoman soldiers. The king was followed by a force of Italian marines, and as Saladin sat in his tent trying to clinch the final surrender terms the flood of panicked soldiers and refugees crowding the streets told him all was lost. As usual, he, with a small band of loyal troops, tried to rally the cowards round the standard – but the case was hopeless. The courage and decision of Richard had made Jaffa once again a Christian city.
Nevertheless, Saladin knew how weak his enemy was and he refused to concede the position. In the dawn of Wednesday, 5 August, a Genoese sentry in Richard’s camp heard the sound of horses and the chink of armour beyond the lines. He alerted the commander. Still dragging on their armour and reaching for their swords, fifty-four knights, led by the martial king, dashed to the perimeter, defended by a low palisade of sharpened tent pegs. They were joined by some two thousand Italian crossbow men. The knights, shields on arms, stood in pairs, their lances pointing towards the oncoming cavalry, and behind them the archers. Saladin had 7,000 horse in the field, but they could not break down the opposition though their attacks came again and again until early in the afternoon. Now, seeing his enemy tiring, Richard and his knights mounted and hurled themselves at the Muslim cavalry. The battle was turned by their gallantry. Richard’s horse was shot under him, and al-Adil, who was with the host, sent him a replacement. It was a bad-tempered animal, and Saladin’s brother watched intrigued to see whether the king would be able to break its spirit. But Richard had no time for such chivalrous by-play and ordered the Saracen groom back to his master with a wry message not to set traps like that. With the defenders of Jaffa so heavily committed at the camp some of Saladin’s men attempted to storm the place, but they too were driven back. Once again Saladin had to retire to Jerusalem and once again he prepared to stand a siege. But this time Richard had no intention of carrying the war to him. Seeing that this last superb victory had exhausted the Christian champion, Saladin was soon back in force at Ramlah. The final round of negotiations began. Richard was forced to give up Ascalon, his suggestion that he hold it as a fief from Saladin in the Frankish manner was turned down. The coast from Acre to Jaffa was to remain in Christian hands and the troops in Richard’s army were to be allowed to make their pilgrimage to the Holy Places. On 9 October Richard, desperately sick, went on board at Acre. His last message to Saladin was that when the three-year truce was over he would return to take Jerusalem. The chivalrous reply came back that if Saladin had to lose his lands to any king there was none more worthy to win them than the king of England.
By the 1190s the balance between the Muslim world and Western Christendom was very much in the Muslims’ favour. They were in the ascendant in the ‘crusading’ wars, which, of course, they won with the eviction of the Franks from Palestine in 1291. Theirs was also the dominant culture. Communications across the linguistic divide were in Arabic; the negotiations between Richard and Saladin’s brother al-Adil were conducted through the young Humphrey IV of Toron, one of the Franks fluent in the language. Arabic sources, impressed by the dedication of the Franks to their religious cause, criticised Saladin for warring against Muslims – in fact, lordships outside his control showed little interest in the threat from Europe. Genoese galleys en route to provision the Christian army besieging Acre were able to revictual at North African ports; the sultan of Isfahan was indignant when Saladin refused him help against local insurgents.
With the death of Baldwin IV the Franks lost their last notable king; the leprosy that wasted his body never infected his will, dedication or mental powers. The days of Jerusalem as capital of a Christian kingdom were numbered. Saladin had forced its neighbour states into an encircling alliance that would last long enough to ensure the recovery of the city for Islam – a settlement not challenged for some 760 years.