Saladin (1137-1193) has gone down in history as one of the greatest statesmen and generals of the High Medieval Era. He made himself Sultan of Egypt and Syria, founded the Ayyubid Dynasty, defended his kingdom from the Crusader states, and recaptured the sacred city of Jerusalem in 1187. But how did Saladin manage to defeat the Crusaders, and how did he succeed in keeping Jerusalem from being retaken by the seemingly overwhelming Third Crusade?
Background
To understand how Saladin defeated the Crusaders, we must look at the origins of Saladin himself and how things stood at the time in the Holy Land. Yusuf ibn Ayyub Salah ad-Din (Latinized to Saladin) was the son of a Kurdish mercenary employed by the Zengid Dynasty of northern Iraq and Syria. In 1164, Saladin began his first military campaign under his uncle in Egypt, intervening in a local power struggle to seize control of the country.
In 1167, he got his first taste of fighting crusaders in the Battle of Al-Babein, when he and his uncle fought against the united forces of King Amalric of Jerusalem and the vizier of Egypt. By 1171, Saladin, with his uncle’s support, had politically maneuvered himself into becoming the Sultan of Egypt and breaking away from Zengid control. Over the next few years, he kept the Crusaders at bay while he consolidated his control over Egypt and expanded into Syria, becoming the first ruler of the Ayyubid Sultanate.
In contrast to Saladin’s rise, the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem was in a more fractious state. Amalric died in 1174, leaving the kingdom to his 13-year-old, leprosy-stricken son Baldwin IV. His age and affliction made him reliant on regents and noble deputies who regularly squabbled among themselves. Chief among them were Raymond of Tripoli, Baldwin’s sister Sibylla, and her husband, Guy De Lusignan.
Though all three served Baldwin dutifully, Guy and Raymond regularly butted heads, Guy also had great ambitions and equally ambitious friends, including the notorious warlord, Raynald De Chatillon. Though Baldwin proved a capable ruler when he came of age and kept his squabbling nobles in line, his leprosy sadly worsened as time wore on, leaving him less physically capable of defending his kingdom.
Raids and Inheritances
After securing his Sultanate and its borders, Saladin inevitably turned his attention to the fractious Jerusalem, due also in part to provocation by repeated raiding of his lands and Islamic trade routes by Raynald De Chatillon. Saladin’s first campaign in 1177 met with defeat by Baldwin at the battle of Montgisard. However, Baldwin’s attempted counter-invasion petered out, and Saladin then achieved a major victory in 1179 at Marj Ayyun.
The fact was, the size and wealth of Saladin’s domain allowed him to recover from losses, call up reinforcements, and fund campaigns just that much more easily than the Crusaders. By comparison, the Crusader power base was relatively small, and much of their support had to come all the way from Europe.
This logistical bottleneck and the losses at Marj Ayyun saw Saladin and Baldwin enter a game of cat and mouse as the 1180s began. Saladin made forays into Crusader territory, but Baldwin and his commanders refused to fight a pitched battle. Instead, they shadowed Saladin’s forces, harrying them where they could and preventing him from besieging major strongholds.
Yet while this prevented Saladin from capturing much territory, he was still able to plunder and raid the countryside, enriching himself while sapping Crusader wealth, strength, and morale. Raynald made further raids in response, but they failed to weaken Saladin’s ability to wage war. The Crusaders lacked the means for a serious counter-invasion or to effectively check Saladin’s raids. It was either risk it all in a pitched battle or let Saladin bleed them dry.
Meanwhile, the political situation in Jerusalem became less stable as Baldwin’s leprosy worsened until he died in 1185. He had appointed Sibylla’s five-year-old son from her first marriage, also called Baldwin, as his heir, with Raymond as regent, but the boy died a year after his uncle. Political infighting then erupted as Guy and Sibylla pushed their claim for the throne, while Raymond and his supporters argued in favor of Baldwin’s other sister, Isabelle.
Saladin’s Diplomacy
Saladin, although not making much progress, managed to portray himself as a champion of Islam thanks to his taking the fight to the Crusaders. He forged alliances with neighboring Islamic rulers, another advantage the Crusaders lacked, and gained supporters from across all branches of Islam to support his ultimate goal of retaking Jerusalem.
This demonstrates one other crucial component of Saladin’s success: his diplomatic and political skill. Persuading most of the Islamic world to get behind him was no mean feat. Still more impressively, despite this religious rhetoric, Saladin also managed to engage in good-faith diplomacy with his Crusader foes. In fact, in 1186, he agreed to a truce with Raymond during the young Baldwin’s regency.
Ironically, however, this truce gave Sybilla and Guy the political ammunition to discredit Raymond and take the throne for themselves after the younger Baldwin died. However, Guy proved devastatingly less capable than Baldwin in controlling his subjects. In early 1187, despite Guy trying to avoid open war, Raynald De Chatillon made a series of brutal raids on caravans of pilgrims completing the Hajj to Mecca. This was a clear violation of the truce, a targeted act of religious outrage, and the perfect excuse for Saladin to call a full Jihad against the Crusaders. Saladin, vowing to behead Raynald personally, gathered an enormous army bolstered by Ghazi holy warriors and other Islamic leaders, eager to support this holy war.
As Saladin’s invasion began, the Crusaders’ weakness in leadership and strategy persisted. Raymond, still resentful of Guy and Sybilla’s coronation, refused the summons to join the Crusader army, considering himself still bound by the truce. When the scale of Saladin’s intentions became apparent, Raymond relented. However, by then, Saladin had quite literally stolen a march on the Crusaders and was already besieging the city of Tiberias, deep in Crusader territory.
The Crusaders gathered the largest army they could, but once again faced the dilemma of whether or not to meet Saladin in a pitched battle. Raymond, despite his wife being trapped in Tiberias, urged caution, but Raynald and others convinced Guy to commit to open battle. On July 3, 1187, Guy and the Crusader army marched for Tiberias just as Saladin had hoped.
Horns of Hattin and Fall of Jerusalem
As the Crusader army marched out of their fortified camp, Saladin baited them onto a dry, waterless plain between two mountains known as the Horns of Hattin, then surrounded the Crusaders completely. For two days, the trapped Crusaders, weakened by the heat and thirst, desperately tried breaking through Saladin’s lines. Eventually, however, the force collapsed, deserting, dying, or surrendering to Saladin’s army, even losing a Piece of the True Cross into the bargain.
Guy, Raynald, and almost all the other Crusader commanders were captured, save for Raymond and one Balian of Ibelin, who both managed to escape. Saladin then fulfilled his vow and beheaded Raynald personally. Guy and the other leaders were well-treated and taken into custody rather than executed.
Saladin promptly received the surrender of Tiberias, allowing Raymond’s wife to safely return to her husband before sweeping on towards Jerusalem. As Saladin stormed through the Crusader kingdom, he reached out to the cities in his path with surprisingly generous terms of surrender. Saladin generally forbade the plundering of cities that surrendered and allowed their civilians to live peaceably or leave safely if they preferred. Saladin’s conduct towards these towns, the Crusader leaders, and their families, reveals another crucial trait to his success: his mercy.
Saladin may have been merciful in spirit, but it also made good strategic sense. The generous terms encouraged the Crusader cities to open their gates rather than risk destruction through defiance, allowing Saladin to continue his advance uninterrupted by sieges while ensuring his control of vital strongholds. By mid-September, Saladin had taken almost all the major crusader cities and was now outside Jerusalem itself.
The holy city, however, refused even the most generous terms of surrender. They were commanded by Balian of Ibelin, who ironically had been allowed safe passage into the city by Saladin to safely evacuate his family. On entering the city, however, he had been press-ganged into leading its defense by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. However, even with Balian’s arrival, the garrison of Jerusalem was desperately small, and despite astonishing resistance, on September 28, 1187, eight days after the siege began, Balian agreed to surrender.
Saladin’s Mercy
Under the conventions of medieval warfare, Saladin had every right to sack the city, instead, he agreed to accept a peaceful surrender, allowing all the city’s inhabitants who could afford a ransom to leave the city unharmed, including Balian and his family.
In fairness, this came after Balian threatened to massacre Jerusalem’s remaining Muslim population if the city was sacked. Even so, Saladin also ensured Christian holy sites were left in peace, save for restoring former mosques that had been converted into churches. The relatively peaceful recapture of Jerusalem stands in stark contrast to the brutal sack wrought upon it by the Crusaders of the First Crusade.
Saladin’s merciful actions ensured his strategic success while also making him appear a just and reasonable opponent to the Crusaders, while simultaneously still the great defender of Islam to his allies. In the end, he had achieved the ultimate goal of once again retaking Jerusalem and tipping the balance of power in favor of the Muslims against the Christians. Yet the struggle for the holy land was not over.
The Crusader state of Jerusalem still had one major holdout, namely the well-defended port city of Tyre. Strategically, Saladin could have taken Tyre before Jerusalem, effectively cutting Jerusalem off from any reinforcements by land or sea. Instead, Saladin aimed for the political and propaganda victory of taking Jerusalem first, considering this his main goal. However, while Saladin focused on Jerusalem, another Crusader leader, Conrad of Montferrat, arrived in Tyre with reinforcements and took charge of the city. Meanwhile, after taking Jerusalem, many of Saladin’s holy warriors and support from his Islamic allies began to slowly dwindle away, considering their religious obligations fulfilled.
Saladin besieged Tyre on November 2, 1187, but after two months of stout defense, his forces shrinking and exhausted after a long campaign, he abandoned the siege to consolidate his other gains. Conrad, for his part, made no attempt at a counterattack but did declare himself the new King of Jerusalem, with Guy de Lusignan still Saladin’s prisoner after Hattin. This, however, led Saladin to perform another, more questionable, act of mercy.
The Third Crusade
In the summer of 1188, Saladin released Guy from his custody. Perhaps Saladin felt sorry for Guy’s wife, Sybilla, who had constantly petitioned Saladin for Guy’s release. Perhaps Saladin hoped that Guy’s release would weaken Conrad’s position and sow division among the surviving Crusader states with two claimants to the throne of Jerusalem. Initially, this seemed accurate as Guy and Conrad spent the next year squabbling over who was king and who had authority over whom.
By early 1189, Guy gathered together an army of arriving knights from Europe and troops from the surviving Crusader states of Tripoli and Antioch. However, he then marched his forces not against Conrad and Tyre but to besiege the vital port city of Acre. If captured, Acre and Tyre would be the perfect staging posts for the full force of the European response to Saladin’s victory, which was already well on its way.
Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem sent shockwaves around Christendom. Pope Urban II reportedly dropped dead of a heart attack on hearing the news, and a new Crusade was swiftly called for. Europe’s three greatest rulers, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philippe II of France, and King Richard I of England, all answered the call. They each raised huge funds and armies through taxes, dubbed the “Saladin tithe” in England, for what is now known as the Third Crusade.
Though delayed by logistics and internal politics, all three Crusader armies were well on their way by the time Guy besieged Acre. Saladin was well informed of the rapidly approaching European reckoning and moved quickly to break Guy’s siege before it arrived. Despite growing instability in his own lands and waning support from his allies, Saladin gathered his forces and attacked Guy outside Acre in October, 1189. After a bloody stalemate, Saladin decided to dig in and pressure Guy’s forces from outside the city, essentially besieging the besiegers of Acre.
Fall of Acre and Battle of Arsuf
For 18 months, the city, Crusaders, and Saladin fought a brutal campaign of attrition. The Crusaders gained reinforcements from Conrad, who put aside his differences with Guy, and the first wave of Third Crusaders. However, Acre refused to fall, nor could they break through Saladin’s lines. Saladin, for his part, could not destroy the Crusaders outright. Then, in summer 1191, Philippe II and Richard I finally arrived in the Holy Land.
The struggle between Richard and Saladin, the two great champions of Christianity and Islam, is one of the most notorious in history. The fresh Crusader forces, armed with massive trebuchets named “Bad Neighbor” and “God’s Own Sling,” battered Acre’s defenses until on July 12, the city surrendered. Horrifically, a dispute over the ransoming of the garrison then led to over 3,000 of the city’s defenders being massacred, and Saladin could do nothing in response.
Richard, the Crusade’s de facto commander in chief, then marched out to recapture lost Crusader territory and, naturally, eventually retake Jerusalem. Saladin desperately harassed Richard’s march, trying to provoke him into another Hattin. However, Richard was too competent a general to fall for the bait, and kept his troops well supplied and disciplined on the march. Saladin then gambled on an all-out assault on the Crusader column at the forest of Arsuf. However, Richard, leading from the front, bloodily repulsed the attack, before moving on to take the city of Jaffa, a vital stepping stone towards Jerusalem.
All of Saladin’s great achievements appeared doomed by a stunning reversal of fortune. After doing all he could to avoid an offensive siege, he had let himself become bogged down in a defensive one. After his masterstroke of provocation at Hattin, the tables were grimly turned at Arsuf. However, Saladin still had some diplomatic tricks up his sleeve.
Saladin’s mercy and nobility had impressed the famously chivalric Richard, and at Acre the two leaders had opened up friendly diplomatic correspondence. Saladin also deployed his brother Al-Adil as a direct negotiator, who greatly charmed Richard and the Crusaders and further burnished his brother’s reputation. At one point, Richard allegedly proposed marrying Al-Adil to his sister to secure a long-lasting peace. While this idea fell through, Saladin and Richard made good headway in organizing a peace treaty despite the continued battles and sieges.
Treaty of Jaffa
The truth was, while Richard was militarily gaining momentum, his situation was slowly destabilizing yet again, and the Crusaders were infighting. Richard fell out badly with Leopold of Austria, the Holy Roman Empire’s Crusade leader after Barbarossa died en route, while Philippe II abandoned the Crusade entirely. Meanwhile, Richard also had to mediate between Conrad and Guy, who were back to squabbling over the crown of Jerusalem, but as a distant relative of Guy, Conrad suspected his impartiality.
This political headache makes Richard’s diplomacy with Saladin more understandable. It is possible that Saladin and Al-Adil were friendlier to Richard than his own allies. However, despite the talks, Richard continued campaigning, marching within sight of Jerusalem in late 1191 but turning back due to bad weather and a refusal from Conrad to provide reinforcements. In April 1192, the political situation got worse when Conrad was elected king by the Crusader nobility but was then assassinated just eight days later. Richard and Guy were heavily suspected, though it was never proved.
Nevertheless, a few weeks later Richard again marched within sight of Jerusalem, but again he halted. The militarily savvy Richard was wary of rushing on Jerusalem as Saladin had done, and potentially overextending himself, so instead planned to take the fight to Saladin by invading Egypt. This was militarily brilliant, but politically and symbolically, Richard had miscalculated.
Many of the Crusader commanders were incensed at twice coming within sight of Jerusalem without even attempting to retake the city. The Crusaders were split into two, and eventually, the whole army retreated as neither side could achieve its goal without the other. Saladin then made an abortive attempt to retake Jaffa but was again repulsed. Both sides now appeared spent from the fight, so Al-Adil once again travelled to Richard’s camp to see about terms.
In September 1192, Richard and Saladin signed the Treaty of Jaffa. The treaty agreed to new borders between the kingdoms while Saladin kept Jerusalem in exchange for allowing Christian pilgrims safe passage to the city. It is possible to view Saladin as agreeing to the treaty out of desperation, but both sides agreed to compromises. In any case, Jerusalem remained in Saladin’s hands thanks in the end to diplomacy, Crusader disharmony, and, ironically enough, Richard’s own strategic competence.
Conclusion
Saladin died just six months after signing the Treaty of Jaffa, exhausted by over a decade of constant warfare. Though Saladin had not completely destroyed the Crusader states, there is no denying the scale of his achievements. He had recaptured Jerusalem, and even after the Treaty of Jaffa, he had tipped the balance of power in the region firmly away from the Crusaders.
It would take just over a century for the Crusaders to be fully removed from the Holy Land, but even with several more Crusades from Europe, after Saladin, the Crusader fortunes trended firmly downwards.
One can argue that Saladin had an enormous advantage with his stable power base, short logistic lines, and nearby allies compared to the disunited Crusaders and their relatively distant support network. Yet a lesser leader could have easily squandered these advantages.
Having forged his own kingdom and dynasty, he could have been content to reap the rewards of his success. However, this relative upstart, of no particular family or great dynasty, convinced rulers who could have seen him as a threat to support him as the champion of Islam who would retake the Holy Land. Simultaneously, he continued diplomatic correspondence with his Christian foes and made clear his willingness to consider peace.
This highlights that perhaps Saladin’s greatest strength was his political skill and eye for symbolic gestures, as seen with his victory at Jerusalem and repeated acts of mercy. Tyre may have been a better military target, but then Saladin may have found his religious war stalling in fervor as Richard had done. Similarly, his decision to release both Guy and Balian may have been a strategic mistake, but they went a long way to changing Crusader perspectives on Saladin, leading to his long-term success in achieving peace while keeping Jerusalem.
In fact, Saladin’s adherence to principles of mercy and justice appears ironclad. He was generous to a fault, giving away so much wealth that at his death he didn’t have enough money to even cover his funeral expenses, and was both extremely pious but also religiously tolerant. A leader who follows such principles and matches them also with the political and military brilliance Saladin demonstrated is very rare indeed.
