At dawn on 29 August the leper king set out with his host to relieve the fortress. Unbeknownst to him, at that same moment fires were being lit within Saladin’s expanded siege mine. Its wooden pit props duly burned and the passageway caved in, bringing down the walls above. Saladin later wrote that, as the flames spread, the castle resembled ‘a ship adrift in a sea of fire’. As his troops poured through the break in the walls desperate hand-to-hand combat ensued, while the garrison of elite Templar knights made a bloody, but ultimately futile last stand. In a last-ditch act of bravery the Templar garrison commander mounted his war horse and charged into the burning breach; one Muslim eyewitness later described how ‘he threw himself into a hole full of fire without fear of the intense heat and, from this brazier, he was immediately thrown into another–that of Hell’.
With the castle’s defences breached the Latin garrison was eventually overrun and a bloody sack followed. The human skeletal remains recently unearthed within the perimeter wall bear witness to the ferocity of the assault. One male skull showed evidence of three separate sword cuts, the last of which split the head, crushing the brain. Another had had his arm chopped off above the elbow before being dispatched. With much of the site now in flames, Saladin executed more than half of the garrison, amassing a mountain of plunder, including 1,000 coats of armour. By noon on that Thursday, racing northwards, Baldwin got his first despairing glimpse of smoke on the horizon–telltale evidence of the destruction at Jacob’s Ford. He was just six hours too late.
In the two weeks that followed, Saladin dismantled the castle of Jacob’s Ford, razing it to the ground stone by stone. Indeed, he later claimed to have ripped out the foundations with his own hands. Most of the Latin dead, along with their horses and mules, were thrown into the stronghold’s capacious cistern. This was a rather ill-advised policy, as soon after a ‘plague’ broke out, ravaging the Muslim army and claiming the life of ten of Saladin’s commanders. By mid-October, with his primary objective achieved, the sultan decided to abandon the seemingly cursed site, and Jacob’s Ford became an abandoned, forgotten ruin.49
Saladin’s successes in summer 1179 broke the tide of Frankish martial momentum that had been building since Mont Gisard. The Latins’ attempt to seize the initiative in the Upper Jordan border zone and pressure Damascus was stymied. The sultan had protected his unification of Egypt and Syria. But the work of unifying Islam through the subjugation of Aleppo and Mosul remained incomplete.
11
THE SULTAN OF ISLAM
Although Saladin had achieved a series of victories against the Franks in 1179, in the early 1180s he returned to the business of empire building, devoting most of his energy and resources to consolidating his hold over Egypt and Damascus, and to extending his authority over the Muslims of Aleppo and Mosul. In spring 1180, with Syria suffering from the effects of continuing drought and famine, he agreed a two-year truce with the Latins–a pact which was evidently deemed to be advantageous to both sides, given that neither paid a monetary tribute to secure peace. This deal left Saladin free to tackle a range of issues within the Muslim world.
THE DRIVE TO DOMINATE
One of Saladin’s first priorities was to counteract the growing power and influence of Kilij Arslan II, the Seljuq sultan of Anatolia. Kilij Arslan had been in an assertive mood since crushing the Byzantines at Myriokephalon in 1176, and could himself claim, with some justification, to be the true rising champion of Islamic jihad. Saladin broadcast propaganda designed to discredit the Seljuq leader, arguing that he was an opponent of Muslim unity–Saladin even explained his own truce with the Jerusalemite Franks in 1180 to Baghdad by claiming that he could not deal simultaneously with the grave threats posed by Kilij Arslan and the Latin Christians. In summer 1180, Saladin left his nephew Farrukh-Shah in control of Damascus, and led troops into the north, securing alliances with a number of cities in the Upper Euphrates region in order to contain Kilij Arslan’s ambitions within Asia Minor. Saladin also used military pressure to force the latest Armenian ruler of Cilicia, Roupen III, to accept a non-aggression pact, effectively neutralising the Armenian Christians as opponents to Ayyubid expansion.
Around this time a series of deaths altered the political landscape. In 1180 the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Comnenus passed away, leaving behind him an eleven-year-old son and heir who, two years later, was supplanted by Manuel’s cousin, Andronicus Comnenus. This period was marked by a gradual decline in relations between the Greeks and the crusader states that served Saladin’s interests. In 1181 the Byzantines secured a peace treaty with the sultan, a first sign of their realignment towards neutrality in the Levant. Andronicus’ seizure of power in 1182 was then accompanied by a massacre of Latins living and trading in Constantinople and the new emperor made little effort to re-establish cooperative ties with Outremer.
Similar shifts took place in the East. In 1180 the Abbasid caliph and his vizier also died. Aware that this might herald a dangerous decline in the support he enjoyed in Baghdad, Saladin carefully cultivated links with the new Caliph al-Nasir. The Zangids suffered their own losses. In summer 1180 Saif al-Din of Mosul died and was succeeded by his younger brother, Izz al-Din. More significantly still, late 1181 saw the death from illness of Nur al-Din’s son and official heir, al-Salih, at the age of just nineteen. This event was of critical importance to Saladin’s future ambitions. In recent years, al-Salih had begun to emerge as a potentially formidable opponent, following Gumushtegin’s death as a result of court intrigue in Aleppo. As the figurehead of Zangid legitimacy, al-Salih represented the promise of dynastic continuity and enjoyed the abject loyalty of the Aleppan populace. Had he survived, al-Salih might have posed a serious challenge to Ayyubid ascendancy; at the very least, his continued presence would have weakened Saladin’s claim to be the sole, rightful champion of Islam, and probably put paid to the sultan’s hopes of absorbing northern Syria without open warfare. Although power in Aleppo soon passed to Saif al-Din’s elder brother, Imad al-Din Zangi of Sinjar, al-Salih’s demise nonetheless presented Saladin with a long-awaited opportunity to extend his power within the Muslim world.50
Saladin made careful preparations for a new campaign against the Zangids of Aleppo and Mosul. Having spent most of 1181 and early 1182 attending to the governance of Egypt, Saladin set out for Syria in spring 1182, leaving al-Adil and Qaragush in control of the Nile region. Alarmed by news that the sultan would be passing through Transjordan in May, and particularly fearful that the region’s soon to be harvested corn crop might be destroyed, Reynald of Châtillon convinced Baldwin IV to assemble the kingdom’s full military strength at Kerak. In the event, Saladin led his troops past the castle in close order, but without offering any attack, and no battle was joined.
The truce agreed with the Franks in 1180 had now lapsed and that summer the Ayyubids made a number of tentative attacks on the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. As Saladin marched through Transjordan, from his base in Damascus Farrukh-Shah exploited the fact that Latin Galilee had been all but stripped of troops, capturing the Christians’ small three-storey cave fortress, south-east of the Sea of Galilee, known as the Cave de Sueth, their last fortified outpost in the Terre de Sueth. Then, in July and August, the sultan led two expeditions against the Franks. The first, an invasion in force of Lower Galilee and a brief siege of the fortress at Bethsan, prompted King Baldwin to reassemble his army at Saffurya. This site, midway between Acre and Tiberias, replete with an abundant spring and fine pasturage, was a natural staging post for the Christian army. An inconclusive military engagement followed near Bethsan, fought beneath a roasting midsummer sun on 15 July. Baked alive, the Latin cleric carrying the True Cross died of heatstroke, while, even after they had recrossed the Jordan, Saladin’s men found their first campsite unbearable; according to one eyewitness the brackish water and pestilential air meant that ‘the market of the doctors did a roaring trade’, and a further retreat towards Damascus was soon made.51
In August 1182 Saladin attacked aga
in, this time targeting the coastal city of Beirut. The rebuilt Egyptian navy had already been put to use in 1179–80, harassing Latin shipping around Acre and Tripoli, but the sultan now deployed his fleet to launch a two-pronged offensive, besieging Beirut by land and sea. For three days his archers peppered the city while sappers sought to undermine its walls, but when Baldwin’s relief force approached, Saladin broke off the assault, ravaging the surrounding countryside as he slipped back into Muslim territory.
Neither of these 1182 campaigns was truly determined, but they were, rather, opportunistic forays, designed to gauge Frankish strength and reactions, while inflicting damage and snatching any available territorial or material rewards at minimum risk and cost. As such, they set the tone for years to come. These demonstrations of apparent commitment to the jihad also allowed Saladin to justify his ongoing attempts to subdue Muslim Syria and Mesopotamia–fairly obviously his real priority. A series of letters from Saladin to the caliph in Baghdad reveal the vocal protestations and devious polemical arguments repeatedly put forward by the Ayyubids in this period. The sultan complained that he had shown his willingness to wage holy war against the Latins, but was constantly distracted from this cause by the threat of Zangid aggression–urgent necessity demanded Islamic unity and Saladin suggested that he should be empowered to subjugate any Muslims who refused to join him in the jihad. At the same time, the Zangid rulers of Aleppo and Mosul were characterised as rebellious enemies of the state. They were accused of seizing power on grounds of hereditary succession when, lawfully, command of these cities should have been in the gift of the caliph. Izz al-Din of Mosul was said to have agreed a submissive eleven-year truce with Jerusalem (thus breaking the prescribed limit of ten years for pacts between Muslims and non-Muslims), promising to pay the Christians an annual tribute of 10,000 dinars. Similar accusations were later levelled at Imad al-Din Zangi in relation to his dealings with Antioch. Courting caliphal support and broader public opinion, with this onslaught of propaganda Saladin laid the groundwork for a major anti-Zangid offensive.
His cue for action came in late summer 1182, while still engaged in the brief siege of Beirut, when a message arrived from Keukburi of Harran, a Turkish warlord who had so far supported the Zangids and had fought against Saladin in 1176. Keukburi now invited the Ayyubids to cross the Euphrates, effectively proclaiming his willingness to switch sides.52 In response, the sultan assembled an army and set out that autumn to prosecute a campaign in Iraq without renewing any truce with Jerusalem.
Saladin’s campaigns against Aleppo and Mosul (1182–3)
In late September 1182 Saladin used Keukburi’s invitation as a pretext to launch an expedition, marching eastwards to join the lord of Harran near the Euphrates, and then pushing on into the Jazira. In the months that followed, the sultan made quite strenuous efforts to limit the amount of open warfare with his Muslim rivals, preferring coercion, diplomacy and propaganda over the sword. Before long he was calling for additional funds from Damascus and Egypt with which to buy off his opponents. Even William of Tyre was aware that the sultan used profligate bribery to quickly subjugate ‘almost the entire region…formerly under the power of Mosul’, including Edessa.53
In November Saladin marched on to threaten Mosul itself. Despite Keukburi’s encouragement, the sultan was reluctant to commit to a difficult and bloody siege of the city, but his hopes of frightening Izz al-Din into submission went unrealised. With a stalemate holding as winter began, envoys from Caliph al-Nasir arrived, hoping to broker a peace. To Saladin’s chagrin they adopted a neutral position, favouring neither the Ayyubid nor the Zangid position, and with little progress being made the sultan withdrew. In December he marched some seventy-five miles east to Sinjar, where he pressured the major fortified town into surrender and, after a brief pause through the worst winter weather, moved north-east into Diyar Bakr in early spring 1183, capturing the supposedly impregnable capital city in April, after which success the Artuqid ruler of Mardin agreed to a submissive alliance. In six months Saladin had isolated and all but emasculated Mosul, winning over much of the Jazira and Diyar Bakr through a mixture of force and persuasion. Throughout, the Zangids could do little to respond. Izz al-Din and Imad al-Din Zangi tried to organise a counter-attack in late February, but lacked both the resources and the nerve to see it through.
Saladin had made satisfying progress, but Mosul itself remained beyond his grasp. That spring he initiated an increasingly vociferous diplomatic onslaught, hoping to sway opinion in Baghdad in his favour. His letters to the caliph accused the Zangids of inciting the Franks to attack Ayyubid territory in Syria, even of funding the Christian war effort. The sultan also appealed to Caliph al-Nasir’s own desire for political as well as spiritual power, declaring that the Ayyubids would force Mesopotamia to recognise caliphal authority. Saladin added, rather boldly, that if only Baghdad would endorse his claim to Mosul, he would be in a position to conquer Jerusalem, Constantinople, Georgia and Morocco. Around the same time, the sultan deviously tried to disrupt Zangid solidarity, contacting Imad al-Din Zangi to warn him that Izz al-Din of Mosul had supposedly offered to ally with the Ayyubids against Aleppo.
From late spring onwards Saladin shifted the focus of his campaign to Aleppo, recrossing the Euphrates to station troops around the city on 21 May 1183. Once again, the sultan hoped to avoid open warfare, but the Aleppans quickly demonstrated their willingness to defend their property, daily launching fierce attacks on his troops. Luckily for Saladin, Imad al-Din Zangi proved more malleable. Concluding that the Ayyubid hold over Syria was now unbreakable, and that his own isolated position was therefore untenable, the Zangid ruler secretly negotiated with the sultan. On 12 June he agreed terms, opening the gates of Aleppo’s citadel to Saladin’s troops, much to the shock of the local populace. By way of recompense, Imad al-Din Zangi received a parcel of territory in the Jazira, including his former lordship at Sinjar, while promising to furnish the sultan with troops whenever called upon. Jurdik–the Syrian warlord who had helped Saladin to arrest the Egyptian Vizier Shawar in 1169–was also won over that summer. Since 1174 Jurdik had remained staunchly loyal to Aleppo, refusing to back the Ayyubids. Now, at last, he entered the sultan’s service, becoming one of his most devoted and adept lieutenants.
Once in control of Aleppo, Saladin immediately sought to limit civil unrest and engender an atmosphere of unity. Non-Koranic taxes were abolished and, later that summer, a law was enacted ordering non-Muslims within the city to wear distinctive clothing, a measure seemingly designed to promote cohesion among Aleppo’s Sunni and Shi‘ite Muslims and to hasten their acceptance of Ayyubid rule.
Aleppo’s occupation was a major achievement for Saladin. After almost a decade he had united Muslim Syria, and could now claim dominion over a swathe of territory between the Nile and the Euphrates. A number of surviving letters reveal the manner in which the sultan celebrated and publicised his success. As always, he also took care to justify his conquest, declaring that he would happily share leadership of Islam if he could, but noting that, in war, only one man could command. Aleppo’s subjugation was described as a step on the road to the recapture of Jerusalem and he declared proudly that ‘Islam is now awake to drive away the night phantom of unbelief’.54
Against the backdrop of this rhetoric, it was obvious by late summer 1183 that Saladin had, to some extent at least, to fulfil the promise implicit in his propaganda by attacking the Franks. To shore up the defences of northern Syria he agreed to a truce with Bohemond III of Antioch, securing extremely favourable terms for Islam–including the release of Muslim prisoners and territorial concessions–before travelling south to Damascus to orchestrate a show of force against the kingdom of Jerusalem.
THE WAR AGAINST THE FRANKS
The balance of power in Frankish Palestine had shifted significantly in recent years. In the late 1170s, with King Baldwin IV’s health worsening, a marriage alliance had been planned between his widowed sister Sibylla and the eminent Fr
ench nobleman Duke Hugh III of Burgundy. King Louis VII of France’s death in 1180, leaving his young son Philip Augustus as heir to the throne, upset this scheme, because the attendant power struggle in France meant Hugh was unwilling to abandon his dukedom. A new match for Sibylla, therefore, had to be found. At this point Raymond III of Tripoli and Bohemond III of Antioch seem to have decided that, in the interests of their own ambitions and Jerusalem’s continued security, Baldwin IV needed to be edged from power. Around Easter 1180, the pair tried to orchestrate what was, in essence, a coup d’état, by forcing Sibylla to marry their chosen ally, Baldwin of Ibelin, a member of the increasingly powerful Ibelin dynasty. Had this match proceeded, the leper king might have been sidelined, but Baldwin IV was unwilling to forgo his influence over the succession. With the encouragement of his mother and uncle, Agnes and Joscelin of Courtenay, he seized the initiative. Before Raymond and Bohemond could intervene, the king wed Sibylla to his own preferred candidate, Guy of Lusignan, a noble-born Poitevin knight, recently arrived in the Levant.
In part Baldwin’s choice was governed by necessity, as Guy was the only unmarried adult male of sufficiently high birth then present in Palestine. Guy’s connection with Poitou–a region ruled by the Angevin King Henry II of England–may also have been a factor, for with Capetian France in disarray, England’s importance as an ally was increased. Nonetheless, Guy’s emergence as a leading political player was both sudden and unexpected. With his marriage to Sibylla, Guy of Lusignan became heir designate to the Jerusalemite throne. He would also be expected to fulfil the role of regent should Baldwin IV be incapacitated by his affliction. The question was whether Guy’s precipitous elevation would alienate and embitter other leading members of the court, including Raymond of Tripoli and the Ibelins. Guy’s qualities as a political and military leader also remained untested, as did his willingness to restrain his own ambitions for the crown while Baldwin IV lived on, clinging to power.55
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