Among the stone-throwers operated by Richard’s men were two newly built machines ‘made with remarkable workmanship and materials’ that could propel the massive catapult stones that the king had brought from Messina. It was rumoured among the Franks that just one of these missiles killed twelve of Acre’s men and was later sent for inspection to Saladin, but this sounds like morale-boosting camp gossip and was not confirmed by Muslim witnesses. Another of the Lionheart’s machines possessed such power that it could throw a missile into the heart of the city to reach Butchers’ Row, a street which seems to have run clear down to the harbour.⁵³

By late June the force of this intense crusader offensive was starting to tell. In Saladin’s camp one observer noted that the Franks’ ‘constant battering of the city walls’ meant that the battlements had begun to ‘shake’ and could be seen by the crusaders to be ‘tottering’. ‘The defenders in the city’, he wrote, ‘had become very weak and the noose around them very tight.’ Troop shortages inside Acre meant that soldiers could not be rotated on and off duty on a regular basis, and most were going without sleep for days and nights. Messages began to arrive in the sultan’s camp warning that the garrison, exhausted by the constant fighting, was faltering.

Saladin did what he could to relieve the pressure, launching regular counter-attacks on the Latin trenches. Throughout late spring and early summer the ranks of his army swelled as troops from around the empire returned to Acre. Indeed, at the end of June sizeable armies arrived from Mesopotamia and Egypt. But by then the crusaders were entrenched too firmly in their positions. From time to time Muslim raiding parties succeeded in breaking into the enemy camp–on one occasion they made a point of stealing the Franks’ cooking pots–but they were always beaten back. At night, Saladin tried using more furtive tactics. Stealthy thieves were tasked with slipping past the Latin pickets, where, once among the tents, they would select a victim. Baha al-Din described how ‘they seized men with ease by coming to them as they were sleeping, putting a knife to their throat, then waking them and saying through gestures, “If you speak, we shall cut your throat”’, leading them away to captivity and interrogation. But, ultimately, these rather desperate attempts to halt the Christian offensive and erode crusader morale failed. By the start of July it was clear that Acre was on the verge of collapse. Surveying the city’s defences from horseback, Saladin was said by one Muslim eyewitness to have been horrified: ‘Tears flowed from his eyes…as he looked towards Acre and saw the torment she was in.’ Badly shaken, ‘that day he consumed no food at all [but] merely drank some cups of a drink that his doctor advised him to take. [He was] overcome by tiredness, dejection and grief.’⁵⁴

THE FATE OF ACRE

Around 2 July 1191 the crusaders adjusted their strategy. Having battered Acre to the brink of submission, they now sought to exploit the damage done to the city’s defences. The Cursed Tower had been weakened and a ten-metre length of nearby wall was beginning to crumble; to the north, a second major tower was close to collapse. With Latin sappers intensifying their efforts to undermine these targets, above ground the aerial barrage slackened and attention turned instead to the prosecution of a frontal assault, as the Franks set out ‘with great seriousness of purpose’ to break into Acre.

After the first day of these attacks Saladin received an urgent message from Qaragush and al-Mashtub stating that ‘tomorrow, if you do not do something for us, we will seek terms and surrender the city’. An eyewitness in the Muslim camp reported that ‘the sultan was devastated’. Appalled by this impending disaster, he ordered al-Adil to lead another frantic attack on the Christian camp on 3 July, but ‘the Frankish infantry stood behind their defences like a solid wall with their weapons, their crossbows, bolts and arrows’. At the same time, near the Cursed Tower, French sappers completed a tunnel. Once set alight, this wood-packed mine caved in, bringing down much of the parapet above it. Scores of Franks raced towards the ruined barrier with scaling ladders, while the Muslim garrison mounted the rubble, girding themselves for hand-to-hand combat.

The first Latin up a ladder was Aubery Clements, marshal of France, one of Philip’s leading knights. It was said later among the Christians’ forces that, before climbing the breach, Aubery had called out defiantly: ‘Either I shall die today, or God willing, I will enter Acre.’ Upon reaching the top, Aubery’s ladder collapsed beneath the weight of crusaders clamouring to follow him and the Frankish assault faltered. Suddenly isolated, Aubery was reported to have fought on alone with ‘exceptional valour’, leaving his stricken compatriots to watch from below as ‘the Turks surrounded and crushed him, stabbing him to death’. That at least was the crusaders’ version of events. Muslim witnesses testified that Aubery made a pathetic attempt to plead for his life, offering to arrange the withdrawal of the entire crusade, before being butchered by a zealous Kurd. The Latin attack may have foundered, but it had been a close-run affair, and the parlous state of Acre’s defences sent a ripple of fear and panic through the city. That night three emirs fled the city in small boats under cover of night; one of them made the mistake of seeking refuge in Saladin’s camp and was promptly thrown in irons. But in reality their actions merely reflected a truth that was now obvious to all: Acre was about to fall.⁵⁵

The definitive breach came at the section of the northern defences targeted by Richard I. The ailing king, still too weak to walk, had taken to being carried to the front line on a regal stretcher, covered ‘in a great silken quilt’. Shooting from behind the protection of a siege screen, he picked off hapless Muslim troopers with his crossbow, among them one warrior who had ill-advisedly elected to don Aubery Clements’ armour. On 5 July his sappers torched another mine, toppling the northern tower and causing the partial disintegration of the adjoining walls. Just as at the Cursed Tower, the crusaders were now presented with a rubble-strewn fissure, through which it would be difficult to mount an overwhelming assault. Richard’s response demonstrated both his ingenuity and his appreciation of the base realities of war. Knowing, as one contemporary dryly observed, that ‘everyone is attracted by the smell of money’, the king offered two gold coins to anyone who could carry off a stone from the damaged wall. This was near-suicidal work: arrows and crossbow bolts had to be dodged, the Muslims’ furious hand-to-hand defence of the breach confronted. Yet many volunteered, particularly once the Lionheart raised the reward to three, and then four, gold coins. Despite the garrison’s best efforts, over the next five days Richard’s ploy bore fruit: by 11 July a substantial gap in the walls had been opened, albeit at great human and financial cost. Elsewhere, the crusaders’ catapults were again put into action, ratcheting up the pressure to such an extent that, in despair, some Muslims chose to jump from the walls to their deaths.⁵⁶

Negotiation

With defeat now seemingly imminent and all but inevitable, the commanders of Acre’s garrison began exploring the option of surrender, even as intense fighting continued. The exact details and chronology of the city’s capitulation are confused. It is possible that al-Mashtub and Qaragush opened channels of negotiation as early as 4 July and it thus would be wrong to give Richard more credit than Philip for finally bringing the siege to a successful conclusion. It was the combined might of the Angevin and Capetian armies that ultimately pummelled Acre into submission. What is clear is that the garrison had reached the limits of its physical and psychological endurance. One crusader eyewitness summarised the Muslims’ predicament: