The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin by Jonathan Phillips

Author:Jonathan Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2019-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

19

Battles of Sword and Words: Arsuf and Diplomacy

‘The Muslims and Franks are done for. The land is ruined, ruined utterly at the hands of both sides’

Within days of the massacre, Richard had gathered the crusader forces to start marching south. The curious settlements sprouting around Acre like a malign fungus had been home to thousands for months on end, but the time had come to leave these earthwork towns. What remained must have been a strange and ugly scene – in the case of Acre, comprising abandoned trenches, camping grounds, baths and latrine pits, scraggy allotments; a land stripped of vegetation and scarred by a lattice of temporary paths trodden hard into the earth, decorated with the discarded waste of people and animals living, cooking, trading and fighting. Somewhere in or around the camps lay improvised cemeteries, markers of the grim toll of twenty-three months of conflict; on Saladin’s command post of Tell Keisan, a series of Muslim graves date from this period. But for many of these fallen souls there was not the tangible commemoration of a monumental grave but, like millions of soldiers before and after, a crude resting place, quickly hacked into the ground as the struggle continued.1

Saladin and his senior colleagues had to keep a sharp focus. The fall of Acre, coupled with the shocking execution of the Muslim prisoners, were devastating blows, but there was now a need to regroup and then to break the momentum of the crusaders. An army heading down the coast would get first to Caesarea (around sixty-five kilometres) and then to Jaffa (a further sixty kilometres). From there the Christians could either turn inland towards Jerusalem, or continue south down the coast towards Ascalon (around fifty kilometres beyond Jaffa).

Almost as soon as the crusaders left Acre the mounted Muslim archers started to harass them. Arrow-fire ‘well-nigh veiled the sun’ and inflicted a steady casualty rate. Saladin’s eldest son, al-Afdal, took a leading role here and he is a figure who emerges with increasing prominence over the next few months. The crusaders were aware of Muslim anger after the massacre at Acre; Saladin himself had sworn vengeance and all the westerners knew full well that captives could expect no mercy. As Beha al-Din commented, for the next few weeks those taken were ‘most cruelly done to death’, even including nobles and knights, men whose higher status usually ensured they were spared.2

By 31 August, Richard had reached Caesarea, a walled city and small port where his men could rest and recuperate. He set up proper co-ordination between his land forces and the fleet, creating a vital supply line for the troops as they marched southwards. With the fall of Acre, most of the Muslim navy had been lost or captured which allowed the crusaders to operate such a system with relative impunity. On 1 September the Christians set out once more and during this next stage of the march the intensity of the fighting stepped up significantly.

Continuing their existing tactics, the crusaders

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