Richard & John: Kings at War

by McLynn, Frank

  Shirkuh’s triumph was actually too complete for Nur al-Din, for he had unwittingly raised up a rival in the new vizier of Egypt. Shortly afterwards he died, by poison it was rumoured, but maybe simply from obesity.13 The removal of Shirkuh anyway did Nur al-Din no good, for Saladin promptly replaced him as vizier, being both acclaimed by the Army and then rubber-stamped by the Fatimid caliph. Saladin was in a ticklish situation in Cairo for, as a Sunni, he recognised the supremacy of the Sunni caliphate of the Abbasids in Baghdad, but in Egypt he was working for the Fatimids, its enemy. Until 1172 he walked a tightrope, surviving Fatimid conspiracies by the old guard of defeated malcontents who were prepared to ally themselves with the Franks to bring Saladin down. Knowing Nur al-Din’s enthusiasm for jihad, he realised that to make Egypt subservient to Syria would simply give Nur the resources of Egypt for a Holy War against Jerusalem, so, while gradually suppressing the Fatimid caliphate, he did not immediately completely abolish it but used it as a pawn in his diplomatic struggle with the lord of Damascus.14 The game was supremely dangerous, and a serious Fatimid rebellion in Cairo had to be suppressed, but Saladin, convinced that the Egyptian economy was not strong enough to weather the demands of Nur’s anti-Crusader aims, continued to play both sides against the middle. When he at last formally reinstated the Abbasids in Egypt but would still not obey directives from Damascus, Nur al-Din lost patience and decided to attack. In vain did Saladin protest that to join Nur in jihad would simply expose Egypt to crusader counter-attacks. He added insult to injury by wasting Egypt’s substance, as Nur al-Din saw it, in campaigns in Nubia, Libya and Tunisia. War between Saladin and Nur was imminent when the lord of Damascus died suddenly in 1174.15

  The death of Nur al-Din produced a political situation similar to that in Egypt on the eve of Shirkuh’s invasions, but with the roles of Egypt and Syria reversed. By 1175 Saladin was master of Damascus as well as Cairo. His political talents could scarcely be denied, for he had overcome the manifold problems that assailed Egypt in the late twelfth century: mob violence in Cairo and Alexandria, Norman naval attacks, revolts in Upper Egypt, famine and plague, even currency devaluations. He had risen to the top despite the underlying problems like the vicious Shia-Sunni conflict and the political fragmentation caused by the rise of the vizier class, independent of the caliphs to whom they paid nominal allegiance. The caliph-vizier divorce of ownership and control, as it were, also uncannily mirrored the situation in France, where more powerful Angevin rulers paid homage to less powerful feudal overlords. Now that he had established his power base in Egypt, harnessed its economic resources, its army and even its fleet, and integrated Egypt with Syria, Saladin had the scope to display his military talent. The situation faced by the Christian kingdom of Outremer was more serious than in its entire history, and the crisis was made worse by the absence of its normal allies. Ironically, in the very same year that the western emperor Frederick Barbarossa came to disaster at Legnano in Italy (1176), the eastern emperor Manuel sustained a stunning defeat at Iconium at the hands of the Saljuquids.16 The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem could no longer look to Byzantium for support. In contrast to the situation ten or fifteen years earlier, Syria and Egypt now had little to fear from Outremer, especially as Venice, Pisa and Genoa, putative crusader allies, were trading with Egypt after meeting commercial resistance in Byzantium. Additionally, king Almaric, erstwhile scourge of Egypt, died in 1174 and was succeeded by the 13-year-old Baldwin, Jerusalem’s leper king.17

  Why, then, did it take a dozen years, between seizing power in Syria and 1187, before Saladin moved decisively against the Franks? In the first place, it took him that long to bring the whole of non-Christian Syria and Mesopotamia under his control. The long campaigns against the atabegs of Aleppo and Mosul occupied an unconscionable amount of his time and attention, even though Saladin made occasional forays against the Franks.18 It was estimated that after 1174 Saladin spent thirteen months fighting the Christian states but thirty-three in battles against his fellow-Muslims.19 All sections of his domains had specific grouses, with Egyptians in particular feeling that Saladin consistently neglected their interests in favour of Syria’s. Some of his own table-talk was scarcely helpful, as with the much-touted saying: ‘Egypt is a whore who has tried in vain to part me from my faithful wife, Syria.’20 But even Syrians felt resentful. Cynics said of him: ‘Saladin spent the revenues of Egypt to gain Syria, and the revenues of Syria to gain Mesopotamia.’21 He was vehemently criticised within the Islamic world for wasting so much time in campaigns against Muslim states rather than against the infidel - exactly the criticism successive popes had made of Henry II and the French kings. Doubtless Saladin hoped for quick victories against Aleppo and Mosul, but these constantly eluded him. Additionally, the Aleppo ruler trumped his ace by calling in the radical sect of Islamic hitmen - the Assassins - to deal with him. There was a contract out on Saladin in 1176 until he bribed the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ (the Assassins’ leader) to desist, after which there was no more trouble with them.22 Yet another problem was the rising power of Qilijarslan, the Saljuquid sultan who defeated the Byzantines at Iconium and was now looking covetously at the Euphrates. Saladin and Qilijarslan confronted each other once, in 1178, but the Saljuquids thought better of battle and withdrew.23 Moreover, the Franks did not stand idly by while Saladin was thus preoccupied but raided into his territories. And Saladin was never entirely a free agent. He had to consult the interests of local warlords, who were apathetic about the idea of an anti-Christian jihad. Finally, there is the distinct possibility that Saladin himself was never that interested in Holy War, that his real preoccupation was a united Islam under a centralised Abbasid caliphate.24

  During the years 1175-86 Saladin had many brushes with the crusaders. There were major skirmishes in 1177 and in 1179, when Saladin turned the screw by sending his fleet of 60 galleys and 20 transports on a raid along the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor which netted over a thousand prisoners. In 1183 Guy of Lusignan confronted Saladin with a Christian army, but both sides declined battle.25 In general in these years, Saladin was preoccupied with Mosul and Aleppo and responded only to direct provocation from the Franks. Everything changed in 1186 when Saladin broke the power of Mosul (Aleppo had fallen in 1183) and he was finally able to devote his full-time attention to the kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin’s new bearing came at the worst possible moment for Outremer, deprived as it was of its traditional allies by the decline of Byzantine power and riven by factionalism.26 By the early 1180s three major figures had emerged on the Christian side. Baldwin IV, affected by leprosy, was gradually turning the kingdom over to Guy of Lusignan but there was considerable resentment about this, since Guy was a ‘new man’, an interloper in the eyes of ‘old Outremer’, an adventurer who had made his mark by marrying Sybilla, the widowed sister of the king of Jerusalem, in 1180. Temporarily Regent in 1184 but meeting stiff opposition, Guy got his big chance when Baldwin died of leprosy in 1185 and his infant heir the next year. Despite intense unpopularity, Guy manoeuvred his way to the throne and was crowned in 1186 - a Poitevin king. Quite apart from religious considerations, Henry II and Richard now had a more immediate interest in Jerusalem, for Guy was nominally their vassal as a Poitevin subject of Richard, and Sybilla, as a member of the junior branch of the house of Anjou, was a cousin.27

  The two other figures were bitter enemies of Guy of Lusignan, though they could not have been more unlike. Raymond of Tripoli would have been a more popular choice as king of Jerusalem, and he and his many supporters continued to brood about this setback. One of the ‘old guard’ of the Latin kingdom, a wiry man of medium height with a hawk nose and dark complexion, Raymond was a great warrior but a wise, solomonic and magnanimous counsellor and a great ally and promoter of the Hospitallers. He had suffered imprisonment at the hands of the Muslims but had learned to admire them, spoke Arabic and advocated peaceful co-existence with the heathen. He married the widow of the lord of Tiberias, whose territory, on the shores of lake Ga
lilee and containing the New Testament locations of Nazareth and Mount Tabor, was the most vulnerable fief in the whole of the kingdom of Jerusalem and the first target for any invasion from Arabic Syria.28 Mindful of this and resentful of Guy of Lusignan, Raymond established good relations with Saladin and even entered into a treaty of friendship with him. Utterly unlike Raymond in every way was the chief ‘hawk’ of the kingdom, Reginald (Reynald) of Châtillon, lord of Kerak, a classical crusader-adventurer from a minor family in northern France, who had come east in 1147 in search of wealth. Captured by Muslims in 1160, Reginald had spent fourteen years in captivity until ransomed for the enormous sum of 120,000 gold dinars. His years as a prisoner had left him with a fanatical, undying hatred of the Islamic world and all its works. Notorious for his cruelty, Reginald had been an eager warrior in the many clashes with Saladin in the period 1175-87. In 1182-83 his anti-Saladin zealotry bore fruit in a quixotic raid on the Red Sea, part of a grand design apparently conceived to sack Mecca and Medina and carry off the sacred black stone or Ka’aba. His piratical fleet was defeated by Saladin’s navy off Medina, but Reginald escaped to fight another day. Saladin, who was heavily criticised for allowing the infidel to penetrate so close to the holy cities of Islam, swore a mighty oath that he would capture and behead the lord of Kerak. A wise man might have sought conciliation, as Raymond of Tripoli did, but in 1187 Reginald compounded his ‘blasphemy’ by attacking and slaughtering Arab pilgrims as they passed Kerak; among those taken for ransom from the caravan was Saladin’s sister. Reginald had now insulted Saladin’s family as well as the Prophet.29

  Saladin at once appealed to Guy of Lusignan, as king of Jerusalem, to restore his sister and offer an apology and compensation for the attack on the caravan. Guy agreed that some such action was due, but Reginald of Châtillon, backed by the diehard leader of the Templars, Gérard de Rideford (another anti-Islamic fanatic), brutally rebuffed him, telling him in effect that events in the environs of Kerak were none of his business. Saladin methodically collected the largest army he had ever put in the field (some 25,000 strong), and then asked Raymond of Tripoli, his nominal ally, for permission to cross his territory so as to be able to strike back at Reginald de Châtillon. Raymond was thus in a terrible dilemma, bound on the one hand to an ally but on the other forced to betray his co-religionists if he honoured the alliance. The hawks, led by Châtillon and de Rideford, poured out all their venom on Raymond, alleging that he had ‘gone native’ and was a traitor to the Christian religion. Threshing around desperately to find a way out of this conundrum, Raymond hit on the idea of suggesting that Saladin’s forces arrive in Tiberias by sunset but be gone by sunrise the next morning without any raiding en route.30 He salved his conscience by warning Guy of Lusignan that an attack was coming. But nothing could stem the Christian fanatics. When Saladin’s forces crossed the River Jordan into Lower Galilee on 1 May 1187, a small force of Western knights, mainly Templars, engaged them at Cresson, two miles from Nazareth. Despite having merely hundreds to launch against thousands, Gérard de Rideford attacked. The Muslim army simply opened up like the biblical Red Sea, swallowed up the mailed knights, then closed up again, engulfing the Franks in frightful slaughter; miraculously de Rideford and four horsemen escaped, but they left behind over one hundred slain knights, the cream of the kingdom’s chivalry.31 The debacle meant the end for Raymond of Tripoli’s fence-sitting diplomacy. His ‘treachery’, not de Rideford’s folly, was blamed for the disaster, and he came under massive pressure, even from his own troops, to abandon his alliance with Saladin. Bowing to the inevitable, Raymond went to Jerusalem with his men and swore allegiance to Guy of Lusignan.

  News of Cresson made even hesitant Arab warriors keen to join Saladin, who declared that this was a critical moment in the history of Islam, requiring a supreme effort. With an army of 25,000 men, Saladin at last had the manpower to offset the Franks’ advantage in technology and discipline. But the Franks too were now waging Holy War. The remainder of the kingdom’s 1,200 knights joined Guy’s 20,000 foot to make up the most formidable Christian host yet seen in the Latin kingdom. Saladin next began by tempting Guy’s army to move out of its secure rendezvous point at La Safouri. He laid waste the lands of Raymond, his erstwhile ally, even defiling the cone of Mount Tabor, the scene of the biblical Transfiguration. Since Raymond’s wife had remained at Tiberias, that walled city was Saladin’s next target, and soon the Arab army had breached the outer walls. At a council of war called by Guy of Lusignan, Reginald de Châtillon and Gérard de Rideford predictably urged immediate rescue but Raymond, the immediately injured party, advised waiting Saladin out and making a stand at Acre instead.32 In the contest between the cautious and intelligent Raymond, backed by the Hospitallers, and the firebrand de Châtillon, backed by de Rideford and the Templars, it was perhaps inevitable that the hawks would prevail. But legend has it that it was only when de Rideford stole into Guy of Lusignan’s tent after the council and accused him of arrant cowardice that Guy, seeing the issue as a point of personal honour, finally snapped and gave the order for an immediate attack.33

  The crusader army proceeded to make every mistake in the book. Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee lay fifteen miles east of La Safouri, at first over the arid plain of Lubiya and then up onto the ridge of Hattin, with the final stage of the march over a waterless wilderness. Since it was only possible for a large, heavily encumbered force to march 6-7 miles a day in such conditions, the Christian army did not reach the village of Turan, with the last waterhole before the lake of Galilee itself, until noon on 3 July. They then set out immediately to march the nine miles to the lake, having to face the prospect of a battle without water if Saladin opposed them. As soon as they left Turan, Saladin sent riders to cut off their retreat. By nightfall Guy and his men were encamped in the middle of the desert, waterless and with the horn of Hattin, scene of the Sermon on the Mount, ahead of them. During the night of 3-4 July the Arab army surrounded them. Saladin positioned his archers carefully, telling them to aim at the horses for, without mounts, the fearsome Frankish knights were powerless. By morning, having spent a parched, thirsty night in great agony, the Christian troops were beaten before battle was even joined. Saladin could have finished his enemy off at dawn but, prolonging the agony, waited until the sun was high in the sky before attacking and destroying the Christian host piecemeal.34 Defeat for Guy of Lusignan was total and the massacre fearful. Somehow Raymond of Tripoli escaped from the bloody battlefield, but Guy, de Rideford and Reginald de Châtillon were captured and brought before Saladin. After giving Châtillon the chance to convert to Islam, which Reginald contemptuously rejected, Saladin cut him down where he stood, leaving his guards to administer the coup de grâce. Guy feared a similar fate but Saladin shrugged and said to him: ‘Real kings do not kill each other. But that man was no king and had overstepped the mark. So, what happened, happened.’35

  Saladin was not so merciful towards the captured Templars and Hospitallers, whom he ordered executed to the last man. The True Cross, which Guy had brought from the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem to the field of battle, was sent on to Damascus. Saladin’s armies then swept over the kingdom of Jerusalem. Acre, Beirut and Sidon surrendered without a fight. Only Tyre, whose defence was masterminded by Conrad of Montferrat, an adventurer who had made himself prince of the city, held out. Unable to make an impression on Tyre, Saladin moved on to take Caesarea, Arsuf and Jaffa. His next target was Ascalon, one of the five cities of the biblical Philistines. His idea was that he would barter Guy of Lusignan’s freedom for Ascalon’s surrender, but at first Guy returned empty-handed; fortunately for him, Ascalon soon afterwards had second thoughts and ran up the white flag. De Rideford gained his freedom in a similar way, after persuading the Templar castle of Gaza not to resist Saladin.36 Instead of concentrating on strategic objectives, Saladin now decided that the propaganda coup of taking Jerusalem was irresistible. Jerusalem faced his coming with trepidation, for this was the scene of the massacre of some
40,000 Muslims by the Franks in the climax to the First Crusade in 1098. A vigorous defence of the Holy City by Balian of Ibelin convinced Saladin that a negotiated surrender was best; he knew reinforcements would reach the Franks from the West and he could not afford to lose manpower in a costly siege. Nonetheless, the terms of surrender were harsh. Those who could afford to pay steep ransoms were allowed to depart; those who could not were enslaved. Among the latter were many Christian women who suffered mass rape and enforced concubinage. 37 But atrocities were largely forgotten in the more general shock sustained by Christendom when Saladin entered Jerusalem on 2 October 1187. The archbishop of Tyre toured Europe preaching the crusade, while Pope Gregory VIII issued the encyclical Audita Tremendi on 29 October, calling on the faithful to rally to the rescue of Jerusalem and granting a plenary indulgence and other benefits to all who took the Cross.38

  Dramatic and convulsive as these events were, they took time to make an impact on the feuding French and Angevins in Western Europe, where for a time it was still ‘business as usual’. Tired of the entire running farce over Alice and determined to solve the issue once and for all, Philip next threatened an immediate invasion of Normandy unless Henry either returned Gisors and the Vexin or compelled Richard to marry Alice forthwith. But, in a surprise twist of events, at the supposedly ‘final’ conference at Gisors in January 1188, impassioned rhetoric from the archbishop of Tyre persuaded both kings to take the Cross themselves. Neither Henry nor Philip wanted to go on crusade - they regarded it as a tiresome diversion from the real arena of their interests in France - but they were increasingly being swept along by a force of public opinion that was more typhoon than tide.39 Passions were running high, with those reluctant to crusade being sent ‘womanly’ tokens of wool and distaff - the twelfth-century equivalent of white feathers. Crusaders were offered important concessions: the freezing of all debt until return from the Holy Land; the protection of the Church for their property while they were away; and a plenary indulgence which wiped out all sin and removed the fear of Hell and Purgatory. Henry and Philip were caught in the whirlwind of history - Henry particularly, who had pledged himself to crusade since 1172 but had done nothing about it.40 The two kings now had to raise the money for the expedition, and a special Saladin Tithe was ordained in England - the first tax in English history levied on personal property other than real estate. But it was agreed that both monarchs would need at least a year to prepare a host sufficient to deal with Saladin, so that the proposed General Passage through Europe would have to be postponed into 1189. Nonetheless a major crusading conference was held at Le Mans in early 1188, where it was agreed that French troops would wear red crosses, the English white and the Flemish green. Philip sent advance envoys to the king of Hungary and the emperor at Constantinople to secure safe passage for the armies, while Richard, planning a seaborne approach across the Mediterranean, wrote letters to his brother-in-law King William of Sicily, requesting merchant shipping there. But the recruiting masterstroke among the many decrees at Le Mans was the exemption of all crusaders from paying the Saladin Tithe, which led many an ungodly knight to take the Cross.41