God's War: A New History of the Crusades

by Christopher Tyerman

  Having finally arrived at the feet of the Judean hills, the Holy City in normal conditions just a day’s march away, in the mud and rain of a bad Palestinian winter the crusaders reached the third crisis of the war. The decision over Jerusalem could be deferred no longer. For a week (6–13 January 1192) the fate of the crusade was fiercely debated by the high command. Their dilemma revolved around whether they should gamble all in advancing on the chance of rekindling the glory – and the good fortune – of 1099 or risk the disillusionment and disintegration of the army by adopting a more prudent line. The attitude of the local baronage and the military orders proved crucial. The grizzled veterans of the east argued that an immediate attack on Jerusalem was unwise; the weather was atrocious and worsening. The problem of retaining a captured Jerusalem remained unresolved. The locals advised marching to refortify Ascalon as a base to prevent Saladin reinforcing his army from Egypt and thus exerting a stranglehold on his operations in southern Palestine. This argument fitted exactly Richard’s earlier plan, as the king presumably knew it would. A contemporary Iraqi observer recorded that Richard presented the tactical reasons against a siege himself.32 Rash in battle, cautious in politics but expert in military science, on 13 January, Richard gave the order to withdraw.

  Instantly the army’s morale collapsed. ‘Never since the Lord God made the world was such deep grief displayed’.33 The leadership was cursed. Inevitable rumours circulated, telling of the parlous state of the Turks and how easily the Holy City would have fallen, if only… However, contemporary writers, Christian and Muslim, and not just his panegyrists, were, perhaps surprisingly, ready to explain and excuse Richard’s decision. Ibn Shaddad ignored the whole issue. However, pursuing the accountancy of tactics rather than the foolhardiness of piety fuelled divisions between Christian factions and interest groups. While Henry of Champagne remained with Richard, Hugh of Burgundy withdrew, although staying in southern Palestine. Others left for Acre or to join Conrad of Montferrat at Tyre: if diplomacy rather than force were to determine the crusade’s outcome and allocate the winnings, Richard was not the only player with a prospect of success. The retreat from Bayt Nuba also confirmed the flaw in Richard’s own strategy by demonstrating to Saladin the Christians’ military weakness and inadequate manpower. The collapse of his authority in Syria, still less the overthrow of his empire, no longer threatened. All the diplomatic talk from Richard was of condominium. As the crusaders slogged their way back through the rains to Ramla, Saladin gave his army home leave.34

  Defenders of Richard’s decision, then and now, praise his sagacity. Yet, alongside his acute understanding of the problems that confronted any attack on Jerusalem, Richard may also have lost his nerve or, rather, the confidence in his own ability to impose himself on events. Alternatively, if he had never intended to attack Jerusalem, and the manoeuvring around the coastal plain was merely to rattle Saladin while showing his own troops how impossibly difficult the project had become, then his cynicism was matched by his miscalculation. His limitations were exposed. Such a physically, politically and psychologically damaging exercise to achieve an abortive diplomatic advantage speaks poorly of his judgement. Assuming them not be wholly capricious, the best that can be said of Richard’s policies and decisions in the winter of 1191–2 is that they allowed him to retain as many options as possible for as long as possible. The verdict of Bayt Nuba closed many of these down and immediately began to restrict further expectations of future success. What would have happened had Richard pressed on up the road to Jerusalem is unknowable. Another Hattin or a repeat of 1099; both were possible. The failure to trust in righteousness probably forced not a few to wonder what, if anything, the westerners were now doing in Palestine. Whatever view is taken of the merits of the decision of 13 January 1192, whether it can be ascribed to shrewdness or loss of conviction at the ultimate test, its consequences reconfigured the contours of Holy War in the east, not just for the following nine months but for the next century and more.

  Richard countered the gloom and disillusionment by action. The volte face at Bayt Nuba was portrayed as a tactical withdrawal, not a retreat.35 Never were Richard’s personal qualities as a daring, or, as Saladin himself thought, foolishly rash knight more useful.36 The stories of Richard’s exploits increased in inverse proportion to the overall military success of the expedition. By the end of January, Richard had arrived at Ascalon and had set his army to work rebuilding its fortifications on a grand scale, ‘making it the strongest fortress on the coast of Palestine’.37 This strenuous outdoor relief engaged his depleted army for the next four months. But their labours did little to dilute the popular desire to spend their energies reclaiming the Holy Sepulchre. Arguably, all that was achieved was to confirm Richard’s place at the now rather crowded negotiating table by virtue of his command of a still formidable army, control of Jaffa and now Ascalon. Even that was endangered by ferocious fighting between the various factions in Acre, which required Richard’s presence between late February and the end of March 1192.

  The absence of Turkish menace or Christian advance allowed free play of the competition for the lucrative port of Acre. Conrad of Montferrat, supported by the Genoese, the French under Hugh of Burgundy and elements of the Jerusalem baronage, contested the authority of Guy of Lusignan, backed by the Pisans and the de facto ruler of Christian Palestine, Richard himself. As Richard had pointedly reminded al-Adil, he too possessed a dynastic interest as King Amalric of Jerusalem’s great-nephew in the male line.38 But he was already envisaging his own departure for his responsibilities in the west. At his camp at Ascalon in early April Richard had learnt of the deposition of his viceroy in England, William Longchamp, and the attempted coup by his brother John. Planning for the future became urgent. Not just the lordship of Acre but the succession of the crown of Jerusalem needed to be settled, especially as Conrad’s disaffection continued to vitiate Richard’s attempts to reach a negotiated settlement with Saladin. Richard’s bullying alone had little effect as Conrad’s support was powerful, obstinate and threatened to break up the crusade. Opinion was hardening that Guy could never provide the stability required to maintain the kingdom after the crusaders’ departure. On the advice of his own army council, Richard, willingly or not, was forced to agree. In mid-April he abandoned Guy and accepted Conrad’s claims to be king, a decision influenced perhaps by his learning that Conrad’s negotiations with Saladin were nearing a successful conclusion. Guy was amply compensated by the lordship of Cyprus transferred to him by Richard from the Templars.

  No sooner agreed, the succession deal collapsed. In Tyre on the evening of 28 April, walking home after dining with the bishop of Beauvais, Conrad of Montferrat was stabbed to death by two Assassins. Circumstantial evidence implicated Richard as having bribed the Assassin leader, Rashid al-Din Sinan. Equally plausible cases could be made against Saladin or Sinan himself, uneasy at Conrad’s Lebanese pretentions.39 Conrad’s death caused another brief intense spasm of conflict, with Hugh of Burgundy attempting to wrest Tyre from Conrad’s pregnant widow. However, a new candidate presented himself, literally, when Henry of Champagne arrived at Tyre from Acre. With the blessing of Richard, on 5 May, Henry, now a Holy Land veteran of two years, was married to the twenty-one-year-old Princess Isabella as her third husband (in the end she managed four). The marriage suited almost all parties. Henry, as a grandson of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine, was nephew to both Richard I and Philip II, his elevation satisfying the honour of each. The opinion of Humphrey of Toron, Isabella’s first husband and currently leader of Richard’s negotiators with al-Adil, was not recorded.

  Freed from the succession problem and, for the first time since Acre fell, with united support, Richard pursued his game of two-handed chess in southern Palestine: military action shadowing detailed negotiations. One of Richard’s latest offers included a proposal for a new partition that included a divided city of Jerusalem, the Muslims retaining control of the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) and the Tower o
f David.40 This found no favour. Agreement over the partition of Jerusalem and Palestine was a Sisyphean task. To try to force Saladin into an acceptable deal, Richard laid siege to Darum, one of the few strongholds Saladin had left intact, which fell on 22 May. Next day his army was joined by Henry of Champagne, to whom Richard presented the town, and Hugh of Burgundy with the remaining French troops. This new unity produced an awkward alliance. In late May, the French lords joined with Richard’s own from England, Normandy, Maine, Anjou and Poitou to decide that they would launch an attack on Jerusalem whatever Richard thought, with or without him. By leaking their decision to the army, they totally outmanoeuvred Richard. While the camp rang with celebration, the king sulked, his hostility to the plan – or his anger at being bested – undisguised. It may have been a symptom of his recurrent poor health, but he seems to have sunk into a temporary but deep depression, worried by the prospects for the Jerusalem escapade and ever-worsening news from the west. Apparently it took a confessional pep talk from a priest appealing to Richard’s reputation, knightly prowess and providential destiny to persuade the king to resume positive leadership by promising not to leave the Holy Land until Easter 1193.41

  Although the essential strategic arguments against besieging Jerusalem had not changed since January, the fortification of Ascalon, the capture of Darum and the annexation of the whole of the coastal plain north of the Negev desert gave the Christians greater freedom of movement. Saladin’s position was weakened by the problems of maintaining his coalition for yet another campaign season, the sixth in a row (1187–92), as well as the removal of Conrad of Montferrat. The one clear improvement lay in the excellent facilities for gathering intelligence his drawn-out diplomacy had provided. However, the new advance towards Jerusalem was a contradictory and confusing, perhaps confused, affair. The second march to Bayt Nuba presented a complete contrast to the first. Richard remained dubious, if not overtly hostile. The weather was hot. Water was scarce, the more so after Saladin ordered the destruction or poisoning of the Judean water cisterns. The march from Ascalon, begun on 6 June, took five days to reach Bayt Nuba, instead of two months, a sign either that the Christians intended a rapid assault or that they now discounted Saladin’s capacity to cut their supply route to the coast. Yet the Christians then stayed camped at Bayt Nuba from 10 June until 4 July, simultaneously indicating a seriousness of intent and casting doubt on their unity of purpose. The delay allowed Saladin, who had initially been caught badly off guard, to regroup. The advance to Bayt Nuba also seems to have surprised elements of the Christian coalition; from Acre Henry of Champagne only managed to catch up with the host in late June.

  The chief activity in the crusader camp at Bayt Nuba was debate about whether to press on, spiced with regular forays across the surrounding countryside in search of forage, game and Turks. On one such sortie, it was said, Richard caught sight of Jerusalem in the distance, possibly from Montjoie, the hill on the Jaffa road where pilgrims received their first view of the Holy City.42 On another, tipped off by local spies, Richard led an attack on a large Muslim caravan as it was crossing the northern Negev; Saladin regarded its loss as a serious blow. Christian morale was boosted by the discovery of yet another relic of the True Cross. Saladin and his generals began to panic. His tactics had failed to dislodge or much inconvenience the camp at Bayt Nuba or to cut the crusaders’ supply line to Jaffa. With the seizure of booty and camels from the desert caravan, it looked in the last days of June that an attack on Jerusalem was finally imminent. As eyewitnesses testified, memories of the First Crusade were alive in the crusader camp;43 it would not have been forgotten that in 1099 the Holy City had fallen on 15 July. In Jerusalem, Saladin’s high command was as divided as Richard’s, some urging a stand in the city, others the deployment of the army to confront the crusaders in the field. Saladin began to take emergency measures for the security of the city. Despite intelligence reports of the divisions in the Christians, on 3 July it was decided Saladin should leave the city for his own safety. At Friday prayers that day in the al-Aqsa mosque, he wept openly.44

  Whether he had good reason to be alarmed is less obvious. Uncertainty was rife in the crusader ranks. The French under the duke of Burgundy were consistent in calling for an attack on Jerusalem, their views being relayed to Saladin by his agents: ‘The only reason we have come from our countries is Jerusalem. We shall not return without it.’45 The spies also reported Richard’s response: the need to forage for clean water would break the besiegers’ formation and invite annihilation. However, the crude logic of the French position attracted the support of the mass of the ordinary crusaders. Relations between the Angevin high command and the rest frayed. The camp divided into national enclaves, groups from one hurling insults at the other. Hugh of Burgundy even sponsored an obscene song about Richard, which was widely sung, provoking Richard, an experienced song-writer, to retaliate with one of his own.46 The situation became unsustainable. The fourth crisis of the crusade had arrived.

  To resolve the issue, Richard skilfully used his authority as the undoubted commander-in-chief to convene a supposedly objective committee to decide on whether to attack Jerusalem or pursue Richard’s preferred southern Palestine policy of threatening Egypt. The composition of the committee guaranteed the result of its deliberations: five Templars, five Hospitallers, five Jerusalem barons and five Frenchmen. All except the French were well known to favour caution and, thus, the Egyptian policy. By excluding any of his own vassals Richard could be seen to be acting impartially, but on the side he exerted heavy pressure and moral blackmail. The committee opted for withdrawal. Even so, doubt prevailed until the last moment before, on 4 July, Richard ordered a general retreat to the coast. Disappointment inadequately describes the bitterness recorded even by writers sympathetic to Richard. Saladin watched the disconsolate and acrimonious march down to the plain. It turned out to be a decisive moment. The next hostile western European army to come as close to Jerusalem as Richard’s crusaders was led by General Edmund Allenby in December 1917.

  Any semblance of Christian unity now collapsed. Blame was freely flung about, the retreat costing Richard’s reputation dear. The remaining French left in disgust, refusing to follow an Egyptian scheme. In any case, this much-promoted plan was increasingly revealed as at best impractical and at worst wishful thinking. Richard lacked the men, money or ships and was eager to return to the west to save his dominions from the rapacity of John and Philip II. A policy of raids on the Nile Delta or hopes of exploiting possible divisions within the Ayyubid empire after Saladin’s death belonged to a hypothetical future not the circumstances of the summer of 1192. Immediately, the strategic and diplomatic options became clearer. Saladin was safe in Jerusalem: Richard in Ascalon and Jaffa. Richard, directly or through Henry of Champagne as lord of the Jerusalemite Franks, was openly pushing for a quick settlement. He now admitted total victory was beyond his reach. He also judged that Saladin too was in trouble: ‘you and we together are ruined’.47 Claims to Jerusalem were abandoned. New, ingenious ideas for partition were proposed, even a post-crusade military alliance. However, Saladin demanded the demolition of Ascalon as the price for any agreement. The balance of power in southern Palestine had to be shifted if either side were to agree to what both desired, the end of the war.

  In late July, Richard returned to Acre ostensibly to plan an attack on Beirut in an attempt to lure Saladin away from the new Christian bases in southern Palestine. In Richard’s absence, Saladin launched a surprise attack on Jaffa. If he could take the port, the whole Christian position in the region would be seriously undermined if not destroyed, their conquests split, their shipping vulnerable and the precariousness of Richard’s position exposed. The Turks would reap huge and immediate diplomatic as well as military advantage. The stalemate would be broken. This fifth, final crisis of the Palestine war would determine its outcome.

  The Turks began their assault on 28 July. By 31 July, their mangonels and sappers had destroyed whole sect
ions of the walls. The modest garrison agreed to surrender the town, withdrawing to the citadel while Jaffa was sacked. That night, as the garrison prepared to evacuate the citadel under the supervision of Saladin’s agent, Ibn Shaddad himself, Richard appeared offshore with a small fleet. He had learnt of Jaffa’s plight just three days earlier. A relief column hurriedly despatched from Acre under Henry of Champagne had been stopped at Ceasarea. However, despite contrary winds, the king’s flotilla arrived while most of the citadel still remained in Christian hands. On 1 August, after some confusion over whether the Turks had already occupied the citadel, Richard, heavily outnumbered, launched his famous attack, being one of the first to wade ashore from his boats at the head of his small army. Shock, surprise and the power of his crack force gave Richard a highly improbable, if dramatic, victory. Ibn Shaddad, who watched Richard lead his men through the breakers, was impressed: ‘He was red-haired, his tunic was red and his banner was red, as was his device.’48 More significantly, after clearing out the astonished and alarmed Turks from both the citadel and town, Richard consolidated his hold by repulsing a concerted Muslim surprise counter-attack begun on the night of 4/5 August that literally caught Richard and his companions with their breeches down.49 This victory against heavy odds – apparently Richard had only seventeen knights and a few hundred infantry – infuriated Saladin, who must have recognized its importance. The fighting at Jaffa secured more than Richard’s legendary status as a warrior and general. It restored the strategic stalemate. Richard could not take Jerusalem; Saladin could not drive him from southern Palestine. While Saladin’s assault on Jaffa had been brilliantly opportunist, its failure dealt deep psychological as well as military blows. Negotiation became the only option for both sides who increasingly resembled tiring heavyweight boxers slugging it out while dropping from injury and fatigue.