The age of the crusades

by James M. Ludlow

Richard, thus left in sole command, crossed Mount Carmel and proceeded southward, keeping close to the shore that he might have timely assistance from his fleet. At every stream and sand-dune he met the omnipresent Saladin. The Christians’ march was under an incessant rain of arrows, which covered the frequent dashes of the Moslem squadrons. At the banks of the Arsur (Nahr Falik) the Christians encountered the entire army of their contestants (September 7, 1191). Though Richard led sixty thousand, the Oriental historian Omad, secretary to Saladin, says that the Mussulmans surrounded them as the eyelashes surround the eye. The cry “Allah! Allah!” was echoed by “Deus vult!” as the mighty hosts sprang upon each other. The Christian infantry, leading the assault, suddenly opened its ranks; the cavalry poured through and made the first attack. Richard followed with the main body. Nothing could withstand the fury of his onset. The Moslems were swept before him; but they as quickly gathered in his rear, compelling him to return and fight over again the battle he had already won. The plain was too small for the multitude to marshal in orderly array. The armies were intertwined as the many folds of two serpents of hostile breed. It is said that more than once Richard and Saladin tested each other’s qualities by personal encounter; the only doubt cast upon this story by Christian writers being from the fact that Saladin survived, the Arabic chroniclers rejecting it on the ground that Richard still lived.

At nightfall the Moslems extricated themselves from the mêlée and disappeared in the forests of Saron, the Christians being wary enough not to follow them. Had Richard pursued his advantage the Arabian historians admit that he might have secured Jerusalem; but the impulsive temper of this leader suffered from sudden reaction. He repaired to Jaffa with the women of his household, and there established a brilliant and festive court. One day while hunting he was surrounded by a troop of Moslems. When he was on the point of being captured a French knight cried out, “I am the king; spare me.” The Moslems, thus diverted, allowed Richard to escape, and brought the knight a captive to Saladin.

Richard soon tired of his rest, and even of revelry, at Jaffa, and projected the siege of Ascalon. Saladin, made aware of that enterprise, burned the city. Richard set about its rebuilding; his orders were disobeyed. Many echoed the words of Leopold of Austria, who declared that he was a warrior, but neither a carpenter nor a mason.

The resentment of this prince had been kindled against the Englishman by an outrage on the part of Richard in ordering the standard of Austria to be thrown from the walls of Acre, where Leopold had presumptuously planted it after the capture of that place. Conrad of Montferrat had also taken umbrage at Richard’s lordly treatment of him, and was detected in courting alliance with Saladin for the restitution of Acre. Richard foiled him with deeper play. He proposed to give his sister, the ex-Queen of Sicily, as wife to Malek-Ahdel, brother of Saladin, that there might be erected at Jerusalem a mongrel empire of Christians and Moslems. Saladin toyed with the proposition sufficiently to delay Richard’s attack upon Jerusalem until that city had been greatly strengthened. Thousands of Christian captives were set to work upon the walls and in the ditches, under threat of being massacred, as were the Moslems by Richard’s order at Acre. Realizing that his scheme of alliance with Saladin had failed, Richard endeavored to engage his antagonist in battle in the open country; but the astute Moslem was too discreet to risk his cimeters against heavy swords, except when necessary. He had also some less martial schemes on foot; he seduced Conrad at least from whole-hearted loyalty to the cross, by promising to defend him in permanent possession of whatever cities he might take from his fellow-Christians. Conrad was soon assassinated by two Moslems. Richard was quickly accused of being accessory to this deed. The suspicion grew in plausibility when he forced Isabella, widow of Conrad, to marry his nephew, the Count of Champagne, who thus, through Isabella’s rights as sister of Sibylla, became titular King of Jerusalem. King Guy was compensated for the loss of his throne by the gift of the government of Cyprus, where his descendants reigned for two hundred years, until the Moslem wave had ingulfed the entire eastern Mediterranean.

Saladin was also thought to have connived at the murder of Conrad. One of the murderers, however, confessed to having been the agent of the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of the sect of Assassins, who also avowed himself responsible for the deed.

This sect, whose name has given to European languages their word for the most atrocious crime, is one of the many divisions of the Moslem peoples. Their sheik regarded himself as the lineal successor of Hassan, and thus the inheritor of the Imam or Holy Spirit, whose possession is the inner sign of the caliphate. Hassan, after various adventures, retired to Altamont, a strong castle in the mountains of Persia, whence his title, and that of his successors, of “Old Man of the Mountain.” He attempted to enforce his spiritual authority by inspiring universal dread of his vengeance. His successors and agents became adept in the use of poisons, the dagger, and all methods of secretly disposing of human life. So wide were the ramifications of this brotherhood that, not only throughout the Moslem world, but in Christian Europe, sudden death, otherwise unaccountable, was accredited to the Assassins, whose dusky forms were imagined to move unseen in the bedchambers of princes and to stand behind thrones. The name “Assassin” is apparently from “hashish,” the drug with which the murderer stimulated his courage when accepting the desperate commission from his chief.

Richard, thus relieved of his rival, Conrad, again showed his superior powers of command. With marvellous celerity he swept over the country, even to the southern extreme of Palestine, where he captured Dârôm, at the entrance to Egypt. Saladin was apparently forced to retire within the walls of Jerusalem. Richard pressed towards the sacred city (June, 1192). Rumors of Saracen destitution and fright came upon every wind. The crusaders were eager to pluck again the prize of Jerusalem, which Providence seemed to hang within their reach; but Richard was incredulous of the weakness of a foe he had always found as strong as himself, and whom he knew to be his superior in craft. He pointed out to his followers that at that very moment the Moslem armies, scattered everywhere among the Judean foot-hills, actually surrounded their own; that the roads to the city were in places but narrow defiles guarded by precipitous heights, from which a few could hurl destruction upon many. To carry siege apparatus through such a country, facing the menace of a Saladin, was to invoke certain disaster. If repulse should come, what relief could they find so far away from the coast? How could they ever hope to make good a retreat to their ships?

The council of knights to whom the matter was referred agreed with their chief. Richard, with undoubted affliction of his martial pride, if not of his pious spirit, gave one longing look towards the distant domes of Jerusalem. He then covered his face with his shield and turned away, declaring that he was unwilling to gaze upon that which he was unable to conquer.

The retreat from Jerusalem destroyed Richard’s prestige as a strategist and capable leader of great enterprises; but nothing ever lessened his lustre for personal bravery. The lion may be outwitted by the fox; and it is no deep disgrace to Cœur de Lion that he could not circumvent a Saladin. Richard vented his disappointment and rage upon many parts of the Moslem host. Like a wounded lion, he destroyed whatever came within his reach. One day he annihilated a squadron of seven thousand Infidels; another time he captured as many camels laden with provision.

Saladin had outgeneralled him at Jaffa and captured that city, with the exception of the citadel, which promised surrender if succor did not come within a day. Richard in turn outplayed his rival; he slipped from the harbor of Acre with a few galleys and surprised the garrison at Jaffa. Such was the celerity of his approach that the Moslems fled from the city without having time to strike another blow in its defence.