Richard & John: Kings at War (39 page)

Taking 500 knights and 1,000 picked troops with him, Richard left the camp at Beit Nuba on the evening of 21 June, accompanied by the duke of Burgundy and some French troops, who had successfully bargained for a one-third share of the expected loot, even though their numbers did not warrant such a figure. A night’s forced march in the moonlight brought the task force to Galatie, where they rested and waited until supplies of food and drink arrived from Ascalon.
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But on the 22nd Saladin’s spies told him a crusader host had moved off southwards; it was not difficult to guess the target. He therefore sent a large force of reinforcements to aid the caravan. On the 23rd, while Richard’s force was moving towards al-Hasi, Falak al-Din made the fatal decision to take the shortest route to Jerusalem and camp at Tel al-Khuwialifia, 14 miles from al-Hasi. Not even the arrival of the relieving force could make him change his mind, since he reckoned that during a night march the caravan would break-up in confusion, leaving the separate detachments easy prey for the Franks. He stayed where he was.
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At first, when this was reported to Richard, he could scarcely believe his luck, and sent out a body of scouts, disguised as Bedouin, to verify the information. After making sure both men and horses were well fed and watered, he ordered another night march. Minutes after dawn’s first gleaming, as the cursing camel drivers were loading their charges, Richard’s horsemen swept over them like a tsunami. The Saracen convoy had camped in three detachments, and one of them was cut to pieces, with the loss of all animals and impedimenta. The remaining two cohorts scattered into the desert, pursued by frenzied crusaders. Among those seen hewing, cleaving and scything at the foe were the king himself, the earl of Leicester, Alexander Arsic and two Frenchmen Gilbert Malmains and Stephen de Longchamp.
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The slaughter, though short-lived was frightful: the crusaders claimed 1,300 dead that they counted on the battlefield and many more ridden down and trampled in the half-light, or who crawled away into the desert to die of their wounds; five hundred prisoners were also taken. Perhaps even more significantly, the Franks netted 4,700 camels and dromedaries and thousands of mules and asses together with their loads of gold, silver, arms and armour, clothes, spices, medicine, money, tents and ropes; even Baha al-Din conceded a loss of 3,000 camels.
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This was yet another massive triumph for Richard, as Saladin’s defensive strategy lay in ruins and now even Egypt itself was highly vulnerable.

The French, with their share of this immense booty, no longer depended on Richard for funds, and more than ever clamoured for an advance on Jerusalem. In a sense they had a case, for Saladin was seriously rattled by this setback. Baha al-Din was in the sultan’s tent when the news of the disaster came in and he reported: ‘Never was the sultan more grieved or made more anxious.’
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Saladin saw at once that many of the obstacles to a crusader invasion of Egypt had been removed for, with so many pack animals captured, the logistics of an Egyptan campaign eased. On the other hand, the Franks might ride the crest of the wave and immediately assault Jerusalem. But which would it be: Egypt or Jerusalem? On the hunch that the Franks must surely strike at the Holy City, Saladin prepared to pull out, leaving his grand-nephew to defend it, and it was reported that he prayed in the mosque on Friday 3 July with tears in his eyes, certain that his departure was imminent.
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But when Richard returned in triumph to Beit Nuba on 29 June, the entire vexatious question was once again aired in council. The return of Henry of Champagne from Acre with many deserters in tow seemed to provide the opportunity, finally, for an advance on Jerusalem, but Richard objected that his cavalry could not do an effective job in a siege there, for Saladin in despair had poisoned all wells and waterholes near the city and destroyed all cisterns.
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This meant that the horses would have to be watered in relays in a river some distance from Jerusalem, with half on active duty and half drinking their fill at any given moment. Richard pointed out that Saladin could then easily deal with the truncated cavalry force, leading eventually to disaster. The French accused Richard of defeatism, and the duke of Burgundy added that it was quite clear the Lionheart had never had any serious intention of besieging Jerusalem. To rub salt in the wounds he composed some scurrilous verses about the English king, to which Richard replied in similar vein. But this verse-writing contest did not solve the essential issue. For the last time the question was put to the council. A ‘grand jury’ of 300 men was chosen, which was then whittled down to a dozen, from which a shortlist of three was to be chosen, with the proviso that the decision of the three just men should be final and irrevocable. Not surprisingly, they opted for the Egyptian campaign rather than the siege of Jerusalem.
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Yet the French were people who believed in majority decision-making only when it concurred with their own wishes. Despite the ‘irrevocable’ commitment, the duke of Burgundy announced that the French would never campaign in Egypt. The crusaders were caught between the rational dictates of grand strategy - indicating an attack on Egypt - and the irrational siren calls of pilgrim ideology. The French never answered Richard’s crushing point that, without Christian settlers, the Franks could not hold Jerusalem, and made no attempt to do so, merely insisting peevishly that everyone knew this was the goal the crusaders had signed up for. Some say Richard should have made an audacious bid for Jerusalem anyway, as this was the one objective on which the entire army would have united behind him. But Richard was a great captain first and foremost, an ideologue second. His argument was that pressure on Egypt, particularly an expedition up the Nile which would turn Saladin’s flank, would force him to disgorge Jerusalem, that there was more than one way to skin the cat. Yet this meant taking the long view, and the French commanders lacked all strategic vision. The failure to recapture Jerusalem led to massive disappointment and severe recriminations in Europe, with scapegoating and blame-shifting much in evidence. Richard scored a great propaganda triumph in largely winning the game of
cherchez le coupable
. Such was the reluctance to criticise Christendom’s great military hero that the most absurd canards and legends arose, strong enough to infect serious history. It was alleged that the real fault for failure to take Jerusalem lay with the duke of Burgundy, who had secret orders from Philip to make sure that the king of England did not get the kudos and glory accruing from the recovery of the Holy City.
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This is absurd, as the historical facts have amply demonstrated. The truth is that both Richard and the French badly wanted to wrest Jerusalem from Saladin, that Richard always regarded himself as a failure for not having achieved this supreme prize, but that he and the duke of Burgundy could never agree a sensible common strategy for achieving the ultimate aim of all crusaders.

With the crusaders once again dejected and despondent, it was time for Richard to reopen negotiations with Saladin. Arguing, like so many before and since, that his retreat was merely a ‘strategic withdrawal’, he cautioned Saladin not to draw any false conclusions from the movements of the crusader army: ‘Do not be deceived by my withdrawal. The ram backs away in order to butt.’
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But both commanders were war-weary, so that the Lionheart was relieved when an envoy came from the Sultan with some constructive proposals. Saladin offered Richard the Church of the Resurrection and free entry for pilgrims into Jerusalem; to divide the country with him, with the littoral towns remaining in crusader hands and the interior remaining with the Saracens, saving only that the land ‘between the mountains and the sea’ would be partitioned between them.
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Referring to Henry of Champagne as ‘your sister’s son’, Saladin wrote: ‘Since you honour us with your trust and one good turn deserves another, the Sultan will treat your sister’s son like one of his own sons.’ But then he produced the sting in the tail: in return for all these ‘concessions’, Richard must promise to demolish Ascalon.
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This was a condition too far for Richard. He had spent a fortune on this coastal fortress and made it the axis of his strategy. His answer to Saladin was to send even more troops there, to remind him of the military threat to Egypt. His formal message on 19 July was that the crusaders had to retain the entire coast from Antioch to Darum before peace could be considered. Both leaders reluctantly accepted that the campaigning had to go on. Saladin took heart from the fact that by 26 July the main Frankish army was back in Acre, having retreated all the way from Beit Nuba.
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Although there were garrisons in Jaffa, Ascalon and Darum, in one sense Richard and the crusaders were back where they started.

Encouraged by the turn of events, and informed by his spies that Richard was planning an assault on Beirut in the north, Saladin launched a surprise attack on Jaffa on 27 July. Fortified by the arrival of reinforcements from Aleppo and Mosul, he saw a golden opportunity to win back much of what he had lost since Arsuf.
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His miners and sappers went to work with gusto while his trebuchets and mangonels pounded Jaffa. But he was taken aback by the vigorous defence made by the crusaders, who stood their ground dauntlessly even when the Saracen artillery brought down a large section of the walls on 31 July. The only black sheep in the story was the castellan Aubrey de Reims, who took refuge on board a ship in the harbour and had to be shamed into returning to his post. Bristling with lances, spears and pikes like a nest of porcupines, the Franks retreated only when heavy stones came crashing down on them from the mangonels, but they retired in good order to the citadel, leaving the town to the enemy.
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At this point the Saracens dispersed throughout Jaffa, seeking for plunder, women and prisoners for ransom. In vain did Saladin try to restore order for, as Baha al-Din sagely commented: ‘It was a long time since our troops had taken any booty or won any advantage over the enemy; they were therefore eager to take the citadel by storm.’ The last factor was particularly annoying for Saladin, as he wanted to talk the garrison out of their eyrie without sustaining further casualties. Seeing an outside chance of retrieving something from the fiasco, the newly elected Patriarch of Jerusalem audaciously proposed to Saladin that the troops in the citadel be given until 3 p.m. next day (1 August) to surrender. Saladin agreed, partly, it is alleged, out of quirky and intermittent quixotry but mainly because he was confident Richard could not possibly get down from Acre in time to relieve the garrison. Saladin took hostages for the deal (the defenders insisted on including the cowardly Aubrey de Reims) and settled down to wait for the deadline. But to his consternation early next morning he heard the blare of Frankish trumpets. With a sickening feeling he realised that Richard had arrived on the scene.
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Richard got news of Saladin’s attack on 28 July. Characteristically quick-thinking, he assembled a task force (mainly the Pisans and Genoese foot with English and Angevin knights) and set off by sea in fifteen galleys. Equally characteristically, Hugh of Burgundy and the French refused to help, but Henry of Champagne proved most royal and set off overland with a force of Templars and Hospitallers; this detachment was halted in its tracks at Caesarea by a report that another Muslim army stood astride the road ahead. Meanwhile Richard’s fleet encountered heavy contrary winds off Mount Carmel, so he did not arrive off Jaffa until the night of 31 July/1 August with just seven of his ships, the others having been scattered by the light gale.
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At first he thought he was too late, for the shore was lined by Saracens firing arrows, but a priest, showing more physical courage than is usual in one of his cloth, dived from the citadel’s battlements into the sea, swam to the royal galley and explained the situation. It seemed that some fainthearts in the garrison had agreed to leave before the deadline but, after paying over their ransom money, were immediately seized and beheaded; the others shut themselves up in the citadel and prepared to sell their lives dearly.
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Exhorting his men to follow him and declaring that a curse would light on anyone who faltered, Richard steered his galleys into the shallows and sprang ashore. No more than eighty knights and a handful of infantry landed, but in a remarkably short time, using accurate crossbow fire, they secured a beachhead. Offering surprisingly little resistance to this landing party, Saladin instead concentrated on trying to persuade the knights in the citadel to surrender before help reached them. Some sources suggested that the mere sight of the red-headed monster Melek Ric, with his red ship, red shield and red tunic simply demoralised the Saracens, showing once again the huge psychological effect of a solid reputation for invincibility.
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Once in command of the beach, Richard ordered his men to collect wood and build a temporary palisade, which would act as a rallying point if things went badly for them in the town. Then he ordered an advance into Jaffa. His arrival seems to have confused and paralysed the Saracens, some of whom were still mindlessly plundering even as the wrath of God swept down on them. Still others, thinking the garrison had already surrendered, faced around to deal with the newcomers, only to be taken in the rear when the crusaders sortied from the citadel. The Muslims withdrew in a shambolic panic not far short of rout, with crossbowmen harrying them all the way. They left behind practically everything they had retrieved from the defeated caravan so, infuriatingly, were once more back at square one.
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The Lionheart had scored yet another notable victory. Saladin’s surprise attack on Jaffa had been a brilliant stroke, but still more brilliant was the king of England’s counterstroke - an exploit, as some of the troubadours later pointed out, well worthy to be ranked with Roland’s last stand at Roncevaux. Both sides now badly needed a breathing space, and a truce was arranged while peace talks resumed yet again. Once more the sticking point was Ascalon, which Richard categorically refused to surrender or demolish. He told Saladin that if Ascalon was guaranteed to the Christians, the war would be over within a week and he himself would return to England. Saladin made the obvious retort that Richard would have to stay through the next winter ‘since if he goes everything he has conquered will fall into our hands’. Saladin even attempted psychological warfare, pointing out that Richard had concerns in Europe which were bound to take him away sooner or later while he, Saladin, was in his native land and could stay another ten summers and winters if necessary. Richard stalled the talks long enough to get reinforcements; by the time hostilities resumed, Henry of Champagne and part of his force had arrived from Caesarea by sea.
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