Philip's claim that he was returning due to ill health was somewhat believable, but Richard was suspicious enough of his motives to extract an oath that the French king wouldn't move against any of his territories while he was on crusade. The speed and ease with which it was given didn't exactly breed confidence, but Richard would be better off without the sulking monarch. In any case, his mind was now fully occupied with the coming campaign.
Jaffa
Marching straight for Jerusalem was out of the question. Thanks to the capture of Acre, the Christian forces had a beachhead, but they were completely surrounded by territory ruled by Saladin. The routes toward the Holy City were largely waterless, easily ambushed, and infested with enemy troops. Somewhere – presumably in the area – lurked Saladin's army, waiting for the crusaders to do something stupid like marching inland where they could be cut off.
Richard was too shrewd to fall into that trap, so instead he marched along the coast to Jaffa, the nearest port to Jerusalem. It was a tactically brilliant move. Saladin, as Richard was well aware, was under pressure from his emirs to attack the Christians. The sultan had won immense prestige with the victory at Hattin and had carefully cultivated the jihadist image of himself as the purifying victor of the faith. Every day that passed without confronting the crusader army weakened that image.
Saladin had hoped to draw Richard into unfavorable territory, but the march to Jaffa forced his hand. The crusaders were threatening Jerusalem; he had to act or suffer a humiliating blow to his reputation.
His first tactic was to harass the crusader line. As the army marched, Muslim archers galloped by, pouring arrows into the ranks in the hopes of luring the more hot-headed knights into a doomed cavalry charge. Richard, however, gave strict orders to ignore them. Thanks to his iron leadership there were no breaks in the line, a fact that even his enemies grudgingly applauded. 'I saw some of the Frankish foot-soldiers' wrote Saladin's biographer, Bahā' al-Dín, 'with ten arrows sticking in them, and still advancing at their usual pace without leaving the ranks... One cannot help admiring the wonderful patience displayed by these people...'117
The heat was severe, and the heavily armored crusaders suffered acutely. Each day sunstroke or arrow wounds claimed more, and Richard himself was lightly wounded by a spear-thrust to the side. But the army continued in good order, and Saladin realized that his only choice was an all-out assault.
The sultan had the luxury of choosing his ground, and he picked an exquisite spot. The path the crusaders were taking led through a heavily wooded area and Saladin carefully set up an ambush. Richard, however, was on his guard and when confronted with Saladin's massive force, immediately gave battle.
The encounter proved to be conclusive. Richard, acting with his customary flare, seemed to be everywhere at once. Even the disobedience of the Hospitallers – who broke ranks and charged before they were ordered – was turned to his advantage. The English king immediately ordered a general charge, and Saladin was completely routed with heavy casualties.
The victory didn't destroy Saladin's army, but it dealt a serious blow to his prestige. The great Islamic champion had been decisively beaten by the Christian king. Perhaps God was not with him after all? Saladin never again risked a battle with Richard.
The English king was at a crossroads himself. Despite the victory, his enemy remained in the field, and nothing had changed about the difficulty of marching toward Jerusalem. The roads were still full of ambushes, the water supply tenuous, and the city itself was strategically isolated from the protection of the coast. The sensible move would be to consolidate the gains he had already made and not risk taking a city that he couldn't possibly hold. Yet Jerusalem remained the golden objective of every crusader, the motivation for their very presence in the Holy Land. The famous Lionheart could hardly announce that he would not be rescuing Jerusalem after all.
Caught between his head and his heart, Richard tried to resolve it by making Saladin a stunning offer. The sultan's brother could marry Richard's sister and jointly rule all the land west of the Jordan River. The two great antagonists would be tied by blood, and a peaceful kingdom could be established.
The plan was dubious to begin with, and, fortunately for Richard's sister, who hadn't been consulted, it fell apart over the matter of the prospective husband's conversion to Christianity. While the negotiations dragged out, Richard busied himself by building castles to protect Jaffa and the other coastal territory he had conquered. Under pressure from the army, he made a half-hearted approach to Jerusalem in the late summer of 1192, but torrential rains and incessant hailstorms made progress impossible.
By now, serious divisions were beginning to split the army. The Templars and Hospitallers for once agreed with each other, arguing that an attack on Jerusalem was premature because it would be impossible to hold the city once Richard left. A better use of resources would be to attack Ascalon, which would neatly split Saladin's territories of Syria and Egypt in half. The bulk of the army, on the other hand, considered this plan to be borderline heresy, and couldn't understand why every effort wasn't being put toward the capture of Jerusalem.
Richard himself was in an untenable position. He knew the military orders were correct, but also felt the pull of his oaths to liberate the Holy City. Even worse, he had received word that Philip II was actively plotting to seize his French lands. The longer he stayed in Palestine, the more damage would be done to his kingdom. If, on the other hand, he left for England now, all that he had accomplished here would be undone and civil war would undoubtedly break out.
Under immense pressure, Richard announced that he would stay until the Easter of the following year, and attack Jerusalem if it seemed feasible. This ambiguity was intended to give him cover for not attacking Jerusalem, but when it became immediately apparent that the army overwhelmingly supported the idea of liberating the Holy City now, he bowed to public pressure and began the march to Jerusalem.
The expedition confirmed his worst suspicions. Saladin had taken the precaution of poisoning all the wells around Jerusalem, and the crusader army was in real danger of repeating the experience of Hattin. Richard was in no mood to go any farther, so he announced to the army that the sensible thing would be to forget about Jerusalem and attack Egypt. If they were successful, Saladin's power base would be defeated and Jerusalem would fall – and be easily held. If, however, the army wanted to continue to Jerusalem, he would join but not lead it. The Holy City was a worthy goal, one that he would happily lay down his life for, but he wouldn't be responsible for the death of so many good Christians and the destruction of the crusader kingdom in an adventure he knew was doomed.
The truth was that Richard was exhausted. He had fallen seriously ill and, in any case, had done all that he could. His duty as king now was to look after his own lands.
On September 2, 1192 he concluded a formal truce with Saladin to restore the coast to Christian control. As a measure of the respect Richard was held in, Saladin additionally agreed to allow Christian pilgrims unfettered access to Jerusalem.
Most of the crusaders had taken an oath not to rest until they had visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and so took advantage of the truce to fulfill their vows. Richard himself, however, didn't join them. He had sworn to make Jerusalem Christian again and wouldn't enter until he had accomplished that. For him, this was not the end of the crusade, but a temporary pause. His last communication with Saladin was to that effect. He was only suspending the war to get his affairs at home in order. When that was accomplished he would return to take Jerusalem. Saladin supposedly replied that if Jerusalem had to fall, he would be glad to see it go to such a worthy adversary.
It was a fitting tribute to the greatest of the crusader kings. Single-handedly, Richard had erased the sting of Hattin, shattered Saladin's aura of invincibility, and returned the coast of Palestine to Christian control. His greatest enemy, it had turned out, was the pettiness of his Christian allies. If Outremer had been a little more unif
ied or Philip a little less antagonistic, there is no telling what he could have accomplished.
As it was, he never returned. He boarded a ship in October of 1192, and was captured by a political enemy while crossing through Austria on his way home. Had he stayed until Easter of 1193 – as he had originally planned – the entire history of the Levant may have been different. Four months after Richard sailed, Saladin died, taking the fragile unity of the Muslim world with him.
Chapter 16: Consumed by Fire
“Do not be dismayed, for I shall make them pay…”
– Robert of Clari, knight of the Fourth Crusade118
Though the Third Crusade had dramatically improved the Christian position in the Levant, by medieval standards, it hadn't been a success. The only thing that really mattered was liberating Jerusalem, and it had singularly failed to do so.
This was a lapse that the new pope, Innocent III, was determined to correct. Unlike his nonagenarian predecessor, Innocent was young, bright, and articulate. Not yet into his fourth decade, he was eager to strike while the Muslim enemy was reeling. Richard the Lionheart had showed all of Europe that the key to breaking Islamic power in the Levant was Egypt. With that accomplished, Jerusalem would fall like an overripe peach. All that was needed was to raise another Christian army and send it into the breach.
Innocent III did his best. As soon as he was elected in 1198, he vigorously preached the crusade, sending legates to each of the major western kingdoms to gauge interest. But there was virtually none. The Holy Roman Empire was in the middle of a civil war, and England and France were once again fighting. Popular enthusiasm for a crusade seemed to be waning.
Most disappointing of all was the response of Richard the Lionheart. His journey back to England had been a tortured one. Intercepted on his return, he had been kept as a prisoner of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, for two years while his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, raised an enormous ransom.119 During that time, Philip II – aided by Richard's brother John – had done everything in his power to confiscate Richard's French lands.120 When it became apparent that the ransom would soon be paid, the French king had even stooped to bribery to keep Richard where he was, offering the German emperor half the ransom to delay the release for a few more months. When this was turned down, Philip sent a terse message to John, 'Look out, the devil is loose'.
Richard wasted no time in exacting his revenge. He put together a grand alliance against the French king, and swept into northern France, ravaging the countryside. In the middle of this campaign, the papal legate arrived, and understandably found Richard in no mood to be asked to go on another crusade. When the unfortunate cleric floated the idea of making peace with Philip in the interests of leading an army to recapture Jerusalem, Richard exploded in rage. If the French king hadn't treacherously stolen his lands, he shouted, he would currently be in Palestine fighting for Jerusalem. The interview concluded with the pope's representative in full retreat, bolting from the English camp in terror lest Richard make good on the threat to castrate him.
Any hope that Richard would reconsider once passions had cooled was dashed the next year. While inspecting the progress of a siege he was struck in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt. The wound turned gangrenous and a month later he was dead. The loss put an end to whatever crusading momentum Pope Innocent had managed.
Fittingly, it was a member of Richard the Lionheart's family that came to the rescue. Richard's nephew, the twenty-two-year old Count Thibaut of Champagne had been inspired by one of the many itinerant priests that Innocent had sent into the French countryside to drum up support for the crusade. On November 28, 1199 he sponsored a glittering tournament for the most important knights of France. In the midst of the pageantry, Thibaut dramatically announced that he was going on crusade. The audience – mostly young nobles in their twenties – were electrified.
Crusading fever once again swept through France. A generation of knights trying to emulate Richard the Lionheart flocked to the banner, and within a few months Thibaut was confident enough to call a general council to come up with a specific plan.
Venetian Deal
From the beginning, the meeting was dominated by the long shadow of Thibaut's uncle. The rallying cry might have been Jerusalem, but Richard had proposed a naval invasion of Egypt, and his reputation was such that no other plan was seriously considered. Unlike the dead King of England, however, the would-be Lionhearts lacked a fleet. Fortunately, there was one place in Western Europe where they could get one. Ambassadors were sent speeding to the Republic of Venice to make a deal for some ships.121
The entire crusade hinged on the cooperation of Venice, so it was a considerable relief to the crusading leaders that they were immediately ushered into the presence of the doge. Even more reassuring was the sight of the aged Venetian leader shuffling into the room. The man they had to convince to help them was a tottering geriatric, completely blind and already well past the age when most men were safely in their graves.
Enrico Dandolo had spent a lifetime serving the Republic, during which he had held nearly every important post. His election as doge seven years before – at the ripe old age of eighty-five – had been the culmination of a remarkable career. Those who assumed his title was merely ceremonial, however, were in for a shock. The age and seeming frailty masked a driving ambition and ferocious intelligence. Though he was happy to play the part of the senile fool when it suited his purposes, at other times he could act with shocking vigor.122
When the crusaders arrived, he was the very image of a humble leader, praising the nobility of the leaders and the importance of their mission. Underneath this mask of piety, however, was a calculating mind. When it came to business, there would be no deal unless Enrico Dandolo could extract his pound of flesh.
The most important thing for the crusading leaders was to keep their real destination a secret. The motivation for every crusade was the deliverance of Jerusalem because only the Holy City exerted enough pull to get people to risk everything and abandon their daily lives. If word got out that Egypt was the target, enrollment would be disastrously low.
The doge agreed to keep the destination secret until they were underway, and after much haggling, agreed to build enough ships to transport an army of roughly forty thousand men in return for the massive sum of eighty-five thousand imperial silver coins. As a sign of good will, he also threw in fifty warships at no cost, provided they got an equal share of whatever loot was captured by the Crusade. Most importantly, June 29, 1202 was picked as the departure date. The various crusading leaders had fifteen months to come up with the funds and assemble the army in Venice.
They ran into problems immediately. Thibaut, the talismanic and dashing figurehead died shortly after his ambassadors returned from Venice, severely weakening morale. His position as leader of the crusade was taken over by Boniface of Montferrat, a grizzled Italian veteran in his mid-fifties, who may have been a competent choice but was hardly a romantic figure.
The far more serious problem, however, was that the ambassadors who made the deal with Venice had badly overestimated the size of their potential army. Enthusiasm for the crusade had initially been high – there were wild rumors that one French priest had distributed more than two hundred thousand crosses to potential crusaders – but the great wave of enlistments had failed to materialize. Even worse, king Philip Augustus of France had declined to participate, and most of the important nobility had followed his lead. When the departure date drew near, less than a third of the projected forty thousand arrived in Venice.
This was both an embarrassment for the crusaders and a serious problem for the Venetians. For the past year, the Republic had suspended all of its maritime activity – the lifeblood of the state – to focus completely on building the great fleet. The effort had succeeded brilliantly. The tiny city on the lagoon had produced the largest naval force the Mediterranean had seen since the Roman general Pompey had swept the sea of pirates twelve centuries before. But this
immense outlay of capital had also left the Republic financially exhausted. If the crusaders failed to pay what they owed, the state would face economic ruin.
Enrico Dandolo wasn't about to let that happen. He had no intention of going anywhere near Egypt either. Venice had several lucrative trade deals with Cairo, and the doge had taken the precaution of sending messengers to the sultan to assure him that the crusade wouldn't be allowed to reach Egypt. All he had to figure out now was how to turn it to the Republic's benefit.
Dandolo Takes Control
He didn't have to wait long for an opportunity to present itself. By early June of 1202, it was painfully obvious that the crusaders would default on their loan. The eleven thousand soldiers who showed up couldn't possibly pay off the debt, since even the forcible confiscation of everything they had only resulted in half of the required sum. Dandolo quarantined the crusaders on the Lido, a sun-baked stretch of beach along the edge of the Venetian lagoon, in sight – but tantalizingly out of reach – of the fleet.
The doge, who was in complete control of their water and food supply, waited for the hot months of the Italian summer to soften up the crusader's morale. Tensions within the army were reaching boiling point. They were virtual prisoners, camped uncomfortably on an infernal beach while their leaders endlessly discussed what to do. The rank and file blamed Venetian greed or Boniface of Montferrat's incompetence, and just wanted to get moving to fulfill their oaths.
The doge, who had been kept appraised of these developments let them marinate, and then smoothly proposed a solution in early September when the campaigning season had nearly ended. The Venetians were having trouble with a rebellious city on the Dalmatian coast. If the crusaders would do him the favor of attacking it, the spoils would go a long way towards clearing their debt, and they could all proceed to the Holy Land.
In Distant Lands Page 18
