THE LIFE OF SALADIN AND THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM
CHAPTER
XXI
1192.
HARDLY
had the Crusaders retired, when an ambassador to Saladin was announced from
Henry “King of Jerusalem”. He sent to inform the Sultan that the King of
England had given him all the lands he had conquered on the coast:
“Give
me back, therefore, my [other] lands”, was his modest request, “that I may make
peace with thee, and become as one of thy children”. Saladin was so furiously
indignant at this demand, coming hard after an ignominious retreat, that he
could hardly keep his hands off the ambassador. He controlled himself with an
effort, and sent the envoy away on the 6th of July with the reply that, as the
successor of the Marquess, Henry must conform to Conrad’s agreement, and that
nothing beyond Tyre and Acre could be the subject of discussion. Three days
later another but very different message came from Richard himself,
recommending “his sister's son Count Henry” to Saladin's good graces, and
urging an arrangement in a friendly and conciliatory spirit.
The
Sultan’s council were all for peace, and an amicable answer was returned:
Saladin would treat Henry “as a son”, give up the Church of the Resurrection to
the Christians, and divide the country; the coast would belong to the Franks,
the hills to the Saracens, as then, and the lands between would be shared
equally between them; but Ascalon would be demolished, and belong to neither
side. Yet a third and a fourth embassy arrived within a few days, with a present
of falcons from Richard; their object was to discuss details and above all to
retain Ascalon. Saladin, however, remained firm; he offered Lydda in exchange,
but Ascalon must inevitably be dismantled. On this rock the negotiations
foundered. Richard refused to let a single stone of Ascalon be pulled down.
1192] Assault of Jaffa.
The
King of England and most of his army had retired to Acre, where they were
eagerly preparing to return to Europe, heartily sick of campaigning. Richard
intended to embark at Beyrut, which he proposed to seize by a coup de main.
Saladin, hearing more of the meditated raid upon his city than of the sailing
that was to follow, took the opportunity to make a dash upon Jaffa. Leaving
Jerusalem on the 27th of July, he was before the walls of Jaffa the same day.
He met more resistance than he expected, but after three days’ hard sapping and
bombarding, in which Saladin himself took a vigorous part, the curtain was
breached and the Saracens rushed forward to the assault. They were met by a wall
of steel; when one man fell, another took his place. The constancy and courage
of the garrison filled the Moslem chronicler with admiration. What soldiers
they were, he cries, how undaunted and valiant! At last, however, there was no
hope of keeping out the besiegers, and a capitulation was arranged on the same
terms as at Jerusalem five years before. But the Moslems were hot with battle;
they were in no mood for quarter; and Saladin confessed that he could not hold
them. “Retire to the Citadel”, he told the besieged, “and give up the town, for
nothing will stop the Moslems going in”.
It
was indeed no time for peaceful citizens to be about. The town was full of wild
Kurds and Turkmans, ranging the streets sword in hand, and plundering every
house they entered: “stores of fine stuffs, corn in plenty, even the remnant of
the plunder of the Egyptian caravan — all fell into their hands”. It is no
wonder that a few stray citizens were killed “by mistake”. In an orgy of
victory such mistakes are apt to occur. The Sultan meanwhile had received news
which made it urgently necessary to get his troops in hand. The officers
commanding the corps of observation near Acre sent word that on the very eve of
his departure King Richard had heard of the perils of Jaffa and was on his way
to the rescue. It was now essential to gain possession of the citadel, without
which the town could not be held; but the difficulty was to get the garrison
and refugees away. Though they had surrendered, they were not likely to leave
the safety of its walls without strong pressure, and the Moslems were gorged
with spoil and weary with looting, and paid no attention to Saladin's repeated
orders. He tried to get a force up to the citadel till late in the evening, but
he spoke to deaf ears.
All
night that worthy man, the secretary Baha-ed-din, lay sleepless with anxious
forebodings. At day-break Richard’s trumpets were heard at sea. The King was at
Acre, actually on the point of embarking for England, when breathless
messengers arrived from Jaffa, rending their garments, and bewailing the
extremity of their city. Richard did not wait to hear them out, but burst
forth, “As God lives and by His help, I will set out and do what I may”; the
herald sounded the assembly; knights ran to the summons; and with such force as
he could hastily gather the King instantly set sail. It was the trumpets on his
galleys that roused the Saracens on that Saturday morning.
1192] Richard Rescues Jaffa.
There
was no time to be lost. Saladin at once sent for Baha-ed-din. The man of peace,
who had surveyed so many bloody fights from his mule's back, not always at a
safe distance, was now entrusted with an aide-de-camp’s task. While Saladin
despatched troops to the shore to oppose Richard's landing, Baha-ed-din was to
help to secure the citadel and bring out the garrison. He was to take three
emirs and pick up the prince ez-Zahir, on the way. The prince was found asleep
in his armour, wrapped in his wadded gambeson; and, still but half awake, he
mounted his horse and joined the others. They rode through the glutted streets
and reached the citadel. On their summons to surrender, the garrison, who were
ignorant of Richard’s arrival, obeyed, and prepared to leave. Had they been
allowed to go forth at once, the issue might have been different. But one of
the emirs, old Jurdik, who had served with Saladin in the invasion of Egypt
nearly thirty years before, was a man of bowels, and he declared that he could
not let the people go out from the citadel into the gathering crowd of Moslems,
where they would be robbed and roughly handled. He began beating back the crowd
to carve a safe retreat for the garrison, but the troops were in very
ill-humour and out of control. At last forty-nine of the garrison were gotten out,
with their horses and wives; but so much time had been lost in the hustle that
it was now nearly noon, and as they marched out, the fleet of Richard,
consisting of as many as thirty-five ships and fifteen swift galleys, could be
descried close in shore. This cheering sight gave the rest of the defenders new
courage, and one of them came up to Baha-ed-din and courteously informed him
that they had changed their minds. In a few minutes the walls of the citadel
were manned again; and the next thing was a charge of the garrison, which drove
the Moslems out of the town. They were soon chased back to the fortress, and
the place was furiously attacked; indeed so desperate was the situation, so
slow the succor, that they had jurt sent again to Saladin to beg for the same
terms as before, when the face of fortune changed.
At
this very moment the English galleys suddenly fell to their oars. Richard had
waited and wondered to see Moslem banners floating from the towers, and feared
that the citadel was already taken. The noise of the sea, the yells of the
combatants, the shouts of the Moslem battle-cries, drowned the appeals of the
men at bay. To land in face of the Saracen army, if nothing was left to be
rescued, was an adventure too foolhardy even for Coeur de Lion. In this uncertainty
and dismay, his quick eye caught sight of a man who plunged boldly from the
castle into the sea and swam lustily towards the fleet. He was soon pulled on
board, and proved to be a priest. “O noble King”, he panted, “the remnant
hunger for thy coming. They are borne down by the brandished swords of yonder
butchers; their necks are stretched out as sheep for the slaughter; they will
perish on the spot unless God helps them, through thee”. And he showed the King
where the garrison still stood at bay “in front of yonder tower”. That was
enough for Richard: “Perish the hindmost!” he shouted, and the King's red
galley pulled hard for the shore. Ere it was beached, Richard was up to his
middle in the sea; his knights leaped after him, and they set upon the Saracens
with might and main. Right and left the King laid men low with swinging blows from
his famous Danish axe. The Moslems scattered in all directions, the beach was
cleared: “under my very eyes”, says the astonished secretary, “they drove us
out of the harbor”. Up a stairway of the Templars’ house the King rushed alone,
and in an instant the English flag was waving on the walls, a signal of
salvation to the garrison. Down they came at the charge, and meeting their
deliverer hacking with his sword, as only Richard knew how to do, they all
joined together and soon there was not a live Moslem in the streets.
1192] Richard at Jaffa
What
Saladin was about to allow all this can only be guessed. He may have been
deceived by the long inaction of the fleet, and believed they dared not land in
face of his troops. At the critical moment he was called away, and it was the
man of peace who warned the general of his danger. “I galloped to the Sultan”,
writes the secretary, “and found him with the two envoys”, who had even then
come from the garrison to treat for terms. A whisper told Saladin what had
happened, but he went on talking lest the envoys should guess the truth.
Crowds
of fugitives running headlong past the tent left no further doubt, and the
Sultan formally ordered the retreat that was already a rout. The great bales of
booty were abandoned; the army vanished to Yazur; only Saladin himself remained
on the spot with a division of light cavalry.
Thus
was Jaffa taken and re-taken in two days.
The
gallant rescue crowned Richard’s Crusade with a glow of setting glory. He had
routed a Moslem army with a handful of heroes, and had put them to flight, with
three horses!
The
flight was over, but not the fight. Richard knew this as well as anyone.
Abu-Bekr the chamberlain went to visit him — evidently with proposals for a
truce — the very night of the rout, and brought back a quaint tale. He found
the King, he said, conversing in his jovial way with some of the Moslem emirs —
prisoners, probably — and reported his talk, half serious, half rallying: “Why
did this mighty Sultan of yours run off at the mere sight of me? By God, I was
not even in armour or ready for fight — I had only my boating-shoes on! Why did
you bolt?” Then he went on, “Great God, I thought he could not have taken Jaffa
in two months — and he did it in two days!” Addressing Abu-Bekr he said, “My
compliments to the Sultan and say that I beg him in God’s name to make peace.
There must be an end to all this. My country over the sea is in a bad way.
There is no use to us or to you in going on with this”.
1192] Proposals of Peace.
Saladin
did not reject the overture, but he narrowed the limits of negotiation to the
coast between Tyre and Caesarea. It was not the attitude of a beaten general.
Richard then proposed that the Sultan should fief him Jaffa and Ascalon,
whereby he would become his “man”, after the custom of the Franks, and he and
his troops would be at Saladin’s service.
As
the King was soon going away, the proposed vassalage (even if truly reported)
could hardly be of much value, but Saladin did not wholly reject it; he offered
to give Jaffa and keep Ascalon. On Sunday an ambassador came to Ramla,
reiterating the demand for Ascalon. Saladin’s reply was given without hesitation:
“We cannot give up Ascalon, he said, and your King cannot go away as he
proposes without leaving all the country he has won to fall into our hands. If
he can spend a winter here, far away from his country and his people, when he
is still in the midst of his youth and pleasures, how much more can I stay
here, both winter and summer?” “I am in the heart of my own country”, he added,
“my children and folk are about me, I can obtain all I wish. And I am an old
man; the pleasures of this world are nothing to me — I have enjoyed them to the
full and have renounced them utterly . .. I believe in my soul that I am doing
the best of good works, and I will not desist until God grants the victory to
whomsoever he willeth”.
This negotiation split upon the rock of Ascalon, like its predecessor. Possibly it was merely intended to gain time, for on the Monday there was a report that reinforcements were marching from Acre to the King’s support. Saladin sent his baggage into the hills, and taking only his cavalry went out to meet the new danger. The Franks, he found, had already reached safety at Caesarea; and leaving them there, he turned back and resolved to make another attempt upon Jaffa. The Saracens were now well aware of the weakness of the force from which they had fled on Saturday, yet even so, they preferred to seek the advantage of a surprise. A certain Genoese prowling about at daybreak on Wednesday (8 Aug.) heard the neighing of horses and the tramp of men, and saw the glitter of steel in the slanting rays of the sun. Running back to the camp he gave the alarm, and the knights sprang out of their beds. They had no time to gird all their armour on. Richard and many others went forth with no guards to their eyes; some had no breeches and the keen morning air struck cold upon their naked thighs; each picked up the weapon nearest to hand and sallied forth.
1192. Battle of Jaffa.
The
King had only fifty-four knights in all, of whom only fifteen had horses, and
some two thousand stout soldiers; but at their head stood Henry of Champagne,
the Earl of Leicester, Bartholomew de Mortimer, Ralph de Malo-Leone, Andrew de Chavigny,
Gerard de Furnival, and many another trusty sword. The Saracens came on at the
gallop in seven divisions, each of a thousand horsemen; but their spears
rattled upon an iron fence. Behind a slight palisade, hastily set, of
tent-pegs, to hamper the cavalry, the Franks were formed up on one knee to
receive cavalry, the butts of their spears firmly planted in the earth, their
shields locked before them. Between each pair Richard placed an archer, who
plied his cross-bow over the shields; another man stood behind to stretch and
load a spare bow. Squadron upon squadron came thundering on, only to be brought
up sharply by the wall of spears.
For
a time they sat like paralyzed men, locked spear to spear, able only to shout
and curse, and at such close quarters that no one loosed a bowstring; then they
sullenly wheeled off. Five or six times the charge was repeated, with the same
result; but at last, at three in the afternoon, Richard made his cross-bowmen
pass through to the front and deliver a volley of bolts at the galloping line.
The spear-men then let the archers pass between them, and following up the
attack completed the discomfiture of the enemy. At the moment of retreat,
Richard sallied out with his fifteen mounted knights, and fell upon the
Saracens with his incomparable fury, cleaving heads and chopping off limbs in
every direction. In the heat of battle, he must have had his horse killed; for
suddenly a Turk rode up to him on a foaming charger, leading another; seeing
the King unmounted, Saladin had sent him two swift Arabs, thinking it shame
that so brave a warrior should fight on foot. Richard accepted them in the same
spirit, and the battle went on. Meanwhile the Moslems tried to seize the town
behind, but Richard with a handful of knights drove them out; the craven
galley-men made off in alarm, but the King brought them back to hold the town;
the day is one long record of Richard’s exploits. “Velut leo ferocissimus
invadit, invadendo prosternit, prostratos interficit”. Nor is this the
coloured imagination of the Christian chronicler. Baha-ed-din admits the total
failure of the Moslem attack, which he ascribes to the clemency shown to the
garrison of Jaffa; some of the soldiers, he says, even taunted the Sultan — “Make
your slaves charge who beat off our people on the day we took Jaffa”. Whatever
the cause, Saladin could not get his men to return to the attack, and his secretary
tells, in admiration and disgust, how the King of England rode along the whole
front of the Saracen army, lance at rest, defying them, and not a man attempted
to touch him! Saladin at last left the
field in a fury, and on the Friday he was in Jerusalem ordering fresh
fortifications. He had now no faith in Richard’s going away without taking the
Holy City.
The
next day the Sultan was back at the camp near Ramla, praying for reinforcements:
he could not trust the men who had twice failed him. Supports came in the nick
of time — troops from Mosul, from Egypt, the old mamelukes of Shirkuh, the
levies from northern Syria: in a few days he had a new army to shame the men
who had skulked before Jaffa. But they were not needed. The King of England was
seriously ill; health, as well as troubles at home, urged a speedy move; the
other Crusaders were impatient to be off; the new King of Jerusalem and even
the two Military Orders refused to be responsible for the conquered cities on
the coast unless Richard were there to lead them: “they rejected his proposals
and walked with him no more”
1192. Richard's Sickness.
With
so small a following, and so many friends estranged; lying on a sick bed with “swarming
hordes of Turks” all round; the King
could only make terms with Saladin and go. The second failure at Jaffa had
taught the Sultan a lesson, and even with his fresh troops he was not eager to
carry on the war a outrance. There had been enough of fighting, in all
conscience, and no one could say that for five years the Moslems had not
trodden “the path of God” with the zeal
and endurance of martyrs. The illness of the King softened the hearts of
Saladin and el-Adil, always disposed to friendship with so frank and soldierly
an adversary. In his burning fever Richard craved for cooling fruit, and
Saladin constantly sent him pears and peaches and refreshing snow from the
mountains. It is said that el-Adil was afflicted at the King’s danger, and
Richard of Devizes relates a pretty tale of one of his visits to the sick man’s
tent:
“Meanwhile
there came down to see the king, as was his wont, a certain gentle Saffadin,
Saladin's brother, an old soldier, very courteous and wise, and one whom the
king's magnanimity and munificence had won over to his side. When the king's
servants received him with less glee than usual, and would not admit him to
speech with their master, he said: By the interpreter I perceive ye are in
great sorrow, nor am I ignorant of the cause. My friend your king is sick, and
it is for this reason ye close the door against me. Then bursting into tears, 'O
God of the Christians', he said, 'if thou indeed be God, thou canst not suffer
such a man, and one so needful, to die so early”.
It
is a pity, but it is quite certain that el-Adil was never at Jaffa during the
King's illness.
It
was to el-Adil, nevertheless, though he lay ill at Mar Samwil, that Richard
turned in his distress; he begged him to make “the best terms he could” with
Saladin. “Ask my brother, el-Adil”, he urged Abu-Bekr the chamberlain, “to see
how he can bring the Sultan to make peace, and beg him to leave me Ascalon”.
But Ascalon was not to be his. Diplomacy was busy from Friday the 28th of August
to the following Wednesday; a swift courier sped between el-Adil and the two
camps; and finally the treaty of peace for three years was signed on the 2nd of
September, 1192. The coast cities he had conquered from Acre to Jaffa were
given to the King of England; Ascalon was to be demolished; Moslems and
Christians were to pass freely in each others’ territories, and pilgrims might
visit the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. When the messenger placed the draft
treaty in his hands, the King was very ill and said, “I have no strength to
read it, but here is my hand on the peace”. When the embassy came for the
signing, Richard gave his hand to each, and they all pledged their word to him.
He would not take an oath himself, saying that it was not the way of kings, but
Henry of Champagne, King though he was, Balian of Ibelin, the knights of the
Temple and Hospital, and all those present, took the oath.
1192. Treaty of Peace
In
the evening the Franks sent their ambassadors for the Sultan’s ratification,
and the next morning Saladin gave his hand on it, and the peace was proclaimed
throughout the camp. “It was a joyful day: God alone knoweth the measureless
delight of both peoples”.
King
Richard went on board his ship at Acre on the 9th of October: but before he
sailed away he sent a message to his chivalrous adversary that when the three
years’ truce was over he would come again and rescue Jerusalem; and Saladin
said in answer that, if he must lose his land, he had liefer lose it to Richard
than to any man alive. And so they parted, and the land had rest.
 |