Richard the Lion Heart

by Kate Norgate

CHAPTER VI
RICHARD AND SALADIN
1192

Circumdate Sion et complectimini eam ... et distribuite domos ejus, ut enarratis in progenie altera.

1192

The abandonment of the projected expedition to Ibelin was due to more causes than one. On the day of the May 22 surrender of Darum Saladin had yielded to the necessity strongly urged upon him by his emirs, of restoring peace and unity within the borders of Islam as the essential preliminary to a renewal of the “Holy” war, and had despatched Safadin with full powers to make whatever terms he might think good with his rebel great-nephew El Mansour.[922] The settlement thus made enabled the Sultan to call out all his forces again for action against the Franks; and so prompt was the response to his call that two important contingents, under the Emirs Bedr-ed-Din and Ezz-ed-Din, reached Jerusalem on the last day of May, just as the Christian host was on its march northward from Cassaba. Hearing that it was at the “parting of the roads” between Ascalon and Ibelin, he despatched Ezz-ed-Din with the newly arrived forces to intercept it, and an encounter in circumstances which would have been highly unfavourable to the Franks was only averted by the promptitude with which their leaders, on discovering Ezz-ed-Din’s approach, changed their plans and retired to Ascalon.[923] Ibelin was a place worth securing; but its capture was not essential to their present object; for the purpose of leading an army to Jerusalem the Wady el Afranj was as valueless as the Wady el Hesy. When once a new advance on Jerusalem was decided on, 1192 the matter of most urgent necessity was the restoration of the host to its fullest possible strength. Some of the French contingent were still at Acre. Thither Count Henry once more proceeded from Ascalon to call these recalcitrants back to their duty,[924] and also to collect any reinforcements that could be obtained from Tyre, Tripoli, or elsewhere.[925] Beit Nuba was appointed as the place where he and they were to rejoin the main body.[926] With the latter Richard on June 6 set out early in the morning, and in a few hours was encamped before Blanchegarde.[927]

From Blanchegarde three ways into the hill-country lay open. One was the valley of Elah (Wady es Sunt), which runs almost due east from the place where the Crusaders now were. This way was not attractive to invaders, because its continuation on the further side of the central trench was very difficult for troops. North-eastward from Blanchegarde a road ran along the border of the plain past the mouth of the valley of Sorek (Wady es Surar) to Natroun, and thence across the Shephelah to Beit Nuba. The valley of Sorek is the most direct and the easiest of all the natural ways that lead up from the plain to the mountains of Judah; but it had a great disadvantage. For an army advancing through it there was no possible base on the coast nearer than Ascalon or Joppa, both of them more than twenty miles distant from its western end. The only place within easy reach of it that could be called a coast-town was Ibelin-Yebna, and this was not a coast-town in the proper sense; it was four miles from the sea and had no harbour. Of all the roads that led to Jerusalem the best for the Crusaders was unquestionably the one which they had chosen for their first attempt—the Beit Nuba road, where they would have in their rear a safe double line of communication 1192 through Ramlah and Lydda with their original base at Joppa and thence, by land and sea, with Acre. On June 9 they advanced to Natroun,[928] and that night they intercepted a score of Turks returning from a plundering raid on Joppa; six escaped, the other fourteen were made prisoners.[929] Next day Richard with the men of his own domains moved on to Castle Arnold,[930] a place whose character is expressed in its modern Arabic name, Khurbet-el-Burj, “ruins of the Bourg,” burh or fortress; it had been built by his great-grandfather, King Fulk, on one of the highest hills in the Shephelah, about three and a half miles north-west of Beit Nuba, and commanded both the “way that goeth to Beth-horon” and the lower road along the foot of the hills, from Lydda by Beit Nuba to Jerusalem. Probably the Turks had dismantled it; Richard pitched his tents “on a high place to the right.” He was joined by the rest of the June 10 army next day, when all together proceeded to Beit Nuba and encamped there to wait for Count Henry and his recruits.[931]

On that same day Saladin, whose scouts kept him well informed of all the enemy’s movements, held a council to decide what course should be taken in view of their apparent intention to attempt the siege of Jerusalem. It was settled that the defence of the walls should be divided among the emirs, a certain portion being assigned to each of them, and that the Sultan himself with the rest of his army should take the field against the invaders.[932] The latter part of this arrangement was, however, not carried into effect: throughout the three weeks which the Franks spent at Beit Nuba they never encountered Saladin, and no general engagement took place, though there were, as Ambrose says, many “adventures and skirmishes and discomfitures,” in several of which Richard was personally engaged. One of these 1192 counterbalanced, within twenty-four hours, an evil omen for the Franks with which, according to Bohadin, their stay at Beit Nuba began—the falling of a convoy from Joppa into a Turkish ambush on June 12.[933] That night a scout sent out by Richard returned from the hill of Gibeon—called by the Franks Montjoie, because it was the place whence the earliest Crusaders had first seen the Holy City—with tidings of another ambush which, he seems to have learned, was posted near “the Fountain of Emmaus,” or Amwas, half way between Natroun and Beit Nuba, and close to the point where the roads from Natroun and Ramlah meet. Before dawn Richard was in the saddle; at daybreak he was at the Fountain; the Turks were caught at unawares, twenty were slain, one was captured and his life spared because he was Saladin’s herald; three camels, several fine Turcoman horses, and two good mules laden with silk stuffs, aloes, and spicery, were the prize of the victor. The rest of the party he chased over the hills till he overtook and slew one of them, seemingly on the “Mount of Joy” itself, for according to Ambrose—who says he had the story of the adventure from one who took part in it—he “saw Jerusalem plainly” before he turned back.[934] During his absence from the camp it had been assailed by a band of Turks, but they were driven back into the hills.[935] An attempt of the enemies to intercept another caravan three or four days later was equally unsuccessful, though the Turks killed a few Christians and took some prisoners.[936]

Meanwhile the lesser folk were growing tired of waiting for Henry, and impatiently asking whether they were or June 16-20 were not really going to Jerusalem this time. Some of the French nobles urged Richard to lead the host at once to Jerusalem and begin the siege. He refused. He pointed out the risks which such a step would involve; he reminded 1192 them how easy it would be for Saladin, who always knew all their movements, to swoop down with his army into the plain in their rear and cut off their supplies and their communication with the sea, the circuit of the walls being too extensive to admit of the division of so small a force as theirs into two bodies, one to form the siege and the other to protect the besiegers and keep the ways clear for convoys. He would not, he said, be the leader of such an undertaking, because he had no mind to incur the blame for the disaster in which he believed it would result. He knew well, he added, that both in Holy Land and in France there were some persons who wished that he might wreck his reputation in some such way, but he was not minded to satisfy their desire. Moreover, he and the French were alike strangers in the land; it was not for them to take the responsibility, but for the Military Orders and the feudataries of the realm. “Let them decide whether we are to attempt the siege, or to go and take Babylon, or Beyrout, or Damascus. So shall there be no discord amongst us.”[937] The decision was committed to twenty umpires representing every division of the host except the subjects of Richard: five Templars, five Hospitaliers, five knights of Syria, and five barons of France. The first fifteen gave their award for an expedition against “Babylon”; but the French would not agree to this; they declared they would go to Jerusalem and nowhere else. Richard did his utmost to restore unity. He held out every possible inducement to the French to accept the Cairo project: “See, my fleet lies at Acre, ready to carry all the baggage, equipments, and accoutrements, biscuits and flour; the host would go all along by the shore and I would lead from here at my own charges seven hundred knights and two thousand men-at-arms; no man of mine should be lacking. But if they [that is, the French] will not do this, I am quite ready to go to the siege of Jerusalem; only be it known that I will not be the leader of the host; I will go in the company, as leader of my own men, but of no others.” And forthwith he bade all his men assemble in the quarters of the Hospitaliers, “and arrange what 1192 help they would give to the siege when they got to Jerusalem.”[938]

Before this last order was fully carried out an unexpected and most welcome diversion occurred. Saladin was now in daily expectation of some troops from Egypt, for whose despatch he had given orders some time before with a warning that they must be specially cautious when they approached the territory occupied by the Franks. These troops waited at Belbeis for the assembling of a great caravan, in company with which they finally set out for Jerusalem. All this was known to Richard through his scouts, who were fully equal in efficiency to those of Saladin; some of them were renegade Arabs[939]; others were Syrian Christians, so well disguised and speaking the “Saracen” tongue so perfectly as to be indistinguishable from real Saracens. Three of these Syrian spies came into the camp—seemingly on Sunday June 21[940]—and bade the king mount and ride with his men, and they would lead him to the great caravan that was coming up from Egypt. Richard, in his joy, asked Hugh of Burgundy and the other Frenchmen to join the expedition, and they did so, on condition of receiving a third part of the spoil. With five hundred knights and men-at-arms the king rode by moonlight to Blanchegarde and thence to Galatia, a town in the plain, half way between Ascalon and Ibelin of the Hospital; there he was within easy reach of both the coast-road and the inland road, and could also procure from Ascalon whatever supplies he needed, whether of fresh horses or provisions.[941] Saladin, as soon as he was informed of these movements, despatched five hundred picked Turkish soldiers under the emir Aslam to meet the force from Egypt and warn it of its danger.[942] He evidently expected that the Egyptians, knowing the 1192 coast to be practically in the hands of the Franks, would come by the inner or eastern road which after crossing the Wady Ghuzzeh divided into two branches, one passing over the mountains by Hebron and Bethlehem, the other through the Shephelah across the Wady el Hesy and thence by Beit Djibrin (Ibelin) to the valleys of Elah and Sorek. This latter route, being the easier and shorter, was the one which the Egyptians would naturally take and which Aslam took to meet them. His mission was to reach them, if possible, in the desert, and guide them by the safer though more toilsome and lengthy way over the mountain-range. Riding as only Arabs (and possibly Richard on Fauvel) could ride, he and June 22 his party did meet them, late in the evening, at what the Arabs called “the Waters of Kuweilfeh” and the Franks “the Round Cistern.” This was no doubt a well-known stage on the road from Egypt and Mecca; its site is at the southern foot of the Shephelah, close to the opening from the central fosse into the desert, and it would thus be the first watering-place for their beasts of burden after passing the Wady Ghuzzeh and before entering the hill-country. Aslam was urgent that the ascent to Hebron should be made that night; but the Egyptian commander, Felek-ed-Din, fearing lest the caravan should fail to keep together in the darkness, decided to wait till morning.[943] Meanwhile a native Syrian scout had come to Richard at Galatia and told him that if he made haste he might capture the caravan at the Round Cistern. Richard, conscious that there was no real need to hurry—since he and his horsemen could easily overtake the slow movements of a caravan—determined to verify the report before acting on it. He accordingly sent out three more scouts,[944] one a real Bedouin, the others native 1192 Turcoples disguised in Bedouin attire, to make a further reconnaissance in the evening. Meanwhile he and his troops seem to have advanced to the head of the Wady el Hesy, which Aslam had crossed shortly before them.[945] Here the returning scouts met them with the news that not only the caravan, but also the army from Egypt, was encamped at the Round Cistern for the night. The king gave orders for all to mount and ride, and, as they valued their honour, not to think of gain, but devote all their energy to routing the Turkish soldiers. He took his usual post in the van; the June 23 French formed the rearguard. By daybreak they were all close to their destination, and were forming up for attack when another scout came to warn them that their approach had been discovered and the caravan was on the alert. Richard sent forward some archers, Turcoples, and crossbowmen, to harass the enemies and impede their movements till he could come up with his other troops. The caravan remained stationary; the Moslem troops took up a sheltered position close to the hills and greeted their assailants with a thick cloud of missiles “which fell on the ground like dew,”[946] but it was all in vain. “Those of our men who were reputed bravest,” confesses Bohadin, “were glad to save their lives by the fleetness of their horses. It was long since Islam had had such a disgraceful defeat.”[947] Aslam, to the neglect of whose counsel the disaster was due, had before the fight began withdrawn with his troops into the mountains. Thither the others fled, chased by the Frank cavalry, while the infantry turned to secure the caravan. Aslam, seeing the Christian forces thus divided, seized his opportunity to send down by a side path a party of horsemen who attacked the Christian foot; but the attack was beaten off, and the caravan surrendered.[948] The booty was immense; there were more than four thousand camels laden with precious stores of the most varied kind, gold and silver, silks and purple cloth, grain and flour, sugar and spices, tents, hides, 1192 arms of all sorts; the horses and mules were “altogether beyond counting”; and besides all this, the Egyptian contingent so eagerly awaited by Saladin had lost nearly two thousand men[949] and suffered a most ignominious defeat. “No tidings,” says Bohadin, “ever dealt a more grievous wound to the heart of the Sultan than those which were brought to him at the close of that day.”[950]

Saladin at once prepared for the siege which he now felt to be imminent. He ordered his captains to take up their appointed positions round the walls and make all ready for their defence, and he caused the brooks and pools round about the city to be polluted, the wells filled up, and the cisterns destroyed, so as to leave the assailants no means of obtaining water, for it would be impossible for them to dig new wells in that rocky soil. When all these precautions were taken, however, he was still very anxious; for he knew that among the Moslems, no less than among the Christians, there was dissension as to the conduct of the war, and jealousy and mutual distrust between the various nationalities of which his host was composed; for although the Sultan’s subjects were all lumped together indiscriminately by the Frank writers as “Turks” or “Saracens,” some of them were in reality much less closely akin and much less 1192 alike in origin, character, and habits, than were the men of England and France and Italy and Germany. On the night of Wednesday July 1 he called his emirs to a solemn council. By his desire Bohadin opened it with an impassioned exhortation to all present to persevere in the war, and proposed that they should all take an oath on the Sacred Stone of the Temple to hold together till death. Saladin himself appealed to them as “the only fighting force and sole stay of Islam,” on whom depended the safety of all Mussulmans everywhere. They all pledged themselves to stand by him till death. Thurs.,
July 2 Next day, however, they held a meeting among themselves, and some of them there expressed their disapproval of the Sultan’s strategy in shutting up “the only fighting force and stay of Islam” at Jerusalem; they believed it would result in the capture of the city and the destruction of the army by a fate such as that of the garrison of Acre, and thus bring the Mussulman dominion in Palestine to ruin, and that the wiser course would be to risk a pitched battle, which if they were victorious would shatter the enemy’s power and enable the Moslems to recover all that they had lost, while if they were defeated, they would indeed lose Jerusalem, but the army of Islam would remain, and might hope to regain the city hereafter. These criticisms were reported to Saladin, with a further warning that if he persisted in his plan of defence, he must either himself remain in the city or leave one of his family to take the command there, as the Kurdish troops would not obey a Turkish emir nor the Turks a Kurdish one. Personally he was willing to stay, but his friends would not sanction a course which they felt might bring upon Islam a double disaster in the loss of the city and the Sultan both July 2 at once. He and his devoted secretary spent the whole night in deliberating and praying over the problems suggested by July 3 this communication; on the Friday morning Bohadin advised his master to give up all attempts at finding a solution of them and simply commit the direction of all his affairs to a higher Power. The counsel was followed. That evening the officer in command of the Moslem advanced guard sent word that “the whole army of the enemies” had—seemingly on the preceding day—ridden out to the 1192 top of a hill, stationed itself there a while, and then ridden back to its camp; he had sent out scouts to ascertain what Sat.,
July 4 was going on. At daybreak next morning this announcement was followed by another; the scouts had come in and reported that a great discussion, lasting all night, had taken place among the Christian leaders, and had ended at dawn in a decision to retreat.[951]

The victors of Kuweilfeh seem to have reached Beit Nuba on June 30; they had returned by easy stages by way of Ramlah, where they found Count Henry with the troops which he had collected at Acre.[952] At first the camp was filled with rejoicing over the spoil, which Richard took care to distribute fairly among all ranks of the host; but in a day or two the lesser folk began to clamour for an immediate advance on Jerusalem. The native umpires who a fortnight before had given their award against the siege repeated the arguments which they had then used, laying special stress on the impossibility of procuring water, now that all the artificial stores of it for two miles round the city were known to have been destroyed by the enemy, and at a season when every drop of moisture, except the little fountain of Siloam, would be dried up by the heat of the Syrian midsummer.[953] There were also other difficulties. One which Richard had urged in January—the numerical insufficiency of the host—does not seem to have been appreciably lessened by the results of Count Henry’s recruiting expedition. The worst difficulty of all was internal disunion. Hugh of Burgundy’s self-will and his jealousy of Richard were shown more openly than 1192 ever now that his share of the caravan spoils had made him independent of Richard’s bounty. He and his men had long been in the habit, wherever the host went, of camping apart from their fellow-Crusaders at night as if desirous to avoid their company; by day, when they and the men of other nations had to associate together, there were constant bickerings and altercations; and the duke crowned all this mischief by “causing a song full of all vileness to be made about the king, and this song was sung amid the host. Was the king blameworthy,” asks the Norman poet-chronicler, “when he in return made a song upon these people who were always thwarting and insulting him? and truly no good song could be sung about such outrageous folk.”[954] According to one English writer, Hugh even entered into a secret negotiation with Saladin, which the vigilance of a scout enabled Richard to unmask, to the utter confusion of the duke; but the details of the story are somewhat doubtful.[955] Clearly, however, there was no exaggeration in the report transmitted to Saladin from his advanced guard as to dissensions in the Christian camp; and there is no reason to doubt the correctness of Bohadin’s account—derived likewise from the statements of a scout who was secretly present—of the final council held on the night of Thursday-Friday, July 2-3. After much debate, three hundred arbitrators were appointed from among the nobles and knights; these three hundred delegated their powers to twelve others, and these twelve chose three umpires, from whose decision there was to be no appeal.[956] 1192 In the morning the pilgrims were, for the second time July 3 when at a distance of little more than four hours’ march from their goal, told that they must prepare for a retreat.[957]