by John Man
Reynald’s ill-considered act was like poking a sleeping tiger with a pointed stick. Leaving contingents behind to protect the northern frontiers and to guard against a Frankish invasion, Saladin arrived in Reynald’s territory in mid-April. His move, as usual, set off a chain reaction. A chance meeting near Nazareth45 of several thousand Muslim troops and a small Christian force of 130 Templar knights ended in disaster for the Templars: the death and beheading of the Grand Master, all Templar knights bar four killed, many others dead, forty captured. The prisoners were paraded beneath the walls of Tiberias, shackled to horses; heads were displayed on Muslim lances.
Ain Gozeh, known in western sources as the Spring of Cresson.
Aghast, the Franks closed ranks. Old rivalries vanished in the face of this calamity, and the confrontation that everyone knew was coming.
THE FACELESS LEADER
There are many ‘portraits’ of Saladin, none of them authentic. His contemporaries recorded only exceptional features, and he had none. He was bearded: that’s all we know. His charisma lay not in his looks, but in his self-denial, generosity, politeness, respect for his religion and his dedication to the cause of jihad.
A late twelfth-century miniature portrays Saladin in standard terms: beard, green turban, robe, and sitting cross-legged.
This 1993 statue of Saladin as Arab hero stands in front of the citadel in Damascus.
THE RISE TO POWER
Given a chance by his mentor, Nur al-Din, Saladin made himself a base as ruler of Egypt, and set himself the task of defeating the Crusaders. This could be achieved only if they could be drawn out of their almost impregnable castles and beaten in open combat. It took him twenty years.
An illuminated letter R in the thirteenth-century history by the Christian William of Tyre, Saladin’s lord Nur al-Din flees two well-armoured knights.
Cairo’s citadel, built by Saladin in 1176–83, was the key defence in the wall with which he surrounded the separate towns of Fustat and Cairo.
The castle on Pharoah’s Island in the Gulf of Aqaba, held by a small Christian force, was taken by Saladin in 1170. Later abandoned, it was restored in the 1980s.
Kerak, now in Jordan, was the formidable castle owned by Saladin’s despised enemy, Reynald of Châtillon. It remained in use until 1917.
THE PROBLEM, AND THE SOLUTION
Around 1100, the Crusaders from a Europe rich in castles came with their tactics and designs. Muslims, though preferring open combat, copied them – Aleppo’s (right) being one of the strongest castles. How to take them? Cross-bows, undermining and towers had their uses. But the best siege weapons were ‘counterweight trebuchets’, which could toss rocks over 100 metres.
Aleppo’s castle was extended first by Saladin’s mentor Nur al-Din, then by Saladin’s son al-Zahir Ghazi, before getting its final present-day form from the Mamluks in the fifteenth century.
A soldier attaches the sling to the throwing arm of a counterweight trebuchet. The weight is in position, ready for release. On the right a tower cracks and topples under the impact of a rock.
In an illuminated O, Crusader cross-bowmen assault a Muslim city.
Siege towers, or belfries, had long been in use. If there was no moat and the ground was flat, they could roll right up to the wall, providing shelter for troops and a bridge to the battlements.
VICTORY AT HATTIN, REVENGE AT ACRE
Saladin’s victory over the Crusaders on the Horns of Hattin in July 1187 was the prelude to the high point of his career. He destroyed his enemies; seized their prized possession; captured their king; and personally slew his most despised enemy. The way lay open to the re-capture of Jerusalem, and the almost total destruction of the Crusader colonies. Unfortunately for him, the Crusaders still had some fight in them.
The Horns of Hattin, looking east. On these steep slopes, King Guy made his last stand. Lake Tiberias is out of sight, beyond the gorge in the background.
In a fifteenth-century illustration of William of Tyre, Muslim soldiers seize King Guy (in chains) and the ‘True Cross’ – which was, in fact, a piece of wood in a gold-and-silver setting.
After Hattin, some 200 Christian soldiers – those who refused to convert or were not sold as slaves – were executed, while Saladin (on the left in this fourteenth-century illumination) looked on ‘with a glad face’. This incident contrasts with what happened after Acre capitulated to the English king, Richard I, in 1191, when 2,600 non-combatant Muslims were executed.
In a fifteenth-century French painting by Jean Colombe, Richard watches the execution.
A fifteenth-century version of Saladin beheading Reynald of Châtillon, four years after the battle of Hattin. In the background, King Guy is led away.
RECALLING THE HERO
Though overshadowed by later Muslim dynasties, Saladin re-emerged in the late nineteenth century as a nationalist hero. Under Turkish rule, his tomb in Damascus was restored. In the 1950s, as European colonialism retreated, he became a figurehead for Arab nationalism. Recent events have made him an anti-Western icon.
Saladin’s mausoleum in the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus. The marble tomb, a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm II, is a memorial, and empty; the wooden one is said to contain Saladin’s remains.
This wreath, given by Kaiser Wilhelm, is now in the Imperial War Museum, London.
Saladin as icon: on a Syrian banknote in 1991, on a Palestinian poster in 2001 and in an Egyptian film in 1963.
10
The Horns of Hattin
AT LAST, SALADIN WAS MUSTERING. MESSAGES WENT OUT to all Muslim cities, urging action, vengeance, a war of liberation and annihilation. In June 1187, Saladin’s scattered forces re-gathered near Busra, just north of today’s Syrian border with Jordan, 75 kilometres east of the Jordan valley. Flat, scrub-covered, with spindly grass, arid (but fertile if watered) – this turned into a parade ground for some 30,000 men, almost half of them cavalry. Saladin formed them into three wings, with Taqi al-Din leading the right; Gökbüri (Keukburi or Kukburi in other spellings), commander of the Aleppan army, the left; and Saladin himself the centre. From Busra, he led his army across the Jordan and in late June camped 10 kilometres west of the Sea of Galilee, where, on rising ground, his army had a fine view of the plateau running up to the hills that would become the scene of the coming battle. Here, near a village called Kafr Sabt (Carfasset), the Muslims had a good supply of water and were within easy reach of Tiberias, 10 kilometres away, where, as it happened, Raymond III’s wife, Eschiva, was in residence, with a garrison to defend her.
The Franks, about 20,000 strong and headed by 1,200 knights, gathered at Sepphoris,46 a village 5 kilometres north-west of Nazareth. This was a little place with a big history, Jewish, then Arabic, then, in recent times, Jewish again. A Roman theatre, mosaic pavements, and a hilltop house built by Crusaders still recall the times. It was a common assembly point because it is halfway between the coast and the Sea of Galilee. The Franks numbered rather fewer than Saladin’s army, but with a powerful contingent of armoured cavalry under an impressive aristocratic leadership: masters of the Templars and Hospitallers, the rulers of Tripoli, Kerak and Caesarea. They also had with them their talisman, the True Cross, carried by the Bishop of Acre. With God on their side, what could possibly go wrong?
Tzippori, Zippori or Tsipori in Hebrew, Saffuriya in Arabic.
Saladin knew he had to draw the Christians away from Sepphoris, on to a battleground of his choosing, namely the plain below him. But his array was so daunting that the Christians would have been crazy to be drawn. ‘The army, like the ocean, was the most formidable ever to have been seen in the annals of Islam,’ wrote Imad al-Din, ‘It lapped the Sea of Galilee, the vast plains of which vanished beneath
the flow of tents. In vain did the Sultan advance on the Christians and challenge them to combat.’
Saladin had to do something to force the Christians’ hand. On 2 July, he attacked Tiberias, hoping that the Christians would come to rescue Raymond’s wife. A
tower was mined, a breach made, the town seized, plunder taken, and the Franks still did not budge. Raymond’s wife locked herself and her four sons safely inside the citadel, protected by a deep moat. While Frankish messengers – with Saladin’s implicit blessing – fled the town carrying the news, Saladin’s force returned to its base near Kafr Sabt, leaving a few surrounding Eschiva’s citadel.
With what response from the Christians? The sources conflict, because the Arab ones were based on hearsay and the Christian ones supported one faction or another. Was Raymond relaxed about his wife’s position? Perhaps he pointed out the broken ground which would favour lightweight Saracen horsemen over the heavy Christian ones? Or the summer heat? Or the lack of water? Did he, as told by the chronicler al-Athir, say something like ‘Let them take Tiberias! I would be happy if he took the citadel, my wife and our possessions! They won’t be able to stay there, because Saladin’s men will want to get back home, and we’ll retake it’? Did Reynald accuse Raymond of cowardice – ‘Enough of making us frightened of the Muslims!’ (in al-Athir’s words) – even treachery? Or did Raymond beg King Guy to save his wife? Did Guy decide to remain in well-watered Sepphoris? Did the Grand Master creep in to see him later that night and urge him not to follow the advice of a traitor?
Whatever the truth, Guy was under pressure not simply to confound those who said he could not take decisions, but also because he had received cash from Henry II in England, in a bizarre example of the complex interactions between Crusaders and their homelands. Henry had had his archbishop Thomas à Becket murdered, involuntarily (as the story is usually told), having muttered the words ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ After four knights had broken into Canterbury Cathedral and cut down the archbishop, Henry had expressed remorse and as part of his self-imposed punishment, which involved having himself lashed by priests and promising to ‘take the Cross’, had also given cash to support the Crusaders.47 Now that money was gone, on knights who bore a banner with Henry’s arms on it. Guy needed to prove himself worthy of Henry’s gift. He opted for action, and set off eastwards. With hindsight, it looks a foolish decision, but possibly justified if he had underestimated Saladin’s strength and was planning on using several springs along the way.
Henry had promised to defend Jerusalem by providing enough to support 200 knights for a year. He transferred to the Templars and Hospitallers in Jerusalem 30,000 silver marks, about 30 per cent of the national income, which was in a dormant account pending his arrival on a Crusade that was eternally promised and never realized. The money was spent on operations in early 1187: ‘They [the Templars and Hospitallers] opened the treasure of the lord king of England and gave stipends to all who could carry a bow or a lance into battle.’ Further details are in Mayer, ‘Henry II of England’.
Friday, 3 July 1187: from dawn, the sun turned the plains into an anvil, hammering the heavily armoured Franks like forged metal. They set out eastwards towards Tiberias, Raymond in a vanguard of Hospitallers, Guy in the middle with his talisman the True Cross, Balian of Ibelin with the Knights Templar as the rearguard, other contingents to right and left.
From early that morning, everything depended on a single factor: the need for water. Saladin had enough of it, supplied by lines of camels carrying water in skins from Lake Tiberias to his campsite. The lack of it steadily reduced the Christian troops to husks. To their left was a wooded ridge formed by Mount Tur’an, and two low hills known as the Horns of Hattin, sloping down to the village of Hattin beyond. They were only about 25 kilometres from Lake Tiberias, a day’s march in the right conditions, but Saladin’s army was in the way. By midday, they were at an abandoned village, named Tur’an after its mountain, where there was a small spring, but its flow of water was not enough to sustain an army. The nearest springs of any size were in Hattin, 18 kilometres away. That was where the Christians headed, cavalry shepherding infantry, all guarding their icon, the True Cross, with its acolytes, the bishops of Acre and Lydda. Saladin rejoiced at the sight. ‘What we wanted is happening. If we conduct ourselves as we should, it’s the end of them.’ He sent raiding parties of bowmen to cut the advancing enemies off from their base, and from Tur’an’s scanty water supply. Retreat for the Christians was now impossible.
But, with the exhausted troops slowed by thirst and hemmed in by Saladin’s forces, Guy decided to camp that night at the base of the slopes leading up to the Horns, with Hattin and its well still 4 kilometres away. Raymond of Tripoli rode in from the front with a shout: ‘Ah, Lord God, the war is over; we are dead men; the kingdom is finished.’
The Christians had no rest that short night. The two camps were so close they could hear each other – not much from the demoralized Christians, but the sound of drums, prayers and singing from the confident Muslims – and the pickets guarding their outer limits could exchange words. Muslim cavalry circled the Christian camp, firing arrows at the horses, for a Christian knight without his horse was nothing. A few daredevil Christian soldiers sneaked out of their camp in the hope of stealing water from some lone Muslim, but ‘not even a cat’ could leave the camp unseen, and all were killed. To the west, across the gentle hills and in among the trees, Muslim infantrymen collected brushwood which would be used to smoke out the Christians the next morning, if they decided to stay where they were.48
‘The whole mountain is thickly covered with dry grass,’ wrote the traveller and orientalist Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812, ‘which readily takes fire, and the slightest breath of air instantly spreads the conflagration.’ (Quoted in Kedar, ‘The Battle of Hattin Revisited’.)
The Muslims could return to their camps, to refresh themselves with water brought from the lake by a steady stream of camels and poured into temporary ponds dug in the ground. All was made ready for the battle to come. Saladin ordered 400 camel-loads of arrows, with more to follow – 66 camels carrying arrows would be on hand all the next day, for arrows were used by the hundred thousand.49 The bowmen were given particular targets: the Christian horses. Few wore horse-armour, because their owners couldn’t afford it. If a horse went down, its heavily armoured rider was as helpless as a beetle on its back.
We know how many arrows a master-bowman could fire, because the experiment has been done by the man who single-handedly resurrected horseback archery, the Hungarian Lajos Kassai. After years of training, he can fire ten arrows in twenty seconds; and in one marathon session lasting most of a day he fired over 1,000 arrows. In a battle, 1,000 bowmen could use over half a million arrows.
Saturday, 4 July, dawn. The Muslim army was well rested, well watered, well armed and ready for slaughter. For a short while, Saladin made no move, waiting for the heat to rise, and to see what the Christians would do: retreat, or prepare for a last stand, or go for the lake, or for Hattin’s well. Saladin, as good generals do, rode up and down the ranks, praising and exhorting his troops. ‘They were full of confidence,’ recorded Imad al-Din. ‘This one sharpened his lance, others tightened harnesses, adjusted arrows, or thanked Heaven for Allah’s help. Here, during the wait for the morrow, one could hear the cry of Allahu Akhbar [God is Great]; there, a desire to be among the happy ones chosen to survive; elsewhere, the hope for martyrdom.’
One of the young mamluks of the Sultan’s entourage by the name of Mangouras made a superb charge into the Frankish ranks, challenging any of them to single combat: ‘But a great number of Franks attacked him and his horse, in a moment of stubbornness while carrying him back to his own ranks, threw him. The Franks threw themselves on him and killed him. Thinking for a moment that they had massacred one of the Sultan’s sons, they raised his severed head on the tip of a lance.’
The Christians, now tormented by thirst, had only one aim: Hattin’s well. They set off along the floor of the valley, aiming for Hattin, in three squares, the infantry framing the cavalry. Ahead, as before, was Raymond of Tripoli, in the centre King Guy, shepherding the True Cross, and in the rear Balian of Ibelin’s rearguard. Behind them, Saladin’s m
en roamed through the tree-covered slopes starting scrub fires, which sent clouds of smoke drifting on a westerly breeze. Flames licked at Frankish heels, clouds of smoke enveloped them, the sun smote down from a clear sky.
Saladin sent one wing galloping forward to block the valley ahead. Muslim skirmishers rode in close, testing the flanks of the Christian squares like picadors goading a bull. The archers then unleashed a fusillade of arrows, filling the sky ‘like a swarm of locusts’.
All Christian leaders saw they were dead men unless they could break clear. Only cavalry had a chance. Raymond of Tripoli, out in front, was edging away from King Guy’s force, with Muslim outriders increasing the gap minute by minute. Raymond did the only thing possible: he led a charge at the Muslim force ahead, Taqi al-Din’s cavalry, which parted, showering arrows on the galloping Christians, then closed ranks, making return impossible. Later, Raymond was accused by both sides of treachery and cowardice for abandoning the main force. True, his departure weakened the Christians, but his presence would not have saved them; and perhaps if Guy had followed his lead, the whole force might have broken through to the lake. As it was, Raymond chose possible life over certain death. He and his men headed for Saphet, then Tyre, and home.
Back in the smoke-filled valley, the Christian army was dying. There was a gap left in Muslim ranks by those closing in after Raymond’s exit. It led up the slope towards the ridge made by the two low peaks, the Horns of Hattin. This was a last, desperate gamble. There were a few shallow pools up there, at an abandoned hamlet called Maskana; and on top of the Horns there were the remains of a prehistoric redoubt, the ruined walls of which stood a metre or two high and offered a little protection. At least in that position there would be no attack from above, where the slopes were steep.