God's Armies

by Malcolm Lambert

  Saladin’s continued success depended on a flow of propaganda, sustained faithfully by his secretary, Imad-al-Din, once in the service of Nur al-Din, and the claim he continued to make of being God’s instrument in the unification of Islam and ultimate jihad against the Franks, which drew support for him over a wide area. His followers and admirers recognised that he was not a gifted general – his strength lay in diplomacy, the application of finely tuned and occasional force and a skilled propaganda and information service. He had a weakness for employing his family members, some of whom, such as his brother Turanshah, were disreputable and incompetent. He could not afford defeats, for his claim to rule in Islam could never rest secure relying solely on his own paid troops and Mamluks – the distances were too great and the enemies he still had too varied.

  In his dealings with the Franks the shock had come in 1177 when Amalric’s successor, Baldwin the Leper, took charge in person, even though he had to be carried in a litter, and caught Saladin unawares. The bulk of Frankish forces had been active to the north besieging Harim and Saladin then saw an opportunity to attack. Baldwin came out to challenge him but was forced to retreat to Ascalon. Relaxed, as he saw an early opportunity and aware of the weakness of Baldwin’s forces ensconced in Ascalon, Saladin dissipated his forces foraging and ravaging and was caught by Baldwin at Montgisard, between Ramla and Ibelin, and suffered a nasty reverse. He only just escaped, leaving behind a piece of his mail stained with his blood.

  The battle at Montgisard damaged Saladin, however much he argued, and justly, that the Franks had suffered heavily too. There were his own losses, his precipitate flight and the capture of his friend Isa, subsequently ransomed at a heavy price. Baldwin took advice from Reynald of Châtillon, who had emerged from his long imprisonment and had become lord of the key desert fortress and town of Kerak through marriage. Influenced by Reynald, Baldwin took a bold step by placing a new fortress only one day’s march from Damascus as an obstacle to Muslim forces passing from that Syrian redoubt to attack the Crusader States. It covered a vital crossing of the Jordan river, known as Jacob’s Ford, and was also – a clear insult to Islam – the site of a Muslim shrine. Baldwin interested the Templars in the site and spent heavily on the construction of what was to become a great castle in the latest fashion, with two concentric rings of fortification. Saladin used all the force of diplomacy and finance to try to stop the building of the castle and offered massive sums – first 60,000, then 100,000 dinars – if the Franks would give up the project. Baldwin refused. The inner ring of the castle was completed when Saladin moved to a major assault in August 1179; Baldwin accepted the challenge, assembling his army at Tiberias, but Saladin was too fast for him, using specialist miners to make a passage under the walls. The wood supports, fired in classical fashion, failed to bring down the wall but he retunnelled at speed and forced an entrance on 24 August, just before Baldwin came up. On seeing the smoke rising from the destroyed castle, Baldwin withdrew. Templars and others had fought gallantly but were overwhelmed. There was a wholesale execution of the defenders: Saladin felt the need to react ruthlessly to this major challenge to his power and the castle was never rebuilt.

  Jacob’s Ford did something to efface the damage done by the debacle at Montgisard but still left Saladin facing the long-term problems of military expenses and the drain of manpower in a series of raids which he mounted in the years after 1179. He did not have a united Islam behind him. The settlers abandoned the tradition of aggression which had so often sustained them and followed a defensive policy, relying on the security of their castles and towns, while Saladin ravaged and raided in the hopes of tempting his opponents to battle. An encounter at Forbelet in 1182 was inconclusive and in the same year he failed to take Beirut; movements in 1183 and 1184 were also ineffectual. He could take comfort as Aleppo finally yielded to him in 1183, but Mosul remained recalcitrant. A dramatic episode in the same year saw Reynald of Châtillon constructing ships that could be dismantled, moved and then reassembled to menace Red Sea commerce, one squadron passing down to blockade Aqaba, the other moving to the western bank of the Red Sea and harassing Muslim pilgrims and traders. Reynald’s move struck at Saladin’s reputation. Was he worthy of his position as the leading force within Islam when its holiest sites were threatened and the leader was preoccupied with manoeuvres against Muslim rivals? As the potential was there to threaten Mecca and Medina, Saladin reacted with fury and counter-attacked, capturing Reynald’s men, parading them throughout his realm and finally executing them in public; two were slaughtered like sacrificial animals before a baying public outside Mecca.

  Well aware of the faction-fighting and problems of succession in the Crusader States, he made a treaty with Raymond of Tripoli, who had been so alarmed by a possible attack from Guy of Lusignan in Galilee that he allowed free access to Saladin’s troops across crusader land in return for a Muslim reinforcement of his garrison at Tiberias – which could fairly be called treasonable. Kerak continued to defy him and under Reynald remained a pressure point on troop and caravan movement between Damascus and Cairo. In 1187 Reynald broke a truce and looted a caravan. The years following 1179 had the effect of leading both the Crusader States and Saladin himself to desire the decisive battle – the settlers to end the drain of men in the varied encounters of the 1180s, Saladin in order to establish himself unequivocally as a true mujahidin who would deliver Jerusalem. Events moved fast. When Sibylla’s young son Baldwin V died and she mounted her coup, crowning herself and Guy in 1186, Raymond of Tripoli and his party, lying in wait at Nablus, tried one last desperate throw to secure their succession and called on Humphrey of Toron, the husband of Isabella, Sibylla’s half-sister, to support them. With a gallant sense of the needs of the kingdom, Humphrey refused to help and promptly paid homage to Sibylla. Guy reigned and held command against Saladin. Mosul accepted the overlordship of Saladin in 1186 and so the scene was set for a final encounter.

  In the meantime Saladin had a problem of another kind, concealed from his troops. He had fallen ill in the winter of 1186, so seriously that his death was expected, and he made his will. Imad al-Din believed that the illness was divinely sent to wake him ‘from the sleep of forgetfulness’. Despite proclaiming his fidelity to the Quran and his commitment to the jihad, in practice Saladin had spent years subduing other Muslim rulers and conquering their cities and strongpoints. Proximity to death changed him. Still weak, in 1187 he emerged from his experience with a more profound commitment in his heart to what he had professed with his lips. He was so much more dangerous.

  The Battle of Hattin

  Both sides felt the time had come for an encounter. Guy may have been a controversial figure but he was the king and the forces of the kingdom rallied to his summons, giving him one of the most formidable armies the kingdom had ever had: part settlers, infantry and cavalry, and part mercenaries hired with money granted to the Templars by Henry II of England. Castle garrisons were drained to create the host.

  In preparation for the showdown Guy led a delegation, including Templars and Hospitallers, to seek reconciliation with Raymond of Tripoli. When Saladin’s son al-Afdal raided into Galilee and approached Nazareth, local inhabitants appealed for protection to these military orders, who felt honour-bound to leave the delegation and go to their aid. Outnumbered by a Muslim force some 7,000 strong, they were massacred; only Gerard of Ridefort, Grand Master of the Templars, and three others escaped. In accordance with the previously mentioned treaty, Muslims rode over Raymond’s lands carrying their victims’ heads on spears. Raymond was horrified at this, did homage to Guy, repudiated the deal with Saladin and expelled the Muslim reinforcements from his garrison at Tiberias. It was thus a united force which faced Saladin.

  As he prepared for battle, Saladin cast aside the hesitancies of his earlier career and prepared a plan for luring the Christians to their destruction. In a sudden coup he struck at Raymond of Tripoli’s base in Tiberias, capturing the town and leaving Eschiva, Raymond’s
wife, in the citadel. Eschiva sent to the Frankish army to seek relief. Safe at the massive springs of Sephoria, the greatest in the whole area of Lower Galilee, with a discharge of water adequate for all the needs of men and horses, Guy held councils to decide what to do. The aggressive party, Gerard of Ridefort and Reynald of Chatillon, spoke for advance to confront Saladin and destroy him. A cautious view was put by Raymond of Tripoli and prevailed. A veteran, as Raymond was, understood that, if Saladin did take the citadel, his wife, Eschiva, would be ransomed in the usual way. Advance without adequate water supplies in the July heat stacked the odds against any army. In effect, Raymond pleaded for delay, waiting for Saladin to make a mistake, then pounce; at Sephoria the army could be cut off from the coast, so a possible move could be made to Acre with secure water and supplies and still await an error by Saladin. Guy accepted the decision.

  Then in the night Gerard of Ridefort called on Guy to change his mind. Gerard had a long-standing grudge against Raymond of Tripoli, who had wrecked his chance of a rich marriage before he joined the Templars, and he was well aware of Guy’s insecurity. As bailli to Baldwin the Leper, Guy had been accused of cowardice for standing on the defensive; now he was doing the same, and, Gerard suggested, it was all a plot by Raymond to destroy him. Moreover, as depository for massive sums bequeathed to the Temple by Henry II, he needed to justify the bequest with a decisive attack, and so Guy gave the command and the army moved off before dawn. It was 3 July 1187.*

  Saladin prepared for a battle in which water supplies and archery would be crucial. He laid down massive stocks of arrows, used camels to bring up water in skins, kept access to springs for his army at the Wadi Fididjas and at Hattin and waited with reinforcements based at Kafr Sabt and Lubiya as well. There is little doubt that Guy had intended to bring about a battle in which the enemy could be pinned against higher ground and exposed to the attack of his cavalry, but Guy underestimated the size of his opponent’s army, which was so huge that it allowed Saladin to keep substantial forces to block all possible routes Guy might choose to take his army to Tiberias and to leave enough military force to block his line of retreat. Guy moved to Mount Turan, which only had a small spring, and then on to the plateau of Maskana where he and perhaps Raymond of Tripoli as well made a crucial mistake in deciding to camp overnight on 3-4 July, with the aim of resting his army. There was some pooled water by the site, suitable for animals, but still quite insufficient, and any attempt to rest was destroyed as Saladin’s men set fire to the scrub which proliferated on this bare terrain. Saladin sent two wings of his army towards Mount Turan to fan out behind Guy and block his retreat. Saladin had also positioned his troops on a line somewhere west of the watershed stretching from Nimrin to Lubiya. On the morning of 4 July Guy’s army moved forward again. Saladin, who had blocked the way to the springs of Hattin, gave time for the sun to rise high and increase his enemy’s discomfort, then succeeded by relentless archery in breaking the formation of the army. Arrow showers tormented the infantry and induced them to flee to the volcanic promontory of the Horns of Hattin where they took refuge within the walls of the two prehistoric fortresses within the Horns. From the protection of the walls they could fire back at Saladin’s men, but no entreaties persuaded them to return to protect the cavalry, still the most devastating force Guy had, and whose charge Saladin feared. In heavy armour they suffered dreadfully from thirst and some horses were killed by arrows. Raymond of Tripoli, Balian of Ibelin and supporting cavalrymen broke through Saladin’s lines and made their way to Lake Tiberias. Fighting under Guy, however, still went on into the afternoon of 4 July when the surviving cavalry prepared final desperate charges. Were they aiming to force their way through to Lake Tiberias and water or the Hattin springs, or did they take advice from a cavalryman who had served with the Muslims and charge down to capture Saladin’s tent? The latter is likelier. The cavalry at this last stage assembled in the crater between the two horns and made last pushes. Al-Afdal, in his first battle with his father, remembered well his father’s fear of these last charges. The battle, Saladin told his son, was not won till they stopped. Only at the final failure did he dismount from his horse, fall on his knees and thank God for victory. Surrender came when the True Cross was taken, a fatal blow to morale. Carried off to Damascus, it was never seen again.

  Leading captives were brought before the sultan and Guy, treated with consideration, was given iced julep to drink. When he handed it on to Reynald of Chatillon, Saladin intervened to point out that he had not given him the drink and therefore had not established the duty of hospitality and care towards him, the tradition founded on desert life. Saladin personally beheaded Reynald and sent his head to be paraded in Damascus. Subsequently members of the military orders in their hundreds were offered a choice between conversion to Islam or execution. Most stood firm and were executed by inexperienced Sufis or volunteers: there followed grim, botched beheadings. Turcopoles, Muslims enlisted for pay and viewed as traitors, suffered the same fate. Distinguished captives were assured of their lives. Grand Master Gerard, in return for his freedom and that of ten others, was persuaded to use the Templar vow of obedience and so order his knights to surrender key strongpoints. Guy was used as a bargaining tool to induce Ascalon to surrender. The inhabitants demurred, but as Saladin began his siege and no help came, they surrendered on terms. Thus Ascalon, vital for the uninterrupted channelling of troops and supplies from Egypt, fell to Saladin and the scene was set for an attack on Jerusalem. Saladin allowed the dowager queen and Sibylla to leave Jerusalem, to eliminate a potential rallying point for defenders of the city. The freeing of Guy was delayed until July. Sibylla and her husband were finally reunited at Nablus.

  Saladin, who wanted to arrive at Jerusalem to celebrate Muhammad’s Night Journey to the city, concluded that Tyre, a highly defensible strong-point jutting out into the sea, could be left to be captured later. This was a mistake. Surviving aristocrats had taken refuge there, demoralised because of the Hattin disaster and awaiting the inevitable surrender. A stray pilgrim arrived, totally unaware of Hattin and its sequel, and galvanised them all into resistance. This was Conrad of Montferrat, son of William V, marquis of Montferrat of the former Lombard dynasty, long resident in the Holy Land, who had been captured at Hattin; Conrad had sailed from Constantinople to Acre and was puzzled to find Acre in Muslim hands; pretending he had arrived to trade, he used the next favourable wind to sail back to Tyre. Saladin tried to bargain his way into Tyre, presenting the old marquis as a hostage, his freedom to be given in return for surrender. Conrad, a hard man, would have none of this.

  Saladin moved on. By siege and parley he had secured Acre and the strongpoints of Gaza, Ascalon and Latrun, which might threaten his rear as he besieged Jerusalem. He commenced action on 20 September. Jerusalem had pitifully few surviving defenders, and mining gave him entry. He planned a massacre to avenge the deaths of Muslims in July 1099 and was only foiled by a leading baron, Balian of Ibelin, whom he had earlier released to travel to Jerusalem to collect his wife and family, with the promise that he would stay for only one night. Balian had lingered, organised defence and then conveyed an effective answer to the threat of massacre – Saladin might attempt to do his worst, but Balian still had enough men and time to kill 5,000 Muslim prisoners in the city and destroy their sacred sites. Saladin stayed his hand. Christians were to be allowed forty days to pay ransoms, 10 dinars for a man, 5 for a woman, 2 for a child. They could take possessions, excluding horses and weapons, and be given safe conduct to places of refuge. The numbers were very great as the city had been crammed with refugees. Some of the poor were accommodated as Balian paid a lump sum for 18,000 to be released and Saladin’s brother pleaded for others. There were cases of corruption and scandal: notably Eraclius, the unworthy patriarch, paying a tiny fee for his stores of wealth. Saladin preferred not to intervene. Emirs who had fought with him and scholars who had supported him were generously rewarded. His intimate circle lamented his open-handedness, but
it was his style: he rarely kept adequate reserves.

  The fate of some Christians was sorrowful: there were still many enslaved, the men to work as labourers on Muslim works, older women and children to serve at the will of others, younger women to be concubines. Pleas of individuals were heard. Christian womenfolk of men who had served at Hattin sought information about them – those made prisoner he released and to those who had lost their men he gave gifts. Saladin was, as in this case, capable of acts of compassion beyond the conventions of the day. The traditional code of conduct in which the true Muslim kept his word, served Saladin well in many of his dealings in his last years. It was not just a political device.

  On I October the keys to Jerusalem were handed over. It was, as Saladin had hoped, the eve of the annual festival of Muhammad’s Night Journey. There followed a tempestuous Islamisation, as the cross was dragged off the apex of the Dome of the Rock to great cries of ‘Allahu akbar’ and beaten through the streets. Guards were set to ensure homes were not looted but the sacred vessels of the church were swept away, some shrines and churches were closed and others suffered change of use, as in the case of Melisende’s foundation, the church of St Anne, which became a madrasa. Byzantines replaced Latin clergy; Armenians and Jews were invited back. The fate of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was debated: the memory of the caliph Umar, conqueror in 638, was cited and after being closed for three days, the church reopened for Christian worship. Bells were silenced: only the muezzin was to be heard and Christian services announced by clappers or cymbals. Churches and a Christian presence remained, albeit a modified one. Saladin’s family thoroughly cleansed the Dome of the Rock from the pollution of the polytheists, as they saw the Christians, scrubbing, dowsing with rose-water and using incense. Nur al-Din’s minbar was installed in the al-Aqsa mosque, the mihrab in the wall of the al-Aqsa mosque unblocked and the khutba, the Friday prayer, pronounced by Saladin’s supporter, the qadi of Aleppo.