At the commencement of the summer, the king and the Grand Master took the field at the head of an army of 9,000 men, and marched along the coast with the intention of laying siege to the important city of Acre. Saladin wrote to all the governors of the Moslem provinces, requiring them to join him without delay, and directed his army to concentrate at Sepphoris. From thence he marched to Keruba, and then moved in order of battle to Tel Kaisan, where the plain of Acre begins. The city of Acre had been regularly invested for some days previous to his arrival, and after reconnoitering the position of the christian army, he encamped, extending his left wing to Al Nahr Al Halu, “the sweet river,” and his right to Tel Al’Ayâdhiya, in such a manner, that the besiegers themselves became the besieged. He then made a sudden attack upon the weakest part of the christian camp, broke through the lines, penetrated to the gate of Acre, called Karàkûsh, which he entered, and threw into the city a reinforcement of 5,000 warriors, laden with arms, provisions, clothing, and everything necessary for the defence of the place. Having accomplished this bold feat, Saladin made a masterly retreat to his camp at Tel Al’Ayâdhiya.
On the 4th of October, the newly-arrived warriors from Europe, eager to signalize their prowess against the infidels, marched out of their intrenchments to attack Saladin’s camp. The holy gospels, wrapped in silk, were borne by four knights on a cushion, before the king of Jerusalem, and the patriarch Heraclius and the western bishops appeared at the head of the christian forces with crucifixes in their hands, exhorting them to obtain the crown of martyrdom in defence of the christian faith. The Templars marched in the van, and led the assault; they broke through the right wing of the Mussulman army, which was commanded by Saladin’s nephew, and struck such terror into the hearts of the Moslems, that some of them fled, without halting, as far as Tiberias. The undisciplined masses of the christian army, however, thinking that the day was their own, rushed heedlessly on after the infidels, and penetrating to the imperial tent, abandoned themselves to pillage. The Grand Master of the Temple, foreseeing the result, collected his knights and the forces of the order around him. The infidels rallied, they were led on by Saladin in person, and the Christian army would have been annihilated but for the Templars. Firm and immoveable, they presented for the space of an hour an unbroken front to the advancing Moslems, and gave time for the discomfited and panic-stricken crusaders to recover from their terror and confusion; but ere they had been rallied, and had returned to the charge, the Grand Master Gerard de Riderfort, was slain; he fell, pierced with arrows, at the head of his knights, the seneschal of the order shared the same fate, and more than half the Templars were numbered with the dead.[83]
To Gerard de Riderfort succeeded (A. D. 1189) the Knight Templar, Brother Walter.[84] Never did the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer or more destructive power than at this famous siege of Acre. Nine pitched battles were fought, with various fortune, in the neighbourhood of Mount Carmel, and during the first year of the siege a hundred thousand Christians are computed to have perished. The tents of the dead, however, were replenished by new-comers from Europe; the fleets of Saladin succoured the town, the Christian ships brought continual aid to the besiegers, and the contest seemed interminable. Saladin’s exertions in the cause of the prophet were incessant. The Arab authors compare him to a mother wandering with desperation in search of her lost child, to a lioness who has lost its young. “I saw him,” says his secretary Bohadin, “in the fields of Acre afflicted with a most cruel disease, with boils from the middle of his body to his knees, so that he could not sit down, but only recline on his side when he entered into his tent, yet he went about to the stations nearest to the enemy, arranged his troops for battle, and rode about from dawn till eve, now to the right wing, then to the left, and then to the centre, patiently enduring the severity of his pain.” Having received intelligence of the mighty preparations which were being made in Europe for the recovery of Jerusalem, and of the march of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa through Hungary and Greece to Constantinople, with a view of crossing the Hellespont, into Asia, Saladin sent orders to the governors of Senjâr, Al Jazîra, Al Mawsel, and Arbel, ordering them to attend him with their troops, and directed his secretary Bohadin to proceed to the caliph Al Nâssr Deldin’illah, at Bagdad, humbly to request the Mussulman pontiff to use his spiritual authority and influence to induce all the Moslem nations and tribes to heal their private differences and animosities, and combine together against the Franks, for the defence of Islam. Bohadin was received with the greatest distinction and respect by the caliph and the whole divan at Bagdad, and whilst the pope was disseminating his apostolical letters throughout Christendom, calling upon the western nations to combine together for the triumph of the CROSS, the Mussulman pontiff was addressing, from the distant city of Bagdad, his pious exhortations to all true believers, to assemble under the holy banners of the prophet, and shed their blood in defence of Islam.
Shortly after the commencement of the new year, (586, Hejir which began Feb. 9th, A. D. 1190,) Saladin collected his troops together, to raise the siege of Acre. He moved from Al Kherûba to Tel Al Ajûl, where he pitched his camp. He was there joined by his son Al Malek, Al Daher Gayâtho’ddîn Gâzi, the governor of Aleppo, with a select body of cavalry, and by Mohaffero’ddîn I’Bn Zinoddin, with his light horse. The Templars and the crusaders, during the winter, had not been idle; they had dug trenches around their camp, thrown up ramparts, and fortified their position in such a way that it would have been difficult, says the Arabian writer, for even a bird to get in. They had, moreover, filled up the ditch around the town, and constructed three enormous towers, the largest of which was much higher than the walls, was sixty cubits in length, and could contain from five to six hundred warriors, with a proper quantity of arms and military engines. These towers were covered with the raw hides of oxen soaked in vinegar and mud, to render them incombustible; they were strengthened from top to bottom with bands of iron, and were each divided into five platforms or galleries filled with soldiers and military engines. They were rolled on wheels to the walls, and the Templars and the crusaders were about to descend from the platforms and galleries upon the battlements of the city, when the towers, and all the warriors upon them, were consumed by some inextinguishable inflammable composition, discharged out of brass pots by a brazier from Damascus. “We were watching,” says Bohadin, who was standing in the Moslem camp by Saladin’s side, “with intense anxiety the movements of the soldiers upon the towers, and thought that the city must inevitably be taken, when suddenly we saw one of them surrounded with a blaze of light, which shot up into the skies; the heavens were rent with one joyous burst of acclamation from the sons of Islam, and in another instant another tower was surrounded with raging flames and clouds of black smoke, and then the third; they were ignited one after the other in the most astonishing and surprising manner, with scarce an interval of a minute between them. The sultan immediately mounted his horse, and ordered the trumpets to sound to arms, exclaiming with a loud voice, in the words of the prophet, ‘When the gate of good fortune is thrown open, delay not to enter in.’”
At the commencement of the summer Saladin detached a considerable portion of his forces to the north, to oppose the progress of the German crusaders and Templars, who were advancing from Constantinople, under the command of the emperor Frederic Barbarossa. These advancing Templars were the especial favourites of Barbarossa, and after his melancholy death, from the effects of a cold bath in the river Cydnus, they formed part of the body-guard of his son the duke of Suabia.
In the month of July the Templars suffered severe loss in another attack upon Saladin’s camp. The christian soldiery, deceived by the flight of the Mussulmen, were again lured to the pillage of their tents, and again defeated by the main body of Saladin’s army, which had been posted in reserve. The Templars were surrounded by an overpowering force, but they fought their way through the dense ranks of the infidels to their own camp, leaving the plain of Acre strewed with the lifeless bodies of the best and bravest of their warriors. “The enemies of God,” says Bohadin, “had the audacity to enter within the camp of the lions of Islamism, but they speedily experienced the terrible effects of the divine indignation. They fell beneath the sabres of the Mussulmen as the leaves fall from the trees during the tempests of autumn. Their mangled corpses, scattered over the mountain side, covered the earth even as the branches and boughs cover the hills and valleys when the woodsman lops the forest timber.” “They fell,” says another Arabian historian, “beneath the swords of the sons of Islam as the wicked will fall, at the last day, into the everlasting fire of HELL. Nine rows of the dead covered the earth between the sea-shore and the mountains, and in each row might be counted the lifeless bodies of at least one thousand warriors.”
The Moslem garrison continued manfully to defend the town; they kept up a constant communication with Saladin, partly by pigeons, partly by swimmers, and partly by men in small skiffs, who traversed the port in secresy, by favour of the night, and stole into the city. At one period the besieged had consumed nearly all their provisions, and were on the point of dying with famine, when Saladin hit upon the following stratagem, for the purpose of sending them a supply. He collected together a number of vessels at Beirout laden with sacks of meal, cheese, onions, sheep, rice, and other provisions. He disguised the seamen in the Frank habit, put crosses on their pendants, and covered the decks of the vessels with hogs. In this way the little fleet sailed safely through the blockading squadron of the Christians, and entered the port of Acre. On another occasion Saladin sent 1,000 dinars to the garrison, by means of a famous diver named Isa; the man was unfortunately drowned during his passage to the city, but the money, being deposited in three bladders, tied to his body, was a few days afterwards thrown ashore near the town, and reached the besieged in safety. At the commencement of the winter the garrison was again reduced to great straits for want of food, and was on the point of surrendering, when three vessels from Egypt broke through the guard-ships of the Christians, and got safely into the harbour with a copious supply of provisions, munitions of war, and everything requisite to enable the city to hold out until the ensuing spring.
To prevent the further introduction of succours by sea, the crusaders endeavoured to take possession of the tower of Flies, a strong castle, built upon a rock in the midst of the sea at the mouth of the harbour, which commanded the port. The Templars employed one of their galleys upon this service, and crowds of small boats, filled with armed men, military engines, and scaling-ladders, were brought against the little fortress, but without effect. The boats and vessels were set on fire by the besieged and reduced to ashes, and after losing all their men, the Christians gave over the attempt. On the land side, the combats and skirmishes continued to be incessant. Wooden towers, and vast military machines, and engines, were constantly erected by the besiegers, and as constantly destroyed by the sallies and skilful contrivances of the besieged. The Templars, on one occasion, constructed two battering machines of a new invention, and most enormous size, and began therewith furiously to batter the walls of the town, but the garrison soon destroyed them with fire-darts, and beams of timber, pointed with red-hot iron.[85]
At the commencement of the next year, (587, Hejir. which began Jan. 29th, A. D. 1191,) a tremendous tempest scattered the fleet of the crusaders, and compelled their ships to take refuge in Tyre. The sea being open, Saladin hastily collected some vessels at Caiphas, threw a fresh body of troops into Acre, and withdrew the exhausted garrison, which had already sustained so many hardships and fatigues in defence of the town. This exchange of the garrison was most happily timed, for almost immediately after it had been effected, the walls of the city were breached, and preparations were made for an assault. The newly-arrived troops, however, repulsed the assailants, repaired the walls, and once more placed the city in a good posture of defence. The scarcity and famine in the christian camp continued to increase, and a vast many of the crusaders, utterly unable to withstand the hardships and difficulties of their position, deserted to Saladin, embraced the Mohammedan faith, and were employed by him, at their own request, in cruising off the coast against their quondam friends. Bohadin tells us that they met with vast success in their employment. On board one of their prizes was found a silver table, and a great deal of money and plate, which the captors brought to the sultan, the 13th Dhu’lhajja, but Saladin returned the treasure to them, saying, that it was a sufficient satisfaction to him and the Moslems, to see that the Franks pillaged and plundered one another with such alacrity.
Famine and disease continued to make frightful ravages amongst the crusaders. The duke of Suabia, Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, the patriarch Heraclius, four archbishops, twelve bishops, forty counts, and five hundred other nobles and knights, besides common soldiers, fell victims to the malady. From two to three hundred persons died daily, and the survivors became unequal to the task of burying the dead. The trenches which the Christians had dug for their protection, now became their graves. Putrefying corpses were to be seen floating upon the sea, and lining the sea-shore, and the air was infected with an appalling and intolerable effluvia. The bodies of the living became bloated and swollen, and the most trifling wounds were incurable. In addition to all this, numbers of the poorer class of people died daily from starvation. The rich supported themselves for a time upon horse-flesh, and Abbot Coggleshale tells us, that a dinner off the entrails of a horse cost 10d. Bones were ground to powder, mixed with water, and eagerly devoured, and all the shoes, bridles, and saddles, and old leather in the camp, were boiled to shreds, and greedily eaten.