The impact of the retreat upon Christian morale and the overall prospects of the crusade were catastrophic. Even Ambroise, the Lionheart’s vocal supporter, acknowledged that:

[When] it was realised that the army was to turn back (let it not be called retreat), then was the army, which had been so eager in its advance, so discouraged, that not since God created time was there ever seen an army so dejected and so depressed…Nothing remained of the joy they had had before when they were to go to the [Holy] Sepulchre…Everyone cursed the day he was born.

Now a stunned and bedraggled rabble, the army limped back to Ramla. From there, depression and disillusionment ripped the expedition apart. Hugh of Burgundy and many of the French decamped. Some returned to Jaffa, others went off to Acre, where food and earthly comforts were plentiful. Richard was left to lead a severely weakened force south-west to Ascalon.⁹⁰

REGROUPING

The Lionheart reached the ruined port on 20 January 1192 amid horrendous storms that further dampened morale. As the crusaders struggled to come to terms with their retreat from Jerusalem, Richard did his best to recover from the first real setback of his campaign. He put his remaining troops to work rebuilding Ascalon, determined to salvage something from that dismal winter by making practical and visible progress on the coast. Henry of Champagne had remained loyal to his uncle and lent his aid to the project, but the refortifying of so devastated a city was a mammoth undertaking–one that would ultimately take five months of hard labour and cost Richard a fortune.

In late February, a crisis erupted in northern Palestine–one that revealed enduring divisions among the Franks. Even though the war for the Holy Land was far from over, the Latins began openly fighting over Acre. Genoese sailors tried to take control of the city, probably with the connivance of Conrad of Montferrat and Hugh of Burgundy, and it was only the fierce resistance put up by Richard’s Pisan allies that prevented the port from being united with Tyre. Enraged by what he saw as a brazen act of betrayal, Richard travelled north to parley with Conrad, and the pair met halfway between Acre and Tyre. ‘Long discussions’ were apparently held, but no lasting agreement could be forged and the marquis returned to Tyre.⁹¹

Richard’s military fortunes had turned in the hills of Judea, and now on the northern coast his gift for sure-footed diplomacy seemed also to desert him. Frustrated by his failure to bully Conrad into submission, the Lionheart immediately instituted an assembly and had the marquis officially deprived of the share of the kingdom of Jerusalem’s revenue allotted to him in summer 1191. In truth, though, this was little more than an empty gesture. Conrad had two telling advantages: an unassailable centre of power at Tyre, and a growing body of support among Outremer’s remaining Frankish barons, including the likes of Balian of Ibelin. The marquis may have been a devious, self-serving opportunist who was willing to negotiate with Saladin against the interests of the crusade, but his marriage to Isabella of Jerusalem gave him a claim to the throne. He also had proven himself a stronger leader than Guy of Lusignan (his rival for the Jerusalemite crown) and, unlike Richard, showed every sign of being committed to a permanent career in the Levant. That February the Lionheart chose to ignore the obvious, but eventually he would have to acknowledge the uncomfortable reality. Conrad could be neither broken nor turned and, therefore, he would have to be accommodated in any lasting political and military settlement in the Near East.

Around this time, channels of negotiation between Richard and Saladin were reopened. The sultan, once again, was represented by his brother al-Adil, while Humphrey of Toron spoke on the Lionheart’s behalf. Meetings were held near Acre in late March and, at one point, it appeared that terms–including a partition of Jerusalem–might actually be agreed. In early April, however, Richard broke off the dialogue and sailed south to spend Easter in Ascalon. The reason for this sudden change of policy is uncertain, but it is likely that the king had heard rumours that Saladin’s exhausted armies were showing signs of insubordination and that the sultan was also facing Muslim insurrection in Mesopotamia. Seizing upon this possible vulnerability, Richard seems to have convinced himself that he now had no need to agree to anything other than the most advantageous terms. Once back in Ascalon, he began preparing to launch a new offensive.

CRISIS AND TRANSFORMATION

On 15 April 1192 Robert, prior of Hereford, arrived in Ascalon having sailed east from Europe. He bore news that overturned all of Richard’s plans. The king’s aide and representative William of Longchamp had been exiled from England by Prince John, and Richard’s ambitious brother was now making moves to increase his own power in the kingdom. After ten months of crusading in the Holy Land, this was a stark reminder of Richard’s duties and obligations as monarch of the Angevin realm. The Lionheart immediately recognised that, with a crisis looming in the West, he could ill afford to tarry in the Levant; but neither did he wish to abandon the crusade and return home a failure. Richard seems to have judged that he had time to dedicate one more fighting season to the cause of the cross. But to bring the Palestinian war to a swift and successful conclusion, he would need to unify the disparate Latin forces ranged across the Holy Land.

Reconciled to compromise, the Lionheart convened a council of crusader barons on 16 April. He announced that, in light of events in England, he might soon have to depart and instructed the assembly to resolve the issue of the Jerusalemite crown. A unanimous decision was reached, almost certainly with Richard’s tacit approval, to offer the kingdom to Conrad of Montferrat. Guy of Lusignan, meanwhile, was to be compensated handsomely for his loss of status–Richard arranged for the Templars to sell Guy the island of Cyprus for 40,000 bezants, a move that allowed the Lusignan dynasty to establish a powerful and enduring lordship in the eastern Mediterranean. Henry of Champagne was deputised to sail north to Tyre and inform the marquis of his sudden promotion, and, more importantly, to persuade him to unite his forces, and those of Hugh of Burgundy, with the crusader army gathered at Ascalon so that the holy war might be waged.

Within a few short days Conrad received the news and by all accounts he was ecstatic. After months of waiting in the wings, proceeding ever with caution and cunning, his dreams of threading a path to regal power had been realised. For all his earlier intransigence and hesitation, the marquis immediately initiated preparations for a military campaign. Unbeknownst to Richard or the Franks, he also sent an urgent message to Saladin, explaining that an unexpected agreement had been reached among the Latins, and threatening that unless Saladin finalised ‘a settlement [with Conrad] in the next few days’, a full-scale confrontation would follow. According to a Muslim eyewitness in the sultan’s court, Saladin took this approach extremely seriously. Threatened by impending civil unrest in Mesopotamia, ‘the sultan believed…that the best plan was to make peace with the marquis’ and on 24 April he dispatched an envoy to Tyre to finalise terms. In the last days of April 1192, then, King Richard and Saladin believed that they had found ways to conclude the war for the Holy Land: the one through renewed battle; the other through peace. The plans of both centred upon Conrad of Montferrat.⁹²