by Robert Payne
Richard fell ill, the conquest was left in abeyance for a few days while forces were assembled by Guy of Lusignan for attacks on the great Byzantine fortresses of Kyrenia, Dieu d’Amour, and Buffavento. In Kyrenia, they found the daughter of Isaac Comnenus and made her prisoner. This fortress had been attacked by land and sea, with the help of guides who knew the way, and its capture was surprisingly easy. Dieu d’Amour was far more difficult, being set on crags 2,400 feet high; it could only be reached by narrow pathways that favored the defense. Guy of Lusignan’s forces came close to the summit only to find themselves the targets of well-directed arrows and huge rocks.
When the fortress at last capitulated, it was decided that this was the most secure place in all of Cyprus, and accordingly the daughter of the despot was brought there. Richard himself attacked the fortress of Buffavento, which was also nearly unreachable, but Isaac Comnenus was not there. He was hiding in a fortified monastery at Cape St. Andrew. There, a few days later, Richard rode to receive his surrender.
In the presence of the king, Isaac Comnenus threw himself down on his knees and begged for his life. His only request was that he should not be put in iron chains. Richard agreed to this request and was fairly hospitable to the former despot. Then he ordered that chains of silver would serve instead of iron chains. Isaac Comnenus, in silver chains, was sent to Tripoli and thrown into a dungeon in the fortress of Margat, which belonged to the Templars.
The queen of England, the dowager queen of Sicily, and the daughter of the despot were sent to Acre with the greater part of the Anglo-Norman fleet. A few days later, on June 5, 1191, Richard himself set sail for the Holy Land.
He was a man who never lacked for adventures. His ships encountered a ship flying the French colors, but there was something suspicious about it and he sent two galleys with envoys to speak to the captain, who told them the ship had come from Antioch to take part in the siege of Acre. Richard was still suspicious, and he turned out to be right. They were not what they said they were. The ship was manned by Saracens. Richard gave the order to attack. The Saracens poured Greek fire on their attackers, but they were surrounded on every side by quick Anglo-Norman ships, whose eager sailors had been promised all the booty on board. The wooden sides of the Saracen ship were hit by the iron beaks of Richard’s ships. The ship began to sink, but not before Richard’s men had crawled over it like ants and found their promised booty. Many of the fourteen hundred men aboard threw themselves naked off the sinking ship, only to be engulfed in Greek fire. Some Saracens were taken prisoner, but most of them were drowned.
Having already established himself as a conqueror, Richard came to the camp outside of Acre.
Richard
and Saladin
RICHARD spent sixteen months in the Holy Land, and accomplished miracles. If he had stayed longer, he might have accomplished more miracles, but it is just as likely that he would have fallen into the traps the Saracens were preparing for him. In those sixteen months he provided a new vigor, a new way of looking at life, one that was violent, self-assured, flamboyant, and sometimes chivalrous. It was as though the strength and determination of the early Crusaders had returned to the Holy Land.
At first the prospects were far from promising. He landed his troops near Acre, established a campsite, and immediately examined the troops stationed around the high walls of the city, who were preparing to attack as soon as the generals felt sure they could take them by assault. The siege had begun two years earlier when Guy of Lusignan had boldly struck out from the north with a pathetically small army and established his lines around the place, cutting off the people of Acre from the hinterland. On the hills above Acre, Saladin had assembled a powerful force. The besiegers were therefore in danger of being caught in a vise, for if Saladin descended on them and the army of Acre sallied forth at the same time, the Crusaders were lost. But Saladin had never felt strong enough for a massive descent from the hills, and the besieged never felt strong enough to make a massive sortie.
So there was a stalemate. The Crusaders were taking great risks, but they had advantages denied to the enemy. They already possessed powerful siege engines, they were receiving detailed reports about the situation in Acre through their spies, and they had a new confidence, born since Richard’s arrival. It was almost as though they expected the walls to fall simply because Richard was present.
The last details for the assault were being drawn up when Richard fell seriously ill with what was perhaps an aggravated form of malaria. Though weak and listless, he had himself carried to the forward lines on a tour of inspection and shot arrows up at the watchmen on the towers. We are told that his face and lips were wasted with a sickness called leonardie, and one of the consequences of this illness was that the skin peeled off. All through the siege of Acre, Richard suffered in varying degrees from this sickness. Saladin heard that he was ill and chivalrously sent him fruit and snow.
Although Richard was very ill, he was still capable of carrying on diplomatic offensives in all directions, against King Philip and especially against Saladin. He heard that King Philip was paying his men three gold bezants a month; he offered four to any knight who entered his service. Pisans and Genoese flocked to his colors, but he refused to take on the Genoese who had pledged themselves to the French king. Henry of Champagne, who was Richard’s nephew, found himself in desperate need of money, asked King Philip for a loan, and was told that he would receive the loan only if he pledged Champagne as a surety for it. Henry had no intention of surrendering Champagne and turned to Richard for assistance. Richard enjoyed making grand gestures, and he offered Henry of Champagne £4,000, together with food for his men and horses, without any surety at all. Apart from making grand gestures, Richard would always seize on an opportunity to undermine King Philip’s position.
Richard also hoped to undermine Saladin’s position. He sent a message to Saladin urging an interview. Saladin answered uncompromisingly, pointing out that, according to tradition, kings met only after terms of peace had been arranged. He did however delegate his brother Saphadin to meet with Richard, during a three-day truce, in a tent erected on the plain between the two camps.
There was no meeting, for Richard was by this time too ill. Saladin sent him a present of a Negro slave: a dubious gift for the slave could easily have been a spy. Saladin was also sending scouts into the English tents at night, hoping to take prisoners. Anyone who resisted had his throat cut. Those captured could expect to be tortured until they had revealed everything they knew, unless they died before that. Saladin was often merciless to his prisoners. Richard was even more merciless.
On June 14, King Philip ordered a general assault on the walls of Acre. Richard was distressed, fearing that the assault might be successful and he would have no part in the victory because he was so ill. The French army was massed against the Accursed Tower, and near this tower the French, the Pisans, and the Templars succeeded in making a breach in the walls. But the Muslims counterattacked, pouring through the breach, and this first assault came to nothing. While the fighting for the walls was going on, the Anglo-Norman army kept watch on Saladin’s army in the hills. There was an agreement between the two kings that while one attacked, the other would safeguard the rear. This was a sensible arrangement, which would have been more profitable if Richard and Philip had not felt so contemptuous of one another, and if their armies had not despised one another. In such circumstances, lines of communication often failed, and the absence of a single commander in chief made their efforts more difficult.
Philip ordered a second attack on June 17. This time the Muslims on the walls saw what was coming and warned Saladin, far off on the hills, by shouts and loud banging of plates and basins, cymbals and kettledrums. Saladin sent a large force against the Anglo-Normans, whose commander was Geoffrey of Lusignan, the brother of Guy. Geoffrey distinguished himself by dashing against the enemy with an ax, slaughtering ten of them, and taking many prisoners. There was hard and vicious fighting ag
ainst Saladin and against the Muslims of Acre, who employed Greek fire with devastating effect. The Christians won no victories that day. Geoffrey of Lusignan’s feats were extolled, but there were mountains of dead, Christian and Saracen alike, to be thrown into the ditches.
Richard had brought with him the great siege engine, Mategriffon. Philip, too, had his siege engines, one of them of monstrous size called “Bad Neighbor,” which battled against a similar engine mounted on the walls called “Evil Kinsman.” There were continuous duels between “Bad Neighbor” and “Evil Kinsman.” From time to time “Bad Neighbor” would be damaged, and then it would be repaired. Finally, it was completely destroyed, and King Philip, scarcely recovered from malaria, fell ill of vexation. Philip’s engineers designed a new form of scaling ladder called “the Cat,” and when this was also destroyed by Greek fire, the king’s vexation grew boundless; he cursed everyone in sight and threatened the most terrible vengeance on the Saracens.
On July 2, Philip ordered another assault on Acre, and this time he achieved some results. The French had succeeded in making a tunnel under the Accursed Tower; they had shored it up with timbers and were preparing to set fire to the timbers. The Anglo-Normans had also mined the walls, while the Saracens in turn were digging countermines. Saladin, knowing that the Crusaders were on the verge of a massive attack, sent his chief lieutenant down into the plain with orders to destroy the Crusader rear guard at all costs. There was hand-to-hand fighting of the fiercest kind, but the Crusaders held their ground.
Meanwhile the attempt to scale the walls with ladders continued, and a certain Alberic Clements, who was the military commander directly under the king, swore that he would enter Acre that day, or perish. He held up the king’s standard, gathered a large number of soldiers and officers around him, charged against the walls, and began, with the help of scaling ladders, to climb the walls. The Saracens let down a gigantic grappling hook and pulled him up for the pleasure of killing him. At about the same time, they threw down a multitude of heavy rocks which killed forty of the men who came charging up to the walls. To annoy the attackers still more, a Saracen paraded along the wall wearing the armor of Alberic Clements. Richard, though still sick and lying on a silken mattress, aimed with his crossbow and shot the man in the heart.
Then it was the turn of the Pisans to scale the Accursed Tower, only to meet resistance so desperate and at the same time so effective that the Crusaders found themselves marveling at the intelligence and energy of the enemy, half-starved, blockaded by sea, without any reserves of ammunition, yet continuing to defend ragged walls which were blackened by fire, mined, and broken. Saladin, who was waiting for fresh troops from Egypt, had refused to send his main army into the plain, but the defenders of Acre were now desperate. They begged for a truce, which would allow them some communication with Saladin. He must be made to realize that Acre would have to surrender unless he sent more aid. Saladin was at that moment trying to distract the Christians with marauding expeditions. On July 8, he burned Haifa. On the two following days he uprooted all the vineyards and cut down all the fruit trees around Acre. He appears to have thought the Christians would send out flying columns, which he could cut down at leisure. Instead they held firm. For two years they had been besieging Acre and the prize was almost in their hands.
The Saracens who came out from Acre to bargain for a truce offered to surrender the city and everything in it if they were permitted to march out alive with only the clothes they were wearing. King Philip was prepared to accept this offer; but Richard rejected it outright, saying that after such a long and difficult siege he refused to enter a deserted city. He wanted bloodshed. There were six thousand Saracens in the beleaguered city and he was determined that many should die.
He was determined, too, to extract from Saladin as many concessions as possible. The True Cross must be given back to the Christians; fifteen hundred prisoners in Saladin’s hands must be released; Philip and Richard were each to receive an indemnity of 100,000 bezants, while Conrad of Montferrat, regarded as a contender for the crown of Jerusalem, would receive 1400 bezants. At a great meeting held at the Templar camp, Richard’s terms were agreed upon. On July 12, a little more than a month after Richard’s arrival, Acre formally surrendered.
Richard took up residence in the palace with his wife, Berengaria, and his favorite sister, Joanna. Philip took up residence in the Templar stronghold. Leopold, Duke of Austria, whose German troops played a minor role in the campaign, set up his standard beside Richard’s and was offended when the flag was torn down by the Anglo-Normans and thrown into a ditch. Leopold thus became Richard’s mortal enemy and would later have his revenge on Richard. Once Acre was captured, many laid claim to the spoils. Philip claimed half of everything, former Christian owners of houses and establishments in the city claimed possession of their property, the Templars and Hospitallers claimed their estates, and the churchmen claimed the churches, which had been converted into mosques, and the estates that went with the churches. The Templars succeeded in keeping order between the factions, but only with the greatest difficulty. Those who had the greatest claim—the fighting men who had endured a two-year siege—received nothing. They were fobbed off with promises, while the kings and princes took the lion’s share.
Richard had recovered his health and was flushed with victory. He proposed that the two kings make a vow to remain in the Holy Land for three years: time enough for them to destroy the armies of Islam. Philip, who was now suffering from dysentery, had no stomach for three years of campaigning, and there were urgent matters summoning him to France. He distrusted Richard’s intentions and did not believe that the Holy Land could be conquered. When the bishop of Beauvais and the duke of Burgundy, who had brought Richard’s plan to Philip, and had to listen to Philip’s diatribes against Richard returned, Richard saw Philip’s answer in their faces. He said, “It will be a shame and a disgrace for my lord if he goes away without having completed the business on which he came hither. But still, if he finds himself ailing, or in bad health, and is afraid lest he should die here, his will be done.” “And is afraid lest he should die here” contains more than a little malice, since it was the duty of a Crusader to die, if necessary, in the Holy Land.
Philip and Richard had to decide on many issues while there was still time. One of the more important issues concerned the King of Jerusalem. Which of the two contenders was the real king? Guy of Lusignan claimed the title by virtue of his marriage to Sybilla. Guy of Lusignan had led the Christian army to defeat on the Horns of Hattin, and had therefore, as some believed, forfeited the crown by his stupidity and ineptitude. Richard, remembering how well Guy of Lusignan had fought on Cyprus, was not inclined to believe that Hattin was entirely his fault. Conrad of Montferrat claimed the title by virtue of his marriage to Isabelle. Philip favored his claim because the marquis had fought with the French army before the walls of Acre. So they struck a balance. Guy of Lusignan was confirmed with the title, but was allowed to possess it only during his lifetime; after Guy’s death Conrad would possess the title, and if he had a son by Isabelle, this son would in due course be crowned King of Jerusalem. Meanwhile Conrad was given the fiefs of Tyre, Sidon and Beirut, and the royal revenues would be shared equally between Guy and Conrad. In this way the pragmatic medieval mind resolved a problem that seemed almost beyond resolution.
At last, on July 31, Philip departed from Acre and made his way to Tyre where he found three Genoese galleys waiting to take him to Apulia. Wars were raging in France; he had excellent reasons for returning to his own country; Richard was glad to see him go.
As King of England, Richard carried little weight with the great body of Frankish Crusaders. As Duke of Aquitaine, he carried a little more. As a man he was admired, worshipped, and feared. But it never occurred to him that Philip, however ungainly and maladroit, had an advantage he could never possess. Simply by being King of France, Philip was loved by the Frankish army.
At this time Leopold
of Austria also left the Holy Land, unloved and unwanted. He had done too little to justify his existence there; he was quarrelsome and proud, and almost insanely jealous of the two kings who possessed the preponderance of power. Inside the walls of Acre the chief command went to the duke of Burgundy, who was closer to Richard than to Philip.
The kings, as usual, were remembered by the chroniclers. Sometimes, but very rarely, we hear of the exploits of the common soldiers. During the last clash with Saladin’s forces, according to the Arab chronicler Baha ad-Din, an enormous Frank standing on a parapet drove off the Muslim attackers. He stood there, hurling stones with deadly accuracy, being helped by his fellows who handed him more stones as soon as one was aimed. He had received fifty wounds from arrows and stones thrown by the enemy. He was so covered with blood that he seemed to have turned scarlet, but he continued to throw stones to the very end. At last one of the Muslim officers was able to pitch a bottle of naphtha at him. It exploded, burning him alive.
The battle for Acre was, like all battles, ugly; but it possessed a special ugliness. The long siege reduced everyone to exhaustion and desperation. The Christians, hemmed in between the walls of Acre and the hills where Saladin’s troops were waiting, forced to fight on two fronts simultaneously, became utterly merciless; and the Muslims inside the walls were equally merciless. On both sides the main body of the troops lived in misery and squalor. The prices of food on the Christian side are known. An egg cost a silver penny, which could also buy thirteen beans. A sack of grain cost exactly a hundred gold pieces. For ten copper pennies one could buy a stew of horse entrails. Strips of leather were shredded and boiled; a dead horse provided a hundred men with small feasts for a week. Bone meal, grasses, leaves, bark, earth were eaten. Soldiers died of starvation, scurvy, typhus, and the strange disease called leonardie, which reduced men to helpless lethargy. Saladin suffered from terrible boils from the waist downward, so that he could neither sleep nor rest; and one of the reasons why he did not attack the Christian camp may have been that he was too ill, and his army was too ill, to mount an attack. Corpses that lay unburied were devoured by rats or black clouds of flies settled on them; vultures and scavenging dogs were given splendid feasts. Scorching heat and rain, winter frosts and mud, made life nearly impossible. Like the Tafurs who had taken part in the siege of Antioch nearly a hundred years earlier, the majority of the Christian soldiers were living in total fear and squalor. Even when they achieved victory, even when Acre surrendered, they were still starving, and only the knights received a few tidbits from the kings.