“Richard the Lionheart, Battle of Arsuf, 1191” Justo Jimeno Bazaga
In late summer 1191 King Richard I of England prosecuted a
remarkably controlled, ruthlessly efficient march south from Acre to Jaffa,
subjecting Saladin to a humiliating, if not crushing, defeat along the way.
Since his arrival in the Holy Land, the Lionheart had galvanised the Third
Crusade; no longer mired and inert in the northern reaches of Palestine, the
expedition now seemed poised on the threshold of victory. Success depended on
momentum – only immediate and resolute action would preserve the brittle
Frankish coalition and maintain pressure on a faltering enemy. But just when
focused commitment to a clear military goal was needed, Richard hesitated.
Around 12 September 1191, just a few days after reaching
Jaffa, worrying reports from the south began filtering into the crusader camp.
Saladin, it was said, had moved on Ascalon and even now was razing the
Muslim-held port to the ground. With these rumours stirring up a mixture of
incredulity, horror and suspicion, the king dispatched Geoffrey of Lusignan
(who had now been appointed titular count of the region) and the trusted knight
William of L’Estang to investigate. Sailing south, they soon caught sight of
the city, and, as they drew closer, a scene of appalling devastation revealed
itself. Ascalon was awash with flame and smoke, its terrified populace
streaming away in forced evacuation while the sultan’s men swarmed over the
port’s mighty defences, ripping wall and tower asunder.
This grave spectacle was the product of Saladin’s newly
resolute approach to the war. Still smarting from his humiliating defeat at
Arsuf, the sultan had assembled his counsellors at Ramla on 10 September to
re-evaluate Ayyubid strategy. Having tried and failed to confront the crusaders
head-on during their march south from Acre, Saladin decided to adopt a more
defensive approach. If Richard could not be crushed in open battle, then
drastic steps would be taken to halt his advance – a scorched-earth policy to
hamper Frankish movement, involving the destruction of key fortresses. The
critical target was Ascalon, southern Palestine’s main port and the stepping
stone to Egypt. If the Franks captured the city intact then the Lionheart would
have the perfect bridgehead from which to threaten Jerusalem and the Nile
region. Saladin realised that he lacked the resources to fight a war on two
fronts and, prioritising the protection of the Holy City, ordered that
Ascalon’s walls be razed to the ground. This cannot have been an easy decision
– the sultan was said to have remarked, ‘by God I would prefer to lose all my
sons rather than demolish a single stone’ – but it was necessary. Time was
pressing, for if Richard marched on he might yet seize the port. Saladin
therefore sent al-Adil to watch over the crusaders at Jaffa, and then raced
south with al-Afdal to oversee the dreadful labour, driving his soldiers to work
at a furious pace, day and night, fearful of the Lionheart’s arrival.
When Geoffrey and William brought news of what they had seen
to Jaffa, King Richard still had a chance to act. Throughout the late summer he
had been deliberately evasive about his objectives, but now a definite decision
had to be made. To the Lionheart, the choice seemed clear: the seizure of
Ascalon was the logical next step for the crusade. As a general he recognised
that, to date, the expedition’s achievements had been dependent upon naval
superiority. While the crusade continued to hug the coastline, Latin domination
of the Mediterranean could stave off isolation and annihilation by offering a
lifeline of supply and reinforcement. So far, the Christians had not truly
fought the Third Crusade in enemy territory; once they marched inland, the real
battle would begin. Ascalon’s seizure and refortification promised to
destabilise further Saladin’s hold over Palestine, creating a secure coastal
enclave, while keeping Richard’s options open for an eventual assault on
Jerusalem or Egypt.
Richard arrived in Jaffa apparently expecting that, as king
and commander, his will would be obeyed; that the march south could continue,
almost without pause. But he had made a serious miscalculation. As a species of
war, the crusade was governed not merely by the dictates of military science,
nor by notions of politics, diplomacy or economy. This was a mode of conflict
underpinned by religious ideology – one that relied upon the overwhelming and
imperative devotional allure of a target like Jerusalem to create unity of
purpose within a disparate army. And for the vast majority of those within
Richard’s amalgamated crusading host, marching south from Jaffa was tantamount
to walking past the doorway to the Holy City.
At a council held outside Jaffa in mid-September 1191, the
Lionheart was confronted by this reality. Despite his best efforts to press for
an attack on Ascalon, a large number of Latin nobles resisted – among them Hugh
of Burgundy and the French – arguing instead for the refortification of Jaffa
and a more direct strike inland towards Jerusalem. In the end, as one crusader
put it, ‘the loud voice of the people prevailed’ and a decision was made to
stay put. Richard seems not to have recognised it at the time, but he had
failed a critical test. The events at Jaffa exposed an ominous deficiency in
his skills as a leader. The Lionheart had been well schooled in the affairs of
war since childhood; since 1189 his skills and authority as a king had blossomed.
But, as yet, he had not grasped the reality of crusading.
With the decision to halt at Jaffa, the crusade lost
impetus. Work began to rebuild the port and its defences, even as Saladin
completed Ascalon’s destruction. Crusaders, shattered by the horrors of the
march from Acre, now basked in the sudden break in hostilities. Among the
constant flow of supply ships, vessels packed with prostitutes soon began to
appear. With their arrival, bemoaned one Christian eyewitness, the army was
again polluted by ‘sin and filth, ugly deeds and lust’. As days turned to
weeks, even the will to press on to the Holy City faltered and the expedition
started to fragment. Some Franks actually sailed to Acre to enjoy more
luxurious comforts, and eventually Richard had to travel north in person to
goad these absentees back into action.
On the road to
Jerusalem
In the end, the Third Crusade remained stalled around Jaffa
and its environs for the best part of seven weeks. This delay gave Saladin time
to extend his scorched-earth strategy, demolishing the network of
fortifications running from the coast inland to Jerusalem. Richard spent much
of October 1191 reassembling his army and, only in the last days of that month,
with the normal fighting season drawing to a close, did the expedition begin to
advance on Jerusalem. It now faced a challenge unlike any encountered by
previous crusades. Back in 1099, the First Crusaders had marched on the Holy
City largely unopposed, and in their subsequent siege, arduous though it was,
the Franks had encountered a relatively small, isolated enemy force. Now,
almost a century later, the Latins could expect to meet far sterner resistance.
Saladin’s power may have weakened in the years since 1187,
but he still possessed formidable military resources with which to harass and
oppose every step of a Christian approach on the Holy City. And should the
crusaders reach Jerusalem, its actual conquest presented manifold difficulties.
Protected by a full garrison and stout physical fortifications, the city’s defences
would be all but insurmountable, while any besieging army would undoubtedly
face fierce counter-attacks from additional Muslim forces in the field. More
troubling still was the issue of supply and reinforcement: once the Third
Crusade left the coast behind, it would have to rely upon a fragile line of
communication back to Jaffa; if broken, Richard and his men would face
isolation and probably defeat.
The Lionheart’s primary aim in the autumn of 1191 was the
forging of a reliable chain of logistical support running inland. The main road
to Jerusalem crossed the coastal plain east of Jaffa, through Ramla to Latrun,
before arcing north-east to Beit Nuba in the Judean foothills and then winding
east up to the Holy City (although there were alternatives, such as the more
northerly route via Lydda). In the course of the twelfth century, the Franks
had built a string of fortresses to defend the approaches to Jerusalem. Many of
these had been controlled by the Military Orders, but all had fallen to Islam after
Hattin.
Saladin’s recent shift in strategy had left the road ahead
of the crusaders in a state of desolation. Every major fortified site –
including Lydda, Ramla and Latrun – had been dismantled. On 29 October Richard
marched on to the plains east of Jaffa and began the painstakingly slow work of
rebuilding a string of sites running inland, starting with two forts near
Yasur. In military terms, the war now devolved into a series of skirmishes.
Marshalling his forces at Ramla, Saladin sought to hound the Franks, impeding
their construction efforts while avoiding full-scale confrontation. Once the
advance on Jerusalem began, the Lionheart frequently threw himself into the
thick of these running battles. In early November 1192, a routine foraging
expedition went awry when a group of Templars were attacked and outnumbered.
When the news reached him, the king rode to their aid without hesitation,
accompanied by Andrew of Chauvigny and Robert, earl of Leicester. The Lionheart
arrived ‘roaring’ with bloodlust, striking like a ‘thunderbolt’, and soon
forced the Muslims to retreat.
Latin eyewitnesses suggest that some of the king’s
companions actually questioned the wisdom of his actions that day. Chiding him
for risking his life so readily, they protested that ‘if harm comes to you
Christianity will be killed’. Richard was said to have been enraged: ‘The
king’s colour changed. Then he said “I sent [these soldiers] here and asked
them to go [and] if they die there without me then would [that] I never again
bear the title of king.”’ This episode reveals the Lionheart’s determination to
operate as a warrior-king in the front line of conflict, but it also suggests
that, by this stage, he was taking risks that worried even his closest
supporters. It is certainly true that there were real dangers involved in these
skirmishes. Just a few weeks later, Andrew of Chauvigny broke his arm while
skewering a Muslim opponent during a scuffle near Lydda.
Talking to the enemy
Bold as Richard’s involvement might have been in these inland
incursions, his martial offensive was just one facet of a combined strategy.
Throughout the autumn and early winter of 1191 the king sought to use diplomacy
alongside military threat, perhaps hoping that, when jointly wielded, these two
weapons might bring Saladin to the point of submission, forestalling the need
for a direct assault on Jerusalem.
In fact, the Lionheart had reopened channels of
communication with the enemy just days after the Battle of Arsuf. Around 12
September he sent Humphrey of Toron, the disenfranchised former husband of
Isabella, to request a renewal of discussions with al-Adil. Saladin acceded,
giving his brother ‘permission to hold talks and the power to negotiate on his
own initiative’. One of the sultan’s confidants explained that ‘[Saladin]
thought the meetings were in our interest because he saw in the hearts of men
that they were tired and disillusioned with the fighting, the hardship and the
burden of debts that was on their backs’. In all probability, Saladin was also
playing for time and seeking to garner information about the enemy.
In the months to come, reliable intelligence proved to be a
precious commodity, and spies seem to have infiltrated both camps. In late
September 1191 Saladin narrowly averted a potentially disastrous leak when a
group of eastern Christians travelling through the Judean hills were seized and
searched. They were found to be carrying extremely sensitive documents –
letters from the Ayyubid governor of Jerusalem to the sultan, detailing
worrying shortages of grain, equipment and men within the Holy City – which
they had intended to present to King Richard. Meanwhile, to furnish a regular
supply of Frankish captives for interrogation, Saladin engaged 300 rather
disreputable Bedouin thieves to carry out night-time prisoner snatches. For
Latin and Muslim alike, however, knowledge of the enemy’s movements and
intentions was always fallible. Saladin, for example, was apparently informed
that Philip Augustus had died in October 1191. Perhaps more significantly, the
Lionheart persistently overestimated Saladin’s military strength for much of
the remainder of the crusade.
Throughout autumn and early winter 1191, Richard eagerly
maintained a regular dialogue with al-Adil, and, to begin with at least, this
contact seems to have been hidden from the Frankish armies. In part, the king
must have been driven to negotiation by the rumour that Conrad of Montferrat
had opened his own, independent, channel of diplomacy with Saladin. As always,
the Lionheart’s willingness to discuss avenues to peace with the enemy did not
indicate some pacifistic preference for the avoidance of conflict. Negotiation
was a weapon of war: one that might beget a settlement when combined with a
military offensive; one that would certainly bring vital intelligence; and,
crucially in this phase of the crusade, one that offered an opportunity to sow
dissension among the ranks of Islam.
