Conditions in each civilization contributed to the birth of the crusading era. Byzantium, rebuilding from fifty years of military atrophy that had culminated in the disaster of Manzikert in 1071 (see Chapter 8), looked to western Europe for aid against the Seljuk Turks in regaining Asia Minor. In the European context of aristocratic reconstruction, religious zeal, and economic revival (see Chapter 7), the Byzantine call for mercenaries became, with the preaching of an expedition by Pope Urban II at Claremont in 1095, a mass movement to liberate the Holy Land. Muslim disunity made the success of this First Crusade more likely, and so allowed the long-term development of the movement.
The First Crusade assembled in 1096; by August 1099, Jerusalem had fallen, and four Latin Crusader States had been carved out of Muslim Syria and Palestine (Figure 11.1). The rest of the twelfth century saw those states maintain a precarious existence against increasing Muslim pressure, punctuated by crises that called forth the Second Crusade in 1147-49 and the Third Crusade in 1189-92. The latter was a response to the disastrous Battle of Hattin and the subsequent fall of Jerusalem and most other crusader territory to the Muslim leader Saladin in 1187. Led by Richard the Lion-Hearted of England, the Third Crusade ensured the survival of a remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (minus its namesake city) along the Mediterranean coast for another century (see Figure 11.1). The Fourth Crusade, diverted against Byzantium in 1204, sacked Constantinople and forms a tragic interlude between twelfth- and thirteenth-century crusading. The thirteenth century saw crusades directed mostly against Egypt. Success was increasingly hard to come by, and, in 1291, the last crusader stronghold in the Holy Land fell, though the broader crusading movement continued as part of western European expansion elsewhere (see Chapter 12). The history of the Crusades offers rich material for analysis across a range of themes, including the interaction of war, politics, and culture, and the conflict between different tactical systems.
Holy War
The Crusades were the ultimate expression of the connection between salvation religions and warfare that had been developing since the 300s (see the Issues box “Holy War”). While motives on all sides of the struggles in the eastern Mediterranean were mixed, religion was central to the ideology and practice of warfare.
On the Latin Christian side, crusading stimulated a sophisticated theology of war against infidels that combined the Christian concept of just war, which dated back to Augustine, with the penitential nature of pilgrimage. The legitimate authority required by just-war theory was God: Crusading was a war for Christ himself. The hardships and eventual success of the First Crusade contributed to the idea that the enterprise was divinely inspired and directed. Death in such a cause was a martyrdom made possible by divine love.
Figure 11.1 The First and Third Crusades
As crusading developed, its theology became tied to the practical problem of recruiting. Those who took the cross received indulgences—remissions of sins granted by the papacy—as well as papal-sanctioned protection of the families and properties they left behind while crusading. Crusade theology thus fit into a larger papal conception of the right order of the Christian world that arose out of the Gregorian reform movement of the mid-eleventh century. The papacy saw itself as the ultimate power in Christendom, and it saw crusading as a vital part of the leadership it wished to exercise over secular powers. Thus, the theology of crusading was part of the church’s effort to bring order to Christendom by directing the violence of the turbulent aristocracy against non-Christians.
Of course, many of the subtler distinctions of crusade theology (for example, that conversions to Christianity could not be achieved by force) were lost in the popular enthusiasm of the mass of crusaders.
Many saw the issues in contemporary terms of lordship: The crusade was a vendetta directed against those who had insulted the honor of the Lord, designed to recover his patrimony in the Holy Land. This popular conception was easily turned against any perceived enemies of Christ: Nearly every major crusade was accompanied by outbreaks of violent anti-Semitism and pogroms against the Jews of western Europe. The intolerance of popular crusading ideas later found expression against the Greek Orthodox Byzantines, as well as against heretics within Europe and pagans beyond the frontiers.
On the Muslim side, crusader zeal stimulated a revival of literal interpretations of the Koranic call to jihad (literally, “struggle”) against the infidel. The urban, commercial, and largely nonmilitary society of the Islamic heartland had come to view jihad in terms of internal struggle, peaceful conversion, and personal purification. Faced with militant Christian holy warriors, however, and led by the more literalist and fundamentalist of the newly converted Turkish tribesmen who formed the bulk of Islamic ghazis, warriors for the faith, jihad as holy war against religious foes came again to the fore and became an important factor in Muslim recruiting for countercrusade wars. While the motivations of soldiers on both sides of the Crusades were mixed, with greed and lust for power lurking alongside piety, genuine religious conviction was prevalent on both sides.
Many people in the modern world are made uncomfortable by the notion of “holy war”: of wars fought in the name of religions whose central message (in the case of the major salvation religions) appears to be antiviolence. This discomfort leads some students and scholars to discount the genuineness of beliefs expressed in favor of holy war and to see religion as a mere rationalization or pretext for the real, usually material, motives they think more plausible. For example, some scholars have characterized the Crusades as western Europeans’ device for hooking into the lucrative circuits of Asian trade that had theretofore largely passed them by.
Such a view imposes modern notions of believable motivation on a different world (almost as if the Crusades were the first Gulf War) and does violence to the evidence. Not only are religious motives as we see them in the sources clearly sincere, but the best economic evidence for the Crusades is that, at the individual level, crusading was almost always a losing bet. Only Italian merchants profited consistently from crusading, and they were neither crusaders themselves nor the motivating force behind crusading.
The discomfort may stem from the difficulty of reconciling modern notions of the role of religion with aggressive war. But religion’s role as an all- encompassing worldview in the traditional world meant that it had to accommodate warfare in some way. How comfortably did it do so? A brief survey of the major salvation religions reveals a range of answers.
Buddhism conforms most closely to modern preconceptions: There is no Buddhist idea of holy war, and, although Buddhist polities have conducted warfare, the religion has legitimated war only in a limited range of cases, most notably medieval Tibet. Asoka, the first great Buddhist ruler, renounced wars of conquest on his conversion. Only in Japan, in this as in many things an exception, did a form of Buddhism, Zen, become central to the values of a warrior class. Japan and Korea also saw the rise of Buddhist warrior-monks, but in terms of the religion as a whole, they are an even greater aberration than the Zen beliefs of Japanese secular warriors, and they fought not in the name of religion but in defense of their landed estates.
Hinduism accommodated warfare early on: Warriors were one of the four major classes in the caste-bound Hindu conception of society and fulfilled their dharma, or class duty, through fighting. But the caste system that accommodated warfare also limited its legitimate scope to the warriors.
A militant Hinduism did arise in response to Muslim raids and conquests, but not in any organized or centralized way, and not as a mass movement. Modern mass Hindu militancy is really a variant of nationalism, not holy war.
Islam apparently incorporated warfare into its theology from the beginning in the form of jihad, but this may be deceptive. The regular appearance of slave soldiers in a wide range of Islamic polities is a sign of discomfort at the heart of Islamic ideology with states wielding force (see the Issues box in Chapter 8). Islam maintains both military and spiritual interpretations of jihad, which in any case is supposed to be a defensive policy in terms of warfare. The history of Islamic holy war is further complicated by issues of conversion of nomadic peoples, fundamentalism, and, more recently, resistance to imperialism and western hegemony, in which nationalism and other modern ideologies play a large part.
Perhaps ironically, Christianity has historically made the easiest alliance with war. In contrast to Asoka’s renunciation of conquest after his conversion, Constantine, the first great Christian ruler, converted after winning a battle under the sign of the cross. The tradition of in hoc signo vinces—“in this sign you shall conquer”—became a constant part of the religion, expressed, among other ways, through the Crusades, through orders of warrior- monks unprecedented elsewhere (the Japanese monks being in truth incommensurable with the Templars and their like), and through the deep penetration into society of crusading ideals, as evidenced in events such as the Children’s Crusade. Christianity’s warlike zeal would later be turned inward in the Wars of Religion (though Islam too has had its Sunni-Shi’ite conflicts).
Two other religions are worthy of note in this context. Christianity’s accommodation with war derived in part from the Jewish notion of holy war attested in numerous biblical stories and in the Jewish revolts against Roman rule. And Zoroastrianism, like Judaism the universal-seeming religion of a particular people and state, sanctioned the state’s wars unproblematically. Indeed, Sassanid Persian warfare with the Byzantines rose to the level of a crusade on both sides at its climax around 600 (see Chapter 8).
Religion, of course, was not the only factor in traditional or modern motivations to war and patterns of the use of force. But especially in the traditional world, religion should not be discounted as a sincere motivation to violence as well as to nonviolence.
War and Political Authority
Despite the moral sanction that holy war gave to the use of military force, Christians and Muslims found that crusading did little for strong rulership. The Latin kings of Jerusalem experienced periodic inability to exert their authority over their kingdom despite their prestige and despite constant military crises that should have strengthened their leadership role. In part, their situation was unique: Pilgrims and the military orders (see below) were vital to the kingdom’s defense but outside its legal structure. That legal and political structure, imported from Europe, with its mutual rights and obligations and limited conception of kingship, hamstrung the power of the kings even over their most powerful subjects. The problems involved in ruling a conquest society complicated matters further. The Latin settlers could not carry out a permanent holy war against all Muslims, because the great mass of the population they ruled remained Muslim—European settlers were almost all knights and merchants, and not peasants. Local communities therefore retained their administrative structures, which the Latin rulers simply supervised from above. Muslims under Latin rule, though not always cooperative, were little threat militarily, but they further limited the legal reach of royal power. Overall, the cooperative nature of crusading meshed awkwardly with the centrally directed defense of the Crusader States.
After the First Crusade, led by nonroyal nobles, European royal leadership proved necessary for subsequent crusades due to the expense and control problems such expeditions raised. But because crusading removed them from their lands and often stretched their resources, kings found that it did little to enhance their power: Crusades served as an expression rather than a cause of growing royal control at home. Likewise, papal attempts to use crusading to enhance its leadership position had at best mixed results. Papal prestige reached its zenith under Innocent III, but the diversion of the Fourth Crusade and the failure of the Fifth, which Innocent called in 1215 but did not live to see, did nothing but harm during his tenure. In general, popes, like kings, overreached their resources in promoting crusading.
On the Muslim side, revived jihad failed to resolve the problems of political authority and legitimacy that had emerged under the Abbasid Caliphate (see Chapter 8). Caliphates in Baghdad and Egypt were dominated by sultans and wazirs (viziers or vasirs) whose military power continued to rest on elements essentially outside society: slave soldiers and tribesmen from the margins of the Islamic world. One slave group, the Mamluks in thirteenth-century Egypt, even came to power in their own right in the wake of crusading disruption. The existence of the crusader states did little to promote unity within the Muslim world or institutional strength within Muslim states.
On the Byzantine side, emperors found dealing with the Crusades to be fraught with dangers.
Crusaders in the empire often took to pillaging, damaging imperial prestige and resources. Managing crusader ambitions proved expensive, and the existence of the Crusader States complicated Byzantine diplomacy, which, being practical and aimed at territorial goals, made use of alliances with Muslim powers that irritated the Latins. Partly in that context, the involvement of crusaders in Byzantine succession politics brought disaster on the empire in 1204.
In short, crusading was consistently bad for strong rulership. It placed too heavy demands on the political and economic structures of the time, and, despite the religious sanction that crusading apparently gave to those wielding power, religion stimulated overambitious plans.
Cultural Exchange?
Did the military encounters of the Crusades promote cultural exchange between Christian and Muslim civilization? This is a much disputed topic. Certainly, there were diplomatic exchanges, as there were some attempts on the part of Christian leaders to exploit Muslim divisions and rivalries through diplomatic channels. Such contacts, however, were more common for the Byzantines, who already shared with their Muslim neighbors a degree of contempt for the barbarous Latin intruders. Despite some alliances, there are few real cases of Christian and Muslim armies working together, so opportunities for exchange in that way were limited. Diplomatic contact also created among Latin Christians an image of Saladin, the great Muslim leader of the later twelfth century, as an exemplar of chivalric values—perhaps a classic case of viewing a cultural other in one’s own terms. What about more substantive exchanges?
At the military level, there was little adoption of military techniques or organization between any of the three civilizations. The organization of each society’s armed forces was too much an outgrowth of each social structure to be borrowed easily, even if the idea had been conceived. Turkish cavalry tactics, for example, derived from an entire way of life, not just a tactical doctrine, and could be neither lightly discarded nor readily adopted by others. Traditions of arms use and the attitudes toward battle that accompanied them were also deeply embedded culturally. The Turkish willingness to retreat and return to the fight elsewhere, for instance, was incompatible with European notions of bravery and face-to-face combat. The Crusaders may have learned some of their responses to Turkish tactics from the Byzantines, who
had long experience with them, but the case is not proven. When borrowing did occur between armies, it was through the hiring of groups of foreign mercenaries who brought their whole practice, from life style to tactics, with them, and such cases were rare across religious boundaries. Even the evidence for Latin borrowing of Byzantine or Muslim fortification methods, once thought to be an important lesson learned by the Europeans from the Crusades, is thin. Western European castle building mostly followed its own trajectory; similarities among the three traditions are more likely the result of convergence on certain principles of good design than of direct borrowing in the Holy Land. Of course, all the armies of the Crusades adapted to each other’s tactics as they learned each other’s strengths and weaknesses. But leaders adapted within the traditions of their own armies, not by adopting the techniques of others.
Did the Crusades promote broader cultural exchanges? Again, the evidence is weak. European appropriation of Arab learning and science (often derived from classical Greek) took place more in Iberia and Sicily, where everyday contact was more the norm. The Crusader States were too tenuous a society to invest much in higher learning. Nor did crusading do much for overseas commerce. Italian trade was growing with or without the Crusades, which it predated, and war sometimes made trade more difficult. Perhaps crusading stimulated a taste for foreign luxury goods, but general economic revival did more to promote such trade (which was limited in any case), and many of the tastes in food and clothing picked up by Latin settlers in the Holy Land remained isolated there and did not spread to their stay-at-home cousins.
Basically, the Crusades created a sphere of military interaction. It is this we may now analyze in more detail.
Latin Christian Armies
Latin armies drew on four main sources of soldiers, all of which had serious limitations. At the beginning, all Latin soldiers were essentially armed pilgrims from Europe. Each major crusade directed a substantial army at the Holy Land. Between crusades, a small but steady flow of pilgrims to the holy sites visited the Crusader States. Many were knights along with their retainers. They were available for a campaigning season, as pilgrim ships arrived in the Holy Land in April and left in October, but they were available only sporadically and temporarily. In contrast, once the Crusader States were established, their defense needs were permanent and ongoing. Further, not all pilgrims were military personnel, and those who were, not being subjects of the local rulers, were only voluntarily obedient to their command.
Crusaders and pilgrims who did settle in the Holy Land became the backbone of the States’ systems of defense as well as the core of their ruling class. The settlers imported the sociomilitary structure of their homelands to their new possessions. Thus, the ruler of each state granted lands to his followers to administer and draw income from, in return for which they owed military service roughly proportional to the land’s value. Some grants were not of land, which was somewhat scarce, but of an annual fee in money derived from the active urban and maritime economy. The great nobles, in turn, granted parts of their estates to their followers to be used to maintain soldiers in their service. There were no limits on the service the ruler could demand, and the several Crusader States tended to support each other with their forces, but, as a system of property holding and administration, granting estates did limit the judicial powers of the ruler. Two problems plagued settler military forces. First, the districts most in need of defense forces were also those most liable to have their productivity damaged by Muslim raids. Maintaining forces at the frontiers without bankrupting the landholders was therefore a constant problem. Second, there were never enough landed settlers to provide an adequate defense.
The Latin rulers met some of the need for more troops by hiring mercenaries both from unlanded settlers and from Europe. Locals, especially the Turcopoles, who were the offspring of mixed unions, were often recruited in this way. But hiring a significant number of paid soldiers for any length of time always threatened the limited treasuries of the Latin states with bankruptcy, so while mercenaries were important on major campaigns, they could not be used to garrison castles on a permanent basis.
The problems of a standing defense force, especially in frontier regions, was alleviated in part by the rise of the Military Orders of the Knights of the Temple and of the Hospital. The Templars and the Hospitallers were, in effect, soldier-monks—knights who took vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.
The Orders developed sophisticated administrative structures with locations throughout Europe that directed recruits and funds to the Holy Land. Donating lands and money to the Orders was popular in Europe as an indirect contribution to the cause of crusading, and it became popular in the Holy Land as well because the Orders could garrison exposed frontier castles. They were not dependent on the local estates of a castle for income, and their knights were full-time soldiers. Their standards of discipline and training made them an elite among Latin forces, and they earned the special enmity of their Muslim foes. But the numbers of the Orders’ knights, while significant in the context of Latin armies as a whole, were never huge. More problematically, the Orders, as direct dependents of the pope, obeyed no secular ruler. They cooperated with the Latin rulers, especially in the Kingdom of Jerusalem where their lands were most numerous, but as independent allies, which complicated, and at times compromised, the Latin chain of command.
The sorts of soldiers, in terms of infantry and cavalry, raised from these four sources of manpower reflected the mix that had become typical in Europe in the eleventh century. The spearhead of Latin armies was the heavy cavalry of knights and sergeants, the latter (including the Turcopoles) armed like the knights but lower in social and legal rank. The cavalry wore chain-mail hauberks, often covered by a cloth surcoat, and iron helmets that became more complete and elaborate as the twelfth century progressed. They carried kite-shaped shields and fought with lance and sword. Horsemen formed a minority of the numbers in Latin armies—perhaps a fifth to a quarter at most. They were expensive to equip and maintain, and, at times, it was difficult to maintain an adequate supply of horses. But cavalry was the elite of armies both socially, as the legal status and privileges of knighthood became more defined in the twelfth century (though not all cavalry were knights or even landholders), and militarily, due to their greater economic resources, which gave them superior equipment and leisure for training in arms. The knights of the orders added religious prestige to their status as elite warriors.
The infantry consisted of landless adventurers, professional mercenary companies, the attendants of mounted men, and foot sergeants (men granted land for their service like knights and cavalry sergeants, but expected to serve only on foot)—in other words, a broad range of social types. On campaign, cavalry whose horses became unserviceable or died (not an unusual circumstance) became part of the infantry as well. Crossbowmen predominated, though spearmen were also common, and cavalry who fought on foot used their lances as infantry spears. Much of infantry must have been more transient from campaign to campaign than the cavalry of the landholders and Military Orders (yearly pilgrims were probably more likely to fight on foot, for instance). But regular campaigning would have produced an experienced core of foot soldiers in the Crusader States, and the infantry in crusader armies generally showed decent discipline and cohesion. Though less prestigious than the cavalry, the infantry were invaluable in defending and besieging fortifications and in providing a strong defensive base for the cavalry on the battlefield.
Muslim Armies
On the whole, then, the military establishment of the Crusader States could field good soldiers, but it always struggled to field enough of them. Given the flaws of Latin armies, part of what allowed the Crusader States to survive for as long as they did was that Muslim armies were equally if not more flawed.
First, with the political fragmentation of the Muslim world during most of crusading history, especially after the breakup of the Great Seljuk Empire around 1090, any large countercrusading army had to be a composite force, drawn from different areas under different emirs, the regional governors of the Islamic world. In the absence of a unified central authority, coalitions of emirs were highly unstable. Each was jealous of his independence, unwilling to see his rivals or the sultan profit overmuch from a campaign, and constantly concerned about threats to his control of his district in his absence. A strong ruler such as Saladin could overcome these divisions to some extent, but not completely. Part of the problem was that there was no equivalent in the Muslim world to the papal protection given to the lands and families of crusaders during their absence. As a result, the jihad against the infidel was rarely a top priority for regional Muslim rulers.
Second, Muslim armies were also composite forces in terms of the support systems used to raise soldiers. So, too, it could be said, were crusader armies. But the lines separating one sort of Latin soldier from another were not firm: A landholding, settler knight could serve as a mercenary in some circumstances or could join a Military Order; pilgrims and crusaders could become settlers. In other words, all Latin soldiers were products of a single social system, even if from different strata within that system. Furthermore, all the Latin sources of manpower produced soldiers from the same tactical tradition, so that melding them into a unified force on campaign was not overly difficult. Neither condition was true of Muslim armies. The social origins of Muslim armies were not just diverse; two of the three main sources of manpower were essentially outside the mainstream of Muslim society, each in a different way. And the breadth and social diversity of the Muslim world encompassed a number of distinct tactical traditions, not to mention that Muslim military systems evolved over time. Creating a unified fighting force out of such material and keeping it in the field was a frequent challenge for Muslim leaders.
To take manpower first, Muslim armies were drawn from three main sources. At their core were the ‘askar forces, or professional soldiers (including some slaves), of the major political leaders, the sultans and regional emirs (see Chapter 8). As standing units of full-time, well-trained warriors, ‘askar could conduct small-scale raids on their own. But their numbers were too limited even at the top of the political ladder for independent campaigning aimed at conquest. They could provide infantry or cavalry forces and were supplemented at times by mercenaries (especially infantrymen) from among the poorer and more troublesome elements of the cities.
For greater numbers, leaders called on the holders of iqta' to bring themselves and a contingent of followers based on the size of the iqta' to the leader’s army. Iqta' were granted to individuals in exchange for service of many sorts (including ‘askar forces) and could consist of revenue from a particular area, administrative control of a district, outright land grants, or some combination thereof. The service originally was mostly administrative, but, by the twelfth century, the Seljuks had made military service the major form of this institution. The extent of Muslim lands meant that considerable numbers could be raised this way, but the problem with iqta' holders was the problem of emirs writ small. As they became attached to the district of their grant, they became more reluctant to leave it for extended campaigning, as personal supervision, especially at harvest time, could increase their income and protect the land from potential rivals. Most of the soldiers produced by this system, therefore, were part-timers who were hard to keep in the field beyond the end of the campaigning season. Large parts of Muslim armies regularly melted away as winter approached, a fact the Byzantines had regularly taken advantage of in their defensive operations.
The third source of manpower for Muslim armies was tribal auxiliaries, drawn from the warlike peoples who lived on the margins of the Islamic world. These included many of the Arab descendants of the founders of this world, but above all the seminomadic Turkmen who moved with their flocks between the summer hills and winter valley pastures throughout the Muslim world, maintaining the lifestyle of their Central Asian ancestors. While fierce fighters, as semiindependent groups they were usually hard to discipline and control. Plunder was their motivation for fighting: They often failed to pursue a beaten foe if booty beckoned, at times even took to plundering the baggage of their allies, and tended to abandon a campaign when plunder became scarce. Thus, they were of little use in sieges and, like iqta' forces, were nearly impossible to hold together past the end of the regular campaigning season.
Tactically, two main traditions competed. The Saljuk Turks were classic Central Asian horse-archers who depended on maneuvers and firepower to wear down their foes before coming to grips at close quarters. Ambushes, envelopments, and feigned retreats were standard elements of the Turkish tactical repertoire. There were infantry (probably in substantial numbers) in Turkish armies, but their tactics and weaponry is virtually ignored by the sources, so their role is difficult to assess. The armor of infantry and cavalry were relatively light. This facilitated mobility, but more heavily armored European soldiers created some problems for Turkish armies. Fatimid Egypt, however, relied on spear- and bow-bearing Ethiopian infantry and on Arab cavalry for whom the lance was the main weapon. Fatimid armies thus relied on infantry firepower and cavalry charges much as Latin armies did, but with lighter weapons, less armor, and smaller horses than the Latins deployed. The superiority of the Turkish tradition is reflected not just in contemporary crusader opinions of their two main foes (they respected the Turks but not the Egyptians), but also in the dominance in thirteenth-century Egypt of the Mamluks, slave soldiers in the Turkish tactical tradition (though with some more heavily armed lancers) who revolted in 1250 and came to rule Egypt themselves.
Byzantine Armies
Byzantine armies of the crusader period are difficult to characterize, as they consisted in large part of groups of foreign mercenaries around a small core of Byzantine troops, a development initiated under Basil II and accelerated in the years between his death in 1025 and Manzikert. Thus, neither the natives nor the foreign elements had any strong tactical traditions (though the accumulated military wisdom of the military treatises survived) or sense of identity; they depended instead on strong and innovative leadership by the Comneni. The military institutions of Byzantium under the Comneni dynasty are examined further below. Byzantine armies played only a small role in some northern Syrian campaigns, being more occupied with the Turks in Asia Minor and with the empire’s European possessions in the Balkans and Italy.
Strategy and Campaigning
Each of the civilizations that met in this area had grand strategic and political goals that affected the shape of crusading warfare, though for the Byzantines and the Muslim powers, the Crusader States themselves were often a secondary factor in strategic planning. They were central to western European policy, however, and raised two different strategic problems: the goals of offensive crusades and the defense of Latin lands.
The ultimate goal of crusading was possession of the Holy Land and the city of Jerusalem. Through the Fourth Crusade, the Latin approach to this goal was direct: Crusades were aimed at Jerusalem. Two routes to the Holy Land were possible. The overland path, through the Balkans to Constantinople, and then through Asia Minor, was at first the only possibility, but the conquest of the seacoast after the First Crusade made sailing to the Holy Land possible. The size of major crusades favored the land route, though sea transport as far as Constantinople was an option. But, especially in the disputed regions of Asia Minor, the land route was prone to supply shortages and Turkish opposition. With the development of Italian maritime power in the twelfth century, and particularly once Richard I captured Cyprus as a staging post in the course of the Third Crusade (see Chapter 15), naval transport came to dominate.
The development of naval transport also opened up another strategic option. The experience of the Crusader States in the twelfth century, read in the light of the disaster of Hattin and the loss of Jerusalem in 1187 (see the Highlights box “The Campaign and Battle of Hattin, 1187”), seemed to teach that the Holy Land on its own did not possess the resources to defend itself in the long run. Thirteenth-century crusades thus took an indirect approach and came to be directed against Egypt, control of which was seen as the key to control of the Holy Land. The riches of Egypt, including potential control of trade routes to India and China, made such an approach plausible; in fact, they had drawn to Egypt a major expedition by the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1167. Its value had been proven by Saladin, whose success at Hattin was founded in his control of Egypt. Unfortunately for the crusaders, every attempt at the conquest of Egypt failed.
With the creation of the Crusader States, defense became a strategic challenge for the Latin forces. Control of territory was based above all on possession of fortified castles and towns, which served as refuges for Latin field forces and from which administration and intimidation of the native population emanated. The goal of controlling fortifications and the characteristics of the various armies shaped strategy and campaigning patterns decisively.
The key problem for the Latin defenders was the shortage of resources. There was never enough land secure from Muslim raids for economic prosperity to be established, and so never enough soldiers. As a result, the Latins could not garrison their strongpoints and raise a substantial field army at the same time. Raising an army involved stripping many forts of their defenders, which put a premium on preserving the army. Loss of the army in battle could leave the country defenseless, and battle was definitely a risk, more susceptible than most military activity to being decided by chance.
Krak des Chevaliers
Massive towers and concentric walls substituted for scarce manpower in crusader castles.
Fortunately for the Latins, they could usually obtain their strategic goals without risking battle. The ideal Latin defense strategy was to meet an invasion with their field army. Basing themselves near secure water supplies (a crucial consideration in the hot, dry desert climate), they would shadow the Muslim army closely enough to restrict its foraging and so prevent it from besieging major strongholds. Denied easy plunder or facing the end of the campaign season, the Muslim forces would disperse, leaving the Latins in control of their territory. Winning a battle could accomplish nothing more than this, since the Muslims were never short of troops and so could replace battle losses. But winning a battle could facilitate conquest of forts and territory, and Latin forces fought more battles down through the 1120s, when they were still expanding their lands. Having lost several of the battles they did fight, Latin offensives became difficult after the 1120s and, with the failure of the Second Crusade, aimed at Damascus in Syria, virtually ceased. Skillful maneuvering and access to food, water, and fodder were thus the keys to successful campaigning.
The problem with this strategy was that it sometimes conflicted with the ruler’s legal obligation to defend the lands of his vassals from enemy attack and with popular sentiment in the army, both of which leaned toward a more active attack on Muslim invaders. When Latin leadership was divided or weak, this problem could lead to serious political difficulties and disciplinary or morale breakdown in the army.
Unity was the key problem for the Muslims. Their overall grand strategy was simple and was ordered explicitly by the Seljuk sultan as early as 1110: Reconquer the Christian-held lands. But the political division of the Muslim world, as we have already seen, was a major obstacle to achieving this goal. Competition between Muslim power centers and dynastic wars within them often took precedence over the effort at reconquest (and was exploited diplomatically by the Latins when possible), and other fronts demanded attention—notably, the Seljuk frontier with Byzantium. These divisions prevented the vast disparity of resources between the Muslim powers and the Crusader States from being brought to bear against the Christian occupiers.
Saladin was the major exception to this rule, but only by also proving it. He spent most of his military career campaigning against other Muslims, building on his father’s achievements in uniting Syria by seizing control of Egypt and then gradually reducing a great many northern Mesopotamian emirates to his authority. Once he had built his empire, he could execute a consistent strategy against the Crusader States that took advantage of his greater resources. Frequent campaigning kept the pressure on the defenders, stretching their limited reserves of manpower. The ravaging that accompanied raids and incursions damaged the economic base of the Christian defenders. Saladin utilized his manpower advantage by invading with a major force in one area of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and sending secondary forces into areas whose defenses had been stripped to man the field army gathered to face his main force. He (like other Muslim commanders) adopted a battle- seeking strategy, knowing that the consequences of a loss were far worse for the Christians than for his forces. This often involved attempting to draw the Latin army away from its sources of food and water by threatening isolated castles or towns and harassing it on the march (see below). Yet, even with all his advantages, had the Latins avoided the disaster at Hattin, Saladin might not have conquered much Latin territory. The strength of crusader castles and the seasonal weakness of Muslim armies made sieges— and therefore conquest—difficult. The coastal cities of the kingdom, able to be resupplied by sea, survived for almost a century after Hattin.
Byzantine strategy aimed at recovering lost imperial territory, and the Byzantines viewed the crusaders in terms of their own request for mercenaries. They thus distrusted the First Crusade as an independent force—understandably, given that Normans were a substantial contingent in the crusade and Normans had been attacking imperial territory for forty years—and seem to have radically underestimated the religious motivations of the crusaders. They extracted promises that any territory the crusaders won would be turned over to the Byzantine Empire, used their supplies to try to control the crusaders, and abandoned the expedition at the first sign of trouble in Asia Minor. A legacy of distrust was thus created on both sides. The empire proved indifferent or hostile to the continued existence of the Crusader States, to the detriment of both sides: The Crusader States were not supported by the only major Christian power in the region, while the Byzantines found their relations with western Europe poisoned and lost influence they could have exercised in the Crusader States. The exception to this general pattern occurred under Emperor Manuel Comnenus (1143-80). Concerned with protecting imperial possessions in Italy and the Balkans and disputing the right to the imperial title with the German emperor, Manuel fostered better relations with the Crusader States to further his diplomacy in the west. As a result, Byzantine influence in and military cooperation with the Kingdom of Jerusalem peaked between 1150 and 1180. But an internal crisis after 1180 coincided with a return to an antiwestern policy in the empire, setting the stage for the disaster of the Fourth Crusade. Military operations reflected this strategy. The Byzantines focused their efforts elsewhere than Syria, campaigning only a handful of times around Antioch and Edessa.
Combat
Tactical action in crusading warfare consisted of three types of conflict: sieges, fighting on the march, and pitched battles. But the lines between these types were not clear. Sorties and relief efforts could bring battle to a siege, and fighting on the march could easily escalate into a set-piece engagement.
The strength of fortifications in the Holy Land shaped the patterns of siege warfare. Byzantines, Latins, and Muslims all knew the main technologies for attacking walls: battering rams, mines, and projectile- hurling engines. The Latin forces may well have borrowed the technology of the traction trebuchet—an engine with which a team of men pulling down on a large lever arm launched stones at opposing forts— from the Muslims. The larger and more powerful counterweight trebuchet, in which a huge fixed weight pulled down the lever, appeared later in Europe, probably again a borrowed refinement of the technology. But none of the techniques for destroying walls were terribly quick or effective, especially against massive walls often set on inaccessible and rocky ground perfect for defeating mining efforts or hindering the approach of engines. Against a well- defended fort, an extended blockade designed to starve the garrison into submission was often the only option for either side. The outcome of such an operation depended on the ability of the besiegers to keep their army supplied and in existence—not an easy task, as the siege of Antioch shows (see the Sources box “The Siege of Antioch, 1098”). The service limitations of Muslim soldiers were particularly important in this respect. The other way to take such fortresses was a quick and massive direct assault on the walls using scaling ladders or mobile platforms; this was effective particularly against large forts with small garrisons. Latin castles and cities whose defenders had joined a field army were always vulnerable to such quick assaults, but Latin forces used the technique as well, as at Jerusalem in 1099. Treachery within the walls, again as at Antioch, could assist such attacks.
Fights on the march were a form of combat characteristic of crusading warfare, given the contrasting strategic goals, strengths, and weaknesses of Turkish and Latin armies. Latin armies, defending the strongholds through which they controlled the countryside, often had to march from one fortified post to another; crusading armies also had to march to their objectives. Stopping to fight a battle would only slow their progress toward their objective, and battle entailed major risks, so Latin armies usually tried to avoid set battles. The Turks wanted to impede the movement of Latin armies so as to isolate particular strongholds from relief or defend them from attack and aimed at destroying Latin armies in combat, so they sought battles. But the heavier defensive armor and dense masses of infantry in Latin armies made a full direct assault by Turkish forces a poor option. Not only could Turkish attacks be repulsed, but they exposed the Turkish army to counterattack by the Latin cavalry, whose charge was their battle-winning tactic.
The Turks therefore made use of their superior mobility to harass Latin forces with arrows and hit-and-run tactics. The goal was to weaken the Latin army piecemeal, to separate contingents from each other and pick them off separately, and to deny the marching Latins access to sources of water. The Turks also hoped to provoke rash attacks by parts of the Latin army, often using feigned retreats to draw ill-timed charges. The Turks thus played on the impetuous bravery and individualistic indiscipline that Latin knights tended toward. They launched such attacks with particular ferocity against the rear of the Latin column. This slowed the whole march most effectively, as the head of the column had to wait to avoid becoming separated from those under assault. At times, when the Turks pressed the hardest, the Latin army had to stop and launch a limited attack with their cavalry to clear the lines.
Frank and Saracen in Combat
This manuscript illustration shows a western knight jousting with a Turkish cavalryman. Larger horses and heavier arms and weapons gave European soldiers the advantage in such hand-to-hand fighting.
The Latin response was to adopt a variation of an order of march common in this part of the world for centuries. The infantry formed a screen—either a hollow square or, if the march were along the coast, a column to the land side—that shielded the cavalry and the baggage. The density of the infantry screen prevented effective Turkish attacks, and the crossbowmen helped keep the Turkish horse-archers at a distance. Still, the soldiers of Latin armies found Turkish harassment infuriating, and they chafed under the restrictions imposed by their leaders on breaking formation and striking back. Because the key to Latin success in such an engagement was patience and discipline, Latin leaders imposed stiff penalties for breaking rank. They usually made provision for the wounded to be carried and the dead to be buried during the march, to disguise from the enemy any losses and to maintain morale. “Victory” for Latin armies in such circumstances meant reaching their goal intact, not necessarily defeating the enemy army. It was a frustrating sort of combat that went against the grain of the common soldier’s impulse, and it thus had the potential to create tension, or even division, in the army. Strong Latin commanders usually overcame this problem, but the potential for disaster always lurked close beneath the surface.
Many of the same factors shaped the patterns of pitched battles between Latin and Turkish armies, with the key being mobility versus shock. The focus of each side’s tactics was the Latin cavalry charge. The superior weight of Latin arms, armor, and horses meant that if such an attack could be driven home, it usually succeeded in breaking the lighter Turkish lines and winning the day. But the charge was a fragile weapon. It had to succeed in one attempt, for Latin cavalry proved difficult to rally and re-form after an initial charge, reflecting their limited levels of training in large groups and their tendency to indiscipline. The numbers of Latin cavalry were also often quite limited, and their very weight meant that even if they managed to re-form, men and horses were often too tired after a charge to deliver another effective blow. So Latin tactics consisted of extended infantry fighting designed to entangle the Turks so closely that they could be pinned down for the decisive charge. For their part, the Turks used feigned retreats, ruses, ambushes, and harassment to try to provoke a premature charge, one that they could avoid on their faster horses. They could then return to the attack against the scattered Latin forces.
Latins and Turks thus presented each other with a difficult tactical challenge. Neither side had a clear advantage over the other, casting luck and the quality of leadership into the decisive role on both sides in determining the outcome of battles. When the best commanders on both sides faced each other, as when Saladin faced Richard during the Third Crusade, the result was a tactical standoff, as neither general would be drawn into a fight on the other’s terms. The strategic result of such tactical stalemate depended heavily on the logistical situation and favored maintenance of the status quo: Richard, for instance, secured the coastal cities but decided that Jerusalem was beyond the safe range of his grasp.
When Latin armies faced Fatimid forces from Egypt, however, two similar tactical traditions met. Both sides brought a defensive mass of infantry and a supporting force of shock cavalry to the field, but the Latin advantage in armor (and probably consistently better morale) quickly made the difference. One Latin attack against a stationary target would end such battles within an hour. But when first Saladin and then the Mamluks brought the Turkish tactical tradition to Egypt, the Latin advantage disappeared, and the thirteenth-century crusades in Egypt saw familiar tactical patterns reasserted.
The long-brewing succession crisis that followed the death of king Baldwin IV, the Leper, in 1185 divided the leadership of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Count Raymond of Tripoli was the most able crusader leader, but his enemy Guy of Lusignan became king by marrying the late king’s sister. Crusader troubles gave Saladin plenty of room to complete his conquest of Syria, bringing all the lands around the Crusader States under his leadership, while regularly raiding the kingdom. The Muslim threat thus increased just as crusader unity faltered. In such circumstances, maintaining the truce Baldwin and Raymond had negotiated with Saladin was crucial. But the renegade marcher (border) lord Reynald of Chatillon twice broke the truce by pillaging Muslim trade caravans. After the second incident, in 1187, Saladin declared a jihad, gathered a substantial army, and in June moved to besiege the town of Tiberias (Figure 11.2).
Stripping all the castle garrisons of the kingdom to raise an army nearly the equal of Saladin’s, King Guy gathered his forces at Saffuriya on July 2. A debate ensued among the crusader leaders about the proper course of action. Despite the fact that Tiberias was his town and his wife was threatened with capture there, Raymond urged not marching to the town’s relief. He pointed out that Saladin could not hold Tiberias even if he took it; that the walls could be rebuilt if destroyed; and that prisoners, including his wife, could be ransomed. Beyond Tiberias, Saladin would have to traverse the fifteen waterless miles between Tiberias and Saffuriya to confront Guy’s army, leaving his soldiers tired and thirsty before an encounter. But if the Latin army marched to Tiberias, it would have to cross that same waterless track, exposing itself to destruction; and if the army were lost, so would be the entire kingdom.
This urge for caution apparently carried the day, but that night, the Master of the Temple persuaded Guy to change his mind. He claimed that Raymond was trying to undermine the king, pointing out that if Guy failed to go to the defense of his vassal’s land, Raymond would be legally absolved from obedience to the king. The argument was the more persuasive because of Raymond and Guy’s long enmity and because Guy had pursued a cautious strategy four years earlier as regent; the subsequent criticism of his inaction had ended his regency. The master also threatened to withdraw the support of the Templars if the king took no action. So the next morning, to the surprise of many, the army was ordered to march.
Everything now depended on the Latin army reaching Tiberias and water in one day. Saladin is said to have rejoiced when scouts brought news of the Latin advance, and the Muslim army immediately set out to harass and slow the Latins. A classic fight on the march ensued, with the Muslim attacks directed with particular ferocity at the rear of the Latin column, where the Templars were stationed. Eventually, the rear was so hard pressed that it could not proceed. The van pressed on for a time, becoming separated from the rest of the army, which gathered around Guy on the double hill called the Horns of Hattin. Forced to halt for the night, the Latin army was now doomed. They spent the night harassed by Muslim archery, exhausted by a day’s marching and fighting in midsummer heat, without water. The Muslims set fire to the brush around the hill, adding smoke to their misery. Morale collapsed, and the next day the slaughter was completed. Raymond escaped but died soon after from disease; Reynald was captured and executed by Saladin; and Guy was captured and released on oath not to fight again. All the captured Templars were slaughtered save the Master of the Temple, whom Saladin spared.
Figure 11.2 The Battle of Hattin
The result was disaster. Saladin faced an ungarrisoned kingdom and rapidly took all the major cities except Tyre, where the fortuitous arrival of Conrad of Montferrat and a small group of new crusaders provided a defense. On October 2, Jerusalem fell. The Crusader States would never be the same.
These selections from a Latin and a Byzantine source for the siege of Antioch, a crucial episode in the First Crusade, illustrate the key role of logistics in crusading warfare and the importance of religion in how Latin armies functioned. The briefnote from Anna Comnena shows the role ofdivision and treachery among their foes in facilitating Latin success, though the treachery for her extended to the Latins: Antioch, a former imperial city, was a key Byzantine goal, and the crusaders treacherously (in Anna’s eyes) failed to hand it over to the empire after its capture.
[Fulcher ofChartres.] However, when the Franks had for a time camped around the city, and by ravaging the nearby region for supplies necessary for themselves had devastated it everywhere, it was impossible to find bread to buy, and they faced a great famine. Everyone was therefore very desolate and many secretly thought to take themselves away from the siege by flight, either by land or by sea. For they had no rations on which to live: It became necessary to search for their food far away with great fear, going forty or fifty miles from the siege, where in the mountains it is clear to see that they were often killed by the Turks lying in ambush. Nevertheless, we believed that these misfortunes happened to the Franks because of their sins, and because of them were for so long unable to take the city: Excess as much as avarice or pride or rapaciousness corrupted them. Holding council about this, they expelled the women from the army, married as well as unmarried, lest they displease the Lord by their sordid wastefulness. . . . At that time, starving men ate bean sprouts growing in the fields, and various herbs unseasoned with salt; even thistles, which because of the shortage of firewood were not well cooked and pierced the tongues of those eating them; also horses, asses, and camels, and even dogs and rats. The poorer even ate the skins of the beasts and seeds of grain they picked out of manure. They endured cold, heat, and pouring rains for God. Their tents became old and torn and rotten from the constant rains. Because of this, many of them were covered only by the sky.
[Anna Comnena.] Now there happened to be an Armenian on the tower above guarding the portion of the wall assigned to Bohemund. As he often bent over from above Bohemund plied him with honeyed words, tempted him with many promises and thus persuaded him to betray the city to him. . . . And at dawn of day Bohemund at once made for the tower, and the Armenian according to agreement opened the gate to him; he immediately rushed up with his followers more quickly than can be told and was seen by the people within and without standing on the battlements of the tower and ordering the trumpeters to sound the call to battle.
source: Fulcheri Cartonensis, Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Heinrich Haganmeyer (Heidelberg, 1913), pp. 222-226. Anna Comnena, The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, trans E. R. A. Sewter (New York: Penguin Classics, 1969), p. 344.