God's War: A New History of the Crusades

was recaptured. There were echoes of the deal done in 1153 that transferred the English royal succession to Richard’s father, Henry II, but allowed the anointed King Stephen to retain the crown until his death. Guy, too, was an anointed monarch, but only by virtue of his now deceased wife. Unlike the 1153 agreement, the arbitration of July 1191 failed to stick.

On 29 July Philip swore publicly that he would do no harm to Richard’s lands in the west. The next day he appointed the duke of Burgundy as leader of the remaining French troops and gave his half share of Acre to Conrad. The following day the Muslim prisoners were divided between Philip and Richard and on 31 July the French king, with his prisoners and a small entourage, left Acre for Tyre. There he transferred his prisoners to Conrad, thus giving him a share in the promised ransom from Saladin. On 3 August, Philip sailed from Tyre for home. His behaviour attracted almost universal opprobrium, even from normally sympathetic observers. His own followers made their views transparent by refusing to accompany him. Accusations of greed, fear and dereliction of duty compounded the shame heaped on him. Only his later successs in elevating royal authority in France to heights unseen since the Carolingian heyday of the ninth century redeemed his international reputation. Nevertheless, Philip’s actions left a sour taste for generations. At the time, although plainly anxious about the damage a resentful and humiliated Philip could do to Angevin lands in his continued absence, Richard could allow himself some understated sarcasm at the French king’s expense. Describing Philip’s departure, Richard remarked a few days afterwards: ‘We, however, place the love of God and His honour above our own and above the acquisition of many regions.’¹⁵

FROM ACRE TO JAFFA

Philip’s absence both simplified and complicated the situation facing the crusaders. Richard quickly moved to assert his influence over the remaining French army by lending their commander Hugh of Burgundy 5,000 marks, presumably until the French share of the Acre prisoners’ ransom was paid. But Conrad of Montferrat actually held these prisoners at Tyre, and only reluctantly handed them over to Duke Hugh on 12 August. Conrad’s independence had been bolstered by Philip’s grant of half of Acre as well as the confirmation of his autonomy in Tyre. Whenever members of the local Jerusalem baronage became disenchanted with Richard, Conrad offered a focus for dissent. More immediate was Saladin’s reluctance to honour the surrender terms. Although the relic of the True Cross had been inspected by Richard’s envoys in the Muslim camp on 2 August,¹⁶ negotiations stalled, only partly because not all of the prisoners had been returned from Tyre. Saladin evidently hoped that delay would increase the divisions within the Christian army, lower morale and delay Richard’s march south. Withholding the lucrative ransom and the True Cross appeared useful bargaining counters. The Christian desire for the return of the Cross and their leaders’ eagerness for the ransom money seemed to play into the sultan’s hands. With Acre lost, stalemate now served Saladin’s purpose.

On 20 August, ten days after the deadline for the exchange of the first instalment of prisoners and ransom money, Richard called Saladin’s bluff. However much he wanted the relic and the money, Richard knew that further delay would only undermine the preparedness of his army for the tough campaign in prospect. He later described what happened:

On Saladin’s behalf it had been agreed that the Holy Cross and 1,500 living persons would be handed over to us, and he fixed a day for us when all this was to be done. But the time limit expired, and, as the pact which he had agreed was entirely made void, we quite properly had the Saracens we had in custody – about 2,600 of them – put to death. A few of the more notable were spared, and we hope to recover the Holy Cross and certain Christian captives in exchange for them.¹⁷

Ibn Shaddad was in Saladin’s camp a few miles away when the massacre occurred. Understandably, his account is more vivid.

When the king of England saw that the sultan hesitated to hand over the money, the prisoners and the Cross, he dealt treacherously towards the Muslim prisoners… He and all the Frankish forces, horse and foot, marched out at the time of the afternoon prayers on Tuesday 27 rajab (20 August). They… moved on into the middle of the plain. The enemy then brought out the Muslim prisoners for whom God had decreed martyrdom, about 3,000 bound in ropes. Then as one man they charged them and with stabbings and blows with the sword they slew them in cold blood.

The stunned Muslim advance guard watched helplessly while they sought orders from the sultan. By the time they tried to intervene, the killing was over. Next day they inspected the corpses and, Ibn Shaddad added, ‘were able to recognize some of them’.¹⁸

Richard I’s butchery of his Muslim captives was an atrocity not uncommon in war. It was not an act of random sadism, less so, for example, than Saladin’s own execution of the Templars and Hospitallers after Hattin. It ranks, perhaps, with Henry V’s slaughter of his French prisoners at Agincourt in 1415, except that then the battle was still in progress. Even Ibn Shaddad recognized that Richard’s action contained logic: revenge for Muslim killing of surrendering Christians during the siege of Acre ‘or that the king of England had decided to march to Ascalon… and did not think it wise to leave that number in the rear’.¹⁹ Richard and his apologists, and many observers not noted for their sympathy towards him, insisted on the justice of the killings, even their legality. One favourable source declared that, without the agreement with Saladin, the lives of the defeated garrison were forfeit jure belli, ‘under the rights of war’.²⁰ The contrast between the control displayed when Acre fell and the cold-blooded savagery of the mass execution weeks later showed Saladin clearly the sort of adversary he faced. The sultan probably recognized the massacre for what it was, a deliberate act of policy for which his own actions were in part responsible. Over the following weeks he treated captured Christian soldiers with summary execution, occasionally allowing their corpses to be mutilated out of revenge. More seriously for the strategy of the war, he recognized that Richard had raised the stakes for all subsequent besieged Muslim garrisons. To avoid such consequences, Saladin moved quickly in September to dismantle the fortifications of Ascalon, one of Richard’s prime objectives, the key port in southern Palestine and the bastion on the route to Egypt. Yet Saladin understood the game both were playing and, judging from the respectful tone used of Richard by his close colleague Ibn Shaddad, appreciated the king’s skill at it. Whatever his public emotions, only a fortnight later he authorized his brother to resume face-to-face talks with Richard.²¹

By that time, Saladin’s own options had diminished severely in the face of the Christian advance. Five days after the massacre, on 25 August, Richard had fully assembled his forces and began the march south, along the coast road past Mt Carmel, Haifa, Caesarea and Arsuf to Jaffa. The eighty miles from Acre to Jaffa proved hazardous and exhausting. In the debilitating summer heat, with little shade, the Christians marched for the most part under arms to resist the repeated attacks of Saladin’s troops. The sultan shadowed the host, constantly harrying the line, especially the rearguard. This was entrusted to the Hospitallers. The Templars were in the vanguard. Between them were four separate divisions: the Angevins and Bretons; Guy of Lusignan, his Jerusalem followers and the Poitevins; the Anglo-Normans under the king; and the French, under Hugh of Burgundy and Henry of Champagne. The infantry and archers were divided into two columns, one of which marched on the landward side to provide outer defence for the knights against attack from mounted Turkish archers, while the other accompanied the baggage train on the seaward side. The large Christian fleet shadowed the army offshore, affording rest, food and protection. Before the crusaders lay a scorched landscape, its forts levelled, its crops burnt. Frequent and intense skirmishes cost both sides dear. Richard himself, constantly rallying the lines, was wounded. Progress was slow, barely five miles a day. However, as long as the battered Christian army remained intact it posed an increasingly menacing threat to the ports of Jaffa and Ascalon and thus Saladin’s whole position in southern Palestine even without a direct assault on Jerusalem. Saladin’s loss of sea-power was proving as significant as the land defeat at Acre. Recognizing the urgency of stopping the crusaders’ advance, on 4 September, with the Christians nearing the plain of Arsuf, Saladin agreed to Richard’s request to reopen negotiations. For Saladin it offered a chance to buy time to allow more reinforcements to arrive; for Richard it formed part of his consistent strategy of allying diplomatic with military pressure. On 5 September, Richard, with the jilted Humphrey of Toron as his interpreter, held a private interview with al-Adil which ended in acrimony, with Richard sticking to his demands for a return of the pre-1187 kingdom of Jerusalem.²² Nothing was achieved except to convince Saladin that his only option was to risk a pitched battle. With the failure of diplomacy as well as Fabian tactics, Saladin was compelled to try to convert what should have been the undoubted advantages of a home base, easy access to supplies and manpower, a sympathetic population and local knowledge into an immediate decisive victory.

On 7 September, just south of the Forest of Arsuf and north of the town itself, the increased pressure of the