Richard I / Makers of History

by Jacob Abbott

From a hill in the neighborhood of Hebron Jerusalem was in sight. There lay the prize which he had so long been striving to obtain, all before him, and yet he was utterly powerless to take it. For this he had been manœuvring and planning for years. For this he had exhausted all the resources of his empire, and had put to imminent hazard all the rights and interests of the crown. For this he had left his native land, and had brought on, by a voyage of three thousand miles, all the fleets and armies of his kingdom; and now, with the prize before him, and all Europe looking on to see him grasp it, his hand had become powerless, and he must turn back, and go away as he came.

Saladin strongly established in Jerusalem.
Richard's self-reproaches.

Richard saw at once that it must be so; for while, on the one hand, his army was well-nigh exhausted, and was reduced to a state of such privation and distress as to make it nearly helpless, Saladin was established in Jerusalem almost impregnably. While the divisions of Richard's army had been quarreling with each other on the sea-coast, he had been strengthening the walls and other defenses of the city, until they were now more formidable than ever. Richard received information, too, that all the wells and cisterns of water around the city had been destroyed by the Saracens, so that, if they were to advance to the walls and commence a siege, they would soon be obliged to raise it, or perish there with thirst. So great was Richard's distress of mind under these circumstances, that it is said, when he was conducted to the hill from which Jerusalem was to be seen, he could not bear to look at it. He held his shield up before his eyes to shut out the sight of it, and said that he was not worthy to look upon the city, since he had shown himself unable to redeem it.

There was a council of war held to consider what it was best to do. It was a council of perplexity and despair. Nobody could tell what it was best to do. To go back was disgrace. To go forward was destruction; and it was impossible for them to remain where they were.

A new expedient.
The proposed march upon Cairo.

In his desperation Richard conceived of a new plan, that of marching southward and seizing Cairo. The Saracens derived almost all the stores of provisions for the use of their armies from Cairo, and Hebron was on the road to it. The way was open for Richard's army to march in that direction, and, by carrying this plan into execution, they would, at least, get something to eat. Besides, it would be a mode of withdrawing from Jerusalem that would not be quite a retreat. Still, these reasons were wholly insufficient to justify such a measure, and it is not probable that Richard seriously entertained the plan. It is much more likely that he proposed the idea of a march upon Cairo as a means of amusing the minds of his knights and soldiers, and diminishing the extreme disappointment and vexation which they must have felt in relinquishing the plan of an attack upon Jerusalem, and that he intended, after proceeding a short distance on the way toward Egypt, to find some pretext for turning down toward the sea-shore, and re-establishing himself in his cities on the coast.

The hopeless condition of the army.

At any rate, whether it was the original plan or not, such was the result. As soon as the encampment was broken up, and the army commenced its march, and the troops learned that the hope of recovering the Holy Sepulchre, and all the other lofty aspirations and desires which had led them so far, and through so many hardships and dangers, were now to be abandoned, they were first enraged, and then they sank into a condition of utter recklessness and despair. All discipline was at an end. No one seemed now to care what became of the expedition or of themselves. The French soldiers, under the Duke of Burgundy, revolted openly, and declared they would go no farther. The troops from Germany joined them. So Richard gave up the plan, or seemed to give it up, and gave orders to march to Acre; and there, at last, the army arrived in a state of almost utter dissolution.