A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (59 page)

Raymond of Tripoli died about the end of 1187.
Soon after his escape from Hattin he had fallen ill of pleurisy, though men
thought that his sickness was due to melancholy and shame. Many of his
contemporaries considered him a traitor whose selfishness helped to ruin the
kingdom; but William of Tyre and Balian of Ibelin both were his friends and
defenders. His real tragedy was the tragedy of all the Frankish colonists of
the second and third generation, who by temperament and from policy were ready to
become part of the Oriental world but were forced by the fanaticism of their
newly-come western cousins to take sides; and in the end they could not but
take sides with fellow-Christians. He had no children; so he bequeathed his
county to his godson Raymond, son of his nearest male relative, Prince Bohemond
of Antioch; but he stipulated that should a member of the house of Toulouse
come to the East the county must be his. Bohemond accepted the inheritance for
his son, then substituted the boy’s younger brother, Bohemond, for fear that
Antioch and Tripoli together might be more than one man could defend.

1187: The
Defence of Tyre

Indeed, there was soon little left of the
inheritance. On 1 July 1188 Saladin swept through the Buqaia, with
reinforcements newly come from Sinjar. He passed by the Hospitaller fortress at
Krak, which he thought too strong to attack. He moved towards Tripoli; but the
arrival there of the King of Sicily’s fleet deterred him. He turned north. At
Tortosa he stormed the town, but the Templars’ castle held out against him. He
pressed on, under the walls of Marqab, where the Hospitallers tried to dispute
his passage. Jabala surrendered on Friday, 15 July, Lattakieh on Friday the
22nd. Lattakieh had been a lovely city, with its churches and palaces dating
from Byzantine times. The Moslem chronicler, Imad ed-Din, who was with the
army, wept to see it pillaged and ruined. From Lattakieh Saladin turned inland
to Sahyun. The vast castle of the Hospitallers was thought to be impregnable; but
after a few days of fierce fighting it was taken by assault on Friday, 29 July.
On Friday, 12 August, the garrison of Bakas-Shoqr, well protected though their
castle was by stupendous ravines, surrendered when no help was forthcoming from
Antioch. On Friday the 19th the town of Sarminya fell. A few days later, on the
23rd, Burzey, the southernmost of the Orontes castles, capitulated. Its
commander was married to the sister of Saladin’s secret agent, the Princess of
Antioch. He and his wife were allowed their liberty. On 16 September the
Templar fort of Darbsaq in the Amanus mountains surrendered, and on the 26th
the castle of Baghras, which commanded the road from Antioch into Cilicia. But
Saladin’s army now was weary, and the troops from Sinjar wished to go home.
When Prince Bohemond begged for a truce which recognized all the Moslem
conquests, Saladin granted it to him. He could, he thought, finish off the task
whenever he chose. For all that was left to Bohemond and his sons were their
two capitals of Antioch and Tripoli and the port of Saint Symeon, while the
Hospitallers kept Marqab and Krak and the Templars Tortosa.

But farther south there was one other city that
Saladin had not taken; and therein he made his great mistake. The refugee
barons of Palestine were crowded now in Tyre, the strongest city of the coast,
joined to the mainland only by a narrow sandy peninsula, across which a great
wall was built. Had Saladin pressed an attack on Tyre as soon as Acre was his,
even this wall could not have arrested him. But he delayed just too long.
Reynald of Sidon, who then commanded the city, was negotiating the surrender;
and Saladin had even sent two of his banners to be displayed on the citadel,
when on 14 July 1187, ten days after the battle of Hattin, a ship sailed into
the harbour. On board was Conrad, son of the old Marquis of Montferrat and
brother of Queen Sibylla’s first husband. He had been living at Constantinople
but had been involved in a murder there; so he sailed secretly away with a
company of Frankish knights to pay a pilgrimage to the Holy Places. He knew
nothing of the disasters in Palestine and made for Acre. When his ship arrived
off the port the captain was surprised not to hear the bell that was rung
whenever a sail was sighted. He felt that something was wrong so did not cast
anchor. Soon a sloop with a Moslem port-official aboard came alongside; and
Conrad, pretending to be a merchant, asked what was happening, and was told
that Saladin had taken the city four days before. His horror at the news
aroused the Moslem’s suspicion; but before he could raise an alarm Conrad had
sailed away up the coast to Tyre. There he was welcomed as a deliverer and put
in charge of the defence of the city. Saladin’s peace-terms were rejected, and
his banners cast into the moat. Conrad was vigorous, ruthless and brave. He saw
that the city could be held till help came from the West, and he was confident
that on the news of the fall of Jerusalem help would surely come. When Saladin
appeared a few days later before Tyre, the vigour of the defence was too much
for him. He brought down the Marquis of Montferrat from Damascus and paraded
him before the walls threatening his death were the city not given up to him;
but Conrad’s filial piety was not strong enough to deflect him from his duty as
a Christian warrior. He was unmoved; and Saladin, with his usual kindliness,
spared the old man’s life. He raised the siege to march against Ascalon. When
next he appeared before Tyre, in November 1187, its fortifications had been
strengthened, some naval and military reinforcements had arrived, and the
narrow terrain prevented him from using his men and mangonels to advantage. Ten
Moslem ships were brought up from Acre; but on 29 December five of them were
captured by the Christians; and a simultaneous attack on the walls was driven
back. At a council of war Saladin listened to those of his emirs who pointed
out that his troops needed a rest. The winter was wet and cold, and there was
illness in the camp. On New Year’s Day 1188, Saladin disbanded half his army
and retired to conquer the inland castles. Conrad’s energy and confidence had
saved the city and with it the continuance of the Christian kingdom.

1187: Saladin’s
Honour

Saladin was later to regret very bitterly his
failure to capture Tyre. But his achievements had already been tremendous. Whether
his triumphs were due to the inevitable response of Islam to the challenge of
the intruder Franks, or to the far-sighted policy of his great predecessors, or
to the quarrels and the follies of the Franks themselves, or to his own
personality, he had given proof of the force and the spirit of the East. At the
Horns of Hattin and the gates of Jerusalem he had avenged the humiliation of
the First Crusade, and he had shown how a man of honour celebrates his victory.

APPENDIX II

THE BATTLE OF
HATTIN

The battle of Hattin is described at some
length by the Latin and Arabic sources, but their stories are not always in
harmony. I have attempted above on pp. 455-60 to give a consistent and probable
account of the battle, but the divergences need to be recorded. It is
unfortunate that the only writers who appear to have been present at the
battle, apart from the Templar Terence (or Terricus) who wrote a brief letter
about it, and some Moslems whose letters are quoted by Abu Shama, are Ernoul,
who as Balian of Ibelin’s squire presumably accompanied his master and escaped
with him, and Imad ed-Din who was in Saladin’s entourage. But Ernoul’s original
account has been tampered with by Bernard the Treasurer and the other
continuators of William of Tyre; and Imad ed-Din’s account, though vivid at
times, is apt to be rhetorical rather than precise. The account of the crisis
of the battle given by Saladin’s son, al-Afdal, to Ibn al-Athir is vivid but very
short.

The
Estoire d’Eracles
is the only source
to make it clear that King Guy held two separate councils before the battle,
one at Acre, probably on 1 July and one at Sephoria on the evening of 2 July.
Raymond of Tripoli spoke on both occasions, and the two separate speeches
quoted in the
Estoire
no doubt give the gist of his actual words. But
the
Estoire
must be wrong in saying that the council at Acre was called
after the Countess of Tripoli had sent to announce Saladin’s capture of the
town of Tiberias, as Saladin entered Tiberias on the morning of the 2nd; and
Raymond does not mention Tiberias in his speech at Acre but merely advises a
defensive strategy. Ernoul, as edited by Bernard the Treasurer, ignores the
first council. Bernard probably took it upon himself to decide that Raymond’s
two speeches were made on the same occasion. The
De Expugnatione
also
only mentions the second council. Raymond’s second speech was known to Ibn
al-Athir, who gives it in almost the same words as the
Estoire d’Eracles
,
Ernoul and the
De Expugnatione.
Raymond’s advice is therefore certain,
though Imad ed-Din believed that he had urged the attack, and later writers of
Richard Coeur de Lion’s entourage who favoured Guy of Lusignan accuse him of
treachery. Ambroise and the
Itinerarium Regis Ricardi
both suggest that
Raymond lured the army on because of an agreement with Saladin, and the same
charge is made in the letter of the Genoese to the Pope, and later by the
Syriac Bar-Hebraeus.

Imad ed-Din says that the Countess of Tripoli
had her children with her at Tiberias. But Ernoul says that Raymond’s four
stepsons escaped with him from the battle, and the letter of the Genoese
reports their anxiety to rescue their mother at the council before the battle.

King Guy decided to move from Sephoria at
Gerard of the Temple’s request. This is clearly stated by the
Estoire
and Ernoul but glossed over by the author of
De Expugnatione,
who for
some reason never wished to blame the Templars, to judge from his moments of
reticence. Raymond, as lord of the territory, was required to advise on the
route to be followed and chose the route through Hattin. This advice, which
proved disastrous, was the excuse for Raymond’s enemies to denounce him as a
traitor. We are told in the letter of the Genoese and in the Hospitallers’
circular letter on the battle of six traitors, who were apparently Raymond’s
knights — one was called Laodiceus or Leucius of Tiberias — and who told
Saladin of the state of the Christian army. It is, I think, probable that their
treachery took place at this juncture and lay in telling Saladin of the route
chosen by the Christians. It is difficult to see what useful information they
could later have given him. Both the
Estoire
and Ernoul blame Raymond
for choosing the camping ground before Hattin. He believed that there was water
there, but the spring was dry. The author of the
De Expugnatione
gives a
fuller story. He says that Raymond, in the van, recommended hurrying on to the
lake, but the Templars, in the rearguard, could go no farther. Raymond was
appalled at the King’s decision to encamp and cried out ‘We are lost!’; but as
the decision was made he presumably chose the camping site on the mistaken
belief that there was water there. Imad ed-Din reports Saladin’s joy at the Christian
army’s movements.

The actual site of the camp is uncertain. The
De
Expugnatione,
the
Itinerarium
and Ambroise call it the village of
Marescalcia or Maresallia — perhaps the Khan of Meskeneh preserves the name? — while
Imad ed-Din and Beha ed-Din call it the village of Lubieh, which lies on the
present road, two miles southwest of the Horns of Hattin. The Arab authors call
the battle the battle of Hattin (or Hittin) and make it clear that the final
scenes were enacted on the Horns of Hattin. The
Annales de la Terre Sainte
calls the battle Karneatin (i.e. Qarnei Hattin, the Homs of Hattin). Ernoul
says that the battle was fought at two leagues’ distance from Tiberias. The
Horns are in fact about five miles from Tiberias as the crow flies and about
nine by road.

Imad ed-Din says that the Saracen archers began
to fire arrows at the Christians on the march and complicates the story by
saying that it was on the Thursday, because he wanted the battle to have taken
place on a Friday. Ernoul and the
Estoire
refer to heavy losses suffered
by the Christians on the march. It is uncertain when the ground was set on
fire. Ibn al-Athir implies that the fire was started by accident by a Moslem
volunteer, and both he and Imad ed-Din make it clear that the fire was raging
when the battle began on the morning of 4 July. Imad ed-Din gives a vivid
picture of the prayers and songs in the Arab camp during the night.

On the morning of the battle the Frankish
infantry tried, according to Ibn al-Athir, to rush towards water. Imad ed-Din
says that owing to the flames they could not advance towards the water. The
De
Expugnatione
says that the infantrymen made off at once in a solid mass up
a hill away from the knights and refused to come back at the King’s orders,
saying that they were dying of thirst. There they were all slaughtered. Ernoul,
on the other hand, says that they surrendered, though five of Raymond’s knights
went to Saladin to beg him to kill them all. It may be this action was
considered to be the treachery referred to by the Hospitallers (see above),
though as Ernoul puts it, it might as well be a plea for a quick death for
mercy’s sake. Beha ed-Din merely says that the Christian army was separated
into two parts, one of which, presumably the infantry, hemmed in by fire, was
all killed, while the other, the knights round the King, was captured. The
Moslem authorities all say that before the attack on the Frankish knights
opened there was a single combat between a mameluk and a Christian knight, in
which the former, wrongly believed by the Christians to be the Sultan’s son,
was slain.