God's War: A New History of the Crusades

dependent on naval transport. For the shipwrights and sea captains from Norway to Dalmatia, the Third Crusade proved both a bonanza and a risk, their services in demand as never before but their payment and profits often a matter of dispute and at the mercy of the elements or the chances of war. The preponderance of sea transport, the variety of vessels available, the certainty of planning and routes, the awareness of naval logistics, the distances covered and the accurate predictions of timing reflected the exponential growth in maritime activity and exchange around the coasts of Europe in the twelfth century. Of this, the traffic of crusading and pilgrimage formed only a part, at once symptom and stimulus. The local pride in these fleets was reflected by glowing accounts preserved by citizens of their home ports, such as London, Bremen or Cologne, as well as by the witnesses and chroniclers of the fighting in the Holy Land. Both demonstrated the large scale of engagement in crusading: these fleets carried thousands of men.

Western and Arabic sources leave no doubt as to the scale of the reinforcements. Christian sources recorded the arrival in early September 1189 of a fleet of Frisians and Danes in fifty cogs, large round cargo sailing ships capable of carrying companies of upwards of a hundred each, apparently commanded by some Danish nobles. The North Sea and Atlantic seaboard had been alive with crusade shipping since early in the year. Sixty ships, including four very large vessels, possibly ‘busses’ capable of carrying 150 crew and passengers provided by the city, had left Cologne in February 1189 with, it was optimistically suggested, 10,000 men. The Cologne squadron left Lisbon in late May or early June. Before sailing into the Mediterranean this fleet captured the small port of Albuferia in the Algarve, after which some of the Cologne crusaders cashed in their booty and returned home. By mid-September the remaining ships had reached Palestine.¹⁴

Their landfall was immediately followed by the arrival of a Flemish and northern French squadron, who may have sailed via Italy, under James of Avesnes. A nobleman with an enviable reputation for wisdom, integrity and chivalry, later elevated by his death at the battle of Arsuf in 1191 into an international hero, James apparently assumed leadership of the westerners in the Christian camp, perhaps by virtue of his close connection with the French royal court and his involvement in the discussions on the crusade between the kings of France and England and the count of Flanders early in 1188. By the end of September, these crusaders had been joined by the cousins of the French king, Peter count of Dreux, and his brother, Philip bishop of Beauvais, ‘a man more devoted to battles than books’; the French counts of Brienne and Bar and many lesser French magnates; contingents from the Anglo- Norman-Angevin realms with William Ferrers earl of Derby; and a smattering of Flemish, Italian and Sicilian notables. Before reaching the siege in the last week of September, Louis III, landgrave of Thuringia, at the head of an imperial contingent drawn from Germany and Italy, had put in at Tyre, where he persuaded Conrad of Montferrat to swallow his opposition to Guy and join the Christian army at Acre. This German force earned the contempt of one compatriot, who complained that by taking the sea route rather than following Frederick Barbarossa overland, they had chosen ‘a short voyage that reduced the fear from enemy pagans’.¹⁵ Once established at Acre, Louis seems to have joined James of Avesnes as the dominant voices in the crusaders’ high command.

These fleets secured the Christian bridgehead at Acre at a high cost. Casualty rates assumed gruesome proportions. One contemporary tried to convey the losses by claiming that after two years at the siege, out of 12,000 who had arrived in the autumn of 1189, barely 100 survived. Small wonder that morale-boosting tales of heroic martyrdom were concocted for circulation in the camp to reassure those in daily fear and danger of death.¹⁶ The desperate and to modern audiences highly evocative nature of the warfare was vividly captured in an account almost certainly compiled by one who had been there, a crusader at Acre in 1191–12 if not before:

The Turks were a constant threat. While our people sweated away digging trenches, the Turks harassed them in relays incessantly from dawn to dusk. So while half were working the rest had to defend them against the Turkish assault… while the air was black with a pouring rain of darts and arrows beyond number or estimate… Many other future martyrs and confessors of the Faith came to shore and were joined to the number of the faithful. They really were martyrs: no small number of them died soon afterwards from the foul air, polluted with the stink of corpses, worn out by anxious nights spent on guard, and shattered by other hardships and needs. There was no rest, not even time to breathe. Our workers in the trench were pressed ceaselessly by the Turks who kept rushing down on them in unexpected assaults. The Turks reduced them to exasperation before the trench was eventually finished.¹⁷

The fleets of the autumn of 1189 were followed by possibly even more substantial forces over the following months. The largest of these, which may have reached Acre before the winter of 1189–90 but more likely only the next spring, comprised scores of ships from north Germany, the Rhineland, Flanders and England. One flotilla, including ships from London as well as ports around the North Sea, mustered at Dartmouth in May 1189, where, following the precedent of 1147, they entered into a formal communal alliance before embarking for Lisbon on 18 May. Just over a week later, eleven ships that had embarked from Bremen on 23 April, possibly under their archbishop, after sailing down the English coast from Lowestoft, reached Dartmouth. The two fleets made a rendezvous at Lisbon on 4 July, the twenty-four ships of the Dartmouth commune having arrived on 29 June. Having missed the main German and Flemish force, of fifty-five ships, including the Cologne ships, by a month, this fleet of thirty-five or so ships was hired by the king of Portugal to help capture the port of Silves in the Algarve. Despite their naval supremacy and troops numbering perhaps 3,500, the siege lasted from 17 July until 6 September before the Muslim garrison surrendered. This delayed the fleet, which only left for Palestine on 20 September, passing the Straits of Gibraltar on 29 September before finding its way to Marseilles over the next month. Although associated in some accounts with the other northern European arrivals at Acre of the autumn of 1189, it is more likely that this fleet did not venture further in the winter months, reaching its destination the following spring.¹⁸

The campaign season of 1190 at Acre began with high expectations only to end in depression, disease and threatened disintegration. Both sides knew of the impending arrival of the great German host led by Frederick I. Saladin kept an especially wary eye on the emperor’s progress east. In October 1189, on hearing of Frederick’s departure the previous May, Saladin had despatched his new minister Ibn Shaddad to summon his allies from northern Syria and Iraq ‘for the Jihad’.¹⁹ These new contingents reached Acre in May and June 1190, giving Saladin a marked if temporary advantage. The Christians, meanwhile, had consolidated their defensive position around the Tell of Toron. During the winter, food ran short, with control of the sea-lanes challenged by the Egyptian fleet. On land, despite continued skirmishing, stalemate prevailed, to the retrospective annoyance of some Muslim partisans. The Iraqi Ibn al-Athir, never one of the sultan’s unalloyed panegyrists, criticized Saladin’s failure to destroy the Christian defences while they were still being constructed. The well-informed Syrian Abu Shama alleged that the nobles on each side punctuated the desultory round of fighting by fraternizing with each other, exchanging views, even joining together in singing and dancing. There was allegedly even a mock-combat staged between two boys from each side.²⁰ This did not seem to curb the violence on the battlefield, but may have exacerbated the sense, apparent among the Christian rank and file, that their leaders were reluctant to risk their lives in combat. According to Saladin’s secretary, Imad al-Din, less exalted contacts were made at a carnal level, with Mamluks and other troops availing themselves of the opportunities afforded by the large red light district of the Christian camp. So intrigued or shocked was the scholarly and verbose Imad al-Din at the presence of these apparently highly skilled prostitutes that he was moved to pen an extended pornographic descant condemning their charms and erotic athleticism, achieving over twenty-five different metaphors for penetrative sex.²¹

With reinforcements for both sides beginning to arrive, any element of phoney war began to dissipate amid preparations for offensive action. By March 1190, Conrad of Montferrat had recognized the dangers of his intransigence and agreed to be reconciled with King Guy in return for possession of Tyre and, when reconquered, Beirut and Sidon. Just before Easter (25 March) Conrad reinforced his faithful credentials by returning by sea from a refitting trip to Tyre with food, men and equipment, managing to break a Muslim naval blockade. The survivors of one captured Egyptian galley were dragged ashore to be humiliated, tortured and finally killed by a group of termagant Christian women.²² After Beaufort finally surrendered to Saladin on 2 April, the sultan began to concentrate his forces on what he hoped to be a decisive engagement at Acre. On 28 April, perhaps warned of the impending arrival of more of Saladin’s allies, the Christians launched a concerted assault on the walls of Acre with three great siege engines. While these wooden towers were slowly manoeuvred against the walls of the city, Saladin tried to disrupt operations by attacking the Christian camp. A week of fierce fighting ended on 5 May, when the siege towers were destroyed by Greek fire. With Acre’s walls secured and its garrison relieved by a supply flotilla, Saladin began a series of forays to test the strength of the Christian positions. If his intention had