The threat posed

Once begun, the crusaders’ march on Jerusalem proceeded with remarkable rapidity. By 9 June the Franks had arrived at Latrun and, on the following day, they pushed on to Beit Nuba. In autumn 1191 it had taken the Christians months to reach this same position. Now, after only five days, they once again were within striking distance of the Holy City, just twelve miles from its hallowed walls. Saladin ordered Muslim raiding parties to harass the near-constant stream of Latin supply convoys coming inland from Jaffa, but other than intermittent skirmishing assaults, he made no serious attempt to threaten the crusaders’ main forward camp at Beit Nuba. Instead, the sultan began positioning his troops within Jerusalem ahead of the impending attack.

After the first flurry of movement, however, the Frankish offensive seemed to stall. In fact, this delay was caused initially by the Latins’ decision to wait for Henry of Champagne to bring further reinforcements from Acre. But as the days passed, the deep-seated divisions within the crusade that had remained submerged at Ascalon began to surface, and the Franks were soon locked in a furious argument over strategy and leadership.

On 20 June, Saladin’s scouts reported that a large contingent of crusaders had moved off from Beit Nuba. This raised the sultan’s suspicions, because at that very moment he was awaiting the imminent arrival of a massive supply caravan from Egypt. Concerned that the Franks might seek to intercept this column and appropriate the vital resources it contained, Saladin immediately dispatched troops to warn the Muslim convoy. The two Ayyubid parties rendezvoused successfully and were making watchful progress inland towards Hebron, when just before dawn on 24 June Richard I launched a searing attack. As Saladin feared, the Lionheart had been alerted to the caravan’s movements by one of his spies and, galvanised by the prospect of rich plunder, immediately rushed south. The Angevin king spent three days tracking the caravan through his network of local informants and then unleashed a well-timed surprise assault. After a vicious fight the Latins prevailed. The bulk of the Muslim escort escaped, but they left behind a veritable hoard of booty: precious goods, including spices, gold, silver and silks; weapons and armour; tents; food supplies, including biscuits, wheat, flour, pepper, sugar and cinnamon; and ‘a great many cordials and medicines’. Perhaps even more significantly, the Christians also took possession of literally thousands of camels, dromedaries, horses, mules and asses.

News of this disaster caused real alarm in Jerusalem. Not only had Saladin lost a plethora of much-needed supplies–all of which would now profit the enemy–he also recognised that the Latins could use the influx of pack animals to ferry further resources inland from Jaffa. When the crusaders’ expeditionary force returned to Beit Nuba on 29 June, the sultan began ‘to prepare the means to withstand a siege’. Baha al-Din, who was then present in the Holy City, recorded that his master ‘started poisoning the water sources outside Jerusalem, destroying the pits and the cisterns, so that around Jerusalem there remained no drinking water at all’, adding that the sultan also ‘sent to muster his troops from all quarters and lands’.⁹⁷

The choice

By the first days of July 1192 there seems to have been no question in Saladin’s mind that the Franks were about to initiate their final drive towards Jerusalem. The moment of decisive confrontation–the crisis that he had hoped to avoid–was upon him. On Thursday 2 July the sultan assembled his most trusted emirs to discuss a plan of action. The meeting proved to be a grim-faced, earnest affair, as Saladin sat surrounded by the commanders and counsellors who had served him through long years of war and conquest. Abu’l Haija the Fat was there, although his legendary corpulence had now reached such a stage that he had trouble walking and needed ‘a stool to sit on while in the presence of the sultan’.

Baha al-Din was also in attendance, and according to his account, Saladin set out to instil a sense of steadfast determination among his lieutenants by repeatedly reminding them of their duties and responsibilities: ‘Know today that you are the army of Islam and its bulwark…There are no Muslims who can face the enemy but you [and] the Muslims in all lands depend on you.’ In response, the emirs affirmed their willingness to fight to the death for Saladin, their lord and patron, and the sultan’s heart was said to have been ‘greatly cheered’.

Later that same day, however, after the meeting had broken up, Saladin received a private missive from Abu’l Haija warning that beneath the veneer of loyalty and unity insurrection was brewing. Many within the army were opposed to ‘prepar[ing] for a siege’, fearful that the catastrophe at Acre might be repeated. There was also a real danger that the long-standing resentment between the Kurds and Turks in Saladin’s army might spill into open conflict. Abu’l Haija’s advice was that the sultan should lead the bulk of his armies out of the Holy City while he still had the chance, leaving behind only a token garrison.

That evening the sultan summoned Baha al-Din and revealed the contents of Abu’l Haija’s message. Baha al-Din recalled that ‘Saladin felt a concern for Jerusalem that could move mountains and he was distressed by this communication. I remained in attendance upon him that night, a night wholly spent on the concerns of the holy war.’ As dawn drew near, Saladin finally decided, with a heavy heart, to leave Jerusalem–‘he had been tempted to remain himself, but then his better sense rejected that because of the risk to Islam it involved’. The choice had been made; in the morning, on Friday 3 July, preparations for the exodus began. Saladin took the chance to visit the Haram as-Sharif, and there led a last Friday prayer in the sacred Aqsa mosque, where some four years earlier he had overseen the installation of Nur al-Din’s glorious triumphal pulpit. Baha al-Din wrote: ‘I saw [the sultan] prostrate himself and say some words, while his tears were falling on to his prayer rug.’

But then, as evening drew in, astonishing unforeseen news arrived–news that overturned Saladin’s plans and reshaped the entire war for the Holy Land. Jurdik, the Syrian emir in command of the Ayyubid advance guard, reported that the Franks were in an evident state of confusion. His message described how that day ‘the enemy all mounted up, stood in the field on horseback and then returned to their tents’ and added that ‘we have sent spies to discover what they are up to’. The very next morning, on 4 July 1192, five years to the day since the Battle of Hattin, the armies of the Third Crusade struck camp, turned their backs on Jerusalem and began to retreat towards Ramla. Amid great ‘delight and rejoicing’ it became clear that the Holy City had been saved.⁹⁸

Frankish failure

The crusaders’ departure left the Muslims in a state of gleeful disbelief. What had caused this sudden reversal? Jurdik’s agents were able to piece together only a garbled version of events, reporting a dispute between Richard and the French. In fact, the seeds of the Frankish retreat had already been sown at Ascalon, when Richard lost his grip over the crusade and acceded to popular demands for a second inland advance. Once the expedition reached Beit Nuba on 10 June it rapidly became obvious that the Lionheart had no real intention of besieging Jerusalem, even though the French were determined that an attack should be attempted. On 17 June the crusade leaders met to debate the matter. Even two eyewitness Christian sources that were most biased in Richard I’s favour freely admitted that the king was fiercely opposed to any further advance.