THE LIFE OF SALADIN AND THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SIEGE OF ACRE.

1189-91.

AFTER the battle Saladin failed to push his victory home. He even allowed the panic-stricken enemy to throw up earthworks and entrench themselves more securely, whilst he let his men rest, and restored order in the rifled camp. The army, it seems, was in no mood to follow up its success. It was exhausted, and the robbing of the camp by their own followers (who left little or nothing for the pursuing Templars) had exasperated the men. A week later a council of war was held, and the Sultan addressed the generals:

“In the name of God, and praise be to God, and blessing on the Apostle of God.

“Know that this enemy of God, and our enemy, hath entered our country and trampled on the soil of Islam: but already the star of victory (if God please) hath gleamed upon us. There remains but a handful of their force, and we must diligently destroy it. By God, it is our bounden duty! Ye know that this our army can now look for reinforcement only to el-Melik el-Adil, who is coming. As for the enemy, if it is left to hold its position till the sea is open, vast increase will come to it. My judgment is that we fight them. Each of you give his”.

The council was divided, and there was much debate, but at last it was resolved to withdraw the army to the hills, to give the men rest, after fifty days under arms; when they were refreshed and the deserters had been brought in, the attack should be renewed. Once more Saladin allowed his sound judgment to be overruled by the council. He may have been more in their hands than is acknowledged; he certainly had a difficult task in keeping together so mixed a force and reconciling the jealousies and discontent of rival leaders and races. But the best explanation of his yielding to so unsoldierlike a decision, is that he was seriously ill. He was subject to violent attacks of what the Arab chroniclers call “colic”, — more probably the malignant Syrian fever, — and his doctors joined the emirs in counseling a change of air. The constant fatigues and anxieties of the past two years had told heavily upon him. He was over fifty, and he had worked harder than any of his men. His long rides over the country and exposure to all weathers, the winter sieges he had undertaken, the forced march upon Acre in a sultry August, and at last the daily encounters with the Franks, where he was always in the thick of the fight, carrying heavy armour, and for days was too preoccupied to think of proper food  — all this was enough to wear out a younger man. But for this untoward weakness, Saladin might have insisted on carrying out his plan, and the result could hardly have been doubtful. Broken in spirits and crippled by the loss of thousands of their men, shut in between the Saracen army and the well-armed walls of Acre, the Crusaders must have suffered a second Hittin, from which there was no recovery: they must have been driven into the sea. The fatal error before Tyre was repeated before Acre. The Franks were given time to entrench themselves, and to hold the ground till reinforcements came. The siege might have been brought to a summary end on the 5th of October, 1189, instead of dragging on its weary length for nearly two more years, crowned at last by the victory of the Crusaders.

1189] Retreat to the Hills.

The retreat to the hills of el-Kharruba on October 16th meant more than a temporary rest. The rains began, and nothing further was done until the spring. The winter months were spent by the Franks in strengthening their position by digging a great trench, not without harassing interruption, and by Saladin in beating up recruits. El-Adil joined him with an Egyptian contingent, and Admiral Lulu, coming to Acre with fifty sail from Alexandria, captured a couple of valuable prizes, and landed a naval brigade of 10,000 sailors to harass the enemy. Fighting soon became out of the question, as the mud was so deep that the two armies could not get at one another. The Sultan visited Acre again in great state, and looked to its defenses and stores, and then, dismissing his troops to their homes, remained at el-Kharruba with his guard till the spring reopened the sea and the roads. Meanwhile a fresh cause for anxiety had arisen. News had arrived of the march of Frederick Barbarossa through Asia Minor, and the letter of the Armenian Catholicos — who, like the Emperor of Constantinople, was on the side of Saladin — announcing the tragical death of the old Crusader, also informed the Sultan that Frederick’s son was leading the army on into Syria. Had the extreme weakness of the remnant of the German host been known to the Sultan, he would hardly have crippled his fine army by sending a large division to cut off their approach. In response to his appeal and the efforts of his secretary Baha-ed-din, who visited the Caliph and the princes of Mesopotamia in the winter, and summoned all men to the Holy War, the troops from Aleppo, Harran, Sinjar, Jezira, Mosul, and Irbil, had been pouring into his camp (now at Tell el-Ajjul near el-Ayyadiya) all May and June. The Caliph of Baghdad had sent lances and arrows and machines that discharged burning shafts. But the Syrian contingents were almost immediately sent north again to meet the imaginary danger of the German invasion, and the more urgent necessity of crushing the besiegers — who were really themselves closely besieged by the Moslems — before they could be reinforced, was neglected. The Crusading army must have been more formidable in reality than it reads in the chronicles to have thus intimidated the Saracens; indeed, the account of the eight days’ fighting at Pentecost shows that the two sides must have been fairly matched.

1190] Henry of Champagne Lands.

Saladin's mistake became painfully obvious when Henry of Champagne effected his landing at the end of July, with 10,000 men, and a number of knights, nobles, and fighting prelates. Up to this time the situation had remained unchanged; though partly surrounded, Acre was not cut off from communication with Saladin's forces, which in turn surrounded the enemy; and the skirmishes and sallies, the attacks on the trenches and destruction of siege-engines, had on the whole been in favor of the Saracens. The ingenuity of a young coppersmith of Damascus, who possessed the secret of making a kind of Greek fire, which burned up the enemy’s siege-towers and machines, delighted Saladin, and still more did the young man's answer, when he offered him riches, that he would take no reward for what he had done in the cause of God. A fleet from Alexandria had successfully fought its way into the harbor in June, and replenished the stores of the besieged; and an attempt to surprise the right wing of the Moslem camp, weakened by the departure of the troops for the north, was repulsed by el-Adil with very heavy loss on the feast of St. James (25th July). At least four thousand of the Christians fell on that day, by their own admission; but the Arabic eyewitnesses estimated the loss at more than double. Among the slain were some women in armour, who had fought valiantly beside the knights. Imad-ed-din long afterwards recalled the piercing screams of a woman whom he saw dying on the field. But Saladin evidently did not feel himself strong enough to order a general assault of the King's entrenchments; the Franks could not be tempted again to risk a pitched battle; and two days after this engagement Count Henry arrived and took command of the army.

This large reinforcement, the first of several soon to follow, changed the situation. Saladin drew his army off once more to the hills (1 August), and Acre was so far cut off that communications could only be maintained by the pigeon post, by strong swimmers, or by swift skiffs at night. It was small consolation to the Sultan to receive a friendly letter from his futile ally, the Greek Emperor Isaac, bidding him  not let the coming of the Germans weigh heavily on your hearts: “their plans and purposes will work their own confusion”; the French at least were already on the spot and had put Acre under strict blockade. Saracen ships indeed still forced their way in to the relief of the garrison; one was smuggled in under a French disguise, but generally they had to run the gauntlet. One such adventure happened in September. Three Egyptian dromonds or ships of burthen opportunely arrived, when there was not enough food in the city to last another day. The Christian galleys were upon the new-comers in a moment. The beach was lined with the Moslem army, calling aloud upon God to save the ships. The Sultan himself stood there in an agony of suspense, watching the struggle, “like a parent robbed of his child”. The battle raged, but fortunately for the garrison there was a fair wind, and at last the three ships sailed into the harbor safe and sound, amid the furious shouts of the enemy and the loud thanksgivings of the Faithful.

1190] The Tower of Flies.

Once in port they were protected by the celebrated Tower of Flies, which stood on a rock at the entrance to the harbor, and effectually shielded every vessel that got past it. The Crusaders retorted by a determined effort to destroy this obnoxious defence. The Pisans among them, ever adroit in seamanship, rigged up turrets on their galleys, tall enough to overlook the Fly Tower, and to bombard or set it on fire, whilst a fire-ship was sent into the harbor to destroy the Saracen vessels which might put out to interfere.

The device, however, failed signally. The Pisans managed to grapple the tower, and to get their scaling ladders up, under cover of a heavy bombardment from their turrets; but just as they were counting on success, the defenders rallied, crushed the storming party on the ladders with great rocks, and throwing their Greek fire, set ladders, turrets, and galleys in a blaze, amid the derisive shouts of the Moslems. The fire-ship went astray on a foul wind and was easily extinguished and captured.

At the beginning of October the dreaded Germans made their appearance: Frederick Duke of Suabia arrived at Acre with a bare thousand men. Inconsiderable as was this relief, the presence of Barbarossa’s son raised the spirits of the besiegers, and his energy infused new zeal into the war. Nothing at first would content him but an engagement with the enemy in the open: but Saladin's advance guard, still posted at el-Ayyadiya, aided by the men of Mosul, who were ordered forward from Tell Keysan, beat back the Crusaders with little trouble. After this failure they turned their energies to pressing the siege with much ingenuity. For the first time they employed a battering ram — the garrison of Acre had evidently become very weak to allow them to get to close quarters: it was a huge beam with an iron head which weighed nearly three hundredweight, and had been constructed at great expense by the Archbishop of Besançon. Another ram, or bore, called the “cat”, with a plough-shaped pointed head, and a penthouse or “sow”  to cover a number of men, was also set to work; and a ship was fitted with a turret and draw-bridge, to be dropped on to the Fly Tower. A grand assault was made early in October; the new machines were dragged up to the city, and the assailants dropped into the fosse to scale the walls; when the garrison suddenly opened a heavy fire of arrows, fireballs, stones, and bolts from bows, mangonels, slings, and arbalests, and sallying out in desperation drove the Franks back; then laying naphtha to the cat and ram they set them ablaze, and finally dragged the flaming ram in triumph within the gate.

1190] The First English Fleet Arrives

The rejoicing of the garrison was almost immediately damped by the arrival of more reinforcements from Europe. At last an English fleet hove in sight.

Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, Bishop of Salisbury, and the Justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville, had reached Tyre with men and stores and money in September, and coming to the army before Acre on the 12th of October, announced that the Kings of England and France were verily on their way to the Holy Land. The Archbishop's chaplain gave a sorry picture of the Crusaders' camp:

“We found our army (I say it with grief and groaning) given up to shameful practices, and yielding to ease and lust rather than encouraging virtue. The Lord is not in the camp; there is none that doeth good. The chiefs envy one another, and strive for privilege. The lesser folk are in want and find no one to help them. In the camp there is neither chastity, sobriety, faith, nor charity — a state of things, which, I call God to witness, I would not have believed had I not seen it. The Turks are besieging us, and daily do they challenge us and persist in attacking us, while our knights lie skulking within their tents, and like conquered men let the enemy affront them with impunity. Saladin’s strength is increasing daily, whereas our army daily grows smaller”.

The coming of the English put some spirit into the “skulking knights”. The churchmen stirred up their zeal, if they could not mend their morals; the venerable Archbishop himself raised the standard of the holy martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, and sent the army forth with his blessing to do battle; whilst the Bishop of Salisbury and many other priests and prelates manfully took part in the fight.

A general action near the Spring Head (or source of the southern branch of the river Belus), about six miles south of Acre, began on “the morrow of St. Martin’s,” the 12th of November. The enemy’s object was to bring in provisions from Haifa, for they were running very short of food. Seeing them advancing in force, the Saracen outpost, after a sharp skirmish, withdrew from their usual station at el-Ayyadiya to Tell Keysan, and on the 13th, the army formed up in two positions almost facing each other and enclosing the enemy who nevertheless advanced to the Spring Head. Saladin's left wing stretched across from near the sea to the Belus, facing north-east, whilst the right, posted on the hills, faced west towards the river, which it touched on the east bank near the bridge of Dauk. The centre was thrown forward beneath Saladin’s reserve, which with his headquarters were on the summit of Mount Kharruba, whence he could view the whole plain below; and he also held the hill of Shafraamm, once a Templars’ stronghold. This situation was maintained on the 14th, when the Franks, hearing that there was no food at Haifa, turned back by the east bank and made for the bridge of Dauk. They were closely hemmed in by the Saracens all the way, whose light horse assailed them at close quarters with mace, sword, and lance, striving to break the solid and orderly formation f; and Saladin continually sent down supports from the hills behind; but they pluckily forced their way to the bridge, camped there for the night, and cutting it behind them on the morrow, retired much exhausted but in good order, and carrying many wounded, to their entrenchments. Here they were covered by their reserves, who came out under Godfrey de Lusignan, and drove back the Moslems’ pursuit. Conrad and Henry of Champagne had themselves led the expedition, but the Franks had suffered heavily. Among the killed was a knight whose appearance astonished Baha-ed-din: he rode a charger with housings of chain mail to its hoofs. Saladin’s picked guard had also lost severely.

1190] Battle at the Spring Head.

Indecisive as the action was, it encouraged the Saracens, who wished immediately to follow it up. It was evidently a critical test, of doubtful issue, for Saladin had sent his baggage for safety to the rear, towards Nazareth; and the fact that he was himself again ill with colic or fever, and could not take part in the battle, added to his anxiety. Yet he kept his invincible spirit; and when someone spoke of the sufferings and deaths of the Moslems from the unhealthy state of the plain, he quoted the Arab proverb, “ Kill me and Malik; kill Malik with me”, alluding to a famous historical combat in which the hero called upon his comrades to kill the adversary struggling with him on the ground, even if they also killed himself. Saladin was ready to die, with all his host, if only the Franks died too. Yet when some Crusaders of rank were taken in an ambush a little later, Saladin received them with stately courtesy, clothed them in robes of honor, gave them furs to keep out the bitter cold, allowed them to write to the camp for anything they wanted, and sent them in high good humor to Damascus. It was better to be the guest of Saladin than to shiver and starve in a Christian tent.

The winter of 1190-1, which stopped all active operations, was passed in great misery by the Crusaders. Many of their chiefs were dead. They had lost their Queen, Sibylla; Ranulf de Glanville, the earl of Ferrers, the earl of Clare's brother, among the English, were no more; and the aged Archbishop of Canterbury died in November, grieved unto death at the license around him. Conrad of Montferrat had attained the first step in his ambition by his unscrupulous marriage with Isabella, now the heiress to the crown of Jerusalem, whose divorce from Humphrey of Toron he had successfully contrived; he then withdrew to Tyre to nourish schemes of kingship, leaving the army before Acre to its fate. The English “Itinerary”  is full of curses upon the Marquess for his callous indifference to the perishing people, whom he might perhaps have relieved. For famine and disease were working havoc behind the entrenchments. Corn was selling for a hundred pieces of gold the sack, and a single egg cost six deniers. The greedy merchants kept up the prices, and the camp was starving. Blood horses were slaughtered for food, nor did the hungry people despise even the entrails of animals that died from age or disease.

1190-1] Sufferings of the Camp.

They ate grass like cattle, fought over the bakers’ ovens, gnawed the bare bones abandoned by the dogs. Even nobles were reduced to stealing, and a pitiful story is told of how two friends, having come to their last coin, spent it on the purchase of thirteen beans, and then, finding one bean bad, went a long way back to the seller to insist on his replacing it with a good one. A few even sought relief by going over to Islam. The prelates and some of the better nobles made contributions for the poor, but it was little they could do. This state of wretchedness, aggravated by the sickness and ague bred by perpetual rains, lasted until Lent, 1191, when at last the sea became navigable to the timid seamen of those days, and a cornship saved the camp from starvation.

Meanwhile Saladin had dismissed most of his army to their homes, and remained only with his own guard. The Mesopotamian princes were the first to leave in November: they had been with difficulty induced to stay so long. It was not to be expected that the vanquished descendants of Zengy should show much enthusiasm in their supplanter’s service; but apart from such natural jealousy. Oriental troops cannot endure being long separated from their wives and homes. The provisioning of Acre was Saladin’s chief occupation during the winter. The Christian galleys had gone to escort Conrad to Tyre for his wedding, and the city was open to the sea. An Egyptian convoy failed to get in in December, but el-Adil, stationed at Haifa, contrived to send in stores, and Saladin in February introduced a fresh garrison under a new commander. The new garrison, however, was smaller than the old; many more came out than went in; nor were the new-comers adepts in siege-work, and Saladin was accused of imprudence and carelessness in leaving too much to incompetent or interested subordinates. Probably he was still suffering from the effects of illness.

The relieving of Acre was not accomplished without assaults from the Franks, whose misery did not wholly paralyze their energy, for the famine was not then at its worst. On the other hand the garrison repulsed their attacks, and Saladin captured a few stray ships, aided by some deserters from the enemy’s camp.

So the weary winter months passed by. The spring found the contending forces in the same position: the city well garrisoned, and for the present sufficiently provisioned; Saladin on the hills, waiting for the return of his troops; the Christians, between the two, weakened, dispirited, and demoralized, but holding their entrenched camp unmolested, save for occasional sallies of the garrison or skirmishes with Saladin’s outposts. The summer brought a complete revolution in the relations of the two forces, and the Saracens were soon to find themselves no longer the besiegers of the besiegers, but the attacked. The Crusade of Richard Coeur de Lion was at hand.