The Crusader Strategy: Defending the Holy Land 0300253117, 9780300253115

Citation preview

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY

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THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Defending the Holy Land 1099–1187

Steve Tibble YALE UNIVERSIT Y PRESS NEW HAVEN AND LONDON iii

Copyright © 2020 Steve Tibble All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers. For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact: U.S. Office: [email protected] yalebooks.com Europe Office: [email protected] yalebooks.co.uk Set in Fournier MT by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935085 ISBN 978-0-300-25311-5 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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To Faith

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Foreword Abbreviations

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1 Strategy in a Medieval State: Do Fish Need Bicycles? 2 Prelude: A Time Before Strategy? 3 The Coastal Strategy: 1099–1124 4 The Hinterland Strategy: 1125–1153 5 The Ascalon Strategy: 1125–1153 6 Interlude: The Strategy of Repression? 7 The Egyptian Strategy: 1154–1169 8 The Frontier Strategy: 1170–1187 9 Reflections

1 18 28 66 121 141 176 221 272

Notes Bibliography Index

298 328 346

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Plates 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13

‘Arrivée de Louis IX à Limassol’, from Livre d’Eracles, also called Estoires d’Oultre-Mer, Guillaume de Tyr. Français 2634, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fol. 411r. Hauberk. CC0 1.0. Caesarea. CC BY-SA 2.0. Arsuf. CC BY-SA 3.0. Arsuf. CC BY-SA 4.0. Rudolf von Ems, World Chronicle – The Knitter, Charlemagne. St Gallen, Cantonal Library, Vadian Collection, VadSlg Ms. 302, fol. II_35v. CC BY-NC 4.0. Morgan Picture Bible. MS M.638, fol. 23v. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Knights fight on horseback at the Battle of Hastings while men clear up after the battle, Miscellaneous Chronicles. British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. XIII, fol. 3v. Western miners, MS M.638, fol. 43v. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Siege materials. MS M.638, fol. 27v. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. King Fulk’s seal, from Mémoires de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France (Paris, 1899), p. 308. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Bethgibelin castle. CC BY-SA 4.0. The crucifixion. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images. viii

ILLUSTRATIONS 14 15 16 17 18

Battle of Al Mansurah. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 5716. Philip Augustus arriving in Palestine. The Picture Art Collection / Alamy. Belvoir castle. CC BY-SA 4.0. Kerak castle. CC BY-SA 2.0. Benjamites take women of Shiloh as wives, MS M.638, fol. 17r. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Maps

Map 1 The Crusader States: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. After Barber, 2012. Map 2 The Crusader States: Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa. After Barber, 2012. Map 3 Nomadic Activity in the Middle East, c.1064–1100. After Barber, 2012. Map 4 The County of Edessa. After Barber, 2012. Map 5 The Ascalon Strategy. Map 6 A Pilgrim’s Journey: Hell on the Road to Heaven. Pringle, 1944 and 1998. Map 7 Egypt and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Barber, 2012. Map 8 The County of Tripoli. Barber, 2012.

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FOREWORD

The Crusader Strategy is in many ways a sequel to my previous book, The Crusader Armies. The latter examined the people involved in warfare in this extraordinary time and place, and the tactics they employed. It sought to challenge some of the modern misconceptions we have about the people of many different races and religious persuasions who gave their lives to defend the Holy Land. This book looks at the same warfare, and in the same environment, but from a different and complementary perspective: the world of ideas and planning, and the strategies that were developed to protect the remaining Christian communities of the Middle East. In doing so it too seeks to challenge our preconceived ideas, often unhelpfully shaped by our febrile but pervasive global media and the politics of the twenty-first century. Paramount among these ideas is the arrogant prejudice that the past was almost entirely populated by people who, because they did not have the resources which we take for granted, were somehow less intelligent than we are. Far too often we assume that medieval leaders (and the states they controlled) were intrinsically incapable of effective planning or strategic thinking. On the contrary, as we shall see, the opposite was generally true. The crusaders had extraordinarily limited resources, and every decision they made carried with it potentially catastrophic consequences. For these colonial societies on the very fringes of Christendom, there was very little room for manoeuvre and almost no scope for failure: every plan, every decision, had to count. Although they did not have the vocabulary to describe it as such, ‘strategic thinking’ was an essential part of their day-to-day survival. Strangely, the methodology I use in analysing much of the crusader strategy of the twelfth century is one which I was first introduced to in the world of advertising x

FOREWORD and corporate PR. Fresh from completing my PhD, I was being slowly and painfully trained as an ‘account planner’. An account planner (and there is no reason why you should know this) is someone who uses research to develop strategy on behalf of clients, trying to ensure that their advertising or PR campaign is operating along the correct lines. They also keep an eye on competitor activity, making sure that the client’s campaign works to exploit competitor weakness, and plays to their own strengths. The collective noun for the function is known in the industry – possibly affectionately, but probably not – as an ‘overhead’ of planners. The training was slow and painful – one can, after all, do only so much with the material one is given. But the most interesting of our initial training exercises was also one of the simplest, and the force of its logic has always stuck with me. We were given examples of competitor activity (ads, press coverage, brochures and so on). We were then told to deduce, on the basis of the materials in front of us, what the opposition’s strategy was. The results were occasionally useful or interesting, but the real value lay elsewhere. The true purpose was to teach us that although strategy is often unspoken or unarticulated, we should never assume that activity is unguided or random. Even though we could only see what was done rather than what was planned, we could still arrive at a good, approximate assessment of strategic intent. All resources are scarce, we were taught. And most people at least try to act in a rational and effective way. It is dangerous in the extreme to assume that careful plans and strategy do not exist, just because we do not have them in front of us. It has always seemed to me that medieval studies could benefit from such a simple exercise too. Chronicles tell us much about what people did. But they are often written in a breathless style. They hover on the surface of knowledge, without the analysis that would explain the actions of those they are writing about. And they are disproportionately written by men who have lived their lives in the church or the cloister, rather than in politics or the military. The effect is often to create a frenetic account of things that are done, with little sense of structure or of the broader purpose behind such actions. But at least they give us the basic evidence of activity. And from that we can try to deduce, together with access to all the other surviving evidence (letters, legal documents, archaeological studies and so on), what was being planned – teasing out the underlying strategy behind the activity. xi

FOREWORD It is this exercise which this book undertakes, using the example of those medieval states with which I am most familiar: the crusader states of the twelfth century. Showing that medieval states could develop and employ strategy, in the technical sense of the word, will, of course, come as no surprise to the specialist academics who work in the field of medieval military studies – many excellent books and papers have appeared in recent years, and the field is a particularly vibrant area of research. Leading academics such as John France, John Gillingham, Clifford Rogers, Stephen Morillo, Paul Chevedden, Matt Bennett, Bernard and David Bachrach, to name but a few, continue to shed new light on the subject. A small selection of some of their more relevant work is included in the bibliography.1 For the more general reader, however, for whom this book is primarily written, much of this work is less well known – the image of medieval societies in general, and the crusaders in particular, remains resolutely unreconstructed and unprogressive. If anything, the remorseless news coverage of the supposed current ‘clash of cultures’ between Islam and the West has only helped to harden assumptions about religious intolerance and mindless brutality among all the main players in crusading warfare. This book has been an absolute pleasure to write, partly because I’ve been thinking about it, on and off, for the past 30 years, and it is good to finally see it take up a life of its own on the page. But it has only been made possible by the help and support of so many friends and colleagues. My old friend Chris Marshall, the expert on crusading warfare in the thirteenth century, has been incredibly kind throughout and has made numerous important suggestions, pointing out many of the more glaring mistakes. Malcolm Barber has been as charming and helpful as ever, effortlessly prodding me in the right direction in his own authoritative but unpretentious way (while simultaneously introducing me to some of East Anglia’s better pubs – hard work, but someone has to do it). Two other experts, Tom Smith (papal policy) and Mike Fulton (siege warfare), have similarly made extraordinarily knowledgeable and helpful comments. My friends Charles Masefield and Martyn Millwood-Hargrave have been extremely kind in bringing their astute legal and scientific eyes to an early draft of the manuscript. More broadly, the academic community for crusader studies, particularly in the UK and in Israel, has been as supportive, charming and stimulating as ever. Conversations with Peter Pattinson, Jonathan Phillips, Andrew Jotischky, Peter Edbury, xii

FOREWORD Myra Bom, Ronnie Ellenblum, William Purkis, Andrew Buck, Bernard Hamilton, Susan Edgington and many others from the Institute of Historical Research seminar group on the Latin East have been invaluable. Alessandro Scalone and Ronan O’Reilly from the wonderful Royal Holloway MA course on crusader studies have provided much appreciated enthusiasm and fresh ideas, as well as occasional – much needed – refreshments. Heather McCallum and the Yale team have been an absolute pleasure to work with – encouraging, insightful and professional. As always, my family have been a treasure and a source of love and support in the writing of this book. Most importantly, however, the help, creative criticism and patience of my partner, Dr Faith Garrett, has made the whole process a delight – it is to her that this book is dedicated. London, 2020

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Baalbek

Beirut

i

n ta

Li Sidon

Damascus Marj Ayun Mt Hermon

Beaufort Tyre

Banyas

Toron

Scandelion

Darayya

Chastel Neuf

Montfort

Mediterranean Sea

GALILEE Safad

Acre

Jacob’s Ford

Sea of Galilee

Hattin Haifa Mt Carmel Nazareth Tiberias Destroit Mt Tabor Belvoir La Fève Caesarea Baisan

HAURAN

Habis Jaldak Der’a

Bosra

Yarm

ouk

SAMARIA Arsuf Jaffa Ibelin

Nablus Mirabel

Lydda Ramla Mont Gisard

Jerusalem Blanchegarde Ascalon

Jerash

Jordan

Sebaste

Yarbouk

Jericho

Ahamat (Amman)

JUDAEA Bethlehem Bethgibelin Hebron

M OA B

Dead Sea

T R A N S J O R D A N

Gaza Darum

Kerak

N E G E V

Montréal Li Vaux Moise Petra

S I N A I

0

miles 0

km

50

Ailah

Key

50

Map 1 The Crusader States: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

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Boundary of the kingdom

A S I A

M I N O R

rates

Euph

A N

T

A

U

Melitene

Gargar

S

U

R

T

U S U R A T I -

Behesni Marash

Sis

Samosata

Kesoun

COUNTY

C I L I C I A Adana

Tarsus

Duluk Aintab

Mamistra

Hromgla (Ranculat) al-Bira

OF Edessa

EDESSA

Rawandan

Kesas

Turbessel Quris

Harran

Kal’a Nedjm ‘Azaz

PRINCIPALI T Y

Buza’a

Nakira

Baghras Antioch

Mediterranean Sea

Manbidi

al-Bab

OF Artah Aleppo Qusair al-Atharib

Djebbul

ANT IO CH Kinnasrin

al-Rakka

s Oronte Latakia

Inab

Kafartab Apamea

Jabala

Shaizar

Valania Maraclea

Euphrates

Ma’arrat-an-Nu’man

S Y R I A

Hama

Marqab Raphaniya

Tortosa

Crac des Chevaliers

COUNTY

Homs

Arqa

Tripoli

OF Belmont

TRIPOLI

Gibelet Beirut

0

i

n ita

miles 0

L Sidon

Damascus Map 2 The Crusader States: Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa Tyre

Acre

Lake Tiberias

xv

km

100 100

ABBREVIATIONS

AA Anna AS BD

Caffaro

FC

GN IA

IJ JP

Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, ed. and trans. S.B. Edgington, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Anna Comnena. The Alexiad, trans. E.R.A. Sewter, London: Penguin, 2009. Abu Shama, Le Livre des Deux Jardins, in RHCr Or., vol. 4, Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1898. Baha’ al-Din Ibn Shaddad, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, trans. D.S. Richards. Crusade Texts in Translation, 7, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001. Caffaro, Genoa and the Twelfth-Century Crusades, trans. M. Hall and J. Phillips, Crusade Texts in Translation, 24, Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127, trans. F. Ryan, ed. H. Fink, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969. Guibert of Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos, trans. R. Levine, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997. Ibn al-Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athı¯r for the Crusading Period from al-Ka¯mil f ı¯’ l-ta’ rı¯kh, parts 1 and 2, trans. D.S. Richards. Crusade Texts in Translation, 13, 15, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, 2007. The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, trans. R.J.C. Broadhurst, London: Cape, 1952. Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 1099–1185, ed. J. Wilkinson, Hakluyt Society series II, 167, London: Hakluyt Society, 1988. xvi

ABBREVIATIONS KD RHCr Or. Or. Kamal al-Din, Extraits de la Chronique d’Alep par Kemal ed-Din, in RHCr., Orientaux, vol. 3, Paris, 1872, pp. 571–690. KD ROL Kamal al-Din, L’Histoire d’Alep, trans. E. Blochet, Revue de l’Orient Latin, 3 (1895), 509–565, 4 (1896), 145–225. L&J Lyons, M.C. and D.E.P. Jackson, Saladin. The Politics of the Holy War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. ME Matthew of Edessa, Armenia and the Crusades. Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries: The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, trans. A. Dostourian, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. MS Michael the Syrian, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199), ed. and trans. J.-B. Chabot, vol. 3, Paris: E. Leroux, 1905. Pringle I–IV Pringle, D., The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A Corpus, 4 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993–2009. Pringle Sec. Pringle, D., Secular Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. An Archaeological Gazetteer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Qal Ibn al-Qalanisi, The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, trans. H.A.R. Gibb, London: Luzac, 1932. RA Raymond d’Aguilers, Historia Francorum Qui Ceperunt Iherusalem, tr. J.H. and H.H. Hill, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1968. RC Ralph of Caen, Gesta Tancredi, trans. B.S. Bachrach and D.S. Bachrach, Crusade Texts in Translation, 12, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. RHCr Occid. Receuil des historiens des croisades (Collection of the Historians of the Crusades), Historiens occidentaux (Western Historians), 5 vols, Paris, 1844–95. RHCr Or. Receuil des historiens des croisades (Collection of the Historians of the Crusades), Historiens orientaux (Eastern Historians), 5 vols. RRH Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani 1097-1291, comp. R. Rohricht, Innsbruck, 1893. Additamentum, 1904.

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ABBREVIATIONS RRRH Rule

Usama WC

WT

WT Cont.

Revised Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani Database, http://crusadesregesta.com/ The Rule of the Templars: The French Text of the Rule of the Order of the Knights Templar, trans. J.M. Upton-Ward, Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1992. Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation, trans. P.M. Cobb, London: Penguin, 2008. Walter the Chancellor, The Antiochene Wars, trans. T. S. Asbridge and S.B. Edgington, Crusade Texts in Translation, 4, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. E.A. Babcock and A.C. Krey, 2 vols, Records of Civilization. Sources and Studies, 35, New York: Columbia University Press, 1943. The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade. Sources in Translation, trans. P.W. Edbury, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996.

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ONE

w STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE Do Fish Need Bicycles?

May 1, 1187. A searingly hot day in Galilee. The small column of crusader knights slowly left the track, horses picking their way across the uneven ground and occasional rocks. They spread out and moved into line. Men divided into their squadrons and jostled their way into position. Horses made the occasional complaint but the riders were unusually silent. Preoccupied. A ragged battle line took shape.1 Most of the men had fought together over many years, and slipped easily into place. They were elite warriors, Templar knights from the order’s castles at nearby La Fève and Caco.2 In an age of pre-industrial individuality, their uniformity of appearance emphasised the unusual consistency of their training and dogma. The rest of the men, 10 knights from the other main military order, the Hospitallers, and a few royal knights from the garrison at Nazareth, formed up into small, impromptu squadrons of their own. The men paused. Some looked to their front, to the yellow-grey landscape that stretched out before them. A harsh, metallic heat soaked the very moisture from their bodies. The more experienced knights tried to identify the areas of scrub, and the small dry gullies, that lay directly ahead of them, and which they would need to avoid when the order to charge was given. The younger men found distraction in making some final adjustments to their equipment: tightening up the straps on a shield, or testing the heft of a sword grip, making sure it did not slip or turn too much in their hands. Armour was always uncomfortable. But the dust and heat of a desert summer made it almost unbearable. The iron helmets lay heavily, painfully, over their heads. A claustrophobic tunnel vision added to their already severely limited view of the hazy plain. Sweat trickled relentlessly. It ran down into the men’s eyes, and from their armpits ran down inside their heavy hauberks. There was nothing to be done. 1

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY With helmets in place and mail gloves strapped on to protect the hands, everyone just had to bear it. The knights paused to compose themselves, to find a way to hide or channel their fears. Most tried to breathe deeply, to catch what little air was there to be had. The brutal dust-hazed sky blended effortlessly with the dirty yellow of the rocks and sand beneath their horses. The vivid colours seemed to mock them, emphasising how alien they were to this landscape, and just how fragile was their presence in it. Horses moved nervously, thirsty and edgy. They were skittish under the weight of their armoured riders, uncertain about what was in store. But mostly they were unnerved by the infectious smell of fear in the air. Gradually even the twitching of the mounts, the jangling of the bits and the harsh sounds of iron on iron died away. An eerie silence lay over the field, as heavy and suffocating as the iron helmets the men wore. Every face was concentrated. Getting a sense of enemy numbers at this distance and in the shimmering haze was always difficult. But even so, the men sensed something very different. They were used to being outnumbered, but never like this. The Muslim cavalry to their front were massed in thick blocks, line after line. They seemed to fill the horizon, with flags and standards moving lazily, fluttering slowly from side to side. This was not just going to be a tough encounter: it was going to be a catastrophe. But, strangely, the knights were not concentrating on the enemy. Instead, they were nervously looking at their own commanders. Something was dreadfully wrong. Their leaders were engaged in what was clearly an agitated and ill-tempered conference. Those closest strained to hear what was being said. Occasionally they did not even have to strain too hard: the voices were emotional, increasingly harsh. Those further away had to content themselves with reading the body language, punctuated by the sound of an occasional expletive. The discussion grew louder and louder. James of Mailly, a senior Templar commander, was arguing that their position was untenable. He kept saying, eventually shouting it with increasing desperation, that they needed to fall back towards the infantry they had left far behind, on the road out of Nazareth. Or back towards the relative safety of one of the local castles. They still had a chance of doing either. Reinforcements were mustering just a few hours’ march away. All they had to do was hold out for their arrival.3 2

STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE But Gerard of Ridefort, master of the entire Templar Order, was at the centre of the knot of mounted leaders. He dominated the chain of command and would brook no opposition. He was able to outrank and outshout every other knight on the field. Experience and common sense counted for nothing. Gerard had a well-deserved reputation for arrogance. His overweening sense of entitlement and colossal self-belief were exceptional, even by the standards of an organisation already famous across Europe for its pride and fanaticism.4 But if arrogance was Gerard’s most visible feature on the day, it was raw anger that drove and defined him as a man. Deep-rooted in bitterness, eating away at him from the inside, colouring the way he saw the world around him. A prism to distort his judgement. He had come to the Latin East as an upmarket mercenary, full, perhaps overfull, of ambition. He wanted what every arrogant, entitled young man of his class wanted: reputation, power, money and sex. In 1180 he had come tantalisingly close to achieving all this. He had been pursuing a marriage which could give him that lifestyle, and in the daughter of William Dorel, the lord of Botron, he thought he had finally found it. Rich heiresses were rare in the East, as were the estates that they brought with them. Gerard had much to gain – most importantly, the status that he knew he deserved and the respect of his peers that would go with it. Other knights looked down on him because he was landless, fighting for money, insecure about his prospects while men far less deserving got fat off the produce of the lands they had inherited. But the marriage never happened. At the last minute a rich Italian merchant offered more for her hand. Money was clearly the most important factor in the decision, but Gerard’s bloated egotism and his natural tendency to overplay his hand had not helped. He was ditched at the altar. The day that was supposed to be his greatest triumph turned into the disaster that defined his life. Gerard was devastated. Frustrated and publicly humiliated, he fell deeply ill and, on his recovery, joined the Templars. This proved to be the ideal conduit into which to channel his anger, bitterness and humiliation. Taking command at Cresson was a natural outlet for this deeply resentful, petulant man. He brushed aside all advice that conflicted with his own views. Moreover, he did so in a manner that was calculated to insult his fellow knights in the most fundamental way. When James of Mailly counselled caution, he taunted him by saying ‘that he was speaking like someone who wanted to flee’. There was no rational 3

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY response to such an emotional insult. James could only spit out ‘that he would remain on the field like a man’. As a man of his word, he did just that.5 All opposition was quashed. The other leaders angrily rejoined their men and the order to prepare for a charge was given. Ranks were tightened up. No one was permitted to leave the line under any circumstances. The last messengers returned to their squadrons, squeezing their way back in alongside their comrades. The Frankish column, about 130 cavalry in total, had set off in pursuit of Turkic raiders earlier in the day. The knights had been desperate to catch the intruders, eventually intercepting them near the Spring of the Cresson, one of the traditional watering holes and muster points for the Kingdom of Jerusalem.6 They should have been more careful about what they wished for. Having found them, the Templars realised that the ‘raiding party’ they were chasing was in fact a group of some 6,000 to 7,000 cavalry, commanded by Muzaffar al-Din, the lord of Harran and Edessa.7 There were several Muslim armies operating in the Holy Land in May 1187, and this was just a flying column that had broken away from one of them. The numbers involved were huge, dwarfing their Frankish opponents. Despite its size, a force like this did not even qualify as an ‘army’ in the Muslim sources: Ibn al-Athir merely described it as ‘a good-sized detachment’. But if this was a ‘detachment’, it was one which significantly outnumbered the entire mounted arm of all three crusader states put together.8 The squadron leaders’ banners were unfurled. The royal knights, and the squires of Nazareth, let loose their flags, with evocative emblems echoed on their shields and surcoats. The bright colours, their pride of family, pride of individualism, sang out down the line. The blues, the reds, the garish yellows, each colour shouted, ‘Look at me, look at what I will do. Remember me.’ The Templars’ flags, their famous ‘piebald banners’, could not have been more different. And deliberately so. Their stark black and white panels were a metaphor for all the clarity and conviction of the Templar Order. No room for compromise and no place for uncertainty: corporatist rather than individual. Binary colours – black and white in every sense. Right or wrong, bravery or cowardice, death or glory. God’s will, or his disfavour. With an air of grim inevitability, the lines moved forward at a walking pace. Standards languished half-heartedly on the airless plain, a pitiable flap here and there. A thin string of men and horseflesh. They were aimed squarely at the centre 4

STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE of the huge force in front of them. The vast numbers of Muslim cavalry outflanked the knights on all sides. The crusaders’ only chance, and a tiny chance at that, lay in killing the commander at the heart of the enemy army, and hoping that their opponents would all rout as a result. Or, less conclusively, perhaps hoping that they could punch their way through the enemy lines, and reach a nearby castle before the Turkic cavalry could regroup. But neither option was remotely realistic.9 As the crusaders speeded up into a trot, arrows started to rain down, doing little to damage the men, but inflicting cumulative carnage on their unprotected horses. The Turkic cavalry to their front flinched as they continued onwards, edging nervously backwards. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of the first fury of a Frankish charge. The fragile Templar line charged into the Muslim centre, smashing like a wave into the slowest of the ’askar (standing army) cavalry to their front. Turkic horsemen were thrust off their mounts, lances shattering on impact with their horses and armour. Swords were drawn as splintered lances were discarded. But the vast majority of Muzaffar’s men had simply advanced around and behind the tiny Templar squadron. As they did so, they loosed wave after wave of arrows, bringing down the vulnerable crusader horses. Close-quarters fighting continued across what remained of the chaotic line of knights, but the energy of the Frankish charge had been sustained and absorbed. The horses were out of breath or wounded and starting to fall. The knights were exhausted and surrounded. Line after line of fresh Muslim cavalry crashed into the Templar survivors from all sides. The outcome was inevitable. But the crusaders fought on as best they could. Survivors’ accounts suggest that two men battled particularly ferociously and, in the best traditions of their class, were recognised for their prowess and sacrifice. One was a ‘brother of the Hospital’ called Henry, ‘a very brave knight and fighter’. The other was the humiliated Templar leader, James of Mailly. Having failed to stop the madness of the charge, and having been goaded with accusations of cowardice for trying to do so, the fury of this ‘most renowned warrior’ was unrestrained. The two men charged and pushed through those who were in front of them. Eventually, however, even they were brought down by Turkic archers who ‘stood at a distance, hurling spears, missiles, and arrows’ at them.10 The end came with shocking speed. Within minutes the entire crusader force was either dead or taken prisoner, awaiting death or captivity. 5

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The devil protects his own, or so some whispered after the event. Like Lord Cardigan at the charge of the Light Brigade, Gerard of Ridefort (a man similarly untroubled by self-doubt) led his men to certain defeat and, leaving them to their destruction, rode out of the battle with just three men by his side.11 Roger of Moulins, the master of the Hospitallers, who had also protested against the foolishness of the charge, was killed in the fighting. None of his men left the battlefield alive. Many of the Templar knights, the cream of the order’s manpower, were killed in the charge. The survivors were bound, lined up in rows and forced to kneel. They were then beheaded by their captors. The Muslims remounted, and rode back past the town of Tiberias and east across the River Jordan.12 The heads of the crusaders killed in the battle, together with those of the executed prisoners, were stuck on lances and paraded on the way back.13 The battle of the Spring of the Cresson is in some ways the archetypical crusader battle, encapsulating all that we imagine to be the best and worst of their approach to war. An astonishing act of bravery, but one which also verged on the suicidal: following the Crimean war analogy, as General Bosquet said of the British cavalry, ‘C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c’est de la folie’. There are many other, even less flattering, ways to describe it: an extraordinary testament to the arrogance of a crusader general, an arrogance which ventured so far beyond self-confidence that it entered into the realms of fantasy; a clumsy display of the inability to manoeuvre or conduct oneself with any subtlety; a coarse and brutish army, ill at ease with any sense of flexibility or sophistication, capable only of a headlong rush towards the enemy. Or as an astonishing case study in religious fanaticism which pushed faith way beyond the boundaries of the rational. With God on our side, their behaviour seemed to suggest, anything and everything is possible. At Cresson, Gerard lost the battle and some of the kingdom’s best warriors. That was only the beginning, however. Within a few weeks he was able to repeat his appalling performance, but this time on a far larger scale. Counselling King Guy during the Hattin campaign, Gerard persuaded him to lead the entire army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem into a trap they could not escape from. The hinterland of Palestine was lost forever. The fate of the entire Latin East was decided on the day when Gerard was left at the altar and made a figure of ridicule by a social inferior who he would, under normal circumstances, have treated with contempt. The money he looked for was 6

STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE turned into vows of poverty, and sexual prowess turned to a lonely celibacy. Gerard’s anger brought down a kingdom. There is a strange resonance about the battle of the Spring of the Cresson: chivalry and foolishness, piety and pride, brutishness and inflexibility. Unreasoning, stupid generalship, arrogant and hidebound leadership, the triumph of emotion over logic. All of these play neatly to our sense of just how crude a medieval state could be. If there was ever a military culture which was the antithesis of ‘strategic’ then this, one imagines, was undoubtedly it. And if one wanted to look for strategic insight, or rational planning, this would surely be the place least likely to find it. A Magnificent Folly? It is easy to see medieval warfare and politics as being long on activity, but chronically short on reflection. To misquote the 1970s feminist rallying cry, it is pretty obvious that hairy, unwashed medieval warriors needed strategy every bit as much as a fish needs a bicycle. Or at least that is what we assume. Even the title of this book, Crusader Strategy, seems a contradiction in terms. Contemporary chronicles, and most modern narrative accounts of medieval history, read more like a soap opera than a strategic planning document. Kings are crowned and die. Armies invade and fight. The warrior elite have their moments of glory or disappointment, a stream of celebrities wandering across the stage of history with chroniclers as their paparazzi. The narrative flow in the chronicles is a succession of events. Human nature and the will of God, luck, opportunity and reaction, these are the unspoken drivers of politics and warfare in most histories of the period. Not entirely aimless perhaps, but implicitly lacking in what we would now describe as any form of strategic direction. In this context, it is not hard to see why medieval logic has had such a bad press. ‘Medieval’ thinking is the ultimate touchstone of irrationality. When Isis were setting up their caliphate in Iraq, the world’s media were full of criticism of their methods, their actions and their ideology. But the most widespread criticism of all, the catch-all phrase that summarised all the other condemnations, was that they were ‘medieval’. That single word was sufficient: it carried with it a plethora of connotations, all bad, conjuring up a ridiculous world of barbarism, illogicality and brutality. 7

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Accusations of being ‘medieval’, or of using ‘medieval’ logic, are a serious and perennial weapon. One Republican senator, defending the election of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018, deliberately punched as low as he could. Responding to the accusations of misconduct, he taunted critics by saying, ‘why don’t we dunk him in water and see if he floats?’14 From Monty Python to Kavanaugh, the reputation of structured thinking in the Middle Ages is at rock bottom. And if logic and decision-making processes are lacking, the chances of any cogent long-term planning are surely slim. The idea of ‘medieval strategy’ is a modern joke, a contradiction in terms. Crusader Strategy? Ridicule and mockery are our default approach to the (obviously absurd) idea of medieval ‘rationality’. But the current caricature of the crusaders is arguably even worse. Given unhelpful fresh impetus by recent rhetoric from both Western politicians and their Islamic opponents, they are often viewed as backward, inherently bigoted societies: alien armies of occupation, with the crude and sclerotic strategic, political and military systems that one would anticipate under such circumstances. These were, so the crude over-simplification goes, societies permanently out of their depth and continually struggling in the face of ethnic and cultural isolation. The military corollary of this would inevitably be a style of warfare which reflected this social dislocation and lack of strategic insight: arrogant, irrational and impulsive leaders; isolated garrisons in oppressive castles; crude and brutish heavy cavalry charges as a substitute for any real finesse; and being permanently outnumbered because of their ignorant treatment of the local population. How could one imagine that such societies, and such backward military establishments, would ever be capable of developing ‘strategy’ in any meaningful sense of the word? This is lazy and patronising thinking, however, and potentially very misleading. We believe we are good at strategy because we use the word a lot. Modern governments, their generals and their PR teams all talk a lot about ‘strategy’ but that strategy is often far harder to discern in the activities that take place on the ground. Talk is cheap. Actions are always more powerful and far more telling. In the crusader states, on the contrary, where the resources and structures for planning and communication were in chronically short supply, there was far less 8

STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE talk of strategy. If we care to look for it, however, it is surprisingly evident in the activities of most of the major players. We find this evidence through examining underlying rationality, deconstructing actions on the ground, and establishing patterns of behaviour. First, we need to accept that the major participants were not all idiots: and why should they have been? Some were, of course, but most were reasonable, highly motivated people, surrounded by well-informed advisers. They were intelligent people trying to do the right thing for their families, their colleagues, their states and their God. The corollary of this is the assumption that while not all their ideas or plans were good ones, one should give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of underlying rationality, at least until proven otherwise. Secondly, by deconstructing the actions that took place on the ground, we can arrive at a far more realistic assessment of what was actually intended. What we do is always a far better indicator of intent than what we say, or the propaganda we choose to project. And lastly, working back from that, we can examine the patterns of real behaviour as they played out over time, and deduce, with appropriate caveats, the broad lines of strategic thinking that underpinned military and political activity. We have the potential to identify an unarticulated or unidentified strategy by examining known patterns of activity. We can extrapolate back from that point to deduce the underlying strategic intent, and the extent to which that intent remained constant over significant periods of time. We know what the crusaders and their opponents did (campaigns, battles and so on) and we also know the relatively simple range of levers that they had at their disposal to implement their activities (such as siegecraft, colonisation or castle building). By deconstructing these two strands of actuality, we can come close to deducing the underlying (and often unspoken) strategic intent. Possibilities and Limitations We should never exaggerate what was possible. There was certainly no ‘grand strategy’ in the sense that the Roman Empire or more modern states might use the term.15 There were never sufficient resources or administrative structures in place to create the luxury of such possibilities. Similarly, given the number and volatility of 9

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY players in the region, much military activity was inevitably reactive or opportunistic in nature. Pragmatism and opportunism ruled under most circumstances. If the enemy was weak, you took advantage. If you could capture an enemy city and hold it, you probably would. Opportunism was sometimes a positive alternative to ‘strategy’ (and a very legitimate reason why strategic direction was often overlooked in the short term). But there were plenty of far less positive reasons why planning and strategic implementation were hideously difficult to put into practice. Everywhere one looked, there were limitations. Strategy was inevitably defined more by what was not possible, rather than what was. The difficulties that faced the crusader states, continually constraining their choices, were profound. Most fundamentally, there was a chronic lack of manpower. In communities operating on or beyond the extreme fringes of Europe, Frankish manpower was always at a premium. The Middle East had been predominantly Christian at the time of the Muslim invasions in the seventh century, and many localities remained so when the First Crusade arrived in the region – the majority of the local population of what became the crusader states was still largely Christian even in the twelfth century. They could be called upon to help, but a thousand years of demilitarisation meant most of them were ill-suited to the task. And, as we shall see, religious affiliation did not automatically guarantee support or opposition. Continual efforts were made to attract more settlers from the West, but the lack of land and the ever-present dangers of a frontier society made the task extremely difficult. The lack of money made the situation even worse. Finance was a constraint in any medieval state. For the Franks, the European settlers in the Holy Land, this was even more the case: their defence expenditure was always vast relative to the productivity of the communities they sought to protect. Mercenaries were needed to fill the gaps in the army. The militia, however ineffectual, needed to be equipped. And a huge number of castles needed to be built and upgraded, not just on the frontiers but across the whole of the crusader states: even in the absence of invaders, bandits and nomads posed perennial threats to villagers and other vulnerable civilians. Getting the money to pay for all these things was a nightmare. Men and money came over from Europe, but this flow was irregular and, as it was increasingly funnelled through the military orders, not always under the direct control of the secular authorities even when it arrived. The kings of Jerusalem were poor. They 10

STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE took every available opportunity to try to rectify the situation, but it was never enough. The increasing resources, wealth and professionalism of the military orders were certainly welcome. They took on more and more responsibility for the defence of the frontiers as the twelfth century progressed. Less helpfully, however, their wealth exacerbated already latent tendencies: they became more independent and their assets were less easily controlled by the local Frankish rulers. The help of the military orders was essential, but generally needed to be negotiated rather than commanded. There were other unhelpful forces to contend with as well. The natural tensions between the four crusader states sometimes encouraged Edessa, Tripoli and Antioch to pursue independent and potentially contradictory foreign policies, regardless of the views of their occasional overlord, the King of Jerusalem. The other side of this equation was the capacity and willingness of the nobility of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem to ride north, month after month, year after year, to help the other states when they faced large-scale invasion. Quite apart from the frequent ingratitude of their northern compatriots (help was often needed but only grudgingly accepted), there were dangers and expenses involved, alongside the risks they incurred in leaving their own lands undefended for long periods of time. It is perhaps surprising that the occasional grumbles and absences from muster were not more frequent. Europe was a long way away, both in terms of distance and, even more importantly, time: help was never close at hand. But poor external communications back to Europe were matched by endemic problems with internal communications within the crusader states. Ensuring a rapid response to enemy threats was always problematic: time was often of the essence, and getting the few available men to the right place at the right time was difficult. Fast messengers, lots of experience and ‘customary’ protocols and responses (such as mustering at traditional points) all made this easier. But the issue was perennial, and often led to difficulties, as small groups of men racing to danger points might be overrun by enemy raiding parties, or units might arrive far too late to be of use in a siege or battle. And all of this was on top of the fundamental limitations faced by any feudal society. There was no standing army. The nobility generally had their own small armies, but even the most loyal barons were none too keen on extended foreign excursions. Every decision and every major plan had to be discussed and an attempt 11

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY made to achieve consensus. However much their rulers would have liked them to be, the crusader states were not dictatorships. The nobility, the military orders, the Church, the colonial settlements and even the townsfolk, all had their own opinions and interests and needed to be brought along with any significant strategic ideas. Everywhere one looked, there were barriers to implementing strategy. The Frankish kings and princes of the Middle East naturally took every opportunity they could to try to manipulate the feudal structures over which they presided. They needed to do so in order to improve their power bases and provide more centralisation of the very limited resources available for military activity. Even so, their assets were always limited and inadequate, though their need was great.16 But, within the confines of the possible, there was, as we shall see, certainly strategic thinking, long-term planning and a tenacious pursuit of strategic goals. There are no surviving ‘strategy’ documents, no memos or irritating Friday afternoon meeting notes from the crusader states. Probably, in the modern sense at least, there were never any formal strategy documents in the first place. But there is an abundance of evidence to show that planning took place and that the development of long-term strategies was a direct consequence of those plans. One can adopt a ‘strategy’ naturally, and this is what the crusader states and their leaders did. They did not need to understand or articulate the logic of strategic planning, or the systematic classification that might underpin it. They and their opponents were often just good at it instinctively. They enacted strategy in an intuitive but often surprisingly subtle way. At the most basic level, deconstructing layers of activity (which we can do through analysing the often sparse commentaries of the chronicles) reveals clear patterns of implementation: how their strategies played out in practice. But the underlying evidence for genuinely ‘strategic’ action is far stronger than that. Time and again, we find the crusader states: w tenaciously pursuing long-term objectives in a way which transcended reigns, regimes and changing personalities – they displayed a single-minded attention to strategic goals which would shame many modern governments or corporations; w gathering resources and marshalling every possible asset in pursuit of strategic goals; 12

STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE w coordinating planning, for instance through extended diplomatic offensives; w analysing intelligence, running spy rings, organising frontier patrols and long-range reconnaissance. They may have been hairy. They may have been unwashed. But we cannot lightly dismiss their intuitive strategic capabilities. The potential for catastrophe, the destruction of entire communities, lay at the end of every badly executed campaign. And with limited resources at their disposal, they had to work hard to make everything count. Definitions We need to be clear about the language we use. The word ‘strategy’ has come to mean so much that it now means almost nothing.17 Definitions of strategy are surprisingly vague. They are also desperately misused. The word ‘strategic’ in modern usage often means something little more specific than ‘important’. Or just ‘big’. Or something which you would like to achieve (which, incidentally, is really an ‘objective’). Similarly, there is a continual tendency to confuse and conflate a series of related words, all of which are used interchangeably (and incorrectly) far too often: aims, goals, tactics, strategy, a continual stream of vague but important-sounding descriptors that litter our self-help books and business manuals.18 For the sake of clarity, therefore, we shall define certain phrases as follows: w ‘Strategy’ (and ‘strategic activity’) is designing and implementing the forms and structures of warfare needed to pursue the policy goals of a given society: if our goal is to conquer Egypt, for instance, how that can best be achieved? Strategy is thus the direction of warfare above the level of the battlefield, as the military expression of statesmanship, policy and the objectives of the state. w ‘Operational activity’ is the conduct of campaigns which see that strategy played out on the ground (mustering troops, organising logistical back-up, long-distance manoeuvring, and so on). w ‘Tactical activity’ is manoeuvring and fighting on the battlefield or in a siege – the sharp end of the military interface.

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THE CRUSADER STRATEGY But if we define what strategy is, we also need to understand what it is not. It is not, for instance, the objectives, or the objective setting: it is about how to achieve things, rather than trying to establish what those things might be. Neither can all military activity be viewed as solely directed towards the solution of a bigger problem. It would be entirely unrealistic, for instance, to look at every castle and assume it is part of a single, unified strategy. Similarly, there were many localised and ad hoc calls on the military, which one would never expect to be part of the policy of state. These were diffuse and decentralised societies, much of whose rudimentary economies were not even operating on a monetary basis. A tight control of resources was never entirely feasible, even under the strongest king: ‘strategy’, insofar as it existed in a medieval state, needed to be implemented with the lightest of touches. At its core, ‘strategy’ is an overarching solution to a problem (in this case a military or political problem: how to conquer an enemy state, how to survive an invasion, and so on). It should also, if possible, have an institutional aspect to it, demonstrating thinking that is not just the passing fancy of one person or a single clique, but rather a coordinated plan of activity that transcends immediate requirements (i.e. something that is neither just a ‘good idea’, nor purely reactive or opportunistic). There are different layers of warfare, each with its own flow and purpose. There is policy: the purpose and objectives of warfare. There is strategy: warfare off the battlefield. And there are tactics: warfare on the battlefield. Strategy can thus be seen as the middle of the process of war. Policy and statesmanship are at the top, and set overall objectives. Tactics, such as how best to launch a charge or the minutiae of castle design, are the implementation of that policy and how it is played out on the ground. Strategy is the process in between, the thinking that links the two. All are different from each other, but they all need to be in harmony.19 Policy making is at the top of this decision-making pyramid, and we should be clear that strategy is not ‘a synonym for policy’.20 Strategy tries to fulfil the policies of the state or society for which it is created, but its aim is to be a vehicle to bring those policies to fruition, rather than to create them. One of the main paths towards defining strategy properly lies in arriving at an understanding of what policy is, and the relationship between different levels of military and political decision making. The crusader strategy developed to attempt the conquest of Egypt, for example, could only exist in the context of an agreed policy with this goal at its centre.21 14

STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE Clausewitz wrote of strategy as ‘the use of engagement for the purpose of war’, and in doing this he was explicitly not describing politics or policy.22 Perhaps surprisingly, it is not even about violence (or at least not necessarily so). The details of armed struggle may be the actions at the sharp end of strategy, but they are ultimately just a means by which strategy is conducted.23 Given that strategy is closely related to ‘policy’ and, indeed, only exists to further the aims of policy, it raises the question of how (if at all) medieval states might develop such policies, and how they might be converted into a strategic plan. Despite occasional appearances to the contrary, crusader military decision making was rarely ‘random’. As we shall see in more detail later, there were many significant examples of strategic intent, including: w the policy of aggressive castle building to cut off Muslim strongholds in places such as Tripoli and Ascalon; w building fortresses to project force in vulnerable border areas (with examples such as the castles of Belvoir, Banyas and Jacob’s Ford); w extended periods in which diplomatic initiatives were designed to support the needs of military strategy; w the setting of ‘bigger-picture’ objectives across different decades and different regions with, for instance, the pursuit of policy goals in Egypt through pressure on Ascalon and a series of invasions into eastern Egypt stretching over most of the central part of the twelfth century. Strategy was certainly being enacted, if we care to look for it. ‘At Least We’ll Die with Harness on Our Back’ (Macbeth) The battle of the Spring of the Cresson, the catastrophe which we looked at earlier, may seem like the antithesis of ‘strategy’. It was certainly a disaster, and a disaster which sprang largely from a failure of Frankish leadership. Gerard of Ridefort, the ranking crusader field commander, was colossally arrogant. He was not a man overencumbered by sentimentality, self-reflection or the ability to acknowledge his own mistakes. It is clear from letters written to the West shortly after the battle that, despite having squandered the lives of almost all his men, Gerard was just as

15

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY concerned about how to replace their equipment: he complained that he had ‘suffered serious losses of horses and arms, quite apart from the loss of men’.24 His comrades paid all too dearly for his capacity for self-deception and poor decision making. However, every other Frankish leader on the field had argued forcefully (and entirely correctly) that the best solution lay in retreat rather than a headlong charge. And although Gerard was capable of launching an unsupported charge in the face of an overwhelming number of enemy troops, his gung-ho world of excessive piety and military machismo was by no means typical. The other crusader commanders that day, including high-ranking members of both of the supposedly fanatical military orders (the Templars and the Hospitallers), argued for a more cautious and rational approach. Gerard was an outlier in terms of Frankish generalship: a figure so extreme that he was more a caricature than genuinely representative of crusading warfare. The charge he launched on that sweltering day in May 1187 was not unprecedented but it was by no means normal. It was no more typical of Frankish military thinking than the charge of the Light Brigade was of the Victorian British army: it was spectacular, but also an aberration. The Franks often behaved in a way that was audacious, but rarely unthinkingly so. The strategies required to achieve the objectives that the crusader states set themselves were always fraught with risk, always a long shot. But a small chance of success was better than none at all. And that dichotomy was at the heart of the conundrum facing the Franks. Although they might behave with due caution on a tactical or operational level, they did not always have that luxury when it came to strategy. To do nothing meant certain defeat. To fight against the enemies that surrounded and outnumbered them meant trying to implement strategies that had sound objectives and clear war aims – but they often had little chance of success. The core of the strategic problem in fighting an enemy that surrounded and outnumbered them so decisively was always demographic, economic and geographic rather than purely military. And a postscript to the battle of the Spring of the Cresson demonstrated the point to a shocking extent. A small Frankish contingent, led by Balian of Ibelin, was belatedly riding to join Gerard of Ridefort and the ill-fated Templar cavalry. They eventually arrived (luckily for them, far too late) outside the castle of La Fève. It was deserted.

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STRATEGY IN A MEDIEVAL STATE Outside the castle [Balian] found pitched the tents of the [Templars] but there was no one there . . . Then he had his squire enter the castle to see whether he could find someone to let him know what was going on. The squire went and called out in the castle, but he did not find anyone who could give him the news he sought except two sick people who were lying in a room and they did not know anything.25

The entire castle had been stripped of people, including the walking wounded, militia, tradesmen and other non-combatants. And this was in order to raise enough of a mobile force to see off a Muslim incursion that was believed (falsely in the event) to be a raiding party rather than the army that it turned out to be. The manpower available to the Franks was so small that their strategic options were profoundly limited. The deserted castle of La Fève is a graphic indicator of the deteriorating military situation in 1187. But it is also a broader metaphor for the defence of the crusader states. On 1 May 1187 no fewer than three Muslim armies invaded different parts of the crusader states, and the force that destroyed the Templar squadrons on that day was just a large contingent from one of them.26 In the face of simultaneous incursions on several fronts, Balian, one of the most senior local commanders, was left trying to work out what had happened based on the testimony of two delirious invalids. The Franks were permanently scraping the barrel. As the twelfth century progressed, they were increasingly setting priorities and implementing strategies that were the least bad, rather than the best.27 It is this struggle which characterises the tenacity and strengths of the European colonies of the medieval Middle East: the chances of success were always slim, but they were better than nothing. And, as we shall see, they were played out with a determination based on the most profound desperation.

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TWO

w PRELUDE

A Time Before Strategy?

This is a book about strategy. But we start at a time before strategy – a time when the lands of the Middle East were intensely fractured, when trust and loyalty were scarce commodities. A time when self-interest was paramount and where chaos was so ingrained that an entire life could be lived without knowing anything else. In the textbooks, wars are guided by politics, driven by policy objectives, and implemented through strategy. On the ground, however, such comfortable clarity is often lost in the rushed outpouring of human actions and emotions. Luck, pragmatism and opportunity lead the way, and strategy has to run fast to catch up. Wars, even medieval wars, may be fought by design. But they are often started by accident. So it was with the wars of the crusades. After the liberation of Jerusalem and the end of the First Crusade, most of the original crusaders returned home, often traumatised, and glad to have survived their adventure. But some remained to defend the Holy Land. They established four political entities, collectively known to modern historians as ‘the crusader states’: the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the south (similar in scope to what we call Israel); the County of Tripoli (broadly modern-day Lebanon); the Principality of Antioch (in what we call Syria and southern Turkey); and the County of Edessa, further inland. The First Crusade had succeeded way beyond any realistic expectation, exceeding everyone’s wildest hopes. Under such circumstances it was only natural for the participants to ascribe their success to the will of God, or to their own bravery or fighting abilities. But it was far harder to face the deeper and extremely awkward truth behind their conquests – that the First Crusade was only successful because the Franks had arrived in the East at a time when there was no possibility of a coherent strategic 18

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'RADUALINFILTRATIONOFNOMADICBANDSINTO!SIA-INOR 4URKICTROOPSINVITEDINTO!LEPPO 1064 .OMADICPRESSUREON&ATIMID0ALESTINE1071ONWARDS  .OMADSIN3YRIAAND0ALESTINEENMASSEFROM1070SONWARDS$AMASCUSOCCUPIED1075 *ERUSALEMSACKED1078 s .OMADICPRESSUREON"YZANTIUMSPARKSCALLSFORHELP&IRST#RUSADELAUNCHED s 0ATCHWORKOFNOMADIC RUNSTATESESTABLISHEDINTHEREGION

Map 3 Nomadic Activity in the Middle East, c.1064–1100

19

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY response from their opponents. It may not have suited their egos to admit it, but the crusade succeeded because of forces beyond their control. As we shall see, strategies were developed to deal with the situation the new settlers found themselves in. But the initial impetus was largely unplanned, a frantic scrabble to respond, hurriedly built on a foundation of extraordinarily improbable outcomes. And, just as their creation story was founded upon circumstances beyond their control, so too, ultimately, were the forces that led to their overthrow. The survival of the crusader states was always as unlikely as their very existence.1 Politics The crusaders arrived in the Levant in 1097. The world that they blundered into was complex and chaotic. But, from their perspective, it could have been so much worse. In fact it was only the accident of this chaos that made the crusader states possible. As always, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the Islamic world was catastrophically fragmented. The first waves of Muslim invaders had swept up from the south into the Middle East in the seventh century. They overran most of what is now Egypt, Palestine and Syria, and subjugated their mainly Christian populations. Early in the eleventh century, however, new Muslim armies, the Seljuk Turks, began to appear in the region, but this time entering from the north and north-east. From the 1020s onwards, these nomadic tribesmen drifted down from their homelands on the Eurasian steppes. They first conquered the Iranian world, capturing Baghdad in 1055, and launching major raids into Christian Anatolia. By the 1070s they were moving south, taking over the Arab-held city-states of Syria and fighting the Egyptian Fatimid empire for control of Palestine. Extraordinarily, by the late eleventh century, the Seljuk–Turkic state encompassed much of the known world, bordering Byzantium in the west and China in the east.2 Thus, in the decades before the First Crusade, the Fatimid Egyptian empire, the incumbent ruler of Palestine when the crusaders arrived, had long been at war with the Turkic invaders. Relationships between the two were characterised by deepseated cultural, racial and religious antagonism. There was a symmetry of distrust and prejudice. The Egyptians thought of the steppe warriors as aggressive, unwashed, 20

PRELUDE barbarian ‘Ghuzz’ (a pejorative term for non-Muslim Turks on the borders of the Islamic world). The Turks in their turn thought the Fatimids were weak and decadent. The region was a war zone long before the arrival of the Franks. Cultural and ethnic hostilities were compounded by religious differences. The Fatimid state was officially Shi’ite Muslim, though large parts of the military and much of the population were Christian. The people of the Turkic states of Syria, on the other hand, were Sunni Muslims (nominally at least), who viewed the Egyptians as heretics. This mutual animosity persisted throughout much of the twelfth century, and even in the 1180s a Frankish chronicler could write that a ‘deep and inveterate enmity had existed between the [Turks] and the Egyptians’ and that ‘this hatred has persisted to the present day’.3 As if that was not enough, both of the two main groupings (Turkic–Sunni and Egyptian–Shi’ite) were split still further. The Egyptians had lost much of Palestine to the armies of the First Crusade but initially kept control of most of the coastal cities. These coastal cities, however, although technically part of the Fatimid empire, did not always behave as if they were. They did not necessarily cooperate well with each other, or with the authorities in Cairo. Tripoli, for instance, under its ruler Fakhr al-Mulk, maintained a semi-independent existence, with its own armies and separate foreign policy.4 The Shi’ite part of the local Muslim community was split, but their Sunni neighbours and erstwhile enemies were even more so. Each Turkic warlord guarded his independence jealously, and almost invariably placed their own interests first – the dubious pleasures of indulging in a Holy War at the behest of a distant overlord in Baghdad were often a far lower priority. If the crusaders were not already aware of the tensions, they soon learnt about them. Even before they had reached Palestine, envoys from Shi’ite Egypt had arrived to tell their leaders of ‘the very severe discord between the [Fatimids] and the Turks’, emphasising that the enmity existed ‘long before this expedition of the Christians’.5 The Frankish chronicler William of Tyre was well aware of the hatred between the two main Muslim political entities. Fatimid diplomats, he wrote, had stressed that the ‘Egyptian [vizier] regarded any Turkic success with suspicion’ and that their defeat at the hands of the First Crusaders had ‘pleased him greatly’.6 In these circumstances, the crusaders were no more nor less foreign than the Turks themselves and could be enemies or allies as changing situations demanded. Far from being unique as ‘intruders’ upon local politics, the Franks were just another 21

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY group of players in the shifting and bloodthirsty world of Levantine politics that often made The Sopranos look like a Jane Austen ball. To make matters even worse from a Muslim perspective, fate had also made a dramatic intervention – the bizarre kind of extended coincidence that randomly changes the course of history. Between 1092 and 1094, every major political leader in the region had died, from Malik Shah, the Seljuk sultan, in the north, down to the vizier of Egypt in the south, destabilising the fragile power structures still further. The implications for any overarching Muslim strategy under these circumstances were profound – there could be none. Controlling the pathologically wayward Turkic warlords was always an extraordinarily difficult task, even with firm and centralised leadership. In the absence of such leadership, everything unravelled extremely quickly. A confusing patchwork of regional political entities emerged from the fallout, each focused on one or more of the urban centres that still characterised the region. The larger cities, such as Aleppo, Mosul or Damascus, all became states in their own right. Even medium-sized towns such as Homs or Hama struck out for their own independence, fuelled by the ambitions of the most ruthless individuals or the most effective family networks. The sultans of Baghdad might try to galvanise their local representatives but their vassals more often than not just ignored their commands. The viziers of Fatimid Egypt might try to coordinate their army and navy to see off the Westerners, but their policy making was weak and they could not rely on support from Sunni-run Syria. To make matters even more difficult, the Fatimid army and navy were famous for their lack of coordination, and even within the army itself, the cavalry tended to treat the infantry with contempt.7 Coordinating resources or developing any sense of a centralised response to the bizarre phenomenon of the First Crusade was impossible. If the crusaders were to be defeated in the first couple of years after they had landed – when they were at their most vulnerable – it would be despite Muslim strategy (there was none), rather than because of it. People But if the political chaos in the region was good news for the crusaders, there was plenty of bad news too, if one only cared to look for it. 22

PRELUDE Manpower, or rather the lack of it, was a perennial issue for the crusaders.8 They had suffered huge attrition in the course of their lengthy armed pilgrimage. Casualties had come from Turkic bows and spears, but far more had died of exposure, famine and disease. Ironically, even the relatively small number of survivors soon became far smaller. Most of the original crusaders saw the liberation of the Holy Land as a task rather than a career. As the ‘task’ had been completed, most sailed back to their families in Europe. With their departure, the size of the army plummeted to potentially unsustainable levels – a contemporary chronicler wrote that the first Frankish ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem had ‘barely two hundred men who were equipped with breastplates [i.e. knights]’ with which to defend his new territory.9 Calling on local Christians for help was one obvious possibility. However, the civil population had been thoroughly demilitarised for almost a millennium before the crusaders arrived. And with little warlike heritage to fall back on, it was not easy to turn peasant farmers into confident warriors. Frankish settlers were encouraged to come from Europe to the Holy Land to help make up the numbers, and to form the core of local militias, but life in the beleaguered crusader communities was always dangerous, and there was never enough land available to make full-scale colonisation a realistic prospect. One of the main factors facing any Frankish strategist, therefore, was the knowledge that they would almost inevitably be outnumbered in whatever endeavour they undertook. Their opponents had no such problems. To the south, the fertility of the Nile valley and the trading wealth generated by the Nile Delta could be converted into large numbers of soldiers, well supplied and trained on a scale unthinkable to the Franks. As a consequence, the Shi’ite Fatimid empire in Egypt had the largest standing armies in the region. They could field tens of thousands of regular or semi-regular troops at a time when the crusaders struggled to raise more than a few hundred knights. And they were supported by a substantial professional navy, operating out of a series of massive naval bases and well-fortified cities both in Egypt itself and up along the entire coast of Palestine.10 The Turkic city-states of Syria similarly had no trouble in finding recruits. Their populations provided large numbers of auxiliaries and urban militias, and were supplemented by extensive rural populations. Even worse from a Frankish perspective, these states were not just populous in their own right – they also had ready access to an almost limitless supply of hardened nomadic warriors, filtering down 23

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY into the area from the western fringes of the Eurasian steppes. Vast numbers of these extremely effective mercenaries were always available, hiring themselves out as small groups or even as entire tribes. These troops were not without their difficulties – they were largely motivated by the vagaries of plunder, and were always hard to control. But they were superb horsemen, fast-moving and dangerous. If one group got bored or were lost in combat, there were always plenty of others to replace them.11 The crusaders faced a demographic disaster that they could never adequately resolve. Unless circumstances changed considerably, they would always be hugely outnumbered. Outnumbered, moreover, by men who were among the most effective soldiers of the pre-gunpowder age. Places Geography was the other bad news. It created three problems, each of which had a significant – and very negative – impact on the crusaders’ strategic planning. First, and most obviously, there was the distance from Europe. The huge time lag involved in getting armies in the West to respond in the case of disaster created an insoluble dilemma. Military catastrophe on the battlefield could happen in a matter of minutes – and it took only a few days for a victorious Muslim cavalry army to march across the thin coastal strip that constituted most of the crusader states. Organised reinforcements from Europe might, on the other hand, literally take years to arrive. News of the disaster at Hattin in July 1187 took three or four months to reach Europe, for instance, and the German, French and English armies ‘rushing’ to defend the Holy Land arrived some three or four years after the battle. Similarly, the remnants of the Second Crusade, dispatched to help shore up the crusader states in the aftermath of the fall of Edessa in 1144, arrived over three years later, just in time to join the (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign to capture Damascus in 1148.12 As a consequence of these logistical and communications delays, much of crusader strategy had to be developed as an independent free-standing proposition, and was thus severely constrained by the availability of local resources. Outside help was great if it could be engineered, but this invariably involved years of planning and a healthy dose of good luck to make it happen. It was usually a happy coincidence if significant military assets from Europe were available, rather than anything that could be factored into short- or medium-term planning. 24

PRELUDE The second main geographic consideration was the extent and location of the crusader states themselves. Each had its own problems. The most northerly of the four was the County of Edessa, a landlocked state encompassing much of what is now southern Turkey and northern Syria. But it lacked defensible borders, particularly for its lands east of the Euphrates. Indeed, the military situation in Edessa was so fluid that it is often difficult to know exactly where the eastern borders of the county were at any given time. It was close to the natural entry point for Turkic tribes or mercenaries moving into the region, and was surrounded to the south by powerful Muslim enemies. Edessa’s existence was made possible because the local population were overwhelmingly Christian, but the army was far too small to defend its territory properly. It was always vulnerable and uncomfortably dependent on the availability of swift help from its Frankish neighbours.13 The Principality of Antioch was richer than Edessa and had coastal ports which gave it access to Europe – but it too had eastern frontiers which were difficult to defend with their relatively small army. Aleppo was alarmingly close, and this situation was not helped by the presence of a series of low-lying hills (the Jabal Talat) which separated the two. These created an informal, potentially neutral, zone between the two powers, but also dictated a ‘winner takes all’ approach to strategy in the area. If the border was set to the east of the hill-line, it was uncomfortably close to Aleppo. If it was set to the west of the Jabal Talat, however, it would encompass the vital Frankish towns of Artah and Harim, both disturbingly close to the city of Antioch itself.14 To make matters even worse, the limited numbers of Frankish troops available meant that independent action in the face of any large-scale invasion was extraordinarily risky – Antioch relied heavily on support from its neighbours in Edessa and from the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Further south, the County of Tripoli (occupying much of modern-day Lebanon) was militarily crippled by being largely confined to a thin coastal strip of land, sandwiched between the sea and the mountain ranges. It had highly vulnerable eastern and northern frontiers, particularly along the mountain passes. The defence of the passes in the north was always problematic, as the mountains were lower there, and in the south the Kebir River valley offered a tempting route for Muslim cavalry armies raiding down through the county towards the Mediterranean.15 To make the strategic problems even worse, they had the volatile and unpredictable Assassins 25

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY (Shi’ite Nizari) as neighbours to the north and a range of dangerous Muslim enemy towns (such as Shaizar, Homs, Hama and Baalbek) to the east. Even the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the senior crusader state, had deep-seated military problems. The River Jordan provided some limited protection but the eastern frontiers were notoriously porous. To protect the interior, the east of the kingdom relied heavily on the presence of an aggressive and energetic Prince of Galilee, operating at the head of his small army of veteran troops. To the south, the borders with Egypt were similarly vulnerable. Reliance had to be placed on the proactive instincts of the local lords, and latterly the military orders, to launch probing raids and long-range patrols to keep the enemy off-balance. And, like the County of Tripoli, much of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was a relatively thin strip of coastal land – its enemies could quickly push through to the sea, reducing the scope for manoeuvre. Only a rapid response and an effective mobile field force stood between the kingdom and potential disaster. For the Franks, living on a coastal strip meant that there was a shocking lack of depth within which a retreating army, or civilian community, could fall back: given the context of the fast-moving nomadic horse armies which they often faced, there was a perpetual danger of being overrun. And, as if to emphasise just how firmly geography played into the hands of the crusaders’ enemies, the third main geographical issue was that they were surrounded. The multitude of enemies, the way they enveloped the Franks and the sheer length of their barely defensible borders meant that geographical weakness could be ruthlessly exploited. The Franks had to strain all their resources to gather a single field army together. If that army was operating in the south, for instance, the north was obviously vulnerable to attack. Enemy forces might launch distraction attacks anywhere along the frontiers. Crusader commanders knew that their best conceived plans could be easily derailed if they did not produce quick results. Geography was a problem, even for the most thoughtful crusader commander – and it always denied the Franks the luxury of being able to implement strategy in an unhurried or focused way. Short-Term Gain, Long-Term Pain It is tempting to pontificate on the basis of hindsight – to view history as an inevitable progression, where things happen in the way they were always bound to 26

PRELUDE happen. This approach to history is sometimes lazy and self-serving – but there are other times when it is a necessary antidote to romantic hypothesising. To take a more modern example, the ‘what ifs’ of the crusader states might be compared with those of the southern states in the American Civil War. It is compelling to labour through the minutiae of how the South could have won, and to think what could have produced a different result. Lee’s superior generalship might have won the day, if he had had a little more support. The élan of the Southern troops might have defeated the North if they had had better logistical back-up. The European powers could have applied diplomatic pressure to end the war in favour of the Confederacy. Pickett’s critical charge at Gettysburg might have led to a breakthrough in the Northern lines. Or whatever. Such tactical ‘what ifs’ are enticing, full of nostalgia and romance. But an understanding of the bigger forces at work usually pours cold water on maudlin fantasies. Ten minutes looking at the industrial production, population and financial statistics of the Confederate states in 1861 tells you with a high degree of certainty which side was going to win. To paraphrase one eminent American historian, the only thing you ever really need to know is that the South was on a total war footing, scraping every barrel to stay afloat – whereas the entire Harvard–Yale boat race crews of 1864 never served in the army or navy, not because they were cowards, but because they were not needed. Defeat for the South was a matter of when, not if.16 In the case of the crusader states, there is some justification for taking such a similarly deterministic – and pessimistic – view. The big problem for crusader strategy was that regional politics and demographics, the main drivers of the balance of power, were propelled by forces which were far beyond their control. And, over time, these drivers moved inexorably against them. It was not always apparent to contemporaries, but the reality was that the crusader states existed because of their enemies’ temporary weaknesses, rather than because of their own intrinsic strengths. Muslim disunity had allowed the Franks to enter the region. If that disunity was ever repaired, however, it would unleash resources that the crusaders could never hope to match. Short-term factors in the Middle East at the end of the eleventh century certainly favoured the crusaders. But the longer-term prognosis was far more challenging. How the Franks rose to that challenge is the story of the increasingly desperate strategies they developed to defend the Holy Land. 27

THREE

w THE COASTAL STRATEGY 1099–1124

The journey east was never easy. An English pilgrim named Saewulf made the trip in the summer of 1102. He later wrote that when he and his companions ‘arrived at the port of [Jaffa] on a Sunday . . . the movement of the sea increased and the storm became strong, but . . . I reached the shore unharmed. We entered the city to seek shelter, and defeated and worn out by long labours we ate and drank and retired to sleep.’1 He was one of the lucky ones. He had got there just in time. The following day disaster struck. Early in the morning Saewulf and his comrades heard the sound of the sea, and people shouting . . . We were afraid, and running along with the others came to the shore. When we were there we saw the storm, with the height of its waves equal to the hills. We noticed innumerable human bodies of both sexes who had been drowned lying miserably on the shore. We saw too the remains of ships floating nearby. No sound could be heard apart from the noise of the sea, and the sinking ships, for it drowned the shouts of the people and the sound of the crowds.2

The human toll was enormous. It was all the more traumatic as those in peril were faced with terrible choices, having to decide whether to try to save themselves or their families. Most of the sailors and pilgrims were ‘consumed with terror and drowned there and then . . . Some people who knew how to swim took the chance of trusting to the waves, and many of them died, but just a few, trusting in their own strength, reached the shore safely.’3 Damage to the shipping in the harbour was similarly shocking. Thirty ships were in the port, of which ‘only a mere seven remained unharmed. Of human beings of either sex more than a thousand died that day.’4 28

THE COASTAL STRATEGY Saewulf ’s experience scarred him for the rest of his life. His memories of that traumatic day are usually used as an example of how dangerous it was to travel by sea. Or how inadequate were the harbours of the Palestinian coast. Both of which are undoubtedly true. What he also tells us, however, and what must have been deeply worrying for the neighbouring Muslim states, was that even in the most dangerous of times, in the most perilous of conditions, large numbers of people were coming from Europe to the new crusader states. Some just as pilgrims, but others as soldiers, settlers, merchants and adventurers. Many of the newcomers were coming to put down roots. The Franks were a force to be reckoned with. And it was clear to everyone that the initial battle to recover the Holy Land would be won or lost on the coast. An End Is a Beginning . . . Strategy exists only in the context of objectives and the decisions that lead up to them. Capturing Jerusalem, the extraordinary culmination of the First Crusade, was always a beginning rather than an end. Landlocked, under-populated and barely self-sufficient, the Holy City may have been considered the ‘centre of the earth’, literally, for many medieval Christians, but from a soldier’s perspective it was almost indefensible. The unlikely success of the First Crusade left the survivors with a set of decisions which they probably thought they would never have to make. At a very basic level, they needed to decide what the crusade had been for. Was it an armed pilgrimage, with a fixed beginning, middle and end? Or was it a much more ambitious scheme to liberate and defend the ancient Christian heartlands of the Middle East? If the latter, would this be in the context of reinstating Byzantine rule in the region? Or would it mean creating new states along the lines of the European feudal societies that they had left behind? Even more fundamentally, if the crusade was to be anything more than just a one-off hugely violent act of pilgrimage, the first phase of Frankish strategy needed to focus on quickly taking control of the entire coastline of Syria and Palestine. This coastal strategy followed a remarkably similar trajectory across the three crusader states which bordered on the eastern Mediterranean. This was not a coincidence. Dominating the coast and reducing the threat from the ‘interior’ frontiers posed by enemy coastal cities was a priority for all.5 29

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Relations with Byzantium were often uneasy (particularly for the crusaders in the north who were, in the eyes of the Byzantine emperors, illegitimately occupying old imperial lands). But even when relations were good, travelling on the land route across Asia Minor remained a very daunting prospect. The only way to maintain direct links home was by capturing the fortified ports along the Palestinian and Syrian coastlines. These links were not just an expression of logistical theory. They were essential: the necessary solution to an immediate and existential crisis. Without a constant flow of reinforcements and money, the isolated new Christian states would quickly be wiped out. One of the many problems about hindsight is that we see things as they become, rather than as they seemed to contemporaries. We naturally tend to assume that what happened was always inevitable. We now know that the rolling-up of the coastal cities was successful, that the Fatimid Egyptians (who provided most of the military support to those cities) would be overcome, and that the sea lanes back to Europe would be secured. When we think of the ‘frontiers’ of the crusader states, we tend to think of lands bordering the Turkic-run states to the east: Damascus, Aleppo and so on. But none of that was apparent, or even true, at the time. The Egyptian military was the biggest, most professional and best equipped force in the region. The Fatimid cities on the Palestinian coast posed a significant threat to the crusader states, well into the third decade of the twelfth century and beyond. The Egyptian navy was a similarly constant presence. Together with the large garrison of the military base at Ascalon, it constituted a vicious hazard to the ill-acclimatised pilgrims and new arrivals from the West upon whom the crusader states depended. The immediacy of this danger inevitably helped to shape strategy. Defensively, there was an urgent need to keep the Egyptian navy at bay long enough for reinforcements to arrive from Europe. Importantly, as each coastal city was captured, and particularly those in the south, the operational range of the Fatimid fleet became more and more limited. Although their role included providing food to besieged Muslim coastal cities in Palestine, they had enormous logistical problems of their own, and those problems became significantly worse as the number of friendly ports diminished. The rowers, who were needed to propel galleys in the often scorching climate of the eastern Mediterranean, required vast quantities of water. As succes30

THE COASTAL STRATEGY sive Egyptian bases were lost, so their access to water was reduced and their operational range became smaller.6 The prevailing winds and currents in the region also favoured the crusaders. Christian shipping approaching from the north had an easier journey. Egyptian squadrons trying to work their way up from the south had a far harder task. If the Fatimid fleet took the high seas route from Alexandria up to the waters east of Cyprus, they were running the profound risks posed by storms. If they took the coastal route, hugging the shore as Mediterranean fleets had done since classical times, they were increasingly sailing into Christian-dominated waters. But whatever route they took, the diminishing access to water caused by the loss of Muslim ports in Palestine meant that their time spent on station trying to intercept crusader shipping was reduced to almost nothing. If the coast could be captured, the Fatimid navy would be neutered and help from Europe could flow in unhindered.7 Over the longer term, the strategy was also extremely profitable, bringing in cash from both East and West. Control of the eastern Mediterranean coastline allowed the crusader states to access revenues from goods reaching this branch of the Silk Road. Given the potential for profit, the Italian city-states needed little encouragement to support the coastal strategy – it gave them valuable trading opportunities. The first decade of the twelfth century saw a feeding frenzy, as the city-states competed ferociously to carve out the best locations and trading rights in the region. The Italian fleets could be as genuinely pious as any other group of crusaders, but there were also very tangible financial reasons why they fought so tenaciously. Their presence was important for the crusader states, not just for the initial capture of the coastal cities, but also as a continuing transport and commercial link back to Western Europe. Once the initial rush was over, however, more structured diplomatic and commercial incentives were needed to generate a continuing Christian naval presence in the East. The Italian fleets were sorely needed and, as we shall see, despite the emphasis which the chronicles placed on God’s favour, they did not simply appear as a result of his intervention.8 As well as commerce, the liberation of the Holy Land brought with it a very tangible spiritual windfall. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’s position as the ultimate Christian tourist destination drew a continual stream of pilgrims into the area, 31

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY providing money and, if they were conscripted or could be persuaded to stay, extra manpower. For an area with limited inherent productivity, the travel industry was disproportionately important.9 Strangely, there was also a diplomatic windfall in terms of alleviating hostility from the Muslim states in the hinterland. The Turkic-dominated states of Syria needed to operate a less than total war, because they had to have outlets for their goods as they travelled further west. The Muslim traveller Ibn Jubayr, writing at the height of the Holy War between Saladin and the Franks, wrote with amazement that: The Christians impose a tax on the Muslims in their land which gives them full security; and likewise the Christian merchants pay a tax upon their goods in Muslim lands. Agreement exists between them, and there is equal treatment in all cases. The soldiers engage themselves in their war, while the people are at peace and the world goes to him who conquers . . . The state of these countries in this regard is truly more astonishing than our story can fully convey.10

Even in times of war, there was an extraordinary symbiosis. The unintended consequence of controlling the coast was to create a commercial mutuality of interests, regardless of religious or ethnic differences. So the logic behind the coastal strategy was clear. But if the crusaders were to survive in the East, they also needed to be able to roll out this strategy in practice. For embryonic states, with no fleets of their own and only tiny armies, this would never be easy. The Sieges Early in the morning of 17 May 1101, Christian assault teams with scaling ladders rushed towards the walls of the ancient coastal city of Caesarea. They were keen to see the job done quickly, and their leaders were prepared to lead from the front. Once they had got to the walls, a knight, armed ‘with just his breastplate and helmet and sword, and with many following him, climbed the ladder right up to the top’.11 Storming the walls showed the inherent dangers of leading from the front, however, as well as the fragility of hastily prepared equipment in the heat of battle. The knight got to the top of the wall first and, for a moment, was there alone. Just 32

THE COASTAL STRATEGY then, as more men rushed onto the ladder to help him, it shattered under their weight. He was isolated in an enemy-held city, with only seconds left to live. Luckily for the knight, several other assault squads, on other parts of the wall, made it to the top at almost the same time – outflanked, the Egyptian defenders decided to pull back to their inner line of defences. He made his way along the wall to the next tower. In an episode too odd not to be true, and strangely reminiscent of an unnerving scene at the end of Saving Private Ryan, he found himself in a fistfight on the stairs. A ‘Saracen who was coming down the tower flung himself on top of him. He gripped [him] powerfully with his arms, and the [knight] held him. As they came tumbling down, the Saracen said: “Let go of me, and it will be for your own good, as you will be able to get up the tower faster and safer”.’ They decided to call it a draw and ran off in different directions.12 With this bizarre encounter behind him, the knight was able to turn his attention to getting more of his men into the town as quickly as possible. The Christian troops on the walls were still greatly outnumbered, and vulnerable to counter-attack if the defenders had a chance to regroup: they needed to keep up the momentum. Accordingly, when the knight ‘was at the top of the tower, he gave a signal with his sword . . . [and] at that they all climbed over the wall together, and pursued and killed many of the Saracens who were fleeing to the intermediate wall’.13 As so often in the crusades, however, all was not what it seemed. The storming parties consisted entirely of Italian sailors and marines, rather than Franks. The knight leading the charge was the Genoese consul Guglielmo ‘Testadimaglio’ (‘Hammerhead’) Embriaco, and the siege was largely driven by Italian know-how and matériel. He was known as ‘Hammerhead’, not because he was a good man to have by your side in a bar brawl (though his performance suggests that this was indeed the case), but rather because he had been in charge of much of the timber work in building the siege engines at Jerusalem in 1099. Caesarea was a siege with an Italian fleet providing the blockade, using Italian timber for siege engines built by Italian carpenters, and firing artillery manned by Italian crews in support of teams of Italian soldiers.14 Even the wrestling match with the ‘Saracen’ on the staircase was subtly counterintuitive: most of the ‘Muslim’ garrison were Christians, either Nubian or Armenian mercenaries. The cultural gap between ‘Hammerhead’ and his ‘Saracen’ opponent was perhaps not as wide as one might suppose, and may partially explain how pragmatism 33

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY helped trump fanaticism on both sides at that adrenalin-filled moment. The Franks have a reputation for siege warfare, and capturing the Muslim coastal cities was vital, but it was never a straightforward process.15 The key to the coastal strategy was the crusaders’ ability to conduct a series of successful sieges against some extraordinarily well-protected cities. The coastal ports of Palestine and Syria were rich, populous and highly fortified. They usually had naval support in their fight against the Franks, either from the Fatimid regime in Egypt or, in the case of the Byzantine ports of northern Syria, from the imperial fleet operating out of Cyprus. And, in addition to their own garrisons and urban militia, they also had occasional access to military help from the Muslim armies of Egypt and Syria. Under these daunting conditions, it was not entirely impossible to capture a coastal city without a fleet, but it was far easier with one. In the absence of suitable naval resources, sieges became protracted slogging matches, the medieval equivalent of trench warfare, at a time when the crusader states were at their most vulnerable and outnumbered. Frankish armies adapted as best they could and became skilled at using their numerically small but heavily armoured shock troops to assault enemy fortifications. They used rams and siege artillery, but placed a special emphasis on the intimidating siege towers which could deliver their knights to the enemy’s battlements. Perhaps even more important, however, was their dependence on allies from Western Europe to provide the naval resources needed to overcome their Fatimid (and occasionally their Byzantine) opponents. These naval assets were able to create a blockade by sea, and also (something which is far less widely recognised) to provide essential timber and siege engineers. The crusaders could bring good-quality manpower to a siege, albeit in limited numbers, but they needed the mundane expertise of naval craftsmen and matériel far more than their chronicles would have us believe.16 Arsuf: 1099–1101 Taking a coastal town without naval support was always difficult and rarely quick. But the unremitting, desperate logic which propelled the coastal strategy meant that it often needed to be attempted. There was sometimes no viable alternative, and a small chance of success was better than none at all. The contrasting stories of successive 34

THE COASTAL STRATEGY sieges against the same coastal cities highlight the stark difference between having naval support or not. The attempts to capture Arsuf are a good example of just how depressing that process could be. By the end of 1099 the Kingdom of Jerusalem was still only connected to the West by a single port, Jaffa, which was in turn only connected to the Holy City by a narrow and dangerous corridor. If the Frankish presence in Palestine was to be sustainable, Godfrey of Bouillon, the ruler of Jerusalem, needed to expand this lifeline as a matter of urgency. Godfrey first attempted to do so by trying to capture the coastal town of Arsuf, just 18 kilometres north of Jaffa. There was a difficult history between the crusaders and the port, coloured on both sides by bad blood. Arsuf had arranged to pay tribute after an abortive siege in August 1099, and hostages had been exchanged to ensure that both parties kept to their agreement. The Muslim hostages had escaped from captivity, however, leaving the Egyptian garrison of Arsuf in possession of Christian prisoners (including a knight from Hainaut called Gerard of Avesnes) and little motivation to continue paying their protection money. Despite the lack of men and ships, and the perennial Muslim threat on the eastern frontiers, the urgency of the coastal strategy meant that it still had to take priority. Godfrey had little choice but to move to besiege Arsuf again in the middle of October. The fighting turned very nasty, very quickly, even by the low standards of the time. The Fatimid troops, perhaps because of a sense of the crusaders’ impotence, deliberately set out to goad them. This was not entirely illogical. The Frankish position was transparently weak. They had no fleet, and no way of enforcing a blockade. They were reduced in numbers as many of the crusaders had headed north, and most of the rest had returned to Europe. And the approach of winter made conditions for the besiegers even worse than usual.17 The Frankish hostages were the first to suffer, and in a manner calculated to be provocative. Some were tortured and executed. The most senior among them, Gerard of Avesnes, was strung out in front of the city walls and subjected to a mock crucifixion. In an act of gruesome theatre, the garrison ‘used ropes and chains to raise on high a ship’s mast of great length . . . stretching out his hands and feet with ropes’.18 The crusaders spent six weeks making siege engines and catapults. Significantly, in the absence of a fleet (and hence also in the absence of naval craftsmen), the artillery they constructed seems to have played little part in the siege. Instead, Godfrey 35

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY focused on the one area where he felt he could still bring his particular strengths to bear: he built a siege tower to allow his heavily armoured knights to gain access to the battlements. The siege tower was pushed laboriously across the town’s moats and on towards the walls. Just as he thought things could not get much worse, the crucified Gerard of Avesnes found himself being used as a human shield and caught in the crossfire, as the crusaders tried to clear the walls with archers and crossbows. Inevitably, given that he was placed at the epicentre of the Frankish assaults, ‘Gerard was shot and wounded by ten [arrows]’.19 The siege tower had been covered with bulls’ hides to provide protection from projectiles and incendiary devices. The Muslims used archers and wall-mounted artillery to hinder its progress, but their most effective defence was fire. Throwing a mixture of oil and pitch which the crusaders struggled to extinguish, they eventually set the siege tower ablaze and, just as it reached the walls, the structure collapsed. The combination of fire and a collapsing tower, within easy range of enemy archers, made for a scene of horror that few participants forgot. The death toll was enormous, particularly relative to the size of the small Frankish army: somewhere between 50 and 100 casualties were reported. Crusaders returning to Europe spoke of ‘broken backs and necks, others’ legs half cut off, hips or arms, certain had burst intestines from the unbearable weight of the timbers; having no strength to free themselves, they were reduced to ember and ash with the timbers’. A prominent knight named Franco of Mechelen was trapped in the wreckage. His comrades were forced to stand helplessly by as he burnt slowly and very noisily to death.20 The assault had almost succeeded. The tower had been moved right up to the wall, and some men had already been able to jump off the siege tower and onto the ramparts. Two knights trapped on the wall were faced with an appalling choice. The tower behind them had collapsed, but to stay on the ramparts meant certain death. They both decided to jump. The knights were injured in the fall, and the Muslim defenders showered stones on their heads to help them on their way. Amazingly, and providing a stunning endorsement of the quality of Frankish helmets, both made it back to the safety of the besiegers’ lines.21 The destruction of the tower and the failure of the assault had a huge impact on the morale of the army. With no navy and few men, Godfrey was faced with either repeating the same tactic (it had, after all, very nearly worked), or calling off the siege altogether. 36

THE COASTAL STRATEGY His decision smacked of desperation and a chronic lack of alternatives rather than genuine optimism. Godfrey eventually chose to launch the same assault again, in the same manner. Much the same happened, but with even less success. Another multi-storey tower was constructed and pushed across the ditch. Catapults and archers provided covering fire but before it could get to the walls, the garrison once again managed to set it on fire. The protective hides once more proved insufficient, and the blaze was inextinguishable with water. Significantly, this time the tower seems to have collapsed before it was fully consumed by the fire, with casualties being greatest among those on the ground who were trying to put the fire out.22 One of the Frankish chroniclers explicitly blamed this on poor construction rather than the blaze, saying that it could not sustain the weight and ‘collapsed into pieces because of the large number of men climbing up within it’.23 Finding good timber for siege towers was always problematic in the Middle East, particularly the long corner timbers needed to maintain stability, and the best raw materials had inevitably been used on the first tower.24 Godfrey had finally run out of options. As was often the case, the policy objectives and underlying strategy were sound, even compelling. But they were undercut by tactical problems and a debilitating lack of resources. Without a navy, he could not enforce a blockade. With the winter weather worsening, his men were suffering more from privation than the defenders. Lacking Italian marine craftsmen, his siege towers seem not to have been of the highest quality, being neither fireproof nor sturdy. Mining does not seem to have been considered as a viable possibility. This vicious little episode shows just how limited the choices were for a besieging army with no naval support. The Franks abandoned the siege and returned to Jerusalem in midDecember, in time for what must have been rather gloomy Christmas celebrations. But it was not over yet. Although Godfrey could not capture Arsuf, he could still make the lives of the townsfolk and garrison difficult. He set up a forward base of operations at Ramla, with a force of 100 cavalry and 200 infantry – a very significant part of his small army. Their role, as well as keeping an eye on potential troop movements from the Egyptian garrison at Ascalon, was to harass the population of Arsuf, and to demolish their agricultural infrastructure. As one chronicler put it, the Frankish troops were engaged in ‘destroying their crops and vineyards every single day’.25 After a couple of months, most of the troops at Ramla returned to Jerusalem, and the people of Arsuf gradually tried to resume normal life. In February 1100, 37

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY with the agricultural routines re-established, Duke Godfrey led a dawn cavalry raid on the peasants working the fields outside the town. That the conflict had become a very personal one is clear from the unusually violent nature of the incident. Godfrey and his men ‘attacked with a sudden cavalry charge some thousand Saracens who came out of the city, and, destroying them with savage wounds, they left over five hundred half-dead on the battlefield, their noses cut-off, or hands or feet, while the victors returned to Jerusalem with citizens’ wives and sons as prisoners’.26 The attempts to goad the Franks had succeeded all too well: this was a very visible rejoinder to the mistreatment of Christian hostages. In the aftermath of this massacre, additional Egyptian troops were shipped in to stiffen resolve among the townsfolk: an extra hundred ‘Arab’ cavalry (probably Armenians) and 200 infantry from one of the Fatimid Black regiments. The reinforcements were aggressive but inexperienced. Within a couple of weeks the troops from Ramla provoked a fight with the new members of the garrison, and came off best. Soon after, a small Frankish army defeated the Fatimid cavalry and their accompanying infantry as they were escorting civilian herders leaving Arsuf.27 By mid-March, the townsfolk of Arsuf had once again agreed to pay tribute to the Franks. Godfrey, desperate for cash, sold the future rights to the tribute to one of his own men in return for a helpful upfront payment into the royal treasury.28 Even more surprisingly, a few weeks later the seemingly unstoppable Gerard of Avesnes reappeared. Crucified and with multiple arrow wounds, he had been shipped out to Ascalon and nursed back to health. He was given to Godfrey as a token of good faith by a Fatimid administration that was trying to build a new rapprochement with the Franks. Gerard was rewarded with lands and revenues and, most importantly for an ambitious medieval lord, the ‘castle’ of Hebron, the fortified Herodian precinct known today as the Haram al-Khalil.29 All of this was very satisfactory. But it could not conceal the fact that a Frankish besieging force, however well led or well motivated, found it extraordinarily difficult to conduct a successful siege against a coastal town which could expect seaborne relief.30 The coastal strategy was clearly the correct course of action. If it was to succeed, however, the tactical implementation of that strategy was going to need careful coordination between land and naval forces. It was not until the spring of 1101 that an opportunity emerged to besiege Arsuf with naval support. A Genoese expedition to the East had become an almost annual 38

THE COASTAL STRATEGY event at this time, and their expedition of 1100–1101, consisting of 26 galleys and six other vessels, finally arrived outside Jaffa on 15 April 1101. Duke Godfrey had died shortly after the second abortive siege of Arsuf, so the Genoese were greeted by King Baldwin I, his successor. The king was naturally delighted to see them.31 The sordid matter of dividing future spoils needed to be sorted out. From both parties’ perspective, there were issues to be resolved. In the short term, there was plunder to consider, mainly the distribution of movable goods and the money that could be extracted from the taking of prisoners, either as ransom or as slaves. In the longer term, there was the bigger issue of trading rights, and establishing bases within the captured cities upon which commercial operations could be built. The king was naturally disinclined to give too much away, but it was in everyone’s interests for successful mercantile centres to be established on the coast. Once the broad principles of the expedition were agreed, it remained only to determine the objectives. The Genoese asked King Baldwin to choose and the king ‘decided that Arsuf should be besieged by sea and by land’.32 The Christian forces arrived at Arsuf on 26 April 1101. A close siege was put in place immediately. It normally took at least a couple of weeks to build the appropriate siege engines, but the resolve of the townsfolk broke long before the work was finished. The ‘third day of the siege was scarcely at an end when the citizens of Arsuf sought to make peace with the king’.33 Negotiators were sent out to ask: that they might be allowed to leave the city with life and limbs safe and sound, taking their possessions, and to hand over and leave the town in the king’s hands. The king . . . spared the men, allowing them to come out peacefully with everything that they could carry on their backs, and he granted them a safe conduct as far as Ascalon.34

The relatively civilised conclusion to the siege, particularly given the poor relations between Arsuf and the Franks, was no coincidence. For the people of Arsuf, realising that they were unlikely to be relieved by the Egyptian navy, it was important to end the siege as quickly as possible. Given the animosity created by the previous siege, any outcome that ended with a full-scale assault was inevitably going to lead to a great deal of unpleasantness. Similarly, from the crusaders’ perspective, treating Arsuf with leniency was a clear signal: we are people you can do business with and, 39

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY if you submit quickly, this can all end peacefully. The coastal strategy fundamentally hinged on violence, or the threat of violence, but if it could be accomplished without unnecessary bloodshed, so much the better. Acre: 1103–1104 The city of Acre was another example of how much priority was given to coastal sieges, and of how important it was to keep the Italian city-states on side. There was no Italian fleet in the East in 1103, but King Baldwin needed to maintain the momentum of conquest. He had access to a very small number of ships in his own right, and was able to hire several other vessels during the Easter pilgrimage season. He eventually scraped together a lacklustre ‘navy’ of some 16 ships.35 With this small and fairly motley squadron to support him, he felt (over-optimistically) that he could at least attempt to besiege Acre. Acre was a very natural target. It had the best port on the Palestinian coast and its harbour provided an excellent base for the Fatimid fleet: much better, in fact, than their main garrison town at Ascalon. They could use these facilities to intercept pilgrim and mercantile traffic sailing from Europe and heading south towards Jaffa. Similarly, on land the Egyptian army took every opportunity to harass the newly arrived Franks. King Baldwin, we are told, ‘was very angry against the town of Acre, because its ambushes and attacks on pilgrims had grown more frequent’.36 Just as importantly, if it could be captured the Latin Kingdom could use its shipping facilities to expand and flourish. As Fulcher of Chartres wrote, this ‘city was very necessary to us since it contained a port so large that a great many ships could be safely berthed within its secure walls’.37 The stakes were high on both sides. The assault on Acre in 1103 was a serious one – despite the absence of an Italian fleet, this was no mere demonstration. The entire army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was mustered, and a close siege was put in place. Baldwin ‘assembled an army of some five thousand men and brought it to the ramparts of [Acre]. The blockade was completed on all sides and he attacked the town for a period of five weeks with a bombardment from mangonels [catapults] and the superior height of his siege engines.’38 The lack of a substantial naval component was always going to be an issue, however. The Franks might look impressive on land, but the situation at sea was far more fragile. 40

THE COASTAL STRATEGY The siege gradually took its toll on the population of Acre. The interests of the merchant class often became misaligned from those of the garrison if the siege went on too long. As the Frankish siege towers neared the walls and the siege entered its critical (and potentially final) stage, secret discussions began with some of the townsfolk in order to arrange a peaceful transition and to ‘surrender the city into the hands of the king in return for their lives’.39 The Muslim coastal cities and their Fatimid overlords could not afford a repeat of the events of 1101, however. Arsuf and Caesarea had been poorly supported, and had fallen quickly. But the lesson had been learnt. Just as negotiations were gaining momentum, the garrison received massive reinforcements – an Egyptian naval squadron forced its way through the amateur Frankish blockade, bringing with it large numbers of troops and supplies from other military bases at Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli.40 The reinforcements included a lot of the regular infantry that were so useful in close quarters fighting on the ramparts. Even more importantly, however, there was also a specialist ‘Greek fire’ unit, the medieval equivalent of combat engineers with flamethrowers. The Fatimid forces arrived in Acre as evening fell, and immediately set about attacking the siege tower. They prepared ‘a fierce fire with sulphur, oil, pitch, and tow, and suddenly hurled it into the king’s siege tower to frighten the men out of it who were shooting arrows continually from above’.41 A ferocious firefight broke out between the two armies. Egyptian archers supported their naphtha team and hampered the Franks’ attempts to put out the flames. A knight called Reinold was in command of the crossbowmen tasked to keep the Egyptian incendiary weapons at bay. He and his men had some initial success during the night fighting, but the situation deteriorated badly during the course of the following morning. The garrison was now so numerous (almost certainly outnumbering their besiegers) that it launched a series of sorties from the gates to disrupt the Christian assault and made renewed efforts to set fire to the siege tower.42 To make matters worse, Reinold sustained a direct hit from a rock hurled by one of the small rampart-mounted Egyptian catapults while directing the defence of the siege tower. He died instantly and very visibly. In a particularly harsh case of armchair generalship, one of the Christian chroniclers, who had rarely left the safety of the cloisters, suggested that Reinold had only himself to blame as ‘he stood unwarily and fearlessly too much in the open’.43 41

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The Frankish position was now untenable. The siege tower could not be moved in the face of such strong opposition and had already been damaged by fire. The morale of the Christian army plummeted – facing a large and aggressive garrison, and with a naval blockade unenforceable, the king was left with no option other than to retreat, ‘troubled and grieving’.44 The reasons for the failure of the siege were disputed. Fulcher of Chartres, who was in the country at the time and may have been with the army himself, ascribed it to the strength of the city’s fortifications and the aggression of its garrison.45 All of which was true, but only up to a point. Bartolf of Nangis was more astute in acknowledging the strength of the defence but ascribing the siege’s ultimate failure to the lack of a credible naval component.46 King Baldwin, he wrote, ‘was unable to blockade it on every side . . . [and] he returned home, putting off the conquest of the city until he had the fleet of the Genoese and the Pisans, for which he was waiting’. While a strong city still had access to good levels of resupply from the sea, it was unlikely to be taken quickly, if at all.47 As with the first siege of Arsuf, the logic of the coastal strategy was impeccable, but the tactical resources available to implement it were often far less impressive. The arrival of another Genoese fleet in the eastern Mediterranean in 1104 changed the situation completely. As usual, the Italians extracted a high price for their help, because they could – they were in a strong negotiating position, and the prize was immense. The capture of Acre would transform the Latin Kingdom. The religious and iconic centre of the kingdom in the twelfth century might have been Jerusalem, but its economic and political powerhouse was always Acre. A formal grant from King Baldwin issued shortly after the capture of Acre shows just how generous these terms had to be. He gave the Genoese a third part of the city of Arsuf within the walls and a third part of its territory stretching for one league [around it] . . . and likewise in the city of Caesarea; and a third part of the city of Acre, with one-third of the revenues from the harbour, the city and the land stretching for one league [around it] . . . and one-third part of every city which with God’s help and the support of fifty or more Genoese [ships], with a third-part of the revenue of the territory of any such cities extending for one league around them.48

42

THE COASTAL STRATEGY The Genoese demanded – and received – a lot. But possession of the coastal cities was transformative, and the entire future of the crusader states depended upon it. It was a price that had to be paid. The crusader forces arrived outside Acre on 6 May 1104.49 The fleet instantly put a tight naval blockade in place: there is no evidence of any contact between the city and the Egyptian authorities from this time onwards, and no sign that the Fatimid navy felt confident enough to try to force its way through the blockade. On land, similarly, the siege was professional and efficient: partly to isolate the garrison, but also to ensure that they knew the besiegers were committed to seeing the job through. Catapults and siege towers were built in preparation for an assault, placing the garrison under increasing psychological pressure.50 It took a few days to get the siege engines and artillery built, but the presence of so many naval craftsmen speeded up the process, and made the end product more effective. Tellingly, both the Muslim and Frankish sources suggest that the fighting spirit of the garrison was in decline almost immediately after the bombardment started, with words like ‘exhausted’ and ‘terrified’ being used to describe their condition. After positioning the siege artillery the Franks began ‘attacking the city and citizens without restraint, powerfully and unsparingly, fighting everywhere until the Saracens’ forces and army were exhausted and dared fight no longer’.51 Showing sophistication suggestive of the involvement of naval specialists, the Franks seem to have been able to mount small catapults on the top level of the siege towers they had constructed. This gave the artillerists a considerable height advantage, and they ‘hurled huge rocks, whose constant battering shattered the ramparts and even destroyed buildings within the city itself ’. Combined with the isolation of a garrison fearing (entirely correctly) that external aid was not going to be forthcoming, the ability of the city to withstand a lengthy siege was rapidly undermined.52 The end, when it came, was swift and precipitated by a loss of morale rather than through any spectacular breakthrough by the crusaders. Without any prospect of relief, the garrison ‘found it difficult to bear the constant pressure of the besiegers. Accordingly . . . the city was finally surrendered to the king.’53 The local Fatimid commander played a prominent part in the surrender. He sent a delegation to King Baldwin to ask for a truce, and persuaded the townsfolk that further resistance would be counterproductive.54 The eventual proposal from the Muslim side was, not coincidentally, very much along the lines of the agreement that 43

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY had been hammered out at the end of the siege of Arsuf. All citizens would be free to leave with their possessions and, as an extra clause, any who wanted to remain would be able to do so, albeit with additional tax liabilities.55 King Baldwin and the nobility of the Latin Kingdom were delighted. This would give them the best port on the Palestinian coast. They could get it, moreover, without sustaining the bloodshed and damage of a full assault. If the local inhabitants (and particularly the merchants) were treated fairly, there was also a good chance that some form of mutually profitable economic continuity could be maintained. The emir naturally wanted free passage for his people, however, and a guarantee that they could take their movable goods with them. The Italians were unhappy at losing this treasure, and (more importantly) were probably less than overwhelmed at the prospect of keeping potential business rivals in place. They argued strongly against the terms of the proposal but were overruled by the king and nobles. This was a deal the Italians would want to sabotage.56 The role of the Fatimid governor in Acre was ambiguous. The Franks certainly believed that he was the one who had been pushing for a conditional surrender, and that he had worked hard to persuade the townsfolk that this was their best option. Tellingly, the Muslim sources suggest that he had already left the city before the final surrender, and made his way to Damascus, presumably with some of the garrison. Ibn al-Qalanisi wrote: The Commander of the town, on account of his inability to defend it and hold off the Franks, and despairing of the arrival of reinforcements or assistance, sent to them asking for quarter for himself and the townspeople. When the city was captured, he continued his flight until he reached Damascus. On his entry, which was on [26 May] he was courteously received . . . He remained at Damascus until the way was smoothed for him to return to Egypt, and thereafter set out on his way back. He arrived there safely and made his apology for the defeat which he had suffered, and his apology was accepted although at first they had blamed him and were violently incensed at his action.57

Surrender was not a great career move, but at least he survived.58 The precipitous surrender of the city, and the relatively poor performance of the garrison, look all the more culpable in the light of subsequent events. The Italians 44

THE COASTAL STRATEGY had never been in favour of a deal that deprived them of valuable treasure and kept commercial competitors in business. At the end of the siege of Gibelet, a few weeks earlier, they had massacred a defenceless civilian population. They decided to do the same at Acre. Watching the townsfolk ‘coming out with all their household goods, and carrying out their incredible wealth, [the Italians] were overcome with blind greed . . . they suddenly rushed through the middle of the city, killing the citizens, seizing gold, silver, purple of different kinds, and many precious things’.59 Civilians were robbed and murdered. Refugees were tortured to reveal where any hidden possessions might be. The sailors, knowing they would be returning home soon and that this was a one-off opportunity, took everything they could, as quickly as they could.60 King Baldwin was furious and sent his troops in to stop the killing. He had guaranteed the safety of the civilians and was ‘violently angry about the injustice done to him by the Pisans and Genoese on account of the oath . . . lest they should be thought to have violated the trust and truce as a trick and with his own consent’. This was an age when an oath, particularly an oath made by a divinely anointed king, was taken extraordinarily seriously. Christian sources make it clear that it was only the intervention of religious leaders that calmed Baldwin down and prevented fighting from breaking out between Italian and Frankish troops.61 It is impossible to know the exact extent of the savagery that took place after the fall of Acre. The king certainly tried to impose order as soon as he saw things were getting out of hand, and sent royal soldiers in to protect the civilians. On a moral level, the Italians had placed him in breach of his oath, and oath-breaking was something a medieval man, in genuine fear for his immortal soul, never did lightly. They were also damaging his credibility in any future negotiations with the Muslim communities and harming his longer-term economic interests: if he was trying to encourage the Muslim commercial classes to stay, this was not the way to do it. A Jewish merchant who was trapped in Acre during the siege later wrote to his mother that ‘we constantly faced danger of death, for we were near to [the crusaders] day and night, hearing their talk and they heard ours; and our bread was coloured with blood’. But he clearly managed to escape, and instead of recounting any particular horrors, he simply ends his letter by saying how well his servant Mubarak had behaved, and how he had helped him to economise on his expenses.62 So, a wholesale 45

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY massacre was probably averted, but only after a great deal of damage had been done to the civilian community and to King Baldwin’s reputation. The bloodshed and reputational damage were certainly unfortunate on an operational level. More importantly, however, the capture of Acre was a turning point for the crusader states. The coastal strategy was visibly successful. And as the roll-out of that strategy gained momentum, each surviving Muslim port looked increasingly isolated. Latakia: 1101–1108 The Principality of Antioch faced enemies on the coast which were different to those of their more southerly crusader neighbours: the Christian armies of Byzantium, rather than the Muslim forces of Egypt or Syria. But the strategic imperatives remained the same. In the summer of 1101, for example, Tancred, the regent of Antioch, began to besiege Latakia, an important port on the Syrian coast and a crucial base for the Byzantine navy.63 The garrison were able to call on their colleagues in Cyprus for support but the fleet was invariably stretched thin. Even so, despite a poorly supplied and isolated garrison, the Franks found it hard to bring the siege to a successful conclusion without the ships to enforce a blockade at sea. In the early days of the siege Tancred had ordered a full assault on the walls, as much to test the resolve of the garrison as the strength of the fortifications. The attack was of the most unsubtle kind, reflecting his initially low opinion of the Byzantine garrison. He sent in a combination of assault ladders for the walls and a detachment of combat engineers with two-handed axes to try to chop the gates off their hinges. The results were predictable. As Tancred ‘gave his order, the soldiers attacked. They rushed up to the walls. Hammers, mattocks, axes, and every other tool of this sort beat at the gates.’ Not surprisingly, the gates proved to be stronger than the axes, which ‘flew apart and were broken’. The assault teams were forced to retreat, having achieved nothing.64 As brute force had failed, the siege settled down into the usual loose blockade. In the absence of enough men to maintain a close siege or any way to stop supplies for the city arriving by sea, Tancred’s options were extremely limited. His men were able to stop foraging parties being sent out from the town, but could do little else. 46

THE COASTAL STRATEGY Eventually, a full 18 months later, and well into the second winter of the siege, the garrison were, almost literally, bored into submission. In order to maintain an aggressive fighting spirit among the men, the Byzantine commander, Andronikos Tzintziloukes, would send out raiding parties from time to time. In doing so he seems to have had some success. The garrison were often able to surprise the besiegers, inflict some casualties and head back to town before the alarm could be raised. Rather lazily, however, these raids generally used the same routes and became formulaic. Tancred set up a trap. He very ostentatiously erected a large supply tent near the normal sortie route, and pretended to send most of his troops away foraging. The garrison could scarcely believe their luck and, accompanied by the city militia, a large raiding party was gathered. Leaving ‘only a few men behind, almost all of them set out’ and pillaged the fake supply tents.65 A few minutes later, scattered into small groups and weighed down with plunder, they set off back to the city. Tancred unleashed his cavalry, which he had kept concealed, and cut them off from the gates. The remaining members of the garrison were too demoralised to continue, and a peaceful surrender of the town was negotiated. The capture of Latakia in 1102 is probably less significant than the manner of its taking. The Byzantine line was that famine had led to its surrender. This was disingenuous. Things may indeed have been uncomfortable in the town, but ultimately, it was only the sloppiness of the garrison that allowed the siege to succeed. Otherwise, even with minimal support from the sea, the garrison could have carried on almost indefinitely.66 Byzantine forces were soon back in Latakia, however, exploiting Frankish weakness in the aftermath of their disastrous defeat at the battle of Harran in the spring of 1104. Tancred was forced to start the siege again from the beginning.67 As ever, the best way to capture a coastal town, however well supplied and professionally garrisoned, was to have a navy. Tancred found this in the presence of the Pisans, who had a fleet off the Antiochene coast in 1108. They were able to blockade Latakia from the sea and provide soldiers and engineers to help with the siege on land. Italian help never came cheap, and Tancred was forced to give them quarters in both Latakia and Antioch for their assistance.68 But you get what you pay for, and Latakia was soon back in Frankish hands. More to the point, as was similarly true all along the coast of Palestine, its capture was so vital that almost any price was worth paying. 47

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Tripoli: April 1102 –1109 The same strategic logic was true further south along the coast in what became the county of Tripoli: control of the ports was the primary goal, and it was a lot easier to take them with a fleet. With the capture of the port of Tortosa in February 1102, and the defeat of local Muslim armies in battle nearby a few weeks later, Raymond of Toulouse was able to devote himself to the capture of a far more important prize: Tripoli itself.69 The coastal strategy was just as important for Raymond as it was in the south, to the kings of Jerusalem. But it was a far more binary affair. The semi-autonomous city of Tripoli was such a powerful local player in its own right that it was the central, unavoidable objective for the strategy. Its capture would make a reality of the crusader state that Raymond dreamt of ruling. Without it, his ambitions, and the very existence of his small band of followers, was unviable. Besieging the port was always going to be a challenging objective. Raymond’s small southern French army was outnumbered by the Muslim defenders, and he had no naval resources of his own. Tripoli was a rich mercantile city, nominally a Fatimid possession but at least semi-independent in practice. Its riches provided it with a strong army, certainly by the standards of the time, and it generally conducted its own foreign policy. It had occasional help from the Egyptian navy and a substantial number of privateers or merchant vessels could be commandeered in an emergency. To make matters even worse, Frankish troops attacking Tripoli could also expect to be surrounded as Muslim forces arrived from allied states such as Homs or Damascus. The magnitude of the task was recognised even at the time. Contemporary accounts described the ‘amazing audacity’ of the project. A Frankish chronicler wrote that Raymond was besieging Tripoli, ‘one man against many thousands . . . [with only] about 400 Christian troops’.70 But, if the crusaders’ coastal strategy was to succeed in Lebanon, the siege had to be attempted. Raymond had maintained good relations with the Byzantine empire and could call on occasional support from their naval bases in Cyprus.71 More importantly, however, he could also count on help from the local population. After appropriate negotiations, we are told, the ‘inhabitants of the Mountain and likewise those of al-Sawad, of whom most were Christians, came and aided him in the siege’.72 48

THE COASTAL STRATEGY Everyone settled down for the long haul, with periods of inactivity and desultory skirmishing punctuated by episodes of greater intensity. Though it was doubtless debilitating for all concerned, it did not occupy all of the Tripolitans’ energies, nor did it push them quickly to the point of desperation. In the spring of 1103, for example, they were sufficiently sanguine about their situation to be able to send some of their men and vessels to help Acre during the (unsuccessful) siege by the Franks in that year.73 The pattern of combat that emerged was a strangely symmetrical balance of raid and counter-raid between the two forces. Each side tried to starve the other out. The Franks attempted to stop supplies getting in to Tripoli by land (though they could not stop it being resupplied by sea), while the Muslims tried to ‘empty the countryside of people who could farm it, to make the Franks short of provisions so that they would go away’.74 The Franks made normal life impossible for the Tripolitans. A trading city bereft of trade, it was gradually dying on its feet. But neither of the belligerents had sufficient strength to finish the other off. Each was occasionally able to feed new troops into the fray, but never enough for a knockout blow. The city had massive financial reserves, at least to start with, and was continually trying to attract Turkic manpower from the Syrian Muslim states of the interior.75 Tripoli, nominally at least a Shi’ite Fatimid dependency, however, always found it difficult to get wholehearted backing from its Sunni neighbours, and was never entirely trusted. As trade dried up and the coffers diminished, the authorities in Tripoli imposed ever harsher levels of taxation on the merchant classes to fund the defence of the city. Morale sank and the local business community inevitably began to look for ways to unlock the logjam. In 1106 two Tripolitan merchants ‘went out to the Franks and said, “Our lord has extorted money from us. We have come to join you.” They mentioned to the Franks that provisions were coming from ’Arqa and the Mountain, so the Franks posted a body of men on that side to stop anything entering the town.’76 The situation in Tripoli grew steadily worse. By 1108 matters had reached a tipping point. Fakhr al-Mulk, the Emir of Tripoli, was reduced to seeking help in person from the Sunni authorities in Baghdad and Damascus. But the Fatimid government, and no doubt many of the ruling class in Tripoli too, had had enough. His departure was accompanied by two coups, both aimed at installing more direct rule from Cairo. The first was suppressed, but the 49

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY second succeeded. A Fatimid military governor was appointed and Egyptian troops and supplies flowed into the city.77 As many other coastal cities had fallen to the Franks, however, Tripoli was now at the far end of the operating range of the Egyptian fleet. Help could be provided, but it could never be consistent. Ultimately, the political upheavals in Tripoli were a symptom of weakness, not a return to strength. The Egyptian navy had brought 500 infantry and some supplies with them immediately after the successful coup, but it had also prioritised stripping out the city’s treasury and removing it back to Cairo: hardly a vote of confidence or an encouraging signal for the townsfolk. The full resupply and reinforcement that was required never took place. The main thing keeping Tripoli safe was not the Egyptian military but bickering between the different Frankish factions. Antioch was competing with the fledgling County of Tripoli for land and influence. The County of Edessa had its hands full with Turkic incursions. And the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had its own coastal cities to capture. Ironically, it was an extreme manifestation of this same Frankish factionalism which eventually brought the blockade of Tripoli to an end. Raymond of Toulouse’s son, William-Jordan, had inherited his father’s lands in the Levant, and after Raymond’s death it had been he and his men who kept Tripoli under pressure. Bertrand, another of Raymond’s sons, had inherited his lands and titles in France, however, and felt that he had a better claim to his father’s overseas possessions than his half-brother. This internal competition within the house of Toulouse meant that both parties mobilised as many troops as they could. Bertrand raised a substantial army in the west. He hired a fleet to transport these ‘warlike men and armoured cavalry, with forty galleys containing four thousand (there being in each galley a hundred fighting men, not counting sailors) and put in at the city of Pisa in Italy’. There they linked up with a Genoese fleet consisting of ‘eighty of their galleys’. For the first time not only were substantial land forces in place for the siege but a significant naval force was at hand to put Tripoli under a tight blockade.78 The arrival of Bertrand and his Italian allies off the Palestinian coast sparked a flurry of arguments between himself, his half-brother and the Prince of Antioch. But the conflict also meant that everyone was fully mobilised and focused on the 50

THE COASTAL STRATEGY problem of Tripoli. The Latin states were always too outnumbered to sustain the luxury of long-term disunity. By the time King Baldwin had intervened with the army of the Latin Kingdom and knocked a few heads together, the array of troops outside the city was almost unstoppable.79 All the main players on the Christian side were persuaded to bring their troops to a royal assembly convened outside Tripoli in June 1109. Tancred of Antioch and Count William-Jordan ‘assembled seven hundred outstanding cavalrymen and turned aside to Tripoli, and after a short time Baldwin of Edessa and Joscelin of Courtney followed them on the king’s orders with a great cavalry force’.80 Without substantial help from Egypt, the city’s days were numbered. No such help arrived. The Franks and their Italian allies established a near total lockdown. They ‘renewed the attack with the vigour of fresh recruits, and whenever an opportunity offered they pressed the enemy hard’.81 Even more compellingly, there was one unmistakable statement of intent that could not be ignored: siege towers. Moving them painstakingly ever closer to the walls, combined with a tight naval blockade, was a stark reminder to the garrison that the end was in sight. When ‘the populace saw this, they despaired and their spirits sank’. They were entirely correct. If any negotiations were to take place, they needed to happen quickly, while the defenders still had some leverage.82 The authorities in Tripoli negotiated directly with the king, seeing him as someone who might protect them from the more piratically inclined sailors in the Italian fleets. The Fatimid coastal cities had clearly begun to distinguish between those Christians with longer-term interests in the Holy Land (who could perhaps be trusted to honour an agreement), and those whose short-term interests would lead them towards immediate asset-stripping. Not surprisingly, the Tripolitans ‘sought peace, but they agreed they would give the city to no one except the king because . . . they particularly trusted themselves to his good faith and feared lest they be attacked . . . by Pisans and Genoese in violation of the truce, just as the people of Acre had been’.83 The Egyptian and civic authorities were right, in theory at least, to trust the king, and in practice they had little choice. The Frankish soldiers moved in to occupy the city in accordance with the treaty, but as soon as the Italians realised that the game was up, they attempted to take whatever they could by force. They ‘plundered all that was in it, took the men captive, and enslaved the women and children’.84 51

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The Genoese chronicler Caffaro, with the glory of his city in mind, tried to dress up the outcome in more heroic terms, and wrote of his compatriots’ exploits in ‘besieging the city, until they stormed it, through use of many siege-engines, a great deal of effort, and the fighting capability of the bravest warriors’.85 But the reality was much less heroic: robbery in violation of a solemn agreement. As usual, it was the civilians who suffered most. The military governor and the garrison were able to fend for themselves. They had been leading the surrender negotiations and had taken refuge during the critical early moments after the city’s capture – the dangerous time between the opening of the gates and the king’s ability to impose order on the more unruly elements of the besieging armies. The garrison managed to get a Frankish escort out of town, and travelled safely to Damascus.86 The performance of the Fatimid navy had been spectacularly unimpressive, and was commented on bitterly by the Muslim chroniclers. They had had almost a year to resupply Tripoli, but even when the fleet, provisions and men had been gathered in Egypt, they refused to leave port, arguing among themselves instead. Incompetence and infighting were compounded by bad luck. When the fleet was eventually persuaded to set sail, the weather turned against it and ‘the wind drove it back, and they were unable to get to Tripoli’.87 Ironically, given such long delays, it arrived just a few days too late, and was forced to sail on past the newly captured city. It distributed the supplies it was carrying to the remaining Fatimid coastal cities, but could offer little long-term help. The Fatimid garrisons of ‘Tyre, Sidon and Beirut sought to retain it, and made representations of their lamentable condition and their incapacity to fight against the Franks’, but the Egyptian squadron refused their appeals point blank. The naval authorities said they ‘could not stay and weighed anchor to return to Egypt’.88 Having made a realistic appraisal of the quality of the help available, Beirut and Sidon both surrendered to the Franks the following year. This was partly inevitable. Losses further down the coast meant that the Fatimid fleet was operating at the far edges of its effective range, particularly in terms of its ability to access fresh water and safe harbourage. But, just as importantly, it also seems to have been cowed by the presence of Christian shipping. None of the sources, Muslim or Christian, suggest that the Egyptian squadron ever tried to engage the Italian fleet – it just wanted to get home while it still could. 52

THE COASTAL STRATEGY By 1110, all the coastal cities of Palestine and Syria had been incorporated into the newly established crusader states, with the two exceptions of Tyre and, in the south, the Fatimid military base of Ascalon. The sea routes back to Europe had been secured. The coastal strategy had reached critical mass. The Castles Strategy is as much about what you choose not to do, as what you choose to do. Resources are finite. Choices need to be made, and priorities defined. So, not surprisingly, although the crusader states later became famous for their castles, at this early stage, with most resources being diverted into the coastal strategy, castle building did not assume a high priority. It is significant that of almost 30 castles and fortified cities occupied by the Franks in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the period 1099–1114, only eight were built from scratch.89 Even the few new castles that were constructed were often designed to deal with the threat from Muslim garrisons on the Mediterranean seaboard. Problems on the Egyptian front could be more pressing than the frontiers to the east. And, just as the crusaders eventually built castles to defend and extend their eastern frontiers, so they did the same around the interior frontiers of the Egyptian marches. To contemporaries, it was clear that they had vulnerable borders all along the coast (at least at first) and to the south around the heavily fortified Fatimid town of Ascalon. Contrary to our current perceptions, their proximity made them an even more immediate danger to the newly arrived crusaders and travellers from Europe than the Turkic-dominated cities of the interior. Even in terms of castle building, the coastal strategy had to be prioritised. Intimidating Tripoli: Mount Pilgrim castle, 1102 The threat from the Muslim armies of the coastal cities was a constant: the ability of the Frankish forces to besiege them was far less consistent, however, relying as it did upon the presence of European naval forces over which they had no direct control. A partial solution to this problem was to build aggressive ‘siege-fortifications’. These were castles thrown as far forward as possible, acting as bases from which to intimidate 53

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY and impose economic and military restraints on the enemy’s coastal cities until such time as resources became available to engage in a more intense and successful siege. Temporary fortresses had been constructed during previous sieges and had proved their worth, for example in the capture of Antioch in 1098. In 1102, however, as part of his interminable and seemingly hopeless siege of Tripoli, Raymond of Toulouse tried something altogether more ambitious and far more aggressive: castle building as a deliberate act of intimidation and as a signal that he was there to stay. He built a permanent castle, which he called Mount Pilgrim, on a ridge only 3 kilometres east of the city, along the main route into town from the north and east. Commercially, this was calculated to cause maximum disruption. Militarily, it was an ever-present challenge: not big by later castle-building standards, but sufficient to keep up pressure and to provide a base from which to enforce a loose land blockade on Tripoli.90 Building Mount Pilgrim was always going to be either very brave or very foolish. The seat of government of the embryonic crusader state, the County of Tripoli, was a simple rectangular keep measuring only 17 by 11 metres, with just a single room on each storey. The castle was well sited: of all the Frankish castles in the Holy Land, Mount Pilgrim proved among the most resilient. It was substantially rebuilt and improved later in the century and survived the widespread collapse after the battle of Hattin in 1187.91 But it was still a small and isolated settlement in 1102, little more than a tower and a walled enclosure, dwarfed by the bigger, more prosperous and densely populated city of Tripoli which it overlooked.92 In 1103, with the plaster on the keep barely dry, Raymond was already styling himself ‘Count of Tripoli’ and optimistically named one of his followers, Albert of St Evrard, as bishop. One chronicler wrote that as a ‘result of this constant harrying, the natives of the entire district and even those who lived in the city itself were forced to pay him an annual tribute and in all matters obeyed him as if he owned the city without dispute’.93 This may have been true, but only up to a point. The local villagers were mainly Christian and were actively helping with the siege of Tripoli.94 They probably saw Raymond as their new overlord. And he may even have been able to extort occasional tribute from Tripoli itself. But it was never under his control. As if to prove the point, on 12 September 1104 the full might of the Tripolitan military, professional soldiers, city militia and volunteers, emerged from the gates 54

THE COASTAL STRATEGY for a surprise attack on the hated crusader castle. It caught the Franks completely off guard. Muslim troops quickly scaled the bailey walls and destroyed the newly built settlement. The ‘garrison were taken by surprise and killed. Its contents were plundered and it was set on fire and reduced to ruins . . . having obtained from it a great quantity of weapons, money, rich stuffs and silver, [they] returned to Tripoli safely and laden with booty’.95 Although the keep itself was not taken, there were many casualties. Raymond had been trapped as he ‘stood on one of the burning roofs, with several of his counts and knights, and it collapsed under him’.96 It was only with difficulty that he was dragged to safety. Raymond of Toulouse had been the most senior commander on the First Crusade. Widely respected but always strangely under-achieving, he struggled on for a while but never fully recovered from his wounds. Five months later he died, still at Mount Pilgrim castle, still without the city he had fought so hard to capture and, if he was conscious at all, probably thinking that he had failed.97 Yet he had the last word. The castle at Mount Pilgrim eventually fulfilled its purpose. The raids of the Frankish garrison made life for the Tripolitans increasingly intolerable. As we have seen, a few years later, on 26 June 1109, it fell to the Franks and became the capital of the Toulousaine crusader state of which Raymond had dreamed.98 Intimidating Tyre: Toron, 1106 and Scandelion, 1117 The same solutions for the same problems were played out further south. For a quarter of a century after the fall of Jerusalem, the strong Muslim-held city of Tyre continued to pose a substantial threat to the crusaders. Two castles were built relatively early on to contain it and inflict maximum economic disruption on its rural hinterland. The castle of Toron was the first of these. Hugh of Fauquembergues, as Prince of Galilee and one of King Baldwin’s most trusted companions, waged an extremely active war against Damascus, but also applied as much pressure as possible on the Fatimid garrison in Tyre. Like all the early princes of Galilee, he realised that ownership of a coastal city would give him direct access to Europe, greatly increasing the power (and potential independence) of his ‘state within a state’. Building a castle at Toron in 1106 helped with both tasks. 55

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY It sat astride the northerly of the three main commercial roads from Damascus to the sea and, as well as blocking trade to Tyre, it provided a strong jumping-off point for raids against the Fatimid garrison.99 The castle he built was a large hilltop fortification. It was a success from the very beginning. Despite its primarily short-term function, the castle became, like Mount Pilgrim, one of the most important strongholds of the Latin Kingdom. Economically, it was in a fertile agricultural location, as well as sitting on a major trade route. William of Tyre, who, as his name suggests, knew the area extremely well, later wrote that ‘even now [i.e. in the 1180s], because of its rich soil and the excellence of its famous fortifications, [the castle of Toron] is of the greatest benefit to the city of Tyre and indeed to the whole locality’.100 From the Muslim perspective, however, its main purpose was as an irritating but effective vehicle for extortion. The Damascus chronicle wrote that ‘Baldwin, king of the Franks, collected his . . . army and marched on the port of Tyre. He encamped in front of the town and began the construction of a castle in its outskirts . . . He remained for a month, after which the governor of the town purchased his withdrawal for seven thousand dinars, and he took them and withdrew’.101 Soon after the castle was built, the garrison of Tyre had made a last-ditch attempt to destroy it. As with Mount Pilgrim, the recently completed suburbs were overrun, but the fortress itself remained untaken until the catastrophe at Hattin in 1187.102 While Toron belonged to the princes of Galilee, Scandelion, the other coastal siege castle constructed against Tyre in this period, was a royal initiative. Its use as part of the coastal strategy was explicit. King Baldwin I built it because ‘Tyre was now the only city on the coast which still remained in the possession of the enemy, and the king was most eager to bring it under his power’.103 The new castle was much closer to Tyre than Toron, and represented a significant tightening of the pressure being applied. Like Toron, the intent was aggressive from the outset. Scandelion was constructed to be ‘a thorn in the side of the people of Tyre and that from it injuries might be inflicted upon them’. The orchards and smallholdings between Scandelion and Tyre were famously fertile, and part of the reason for setting up a garrison there was to deny the Tyrians easy access to these lands.104 Tyre did not fall until 1124, and was never likely to do so without a close siege, coordinated on land and sea. Scandelion fulfilled a major role in weakening the city 56

THE COASTAL STRATEGY in the run-up to its final capture, however. Food supplies for its citizens were reduced because ‘before the city was taken or even besieged . . . the greater part of [the lands of] Tyre had already passed into the hands of the Christians’. By 1124, when a Venetian fleet became available for a final assault, ‘Tyre had suffered greatly from recurring attacks proceeding from these points and consequently was less able to resist.’105 The castle had done its job. Strategy or Serendipity? Diplomacy and Policy In deconstructing the activity of the crusader states in this period, the sieges they undertook, the castles they built (and, just as importantly, the castles they chose not to build), we can reasonably deduce that there was indeed a clear course of action in mind: to roll up the coastal cities of Palestine and Syria, with a particular focus on those with the best harbours, and create strong lines of communication back to Europe. These efforts were successful, and the vast majority of enemy-held coastal cities were in Frankish hands by 1110. But did this really constitute ‘strategy’ in any meaningful use of the word? Did it involve long-term planning? Or did the Italian squadrons which made it all possible simply turn up because they happened to be in the area, cruising for commercial opportunity? A cursory reading of the chronicles certainly gives the impression that the fleets appeared in an entirely fortuitous way. Sometimes they arrive to do good work for the Christian cause by chance or sometimes, perhaps, by the will of God. The leaders of the First Crusade and their extraordinary exploits quickly became legendary. By the time many of the chronicles of the period were being written they were making the transition in the imagination of the time from fallible warriors into iconic rock stars with semi-mythic status. Heroes, and particularly heroes with the active backing of God, do not need mundane activities such as planning or strategy. Good things just happen to them. Fleets turn up when they are needed. Allies become available to help them fulfil God’s grand design. The effortless nature of the process by which fleets arrived to capture coastal cities at appropriate times was helpful for everyone. It made the heroes look more heroic. And it made God’s blessing, and the divinely ordained justice of the crusader cause, all the more apparent. 57

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY In fact, of course, nothing was ever that easy, nor were motives ever that onedimensional. There was genuine piety in the maritime states that provided the Christian fleets, but they were in the eastern Mediterranean to compete with each other for long-term commercial gain.106 The timing of their expeditions was similarly neither coincidental nor fortuitous. Their presence was the culmination of extensive diplomatic activity carried out by the crusader states to further their own strategic objectives. Diplomatic initiatives were the essential means with which to access allies – particularly allies who could provide fleets to help take the coastal cities. Given the very limited state of communications at the time, these initiatives took years to bear fruit, and represented the culmination of lengthy periods of discussion and careful consideration. Contrary to the impression given by the chroniclers, very little could be left to chance. We know that a continual stream of emissaries was sent to the West almost immediately after the Franks arrived in the Holy Land and the possibility of a longer-term defence of the Christian East became more real. These missions generally consisted of a small number of individuals who had been personally briefed by the kings and princes of the new states, and by their advisers. They carried letters with them, partly to prove their credentials and partly to introduce the purpose of their mission. More importantly, however, these emissaries also had the authority to give extensive verbal briefings to those they were sent to, telling them of conditions in the East, the kind of assistance that was required and the urgency of the request. In an age with limited access to the written word, the power of memory was far greater than in our own times, so these missions were able to provide a highly detailed but personalised picture of the military and political situation in the crusader states.107 Irritatingly from a historian’s perspective, the oral nature of this diplomacy, and the inevitable disappearance of most of the (few) written records, mean that hard evidence of strategy and long-term diplomatic initiatives is scarce. The Venetian crusade of 1122–1124, however, provides a fascinating case study of how this process really played out in practice. On the surface, this was a very typical (and typically fortuitous) intervention. In writing of the arrival of the Italian fleet, Fulcher of Chartres makes the expedition sound like a splendid surprise (‘we were delighted to hear that a fleet of Venetians 58

THE COASTAL STRATEGY had entered many of the ports of Palestine’). Its movements, he implied, had been the object of gossip rather than planning, as ‘rumour had for a long time foretold its arrival’.108 William of Tyre makes a similarly rather bland introduction, merely stating that the Venetians ‘had learned of the straits in which the kingdom of the East was placed and had ordered a fleet to be made ready’.109 It is only by accident that evidence for the far more complex nature of the crusade has survived. As well as writing about the arrival of the Venetian fleet, William, who as royal chancellor had access to the official records, decided to quote the agreement with the Venetians in full. With the survival of the complete legal document, it suddenly becomes clear that everyone was skating over much more prosaic issues: the planning and strategy that detracted from the romance of the narrative or the important role of divine intervention. In negotiating the division of spoils after the capture of Tyre, for instance, we find that the Patriarch of Jerusalem had ‘confirmed the promises of the said King Baldwin according to the proposals made in his own letters and messages which the king himself had previously sent by his own envoys to Venice to this same doge of the Venetians’.110 So, far from being a random or fortuitous event, we find out in a chronicle (and even then only as an accidental aside) that the Franks had been sending letters to Venice long in advance of the expedition, making detailed proposals for its objectives and the rewards that might be forthcoming, carried by a series of envoys. In fact, preparations had been in train for a full five years before Tyre fell. In the aftermath of the disastrous battle at Ager Sanguinis (Field of Blood) in 1119 an assembly was held in Antioch at which King Baldwin II was asked to take over the administration of the principality until the young Prince Bohemond II came of age. This assembly almost certainly also decided to send word to the West, asking for help.111 These issues were discussed at length in Jerusalem too, given that this meant they would, in effect, be lending their king to the northern crusader states for several years. Consequently, another assembly was held at Nablus in January of 1120 to debate these problems, among others. One important outcome of the discussions was to send embassies to the papacy and to the Venetians, asking for help.112 The papal curia sprang into action, or at least as much as medieval bureaucracies were ever capable of ‘springing’ into anything. By the autumn of 1120, initial exchanges were under way with the Venetians, and by the summer of 1121 plans for 59

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY the crusade were proceeding apace. Pope Calixtus issued a formal crusade letter to the Venetians, and the expedition was discussed at the First Lateran Council: a decree was issued to encourage volunteers to come forward to ‘offer powerful aid to the defence of the Christian people’. A broad appeal was also made to other potential sources of military aid, and it is likely that the crusade eventually contained participants from many parts of Europe, including Germany and France, as well as Venice and (possibly) an additional naval squadron from Genoa.113 The choice of Venice as the main source of help was no coincidence. The targets of the crusade were the last two surviving Muslim coastal cities (Ascalon and Tyre) and success in either case was heavily dependent upon being able to impose a tight naval blockade. For the Franks, both were valuable prizes, as they were disruptive for trade and internal security within the Latin Kingdom. More positively, their capture would mean the end of the Egyptian navy’s ability to operate effectively in Palestinian or Syrian waters, as they would lack the water supplies they needed to do so.114 Accordingly, yet another assembly was convened in the Latin Kingdom to agree the terms of a treaty with the Venetians, to reward them for their help, and to ensure their continuing (and hopefully profitable) presence in the crusader states.115 But strategy and diplomacy are a process of compromise. Prioritising the capture of Ascalon would in some ways have been more useful to the Franks. Its fall would have opened up the southern borders and made Egypt far more vulnerable to attack. And, left to its own devices, Tyre would have become ever more isolated. Deprived of Egyptian resupply by sea, it might well have been forced to ask for terms. The Venetians, however, found Tyre a much more attractive prospect. Ascalon may have had geopolitical advantages for the settlers in Palestine, but it also had a famously poor harbour. For a maritime state such as Venice, primarily interested in commercial and trading facilities, Tyre was always going to be a far more lucrative proposition. A young virgin orphan boy was eventually brought into the negotiations, to choose the target of the expedition by picking lots at random. Not entirely surprisingly, he chose Tyre. Virgin or not, the random selection was perhaps not quite as ‘random’ as it appeared. The Venetians had the leverage, and they got what they wanted.116 With the fall of Tyre in 1124, the coastal strategy came to a natural conclusion.117 The strategy had been successful, as the crusaders capitalised on Muslim disunity to establish control of a series of highly defensible fortified cities on the coastline of the 60

THE COASTAL STRATEGY eastern Mediterranean. By doing so they were able to build a vital bridgehead into the Middle East and maintain the all-important links back to Europe. It was indeed a ‘strategy’ in many technical senses of the term. It had a clear focus on a series of tightly defined objectives. It marshalled scarce resources in pursuit of those goals. And it involved a series of ‘campaigns’ that were played out over a period of many years in some cases, transcending the ideas or impetus of individual princes or popes. That very success masked far more fundamental problems, however, and created a false sense of capabilities. The coastal cities could be taken with very limited manpower, because of the presence of European fleets in the eastern Mediterranean (with all the logistical advantages they brought with them); because of crippling disunity in the Islamic world; and because the Muslim ports were surrounded by the new Frankish conquerors. It remained to be seen whether the Muslim population centres of the hinterland, where the Franks were far from Italian support and were themselves surrounded, would succumb so easily.

61

THE COASTAL STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY

Early 1090s

Turkic conquest of most of Asia Minor

1095

Byzantine envoys ask Pope Urban II for help

18–28 November 1095

Council of Clermont: preaching the First Crusade

March 1098

Baldwin of Boulogne takes over rule of Edessa

3 June 1098

Fall of Antioch to the crusaders

17 June 1099

Crusaders occupy Jaffa

15 July 1099

Crusaders capture Jerusalem

22 July 1099

Election of Godfrey of Bouillon as ruler of Jerusalem

12 August 1099

Crusaders defeat the Egyptians at Ascalon

August 1099

Siege of Ascalon (abortive)

October–December 1099

Siege of Arsuf (abortive)

July 1100

Siege of Acre (abortive)

18 July 1100

Death of Godfrey of Bouillon

Mid-August 1100

Capture of Bohemond by the Danishmend Turk, Malik Ghazi

62

THE COASTAL STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY 20 August 1100

Capture of Haifa by the Latins

2 October 1100

Baldwin of Boulogne departs from Edessa which he cedes to Baldwin of Bourcq

25 December 1100

Coronation of Baldwin of Boulogne as King of Jerusalem

c.28 March 1101

Tancred becomes regent of Antioch

29 April 1101

Capture of Arsuf by the Latins

17 May 1101

Capture of Caesarea by the Latins

August–September 1101

Defeat of crusading forces in Asia Minor by the Seljuk sultan, Kilij Arslan

7 September 1101

Baldwin defeats the Egyptians at the battle of Ramla

February 1102

Capture of Tortosa by the Latins

14 April 1102

Raymond of Toulouse defeats forces from Damascus and Homs near Tortosa

17–27 May 1102

Baldwin meets the Egyptians, finally defeating them near Jaffa

April 1103

Siege of Acre (abortive)

May 1103

Release of Bohemond

Spring 1104

Capture of Gibelet by the Latins

7–8 May 1104

Defeat of combined Christian forces at the battle of Harran, and capture of Baldwin of Bourcq and Joscelin of Courtenay

26 May 1104

Capture of Acre by the Latins

63

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY 28 February 1105

Death of Raymond of Toulouse, who is succeeded by William-Jordan, Count of Cerdagne, his cousin

27 August 1105

Baldwin defeats the Egyptians at the second battle of Ramla

Spring 1108

Capture of Latakia by the Latins

Mid-August 1108

Release of Baldwin of Bourcq

May 1109

Fall of Jabala to the Latins

26 June 1109

Fall of Tripoli to the Latins

July 1109

Fall of Valania to the Latins

13 May 1110

Fall of Beirut to the Latins

5 December 1110

Fall of Sidon to the Latins

Early 1111

Putsch in Ascalon (short-lived Frankish occupation)

December 1111–April 1112

Siege of Tyre (abortive)

12 December 1112

Death of Tancred, leaving regency of Antioch to Roger of Salerno

15 February 1113

Grant of Pie postulatio voluntatis to the Hospitallers by Pope Paschal II

June 1113

Battle of as-Sennabra

2 October 1113

Murder of Mawdud of Mosul

14 September 1115

Victory of Roger of Antioch over Bursuq, lord of Hamadhan

Autumn 1115

Establishment of the castle of Montréal (Shawbak)

64

THE COASTAL STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY 22 March 1118

Latin forces under Baldwin I take al-Farama in the Nile Delta

2 April 1118

Death of Baldwin I

14 April 1118

Consecration of Baldwin of Bourcq as King of Jerusalem

28 June 1119

Defeat and death of Roger of Antioch at ‘the Field of Blood’ by Il-Ghazi, ruler of Mardin

August–September 1119

Joscelin of Courtenay becomes Count of Edessa

25 December 1119

Coronation of Baldwin II and Morphia

c.1119

Origins of the Templars

16 January 1120

Council of Nablus

5 December 1121

Death of al-Afdal, Egyptian vizier

1122– 1124

Venetian Crusade

13 September 1122

Capture of Joscelin of Courtenay by Nur al-Daulak Balak

8 November 1122

Death of Il-Ghazi

18 April 1123

Capture of Baldwin II by Balak

8 August 1123

Escape of Joscelin of Courtenay from captivity

6 May 1124

Death of Balak

February–July 1124

Siege and capture of Tyre by the Latins

65

FOUR

w THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY 1125–1153

A scorching airless day in the summer of 1148. The small crusader army entered one of the most challenging battlefields imaginable to a medieval general. They were deep in enemy territory. They were outnumbered. They had ground to a halt in the suburbs of Damascus, lost in a nightmarish patchwork of smallholdings, watchtowers and ditches. Visibility was reduced to a few yards of confusion and sudden death. The mud walls and narrow lanes around every field made their precious warhorses a hideously expensive liability. The knights of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had been forced to dismount and were fighting doggedly on foot. They pushed through every barricade and stormed every impromptu strongpoint. The defenders were eventually routed, and fled back into the city. But that was only the beginning. Emerging from the fields, the exhausted crusaders were shocked to see what lay in store for them. A full Muslim army lined the banks of the nearby river – huge numbers of cavalry, infantry and even mobile spear-throwing machines. As the Frankish advance stalled, German knights dismounted and forced their way through to the enemy. Displaying the brutal swordsmanship for which they were famed, they literally hacked their way across the river. The Emperor Conrad, adrenaline-filled and impatient, proved himself to be an outstandingly strong fighter on the day. He led from the front, and was said to have personally killed in combat ‘a Turkish knight who was making a strenuous and courageous resistance. With one blow of the sword, he severed from the body of his enemy the head and neck, the left shoulder with the arm attached, and also a part of the side’. It may be that this gruesome achievement was not necessarily the work of the emperor himself. But it certainly showed the Germans’ preferred style of combat and the results to which they aspired.1 66

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY On a good day, the best of the Frankish army were an almost elemental force. Whether launching a ferocious cavalry charge or chopping their way across a river on foot in the face of heavy enemy opposition, they were extraordinarily effective. However greatly outnumbered, they were difficult to stop and enormously dangerous. Even while the coastal strategy was being rolled out, there were frontiers to establish and defend, particularly to the east. The concept of what constituted a ‘frontier’ was always fluid, and particularly so in the early days of the crusader states. The first step was to set out the broad parameters of what these states might consist of: what territory could feasibly be held in the face of enemy opposition? But also, more aggressively (and the crusaders at this stage were extremely selfconfident), what more could be taken? Dominating a substantial hinterland would allow the Franks to create a defence in depth. If they were able to control the interior, the Christian states of Palestine and the Syrian littoral would be able to put down roots and mature. In this strategic context, the key issue was how far one could push the envelope. Could the old Christian cities of the hinterland, such as Damascus, Aleppo, Shaizar and Homs, ever be recaptured? And, if so, could they be held against the inevitable Muslim counteroffensives? The northern Christian states had been able to move forward with this ‘hinterland strategy’ before 1125. Their coastline had been captured earlier than that of Tripoli and the Kingdom of Jerusalem – fundamentally, there were fewer and less significant ports. They had moved quickly to intimidate cities such as Harran (1104) and Aleppo (1115–1119), albeit with very limited success.2 But after the surrender of Tyre in 1124, with the entire coastline north of Ascalon in Christian hands, that strategy could be increasingly rolled out by the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem too. The eastern Mediterranean had a far richer urban heritage than Western Europe, and this was reflected in the relative importance of the large cities. These major centres were a critical factor in the long-term control of the region. Their significance was well known to contemporaries, and they emerged as pivots of military and political activity throughout the twelfth century. There were several prizes which were essential if the crusader states were to achieve critical mass and realise the full possibility of a larger population and a defence in depth. In the north, Aleppo was a major centre of Muslim power and was far too close for comfort to the Christian lands centred on Antioch and Edessa. 67

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Similarly, Shaizar, the Munqidh stronghold, was always a threat to the Principality of Antioch, and a dangerous neighbour on the northern marches of the County of Tripoli. There were strategic parallels further south too. Damascus was menacingly close to the borders of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Even further south, on the very frontiers of the Latin Kingdom, the citadel and fortified town of Banyas served as a mustering point from which Muslim armies could be set loose into the heartlands of Frankish Galilee. These centres represented a constant threat to the crusader states, and any of them would have constituted a major prize. This strategic truth was recognised by all contemporaries. Their value was shown not just by the level of military and political activity which was devoted to destabilising them, but also by the huge efforts the Franks expended on conducting sieges to try to capture them. All of the major Muslim cities were attacked in earnest on several occasions, in increasingly desperate attempts to open up the interior. Aleppo was the objective for two serious campaigns (1124–1125 and 1138); Shaizar was besieged twice (1138 and 1157); and Damascus was the target of concerted assaults in 1129 and 1148. But, regardless of their efforts, and despite the fact that crusader field armies were generally highly feared, almost all major Christian sieges in this period ended in failure, and the hinterland strategy stalled. Conrad and his ferocious German knights, together with the rest of the Frankish army, were outside Damascus in July 1148. But they remained just that: outside. Away from the coast, the ability of crusader armies to open up the interior was always severely limited. What was the problem? Aleppo: The Prize in the North Failure was not due to any lack of strategic insight. Far from it. The Franks knew the areas of vital importance to their long-term security and pursued them whenever feasible. For the northern crusader states in particular, Aleppo was at the top of their list of strategic priorities. Sited just over 100 kilometres to the east of Antioch, the substantial Christian city of late classical and Byzantine times had been lost to the Muslim invaders in the tumultuous wars of the seventh century and had never been recovered. It was diminished over time, but was still a wealthy and populous centre 68

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY of power by the time of the crusades. Its money and geographic position gave Zengi, the ruler of Aleppo, and his successors access to vast numbers of nomadic mercenaries entering the region from the steppes. The importance of Aleppo was reflected in its status as the capital of their dynasty until Nur al-Din, Zengi’s son, captured Damascus in April 1154. Aleppo was both a threat and a prize. It was a perennial threat to the rear of Edessa, and to the eastern frontier zone with Antioch. And yet it was simultaneously a prize of major proportions. If it could be brought back into Christian hands, there was a chance to relieve the pressure on Edessa. It could also create a form of defence in depth for Antioch, with lands for settlers and colonial militia to farm, and fiefs to support the ever-growing numbers of knights needed to defend the borders.3 Aleppo under siege: October 1124–January 1125 King Baldwin II was ruler of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the de facto overlord of all the crusader states. Defying stereotypes, he managed to combine a restless, energetic spirit with a strangely thoughtful and planning-led approach to both kingship and strategy. He had a clear understanding of the importance of both Aleppo and Damascus, and went to enormous lengths to try to capture them. He knew perfectly well that both posed threats to Frankish rule. He also knew that if they were captured, he could create a buffer zone between the Christian states along the Palestinian and Syrian coast and the centre of Muslim power in what we now call Iraq.4 He intuitively embraced the tenets of a hinterland strategy and focused on Aleppo and Damascus as his primary objectives. Aleppo was first. In 1124, Baldwin and Count Joscelin of Edessa launched their attack. They formed an alliance with local Bedouin tribesmen, long-standing enemies of the Turkic tribes, led by their emir Dubais ibn Sadaqa. One of the ex-rulers of Aleppo, the young Prince Sultanshah, was brought into the alliance to add political legitimacy to the expedition, and several other Turkic notables were also present among the besiegers.5 The force that gathered was substantial, but deceptively so. The alliance was awkward and fragile. Franks, Armenians, Arabs and Turks, Christians and Muslims, all pitched tents uncomfortably alongside one another.6 The exact number involved is not clear, but the proportion seems to have been approximately two-thirds Christian 69

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY to one-third Muslim.7 On the Aleppan side, the number of troops was relatively small, with an ’askar (standing army) of approximately 500 cavalry. A much larger number of militia were also recruited for local defence, but their military value beyond the city walls was far more questionable.8 From the outset, the siege was not just about military issues. The Frankish– Muslim alliance relied on a three-track plan: exploiting food shortages, encouraging ethnic and religious tensions and, if all else failed, employing psychological warfare and intimidation. Extraordinarily, however, at no point does a full-scale assault on the city seem to have taken place, or even to have been envisaged. Although the siege dragged on for over four months, no siege towers were constructed, no mining operations undertaken, and no battery of catapults deployed. Perhaps sufficient skills and logistics were not in place. Perhaps the alliance felt that they would not be necessary. If so, their confidence was to prove catastrophically misplaced. This ostensibly lazy approach had some logic behind it. Harvests in the summer of 1124 had been exceptionally poor, and had been exacerbated by continual frontier raiding. The shortage of food in the surrounding areas meant that the population of Aleppo was temporarily reduced, as many civilians were forced to move further afield to provide for their families – grain reserves within the city were at a dangerously low point. This also dictated the unusual timing of the campaign. Winter was an unpopular season for an extended siege, however, and there were good reasons why that was so – the problems it brought to the besieging army could be just as severe as to their enemies. In this case, however, the disproportionate hardships facing the defenders were felt to justify it.9 To swing the odds still further in their favour, the allies ravaged the areas nearby in the preliminary stages of the siege, gathering reserves for the winter and depriving the Aleppans of what little food was still in the vicinity – hardly calculated to gain the goodwill of the locals, and undercutting the alliance’s claims to be ‘liberators’. But it was effective enough in its own brutal way. The devastation was increased by carefully splitting up the Frankish–Muslim forces on the approaches to Aleppo. Baldwin arrived before Aleppo on 19 October 1124, and was joined by the other elements of the army soon after.10 The timing was good for an army trying to starve the defenders out. But not quite good enough. The siege caused enormous hardship. Ibn al-Qalanisi later wrote that it ‘was prolonged until the supplies of food in the town became deficient and its people were 70

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY on the verge of destruction’.11 Lurid tales of cannibalism were in wide circulation. These might be dismissed as sensationalist, but towards the end of the siege there is first-hand evidence of the depths to which the population had been reduced. A letter smuggled out spoke of ‘the famine which reduced them to eating corpses and the illnesses which ravaged them’.12 Ultimately, however, the allied forces had miscalculated. That miscalculation centred on a mistaken appraisal of the grain reserves within the city. Despite a poor harvest and a winter siege of over four months, Aleppo was never starved into submission. Contrary to expectations, the reduced size of the population helped the defenders. The urban militia might have been smaller but, more importantly, there were far fewer mouths to feed. If hunger was the stick, ethnic and religious loyalties were to be the carrot. As always in the Middle East, allegiances were complex. Aleppo had been a Christian city at the time of the Muslim invasions and even by the twelfth century a large part of the local population within the region were still practising Christians. But tensions within the Muslim community were potentially even more useful for the alliance. Although the city garrison was Sunni, much of the population, including the militia, were Shi’ites. Dubais, their coreligionist, certainly felt that loyalties would be split and that many in the city would be eager to welcome a fellow Shi’ite as ruler. This had been a central part of his initial proposition to King Baldwin. Dubais, boastful and optimistic to the point of self-deception, had claimed that ‘its inhabitants are Shi’ites. They lean towards me for sectarian reasons. When they see me, they will surrender the city to me.’13 There were other tensions to exploit too. Dubais and his men were ethnic Arabs, as were the majority of the population of Aleppo. The governing elite were Turkic, however, as were the garrison, and there were always racial and cultural problems between the two groups. Even after Aleppo had been relieved, for instance, the Turkic troops were accused of having extorted money from the Arab middle classes of the city during the siege. Although the alliance included some Turkic junior partners, Dubais could portray regime change as being a return to the old days of Arab Shi’ite rule, rather than a continuing submission to Turkic Sunni overlordship. Negotiations along these lines started as soon as the blockade began. But the local people were not buying what Dubais had to sell. The initial peace feelers began to be treated with derision. From ‘the city walls they cried “Dubais the infamous” ’, and 71

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY no doubt much else that the chroniclers thought inappropriate to repeat.14 Ultimately he could not disguise the fact that most of the allied troops were Franks, and that he, regardless of his personal ambitions, was a Christian stooge. The carrot and the stick had failed. Bluster and intimidation followed soon after. The leaders of the alliance let it be known that they had taken oaths committing themselves and their men to see the siege through to the bitter end.15 They also made a great show of transforming their camp into a semi-permanent settlement, a kind of hostile suburb, ostentatiously signalling the remorselessness of their intent.16 The besiegers’ frustrations turned towards ever more visceral forms of intimidation. Both sides started to torture and mutilate prisoners, and then display them or send them back to their own lines to taunt their opponents. Frankish troops violated Muslim cemeteries. They ‘destroyed funerary chapels, opened Muslim tombs and stole the coffins and made them into chests for their goods’. Even worse, in an outburst of anger, they started to desecrate copies of the Koran in front of the defenders: if Dubais’s negotiations had not already failed by this point, they must have immediately ground to a halt.17 Beyond psychological warfare, however, the siege itself does not seem to have been pursued very aggressively. There were no close assaults by the allied troops and, on the contrary, the only proactive activity we know of was a successful sortie by the garrison from the Gate of Iraq – the defenders managed to circle round the Frankish lines, killing some of the less wary and taking prisoners who could be tortured at leisure from the city walls as part of the gruesome tit-for-tat antagonism.18 Given the length of time that the siege was taking, relief was becoming an increasingly likely possibility. The siege lines were never so secure as to stop all traffic in and out of the city. The Aleppans sent out a group of ambassadors and soldiers on an (ultimately successful) mission to al-Bursuqi, atabeg of Mosul, to ask for help. A Frankish cavalry detachment pursued them, but failed to catch up. Al-Bursuqi knew he was in a strong position, and drove a hard bargain. The Aleppans were forced to promise him the city if he came to their rescue. He immediately gathered his men together.19 By the time the relief force arrived, however, the allied armies had already had enough. They were demoralised by their failure to starve or to browbeat the Aleppans into submission. The siege had developed into a longer, nastier and more dysfunctional campaign than any of them had anticipated. The fractious alliance between 72

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY Franks and Muslims began to unravel. Al-Bursuqi’s army, consisting of some 6,000– 7,000 cavalry, 4,000 pack camels and other baggage handlers and guards, approached Aleppo at speed, arriving on 29 January 1125. The forces of the alliance knew that they were in danger of being caught between the relieving army and the Aleppans.20 They decided to move out quickly. The shanty town outside Aleppo was hurriedly abandoned. There was a danger that discipline might break down altogether. The Aleppan militia rushed out to pillage the besiegers’ camp and killed any stragglers they found there.21 The gloom permeating Fulcher of Chartres’s account of the retreat is palpable. The Turkic army, he wrote, ‘pursued us for a little while [and] lost two of its bravest men, who were thrown from their horses and killed. We lost one of our campfollowers and six tents . . . Because the Turks came on us suddenly by night they easily found us unprepared and confounded us.’22 The withdrawal was a disaster and a disgrace, an appropriate ending to a campaign which had been a lengthy and expensive failure. The allied army retreated as best they could towards Antiochene territory, pursued closely by nomadic cavalry. The Muslim pursuers killed or captured ‘all upon whom they could lay hands from among their rearmost men’. Al-Bursuqi was wary of a full-scale confrontation, however, and sent messengers to recall his advance guard. He had chased the Frankish-Shi’ite armies from his lands, and had more to lose than to gain from a battle with an uncertain outcome.23 Besides, he needed to make sure that his army was still intact so that he could take over Aleppo, his new possession, in a suitably intimidating fashion. The tactical failings were significant. Despite having many advantages on their side, the Frankish army did not have the skills, matériel or logistical ability to conduct an effective siege on a major inland city. They had constructed none of the towers or catapults which they normally deployed during successful sieges. The key missing ingredient was naval personnel and the engineering and logistical skills which they brought with them. The Frankish fighting soldier was a formidable opponent, but it was extremely useful to have a naval ‘combat engineer’ to help get him onto his enemies’ ramparts. The tactical failures were punishing but the strategic failure was arguably even more profound – the campaign was a shocking setback for the hinterland strategy. An opportunity had been lost and Aleppo would never again look so vulnerable. 73

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Quite apart from the wasted resources and irreplaceable casualties caused by a lengthy winter siege, the cost to Frankish military prestige was significant. As one chronicler wrote, in a depressing conclusion to a depressing episode, ‘the Jerusalem king and his men besieged the city of Aleppo for five months and accomplished nothing’.24 The whole episode was embarrassing. An embarrassing failed siege, despite a lengthy blockade. An embarrassing alliance with the local Arab powers. And an embarrassingly hasty retreat in the face of a Turkic relief force. The Frankish chronicles could not ignore the campaign altogether, but they minimised it as far as they could and entirely airbrushed out their Arab allies. But the failure also raised a bigger question, and one with far-reaching implications for the hinterland strategy. Conducting an inland siege required far more manpower than the crusader states habitually had to hand. To gather the manpower required for a ‘big push’, the Franks almost invariably had to call on allies for help. These allies were inevitably heterogeneous. They might be Byzantines or visiting crusaders from the West. They might be the semi-independent contingents of the military orders, or even local Muslim powers. The one thing they all had in common, however, was that their interests were never going to be completely aligned with those of the Franks, and their strategic objectives were likely to be similarly divergent. Controlling them on the ground was never going to be straightforward. As the Franks were finding out, they might be able to come up with simple, logical strategies. But rolling them out often had more in common with herding cats than issuing commands. Aleppo under siege: April 1138 The only other significant Frankish attempt to capture Aleppo came in April 1138, in conjunction with a Byzantine army commanded by the Emperor John Comnenus himself. The Christian army, consisting largely of Byzantine regulars, but also including a Templar force and substantial contingents from Antioch and Edessa, was ready for the campaign and had a sophisticated siege train with it.25 As it approached Aleppo, the city drew in the outlying garrisons from their small and indefensible watchtowers. More importantly, they sent word to Zengi, the brutalised and ferocious lord of Mosul, asking for help. He raced to get some immediate 74

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY reinforcements into Aleppo before the allied army could arrive – a mixed contingent of cavalry, infantry and specialist archers to bolster the garrison, together with supplies and equipment. These reinforcements arrived just in time.26 The Byzantine– Frankish forces circled around Aleppo and approached it from the east, trying, belatedly, to cut it off from reinforcements. They reached Aleppo itself on 18 April. The Byzantines, like the Franks, were fully aware of the city’s strategic importance. One of the central objectives of their ambitious campaign in Syria was to create a Christian buffer state centred on Aleppo, but also including Shaizar, Hama and Homs.27 For the Byzantines, the main objective of their campaign in Syria was to intimidate all the local players, and bring them into line with the imperial view of how the region should be structured. This included bringing the Franks to heel (they could be every bit as intransigent as the Muslims), and particularly the northern crusader state of Antioch. The imperial siege train and other preparations for the campaign reflected this, and needed to be sufficient to pose a plausible threat to all the cities in the region, including the formidable city of Antioch itself. The Byzantine fleet was employed in strength, with all the implications this had for logistical and engineering support for sieges. The Byzantines had similar views to the Franks in terms of establishing defence in depth in the area. Due to the dangers and hardships involved, however, they were content to let the Franks own the buffer state of the hinterlands, presumably under imperial suzerainty. Thus the empire would recover its old lands around Antioch, while the Franks would be set up as a client state – acting as freelance, unpaid mercenaries taking up the brunt of organising regional defence on the eastern frontiers. Policy objectives and strategy, whether Byzantine or Frankish, were one thing, but putting them into practice on the ground was quite another. As always, Aleppo was a tough nut to crack. The Byzantines camped by the River Quwaiq and on 19 April launched attacks on the south and west of the city, attempting to sound out the strength of the garrison and to intimidate them with the size and aggression of the besieging army. In fact, the reverse happened. Large numbers of Aleppan militia made a sortie against the Byzantines and emerged victorious from the skirmishing. In an indication of the severity of the fighting, Christian casualties included one of the senior Byzantine commanders, who was taken back to camp wounded.28 75

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY For whatever reason, probably because of Muslim reinforcements, but perhaps also because they became aware that the Turkic garrison of al-Atharib had panicked and deserted their post, the Byzantines departed on the following day (20 April 1138) in search of easier pickings.29 It is perhaps unfair even to describe this episode as a ‘siege’. Most of the Christian chronicles barely mention Aleppo, and suggest instead that Shaizar was the real goal of the spring campaign. It is perhaps more realistic to envisage the 1138 attack on Aleppo as an exercise in intimidation, something which would have been pursued further if weakness had been detected, but designed more as a demonstration of power than as a serious proposition. What could not be avoided, however – and what was ultimately far more worrying – was the fact that tactical failings had once again undercut the possibility of strategic success. Shaizar: The Bone in the Throat Shaizar was another obvious target for the hinterland strategy. It commanded an important crossing of the Orontes and was dangerously close to the territory of both Antioch and Tripoli. Like Aleppo, the ancient Christian town was lost in the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. Unlike Aleppo, however, it had been recovered in 999 and remained in Byzantine hands until the eve of the First Crusade. Much of the civilian population remained Christian. Shaizar was not a particularly large urban centre. But it was a powerful citadel, with a substantial walled town. And its location on one of the main crossing points of the River Orontes put it in a powerful position. Just as importantly, it was on the borders between the poorly defended northern frontiers of the county of Tripoli and the southern borders of Antioch. This combination of a redoubtable stronghold, an important river crossing and an area of vulnerability for two of the crusader states meant that Shaizar was always going to be both a flashpoint and a vital strategic objective.30 Shaizar under siege: April–May 1138 After the failure to capture Aleppo in 1138, the allied Byzantine–Frankish armies continued south towards the next strategic priority – Shaizar. Several batteries of 76

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY large catapults were brought along in the siege train, presumably in kit form. By the time the army besieged Shaizar in late April–May 1138, it was deploying no fewer than 16 to 18 catapults.31 For logistical assistance they also brought with them fourwheeled wagons (quadrigarum). These vehicles do not seem to have been used by Muslim armies of the period, but were of great help in transporting the large beams and other matériel needed for siege engines. These were singled out for mention by William of Tyre as being particularly impressive, and were a much envied piece of military equipment by the standards of the day.32 A Byzantine army of this size was resourced to field a hybrid of the best siegewinning techniques available to each of the local players. They were able to call on the large numbers of archers and miners that Muslim armies could employ, alongside a highly advanced and more professional version of the siege artillery that Frankish armies used to good effect. Moreover, each of these skill sets was enhanced by the engineering and logistical know-how that only a professional military could provide. This was a powerful combination, and precisely what had been missing from so many earlier sieges. The chances of success looked high.33 The siege of Shaizar in 1138 was one of the few occasions where we have good contemporary commentary from the besiegers and, even more unusually, from those on the receiving end of a sustained artillery bombardment. We live in a time where ‘remote’ destruction is the norm – when the television news from a war zone looks like video game footage. We find the close-up, visceral nature of face-to-face death repulsive and unnerving: the stuff of horror movies. The opposite was true in the Middle Ages. Warfare usually involved getting blood on your clothes. You would expect to see your opponent before you died, or before you killed him. Catapults were different. The effect of artillery in a siege was as near as the medieval mind got to our form of ‘remote’ killing. The shock it created, emotional as well as physical, was immense. William of Tyre wrote of the bombardment from the Christian perspective. He focused particularly on the cumulative damage which falling masonry inflicted on the defenders, both physically and in terms of the psychological shock. The catapults ‘poured forth constant volleys of heavy stones which shook the towers and walls and even the houses of the people within. Under the repeated blows of these enormous missiles, the fortifications, on which the inhabitants had relied as their greatest defence, were utterly overthrown and in their fall caused dreadful havoc among the townspeople.’34 77

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Usama, a member of the ruling family of Shaizar, was away in Hama. Slippery as ever, he claimed he was unable to return in time to participate in the defence of his town. When he got back he found that his home, in the suburbs of the citadel, had been ransacked by Byzantine troops. He complained about damage to his property, upset that they had ‘carried away all the tents, weapons and furniture that were there’. Showing a bizarre sense of priorities, he only later mentioned that they had also ‘captured my beloved ones and put to flight my comrades’.35 He was not the only one affected, however: the trauma was widespread – others had far more than just damage to their household fixtures and fittings to grieve over. Thankfully, Usama pieced together personal recollections from other people who had been on the receiving end of the bombardment to create a good story and an intimate history of the attack on his home town. The Byzantine engineers had positioned batteries of ‘terrifying mangonels that they had brought with them from their country for hurling heavy payloads. Their stones . . . could be launched a distance greater than any arrow could fly.’36 Damage to the less fortified residential buildings was severe – one of Usama’s friends had part of a millstone thrown onto the roof of his house and the entire structure was levelled in a single blow. The emir’s residence in the citadel was an obvious target and received a great deal of attention from the Byzantine artillerists. Aiming at the emir’s standard, ‘a stone from a mangonel hit the spear [i.e. with the banner attached to it] and the broken half with the spearhead flipped over, spun around and fell into the path just as one of our comrades was crossing it’. Like a scene from The Omen, the ‘spearhead, attached to the spear fragment, fell from a great height right through his collar-bone and into the ground and killed him’.37 In another episode, one of the soldiers serving under Usama’s father stood next to an old man urinating against a section of the outer wall. He turned his head to give his comrade some privacy, and a second later found that ‘the old man had been struck on the head by a mangonel-stone, which crushed his skull and pinned him so that his brains ran down the wall’.38 Lurid detail and unforeseen fate made for gripping stories. One of Usama’s comrades had his leg shattered by a catapult stone. His friends carried him to Shaizar’s resident bone-setter to ensure that his wounds were treated properly. The operation took place in the lower town, but as far away from the walls as possible (just outside the gate of the citadel), in order to minimise the danger from Byzantine 78

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY artillery. On returning, the bone-setter was congratulated by Usama’s uncle on having concluded the operation so speedily. The man had the decency to admit that the only reason he had been so quick was because his patient was beyond need of further care: halfway through the operation yet another mangonel stone had struck the wounded soldier, completely smashing his head in.39 The sheer volume of anecdotes about the power of the Byzantine artillery carries echoes of the shock felt by those who had to endure the bombardment. Above all, it was the unseen and potentially catastrophic nature of the blows which seemed to resonate. Unannounced death spoke of fate and divine displeasure. In a deeply religious time, the catapult looked uncannily like the hand of God in action. The Byzantine artillery was clearly extremely dangerous, and caused significant casualties to the defenders. It also damaged the walls and towers at several points, particularly at battlement level. The role of the Franks in the siege was much more subdued, however. We have no record of them participating in any assaults, or deploying any kind of siege engines. We know that sorties and skirmishes took place during the siege. In one sortie from Shaizar, for instance, an eminent ascetic was taken prisoner, but it is clear from later accounts of his captivity and release that his captors were Byzantine (‘Romans’) and that he was taken back to Constantinople. The Franks, if they had any role, were not mentioned.40 Eventually the walls of the town were breached and captured (hence Usama’s anguish when he returned to find his home ransacked). The citadel continued to hold out, however. The Byzantine emperor was frustrated at the lack of cooperation from his sulky and lethargic Frankish allies. He accepted a payoff from the Emir of Shaizar and departed. The Frankish leaders, who had to be bullied and intimidated into participating at all, had spent most of their time ostentatiously playing dice. Given the sullen, low-level enmity of his Christian allies, John Comnenus may just have calculated, probably correctly, that he would find it difficult to control Shaizar, even if he captured it. The Franks had contributed almost nothing of value. Indeed, they were probably worse than useless, as their passive-aggressive truculence eventually demoralised their allies and persuaded the emperor to call off the siege. The Shaizar campaign of 1138 was yet another example of weak Frankish tactical performance in an inland siege, and of the difficulties of holding an allied army together, regardless of whether those allies were visiting crusaders or Byzantines on an imperial expedition. 79

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Shaizar under siege: 1157 Almost 20 years later the Franks had a chance to redeem themselves. Events occurred which once again made Shaizar extremely vulnerable. In July and August 1157, a series of massive earthquakes hit Syria, causing severe damage to the Muslim cities of Aleppo, Homs and Hama, as well as to many of their outlying fortresses.41 The town of Shaizar was spectacularly devastated. To make matters even worse, almost all of Usama’s family, the entire Munqidh ruling dynasty, were killed by falling masonry when the citadel collapsed.42 At the same time as these calamities struck, the prospect of Shaizar receiving aid from its main Muslim allies also plummeted. Nur al-Din was incapacitated by a major illness. When he was near to death, his followers started squabbling over his possessions. Petty intrigues quickly developed into the beginnings of a civil war. And while the local Muslim states were temporarily weakened, the military capacity of the Franks was temporarily enhanced, as Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders and an avid crusader, arrived with an army in September 1157. The opportunity to strike at Shaizar was too good to pass up. The Christian army was impressive. King Baldwin III, a capable and determined leader, was in overall command, accompanied by the field army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Reynald of Châtillon led the army of Antioch. Thoros, the Armenian leader, was encouraged by the opportunity of Nur al-Din’s illness to bring his troops to join the campaign as allies. The expedition was well organised, bringing pre-prepared artillery and other siege equipment with it. To judge by later events in the campaign, they also had an experienced cadre of miners and sappers to supplement the more theatrical activities of the mangonels. The circumstances could scarcely have been more propitious. Shaizar was leaderless and with little prospect of immediate relief. The town walls were substantial, but they had been breached before. The citadel had been patched up, but it was not in good shape. The Christian army was professional and confident in its dispositions as it headed towards Shaizar, advancing, as William of Tyre proudly put it, ‘with ranks drawn up according to the rules of military discipline’. The citizens were caught unawares. The besiegers quickly deployed around the town, and ‘immediately set up their engines and hurling machines’.43

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THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY Forcing their way into the town did not take too long. The mangonels damaged the already weakened battlements and the inhabitants, demoralised by the lack of any obvious external help, ran to the citadel. The allied army was able to camp within the shelter of the town’s buildings – extremely helpful as winter set in. The siege turned towards the capture of the earthquake-damaged castle, and its almost leaderless garrison.44 Even now, however, the Franks could not capture the citadel. The siege went nowhere. Winter was as debilitating for the besiegers as it was for the besieged, despite their shelter in the town. The Christian leaders took to squabbling among themselves. It was only Nur al-Din’s incapacity that prevented Muslim relief forces being sent to Shaizar, potentially trapping the Christian forces. Even the Franks were blunt about their weakness, with William of Tyre commenting frankly that ‘had Nur al-Din been enjoying his usual health and strength, it would hardly have been possible for our army to have acted so freely in the districts subject to him’. Dispirited and at odds with each other, they eventually abandoned the siege.45 Once again, a sound strategic approach had been let down by poor tactics. And, just to compound matters, the usual problems of leading a polyglot force had come to the fore once again. Allies were needed because Frankish manpower was so limited – but they also severely constrained the Franks’ ability to follow that strategy through to completion. It was becoming increasingly clear that while having a good strategy might be fine in theory, it was ultimately not enough – in the absence of sufficient strength on the ground – to convert sound planning into success. Damascus: The Prize in the South Shaizar was an important stronghold. Aleppo was the pre-eminent northern Muslim city and capital of the Zengid empire for many years. But Damascus was the biggest prize – the great Islamic regional centre, a major commercial and population hub and the pivotal Muslim opponent of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. A prosperous Christian provincial city at the time of the Arab invasions, it had been overrun by Muslim armies in 634 – and despite early attempts by the Byzantine military to recover it, it had remained in Muslim hands ever since.

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THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Its capture would free up vast tracts of fertile land in the Hauran and beyond to attract settlers and create much needed fiefs to support the army. It would bolster the eastern flanks of the crusader states. It would prevent the political and military union of Syria and Egypt, and help stem the flow of nomadic tribes into the region from the north. Damascus under siege: 1129 Damascus was a heady and tantalising objective – King Baldwin II was understandably beguiled by the prospect of capturing it. He had a clear focus on the correct strategic objectives of the crusader states. Having come so close to taking Aleppo in 1124–1125, he next turned his attention towards Damascus.46 But, as so often, tactical resources were far more of a problem than any lack of strategic insight. Baldwin certainly prepared for the campaign meticulously, building up experience, ramping up the levels of intimidation and gathering the necessary resources. As with the coastal strategy, much that appears on the surface to be happenstance was in fact the product of years of diplomacy, negotiations and planning. In the autumn of 1125, soon after the withdrawal from Aleppo, Baldwin launched an attack into Damascene territory and in 1126 he carried out an even more serious invasion.47 Sensing that Damascus might succumb if sufficient pressure were applied, he also sent diplomatic missions to the West in 1127, to call for help. Operationally, nothing was being left to chance. One mission was led by Hugh of Payens, founder of the Templars, the poster boys of the new cult of militant monasticism and knighthood. The objective of the mission was explicit and well understood by contemporaries. Hugh and the other ambassadors were ‘sent by the king and the chief men of the kingdom to the princes of the West for the purpose of rousing the people there to come to our assistance. Above all, they were to try to induce men of influence to come to help us besiege Damascus.’48 The second delegation, led by William of Bures, was primarily aimed at offering Fulk, Count of Anjou, the hand in marriage of Melisende, heiress to the throne of Jerusalem. But in practice there was a big overlap between the two missions. Fulk and his followers became part of this new expedition, and the 82

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY Templars were disproportionately helped by Fulk and his vassals – in May 1128, Fulk and his men took the cross at Le Mans and headed east.49 Alongside these preparations to entice new troops from Europe, Baldwin seems to have been in direct contact with factions within Damascus itself, and may have believed that some form of political arrangement could be achieved. The Assassins, a splinter group from the Shi’ite Isma’ilis, were in the ascendant in Damascene politics in the mid-1120s, and by 1126 had even been given the strategically important castle of Banyas for their own use.50 This ascendancy was largely due to the support they received from Tughtigin, the lord of Damascus, who was sympathetic to their cause. After his death in early 1128, however, the Isma’ilis, entirely correctly, felt that their days were numbered, and opened up negotiations with the Franks: these negotiations may have involved discussions about potentially handing over control of Damascus.51 Talks came to an abrupt and bloody end on 4 September 1129. Local politics in twelfth-century Damascus could be volatile in the extreme. The vizier, who was their main supporter in the city, was murdered after a town council meeting. This was taken as a signal for a widespread pogrom to wipe out all the Isma’ilis within Damascus and its territories. Thousands of people were left dead in a particularly vicious eruption of sectarian violence. The possibility of a negotiated takeover of Damascus, if it had ever really existed, was gone.52 Baldwin now felt that he had to move quickly. Damascus was destabilised, and he had well motivated troops to hand, freshly arrived from the West. If he delayed, Damascus would only get stronger and the unemployed crusaders would drift back home after they had performed their religious observances in April. The army eventually set off at the end of October 1129, very late in the campaigning season. Expeditions did not normally take place in winter, and that was not a coincidence. Roads became more difficult. Fodder for horses became scarcer. Supporting a large army in enemy territory became a logistical nightmare. And with the collapse of Isma’ili power in Damascus, the chances of a negotiated surrender had diminished significantly. But Baldwin seems to have calculated that the opportunities outweighed the risks, and that his enemies would be as badly affected by the weather conditions as his own army. Certainly, the force he could field was formidable by Frankish standards. Many members of the army were experienced in this kind of warfare, having participated 83

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY in state-of-the-art sieges such as the capture of Tyre in 1124. And the armies of Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli and Edessa were joined by a new Templar contingent, together with Fulk of Anjou’s men and other crusaders. Interestingly from a strategic and operational perspective, the success of the different missions in gathering reinforcements from the West is often overlooked. Fulk had used the second half of 1128 to undertake some very active recruitment. He had met up with Henry of England in Normandy and was given treasure to take to the East, and perhaps some soldiers. He also received money from Scotland. Hugh of Payens also gathered a large number of volunteers to join him on the trip. Henry of Huntingdon, for instance, wrote that he recruited many men, while the Anglo-Saxon chronicle more poetically mentions that he ‘summoned people out to Jerusalem’ while on trips to England and Scotland in 1128.53 To help with the preparations, the Isma’ilis, still reeling from the pogroms unleashed upon them by their Sunni neighbours, had handed Banyas over to the Franks, so they could use it as a launchpad for their attack on Damascus. The Christian armies exploited their new base to the full. Having ‘joined forces they halted at Banyas, where they established a camp and set out to collect supplies and provisions for their stay’.54 It was not all good news, however. Possession of Banyas was extremely useful, but the emphasis on the need for reprovisioning, because of the time of year, was ominous. The Frankish army had not yet left Christian territory, and foraging was already becoming an issue. The other problem facing the Franks was not yet apparent. Ironically, the fouryear-long strategy of intimidation against the Damascenes had been all too successful, albeit not in the way Baldwin had intended. He had failed to bring them to the negotiating table. But he had also taught them to become extremely fearful of a Frankish field army. Their concern was so great that they were induced to almost bankrupt themselves by flooding the area with swarms of Turkic nomads and Bedouin allies. The Damascenes were not just offering these mercenaries financial inducements – to sustain such large numbers of light cavalry in the field in wintertime, they also had to deplete the city’s grain reserves and ‘to deliver to them what they required for their food and fodder for their horses’.55 This was a high-risk strategy, laying Damascus open to starvation in the event of a close siege, and placing an almost intolerable strain on its exchequer. The legendary 84

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY unreliability of large numbers of nomadic tribesmen when operating in tandem with small numbers of more regular troops must also have caused a few sleepless nights for the Damascene leadership. But calling for their help was essential. It meant that a massive relief army was already in place before the siege had even begun. One of the Muslim chroniclers, Ibn al-Athir of Mosul, wrote that the crusaders got as far as Damascus itself, and that a full-scale blockade and siege took place. The Franks, he wrote, ‘arrived . . . and camped about the city. They sent to the dependent districts of Damascus to forage and to raid’. He also referred to the Frankish ‘investment of the city’. In this he was almost certainly either mistaken or exaggerating for dramatic effect. The most detailed accounts of the campaign, both Muslim and Christian, are remarkably consistent: they explicitly say that the Franks never reached Damascus at all.56 The crusader army marched towards the city in the classic tight formation needed to ensure protection from large numbers of nomadic light cavalry. In the face of deteriorating weather, dwindling food supplies and increasing enemy resistance, however, the Christian army ground to a halt near Darayya, about 10 kilometres south-west of Damascus.57 The professionalism of the Frankish field army was still intimidating. The encampment at Darayya took on the appearance of a large (but inevitably far more scruffy) Roman legionary marching camp. The Damascene army tried to taunt the more heavily armoured Christian troops into breaking ranks. Their frustration at Frankish discipline is shown in the chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi, who wrote that the Muslim troops broke up into squadrons [which surrounded the Franks] on all sides and took up positions facing them, in the hope that a detachment of the Franks might come out [against them] . . . But not a knight of them came out, nor did a single foot soldier appear; on the contrary, they drew in their flanks and remained fast in their camp. The Muslims stayed in this position for several days, expecting them to advance towards the city, but nothing was to be seen of them save their assembling, their perambulations round their camp and the glitter of their helmets and weapons.58

This stalemate could not last. In the middle of winter it was impossible to sustain an army indefinitely in a fixed position. The nomadic mercenaries had access to fodder and other supplies from the nearby depots of Damascus. The crusaders, 85

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY however, were stuck in the middle of enemy territory, surrounded by hostile cavalry and with no clear supply route behind them. King Baldwin dispatched his trusted right-hand man, William of Bures, Prince of Galilee, with a large force of knights and foragers to gather in supplies. Given the nature of the task, the Franks were forced to split into small parties, which began to roam recklessly over the country. They purposely kept apart from one another, that each band might claim for itself whatever it found and not share with the rest. Intent upon this and busy in devastating the fields, all intent on carrying away plunder for their own companies, these forces began to conduct themselves very imprudently and soon passed beyond the bounds of military discipline.59

Our sources condemn this move as foolish: splitting one’s forces in the face of the enemy and, even worse, allowing them to disperse into smaller, more vulnerable groups in hostile territory. It was clearly not ideal. But Baldwin had very few options left. If he stayed at Darayya or moved on towards Damascus, he would run out of supplies very soon and risked total destruction. The only alternative to a large-scale foraging expedition was to withdraw, give up on the entire campaign, and watch most of the Western crusaders leave the Holy Land in April. Baldwin chose to forage, but he knew that the expedition needed critical mass if it was to have any chance of success. William of Bures, the leader of the party, was a safe pair of hands, a highly respected and experienced military commander. Even the Muslims knew him by reputation, quaintly referring to him as ‘Kilyam Dabur’ (that is, ‘William de Bures’).60 His own troops, the Galilean contingent, were aggressive, battle-hardened frontiersmen, well used to raiding these lands, and Baldwin gave him a strong masking force to accompany the foragers. But even this was not enough. Against a backdrop of dramatically deteriorating weather, the full force of the Damascene ’askar and their nomadic mercenaries fell upon the foragers. Some of the infantry rallied around the Frankish knights and together they held off the Muslim cavalry for a while. But the outcome was inevitable. Surrounded and outnumbered, in the depths of enemy territory, the Christian forces were eventually overrun and destroyed. The Muslim troops ‘put to flight not only the rank and file but also the flower of the army who had been detailed to guard 86

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY the foraging party’.61 A few of the knights, including William of Bures himself, managed to fight their way back to the camp at Darayya. But the infantry was wiped out, ‘10,000 loaded pack-animals’ had been captured and the Franks had lost many of their precious heavy cavalry.62 Luckily for the Christians, the victorious Damascene troops needed to spend time regrouping. Nomadic mercenaries were particularly prone to ill-discipline, and the opportunities to plunder the scattered groups of Frankish fugitives proved too tempting for many. Even the more regular troops of the ’askar ‘returned to Damascus at the close of the same day, victorious, booty-laden and rejoicing’.63 This was an understandable reaction to the exertions of the day and its exhilarating outcome. But it was also a mistake. The precariousness of the crusaders’ position was clear to all. It was the tribal mercenaries that had been the deciding factor. The Franks ‘realised that the position was now such that they could not possibly hold on, knowing as they did that the Turkic troops far outnumbered them . . . so they had no choice but to retire’.64 The campaign was over. Baldwin needed to move quickly to extricate his men. The camp at Darayya was abandoned. The siege equipment and non-movable goods were destroyed. The shortage of baggage animals in the army did not help: many had been lost on the foraging expedition and the poor weather and limited supplies had taken their toll. Much that would normally have been taken away was left behind, and they ‘burned their baggage, their train, their equipment and their weapons, since they had no animals left on which to load them’.65 Some of the wounded survivors from William of Bures’s division died during the night and were buried on the spot. Their horses were in an appalling state after the prolonged Turkic archery of the previous day and they too had to be left behind, ‘prostrate with many wounds’.66 The Frankish troops gathered what little they could and moved out as quickly as possible. The Muslim troops had regrouped during the night but, significantly, it was the more disciplined Damascene ’askar, rather than the nomadic mercenaries, who were first to arrive back at the crusader camp. They paused there, waiting for the other troops to join them. When some of the ’askar eventually moved in to probe the crusaders’ defences, ‘they found that the Franks had retired at the close of the night, when the news [of the disaster in the Hauran] reached them’.67 The weather, already bad, took a significant turn for the worse. Violent rain, thunderstorms and fog made conditions almost unendurable. William of Tyre, the 87

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY main Christian source for the campaign, suggests that Baldwin was about to launch a counter-attack when the extreme weather conditions, indicative of God’s disfavour, forced them to withdraw. In fact, this was probably a face-saving device. The Franks were now incapable of taking the offensive: William of Bures had lost many of the knights and, just as importantly, almost all the baggage animals.68 Ironically, the weather, far from hindering the Franks, was probably the only thing that saved them, though it may not have felt like it at the time. We hear no more of the Turkic mercenaries, who, replete from their victory on the previous day and faced with rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, ‘returned to their homes with copious spoils and rich robes of honour’.69 The Damascene regular troops pursued Baldwin and his men as far as they could and ‘the rearguard of the fugitives was overtaken by the ’askar, who killed a number of persons separated from the main body’.70 But, a few stragglers aside, the demoralised Christian army was able to escape. The Turkic tribesmen always had a tendency to be a ‘one-shot weapon’. They could have turned the retreat into a rout, and a rout into a massacre. Instead, thankfully for the crusaders, they seem to have felt that they had already achieved enough, and the camp at Darayya provided plenty of plunder without any of the attendant risks of battle. King Baldwin had done everything he could. He had spent years planning and preparing for the campaign. He had been in discussions with potential Muslim allies. He had sent (highly successful) diplomatic missions to the West, which had brought reinforcements back with them. He had gathered the full muster of his troops, together with a new Templar army. And his negotiations with the Assassins had ensured that his army had access to the vital jumping-off point of Banyas for the campaign. But it was still not enough. The Franks might have an adroit understanding of the strategic importance of Damascus. They might strain every sinew, call in every favour, gather every ally. But they never had the resources to bring the hinterland back into Christian hands. Damascus under siege: 1148 The final attempt to capture Damascus came in 1148. As the culmination of the Second Crusade, launched to help the crusader states in the wake of the fall of Edessa, this siege was far more famous than its predecessor. The issues it faced were 88

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY very much the same, however – how could one conduct a successful siege against a populous urban centre with very little logistical support, while at the same time being heavily outnumbered in enemy territory? The strategic logic for an attack on Damascus was still clear, but the resources were as inadequate as ever.71 The Christian forces were large by the standards of the time, but not necessarily much bigger than those available in 1129. The armies of the French and German crusaders had been cut up very badly by Turkic cavalry on the overland route through Asia Minor. For most of the survivors, the last leg of the journey had been by ship. The majority of the infantry never reached the Holy Land. The soldiers that eventually made it through were disproportionately those from the upper echelons of society – highly effective shock troops, but extremely top-heavy in terms of political fractiousness and the sense of entitlement that went with being part of a feudal elite. The full army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was also mustered, together with contingents from the other crusader states, particularly the Principality of Antioch. As William of Tyre put it, ‘the entire military strength of the realm, both cavalry and infantry, natives and pilgrims alike, was mustered’.72 The ‘pilgrims’ he referred to were those able-bodied men who had arrived from the West on the spring convoys and had not yet had a chance to return to Europe on the autumn sailings. Later in his narrative, William strongly suggests that at least some of these ‘pilgrims’ were conscripted, with varying degrees of willingness, to join the expedition. In a society bounded by custom, impromptu interventions by the state were resented and had long-term consequences. Writing about the end of the campaign, William commented bitterly that this conscription meant that afterwards ‘fewer people, and those less enthusiastic in spirit, undertook this pilgrimage . . . even to the present day [i.e. in the 1180s], those who do come fear that they may be caught up in the same [military] efforts and hence make as short a stay as possible’.73 The allied army, Western crusaders, pilgrims, local Christians and Eastern Franks alike, took a similar route to the 1129 expedition, marching on past Tiberias in Galilee, and leaving the north-eastern frontiers of the Latin Kingdom at Banyas. Early on the morning of 24 July the army arrived, as had its predecessor, at Darayya, a few kilometres to the south-west of Damascus. The city’s minarets were once more in sight. 89

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Rather than camping there, however (and perhaps having learnt from the mistakes of the previous attempt), the army was sufficiently well supplied to press on. The approach march was carried out carefully and professionally. The native Franks, led by King Baldwin, took the vanguard as they had a better understanding of local conditions. The French army took the central position in the order of march, and the Germans were placed at the back ‘to guard the troops ahead from surprise in the rear’.74 Their arrival at the outskirts of Damascus was punctuated by two short but intense battles. The first of these was a fight through the well-irrigated orchards on the south and south-west of the city. The terrain was unique, almost a form of medieval bocage, and the unfamiliar nature of the fighting was dramatic enough to impose itself forcefully on the imaginations of contemporary chroniclers. It was almost entirely unsuitable for heavy cavalry, so the Muslim defenders must have hoped that neutralising the knights, the ‘super-weapon’ of the Frankish field army, would put them in a stronger position. The individual plots were small enclosures, bisected by irrigation channels leading from the Barada River to the north. There were only narrow, dangerous pathways between them. To make matters worse, ownership of the orchards was defined by mud walls along their boundaries, and many of the owners had also erected small watchtowers on their property to guard their crops. Every smallholding was a separate battlefield, and one in which the normally vulnerable light infantry and archers could find themselves in a position of equality with the cavalry. The Damascenes stationed as many of their archers as possible in the watchtowers, so they could pick off the crusaders as they approached. The buildings and compounds within the fields were also fortified, acting as a rudimentary set of pillboxes for the Franks to overcome. Blockades were set up at key junctions, manned by local troops and villagers. There was even a primitive form of roadside ambush with which to contend. Traps were set up behind the mud walls that lined the paths, where there ‘lurked men armed with lances who, themselves unseen, could look out through small peepholes carefully arranged in the walls and stab the passer-by from the side’ – not exactly an IED, but dangerous nonetheless.75 The Frankish knights dismounted and had their precious horses taken back to the relative safety of the rear. The fighting quickly descended into a series of small but brutal skirmishes. Several of the barricades were stormed and, as the crusaders 90

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY moved forward, the defenders of the orchards were outflanked and killed. Faced with seemingly unstoppable Christian heavy infantry and dismounted cavalry, they eventually broke and ran back to the city.76 The battle of the orchards was over, but another battle was about to begin. The main body of the Muslim army was drawn up on the far banks of the Barada River, to the north of the orchards which the crusaders had just fought their way through. The regular ’askar cavalry of Damascus was there in strength, alongside Turkic mercenaries. There were also levies from the local villages, the ’ahdath urban militia from Damascus and, ominously for the crusaders, ever-growing bands of ghazis and other volunteers.77 Large numbers of archers were thrown forward to contest the crossing, together with longer-range ‘ballistae’.78 The local Frankish troops, the vanguard for the battle through the orchards, were exhausted by this point. They could make little headway against the enemy troops drawn up in front of them. As we have seen, Emperor Conrad, frustrated by the delay, pushed his fresh troops up to the front line, eager to demonstrate their famous prowess with the sword. He and his men ‘all leaped down from their horses and became infantry, as is the custom with the Germans when a desperate crisis occurs. Holding their shields before them, they engaged with the enemy in a handto-hand fight with swords. The Damascenes at first resisted bravely, but soon, unable to sustain the onslaught, they abandoned the river and fled to the city.’79 By the end of the day, the Christian army was in command of the west and south-western approaches to Damascus, including the area immediately north of the Barada River. The capture of the orchards and the river put the Christian army in a potentially strong position. They had good access to water, and were in command of highly defensible ground. It also gave them time to replenish their supplies and tend to their horses. In the evening they were able to camp on the ‘Green Maydan’ (the ‘grassy cavalry training ground’) where there was plenty of good pasture for the horses.80 On the evening of 24 July, the Franks began to fortify their positions on the west side of the city, ‘cutting down trees and building stockades with them, and destroying the enclosures’.81 Well protected in their new camp, they would be able to start the siege of Damascus in earnest on the following day. The fighting on 24 July showed, as always, that a crusader army was a formidable opponent in a close-combat, stand-up fight. What was less clear, however, was 91

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY whether they were resourced or equipped to turn victory on the battlefield into a successful siege. Worryingly, it soon became obvious that the people of Damascus were not going to settle down quietly into a passive role. Early the following morning there was a sortie from the city, looking to contest the Christian occupation of the area north of the Barada. The fighting was fierce and extended along the river. The Muslims lost one of their most famous lawyers and imams, Yusuf al-Findalawi, who died among the infantry at al-Nayrab, about 3 kilometres west of Damascus.82 The battle on the morning of Sunday 25 July was clearly hard-fought. Charge was met with countercharge and, despite the casualties, the Damascene forces gave a good account of themselves.83 A Muslim poem written after the event claimed that 70 of their troops had been killed, but that they had killed 200 of the Franks. Regardless of the exact numbers, it is clear that the besiegers were outnumbered and under continual pressure from the outset, even within their semi-fortified encampment south of the river.84 The fighting on Sunday might have been inconclusive, but Muslim troops were still guarding the city in force, and, because of their superiority in numbers, were operating aggressively outside the walls. At nightfall, the city militia and most of the infantry retired into Damascus and manned the walls, while the regular cavalry of the ’askar stayed in position opposite the Franks. Significantly, there was still no sign of an effective blockade around Damascus, let alone a full siege. On Monday 26 July, the Franks must have hoped to be able to settle down to the first clear day of the siege. They started to put pressure on the walls around the western side of Damascus. Some of the preparations they saw the garrison making were interpreted as grounds for optimism. William of Tyre later wrote that with ‘tall beams of immense size they barricaded all the streets on the side of the city where our camp was located, for their only hope lay in the chance that they might escape in the opposite direction with their wives and children’.85 This was wishful thinking. What the garrison were doing was just normal best practice, carried out by both Muslim and Christian garrisons in similar situations. At Ascalon, just five years later, for instance, we find that large beams had been prepositioned behind areas vulnerable to breaching, and they were used there to good effect in sealing off an incursion by the besiegers. The Templar garrison of Jacob’s Ford did much the same in 1179. Laying out beams and other makeshift obstacles 92

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY near threatened areas of the walls was just a sensible precaution in a siege, once the main focus of the enemy assaults had been identified.86 In fact, on the contrary, the prospects for the siege were not looking good at all. Large groups of Turkic nomads continued to join the Muslim armies, attracted by the prospect of plunder, together with volunteers motivated to help, at least in part, by religious devotion.87 The increasing numbers of archers gave the Muslim defenders the confidence to take the fight to the crusaders once again. As the day progressed, it was increasingly obvious that it was the Franks who were under siege. As dawn approached on the morning of Tuesday 27 July, the siege had still barely begun. If the crusaders had any siege engines or catapults in their baggage train, there is no record of them ever being positioned or used in anger. If they had not brought any with them, and were planning to make them in situ from the wood provided by the suburban orchards, they had certainly not had time to do so yet.88 Damascus was not even under a significant blockade, let alone a close siege. Other than in the west of the city, Muslim troops were able to enter and leave at will. Volunteers and mercenaries continued to flood into the area and, as if that was not bad enough for the crusaders, word began to arrive of fresh Muslim armies mustering nearby.89 Under these conditions the Damascene troops were able to pile on the pressure. Increasingly emboldened, they launched attack after attack. The assaults started at dawn and continued throughout the day. Muslim forces were deploying small, mobile ‘ballistae’ in the defence of the Barada River on Sunday 25 July. By the following Tuesday it appears that they had also begun to deploy light catapults against the crusaders’ stockade in the orchards; Damascene troops, we are told, ‘made havoc of the barricades which [the Franks] had constructed with trees from the orchards, by a hail of arrows and bombardment of stones’.90 Ironically, the only siege weapons used in the Frankish ‘siege of Damascus’ of 1148 were those deployed by the Muslim defenders. Everyone was puzzled by the passivity shown by the crusaders on 27 July. Ibn al-Qalanisi makes it clear that the lack of leadership on the part of the Franks was exploited to the full: [The Franks] declined to come out . . . and not one man showed himself. It was thought that they were planning a ruse and preparing a stratagem. None of them appeared save for a few horsemen and infantry by way of skirmishing and

93

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY keeping off the enemy . . . Not a man of them could approach [the Muslims] without being brought down by a shower of arrows or a lance thrust.91

The Christian army was surrounded and outnumbered and, indeed, enduring a loose siege of its own. It was evident that difficult decisions needed to be made. The lack of leadership shown by the Franks that day was true in a quite literal sense. Most of the Frankish commanders were taking part in a lengthy Council of War to decide what to do next. The options were hard and painful to contemplate, particularly as the Christian army had not yet been beaten in battle. But the situation was deteriorating by the hour. Even as the leaders were debating their next steps, word came in to confirm that they were increasingly surrounded. A bounty had been placed on each Frankish head collected and the local volunteers and militia had cut off what little access still existed to the outside world. Gathering supplies became increasingly dangerous for the crusaders. Large numbers of Muslim ‘infantry of the town bands and men of the villages became emboldened against them, and made a practice of lying in wait for them on the roads, when they suspected no danger, and killing all those whom they captured’.92 It is not entirely clear how the debate proceeded in the Frankish Council of War, or what the main points of view were. Judging by the content of the hysterical accusations that were later thrown around, however, it seems that there were two main parties. On the one hand were the French and German crusaders, overweight in elite and proud nobility. They had come a long way to fight in the Holy Land. As yet undefeated, they seem to have been inclined to stay and battle on, in the hope that Damascus could be forced to surrender. In the other camp were the nobility of the crusader states, and probably the Templars. Being better accustomed to local politics and the realities of warfare in the region, they knew that their situation was actually much worse than the French and German crusaders realised.93 Far from moving towards a successful conclusion, they thought a more likely outcome was that the entire Christian army would be surrounded and wiped out. They were also aware that if they weakened the regime in Damascus, but failed to destroy it, the strategic situation for the Franks in the Holy Land would be far worse than if the campaign had never taken place at all. The Zengid armies massing nearby, ostensibly to come to the aid of Damascus, would be able to just walk in and unite all of Syria under a single dynasty. If the Franks extricated themselves quickly from the 94

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY siege, however, the Christian army would live to fight again, Damascene independence might be preserved and Muslim unity deferred. Although the views of the French and German crusaders had an emotional resonance that appealed greatly to the knightly class, they must have realised how difficult they would be to put into practice. The local Franks had logic on their side. But it all felt weak and anti-climactic. Eventually, a compromise was reached. Any successful siege, if it was to take place at all, needed a quick result. Even the French and German commanders must have understood that a long-drawn-out blockade was no longer feasible. So the decision was made to move to a part of the walls which were supposedly easier to breach. The Frankish army’s position to the west of the city was good for a longer, more traditional siege, as it was defensible and had relatively good access to food and water; but it was also facing some of the strongest parts of the city’s defences. The fortifications to the south of the city, on the other hand, which the army had marched past as they approached Damascus on Saturday, coming up the road from Darayya, were thought to be weaker and more amenable to a swift assault. By Tuesday night the decision to shift position had been made, albeit with misgivings on all sides.94 On Wednesday morning preparations were made to move the camp, and to retreat in the face of the strong enemy forces that increasingly surrounded them. This was not going to be easy. It required good discipline in the face of much provocation. Meanwhile, the Bishop of Langres, who was clearly respected for his military as well as his spiritual opinions, was sent on a reconnaissance mission with 40 knights around the south of the city, to explore the best places to attack and to determine the best position in which to redeploy the Christian army.95 In the event, the situation deteriorated very quickly. The withdrawal from the Barada River and the orchards took place relatively smoothly, but Muslim forces naturally moved in behind the retreating army and occupied their positions among the smallholdings as they left. When the army got to the southern walls of Damascus, it was obvious that the city’s defences were not as weak as had been hoped and, even more importantly, that water supplies were insufficient for the army to remain there. Going back was not an option, as Muslim troops now defended the orchards in great strength, and staying where they were would clearly lead to disaster. As the day wore on, the Christian army’s leadership had no choice but to retreat. And by now even that would not be easy. 95

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The French and German commanders were furious. They felt that they had been duped. Perhaps they had been. The impracticality of a siege from the south, and the speed with which the Christians were forced to recognise the situation, was inescapable. None of the Muslim commentators even realised that it had been considered a possibility. Instead, they just interpreted it as an end to the siege, observing that the Frankish army withdrew from their positions to the west of the city, headed south around the city to the road from Darayya and proceeded back down the way it had come only five days earlier.96 The Muslim forces did not pursue the Franks too closely, contenting themselves with killing stragglers and harassing the rearguard. They did not want to provoke the crusaders into a full-scale battle, with all the risks that would entail. The Frankish army withdrew in good order, which cannot have been easy, and was a continuing testament to their tactical professionalism.97 The frustrations of the French and German crusaders, and the outrage they felt at having been misled by the local Franks, turned into vociferous accusations of treachery, both at the time and, on a more leisurely basis, once they had returned to Europe. Constructing conspiracy theories about the Templars has become increasingly fashionable over the centuries, but one of the earliest examples is the treachery of which they were accused at Damascus in 1148. It was said that they had betrayed the Christian cause, either for unspecified reasons (as John of Salisbury suggested) or, more prosaically, for cash (as the chronicler of Würzburg claimed). King Baldwin and the local nobility were also denounced for betraying the cause of Christ and taking bribes from Damascus.98 Almost everyone was accused. A wide range of highly imaginative motives was explored, no matter how outlandish or implausible. Squabbling about who Damascus might be given to once it had been captured was another motive for the alleged treachery, with some pointing the finger of blame at Count Thierry of Flanders. The possibility of jealousy and spite was also thought to implicate Prince Raymond of Antioch.99 William of Tyre, usually assiduous and (at least by medieval standards) less prone to unfounded speculation, repeated some of the gossip. William had access to the royal records and interrogated some of those who had been present to find out who had ‘betrayed’ the Christian cause, and why. He was clearly puzzled. He explicitly wrote that he 96

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY often interviewed wise men and those whose memory of those times is still fresh, particularly with a view to using the information thus obtained in the present history. I tried to learn the reason for this great wrong; who were the instigators of such treachery; and how so detestable a crime could have been carried through. I found that the reports vary greatly in regard to this matter . . . opinions differed as to the responsibility for this detestable act, but I have been unable to obtain definite information on the subject.100

Ultimately, hard proof of ‘treachery’ was hard to find, because it did not exist. Emperor Conrad of Germany was extremely bitter about the way events had played out, and believed that the local Frankish factions were to blame. In a letter back home, written soon after the siege, he claimed that when we had gone to Damascus – a unanimous decision – and had fought hard to set up our camp before the city gate, it was almost certain that the city would be taken, but from a source we did not suspect treachery arrived, for ‘they’ assured us that that side of the city could not be taken. They purposely led us to another side where there was no water for the army and no obvious access. Angry and grieved they all returned, having achieved nothing.101

In saying this, Conrad, angry though he was, was probably more accurate than many of the more subtle commentators of his day, who were looking for complex conspiracies and treachery where there were none to find. Conrad implies that the local Franks (the king, his nobles and perhaps the Templars) duped him and his men into abandoning their positions on the west of the city, moving the army instead to an untenable location (not coincidentally, on the route home) and, when it was clear that there was no alternative, retreating back to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Everyone tried to justify the failure of the campaign by blaming someone else, but only King Baldwin and his advisers knew local circumstances intimately. It was obvious by the time of the Council of War on 27 July that the military situation was deteriorating rapidly. Although the army could hold out for a time, there was no obvious way in which they could now achieve their objectives. Despite Conrad’s face-saving protestations, Damascus was not about to fall. 97

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The Franks had been unable to blockade the city: on the contrary, Muslim reinforcements and supplies were entering at will. No formal siege train, no catapults, no siege tower had been deployed by the Christians. Increasingly surrounded, the ‘siege’ was only going to end one way, and the failure of the French and German crusaders to recognise this would have been disastrous. King Baldwin and his advisers may have ‘duped’ the crusaders into abandoning their positions, but rather than treachery, their motive was to save them (and the rest of the army) despite themselves. There were several factors that the crusading elements of the Frankish army, being unacquainted with regional conditions, failed to appreciate. First, Damascus had not been cowed into surrender. There had always been a vague hope that, once confronted with a powerful Frankish army, the Damascenes would have opened up negotiations, agreed to some form of condominium or alliance, or might perhaps even have surrendered. But if any of this had been going to happen, it would have happened already, at the moment of initial shock. That moment had passed. Once the crusaders’ bluff had been called, they did not have the means to deliver on their implicit threat. There were insufficient troops to surround the city. Even a blockade was impossible. It was also the case that they had failed to overpower the city’s military. On the contrary, the Damascene army was substantial, and growing. The ’askar cavalry was still in position, and had been joined by Turkic mercenaries. Being on the defensive, fighting for their homes and families, there were also substantial numbers of city militia and the men from outlying villages who had sought refuge in the city. Just as importantly, the religious significance of the city ensured that large numbers of volunteers, particularly from modern-day Lebanon, were continually arriving as reinforcements. Although Damascus was not mentioned by name in the Koran, it had enormous resonance for the local faithful, both as a place of importance in the Bible and as the burial place of some of the companions of the Prophet. Spiritual attractions acted as a powerful recruiting sergeant for the local cause.102 As Muslim numbers grew, so the Frankish army became more and more isolated. Lines of communication back to the Latin Kingdom, whether for retreat or resupply, were always rudimentary and precarious – they were now in danger of being cut altogether. Ironically, the Frankish ‘besiegers’ were now far more susceptible to a blockade than Damascus itself. But perhaps most important of all, and the factor most difficult for outsiders to grasp, was the potential role of the Zengid dynasty to the north, and the forces which 98

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY they could bring to bear. The Damascenes had varying relations with both the Franks and the Zengids, but the key underlying objective of the crusader states was that Damascus should either be brought back under Christian control (which would be ideal, but extremely difficult to engineer) or, at the very least, should retain its independence.103 Frankish policy had even led to periods of alliance with Damascus, with the army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem campaigning with the ’askar of Damascus against the common Zengid enemy. The approach of a Zengid army coming to ‘rescue’ their Damascene coreligionists was clearly a major military problem for the Franks. A further influx of goodquality Muslim troops could see them overwhelmed altogether. But the political consequences could be even more devastating. Victorious Zengid forces, mingling with a grateful populace, would be ideally placed to take over Damascus and create a unified Muslim empire. Retreat might be tactically humiliating, but a unitary Muslim state encompassing the whole of Syria would overturn long-standing Frankish policy objectives and be a strategic disaster. The size of the original crusader armies, the presence of several kings and many other Western celebrities, together with the spectacular recriminations that followed its failure, meant that the 1148 campaign against Damascus received more attention, both at the time and in the present day, than it perhaps deserves. In fact, it was an attack, a demonstration that barely became a blockade, rather than a full-blown siege. The Christian troops were 8 kilometres outside of Damascus on Saturday 24 July, and fought their way into the outskirts of the city successfully. But by Tuesday 27 July, they were already discussing the best way to extricate themselves – and by Wednesday they were on their way back to Jerusalem. At some point, early in the campaign, the smart money in the crusader camp must have felt that it was possible to get a quick win. Perhaps intelligence sources within the city had exaggerated the poor state of relations between Damascus and the Zengids, suggesting that no Muslim relief force from northern Syria would be forthcoming. With a one-off opportunity presented by the presence of the remnants of the armies of the Second Crusade, they thought that an expedition to Damascus was a gamble worth taking. But, given the logistical weaknesses of the campaign, they must also have known that a long-drawn-out siege would be extremely risky. They would have been anticipating a swift victory or none at all. 99

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY On the most obvious level, the siege of Damascus was a prime example of the tactical failure of the Frankish art of siegecraft. They did not have the specialist resources to undertake a swift assault or sufficient manpower to enforce a lengthy blockade. But, far more importantly, it also confirmed their underlying strategic weakness. Lack of resources meant that allies were essential. But it was enormously difficult to implement effective strategy within an alliance – every decision became a focus group, every setback became a conspiracy. Similarly, the crusaders might be able to identify the correct strategic objectives. Yet even with every resource marshalled in pursuit of these objectives, it was not enough. However great the stretch, success remained tantalisingly out of reach. Ironically, the siege of Damascus just ended up showcasing the demographic catastrophe that continually faced the Christian states – the Franks were too few in number to capture or to hold any of the populous cities of the interior. Only the wiliness of the local Franks, with all of the opprobrium that went with it, stopped the fiasco at the walls of Damascus turning into a complete massacre. The County of Edessa: Living with a Hinterland ‘Success’ An unlikely beginning The Great Game was afoot. Just before dawn on a bitterly cold February morning, a small company of European soldiers, accompanied by local guides, crossed a half frozen river at the end of the Silk Road and rode on towards the mountain ranges in the distance. They were far from home – beyond the mountains lay the wild steppes of Eurasia, exotic and dangerous places where few Westerners had ever travelled. They had come as adventurers, playing for the highest stakes: to carve out networks of power and influence in a little-known region; to meet tribal leaders and gather intelligence about incursions from the Eastern Orthodox empire that sought to establish influence through its agents, bribes and armies; and to create the military alliances that they knew would be needed to fend off the wild Turkic tribesmen who were continually tempted down from the steppes towards the richer lands of the river valleys below. 100

Approximate boundary of the county

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THE CRUSADER STRATEGY All very familiar territory. But this was not the Great Game of Kipling and the Czars. The year was 1098 rather than 1898. The Orthodox empire was Byzantine rather than Romanov, and the adventurers were a tiny band of European knights rather than a Victorian cavalry patrol. The land they had entered, which became known as the County of Edessa, was part of modern Syria and Turkey, rather than Afghanistan. Although they were separated by time and geography, they had much in common. For the next 50 years nomadic warlords, local tribesmen, small bodies of European troops and the farming communities of the region would all contend for power, influence and, on occasion, even survival, as they sought to shift the balance of power in a volatile environment. The crusader knights were a retinue of no more than 80 men led by a lord from northern France called Baldwin of Boulogne (who later became the first king of Jerusalem).104 The state they created, the County of Edessa, is the ultimate demonstration of what could happen when the crusaders broke into the hinterland and managed to establish their rule in the lands of the Middle East beyond the coastal plains. It was, superficially at least, the only significant success of the hinterland strategy. Unlikely though the entire enterprise seemed, the Frankish knights who rode into southern Anatolia on that cold morning in 1098 had a lot going for them. They had been invited in as liberators, to free the land from Turkic overlords. The vast majority of the local population were Armenian Christians and, unlike their coreligionists to the south, they had a proud military heritage to fall back on. As a result, the crusaders were not only welcomed, but were actively helped by a large pool of useful allies. There were inevitable tensions between the Franks and their new subjects, but relations were broadly friendly. Marriages quickly took place at all levels of society from the counts of Edessa downwards. Armenians held some of the highest offices of state and many of the most important lordships. The ranks of the Edessan army were similarly filled with local Christians, and there are extraordinary instances of the devotion displayed between Armenian soldiers and their Frankish leaders.105 At the battle of Ager Sanguinis, for instance, the heroic last stand around the mobile chapel and the fallen body of Roger of Antioch was led by a devoted Armenian knight named Euterpius. Even more impressively, it was a small unit of Armenian soldiers that volunteered to carry out what almost amounted to a 102

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY suicide mission to rescue their Frankish liege lord when he was held prisoner in Kharput in 1123.106 The Franks were also fortunate that the first three counts of Edessa – Baldwin of Boulogne (1098–1100), Baldwin of Bourcq (1100–1118) and Joscelin I (1119–1131) – were all energetic, belligerent and extremely capable. They had the credibility and authority to rally support from their subjects and to call on their Frankish neighbours for military help when it was needed. Under their leadership the county became an aggressive and well-established regional player in its own right. But the Franks’ advantages were more apparent than real. The realities of regional geopolitics meant that the odds against their survival lengthened with every passing year. The county had almost no natural borders, and no obviously defensible line to fall back upon. The Euphrates provided some protection for the west of the county but the lands east of the river, which included the city of Edessa itself, were dangerously exposed, stretching deep into what is now eastern Turkey and northern Syria. This was not merely a problem of extended lines of communication. The east of the county bordered onto some of the most dangerous places in the medieval Middle East – they were the entry point for the ferocious mounted tribesmen who came down off the steppes in seemingly limitless numbers. These natural warriors provided a restless but almost unstoppable stream of reinforcements for the local Muslim powers. The sedentary Christian population of the County of Edessa, on the other hand, had no such assistance. On the furthest fringes of Christendom, they might be brave, but they were isolated and vulnerable to being swamped by large-scale nomadic incursions – the very survival of Edessa was heavily dependent on timely help from neighbours and allies who had problems of their own and who were often hundreds of kilometres distant. This vulnerability to the east was compounded by the failure of the crusaders to take Aleppo, close to the borders of Edessa, or the other Muslim towns further to the south, such as Shaizar or Harran. The close proximity of such major Muslim centres meant that the county was surrounded on three sides. Without further conquests to the south, the County of Edessa looked more like a salient – a vulnerable bridgehead jutting out into enemy territory – than a long-term going concern. The unequal nature of the task facing Edessa inevitably had consequences of the most extreme kind for strategy: a single defeat could mean the entire loss of the county, while a defeat for their Muslim foes was generally little more than a passing 103

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY nuisance. Demographics and geography made the survival of Frankish rule extremely unlikely. Even more dangerous, however, was the growing threat of Muslim unity. As we have seen, the success of the First Crusade, and the creation of the County of Edessa in particular, had only been possible because the local Muslim powers were fragmented, internally competitive, and perennially focused on their own self-interests. Consequently, at the beginning of the twelfth century, there could be no Muslim strategy against the crusaders, because there was no effective power within the region to coordinate it, and no centralised military force to implement it. But it remained to be seen how long such disunity would persist. In terms of the crusader states as a whole, the County of Edessa acted as both an example and, more selfishly, as a buffer. As an example, it showed what would be possible if the old Christian hinterlands could be recovered. There was certainly great potential for colonisation and for supporting the large armies necessary to survive on the fringes of Islam. According to William of Tyre, the county was an extremely productive region, capable of supporting 500 knights. By way of comparison, the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem, with its rich religious tourism trade and a flow of donations coming in from across Europe, could support only a slightly larger knightly contingent of perhaps some 700 heavily armoured cavalry.107 If the hinterland strategy worked, the example of Edessa showed that there was a way for the crusader states to become self-financing and militarily self-reliant. If it remained just a solitary buffer state, however, Edessa was always going to be at risk. Whenever substantial Muslim armies gathered in the east, often in the Iraqi heartlands of Islam, the County of Edessa was a natural first target – tantalisingly close and potentially vulnerable. Whenever Turkic nomads drifted down from the steppes, it was an obvious and attractive destination for plunder and fodder. Furthest away from help, almost surrounded and closest to the major entry points for enemy armies coming into the region, Edessa’s position was difficult at best. Muslim disunity was the single thread upon which the survival of the county hung. An unlikely survival In the midst of such difficulties, the County of Edessa developed a core strategy based on three main policy strands: one ‘baseline’, one ‘active’ and one ‘passive’. 104

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY The ‘baseline’ policy, the one that underpinned the everyday survival of the county, was that of reliance on their friends: friends to help provide critical mass when things were going well – and, more often, friends to come swiftly to the rescue when things started to go badly. Edessa, with its isolated position and small European population, was acutely reliant upon help from its Frankish neighbours. This reliance was not straightforward, however, and was a continual source of worry for Edessa’s dependent but proud leadership. The County of Tripoli (broadly modern-day Lebanon) had only a small army and significant military issues of its own to contend with. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, in addition to the problems it faced in dealing with the armies of Egypt and Damascus, was the furthest distant from Edessa: by the time word reached the kings of Jerusalem that there was an emergency in the north, they still needed to muster their men and make the long march north. Even with a sympathetic king on the throne and nothing more pressing to occupy his attention, several weeks would inevitably pass before the army of Jerusalem could intervene in northern Syria. The army of Antioch was much closer and, on a day-to-day basis, the major source of assistance. The two armies campaigned in partnership so often that they generally cooperated well together in the field.108 The Edessan army was smaller, but – perhaps not surprisingly, given the almost continual active service it saw – highly regarded. At the battle of Tell Danith, for instance – one of the few battles for which we have a detailed account of how the two armies manoeuvred together – the army of Edessa was just one wing of the allied force, but was given the difficult task of forming the vanguard division of the army, launching the first charge against the Turkic enemy, while simultaneously holding the left flank against swarms of enemy light cavalry.109 But, despite the huge logistical difficulties and occasional personality clashes, military cooperation between the crusader states usually worked well. There were sporadic grumbles from the nobility about having to leave their lands unattended for lengthy periods of time. Given the dangers involved and the huge personal sacrifices required to help people they had only rarely met, however, it is perhaps surprising that resistance of this kind was not commonplace.110 The Franks usually worked well together but not because they were particularly altruistic (either individually or collectively). Rather, they were motivated by intelligent self-interest. 105

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY All of the crusader states needed help from time to time, and their neighbours in the Levant were the only Westerners close enough to provide such help quickly. But this was not sufficient to explain the extensive support the county received from other crusader states – the military needs of the county were so great that it was always going to be a net receiver of help rather than contributor in terms of alliances. On a strictly quid pro quo basis, it is hard to see why everyone was so keen to help. The answer, of course, was Edessa’s role as a buffer state. Even if the county could not definitively stop every large nomadic army entering the region from the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), it could inflict casualties upon them and restrict their movements. Just as importantly, it also soaked up much of their energy and time – nomads were dangerous opponents but they were not inclined to stay in the field for long. They were motivated by the availability of plunder and, whether satiated or frustrated, were soon keen to return to their herds. The survival of the county played a major role in keeping the Turkic armies of Baghdad and the steppes at bay, and absorbing their initial fury. While Edessa existed, it acted as a lightning conductor for the endless invasions and raids erupting from the east. Conversely, with Edessa gone, all the other crusader states were one step closer to the front line, and with one less ally to help them face the inevitable onslaught. So this was the ‘baseline’ policy. The ‘active’ policy strand, on the other hand, consisted of keeping its neighbours off-balance by behaving surprisingly aggressively wherever possible. This policy often worked because it naturally resonated with the temperament of the county’s early rulers. In November 1103, for instance, Baldwin of Bourcq conducted destructive and successful raids far to the south of the county. He and his men simultaneously attacked the Muslim-held towns of Qalat Jabar and Al-Rakka in order to maximise the advantage of surprise. As they left the county ‘they divided into two parties and travelled from their base for one day during which their raid on the two towns was to take place. They carried out the raid as they planned and drove off the cattle. They made prisoners of all the Muslims who fell into their hands.’111 This policy was not without risk, however – an aggressive spirit could easily morph into recklessness. The disasters that resulted from over-reaching could spill over to affect their neighbours too, with potentially appalling consequences. In 1104, for instance, Baldwin of Bourcq turned his attention towards intimidating the Muslim town of Harran, on the southern frontiers of the county. Two neighbouring 106

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY Turkic warlords, Soqman of Diyar-Bakr and Jikirmish of Mosul, took advantage of his absence to invade the county and briefly put Edessa under siege. They then drew Baldwin and his army, together with their Antiochene allies, further into enemy territory. On 7 May 1104 they destroyed the poorly coordinated Christian armies at Harran, killing many of the Edessan knights and capturing Count Baldwin himself. In the weeks following the fiasco, much of the hinterlands of Antioch and Edessa were overrun by their Muslim enemies.112 Aggression could be extended into defensive situations too, bringing with it similarly high levels of risk. When Balak, the lord of Saruj, Mardin and, later, Aleppo, attacked Edessan territory in September 1122, Count Joscelin I raced to intercept the raiders with just 100 knights. Balak, vastly outnumbering the Christian forces, turned to face him. In the ensuing battle Joscelin was captured and his tiny army routed, and Muslim troops were then able to launch a series of destructive attacks on the undefended Frankish lands nearby. Worse was still to come. Balak put the eastern Edessan town of Gargar under siege and when King Baldwin II rushed to relieve it, he too was captured. As the two Frankish rulers languished in the same remote prison, they doubtless had plenty of time to reflect on the risks associated with taking such an aggressive stance, and the way the unintended consequences of those risks were sometimes imposed on their allies.113 The ‘passive’ policy strand (that of exploiting divisions between its Muslim enemies) also had its drawbacks, particularly because the Franks had so little control over events in the Muslim world around them. They might try to encourage discord among their enemies but ultimately the policy only worked for as long as it matched the Turkic warlords’ own agendas and perceived self-interest. The hinterlands of the northern crusader states were always under huge stress. Taking the period 1110–1115 as an example, large Turkic armies invaded Edessa and the inland territories of Antioch with appalling regularity – in 1110, 1111, 1112, 1113 (when they penetrated as far south as Galilee), 1114 and 1115. At any point, in the aftermath of bad luck or a bad decision, the Frankish lands in the East might be swept away. These Turkic armies were nominally under the command of the Sultan of Baghdad and the generals he appointed. Luckily for the Franks, ‘nominally’ was very much the operative word. The consequences of Turkic infighting were sometimes so extreme that they often descended into farce. In 1111, for instance, the Sultan of Baghdad made one of several attempts to knock the heads of his local representatives together, to force them to unite against 107

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY the Franks. He chose Mawdud, lord of Mosul and a very capable commander, to coordinate this campaign. Mawdud already had considerable experience – he had invaded Edessa in 1110, and had defeated part of the Frankish armies as they were forced to retreat across the Euphrates.114 The following year he came back with even greater numbers. The Turkic lords of Iraq were ordered to help him, and a large army gathered for the campaign. They advanced into the heartlands of the county again, attacked Edessa itself and penetrated as far west as Turbessel, on the other side of the Euphrates.115 Having successfully ravaged the surrounding lands, and with Frankish forces too weak to face him in battle, Mawdud and his armies moved on to Aleppo to regroup and gather yet more reinforcements. The citizens of Aleppo had been eager to support a jihad, or ‘holy war’, against the Franks and had been lobbying actively in Baghdad to get a decisive campaign under way. Success seemed certain.116 When the hoped-for army arrived, however, Ridwan, the local Turkic ruler, refused to help. Far from being interested in assisting, Ridwan barred Mawdud’s army from entering the city, and the Aleppan citizens who had communicated with Mawdud found themselves being punished as ‘traitors’. Mawdud’s men, in frustration, started retaliatory raids around Aleppan territory, destroying the very villages that they had been sent to help. As one Muslim chronicler wrote in despair, ‘they created worse devastation than the Franks had done’. Relations between the Muslim armies inevitably plumbed new lows.117 Complicating matters still further, the army of Damascus, led by their ruler, Tughtigin, also joined the invading armies. Just when campaigning seemed about to start in earnest, however, the Damascene and Iraqi forces started arguing among themselves and relations became increasingly strained.118 Incredibly, two of the main commanders of the Iraqi contingents started to bicker about the plans for the invasion and both became ill. One withdrew his men in disgust, but died of his illness soon afterwards. With this example in front of them, and increasingly lacking in confidence about the prospects for plunder (the main reason most of the men were there), the other ’askars gradually evaporated. Before major contact had been made with the Franks, Mawdud’s huge army had melted down to just his own contingent and that of Damascus, two groups with little in common except mutual suspicion and antipathy.119 108

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY The local Frankish troops waited for reinforcements from the army of Jerusalem, led by King Baldwin I, and Tripoli, led by Count Bertrand.120 The two sides faced off against each other. The Franks refused to be drawn into a full-scale battle and after much frustrating skirmishing, both sides eventually withdrew. The Franks had seen off another invasion – an invasion, moreover, which had initially had such huge numbers behind it that it had seemed very likely to succeed. Herding any group of independently minded Turkic warlords was always going to be a challenging task. When they thought their self-interests were threatened, the task became almost impossible. Mawdud did the best he could under the circumstances, but his ‘allies’ were working against him as often as they were helping. He had to return home to explain why his huge army had achieved nothing.121 Mawdud remained convinced (entirely correctly) that with sufficient local support he could break Frankish resistance. He returned to attack Edessa yet again in April/June 1112, and achieved some moderate success.122 In the following year he was even more ambitious and joined up with the forces of Damascus. He marched his armies south to inflict a devastating defeat on the army of Jerusalem at the battle of as-Sennabra, in Galilee. With the need for aid reversed for a change, the forces of the Latin Kingdom were only saved by the swift intervention of reinforcements from Antioch and Tripoli. The Muslim world was clearly on the verge of making a major breakthrough.123 But the fragmentation of local Turkic politics made itself felt once again, with catastrophic effect. On 2 October 1113, Mawdud was leaving the mosque in Damascus after prayers, alongside his ally Tughtigin, when a lone attacker knifed him to death. The role of Tughtigin was highly questionable. He had much to gain from Mawdud’s death and was accompanying him at the time of the murder. Tughtigin was remarkably, and suspiciously, unscathed during the attack.124 It was clear to all observers, Muslim as well as Christian, that Mawdud had been killed, not because he had failed against the Franks, but rather because he showed every sign of success. For the local Turkic warlords, the survival of the Franks was a small price to pay if it meant avoiding direct rule from Baghdad.125 Mawdud’s death was the cause of much celebration in Edessa, not least because of the widespread civilian atrocities he and his men had committed in the course of their invasions. One native Christian chronicler described him unambiguously as ‘a wicked and evil beast’.126 His elimination was not the end of the attacks on Edessa, 109

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY but in the short term much of the momentum had been lost. Another invasion took place just a few months later, in 1114, this time led by Aqsungur, the lord of Mosul, but, once again, it was not given full support by the local warlords and was largely unsuccessful. Ironically, Aqsungur ended up being defeated not by the Franks, but by a fellow Turk, Il-Ghazi of Mardin.127 The Sultan of Baghdad continued to try to get his local ‘representatives’ to cooperate. In 1115 Bursuq, lord of Hamadhan, was the next lucky commander given the thankless task of coordinating their efforts. He led another invasion of Antioch and Edessa with a huge army gathered from Mosul and the Jazira, together with the Hamadhan contingent, and large numbers of mercenaries. But cooperation plummeted to as yet unheard of levels. The local warlords not only refused to help, but actively allied themselves with the Franks to see off the outsiders.128 These examples from the period 1110–1115 show just how fragmented the local political situation was, and how much this disunity among the Muslim players helped the Franks. But it also showed other things – that the county was under almost continual threat from enemies which greatly outnumbered it; that it was always hugely dependent on help from its Frankish neighbours; and, above all, that it had very little leeway for making mistakes. It was obvious that the County of Edessa was built on the most fragile of foundations, and that its survival was precarious at best. The Franks adopted the best strategy they could under these circumstances. They were militarily aggressive and dynamic. They harnessed the manpower of the native Christian population and at first they were able to expand the borders of the county considerably. They worked ceaselessly to exploit Muslim disunity whenever they could. But none of this could disguise the bizarre and embarrassing truth that the only successful hinterland of the crusader states was largely kept afloat by the occasional support of Muslim allies and, in the early years, by the chronic infighting of the local Turkic warlords. A predictable end The crusaders were pragmatic. The rulers of Edessa accepted help wherever they could find it. But even they were acutely aware that this situation could not go on forever. Despite energetic leaders and a supportive local population, they did not 110

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY have the military strength to break through the mass of Muslim states that surrounded them. If Frankish leadership failed, or if its Muslim allies became less fragmented, the County of Edessa faced imminent catastrophe. This fragile construct could not continue indefinitely. By 1144, all the basic strands of Edessan policy had run into the ground. The fundamentals of Edessa’s strategic position remained unchanged, but the specifics of each had reached a low point. Aggressive leadership was still vital, but Joscelin II, Count of Edessa at the time, was just a pale impression of his father. Having produced three good rulers, the lottery of genetics could not continue to deliver the goods indefinitely. Assistance from Frankish neighbours was as vital as ever but Joscelin was an unpopular and ineffective ruler – he could not necessarily rely on the enthusiastic support of his peers in an emergency. The most obvious source of help was traditionally from the nearby Principality of Antioch. But even if Joscelin and Raymond, the Prince of Antioch, had been on good terms (which they were not), the Antiochene field army was temporarily preoccupied. The army of the County of Tripoli was small, and Edessa was so far away from Jerusalem that the kingdom’s forces were always going to take a long time to muster and arrive.129 Meanwhile, the geographic and demographic weaknesses of the county remained unchanged – Edessa itself, and much of its lands, were to the east of the Euphrates. It was so far away from the centres of Christian power as to be almost indefensible. But Joscelin’s actions made a bad situation even worse. He had shifted his residence, together with many of his household troops, to the west, basing himself in Turbessel. This was hardly the resounding vote of confidence needed to keep morale high among the populace in what was still, in theory at least, his capital city. The poor state of the defences he had put in place in Edessa only added to the sense of unease. Most of the garrison were mercenaries. This was not necessarily a problem, but these were mercenaries whose services were neglected. According to William of Tyre, they ‘did not receive wages according to the time or kind of service rendered but often had to wait a year or more before they could collect what was due to them’.130 Even more importantly, there were far too few of them. Leaderless, unpaid and stretched too thin, the garrison was not in good shape. But that was only part of the perfect storm that was about to unfold. Ominously, just when Joscelin showed himself incapable of sound leadership or of delivering the 111

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY close relationships with other Frankish states upon which the county depended, so too did the ‘passive’ policy strand – with its reliance on Muslim disunity – also fail. After Mawdud’s death in 1113, Muslim unity and the consolidation of military and political power in the region gradually took place. This was not, as the sultans of Baghdad had wanted, driven by any desire of their warlords to subject themselves to central authority, or even to conduct a ‘holy war’ against the Franks. On the contrary, the centralisation of power took place only on a local basis, as the Turkic–Syrian warlords fought among themselves, and the strongest – or luckiest – gradually absorbed their neighbours. Neither were they particularly religious in their motivation: for most of the time the Franks were just another set of players in this extraordinarily violent real-life version of Game of Thrones. But the effect was much the same. Over time, the power struggles in Muslim Syria produced ever more powerful, and more regionally dominant, leaders – leaders, moreover, who were increasingly capable of dealing a knockout blow to the Franks. Balak was an effective commander and, for a time, the leading contender for the role of regional strongman. He had been fighting against – and occasionally in cooperation with – the Franks since they had first arrived in the East. At about the same time that Mawdud had been assassinated in Damascus, Balak had captured the fortress of Kharput and used it as a base upon which to build his power. By the early 1120s, he felt confident enough to start throwing his weight around on a grand scale. His armies invaded Antioch in 1122, following that up later in the year with an attack on Edessa, which culminated, as we have seen, in his victory over of a small Edessan army and the capture of Count Joscelin I. Within a few months, King Baldwin II was also captured, and joined Joscelin in the dungeons of Kharput. Later in 1123 Balak was off on campaign once more, overrunning his Muslim neighbours in Harran and Aleppo, and invading both Antioch and Edessa yet again. Early in 1124 he besieged the Frankish fortress of Azaz, and defeated the Edessan army at Manbij in May of that year. It was only the accident of an arrow wound, inflicted, all too appropriately, by an archer in the employ of a Muslim rival, that stopped his meteoric rise and the – largely involuntary – consolidation of regional power that went with it.131 A tough soldier named Zengi, steeped in the bloody politics of Turkic Syria, stepped up to fill the power vacuum. He had been orphaned at the age of 10 when his 112

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY father, the ruler of Aleppo, had been murdered by fellow Turks before the crusaders even arrived. But Zengi was in favour with the sultans of Baghdad. In 1127 he was given the city of Mosul, and took Aleppo the next year. Homs and Hama followed soon after. With the exception of Damascus – which retained its independence by the skin of its teeth – Zengi was now in command of Muslim Syria.132 As Zengi’s power and resources grew, so too did his ability to see a siege through to a successful conclusion. The siege and capture of Edessa, the pinnacle of his rule in northern Syria, was a good example of how this could work in practice. It brought together all the classic ingredients of effective Muslim siegecraft: large numbers of troops, particularly archers; an impressive artillery capability; a temporarily weakened target; and, the Muslim speciality, a substantial cadre of experienced miners and sappers.133 Zengi was aware of the opportunity. Now he had to ensure that he had the resources in place. He already had a team of experienced Khorassanian and Aleppan miners on the payroll, and he had a semi-regular core of full-time troops in the form of his ’askar. But he still needed more men to enforce a strict blockade and to create an arrow-storm with which to sweep defenders from the battlements. Messengers were sent to the nomadic Turkic tribes, offering them money and plunder for their support. It worked. When he was ready to move on Edessa ‘a great host and vast multitude of them joined him’.134 There was already an artillery element in Zengi’s siege train, and he took steps to augment it in the run-up to the siege. So obvious were the preparations in constructing mangonels that in October 1144 the spies of Damascus (entirely understandably) jumped to the wrong conclusion – they sent word back to warn that he was about to set out and besiege their home town. Zengi had clearly been able to keep his objectives secret, even if he could not hide the true scale of his military preparations.135 The Muslim troops arrived outside Edessa in mid-November, with food supplies in the city already low. Edessa was well fortified, with a large outer wall, many towers and a strong citadel. But the garrison was too small, and the soldiers’ morale was extremely fragile. They made one sortie, trying to assert themselves at the beginning of the siege – a heroic Frankish knight almost managed to get to Zengi before he was brought down. After that, however, the city was invested and we hear no more of aggressive action by the beleaguered garrison.136 One of the gates was selected as being the weakest point. The main Muslim artillery battery, consisting of seven catapults, was placed ‘by the Gate of Sha’e, close to 113

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY the Church of the Confessors’.137 The weakened walls in this sector were also the target of three mining operations. The mining was carried out with speed and professionalism. The men of Khurasan and of Aleppo who were familiar with the technique of sapping, and bold in carrying it out, set to work and made saps at a number of places which they selected as suitable for their operations. They continued thus to push on with their sapping . . . until they reached below the foundations of the bastions of the wall. They then shored these up with stout timbers and special appliances, and when they had made an end of that nothing remained but to set fire to them.138

The mining operations were helped by the difficulties the defenders faced – the sappers were protected by massed archers, ‘who shot in arrows [as thick] as drops of rain’.139 Counter-mining by the defenders stopped one of the besiegers’ mines. All the Zengid troops inside were killed and the threatened walls at that point were built up to prevent a breach taking place. The other two mines, built under nearby towers, were more successful, however. Once they had been fired, the weakened structures collapsed to create at least partial breaches. Fighting was fierce, and the defenders were able to fend off the assaults for a while, with both sides taking heavy casualties.140 But eventually numbers told. The Franks and Armenians were forced to take men off the walls to contest the breach, and while this was happening ‘the Turks saw that the wall was emptied of combatants, and they placed ladders in position and went up’. The defenders fell back to the citadel and a massacre took place among civilians and those of the garrison who were cut off from retreat.141 The city fell on 23 December 1144, 28 days after the siege had begun. Zengi offered good terms to the surviving members of the garrison in the citadel. Two days later they too surrendered. Frankish manpower was spread so thin that this single defeat precipitated a complete collapse. The capture of Edessa allowed Zengi to take almost all the Frankish fortifications east of the Euphrates.142 After installing a garrison in Edessa, he ‘marched on towards Saruj, from which the Franks had fled, and captured it, and 114

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY there was not one place or stronghold by which he passed and before which he encamped but was immediately delivered up to him’.143 In a manner which clearly presaged the elimination of the southern Frankish hinterlands in the aftermath of Hattin in 1187, Zengi showed just how fragile even the most elaborate fortifications could be when faced with manpower problems that deprived them of adequate garrisons or timely reinforcements. Frankish troops moving towards the area to stabilise the situation were driven back in February and March 1145 and Turcoman nomads continued to raid further and further west later in the year.144 At the end of 1146 the local Franks were temporarily able to recapture the town of Edessa, but were too few in number to retake the citadel and were routed when large numbers of Turkic cavalry arrived to surround them. The prisoners, both Franks and local Christians, were subjected to appalling treatment. The Turks ‘stripped them of their clothes and shoes. Beating them with sticks, they forced them, men and women, naked and with their hands tied behind their backs, to run with the horses . . . [they] pierced the guts of any who weakened or who fell to the ground, and left them to die on the road’.145 The military casualties were bad enough, but the impact on the civilian population was devastating. Almost all the local people were either killed or taken off into slavery. Edessa was largely depopulated. Over the following months, the Edessan frontier moved further and further west. The entire county became untenable. By August 1150, the end was clearly inevitable. The remnants of the Frankish population were evacuated, together with all those local Christians who wanted to leave. The column of refugees was harassed continually by nomadic mercenaries, but the Frankish army managed to keep good discipline on the march to protect the civilians. They eventually fought their way through to safety.146 King Baldwin of Jerusalem had arranged for the Byzantine military to take over the remaining Edessan castles and fortified towns before the Franks pulled out altogether. Even the regular troops of the Byzantine army could not defy the inevitable, however. Within a few months, the last strongholds had fallen.147 With the benefit of hindsight, the County of Edessa was never a going concern: the geopolitics and demographics of the region made it an unlikely and (in all probability) an all too temporary survivor. It was kept afloat by the goodwill of its Christian neighbours; by the disunity of its Turkic enemies; and, ironically, by the occasional support 115

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY of local Muslim states as they bucked against the centralising forces that threatened both their independence and the existence of the crusaders. Edessa was a convenient buffer state for everyone. It protected the Frankish states of the coast from the steppe armies entering the region from Iraq. And, perversely, from time to time it also protected the local Turkic warlords from what they saw as the unwarranted interference of their nominal masters in Baghdad. It could survive on this basis for a while. But it was fundamentally fragile, a second division player operating on the edge of a violent and dangerously volatile political environment – an environment over which it had increasingly less control. No amount of strategy or planning could disguise the fact that its very existence depended on the whim of others. Disaster for Edessa inevitably had repercussions for the remaining crusader states. Without the buffer of Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli were looking increasingly vulnerable. The hinterlands in the north, with their large Christian population, were lost forever. The manpower difficulties of the Franks, already serious, got rapidly worse. Because of the profound communications problems with Europe, the Second Crusade, launched in the shocked aftermath of Edessa’s fall, arrived far too late to help. And, perhaps even worse, the trend towards Muslim unity now gained even more momentum – Zengi’s death in 1146 merely brought Nur al-Din, the strongest and most ruthless of his sons, to the fore. The hinterland strategy was at an end. Great Vision, Shame About the Resources Away from the coast, crusader sieges usually ended in recriminations: recriminations about the weather, recriminations about poor decisions, recriminations about treachery or bribery. Even recriminations about the favour of God and how he expressed himself. But these were all just a function of frustration – a frustration that sought tactical answers for what was ultimately a fundamental strategic problem. The hinterland strategy phase which followed the capture of the coastal cities was sound in principle, but far more ambitious. Ultimately it ended in failure. The manpower issue was insoluble, and without the additional land that a successful hinterland strategy would have brought with it, the longer-term demographic problems could never be adequately addressed. Frankish siegecraft was severely limited once it moved beyond the coastal littoral. 116

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY The failure of these sieges was never a consequence of any lack of strategic intent with regard to diplomacy. There were well focused (and generally successful) attempts to generate allies and reinforcements for each of the main expeditions. The campaign against Damascus in 1129, for instance, had been preceded by several missions to the West which had succeeded in persuading large numbers of crusaders to help with the cause. Similarly, the campaign against Damascus in 1148 was accompanied by the French and German armies of the Second Crusade, who had been lobbied intensively to help. The tactical reality, however, was that Frankish armies, once inland, were outnumbered, surrounded and isolated in enemy territory – beyond the coast, it was unusual for any crusader siege to gain sufficient purchase around a heavily populated Muslim city. Even when it did, far from a Christian fleet (and hence lacking a cadre of experienced siege engineers), and without sufficient logistical support to transport timber, the crusaders could not bring sieges to a swift and successful conclusion. But even if the crusaders had been able to capture some of the major inland centres of the Muslim Middle East, it is by no means clear that they would have been able to retain them, particularly in a period when local Muslim states were beginning to coalesce under a series of increasingly effective leaders, such as Zengi and his son Nur al-Din. Putting a garrison in an isolated castle was one thing. But holding a city with a large and potentially hostile population, surrounded by other Muslim states and prone to continual infiltration by nomadic tribes looking for easy plunder, was quite another. If the crusaders had been able to break into Damascus in 1148, for instance, they would almost instantly have been under siege themselves, with very little chance of relief. The Franks tried hard to square this circle. Their strategic objectives and intent were generally sound. But they were ultimately too few in numbers to take a major Muslim population centre. The complete collapse of the County of Edessa was a clear signal of the failure of the hinterland strategy, and its ambitious attempt to create land for a regional defence in depth. More ominously, it was also a symptom of the deeper systemic issues facing the Christian states of the Middle East.

117

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY

24 August 1124

Release of Baldwin II

October 1124–January 1125

Failed siege of Aleppo by Baldwin II

September 1127

Zengi appointed Governor of Mosul

11 February 1128

Death of Tughtigin of Damascus

June 1128

Zengi granted Aleppo

2 June 1129

Marriage of Fulk of Anjou and Melisende of Jerusalem

Early November 1129

Assassins hand over Banyas to the Latins

November–6 December 1129 Failed attack on Damascus by Baldwin II and Fulk of Anjou 21 August 1131

Death of Baldwin II

December 1132

Latins lose Banyas

Summer 1137

Campaign of John Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor, in Cilicia and Antioch

August 1137

Defeat of Fulk at Montferrand by Zengi and loss of the town

118

THE HINTERLAND STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY April 1138

Failed siege of Aleppo

April–May 1138

Failed attempt to take Shaizar by the Byzantines and the Latins

June 1138

Zengi takes Homs

Summer 1139

Pilgrimage of Thierry of Flanders

12 June 1140

Latins regain Banyas

1142

Building of the castle of Kerak by Pagan the Butler Raymond II of Tripoli cedes Crac des Chevaliers to the Hospitallers

Autumn 1142

John Comnenus campaigns in Antioch and Edessa

8 April 1143

Death of John Comnenus

10 November 1143

Death of King Fulk

25 December 1143

Coronation of Melisende and Baldwin III

23–24 December 1144

Capture of Edessa by Zengi

14 September 1146

Death of Zengi

November–December 1146

Joscelin II and Baldwin of Marash retake Edessa

December 1146

Nur al-Din, Zengi’s second son, regains Edessa

May 1147

Unsuccessful invasion of the Hauran by Baldwin III

Early April 1148

Arrival of Conrad III of Germany at Acre

24 June 1148

Assembly of the leaders of the Second Crusade at Palmarea

119

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY 24–28 July 1148

Unsuccessful attack on Damascus by the forces of the Second Crusade

29 June 1149

Defeat and death of Raymond of Poitiers by Nur al-Din at the battle of Inab

May 1150

Capture of Joscelin II of Edessa

August 1150

Evacuation of the Latins from the County of Edessa

31 March 1152

Baldwin III’s coronation

April 1152

Baldwin III seizes power and Melisende retires to Nablus

Spring 1153

Reynald of Châtillon marries Constance of Antioch

22 August 1153

Latins capture Ascalon

1157

Failed siege of Shaizar

120

FIVE

w THE ASCALON STRATEGY 1125–1153

In May 1102 a huge Egyptian army poured out of Ascalon and onto the plain of Sharon. The invasion was a complete surprise. Advanced elements attacked Ramla and tried to flush out the Frankish garrison. The local bishop, Robert of Rouen, took the opportunity to send word to King Baldwin at Jaffa that Egyptian troops were close at hand. As far as we know, this was the first warning he had of the attack.1 The bishop had seen enemy scouts raiding around his monastery in Lydda. And he had seen the fires from the burning fields around Ramla. He could be forgiven for thinking that this was just a few units from the Ascalon garrison trying, as they often did, to keep the crusaders off balance. If the bishop’s message implied that this was just a raiding force, however, he was very much mistaken, and the consequences of that mistake were severe.2 Baldwin was never a man to be wracked with self-doubt. Personally brave, remorselessly energetic and aggressive to a fault, he moved quickly to respond to the threat. In pursuit, as he thought, of mounted raiders, he gathered a largely cavalry force around him and set off at speed. Some claimed, after the event, to have counselled caution. Arpin of Bourges, who became a monk on his return to Europe, would later say that he had suggested a more measured approach, but got only humiliation for his trouble. The king told him bluntly, ‘If you can’t face a fight, go back to Bourges’, or words to that effect.3 Baldwin did not realise, but was soon to find out, that this was more than just a few raiders. It was the main Fatimid army, the largest professional military force in the entire region. Al-Afdal, the Egyptian vizier, had sent both the army and navy on a combined operations invasion of Palestine, commanded by his son, Sharaf al-Ma’ali. As always, numbers are vague but, judging by previous battles, a force of almost 20,000 men might be feasible.4 121

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Numbers on the Frankish side were far more limited, reflecting their underlying demographic difficulties. We are told that Baldwin’s force consisted of between 200 and 700 knights, most probably towards the lower end of that range. The latter figure is very high relative to what we know about manpower in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at this time, but the recent influx of crusaders had temporarily added numbers to the local contingents. Albert of Aachen and the Muslim sources estimate the crusader cavalry to have been 700 strong. Fulcher of Chartres, who was there at the time, and is probably more credible, put the total at 200.5 As Baldwin moved down towards Ramla, he and his knights blundered into the full Egyptian army – it lay spread out in front of them, flags fluttering, silver-topped regimental guidons glittering in the harsh sunlight. It covered the sky with dust and stretched out far beyond either flank of the tiny crusader force. The Franks realised their mistake, but by the time they became aware of the full enormity of the disaster that was staring them in the face, it was too late to do anything about it – the Fatimid forces were so close that the knights could neither manoeuvre nor disengage.6 Baldwin charged, hoping to fight his way through, but his men were massively outnumbered and outflanked. Once the Egyptian troops had absorbed the initial impetus of the charge, the Frankish cavalry were slaughtered. Many crusading celebrities died on the field, including the poignantly named ‘Geoffrey who was small in stature’ (or Geoffrey I Jordan of Vendôme, as he probably preferred to be called). The local Frankish nobility were decimated.7 The king and perhaps 50 other survivors made it to the rudimentary refuge offered by the fortified tower at Ramla, pursued closely by Fatimid cavalry. The Egyptians quickly put them under siege and by nightfall they were completely surrounded.8 During the course of the night the full horror of their predicament gradually sank in. Half of the kingdom’s heavy cavalry, and many of its leaders, lay dead on the battlefield. Even for the survivors, things did not look good: the watchtower they were crammed into had been built as a base for a tiny garrison, and as a temporary refuge for local civilians. It would never withstand a siege. They were trapped. King Baldwin was by nature inclined towards the kind of reckless lifestyle that would be rejected by Hollywood scriptwriters for its sheer implausibility. He decided to break out before the blockade became even tighter. Mounted on Gazelle, his favourite horse, he and his squire, Hugh of Brolis, charged out through a breach in the wall of the courtyard. Three knights went with them, acting as a kind of suicide 122

THE ASCALON STRATEGY squad to buy time for their escape. Baldwin, dazed and disorientated, eventually staggered into the safety of the Frankish port of Arsuf a couple of days later.9 The Egyptian troops, meanwhile, had smashed their way into the courtyard and began to mine under the tower itself. When it was apparent that the end was approaching, the defenders of Ramla charged out in a final act of desperation and defiance. Conrad, the Imperial Constable, was at the forefront of this last charge and his frenzied fighting was sufficiently impressive for him to be captured and ransomed. Similarly, Arpin of Bourges was identified as someone potentially useful because of his connections with the Byzantine administration. Beyond that, however, casualties were devastating. Those who were not killed in the fighting were beheaded immediately afterwards.10 The lesson was clear. The Fatimid army was easy to underestimate, but it was the largest and best-resourced military force facing the crusader states at that time. It could not be ignored. ‘The Bold Incursions of the Enemy Showed No Signs of Ceasing’ The coastal strategy of the first two decades of the twelfth century was a great (and essential) success. By 1125 the only remaining stronghold along the entire coastline was the massive Fatimid military base at Ascalon, on the southern fringes of the loosely defined border zone between the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and Egypt. The failure to take it meant that it remained a jumping-off point for invasion by the Fatimid army while they were confident, and a source of internal security problems even when they were feeling more subdued.11 This failure led the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem to initiate what was ostensibly one of the most overt and institutionally consistent expressions of strategy in medieval history: building a series of castles to systematically isolate and threaten an enemy base, over an almost 20-year period that encompassed the reigns of two kings (and one extremely strong-willed queen).12 The Frankish Ascalon strategy appears to be a natural reaction to the changing military policies of their southern Muslim neighbours: Fatimid Egypt. Egyptian strategy in this period can be split into two broad phases: a ‘counteroffensive’ phase from 1099 to 1105; and, when that proved unsuccessful, an ‘aggressive coexistence’ phase from 1106 onwards. 123

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY This first counteroffensive phase was focused on reconquest, as the Fatimid government actively tried to recover their lost possessions in Palestine – and in the early years of the new crusader states, this made Ascalon extraordinarily dangerous. Invasions of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem were launched on no fewer than five occasions between 1099 and 1105, and all used Ascalon as their advanced muster point and logistical depot. When the Egyptian army campaigned in southern Palestine in the first decades of the twelfth century, it was often in great strength rather than just as raiding parties, and in conjunction with the Fatimid navy. In the event, however, despite having the largest and best-resourced military in the region, every effort failed. The navy failed to cooperate with the army. Suspicion about the ambitions of local commanders meant that strategic decision making was retained in Cairo, far removed from events on the ground. And, most importantly of all, whenever the Fatimid army met the veteran Franks in the field, it almost invariably lost.13 After 1105 the Fatimids gave up trying to take back Palestine, and focused instead on using the Franks as a buffer state between themselves and their Turkic enemies to the north. Crusader defences in this early period reflected both the nature of the Egyptian threat they faced, and the limited resources upon which they had to call. A few minor fortifications had been built on the fringes of Ascalon (or, more accurately, the normal radius of attack for Fatimid raiding parties). But they were mostly there for observation, local defence and aggressive patrolling; when the Egyptian army was present in strength they could do little more than act as a trip wire, and send word back to the king.14 Building substantial new castles, capable of long-term defence in their own right, was an unaffordable luxury. The limited manpower and money were needed for even more pressing frontier activity to the north and east. The south would have to make do with whatever was available on the spot. Instead, during this first phase of Fatimid strategy, the Frankish field army was expected to muster to deal with the invaders – which they did, generally successfully. After a final defeat in 1105, the Egyptian government gave up any thoughts of recapturing Palestine. They had been unable to defeat the Franks, and realised that, even if they had done so, they would just have been faced with the equally daunting task of defending Palestine once again from the aggressive attentions of their Turkic neighbours. 124

THE ASCALON STRATEGY They decided to cut their losses. Rather than continuing to launch expensive and demoralising attacks in strength, the Fatimid military adopted the second phase of their strategy: that of ‘aggressive coexistence’. This basically involved the Egyptian navy maintaining their help for their coastal cities, but primarily settling down to treating the Franks as a buffer state between themselves and their Sunni enemies to the north. Ambitions to reconquer Palestine were, temporarily at least, put to one side.15 Instead, every three months the garrison at Ascalon were sent new people and fresh legions, together with provisions and supplies of arms. The new arrivals naturally wished to try their strength and to provide evidence of their courage. Hence, against the wishes of the veterans, they often made experimental raids and expeditions. The Christians perceived that the bold incursions of the enemy showed no signs of ceasing; their forces were constantly renewed.16

They resorted to large-scale raiding rather than more extensive invasions. This change of strategy left the Franks with a significant problem. The Egyptian army in the field could generally be defeated. Major Egyptian invasions took time to prepare (and were thus usually expected). They were met by a mustering of forces from across the kingdom, which also took time to organise. There had therefore always been a kind of grudging symmetry and convergence of interests between the two parties. They had the same kind of preparations to put in place. They fielded the same kind of armies. And they even met, as if by informal agreement, in the same place – the open plains around Ramla and Ibelin which were the scene of every major battle with the Fatimids in this period. Irritatingly, the new Egyptian approach, that of pin-prick attacks to disrupt the Frankish economy and lines of communications, broke the pattern. Constant raids and surprise attacks by an expanded garrison at Ascalon were far more difficult to prevent. The new aggressive coexistence was far less ambitious than the previous ‘counteroffensive’ strategy – it was debilitating rather than catastrophic in terms of its consequences. But it meant that the Fatimid military remained a constant threat – and, most significantly from the perspective of the local Frankish commanders on 125

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Key Castles 0

miles 0

km

Jaffa

10 10

Mediterranean Sea

Lydda Ramla Bethel Ibelin

P h i l i s t i a

(1141)

Castel Arnold

(1132)

Toron des Chevaliers

Jerusalem

Bethlehem

o f

Blanchegarde Ascalon

(1142)

A i n

E Bethgibelin

A

D

P

la

(1134)

J

U Hebron

Gaza

(1150)

Map 5 The Ascalon Strategy

the ground, it called for local resources and a fast response, rather than a full muster and a lengthy, entirely predictable riposte. ‘Checking the Insolent Ravages’ The Frankish solution to this threat was a clear statement of intent, and a genuinely strategic solution: they would build a ring of castles closer to Ascalon than the previous fortifications, allowing local forces to intercept Fatimid raiders before they penetrated too far into the kingdom – and particularly, if possible, before they could get to the main roads linking Jerusalem to the coast. ‘After long deliberation,’ wrote William of Tyre, ‘our people decided to build fortresses around [Ascalon]. These would serve as defences against this monster.’ These castles allowed the Franks to become more aggressive in their approach to Ascalon, just as the troops stationed at Mount Pilgrim had done to the city of Tripoli a few years earlier. This was no coincidence. They were 126

THE ASCALON STRATEGY explicitly designed to ‘serve as bases from which to make frequent attacks upon the city [of Ascalon] itself ’.17 Bethgibelin (1134) The first of these new castles was Bethgibelin, constructed in 1134 to help block the main road east out of Ascalon, which led up into the Judaean hills towards Hebron, Bethlehem and, most importantly, Jerusalem. Bethgibelin was initially built by the king and the people but the new owners, who were given the castle when it was finally completed in 1136, marked a significant departure in the defence of the kingdom – it was handed over ‘by common consent to the brothers of the house of the Hospital, which is at Jerusalem’.18 This was a clear sign that the Hospitallers and their Templar colleagues were becoming an integral part of the defence of the crusader states. The newly created military orders ‘guarded their charge with all due diligence . . . and from that day, the attacks of the enemy in that place have become less violent’.19 The garrison of Bethgibelin was soon involved in raiding, patrolling and intercepting enemy forays from Ascalon. The operating costs of the Hospitaller castle were partly defrayed by taking prisoners and making hefty ransom demands. One of these prisoners, the son of the emir of Mount Sinai, left an account of his ordeal. ‘I went out one day to go hunting’, he wrote bitterly, ‘and a band of Franks fell on me, took me captive and carried me back to [Bethgibelin] where they shut me up in a pit all by myself. The [castellan of Bethgibelin] set a ransom of two thousand dinars for me.’20 Sadly for the Hospitallers’ cashflow, he managed to escape before the ransom was paid, helped by one of his fellow prisoners. But it is plain that the ring of castles around Ascalon, and their combative owners, operated from the outset as much on the offensive as on the defensive. Ibelin (1141) With Bethgibelin completed and operating effectively, the next step was to build a castle at Ibelin. In 1141 ‘Fulk, king of Jerusalem, and the other princes of the kingdom, together with the lord patriarch’, wrote William of Tyre, ‘felt the necessity of checking the insolent ravages of the people of Ascalon. In order to restrain 127

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY them in some measure at least from overrunning the land freely, it was decided by common consent to build a fortress in the country near the city of Ramla.’21 But the period between the building of the outer walls (at which many men were present) and the fitting out of the interior (which involved smaller numbers of artisans working in an as yet uncompleted structure) was always a risky one. In April 1141, as a way of masking this activity and engaging the Fatimid military while the final fit was under way, the Franks launched what seems to have been a major cavalry raid towards Ascalon. The encounter is not mentioned in Frankish sources (perhaps not surprisingly, given the outcome), but Muslim accounts suggest that the Franks suffered a significant defeat, as the garrison ‘based in Ascalon came out to meet them in battle and won a victory, killing many of the Franks, who withdrew in flight’.22 The raid may not have been successful, but the fitting out of the castle progressed without further incident. It was eventually given to Balian of Ibelin, founder of one of the leading dynasties of the Latin East, and under him the new garrison ‘displayed great diligence’ in tightening the net around Ascalon.23 Blanchegarde (1142) The building of Bethgibelin and Ibelin was a success, reducing the impact of Fatimid attacks in the region, and putting Ascalon firmly on the defensive. By ‘establishing the two strongholds [of Bethgibelin] and Ibelin’, wrote William of Tyre, ‘they had made decided progress in checking the audacious raids of Ascalonites. In large measure through this course the insolence of the latter had been repressed, their attacks lessened, and their projects defeated. Accordingly, in [1142], it was resolved to build another fortress.’ By now, the objective was explicitly aggressive. The Franks decided that by ‘increasing the number of fortified places round about, they could harass the people of Ascalon by more extensive attacks and more often cause them terror, attended by sudden danger as if they were besieged’.24 The castle of Blanchegarde was kept by the king within the royal domain, so he retained direct control of at least one part of the network of fortifications around Ascalon.25 The garrison were particularly active and the castle’s excellent field of vision across the Judaean foothills made it both a valuable look-out post, and a vital base for coordinating activity with the other nearby castles.26 128

THE ASCALON STRATEGY Gaza (1150) Over the following decade, political instability in Egypt and the growing isolation of the garrison at Ascalon became increasingly apparent. The port of Ascalon was famously inadequate, to the point of being dangerous for shipping. This, combined with inter-service rivalries and the vagaries of politics within the Fatimid military, meant that the garrison could never fully rely on resupply by sea. But while the land route south remained open, linking the garrison back to depots in Egypt, Ascalon remained a going concern. By 1150, however, the Franks felt confident enough to build a castle and town at Gaza, south of Ascalon, definitively cutting off the port’s overland supply lines. From that time onwards, the base could only be reprovisioned by the Egyptian navy. The weakness of the garrison was obvious. The Franks felt able to carry out extensive building works at Gaza with a large number of non-combatants, even though the Fatimid troops at Ascalon were in their rear and potentially blocking their supply lines back to Christian-held territory. Once again, the intent was overtly threatening. Gaza was specifically (and correctly) described as being built so that ‘repeated attacks against [Ascalon] could be made and aggressive warfare carried on without ceasing’ by its new Frankish garrison.27 Reinforcements were shipped in to Ascalon in a desperate attempt to disrupt the construction. Once the main Christian army had left the building site, ‘these forces appeared in large numbers before the stronghold at Gaza and made a furious attack on the place, where the townspeople had fled through fear of the enemy’. After several failed assaults, however, ‘the officers in command saw that their efforts were useless and left for Ascalon’.28 The castle was given to the Templars, as the order had the aggression and resources to maintain a high level of pressure along the whole southern border with Egypt. The Egyptians were acutely aware that they needed to destroy Gaza before it could be completed. To do so, they needed help: the Frankish field army had to be fully occupied further north. In March–April 1150 the semi-itinerant Syrian Prince Usama was sent by his Fatimid employers to ask for Nur al-Din’s help. For the Shi’ite regime of Egypt to reach out to their Sunni rivals in the north was a rare and unpalatable admission of weakness. Usama was told to offer Nur al-Din large sums of money to 129

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY create a diversion in Galilee or, if he would not, to use the money to recruit Turkic mercenaries to boost the garrison of Ascalon.29 In the event, Nur al-Din chose not to attack the Franks in Galilee, but he did give Usama permission to recruit among those nomadic cavalry rejected for military service with his own army. He also sent a nominal force of 30 horsemen commanded by an emir, so that he could at least say a contingent rode under his name. Within a few days Usama managed to recruit 860 cavalrymen from Nur al-Din’s discard pool (an interesting commentary on just how many unemployed Turkic mercenaries there were in circulation at any given time and place). He made his way back to Ascalon to help with its defence and to fight with his brother ’Ali in one of the Egyptian cavalry regiments.30 The day after Usama and his reinforcements arrived in town the Franks, perhaps trying to establish some kind of moral supremacy over the newcomers, sent a force to Ascalon to taunt them. The garrison did not take up the challenge and this encouraged the Franks to make further provocations, and to set up a loose but intimidating siege. ‘They went back to their territory,’ wrote Usama, ‘mustered more troops and came at us with cavalry, infantry and tents, clearly intending to put Ascalon to siege. So we [i.e. the cavalry] went out against them, the infantry of Ascalon having already set out.’31 For reasons which are unclear, but which are suggestive of the widespread institutional racism in the Egyptian army, Usama and the other cavalry commanders (who were Arab or Armenian) tried to persuade the infantry (who were sub-Saharan Africans) to retreat behind the city walls. ‘But they refused to go back,’ wrote Usama, ‘So I left them and continued on towards the Franks, who had just unloaded their tents in order to pitch them.’ The Fatimid cavalry were able to force the Frankish troops to withdraw, abandoning their tents. The infantry, elated and ill-disciplined, chose to pursue. They over-reached themselves, however, and when the Franks wheeled round, ‘the infantry . . . were routed and threw down their shields. We [the cavalry] then encountered the Franks and drove them back. They then returned to their own territory, which was close to Ascalon.’32 This describes perfectly the legendary lack of coordination between the Fatimid infantry and cavalry arms (as well as between the army and the navy), emphasised all the more by Usama’s contemptuous description of the Nubian infantry as ‘defenceless, useless fools’.33 130

THE ASCALON STRATEGY Usama had arrived back at Ascalon too late to join in the first attack on Gaza, soon after King Baldwin III had left the town but before the building works had been completed. He left to go back to Egypt before the next major assault on the town was launched, in late 1151 or early 1152. This attack was no more successful than the first. The Muslim forces were repulsed by the Templar garrison. Usama’s brother ’Ali (who had been with him on the recruiting mission to Syria in 1150) was one of the fatalities on the Egyptian side. His death was a heavy blow even for the usually irrepressible and boastful Usama.34 Before he went back to Egypt, however, Usama participated in some of the raids and counter-raids that were taking place between Ascalon and the castles which surrounded it. None of this activity was significant enough to be mentioned in any of the chronicles, but it gives a good sense of the low-level skirmishing that characterised life in the area over the previous decades, as the ring of Frankish fortifications increasingly limited the operational abilities of the Egyptian garrison. One such incident was a raid against Bethgibelin. Usama wrote that he and his cavalry unit went out from Ascalon to make a foray on [Bethgibelin] and raid it. So we went and attacked them. I noticed, as we set off to leave the town, that there were some large heaps of grain there. So I stopped with my comrades and started a fire and set the threshing floors alight. We then went from one place to another in this fashion, while the army itself had gone ahead of me.35

The main body of the Fatimid cavalry had merely set out on a tip-and-run raid: they got into the undefended settlement around Bethgibelin, barely paused to cause any significant damage, and then headed back towards Ascalon. Once the Christian troops had been alerted and mustered, however, they intercepted the retreating Muslim cavalry and cut them up badly. It was only the caution of the Franks, who suspected an ambush, that prevented a massacre.36 Usama was in Ascalon for only four months but even so, we know that he was also involved in a third military action, this time against the suburbs around the castle at Ibelin where, he wrote, ‘we made an assault . . . in which we killed about a hundred souls and captured some prisoners’.37 Although it was clear that the endgame 131

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY for Ascalon was approaching, the Fatimid garrison did everything it could to defer the moment. If the Egyptian military had reacted with uncharacteristic energy to the building of a castle at Gaza, this was largely because of the enormity of the problems it caused for Ascalon. From then on, the entire city, garrison and civilians, would need to be reprovisioned by sea, piling still more pressure on the weakening Fatimid navy. Even more disturbingly, it was obvious to both sides that the new crusader base at Gaza was well positioned for launching attacks on Egypt itself. Strategic intent was shifting. Where the other castles around Ascalon were aimed at enforcing an increasingly active, but ultimately still defensive, blockade, Gaza had been built as an altogether more ambitious project. It was no coincidence that it had been given into the care of the Templars, the most aggressive of the Frankish troops. As William of Tyre wrote, with deliberate echoes of the former glories of Rome, the castle at Gaza was not just about inconveniencing Ascalon, but rather it created a ‘fortified boundary in the south’, between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Fatimid Egypt.38 A reflection of these discussions, and of the level of concern which the building of Gaza caused in Muslim circles, can be seen in a message which Nur al-Din sent to Damascus on 25 April 1150 demanding that they ‘lend the aid of a thousand horsemen . . . who shall be despatched with a commander whose courage may be relied upon, in order to deliver the port of Ascalon and [Gaza]’. Nur al-Din was being colossally hypocritical (as we have seen, even large cash payments could not induce him to part with more than 30 of his own men), and the Damascenes refused. But the significance of the castle at Gaza was lost on no one.39 The Fatimids rushed to improve the defences of Ascalon. A marble slab has recently been discovered with the coat of arms of an English knight called Sir Hugh Wake carved upon it. This had been placed on the tower in the northern walls of Ascalon during the rebuilding of the fortifications by the crusade of Richard of Cornwall in 1241. Underneath the crusader carving, however, is a fainter Fatimid inscription, commemorating the building of a new tower in the walls in 1150: the Templar presence in Gaza clearly caused the Egyptian army to rush to put in place a range of countermeasures.40 But their efforts were far too little in the face of the deteriorating military situation. The town fell to the Franks in 1153 and the Ascalon strategy was effectively over. The Egyptian strategy was about to start. 132

THE ASCALON STRATEGY Was There an Ascalon Strategy? But was there really an Ascalon strategy in any meaningful sense? We know that the Egyptian army posed a continuing threat to the southern regions of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at this time. And we know that the crusaders built several castles to mitigate that threat. Was that really enough to constitute a ‘strategy’? Surely, one could argue, this was little more than a common-sense, ad hoc reaction to a pressing and immediate military issue? A local, tactical response, say, rather than anything more ambitious. There are compelling reasons why the castle building around Ascalon can be described as a genuine ‘strategy’, however. Rising above the exigencies of the moment, the most telling feature of the entire programme lies in the way in which these castles were built, to a greater or lesser degree, to a formula. The presence of such a formulaic response, over a period of almost two decades, speaks volumes for an element of long-term planning. Castle building around Ascalon was never random. On the contrary, it was part of a pattern that had an extended timeframe, cutting across different political regimes and temporary tactical circumstances. The ‘formula’ that was developed covered far more than just the building of a fortification or two in an obviously suitable location. They were built to the same simple but effective design, in similar positions, with similar patterns of settlement, with the same overarching approach towards the establishment of a colonial militia and with the same strategic goals always to the fore. Taking the issue of castle design first, it soon became clear that the pattern being developed was so consistent as to be almost using the same blueprint. Bethgibelin set the pattern for the future. It eventually became what is known as a concentric castle (i.e. with two sets of walls to provide an additional layer of defence), and it was certainly so when William of Tyre was writing about it in the 1180s. When it was first built, however, it consisted of just the central core (the ‘inner ward’). The extra layer of walls was only added later as the security situation deteriorated towards the end of the twelfth century. Even the inner ward was substantial, however, by the standards of the time, measuring some 50 metres square. This ‘castrum’ design (basically a simple ‘sandcastle’ layout, consisting of a walled enclosure with a tower projecting at each corner) became the standard for the entire programme.41 133

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The ‘castrum’ type of construction was also chosen for Ibelin: a walled courtyard with a tower at each corner, and with ancillary buildings lining the interior of the walls or free standing in the courtyard. Blanchegarde, similarly, was built to this standard pattern and was described as having ‘four towers of suitable height. From the top of this there was an unobstructed view as far as the enemy’s city, and it proved to be a most troublesome obstacle and a real source of danger to the Ascalonites when they wished to go out to ravage the countryside.’42 Geography was obviously a critical factor in the programme, with the castles being placed as a block on the roads north from Ascalon up towards Jerusalem and Jaffa. But proximity to readily available building materials was important too. In the case of the castle at Bethgibelin, for instance, it was the old Byzantine city of Eleutheropolis (‘city of free men’), and the stones around it, which made the initial task of building the walls much quicker.43 Similarly, the choice of location (and, not coincidentally, the source of the building supplies) for the new castle at Ibelin was the ancient town of Jamnia. In the fourth century the town had its own bishop and was populated largely by Christians and Samaritans, but by 1101 it was, like much of Palestine, deserted. ‘From the old buildings, of which many vestiges remain to the present day,’ wrote William of Tyre, ‘an abundant supply of stones was obtained. The wells of ancient times which existed in large numbers in the vicinity of the ruined city also provided an abundance of water.’44 Gaza too was built on the site of a large ancient town with large quantities of pre-worked materials ready to hand. It was described as being ‘now in ruins . . . [but] reservoirs and wells of fresh water also still remained.’45 So far, so sensible. But perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the Ascalon strategy was always as much about communities as it was about castles: communities to build them, communities to garrison them and communities to colonise the neighbouring lands. This made them more productive and, as an important corollary, created strong settlements of local Franks who could act as a well-motivated militia in the event of enemy raids. Castle building was a similarly communitarian affair. All the construction projects followed the same, strangely harmonious, model. Local people seem to have participated actively and willingly. As William of Tyre wrote about the building of Bethgibelin, ‘all the people of the vicinity were called together’, and ‘the task, wellplanned and begun under good auspices, was finished successfully’.46 134

THE ASCALON STRATEGY As we have seen, Bethgibelin was the first castle entrusted to the Hospitallers. Although Frankish chroniclers are at pains to point out that it had been built by the secular authorities, and at their own expense, the ongoing upkeep of Bethgibelin was a major commitment. Even without later additions, the castle was substantial and had dependent rural communities of local Arab Christians around it. It quickly became a centre for Frankish settlement too, and by 1160 we know that there were over 32 Frankish families there, with a court for the local townsfolk and, importantly, with its own militia units.47 With the building of Ibelin six years later, there was a similarly communal level of participation, as ‘it was decided by common consent to build a fortress . . . The Christians responded as with one mind to the summons.’48 Once again the whole community were actively involved, with voluntary labour and a shared sense of common purpose.49 And once Ibelin was finished, as with the other castles, the fortification was merely the central point of a much larger settlement for local Christians and Frankish colonists, many of whom were part of the regional military reserves.50 Ordinary people seem to have been glad to help with the building of Blanchegarde too, providing labour and assistance for the more specialist artisans. As almost everyone, from local settlers to native Christians, and even townsfolk in Jerusalem, stood to gain from the increased security which these castles brought with them, it is not hard to see why they were so popular. ‘Workmen were called’, we are told, and ‘the people were given all the necessary materials, and a stronghold of hewn stone, resting on solid foundations, was built’.51 Like the other castles, Blanchegarde eventually became the centre of a major settlement programme, with a suburban town growing up around it. The local villages became far more prosperous and populous. Once it was completed ‘those who lived in the surrounding countryside began to rely on this castle as well as on the other strongholds, and a great many [villages] grew up around it. Many families established themselves there, and farmers as well. The whole district became much more secure, because the locality was occupied.’52 The immediate vicinity of the castle developed into a Frankish township, with its own court, and a thriving Christian population. The initial building phase at Gaza also followed the usual semi-communal formula. On the chosen day, wrote William of Tyre, ‘the entire people assembled as one man at the chosen place. They undertook the work with concerted efforts and each competed with his neighbour in helping to rebuild the place.’53 135

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The Ascalon strategy was internally consistent, but also far more complex than the mere building of a few fortifications would imply. It encompassed attack and defence, castles and communities, garrisons and colonies: each worked together in this extended strategic programme on the southern marches of the crusader states. Our friends in the north? All the evidence points to the existence of a genuine strategy guiding the building of a series of castles around Ascalon. And the strategic objective behind that building programme looks even more obvious: Ascalon was a threat, and the castles were built to neutralise that threat. The logic of the marketplace gave the most irrefutable evidence of success. As the castles went up, food prices in Jerusalem went down. Heightened security was directly reflected in the shopping basket. This is an almost unique case study of long-term strategic intent in a medieval society. We are witnessing a coordinated and centrally organised plan unfolding around Ascalon. The chronicles make clear that this was a focused programme, extended over a period of years, designed to intimidate and neutralise the Fatimid army. On a regional level, the strategy is explicit. But was it really that simple? Full-scale invasions of Palestine took place in 1099, 1101, 1102, 1103 and 1105. Even when times were quieter, in the first decade of the twelfth century the Egyptian army was keen to be on the offensive, testing Frankish defences and making opportunistic attacks on pilgrims and settlements. Fatimid troops raided towards Jaffa and Caesarea in 1104; they launched raids along the coast in 1106 while the royal army was campaigning in Galilee; and they carried out a series of damaging attacks in the spring and autumn of 1107. Although the Egyptian military took stock of the situation thereafter, they invaded again in 1123 and launched major raids into the interior of the Latin Kingdom in 1124, while most of the Frankish troops were away besieging Tyre. So, for the first 25 years of the Latin Kingdom – and spectacularly so until 1105 – the Egyptian army posed a real threat. Yet when the level of threat was at its height, the main military response by the crusaders was to build only minor watchtowers, providing refuge for local Christians and observation posts for scouts. The correct answer to the problem posed by Ascalon was felt to be the field army. And, by and large, that response was an effective one. Perplexingly, it was only in the 136

THE ASCALON STRATEGY period 1132–1150 (when the main threat had passed) that major castles were built to help resolve the Ascalon issue. So, from a broader perspective, the strategy behind the programme begins to look less clear. Egyptian incursions had been tailing off since 1107 and had almost ended since 1123–1124. When the threat was at its highest, castle building had not been thought necessary. Now, with the threat almost gone, why spend so much time and money surrounding it with fortifications? Ironically, the answer lies in the strategy of the north: the need to protect the other crusader states, while still retaining the potential to expand into the hinterlands of Syria. Fulk needed to neutralise the Egyptians but he was not universally popular. He was king only because of his marriage to Queen Melisende. He was always energetic, but large periods of his reign were characterised by problems. For the core of the period in which the Ascalon strategy was unfolding (broadly 1132–1142) Fulk was desperately distracted in the north. His sister-in-law tried to seize power in Antioch no fewer than three times. Sensing weakness, the Count of Tripoli similarly launched an uprising that had to be suppressed with bloodshed at the battle of Rugia.54 And that was just his friends and allies. At the same time, Muslim enemies were pushing the northern frontiers to the point of collapse. In 1132 we find Fulk and the royal army campaigning in the north, trying to re-establish stability in Antioch, and in the same year Zengi managed to capture Banyas, the key frontier base between Damascus and the north of the Latin Kingdom. In the spring and summer of 1133 Fulk and his men were on the march once more in the north, relieving Tripolitan forces at Montferrand and fighting the army of Aleppo at Kinnasrin. In 1135 Zengi captured a string of castles on the Antiochene border and this, combined with his sister-in-law’s habitual untrustworthiness, forced Fulk to spend at least part of the year in Antioch. In 1136 the Turkic forces of Aleppo and Hama were back again, causing huge damage in Antioch and Edessa, burning and killing as far as the Mediterranean at Latakia. In 1137 Fulk had to rush north again, as the frontiers of the county of Tripoli collapsed: he almost lost his life and his army in another, ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to save the castle of Montferrand. And in 1138 Zengi, already in control of Hama, took possession of Homs, making the fragile northern marches of the county of Tripoli still more vulnerable. 137

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Towards the end of his reign Fulk had some respite, as the Byzantine empire took a more active interest in reasserting itself in Cilicia and the northern crusader states, forcing Zengi to back off temporarily. But the balance of strategic need remained unavoidably in the north rather than the south, and focused against the Turks rather than the Fatimids. Regardless of the destructive potential of the Egyptian army, Fulk knew that his most intransigent problems lay elsewhere. So, although the castle-building programme around Ascalon is generally seen as a strategy focused against the Egyptian military, it was in fact a way of using local militia and civilian communities in the most productive way, freeing up Fulk and the Frankish field army for the firefighting they needed to do in the north. The Fatimids were an important regional power, but they were never as dangerous as the Turks. The Ascalon strategy was far more subtle, and far more clever, than it is usually given credit for. It was just as much an indirect strategy to confront Zengi as it was a direct strategy against the Egyptians.

138

THE ASCALON STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY

c.1100

Partial fortification of Ramla

October 1124–January 1125

Failed siege of Aleppo by Baldwin II

2 June 1129

Marriage of Fulk of Anjou and Melisende of Jerusalem

Early November 1129

Assassins hand over Banyas to the Latins

November–6 December 1129 Failed attack on Damascus by Baldwin II and Fulk of Anjou 21 August 1131

Death of Baldwin II

December 1132

Latins lose Banyas

1132–1133

Building of Castel Arnold

1134

Building of Bethgibelin castle

Summer 1137

Campaign of John Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor, in Cilicia and Antioch

August 1137

Defeat of Fulk at Montferrand by Zengi and loss of the town

April–May 1138

Failed attempt to take Shaizar by the Byzantines and the Latins

139

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY 12 June 1140

Latins regain Banyas

1141

Building of Ibelin castle

1142

Building of Blanchegarde castle

1142

Building of the castle of Kerak by Pagan the Butler

1142

Raymond II of Tripoli cedes Crac des Chevaliers to the Hospitallers

Autumn 1142

John Comnenus campaigns in Antioch and Edessa

10 November 1143

Death of King Fulk

25 December 1143

Coronation of Melisende and Baldwin III

23–24 December 1144

Capture of Edessa by Zengi

14 September 1146

Death of Zengi

November–December 1146

Joscelin II and Baldwin of Marash retake Edessa

December 1146

Nur al-Din, Zengi’s second son, regains Edessa

24–28 July 1148

Unsuccessful attack on Damascus by the forces of the Second Crusade

29 June 1149

Defeat and death of Raymond of Poitiers by Nur al-Din at the battle of Inab

1150

Building of Gaza castle

August 1150

Evacuation of the Latins from the County of Edessa

31 March 1152

Baldwin III’s coronation

22 August 1153

Latins capture Ascalon

140

SIX

w INTERLUDE

The Strategy of Repression?

Words tell us a lot about what happens in a society, its aspirations and fears. Inuits have many words for different kinds of snow. The Spanish have sobremesa, the time spent relaxing with friends and family after a good meal. The Danes have hygge, enjoying life’s simple pleasures, and a state of mind that comes from a cosy, safe and comfortable existence. There was little demand for such a vocabulary in the Palestine that the crusaders found in 1099. Instead, just as significantly, there were special words for a settlement whose population had fled, the gastina (Latin) or khirbet (Arabic), meaning a deserted village. These specialist words existed only because the ruins they described were so common. This conforms very conveniently to some of the traditional views of the crusades: a narrative which envisages Frankish rule as an oppressive regime, imposing itself on the region by violence or the threat of violence. The gastinae, or deserted villages, this narrative would suggest, were an inevitable consequence of local peasants fleeing from hated invaders.1 Frankish castle building within the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem would also seem to confirm this thesis in an even more striking way. Extraordinarily, the vast majority of crusader fortifications were built in the interior rather than on the frontiers, and often during times when the level of external threat was ostensibly at its lowest. The most obvious interpretation of this distribution is to suggest the existence of a well-executed repressive strategy that permeated much of the Frankish approach to relations with the Muslim communities within their borders. Most crusader castles appear to be carefully sited to ensure that the local population did not rise up against their oppressors. Surely these castles must have been built as a strategic response by successive Frankish governments to the threat from the hostile Muslim communities within their borders? 141

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Inconveniently, however, almost none of this is true. We do indeed find a clear pattern of strategic intent in the way inter-community relations were addressed. But, far from being a strategy of repression, this strategy was largely one of mutual cooperation and hands-off tolerance – pragmatic rather than virtue-signalling, and based on practical issues such as ease of government and maximising profits, but nonetheless surprisingly harmonious in practice. The process of Islamicisation over the preceding centuries had been much slower than is generally imagined. In most regions a large proportion, often the majority, of the local population were still native Christians. Even for the Muslim communities that remained, there is almost no evidence of any active resistance against the Franks. Similarly, the large number of crusader castles in the interior were built with good reason, but that reason had very little to do with the local peasants. Most of those deserted villages were empty long before the crusaders arrived. The whole issue of internal security in the crusader states, and particularly the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, is far more counterintuitive than it first appears.2 Paradise Lost? To understand why the local Muslim population were so acquiescent (and why so many villages were in ruins), it is important to realise that the Franks were just the latest in a long line of foreign invaders. Life in Syria and Palestine was hard and dangerous long before the First Crusade was launched. Three interconnecting factors had made rural life in the region increasingly fragile: weak political control and central authority; the process of nomadisation; and endemic banditry and criminality. Each factor was unhelpful in itself but, taken together, they created a debilitating and self-perpetuating cycle of economic decay and deteriorating security. There was an inevitable downward spiral as a result of the interplay between these three key factors. When central authority was weak, banditry and nomadic violence increased, and as local productivity deteriorated, so the ability of central authority to reassert itself and improve internal security was still further compromised.3 When the crusaders arrived in 1099, Palestine was neither peaceful nor prosperous: no rural idyll there. And, from the crusaders’ perspective, this was not necessarily a bad thing. A strong Muslim power in an economically prosperous 142

INTERLUDE Palestine would have made the job of conquest far more difficult. Instead, they found a weak and fractured region, wracked by internal dissent and damaged by decades of warfare and destruction. This destruction had led to a massive diminution of central authority and control, and this in turn had opened the gates to bandits and the predations of nomads. There were two main groups of nomads. Bedouin, largely from the south and south-east, had been operating in the area for centuries, relatively peacefully when central authority was strong and less so during periods of weakness. The other main nomad group were newcomers. Turkic tribesmen were gradually starting to settle and take up employment as mercenaries (nomadic life skills being readily transferrable to a military career), operating in small freelance groups, sometimes available for hire but still with a nomadic lifestyle. In the early eleventh century, the Turks had already been making aggressive incursions against the Christian settlements of the Byzantine empire in Anatolia but had not yet ventured into Syria or Palestine. This changed in 1064, when rival Arab claimants to the city of Aleppo invited different Turkic groups down to help them. The genie was now completely out of the bottle, with nomadic groups unleashed to wander destructively across much of northern Syria. From this point on they had a taste for what was on offer in the region.4 They were soon coming down in force. In January 1071 the Seljuk sultan, Alp Arslan, crossed the Euphrates and liked what he saw. The time of the Arabs had ended and the time of the Turkic rulers had begun. So, in northern Syria, in the decades just before the crusaders arrived, we find increasing nomadic violence and a deteriorating security situation for many local communities. The situation in southern Syria and Palestine was little better. Although the area was dominated by the Egyptian Shi’ite Fatimid regime, Bedouin nomads were ravaging much of the region by the late 1060s, and severely disrupting trade and agriculture in Palestine. In a phenomenally foolish move, which doubtless had its own logic at the time, the Fatimids tried to stop these incursions by bringing in even more violent nomads to attack them. Turcoman groups from Anatolia were hired and, predictably, took to their own ravaging path as soon as the freelance pickings looked better than those provided by their Fatimid employers.5 Turcoman groups overran and occupied much of Palestine. In 1073 they took Jerusalem and by 1075 they had also captured Damascus. More and more raids into 143

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY and around Palestine continued and as the rule of law broke down, so the way was opened up for other nomads such as the Bedouin, and for enterprising local bandits to come into their own. In 1086 Aleppo also fell to the Turkic newcomers. Eventually they established themselves in control of much of Syria in a more settled form. By this time, however, a huge amount of damage had been done, and nomadic predation and banditry had severely dislocated normal life in the region. Worse was to come. The Fatimid Egyptian regime had maintained control of the coastal cities and, as the Seljuk Turks descended into civil war, they took the opportunity to launch new offensives in Palestine to recover their lost territories. They put Jerusalem under siege and by September 1098 they had recaptured it.6 Paradoxically, the Palestine that the Franks rode into was already a battleground: exhausted, lawless and devastated by war. They inherited chronic problems: nomadic violence, banditry and instability in the countryside. The deserted villages were not a reaction to the novelty of a foreign invasion. On the contrary, the underlying problem was rather that there had been too many foreign invaders. The Franks, regardless of their religious preferences, were just the latest in a long line of interlopers, inheriting an already fractured and shattered province.7 Resistance In June 1113, after the battle of as-Sennabra, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was on the verge of collapse. The Frankish field army was defeated by the joint Turkic forces of Baghdad and Damascus. The remnants of the Christian military were surrounded and under siege. The tiny European population was preparing itself for evacuation. Turkic troops were ravaging the north of the kingdom, destroying crops and villages. In the south, the Egyptian army took the opportunity to pillage and burn settlements, even up to the suburbs of Jerusalem. The local Muslim population went into revolt.8 One would assume, of course, that this would be their normal reaction, the predictable pattern of behaviour from an oppressed population, freed from the shackles of their hated foreign overlords. And yet this was neither as typical nor as significant an event as it might seem. The uprising was half-hearted. More importantly, it was the only time in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem that anything even approaching a serious insurrection took place. Why was that? 144

INTERLUDE If the crusaders were truly hated foreign invaders, oppressive but outnumbered, one would expect to find local Muslim communities in revolt from time to time, or at least engaged in low-level acts of violence to express their hostility. There were certainly plenty of opportunities. Crusader armies were small and frequently on campaign hundreds of kilometres away. Muslim communities in Palestine were often bordering on their coreligionists in other countries. Formal borders, where they existed, were highly permeable. More often, power and authority on the borders shifted according to the patterns of strength on the ground, expressed by holding key frontier castles, which, like Banyas, changed hands from time to time. Much of the Muslim population found itself part of condominium arrangements: sharing rental payments between Muslim and Christian landlords and in regular contact with representatives of Muslim rulers and governments. In these circumstances, if feelings were running high, defiance would be entirely feasible and perhaps to be expected. The distribution of crusader fortifications would seem to strongly support this. Even in times of relative peace, we find the countryside dotted with small castles, far away from the borders, and indefensible against any sustained attack by a Muslim army. Their main function, one might assume, must surely have been the repression of a sullen and hostile local population. Looking at a map of castle distribution within the Latin Kingdom certainly suggests a society ill at ease with itself, grounded in fear and surrounded by enemies from within.9 Yet there is no single recorded instance of a substantial Muslim revolt or uprising in the period we are looking at. There are one or two localised examples of communities rising up once they believed that an Islamic field army had recaptured their land, but most Muslim invasions were unaccompanied by active popular support. This seems almost inexplicable. The events of 1113 were truly devastating for those who lived through them. Fulcher of Chartres, who was in Jerusalem at the time, watched Egyptian troops rampaging through the suburbs and nearby villages, and had the opportunity to talk to Christian refugees, both Franks and native Syrians, from the surrounding countryside. The sense of shock is palpable in his description of events. He wrote: The Saracens subject to us deserted us and as enemies hemmed us in on every side. In addition, the Turks went out from their army in bands to devastate our

145

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY lands and to send back booty and supplies to their army by means of our Saracens . . . they not only took [Nablus] but destroyed [it] with the help of the Saracens whom we ruled in the mountains.

In particular, it was the fact that ‘our Saracens’ (‘Saracenos nostros’) were helping the enemy that was truly startling.10 The main Muslim source for the events of 1113 is the chronicle of Ibn alQalanisi, and he confirms much of Fulcher’s account: There was not a Muslim left in the land of the Franks who did not send to the atabek begging that he should guarantee him security and confirm him in the possession of his property and a part of the revenue of Nablus was brought to him. Baisan was plundered, and not a single cultivated estate was left between [Acre] and Jerusalem while the Franks remained blockaded on the hill.11

Shocking though this might have been to the Franks, there was much less to this local ‘uprising’ than meets the eye. Although some of the local Muslim population were clearly helping the Turkic invaders, it is also clear that this was not an armed insurrection in any substantial way. We know from Fulcher that Turkic foraging parties were ravaging the local area and were using the Muslim peasantry to carry these supplies back to the main army (presumably while the Turkic troops carried on raiding elsewhere). We also know from Fulcher that Turkic troops took Nablus, and that local Muslims helped them destroy it. Again, this was not a full-scale revolt. Although the Muslim population in the mountains surrounding Nablus were traditionally those most militant and hostile to the Franks, there is no evidence that they took up arms in any significant numbers. Nablus was an unwalled town, and all sensible members of the Christian population had already fled to local castles or taken refuge in the town’s large fortified tower, the ‘Turris Neapolitana’, built by Baldwin I.12 Either way, the participation of the local peasantry did not extend beyond some enthusiastic and opportunistic looting. It is also the case that the situation, as so often in this period, was more complex than a casual glance would suggest. Much of the population of Nablus were Samaritan rather than Christian, and, for reasons that are not entirely clear, they were the 146

INTERLUDE subject of much animosity from their Muslim neighbours. Certainly, we know from Benjamin of Tudela that there were 1,000 Samaritans in Nablus in the 1170s, and that there was a large population in the surrounding countryside: there were nearby villages, such as Saphe, which were entirely Samaritan, and others with a large Samaritan minority.13 Relations between Samaritans and Franks seem to have been relatively amicable but, perhaps because they were living in the most radical part of the Latin Kingdom, relations with their Muslim neighbours were more fraught. We do not know how the Samaritan community of Nablus fared during the invasion and unrest of 1113 but we know the likely pattern from later, comparable, events. In 1137, for instance, Turkic troops from Damascus attacked Nablus again, killing many local people and taking 500 Samaritans prisoner (they were later ransomed by the Samaritan community in Acre).14 Much the same happened in the invasion of September 1184, when Saladin’s troops again took the relatively easy option of attacking the unwalled town. As before, they killed some of the local inhabitants and took others back to Damascus as prisoners. One account suggests that Samaritans were specifically targeted, together with the Franks, rather than the native Arab Christians.15 So it appears that the local Muslims were demonstrating animosity as much against the local Samaritan community as against the Franks. It is also interesting that Qalanisi, the only Muslim source to comment on the internal unrest, makes no mention of any violence or military intervention on the part of the locals. Like Fulcher, he tells of a victory by Turkic troops on 28 June, followed by a Frankish retreat to the fortified monastery on Mount Tabor. These (foreign) Muslim troops enforced a fairly loose blockade on the crusader forces there, eventually deciding to withdraw to Damascus, and arriving back there on 5 September. Taken in context, it appears that it was only towards the end of this extended 10-week confrontation that representatives from local Muslim communities came forward. Even then, they were not offering military assistance. On the contrary, they seem to have been persuaded that the Turks were their prospective masters (as indeed they had been until relatively recently) and were primarily anxious to ensure that their existing property rights were recognised and protected by the new overlord – as we have seen, they were merely asking that the Turks ‘should guarantee [each Muslim] . . . security and confirm him in possession of his property’.16 This is the entirely rational behaviour of a peasant society, coming to the conclusion – wrongly, as it turned out – that the previous foreign landlord was coming back to 147

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY replace the current foreign landlord, and using some of their non-Muslim neighbours’ assets as a sweetener to ensure that their continuity of land tenure was protected. Hardly Spartacus. The non-revolutionary nature of the uprising was confirmed by the fact that this is the only significant recorded incident of its kind in the period we are looking at. It was only in the aftermath of the crusader defeat at Hattin in 1187 (and even then only once the main fighting was already over) that the Palestinian Muslim peasantry belatedly decided that it needed to show some solidarity with its new Kurdish and Turkic masters. There were a couple of internal conflicts in the mountain area of Jabal Bahra, east of Jabala in the Principality of Antioch, in the 1130s and again in the 1180s. But this was always a fiercely independent area and it looks more like mountain villagers expressing their independence against landlords in general rather than the Franks in particular.17 There was also an agricultural strike by Muslim peasants in the early months of Frankish rule in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the obvious passive expression of dissatisfaction by a demilitarised peasantry. The Muslim workers ‘refused to cultivate the fields, in order that our people might suffer from hunger. In fact, they preferred to endure famine themselves rather than give anything to the Christians’. But the strike soon ended, the rhythm of agricultural life returned, and we never hear of any recurrence.18 The only other significant episode of resistance on the part of the local Muslim population was small-scale, non-violent and similarly passive. Again, not coincidentally, it arose in the relatively militant area around Nablus.19 The incident started in 1156, when members of the Muslim Hanbali sect in Jammail (some 11 kilometres south-west of Nablus) received word that their landlord, probably Baldwin of Ibelin, was unhappy about the radical sermons of their local leader, Ahmad b. Muhammad. Whether this was because of the militant content of the sermons, or because they were distracting the peasants from working the fields, or both, is unclear. Either way, a member of the Frankish lord’s retinue (probably a Christian, judging by his non-semitic name) warned them that they were in trouble. Ahmad fled to Damascus and instructed his family and followers to join him there. Given the manner in which he had been pre-warned, Baldwin of Ibelin may have seen the threats as a relatively clean way of getting rid of a troublemaker without having to go through more provocative or repressive procedures. Over the 148

INTERLUDE following 17 years (during the period 1156–1173) 155 of Ahmad’s followers joined him and they settled in a suburb of Damascus. So, once again, hardly a revolutionary backlash against the Franks: a handful of villagers from a radical sect moving a few kilometres east to live among their coreligionists in Damascus, and even that only over the course of a 17-year period. If anything, it is perhaps surprising that emigration among such groups did not take place more quickly or in greater numbers. Ultimately, most Muslim peasants in the crusader states would only take action, even non-violent action such as emigration or refusing their labour, if they thought that regime change was absolutely imminent or, preferably, had already taken place. Perhaps surprisingly, the presence of an invading Muslim army was in itself never enough to inspire them to action. This is not to suggest that they enjoyed an idyllic relationship with their Frankish landlords. Doubtless things were often extremely uncomfortable, and that probably explains why one very rarely finds Frankish and Muslim rural settlements close together. But it never seems to have been enough to propel the local Muslim communities into open revolt. Cooperation The reasons why Muslims were prepared to live under Frankish rule, and perhaps even cooperate up to a point, were largely a function of a situation which was far more complex than we tend to credit. There were many factors which made active resistance unattractive or even seem unnecessary for the local peasantry. On the contrary, there were several spheres in which a surprising level of inter-community cooperation was the norm. Having a shared religion is clearly a point of connection between groups. But it is not everything. Ethnicity, language and a shared culture can be just as binding. It is important to remember that the majority of Muslims were Palestinian or Syrian Arabs, living in scattered villages (just as the majority of Christians were also Palestinian or Syrian Arabs, settled in similar conditions). From their perspective, the areas around the crusader states were all controlled by foreign newcomers: largely Turkic, and latterly sometimes Kurds, but always just as foreign as a Frank, and speaking a language just as alien. Taken in conjunction with the natural connection 149

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY of any peasantry to the land they work, and the huge dislocation required to break that connection, one can see that the motivation for staying put was strong.20 But that would only remain the case if we knew that the Franks were generally treating the local peasantry, both Muslim and non-Muslim, in a fair way, and certainly not dramatically worse than the way in which peasants were being treated in adjacent Muslim-dominated states. They could vote with their feet if they were being treated too harshly, whether in terms of taxation, freedom of religious expression or access to justice. Taking taxation first, Frankish landlords were clearly exploitative, as one would expect. But they were not unduly rapacious. Critically, they were perhaps less grasping than their equally foreign Muslim counterparts in adjacent states run by Turks or Kurds. Ibn Jubayr, writing of conditions on the road from Toron to Acre in the 1180s, was depressed to find that the ‘inhabitants were all Muslims, living comfortably with the Franks. God protect us from such temptation. They surrender half their crops to the Franks at harvest time and pay as well a poll-tax of one dinar and five qirat for each person. Other than that they are not interfered with.’21 This may sound harsh, but the situation could be even worse elsewhere. In those parts of Syria with Muslim rulers, although a poll tax would only be levied on unbelievers, the overall level of taxation appears to have been higher. The local peasantry often had to pay a tax of 60–66 per cent of all crops, as well as 10 per cent in obligatory alms: up to three quarters of all produce.22 Freedom of religious expression was always going to be important. The first decade of the Latin Kingdom was one of major upheaval, and a difficult time for the Muslim populations in the Fatimid strongholds that continued to resist the Franks. The recapture of the coastal cities by Christians was often accompanied by expulsion or massacre. Sometimes, one suspects, the Italian city states, which were so instrumental in their capture, were keen to establish themselves in these prime commercial locations by undertaking radical anti-competitive strategies. As we have seen, at Acre in 1104 and Tripoli in 1109, for instance, the Genoese turned the Muslim exodus into a slaughter. It was in their interests to ensure that local commercial communities were permanently displaced and disadvantaged.23 From 1110 onwards, however, crusader rulers tended to take a much more pragmatic and measured approach towards the possibility of acquiring new Muslim subjects. This was not based on altruism, but because they began to appreciate the 150

INTERLUDE benefits this would bring for future tax revenues. Tancred, the ruler of Antioch, captured al-Atharib in 1110–1111 and made active efforts to persuade local Muslim workers to remain.24 Similarly, at Sidon, just a few months earlier, the Muslim population were invited to stay, while still retaining freedom of religious practice. As Fulcher of Chartres put it, the leaders of the local community asked King Baldwin that ‘if he pleased he might retain in the city the peasants because of their usefulness in cultivating the land. This they sought; this they obtained . . . the farmers remained peacefully under those terms.’ Once again, religious tolerance by the Franks went hand in hand with their increasingly mature grasp of economic self-interest.25 There were many changes in the early days of the crusader states, as the coastal cities were besieged and captured, but the countryside was subject to far less disruption. Freedom of religious expression was broadly observed throughout the crusader states, if only to ensure that the local peasantry remained in place and productive. Even the texts of the radical Hanbali sect – with their underlying hostility to the Franks – make it clear that communities still gathered for Friday prayers, that mosques in the countryside remained open for their congregations, and that individuals could even undertake the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.26 We know that a local Hanbali leader went abroad to study hadith, and returned to recite hadith and Koran to the local faithful. Another of his flock was a jurist who had been to Damascus several times. In the countryside at least, it seems that religious life could continue for the Muslim community. And we know that the local judges, qadis, though not numerous in the cities, continued to provide religious and secular leadership to their flocks: the qadi of Jabala, for instance, played a pivotal role in helping negotiations during Saladin’s reconquest of Jabala and Latakia.27 Once things had settled down, and the new government was in place, the local Muslim communities enjoyed relatively high levels of religious freedom. Imad ad-Din, never a fan of the crusaders, was forced to admit that ‘the villagers of the Nablus area and the majority of its inhabitants were Muslims and had accommodated themselves to living as subjects of the Franks, who annually collected from them a tax levy and changed not a single law or cult practice of theirs’.28 We know that mosques were still being repaired and restored within the crusader states, and Muslims were allowed to pray in those shrines that formed part of Christian churches.29 Usama tells us that he was even permitted, by special arrangement with 151

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY his Templar friends, to pray in the church attached to their headquarters in the al-Aqsa mosque.30 Alongside freedom of religious expression, the Franks were very careful not to try to force people to feel they had to become Christian. Conversion was rare. There were occasional instances of individual conversion, sometimes based on genuine belief. Ibn Jubayr again, for instance, talks disapprovingly of a Maghrebi Muslim who converted because of faith and became a Christian monk.31 But the crusaders do not seem to have looked for it, or even to have particularly encouraged it. In fact, on the contrary, in the case of Muslim slaves or prisoners, they actively discouraged it, generally feeling (probably correctly) that it was merely a ruse to ensure their emancipation: literally a ‘get out of jail’ card. Similarly, for societies that largely defined themselves by their religious beliefs, there was little impetus from Muslim communities as a whole to convert. In the very early days of the crusader states, when the political landscape was still very unclear, we find a few instances of conversion, often, one suspects, as a way for individuals to insinuate themselves into the new regime. We know that when Baldwin I was planning an expedition to the Dead Sea, he was advised by Muslim converts as to its feasibility and how best to proceed. There is also a semi-legendary account of Baldwin I leaving another Muslim convert in charge of Jerusalem in 1112, in itself a huge military and political responsibility.32 This initial phase of attempted ingratiation quickly tailed off, however, as the political class, who would have had most to gain, had generally fled when the crusaders arrived. Once Frankish government had become stabilised, merchants could continue to go about their business unhindered. And peasants, still working the same fields and with access to justice and taxation no worse than they were accustomed to, had little incentive to convert.33 We know that there were some converts serving in the Frankish army, and they could normally expect to be treated harshly if they fell into the hands of their erstwhile coreligionists. At the siege of Jacob’s Ford in 1179, for instance, Muslim prisoners were treated well by the garrison, who presumably hoped to use them as a bargaining counter if things deteriorated too far: 100 Muslim prisoners were freed by Saladin when the castle fell. Such niceties were not accorded to the converts in the garrison, however, who were all singled out for special treatment and executed after capture, together with the Templars and the garrison’s crossbowmen. Interestingly, the presence of 152

INTERLUDE ‘apostates’ in a Templar frontier garrison is not remarked upon in Muslim sources as being anything particularly unusual, so there were probably far more converts and Muslim mercenaries in crusader military service than we are aware of.34 Even the Templars, who one might have expected to be enthusiastic about highprofile conversions, were less than convinced. They deliberately sabotaged overtures for some form of religious rapprochement with the Assassins in 1173–1174: the Christian negotiators certainly believed the Assassins were preparing to convert, however unlikely that may seem, but the Templars were having none of it. They brought negotiations to an abrupt and none too subtle conclusion by butchering the Assassins’ emissaries.35 Similarly, when the Templars captured a high-ranking Egyptian political refugee in 1154, they thought the 60,000 pieces of gold offered for his return were far more genuine and attractive than his convenient conversion to Christianity. He was handed back to his political enemies.36 One reason why conversion was rarely encouraged was that no one really trusted someone who changed their religion. If you changed your religion once, you were more likely to change it again. Perhaps your circumstances changed. Perhaps you were just not very religious in the first place. Or perhaps a belief system that was socially convenient at one time of your life became less so later on. Motivation is not always clear in the sources, and was perhaps not even always clear to the individuals at the time. It is true, anecdotally at least, that once disinhibited by a change of religion and a change of cultural allegiance, the behaviour of converts appears to be unusually extreme and unpredictable. In 1185, for instance, an English Templar knight, originally from St Albans, decided to convert to Islam, and then proceeded to launch raids on his erstwhile countrymen and coreligionists in Galilee.37 A similarly bizarre incident took place during the siege of Sidon in 1110, when a high-ranking Muslim convert in the king’s inner circle decided to change sides again. ‘The king’, wrote William of Tyre, ‘had in his retinue a certain Baldwin, a trusted retainer, practically his valet de chambre. This man, formerly a pagan, had asked for baptism and the king . . . gave him his own name and made him one of his retainers.’ As the siege was going well for the Franks, and as no help was forthcoming from the Egyptian navy, the leaders of the merchant community in Sidon decided that their best chance of survival lay in persuading this convert, ‘Baldwin’, to assassinate the king: ‘The nobles of Sidon . . . secretly sent intermediaries to negotiate with this man. They promised him an immense sum of money and extensive possessions in 153

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY the city if he would kill the king . . . he willingly entertained the suggestion made and promised to carry it into execution.’38 The proposition seems to have been financially based, rather than religious or emotional, and as it was accepted, it must suggest that Baldwin’s conversion had always been one of convenience. The plot was revealed before it could proceed too far. Some of the local Christian community in Sidon (who, interestingly, proved that they could not be trusted either) managed to warn the king of the scheme by attaching a letter to an arrow and shooting it into the besiegers’ camp. The Muslim convert eventually confessed to the plot. He was tried before the nobles of the kingdom and hanged. But, as with most surviving examples of conversion, it seems to have been commented on in the chronicles because it was all so unusual. Neither Muslims nor Christians encouraged conversions. They were mistrustful of converts, and often rightfully so. Pragmatic tolerance was felt to be preferable to the hysteria and trauma of apostasy. In the same way that religious tolerance was generally the norm, largely for practical reasons, so too was the way in which justice was administered. In matters within the Muslim community, the Franks were entirely happy for Islamic law to be the guiding principle for justice. And in dealing with inter-community issues, the law books of the crusader states assumed that justice should be administered equally and fairly. In Frankish courts Muslims would take their oath ‘sur le coran de sa lei’ (‘on the Koran of their law’).39 Across the crusader states, legal autonomy was practised within communities wherever possible. Again, this was pragmatic rather than altruistic. The Frankish governments had neither a sufficient bureaucracy to replace existing common law, nor the manpower to replace large numbers of disgruntled peasants if they got it wrong. The old system of having a ‘headman’ (or rays) in charge of local villages were maintained and they still represented their communities in dealings with their landlords; similarly, Bedouin chiefs represented their people in discussions with the Franks.40 Where communities interacted with each other, fairness and stability were the desired outcome and were enshrined in statute. Jurors were selected from each community and were reminded that they were all ‘men, like the Franks’ (‘si sont il auci homes come les Frans’).41 Rape was inevitably a potential source of great tension between the communities, and we know, for instance, that penalties for those found guilty of such a crime were entirely equal. In a surprisingly even-handed piece of legislation, 154

INTERLUDE certainly by Western standards of the time, any Frank found guilty of raping a Muslim woman was to be castrated or, to add insult to injury, castrated and then exiled. Ibn Jubayr could barely hide his annoyance when acknowledging the strengths of Frankish justice. His coreligionists in the crusader states, he wrote, ‘observe how unlike them in ease and comfort are their brethren in the Muslim regions under their [Muslim] governors . . . The Muslim community bewails the injustice of a landlord of its own faith, and applauds the conduct of its opponent and enemy, the Frankish landlord, and is accustomed to justice from him.’ Jubayr is taking a polemical swipe at his own people, but the underlying and ironic truth of Frankish justice is nonetheless there.42 As with the justice system, there was also an element of administrative continuity that helped create good working relationships, particularly between the rural communities. We know of several instances where Muslim landlords and local leaders remained in place after the crusaders took over, suggesting a level of cooperation among at least some of the remaining members of the Muslim elite. These included grants of land to the Shaykh of Banu Sulayha in the Principality of Antioch, and a Muslim landlord in the Lordship of al-Atharib, who we find in possession of the village of Mar Buniya, fulfilling duties for the Franks.43 But, in the overall scheme of things, this level of administrative involvement was relatively slight. By and large the Muslim political class fled when the crusaders took over and their local peasantry tended towards acquiescence rather than active cooperation thereafter. Ironically, however, examples of military cooperation were far more common. As well as converts in the Frankish military, for instance in castle garrisons, we have evidence that local Muslims (presumably Sunni) helped the crusaders against their Shi’ite Muslim enemies at the first battle of Ascalon. More importantly, Bedouin auxiliaries were a consistent and extremely helpful presence in the Frankish armies of the period, particularly in campaigns along the southern frontiers of the Latin Kingdom. These troops could be very valuable, providing knowledge and guidance in the deep desert areas where crusader heavy cavalry were at a significant disadvantage. Muslim leaders often complained that the Bedouin cooperated far too closely with the Franks. This was not just paranoia. From a Bedouin perspective, the fairly loose arrangements they could make with the rulers of the crusader states suited them far better than those offered by the irritatingly powerful Ayyubid empire. Saladin was always frustrated by the way in which they cooperated with the kings of Jerusalem, and took increasingly severe action to prevent them from doing 155

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY so. Al-Fadil, one of his administrators, was particularly scathing in his assessment of the Bedouin, describing them as helping the Franks as mercenaries, guides, spies and even killers.44 Sometimes the assistance they gave to the crusaders was merely a nuisance, but on occasion it could prove almost disastrous. After the battle of Mont Gisard in November 1177, for instance, Saladin’s Bedouin guides and auxiliaries helped to turn a losing battle into a massacre, and used the opportunity of a Frankish victory to pillage and murder the defeated Muslim forces as they dispersed.45 The ambivalence with which both sides viewed the Bedouin, even when they were being useful, is shown by William of Tyre’s description of the same episode. ‘This treacherous race’, he said, had deliberately caused Saladin’s rearguard at al-Arish to panic by spreading news of the defeat. They had then pursued the stragglers and, as William dryly commented, ‘that which the locust has left, the cankerworm has eaten’. Neither side trusted them and the Bedouin were rarely on anyone’s side other than their own. When the pursuit was over, William summarised their pragmatic but frustratingly independent approach to warfare: ‘Under whatever chief they advance to battle, they always avoid the dangers of combat, and, as long as the result of the battle is uncertain, they look on at a distance; when it is decided, they attach themselves to the victor, pursue the conquered enemies, and enrich themselves by the spoils.’46 There were also Muslim Turkic troops in the Frankish armies from time to time, though how commonplace this was is never clear. In the spring of 1147, the Frankish army which marched into the Hauran, the fertile area south of Damascus and east of the Jordan, had many Muslim allied and ancillary troops with it. William of Tyre mentions the presence of Turkic troops fighting as auxiliaries in the Christian ranks and, on this occasion, even as popular champions for the army as a whole. Even more tellingly, their presence is spoken of merely as a casual aside, as if this were an everyday occurrence. If it had not been for the extravagant exploits of a single cavalryman in breaking ranks and killing an enemy emir, we would barely have been aware that they were there at all.47 Banditry Suggesting that there was no real internal unrest within the crusader states, at least not in the form of outright revolt, and identifying instances of cooperation only serves to raise another question. 156

INTERLUDE We know that most crusader castles, and most other fortified structures (manor houses, buildings with walled courtyards and so on) were, ironically, built during some of the quietest periods in the history of the crusader states, and in some of the most peaceful locations, far away from the frontiers. These structures were extremely expensive, particularly given the context of primarily rural societies with relatively little economic surplus.48 So, if internal political and military unrest was not the reason, why were they built? Much of the answer seems to lie in good old-fashioned criminality. Politics and religion might play a part. If you were a brigand you might be more inclined to behave somewhat better towards your coreligionists. But ultimately criminality had its own path. The evidence suggests that the key objective was generally to grasp the rewards of criminal enterprise rather than to wage a covert war against those with different religious beliefs. These were not ‘Robin Hood’ figures, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, or waging a guerrilla war to reinstate the old regime. A particularly poignant story of Muslim rural life survives in a text from Damascus, referring to everyday events around Nablus in the middle of the twelfth century. It is ordinary enough at first sight, but strangely touching. A Muslim peasant wrote that he ‘went to [Magna Mahomeria] with my son and with a friend of ours. We came across a group of Franks, I mean those who had arrived from across the sea [i.e. pilgrims]. We were afraid of them and sat by the road. They passed without addressing a word to us.’49 Nothing happened. There was no violence. And neither party seemed to want any trouble. But the mere fact that things passed off peacefully was worthy of note. The expectation, based on experience of what might well happen, was that there could be violence: theft, kidnapping, rape, maybe even murder. If not the most common outcome of an encounter with strangers, particularly strangers of another religion, then violence was certainly felt to be a very real possibility. Petty acts of criminality were an endemic problem, within communities as well as between them. Usama tells numerous tales of violence, often with educational or inspiring messages for a Muslim audience. Then as now, dramatic anecdotes sell books. One particularly uplifting story tells of a Muslim woman from Nablus who married a Frank (which in itself must have been unusual), but later killed him. She and her half-Frankish son later went on to rob and kill several unarmed pilgrims. If there is any truth to the anecdote, it may not even relate to a religious context. Marrying a Frank certainly implies a profound lack of religious fanaticism on her 157

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY part, and this may just be an extreme case of domestic violence, culminating in banditry as the offenders were forced to evade justice and flee from their village. This should not be seen as in any way ‘typical’, but it does perhaps serve to show some of the underlying mood and atmosphere, and the criminality and tension at the heart of community relations.50 The scale of lawlessness in Palestine is shown by the role of the military orders, and particularly the Templars and the Hospitallers, and the way they allocated their resources. They are best known as elite military forces, well equipped, highly disciplined and ferociously effective in battle. They were also a major conduit by which money and other resources could be funnelled into the defence of the newly recovered Holy Land. So what were the main objectives of these prestigious, wellresourced organisations? Strangely, for much of the twelfth century their primary role was the less than glamorous task of day-to-day policing. Not ‘policing’ in the sense of having a quiet word with the occasional stranger, warning them to obey local bylaws or keep moving. They were policing gangs of well-armed bandits large enough to overpower substantial bodies of soldiers. The scale of the solution shows the scale of the problem. The pervasive nature of violence and highway robbery is shown clearly in The Rule of the Templars, the ‘standing orders’ of the knights. They were written around 1165, that is, towards the end of a period during which the interior of the Latin Kingdom has been presumed to have been at its most fully settled and pacified. In it we find explicit instructions about the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho and on to the Jordan, one of the most heavily travelled and well-protected pilgrim routes. The Rule says that the ‘commander of the city of Jerusalem should have ten knight brothers under his command to lead and guard the pilgrims who come to the river Jordan . . . If he finds a nobleman in need he should take him to his tent and serve him with the alms of the Order.’ The presumption was clear: even the nobility, with their own retainers and guards, were potential prey on the road.51 Despite the high levels of fortification and militarised policing on what was, after all, a relatively short route, danger was ever present. Zengi and his troops had attacked the monastery of St John Besides the Jordan in 1139. The six monks who lived there were decapitated. Several decades later, Theoderic (a pilgrim who journeyed there in 1172) saw that the land nearby was still uncultivated, because of the poor security situation. He wrote that this ‘place is under the control of the Church 158

INTERLUDE of Lazarus in Bethany, but because of the Saracen invasions the land is without cultivation’. To provide a final word of comfort to potential visitors, he mentioned that there ‘is also there a powerful camp of Templars’.52 But it is clear that even a permanent military presence was not enough to fully safeguard the area. So, even at the time of greatest internal security, no one was entirely safe. The road network was always dangerous. Pilgrims were always vulnerable. And if the crusaders could not ensure the safety of European visitors, then the links to other parts of Christendom would be severely weakened. The sustainability of the crusader states and their access to essential European support was going to be severely limited if they could not even guarantee safety on the major roads. It was no coincidence that it was a roadside attack, a particularly violent one, that led to the foundation of the Templars. A large group of pilgrims, some 700 in number, were travelling from Jerusalem down to the Jordan on 31 March 1119. Egyptian troops from the garrisons at Tyre and Ascalon, helped by local volunteers, heard of the group and managed to ambush them. Virtually unarmed and weakened by fasting, the pilgrims were easy prey. Sixty prisoners were taken and 300 other travellers killed. The king rallied the few available troops in Jerusalem to try to head off the Fatimid forces but it was too late: they had already slipped by and returned to their coastal bases.53 Any journey was dangerous, and this was broadly true regardless of period or religion. One Persian traveller in the eleventh century (i.e. long before the crusaders arrived) described the road from Acre to Ramla as being under continual threat from ‘disorderly men, who set upon anyone whom they saw to be a stranger in order to rob him of everything he had’.54 In the first decade of the twelfth century travellers were appalled at the level of casual violence that awaited them in Palestine. They felt much of this was orchestrated by the Fatimid army in Ascalon, but it also included enthusiastic representatives from the local criminal elements. The English traveller Saewulf, who was in the Holy Land around 1102, was clearly shocked by the experience of his walk from the coast to Jerusalem, and painted a picture of almost post-apocalyptic dimensions. He wrote that the journey [from Jaffa to Jerusalem] lasted two days and it was by a very hard mountain road. It was very dangerous too, because the Saracens, who are

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THE CRUSADER STRATEGY continually plotting an ambush against Christians, were hiding in the caves of the hills and among rocky caverns. They were awake day and night, always keeping a look-out for someone to attack, whether because he had not enough people with him, or because he was fatigued enough to leave a space between himself and his party. Sometimes the Saracens could be seen everywhere in the neighbourhood, and sometimes they disappeared.

He ended with a haunting turn of phrase, writing that anyone ‘who has taken that road can see how many human bodies there are in the road, and next to the road’.55 The Russian pilgrim Abbot Daniel wrote of his journey on the same road a few years later: [at Lydda] travellers rest by the water, but with great fear, for it is a deserted place and nearby is the town of Ascalon from which Saracens sally forth and kill travellers on those roads. There is a great fear too going from that place into the hills. And from [Lydda] to Jerusalem . . . [it is] all in rocky hills and here the road is hard and fearsome.

Abbot Daniel’s trip east from Jerusalem seems to have been similarly full of anxiety. ‘The way from Jerusalem to the Jordan’, he wrote, ‘runs past the Mount of Olives to the north-east, and it is a very difficult road and dangerous and waterless, for the hills are high and rocky and there are many brigands in those fearful hills and valleys.’ He was also aware that the journey from Jerusalem into Galilee was particularly dangerous, even by the spectacularly low standards of the day. He recalled that the ‘town of Tiberias is four days’ journey on foot from Jerusalem and the way is very dangerous and difficult . . . Without soldiers it is impossible to pass by that way.’ Daniel was eventually able to make the journey, but only by personally asking King Baldwin I if he could accompany him and the royal army on an expedition around Galilee in January–February 1107.56 Bandit groups were so numerous, and so heavily armed, that the army had to be deployed to keep them under control, and to root them out from some of their more disruptive locations. In 1100, for instance, King Baldwin I led a full military expedition to destroy outlaw groups on the approaches to Jerusalem, as the ‘country was infested by bandits and robbers. These scourges of the highways had made the road 160

INTERLUDE between Ramla and Jerusalem very dangerous because of their repeated attacks, for too often they fell upon incautious travellers with hostile swords’. Baldwin pursued some of the larger bandit groups back into their caves and used fires to smoke them out. Having had to fight most of his way down from Edessa in the previous weeks, and confronted with the effects of their predations on the local population, Baldwin was in no mood for pleasantries: ‘Without mercy, he at once ordered the beheading of one hundred of them, a summary punishment which their guilt seemed to deserve.’57 The security situation was particularly poor in the very early days of the crusader states. William of Tyre wrote: Any Christian who walked along the highway without taking due precaution was liable to be killed by the Saracens, or seized and handed over as a slave to the enemy . . . Nor was it only on the highways that danger was feared. Even within the city walls, in the very houses, there was scarcely a place one could rest in security . . . and the ruinous state of the walls left every place exposed to the enemy. Thieves made stealthy raids by night. They broke into the deserted cities, whose few inhabitants were scattered apart, and overpowered many in their own houses.58

It was easy to get paranoid, and to read political or religious motives into the actions of such men. But bandits were generally equal-opportunity criminals, even-handed in choosing whom they attacked, whether Muslim or Christian. And Frankish bandits could be just as destructive as their Muslim peers. The Hanbali texts from around Nablus show that even in the most densely populated Muslim area, at the most peaceful time in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, lawlessness was still endemic. We hear, for example, of a Syrian merchant on his way to Ascalon being waylaid and robbed by two Frankish highwaymen. Another anecdote is even more telling. A Muslim ascetic on Mount Lebanon encountered a group of Frankish robbers. They tied him up and fell asleep. The ascetic earned their gratitude when a group of Muslim bandits arrived, and he showed his Frankish captors where to hide. In a remote area, with almost no possessions, a man could expect to meet one group of criminals after another. The reader is invited to express surprise but, ironically, the surprise was that the Muslim had wanted to help his Frankish captors. Encountering one group of criminals after another was recognised as not being surprising at all.59 161

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Banditry took many forms, ranging from the local opportunistic mugger through to large well-organised and well-armed groups, small armies that operated what almost amounted to ‘shadow lordships’, covering wide territories. In 1139, for instance, the army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and a very significant crusading contingent under the command of Thierry of Flanders had to be deployed to go into the Gilead mountains to flush out the local bandits. This level of military intervention, rather than just policing, was necessary because of their numbers, the fortified places in which they were hiding and the scale of their raids. Whether these raids were coordinated with external enemies or not, the damage they caused demanded the response one would normally associate with a small-scale war.60 Large-scale banditry continued for most of the twelfth century. When the castle of Jacob’s Ford was built in 1178, robbers in the area were so bold that they felt able to harass the army, occupy villages and intimidate the relatively dispersed local population. King Baldwin IV eventually led the entire field army to flush them out. They fled to Damascus, but given that the castle was overrun within a few months, the security situation in eastern Galilee inevitably deteriorated again soon after. Bandit groups on this scale were so large that the boundaries between ‘policing’ and ‘military activity’ tended to blur. The fact that we find them operating both at the beginning and at the end of the period shows just what a menace to civil society they were: despite the huge efforts that were devoted to trying to eradicate them, the best the Franks could achieve was to keep a lid on the situation.61 Nomadic Violence As well as criminality, increasing levels of nomadic violence, from the Bedouin in the south and from Turkic groups in the north, were a major cause of rural instability in Palestine and Syria. This began long before the arrival of the crusaders, and continued on into the twelfth century. The Bedouin, Arabic-speaking nomads, were always armed and opportunistic neutrals. From a Frankish perspective, they were simultaneously a dangerous ally, a political pawn and a threat to trade and internal security. They had a tradition of unprincipled survival on the fringes of sedentary societies, complying, if necessary, when central authority was strong and taking advantage when it weakened. Saladin took severe repressive measures, including mass deportations, to try to control them. 162

INTERLUDE Measures on this scale were never really available to the Franks, however. They did not have free land upon which to settle displaced Bedouin if they wished to control them more fully. More to the point, the Franks, with acute manpower shortages and only limited operational abilities in desert areas, found the Bedouin too useful. So the main thrust of the Frankish policy towards them was always going to be along the lines of maintaining good relations wherever possible, to maximise the upside of the relationship, and for efficient policing to try to limit the downside of predation and social instability. The Bedouin were mainly Muslim (though some were still Christian), but religion was rarely the principal guiding factor in determining their attitudes or behaviour. They had been raiding the provinces of Syria in the sixth century, as Romano-Byzantine power began to ebb away, and used the chaos of the early Islamic invasions as an opportunity to raid again in earnest. The Bedouin mainly inhabited the deserts to the south and to the south-east of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem but in some instances had also migrated northwards before the arrival of the crusaders. By the late tenth and early eleventh centuries they dominated some parts of Syria. Rural life in adjacent unfortified settlements must have been difficult under these circumstances, but for ill-protected travellers the situation was hazardous in the extreme. Eastern Galilee, with a large bandit presence and a significant Bedouin population, was particularly vulnerable to nomadic violence. The insecurity this created meant that there was a relatively low level of sedentary occupation in the area and, as far as we know, no Frankish settlement at all beyond the suburbs of castles. And of course, this was a self-perpetuating situation. Low levels of sedentary occupation meant lower levels of policing and a reduced ability to project central authority. Poor security in the area increased the opportunities for lawlessness.62 The Bedouin were dangerous but impressive. Burchard of Mount Sion wrote in the thirteenth century that although they were ‘very warlike, they only use swords and lances in battle. They do not use arrows, saying that it is shameful beyond measure to steal a man’s life with an arrow. They are courageous in battle, wearing only a red pelisse with a loose-fitting shirt over it and covering their heads with no more than a piece of cloth.’63 They could be fearsome warriors. In the spring of 1107 Baldwin I, a famously energetic and capable leader, baulked at attacking an Egyptian caravan sent by the overland route to the east to resupply the Fatimid coastal garrisons, largely because 163

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY of the presence of Bedouin guards: ‘He took sixty soldiers . . . and went down to the edge of the river Jordan. But . . . he put off fighting with them face to face’. Instead, he decided he could only attack the rear of the caravan and pick off the stragglers as the others fled. In the end he settled for 40 prisoners and 32 laden camels. Certainly worth having, but it showed that even the king and his hand-picked retinue had to be careful when approaching Bedouin.64 The violence always operated in both directions. Nomads are never popular: at best they are tolerated; at worst, feared and despised. In the spring of 1119, for instance, the Damascenes came to an agreement with a large body of Bedouin, allowing them to graze on their land in return for a fixed fee.65 Joscelin, Prince of Galilee, soon heard of their presence.66 The prospect of capturing so much livestock was too much for the Galilean Franks. Perhaps the opportunity to intimidate the nomads and undermine the authority of Damascus, under whose protection they were grazing, was also a factor. Joscelin and two Galilean nobles, the Bures brothers, William and Godfrey, mustered a small army to attack them: only 160 cavalry and 60 infantry, but a substantial force by local standards. What the Galileans assumed would be a cattle raid turned into a full-scale battle, and one which demonstrated beyond all doubt just how dangerous the nomads could be. Joscelin and his men reached the Bedouin on 30 March 1119. The Franks adopted an unusual formation and approached in a widely dispersed fashion, over an extended front, perhaps because they were keen to deploy their infantry quickly to act as herdsmen when they captured the livestock and perhaps because, underestimating the Bedouin, they had assumed that they would run rather than fight against heavily armoured troops. Godfrey of Bures held the centre of the Galilean line with the main body of troops, 60 infantry and 60 cavalry. Joscelin held the Frankish right flank with 50 cavalry, while William of Bures, specifically tasked with acting as a reserve, held the left flank with the remaining 50 cavalry. The battle that unfolded was uncannily similar to a more famous encounter that took place 750 years later in North America. In both instances a small ‘regular’ cavalry force was intent on destroying a large nomad group. In both instances also, the regular force divided into three units in order to stop the nomads dispersing too soon. In both instances, the centre of the regular forces engaged first and were wiped out, leaving their flanking units to fight their way out. As Custer and the Seventh Cavalry would find out at the Little Big Horn in 1876, splitting your forces in the 164

INTERLUDE face of nomadic tribesmen makes sense if they are small in number and eager to escape, but is potentially catastrophic if they are there in force and choose to stand their ground. Muslim sources suggest that Joscelin’s right flank was so far removed from the rest of the army that it was out of sight of the centre. Godfrey of Bures misjudged the timing of his assault, thinking that Joscelin had already engaged the nomads, and that he needed to move fast to stop them fleeing with their animals.67 Godfrey charged in quickly with the Frankish centre, both infantry and cavalry, but ‘he advanced too far among the gangs of men defending the flock . . . They surrounded Godfrey with his men, joined intense battle with them, until Godfrey and his very few [cavalry], unable to withstand the strength of so many, fell . . . Only eight were captured and taken away; the rest died by the weapons of the enemy.’68 All but 10 of Godfrey’s 60 infantry were also killed at this point. William and his heavy cavalry on the left tried to help but were slowed down by rough terrain and could not make it through in time. Joscelin, on the right flank, also tried to intervene but the Frankish centre was destroyed before they could even get close. One is struck by two things. First, just how quickly this all happened. The Bedouin had wiped out the main body of the Galilean troops before the flanks could even react. And secondly, the sheer effectiveness of the Bedouin in close combat. They surprised the Franks by standing rather than running, and shocked them by the force of arms they could wield. Given that they destroyed a small but heavily armoured Frankish army of hardened frontier troops, their potential impact on pilgrims or unarmed villagers was devastating. Bedouin in the crusader states were generally under the protection of the local rulers. In the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, for instance, we find that they were usually protected by the king, though rights and obligations relating to them could also belong to others such as local lords or organisations such as the Hospitallers. There were clearly economic benefits to this relationship, with implications for trade and taxation, but there were also military and policing aspects too. Protection was certainly an issue, and that worked both ways. Part of it was certainly about granting the nomads protection from local groups as they moved from area to area. There was never much love lost between sedentary rural populations and nomads. On the relatively rare occasions when lords went into open revolt against the kings of Jerusalem, for instance, a common opening gambit was to attack the local 165

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Bedouin. This had the dual benefits of delivering an immediate cash windfall in the form of livestock, and embarrassing the king by demonstrating his inability to protect them. There is also the sense that this was a way of showing defiance which was popular with local people. Nomads do not have many friends.69 From the king’s perspective, the protection went the other way too: exerting some form of control over their behaviour, trying to limit the possibilities of violence when nomads came across merchants or isolated rural communities. We do not know how successful these attempts were, but we do know that the issue of internal security was never completely solved, and was probably never truly capable of longterm resolution. Further north, most of the nomadic violence came from mounted tribesmen filtering into the region from the steppes. Frankish chroniclers sometimes try to differentiate between Turkic groups, primarily on the basis of their employment status. The language is often imprecise, but those who had started to settle and to take on gainful (usually military) roles were generally called ‘Turks’, while those who were still operating as groups of nomadic, more independent freelancers with a tendency towards banditry, were described as ‘Turcoman’, ‘wild Turks’ or ‘free roaming’. Poor by most standards, occasionally desperate, but without homes to defend or strict hierarchies to acknowledge, these groups were particularly volatile, opportunistic and dangerous. Both sides, all sides, treated them with suspicion and rightly so. Even when not part of an army, these ‘wild Turks’ were a danger: ‘always in arms and ready to fight’, as one crusader chronicle aptly put it.70 Incursions by Turkic nomads had their own natural momentum but may also have been encouraged by the rulers whose lands they had to cross before they reached Frankish territory. These Turkic tribes were generally at least nominally Muslim, and the local states were highly motivated either to employ them in their armies, or to see them move on quickly. If a Muslim ruler had the resources to employ them, they could make highly effective, if not always reliable, troops. If they were not needed, however, the motivation would have been to encourage them, with all the predations of a nomadic tribe, to harm the military capacity of the enemy by moving into their territory. Encouraged or not, Turkic nomadic activity played an increasing role in the military and political history of the region. Nomadic migration off the steppes, temporary or otherwise, seems to have occurred relatively steadily during the earlier part 166

INTERLUDE of the twelfth century, but picked up pace and moved increasingly southwards as the Muslim states in Syria became better resourced, and hence better employers for those seeking ready cash or opportunities for plunder. As that relationship became well established, so the Syrian macro-states, first under Zengi and Nur al-Din and latterly under Saladin, became increasingly attractive, drawing in large numbers of nomads from the steppes in search of opportunity. When these groups of Turkic nomads were not in employment, they were a continual nuisance to the crusader states. They were debilitating in both a direct military sense, as they absorbed more and more military resources and inflicted occasional but cumulative casualties. But they also inflicted economic damage, restricting the areas available for settlement, destroying the fabric of the agricultural communities and the manpower and small economic surpluses which they generated to help sustain Frankish military capacity. Controlling the Interior Policing the interior and trying to maintain internal security took a lot of money and energy. Although the strategic response was inevitably limited by the means available, we can identify three broad thrusts of internal security activity in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, each addressing different needs and objectives: ‘containment’, ‘militarised policing’ and ‘extended settlement’.71 The containment programme, running intensively up to c.1130 and finishing altogether in 1153, was designed to limit the capacity for low-level incursions by the Fatimid garrisons in the west and south of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (that is, the coastal cities still in Muslim hands), and from large-scale banditry in those regions. This threat died down as most of the coastal cities were captured by 1124, leaving Ascalon as the last major threat to internal security in the south. As we have seen, an increasingly elaborate ring of fortifications was constructed to gradually choke off the threat from Ascalon, and improve policing more generally.72 Secondly, there was a militarised policing programme, which ran throughout most of the century, but with increased focus on countering local criminality and banditry from 1153 onwards, once the Egyptian garrison of Ascalon had been eliminated. This phase was designed to improve security within the interior. The main arterial routes 167

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY within the kingdom were vital, partly because of the normal requirements of commerce and running a country, but more specifically to protect pilgrims, who were particularly vulnerable because of their unfamiliarity with the countryside. There was also the need to protect the rural communities, including Frankish, native Christian and Muslim villages – probably in that order, reflecting both their place in the social hierarchy but also their vulnerability to violence. The most obvious examples of this kind of policing are the levels of protection that were given to the roads, and the pilgrims and merchants who used them. Religious tourism and commerce provided much of the funding that underpinned the viability of the state. So protecting each of these groups was more than just about enforcing law and order: it was about safeguarding the very basis of the crusader societies. Two road networks that were particularly important, and which provide a good case study of how militarised policing worked in practice, are the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and the road heading eastwards from Jerusalem down to the River Jordan, important routes much used by pilgrims. In both cases the Templars, the oldest of the military orders, played a vital role.73 The road from Jaffa to Jerusalem was vitally important, particularly in the early days of the kingdom, when Jaffa was the main point of entry from Europe. The road system itself was still the old network established and maintained in previous eras of European control, the Roman and Romano-Byzantine periods. Road usage had shifted over time, sometimes following new religious boundaries. After the Arab conquest, the road from Jaffa to Muslim-populated Ramla gradually became far more widely used than the road which went to Jerusalem via the declining Christian settlement of Lydda, for instance. Over the course of the eleventh century, however, all roads had become increasingly perilous.74 Pilgrims arriving at Jaffa were easy meat. They were disorientated, illacclimatised and were carrying ready cash to fund their stay in the Holy Land. The route they would take was predictable, as they would almost certainly be heading to Jerusalem. And it was not a journey that could be made easily in one day. This road was therefore an absolutely prime location for ‘robbers and highwaymen’, and on the relatively short journey from Jaffa to Jerusalem we find no fewer than three Templar roadside castles. The dangers of the route were reflected in the intensity of the security that eventually had to be provided.75 168

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THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The first of these was Casale des Plains (‘Village of the Plains’), also known as ‘Village of the Baths’ (Casale Balneorum). It was in existence at least from c.1131–1143, when it is referred to in a pilgrim text, but possibly predates that significantly. It was initially owned by the local Frankish authorities (the lords of Ramla) and was later given to the Templars. It was a very small hilltop castle, little more than a tower surrounded by an enclosure wall, but in the event of attack it provided a place of temporary refuge or a base for a small policing force.76 A short way down the road, approximately halfway between Jaffa and Jerusalem, was the more substantial castle of Toron des Chevaliers (‘Tower of the Knights’), also known as Latrun. The castle occupied a prominent position on a hill near the point where the road approaches from Ascalon. As Ascalon was in Muslim hands until 1153, for much of the twelfth century the castle was well positioned to guard against forays from the Fatimid garrison, as well as the activities of local bandits. It seems to have been built between 1137 and 1141 by the Count of Toledo while he was in Templar service, and at a time when castle building around Ascalon was increasingly looking to exert pressure on the Fatimids’ last foothold in Palestine.77 A little further on, Castel Arnold had been built to improve roadside security.78 There are indications that the protection of the key roads into Jerusalem was initially placed in the care of the castellan of the Tower of David (effectively the garrison commander of Jerusalem). In 1106, when a massive cavalry raiding force from Ascalon overran Castel Arnold, we find Castellan Gunfrid in command there. The unlucky (and probably incompetent) Gunfrid surrendered the castle far too quickly and found himself in captivity in Cairo for 30 years. None of his Frankish peers rushed to ransom him: his failure in that role was perhaps one of the factors which later encouraged the secular authorities to hand over responsibility for such matters to the military orders.79 So, along the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, a two-day journey in the heart of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, we have no fewer than three castles built to protect pilgrims from banditry and attacks, either from ‘regular’ sources such as the Fatimid army, or from local criminals. And most of this took place during what is generally assumed to be one of the more peaceful periods of the kingdom’s history. Clearly, internal security was always an issue. Having rested and carried out their devotions in Jerusalem, many pilgrims wanted to carry on to see the biblical sites to the east and to bathe in the waters of the 170

INTERLUDE Jordan near Jericho before returning to Europe. Again, providing security for this relatively short journey needed to be highly intensive.80 The first castle pilgrims came to on that road was the hilltop Templar castle and road station of Cisterna Rubea (‘Red Cistern’), approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Jericho. As an indication of how dangerous this road had been across the centuries, the castle was built on the same site as a late Roman fortification which had fulfilled much the same purpose. It was a rectangular castle, with a central tower, together with a chapel and other less spiritual facilities to provide food and rest for pilgrims. It was large enough to be permanently garrisoned, and was probably the main Templar base for supervising security on the Jerusalem–Jericho road.81 Less than 7 kilometres further on down the road was yet another Templar fortification, the tower at Bait Jubr at-Tahtani. Any permanent garrison there was very small, with theoretical stabling for a maximum of only five horses. It was probably used more as a watchtower and temporary refuge point than as anything more substantive, providing some protection until reinforcements could come from other locations.82 Another Templar fortification by the Gardens of Abraham, just to the north-west of Jericho, was a frequent devotional objective for pilgrims. This was the cave castle of Mount Quarantene, established by the Templars before 1169–72 and described by one enthusiastic pilgrim as being ‘full of stores and arms for the Templars, and they could not have a stronger defence more hostile to the pagans’. Even at the foot of the mountains in the shadow of the cave castle, however, permanent armed protection had to be provided while pilgrims slept in a compound below, as we are told that on ‘three sides of this garden there is protection against pagan attacks, and on the fourth side it is kept safe by sentries from the Hospitallers and the Templars’.83 There was yet another Templar castle down at the River Jordan itself, near the Greek Church of John the Baptist. The Hospitallers were also present in force on the road but we do not know where their castles and watchtowers were. And as if that were not enough, all the major churches and monasteries in the area were fortified too – not built to withstand an army or a full siege but able to deter a roving gang or provide refuge until help could arrive. The Church of the Ascension, for instance, on the Mount of Olives, was described as being ‘well defended . . . by towers, great and small, by walls and bulwarks, and by sentries at night’. The scale of the internal security problem, and the scale of the response required to keep it contained, were immense.84 171

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY If the first two thrusts of the Frankish approach to internal security (containment and militarised policing) were basically defensive, the third, the ‘extended settlement’ phase, was far more proactive. Like the colonial rural settlement programme as a whole, its ultimate failure has made it easy to overlook. The objective was to push central authority out into the frontier regions, intensify the settlement of areas left deserted by the presence of nomads and thereby gradually improve the economic and social base of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The programme found its natural point of origin in the massive castle-building programmes of the late 1160s onwards.85 As we shall see, there was increasing pressure on the borders of the crusader states from that time and this led to the building, or extensive upgrading, of a range of massive new fortifications. These castles were primarily built to defend against the increased external threats from Nur al-Din and Saladin, but they also had an additional function, operating as regional centres for Frankish authority, and as forward bases to promote economic stability and future colonisation. These larger frontier castles, together with the network of smaller castles and fortifications in the interior, were designed to increase the control that could be exerted over nomadic groups: deterring them from violence, trying to make them more accountable for their actions. In return they offered protection from retaliation by local farmers and landlords and gave them access to grazing lands for their herds. If the Kingdom of Jerusalem had survived longer, and if these frontier ‘pacification’ activities had proved successful, the next step would undoubtedly have been to increase the density of farming and colonisation in the affected areas. The military orders were the natural partners for the kings of Jerusalem to turn to in implementing this programme. They had the money to build and maintain this new generation of state-of-the-art castles, but they also had an extensive track record of combining settlement and colonisation activity with the tightening up of internal security. The Hospitallers naturally played a key part and fortified Belvoir, on the eastern frontier in Galilee. They had acquired the entire region in 1168 and built the castle there very quickly thereafter. It appears that they were creating a frontier march, much as they had done earlier in the County of Tripoli. The castle overlooked two fords across the River Jordan, south of Tiberias, as well as the road from Tiberias to Baisan, and was a powerful instrument of Frankish power. Most visibly, the massive 172

INTERLUDE new castle was an intimidating expression of military might aimed at deterring external threats: it was the twelfth-century equivalent of parking an aircraft carrier on the edge of enemy waters. But it also allowed the Hospitallers to impose a higher level of internal security in the area. With the benefit of hindsight, and because we know most of the hinterlands of the Frankish states were lost after 1187, we tend to see this period as one of desperation and defensiveness. On the ground, and at the time, however, none of this was clear, and none of it seemed inevitable. A by-product of the enhanced military facilities in the region was also going to be a greater level of control over the local nomads, and a gradual expansion of rural colonisation and settlement.86 Significantly, it is at this time, from the 1160s onwards, that we see the ‘rights’ over Bedouin tribes on the borders being transferred to the military orders which were building castles in these same areas. King Baldwin III gave the Hospitallers possession of 50 Bedouin ‘tents’ (i.e. extended family groups) in November 1160, for instance, and in 1179 the lord of Nablus sold them the rights to a Bedouin tribe of 105 ‘tents’. In 1180 King Baldwin IV also gave the Hospitallers the right to exert control (such as they could) over 100 Bedouin households on the territory beyond their castle at Belvoir (i.e. not even within the Latin Kingdom itself ). The clear implication is not only that the Hospitallers received economic rights over these Bedouin groups, but that they were also responsible for policing them.87 The Templars too were upgrading their military facilities on the eastern frontiers. Alongside their other roles, they inevitably began extending the scope of internal security activities, with the hope of eventually being able to increase rural settlement in the region. The massive state-of-the-art castle of Jacob’s Ford (Le Chastellet), for instance, was built at a strategic position on the River Jordan, to protect the local areas and to threaten the territory of Damascus. The initial phases of construction took place between October 1178 and April 1179, and it was given to the Templars when it was (wrongly) thought to be in a defensible, albeit incomplete, condition. It was destroyed by Saladin in August 1179, but Templar interests remained extensive.88 They had built the concentric castles of La Fève in the Jezebel Valley and Safad in eastern Galilee, where there was always a significant threat from the armies of Aleppo and Damascus. In its earliest form Safad was a tower left over from the Muslim period, and it was still being referred to in 1103 as the ‘Turon Saphet’ (i.e. the 173

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Tower of Safad). A Frankish town was established there during the twelfth century and as the settlement and fortifications grew it came to be known as ‘Castro Saphet’ (i.e. as a castle). In 1168 King Amalric bought the castle and gave it to the Templars to garrison.89 Though few of the Templar records survive, we know that, like the Hospitallers, they too were given rights and responsibilities over Bedouin groups.90 The increasing resources of the military orders meant that they played the leading role in the military build-up on the eastern frontiers in the 1170s and 1180s. But the more cash-rich and aggressive of the secular lords also had their part to play. On the north-eastern frontiers of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, for instance, just opposite the military flashpoint of Banyas, and on one of the main Bedouin migratory routes in the region, the castle of Hunin (or Chastel Neuf ) was rebuilt and upgraded by Humphrey II of Toron in 1178.91 Reynald of Châtillon, the restless and aggressive lord of the Transjordan, also had a major part to play in the pacification of the frontiers. By 1142 Kerak was already the main Frankish fortress in the region. The barbican of the castle seems to have been given to the Hospitallers in 1152, so they clearly had a military and policing role there from a relatively early stage in its development. The population was mainly native Christian and Frankish, possibly with some additional Armenian settlers. It was well sited to control nomadic traffic along the major land routes between Egypt and Syria.92 Montréal, one of Reynald’s other castles, was in a similarly good strategic position and had strong connections with local nomads. Originally built by King Baldwin I in 1115 to help extend Frankish control beyond the Dead Sea, it was also deliberately sited to help exploit the movement of caravans between Syria, the Red Sea and Egypt. The local garrison worked with the Bedouin on their raids into enemy territory and in intercepting Muslim traffic, but, given that the local settlements were mainly Christian, they would have worked hard to maintain law and order too. Montréal fell to the Muslims in 1189, but a pilgrim in 1217 found a largely Christian population still there, including, poignantly, an elderly French widow, and the presence of Bedouin was attested to as he found guides there to take him to Mount Sinai. These castles and their Christian settlements had always been located, at least in part, to try to exercise some level of control over the local nomads.93 The extension of the settlement programme on the frontiers was still in its infancy when Saladin’s armies rolled over the Frankish hinterland in the late 1180s, 174

INTERLUDE so it was only half-formed and easy to overlook. But without that accident of history, it would have been an important part of the sedentary counteroffensive to reclaim the region. The Strategy That Never Was Internal security within the crusader states was always a concern and this was reflected in the level of resource that had to be devoted to it. But it was not because Frankish rule was particularly repressive, or because large elements of the local community were perennially on the verge of revolt. On the contrary, the Muslim population were surprisingly acquiescent. The region was a disaster area long before the Franks arrived. The local peasants might have preferred a stable Islamic government, but the word ‘stable’ was far more important than ‘Islamic’ in this context. These were violent times. Banditry was endemic. Large parts of Palestine and Syria were a destabilised and economically ravaged battleground long before 1099. Nomads, whether Bedouin or Turkic, were unpredictable and opportunistic. And there were always other, more organised, armed groups to worry about: the Fatimid garrison of Ascalon for instance, or bands of raiders from neighbouring Muslim states. The Franks were exploitative, as is normal in these relationships. But necessity made them tolerant in terms of religious expression, fair in assigning the burden of taxation and surprisingly even-handed in the administration of justice. Internal security was a major problem, but it was a problem which stemmed from longstanding issues, driven by criminals, nomads and foreign soldiers, rather than by an oppressed Muslim peasantry.

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1 The success of the coastal strategy was a precondition for survival. The crusaders’ links back to Europe were precarious but essential – reinforcements and money were always desperately needed. Unless the Fatimid coastal cities could be captured, the recovery of the Christian Middle East would be stillborn.

2 The role of the Frankish footsoldiers and Italian sailors in the success of the coastal strategy has long been downplayed. Chroniclers focused on the elite military celebrities of the day. But on the ground, particularly in coastal sieges, combat engineers and carpenters were more valuable than knights. Heavy infantry mail shirts (hauberks) – together with the leather and padded tunics that went with them – were unglamorous but helped lay the foundations of the crusader states.

3 The Genoese marines who led the assault on the Fatimid garrison of Caesarea on the morning of 17 May 1101 were glad to have such armour with them. There were unforeseen consequences, however. Under the weight of so many men – and so many hauberks – one of their scaling ladders collapsed, leaving their commander, the endearingly named ‘Hammerhead’ Embriaco, trapped and alone on top of the walls.

4 & 5 The sieges of Arsuf were characterised by levels of animosity that were unusual, even by the low standards of the day. The killing and torture of hostages and prisoners was designed to antagonise the enemy – and succeeded all too well in doing so. Ironically, however, the intensity of bad feeling meant that the end, when it came, happened relatively peacefully. The defenders knew that they needed to surrender early on, while they still had some leverage in discussions. Faced with the increasing likelihood of the walls being breached, everyone realised that a full-scale massacre was the only other outcome.

6 The knightly class thought they dominated all forms of warfare. They were the social elite. They controlled the political landscape of the crusader states. And their ferocious charges, if correctly timed, could win a battle in minutes. They even controlled how warfare was represented: looking at images such as this, one could be forgiven for not appreciating that knights would perhaps be just one in ten, or fewer, of the soldiers in most crusader armies.

7 It was an inescapable truth, however, that the demands of the hinterland strategy – essential if the Franks were to create any viable defence in depth – were far different. Bravery and a good warhorse would never be enough. Here we see that the lowerclass infantry are reduced to a joke. Even in siege warfare they are shown here as being literally at the margins of warfare. Although this illumination represents a siege, the action is all about mounted sortie (which was extraordinarily rare) and the ensuing elite cavalry melée – no less than eighteen of the twenty figures shown are knights. This was a calculated fantasy, an artwork aimed at gratifying an elite audience. The awkward reality of siege warfare was far different.

8 However embarrassing it might be for the knightly class, the ordinary folk mattered. The peasants, the itinerant mercenaries and the infantry might be, literally, as we see here, the ‘little people’ – but they were vitally important for two key aspects of the hinterland strategy. In the short term, they needed to be available in large numbers in order to give any inland siege a good chance of success. And, in the longer term, if inroads were made into the hinterland, there needed to be enough settlers to set up new communities and create an effective colonial militia. The lack of manpower meant that both of these goals remained beyond the crusaders’ reach.

9 A relatively rare portrayal of western miners. The Franks certainly had mining capabilities, but often lacked the manpower (and perhaps the expertise) to see mining through to the quick conclusion that they needed for a successful siege. ‘Mining’ in the context of a medieval siege is perhaps better thought of as ‘undermining’, rather than as something more akin to the Great Escape or a bank job. The idea was to get teams of expert miners and stone workers to the base of the enemy’s walls so that the ground underneath could be hollowed out. Protecting these delicate and dangerous operations, so close to the enemy garrison, required large numbers of archers to provide covering fire.

10 In theory, the technology existed to allow the transport of siege materials, but inland, with poor roads and far into enemy territory, it was never enough; outnumbered, surrounded and usually beset with supply problems, crusader armies found the hinterland strategy hard to implement. Logistics were never a strong suit of crusading warfare.

11 The seal of King Fulk looks strangely traditional, despite his reputation as a castle-builder par excellence. He is shown on a warhorse, in the classic pose of a heavily armoured knight with lance, exuding the power and authority needed to protect his people. In fact, however, his castle-building programme was not designed to create a fixed line of defence. On the contrary, the underlying strategy was to create breathing space for Fulk and his men to ride north, with appalling frequency, to defend the northern crusader states. The seal is more realistic than it first appears.

12 Bethgibelin, built in 1134, was a crucial part of Fulk’s castle-building programme in the south of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Its Hospitaller garrison, together with help from local Arab Christians and the Frankish colonial militia, helped contain the raids of the Egyptian troops based in nearby Ascalon. The impact of these castles can be measured in an endearingly prosaic way – as the fortifications became operational, the roads became safer, and food prices in Jerusalem fell accordingly.

13 The style of this beautiful illumination says much for the multicultural nature of the crusader states. The psalter reflects the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox artistic traditions, as well as those of the Armenian and Catholic Latin populations. Unusually, the Roman soldier present at the crucifixion is depicted in a positive way, as a witness to Christ’s divinity rather than as an executioner. Perhaps even more tellingly, this sympathetic warrior is dressed, entirely naturally, as a local Arab – possibly Muslim, or perhaps a native Christian. The easy, comfortable blend of ethnicities and religious beliefs is striking. It was produced in the scriptorium of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in around 1135. The commissioning of the illumination had secular as well as religious objectives, and its timing was not coincidental; it was probably a placatory gift from King Fulk to his wife Melisende in the aftermath of a mysterious assassination attempt that took place the previous year. The target was a man who may (or may not) have been her lover. Either way, the half-Armenian queen was not amused by the episode – she made Fulk work hard for a reconciliation.

14 & 15 The strategy in Egypt was ostensibly unattractive – fighting there was beset with difficulties. Campaigning almost always involved coastal cities and naval operations. As the crusader states had no navies of their own, this posed severe problems in attracting and motivating potential allies. The desert conditions were also unsuitable for heavy cavalry, and negated much of the impact of the crusaders’ knightly charge. Above all, however, Egypt was a large and populous country: even when victorious in battle, the Franks never had the numbers to govern it. There were no better alternative strategies, however; bringing Egypt back into Christian hands was the only way to sustain the long-term defence of the Holy Land.

16 Belvoir castle: a view from the air, showing its state-of-the-art ‘death maze’. The extraordinary Hospitaller castle of Belvoir was one of the most visible manifestations of the frontier strategy. Its concentric walls and elaborately layered defences were a death trap for besiegers. As the Franks were increasingly outnumbered by Muslim field armies, this new generation of fortifications allowed relatively small garrisons to hold out even after their lands had collapsed around them – castles like Belvoir, Montréal and Kerak all survived the destruction of the crusader armies in 1187, and had to be starved into submission.

17 Kerak. The tactical strengths of the castle’s position are obvious; even if the Christian Arab villages and adjacent town were overrun, the local population could take refuge in the almost impregnable citadel. Its strategic advantages are less obvious but just as important, however. It lay on a major Muslim pilgrim route and obstructed all overland travel between Egypt and Syria, the two main parts of Saladin’s new Ayyubid empire. The castle made commercial traffic impossible, and only wary armies were able to travel past it safely. Saladin desperately needed to capture Kerak – his continuing efforts to do so throughout the 1170s and 1180s show just how clearly he prioritised the task.

18 Kerak: the wedding party from hell. In 1183 Saladin besieged Kerak yet again. This time it was different, however – his army pitched camp outside the castle on the wedding day of the young Humphrey IV of Toron. The bride was only twelve. The father-in-law was the famously irascible and erratic Reynald of Châtillon. And the castle was full of dubious characters, bussed in specially for the occasion – including, shockingly for medieval commentators, ‘actors and performers on the flute’. What could possibly go wrong?

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w THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY 1154–1169

February 1167. A young Frankish lord called Hugh of Caesarea led a group of knights through the labyrinthine passages of the caliphal palace in Cairo. They walked along darkened corridors, through elaborate rooms full of ostentatious treasures. They were escorted by the vizier, a phalanx of eunuchs and tall Ethiopian guardsmen who ‘showed their reverence . . . by repeated salutations’. Hugh was awestruck but desperate to appear nonchalant. In the face of this power and luxury, his mission was simple but brutal: to negotiate a military alliance with the Fatimid government and extort a vast sum of protection money from them in the process.1 Once in front of the caliph, the vizier ‘prostrated himself three times and ended by humbly imprinting a kiss on the foot of the seated monarch’. The caliph was persuaded that a treaty with the Franks represented the best available option, and gave his consent. In fact, everyone knew they had little choice. The presence of Frankish troops in Cairo was a huge embarrassment, and an indication of the appalling depths to which the Egyptian government had been reduced. But even his agreement was not enough. Steeling himself to make a point, Hugh demanded that the caliph should ‘confirm this statement with his own hand, as the king [of Jerusalem] had done’. Once the shock of this demand had sunk in (and it was seen as ‘a thing utterly beyond comprehension’), the caliph ‘very reluctantly extended his gloved hand’. Pushing diplomacy way beyond the bounds of what was acceptable, Hugh now refused to take the proffered handshake. ‘Unless you offer your hand ungloved,’ he said, ‘we will be obliged to think that, on your part, there is some . . . lack of sincerity.’ The Franks were making a point. We are not intimidated. And we respond by demonstrating just how firmly we are in the driving seat. 176

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY The caliph gave in to this further humiliation and, showing a dignity which his eunuchs were unable to match, even managed to do it with good grace and ‘a slight smile’. But the point had been made. Luckily for the fastidious courtiers, they were unaware of yet another horror. Hugh was unclean as well as uncouth: there was a history of leprosy in his family.2 Huge quantities of cash were given upfront to the Frankish army. Further payments were to be made every year, in order to buy a ‘perpetual peace’. And within a few weeks a Frankish garrison would be installed as the occupying power in the fabulously rich port of Alexandria. The banner of the King of Jerusalem was placed upon the famous lighthouse of Pharos in the port. The high water mark of the crusader states had been reached. Everything seemed possible.3 Crusader Egypt: Sideshow or Strategy? In his letters to the monarchs of the West, King Amalric was often embarrassingly obsequious: he needed their help, and he would say or do almost anything to get it. In setting out his thinking to Archbishop Henry of Rheims, however, he could be far more blunt, and far more candid. The Latin East, he wrote, needed action: doing nothing was not a viable option.4 Maintaining the status quo just meant a slow death. With the Muslim enemy in Syria becoming ever more consolidated, the crusader states were faced with the inevitable prospect of being destroyed piecemeal. The loss of Edessa in 1144 and the failure to take Damascus in 1148 showed that the crusaders had unequivocally failed to establish themselves inland – the Egyptian strategy was an inevitable consequence of this failure. The status quo was not acceptable: the crusader states had only a very precarious and limited future ahead of them if they were confined to a string of coastal cities. They could be picked off one by one and would never have sufficient manpower for long-term survival. Egypt was the key to solving this dilemma, and by this time it was the only potentially sustainable hinterland still available. This was not just a theoretical problem. As early as the 1120s, new lands for colonisation were fast becoming exhausted. The monks of Mountjoy tried to find suitable sites near Jerusalem but were disappointed in their searches. They were forced to take their chances with far more marginal lands near Ascalon, an area that was not fully pacified until the mid-1150s.5 Similarly, in a letter written to King Bela of 177

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Fayyum

Y

Giza

al-Mahallah

Tinnis

Damietta

Bilbais

Map 7 Egypt and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

A

Lake Mareotis

Alexandria

Rosetta

Aydhab

Great Bitter Lake

Farama

Lake Manzala

St Catherine’s Monastery

Gaza Darum al-Arish

Ascalon

Jaffa

Tyre

Aqaba

Petra

Dead Sea

Jerusalem

JUDAEA

Acre

of Aq aba

Mediterranean Sea

Nile

178 Gulf

0

A

R

Li Vaux Moise

Montréal

Kerak

Sea of Galilee Jordan

0

A

B

km

miles

I

100

A

100

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Hungary in 1170, we find the Hospitallers explicitly pointing out the critical shortage of land within the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: even for royalty, where money was no object, fiefs were just not there to be had.6 The new fiefs would be helpful under any circumstances – the crusaders were always outnumbered. But they would be particularly needed if strategists within the crusader camp envisaged a situation whereby vital inland lordships such as Banyas or the entire County of Edessa might be gradually lost to Muslim armies. By the middle of the century, it was obvious that the crusader states had run out of land, and they were rapidly running out of choices. There was a recognition on the part of the Franks that Egypt was critical if they were to have any long-term future. This belief was a central policy objective that transcended individual reigns, and clearly constituted an ‘institutional’ strategic view within what passed for the bureaucracy of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. This policy went back to the earliest days of the crusader states.7 Planning for an invasion of Egypt had started almost as soon as the crusaders had established themselves in the East. King Baldwin I launched several expeditions into the southern frontiers with Egypt, and built castles in the Transjordan with which to push the frontiers further south. By 1118 he had established good relations with local communities in the border region, many of whom were native Christians and others, such as the Bedouin, who were studiedly ambiguous in their allegiances.8 By 1150, the loss of Edessa and the failure of the Franks to punch their way out of the coastal littoral added urgency to the Egyptian issue. King Baldwin III had advanced planning in place for a push south and, after the fall of Ascalon – the last Fatimid base in Palestine – in 1153 had coerced the increasingly weak Egyptian government into paying annual tribute. He died before he could put these plans into practice, but his brother, Amalric, had been party to the development of this policy, and was able to roll it out in a clear continuation of strategic intent.9 In the 1160s, the Franks launched a series of campaigns in Egypt. Diplomatic efforts were employed (very successfully) to assist with the Egyptian strategy. Help was eventually provided on various occasions by the Sicilian Normans, the Byzantine empire, the military orders and crusading contingents from the West. Frankish policy was also helped by the religious and ethnic difficulties which the Shi’ite Fatimid state in Egypt faced in forging long-term agreements with the Sunni Turkic-run states of Syria. There was little sign of a Muslim coalition in the 1150s. 179

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The Egyptians, for instance, regularly referred to Nur al-Din’s troops pejoratively as ‘Ghuzz’. The traditional explanation for the Frankish invasions of Egypt during the 1160s is that Egyptian weakness was an opportunity for the Franks to expand their power further down the coast, to build up their revenues and lands, and simultaneously improve links with Europe by gaining access to Egyptian ports. These were, so the theory would run, offensive campaigns to increase the crusaders’ dominions and recover the old Christian lands in Egypt, which had been lost to the Muslim invaders in the seventh century. All of which is undoubtedly true. But it is also true that there was a pre-emptive and defensive aspect to the Egyptian campaigns which is rarely commented on. By the middle of the twelfth century one did not need to be a military genius to see that the coalescing resources of the Syrian Muslim states made them increasingly threatening. Above all, this was reflected in their ability to besiege and capture the inland crusader fortifications with ever greater ease. Nur al-Din and his generals were chipping away at crusader territories beyond the Mediterranean littoral. Money and geography gave them increasing access to large numbers of high-quality warriors coming in off the steppes, which allowed them to ravage the Christian frontiers with appalling ease. In this context, seizing Egypt can also be seen as a profoundly defensive move on the part of the Franks. Muslim Syria was already a deeply dangerous opponent. It was essential to deprive it of Egypt’s financial resources and the geopolitical advantages that would come from surrounding the crusader states. Win or lose, there were significant risks for the crusaders. The benefits of the Egyptian strategy, if it succeeded, were very clear for the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the short term, it could generate large sums of money in the form of the tribute. If things went well, the economic benefits of Egyptian trade and the fertile Nile Delta could be channelled almost indefinitely into financing the defence of the Holy Land. Over the medium term, fiefs could be allocated to secular knights and the military orders to support them and their men. And, over the longer term, the prospects lay open for increased colonisation from Europe in an attempt to reverse the unremitting demographic disaster that the continual entrance of nomadic tribes into the region represented. Even for the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, however, for which the upside of success was clear and immediate, the strategy was painful, as campaigning in the 180

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY south left much of Palestine and the newly established Frankish colonies poorly defended for long periods of time. The upside for the northern crusader states was far more ambiguous. Although they would share in the benefits of a stronger and richer Latin East, those benefits would be disproportionately funnelled towards the interests of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. And for states which often had to rely upon the intervention of Frankish field armies from the south, the short-term impact of their absence would be considerable. The County of Tripoli was already reeling under the weight of assaults from its many Muslim neighbours in the 1140s and 1150s. Large swathes of its eastern frontiers had been given to the military orders, the only institutions capable of financing and defending them. The absence of much of the Hospitaller contingent and King Amalric’s field army during the 1160s placed the county in considerable jeopardy.10 The Principality of Antioch similarly cannot have looked on the Egyptian campaigns with unadulterated enthusiasm. The destruction of the county of Edessa had left them dangerously exposed, and the growing size and strength of Nur al-Din’s armies was an increasing concern. The northern Franks were fighting a losing rearguard action to stop their eastern frontiers collapsing, and they had been forced back to a string of positions along the Orontes River. Like the Tripolitans, they needed all the help they could get.11 The Egyptian strategy was the correct one, almost inescapably so. But it exposed the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem to great danger and imposed high-levels of risk upon its Christian neighbours, regardless of how enthusiastic, or otherwise, they might feel about it. Just how much risk was involved would only become apparent later. Ascalon 1153 Ascalon was the key. The capture of Tyre in 1124 was the apogee of crusader siegecraft. There was only one remaining coastal city in Muslim hands. But Ascalon proved remarkably obdurate. This was partly because of its superb fortifications. The Franks clearly held it in some awe, and described it in glowing terms, almost admiringly. The city, wrote William of Tyre, ‘is surrounded on all sides by artificial mounds, upon which rise the 181

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY walls with towers at frequent intervals . . . The walls are wide, of a good thickness and proportionate height. The city is furthermore encircled by outworks built with the same solidity and most carefully fortified.’12 Interestingly, Ascalon seems to have had some of the characteristics of the later crusader castles, and the respect in which it was held may have been at least a partial inspiration for the philosophy behind the classic ‘concentric’ crusader castles. Defence in depth was built into most aspects of the town’s fortifications, with layered obstacles and embankments surrounding substantial walls and a large number of towers (there seem to have been at least 14 of these on the walls by the end of the twelfth century). The most elaborate defences were reserved for the ‘Greater Gate’, on the eastern side of the city, also known as the ‘Jerusalem Gate’.13 Elaborate defences are impressive, of course, but they are essentially in place to mask the area of greatest weakness. So it was with Ascalon and the Greater Gate. But it was not just the size of the fortifications that was intimidating. Everything about Ascalon was done on a grand scale. The garrison was professional and changed at regular intervals to keep them fresh. It had a substantial population by medieval standards and a large, well-paid militia. It also had the support of the Egyptian navy. Between them, in theory at least, they were more than a match for anything the crusaders could bring to bear. Even when the full army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was mustered against it, ‘the number of defenders was double that of the besieging host’.14 In the absence of serious attempts to take such a formidable city, the Franks resorted to raiding and skirmishes to keep the garrison off-balance. One such raid took place in December 1152. Although this started as part of the normal low-level intimidation that characterised relations between Ascalon and their Christian neighbours, it quickly became clear that something was not right. When the Frankish forces appeared before the city ‘a panic seized on the townspeople. In great haste they retreated within the city, and not a man dared venture outside the walls to meet our soldiers. Taking advantage, therefore, of the enemy’s terrified condition, the Christians . . . decided to besiege the city.’15 It is not clear exactly what this meant in practice, or how this ‘panic’ manifested itself. The Fatimid administration had certainly been uninspiring at best for many years prior to the siege. Egypt had been without an adult caliph since 1149, and this had been accompanied by an inevitable increase in the already high level of intrigue at court. The atmosphere of political and military uncertainty was increasingly unhelpful.16 182

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY There were also tensions between different factions of the military. These went way beyond normal inter-service rivalry. Ibn al-Athir describes scenes of near civil war within the city, which seriously undermined its defences. At one point, he wrote, the Franks ‘received news that a dispute had broken out between the inhabitants and that there had been people killed’. This gave the Christians encouragement to continue the siege and ‘they stayed where they were’.17 Coordination within the Egyptian military was famously poor, particularly between the infantry of the Black regiments and the Armenian or Arab cavalry units. Social and racial tensions were always simmering beneath the surface.18 Whatever the exact nature of the internal problems, it was obvious that things were not as they should be within the city. This was too good an opportunity to be missed. By the end of January 1153, the royal army was mustered and what had begun as just another punitive raid was converted into a full-blown siege.19 Even with Ascalon in disarray, however, the siege was ineffectual, little more than a nuisance. The resources available to the Franks were pitiful: a small army, no real navy, just a few pirate ships and commandeered merchantmen. It was only towards the end of April that the situation changed and two events took place which transformed a fairly desultory siege into a far more serious prospect. First, a large number of pilgrims and ships took the spring crossing from Europe, and began to arrive in time to celebrate Easter in Jerusalem. Around Easter Sunday, on 19 April 1153, it was decided to conscript these pilgrims. The king despatched messengers from the army forbidding all sailors and pilgrims . . . from returning home. All, with promise of pay, were invited to take part in the siege . . . All vessels also, whether great or small, were ordered to sail to Ascalon. Within a few days, therefore, all the ships that had come in that crossing arrived before the city, helped by a favourable wind, and great forces of pilgrims, both knights and foot soldiers, joined our ranks.20

This was a major morale boost for the crusader army and, for the first time, gave the siege a serious chance of success. At almost the same time, events were taking place in Egypt which made consistent intervention on Ascalon’s behalf by the Fatimid government even more unlikely. Vizier Ibn al-Salar, the man responsible for controlling Egypt’s war efforts, was 183

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY murdered on almost exactly the same day that King Baldwin conscripted the Western pilgrims. News of his death reached Damascus on 23 April. It was clear to all that central authority was breaking down in Egypt, at least temporarily. As one Muslim chronicler wrote, ‘aims and purposes were all at odds in Egypt . . . [and] before there was any settled authority the Franks took advantage of the neglect of Ascalon’.21 Ibn al-Salar had organised a naval expedition to go to Ascalon’s aid and this was already gathered in port, ready to set off. Beyond that, however, there is no evidence that the Fatimid government did anything. The leadership was too preoccupied and disorganised to do more. Apart from this one attempt at naval resupply, there would be no more help coming from Egypt: no relief force from the field army travelling overland; no further intervention from the Egyptian navy, even though they knew that the Franks’ ad hoc naval squadron was no match for them. Nothing.22 Despite all this, the Franks’ increasingly serious attempts to take Ascalon almost met with complete failure. The Egyptian military were never noted for their speedy response times, and this was no exception. But, given the slow pace at which the crusaders were ratcheting up the siege, even the Fatimid navy eventually felt ready to intervene. The fleet arrived in early June, over five months after the siege had started and just when the crusaders felt they were gaining the upper hand. The delay in assembling the fleet and getting it fully stocked was reflected in its size and impressiveness, however. The Fatimid fleet consisted of some 70 galleys and, just as importantly for the people of Ascalon, these warships escorted several extra-large supply ships, heavily laden with men and matériel.23 Although the help that the navy could bring was useful in allowing the defenders to prolong the siege, they could not force the besiegers to leave: only a field army could do that. The primitive nature of the port at Ascalon also ensured that the Egyptian fleet could not stay there indefinitely. It resupplied the city, shored up its defences as best it could, and then left. On 19 August the crusader army regrouped and launched a series of fierce assaults around Ascalon, once again applying particular pressure around the Greater Gate. As the Frankish forces pressed home their attacks ‘great slaughter was inflicted on the enemy’.24 Casualties amongst the garrison and militia of Ascalon were high and, as the defenders’ leaders took up positions at the front to encourage their men, they suffered a greater proportion of casualties. The ‘flower of their kingdom was destroyed, and the rulers of the city killed’.25 184

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY The Franks held their nerve and it was the increasingly demoralised citizens of Ascalon who blinked first. The Fatimid navy had reprovisioned the city in June, but never returned. The Egyptian army failed to appear at any point and, as far as we know, had not even sent out skirmishers or irregular troops to harass the crusaders’ supply lines. With the city walls weakened and the Franks showing no signs of giving up, the garrison must have felt that they were running out of options. The end came surprisingly quickly. Negotiations for surrender began soon after the renewed assaults of 19 August, and the Franks entered the city on 22 August 1153. A small number of Frankish knights followed the Fatimid negotiators back into the city, in what must have been a nerve-wracking moment of transition, surrounded by Egyptian regular troops. But things passed off peacefully. The king’s banner was raised over the city as a sign of victory. When the Frankish army ‘who were waiting eagerly, saw the royal standards flying from the highest towers, a great shout burst from the exultant company’.26 The agreement included a three-day truce, during which time the inhabitants could gather their possessions together, and then set off under escort for Egypt with guarantees of safety. Baldwin agreed that the Frankish army would be locked out of the city during this time, in order to prevent the almost inevitable breakdown of discipline. In the event, the deal held. The citizens of Ascalon left ahead of schedule, ready to move out by the second day. They were understandably anxious to be on their way as soon as possible. The king ensured that royal troops acted as guides for them on the way back to Egypt, protecting them from opportunistic Bedouin attacks. The Franks accompanied the refugees to al-Arish, in Egyptian territory, and turned back. The Fatimid government had not provided any protection for them thereafter, however, and the regular army was nowhere to be seen. As soon as their Christian guards had left, the Turkic mercenaries who had made up part of the garrison of Ascalon, perhaps the same troops that Usama recruited for the city in the latter months of 1150, turned on the citizens they were employed to protect.27 In a vicious incident that even shocked their crusader enemies (who described it as a ‘deplorable calamity’), elements of the Fatimid army attacked their own citizens. They robbed them of their valuables, and left the survivors to wander the desert at the slender mercy of the local Bedouin tribes.28 185

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The Race for Egypt It was not just the Bedouin and Turks who smelt blood. With Egypt newly vulnerable to attack and with little wriggle room left in Syria, the crusaders’ decision to invade was inevitable. The only issue was when. An aggressive southern front was opened up almost immediately: the remnants of the Fatimid empire were to be given no chance to regroup. Soon after the fall of Ascalon, a Sicilian Norman fleet destroyed the important trading port of Tinnis, on the Nile Delta.29 And while Christian fleets dominated the eastern Mediterranean, Frankish troops were increasingly contesting the border zones. No one, even at the highest levels, was safe. In 1154 al-Abbas, the Vizier of Egypt, was forced to leave the country, setting off towards Syria to avoid civil unrest. Pausing only to empty the treasury and fill his saddlebags in the traditional way, he and his small army set off across the desert to seek refuge with Nur al-Din. They were soon intercepted by Frankish cavalry, however. The former vizier was killed in the ensuing fight, and his son and all his valuables were captured.30 The Fatimids had lost control of their frontiers. Invasion of 1163 Inevitably, King Baldwin invaded. In 1161 he led his men across the border with Egypt, down towards al-Arish and beyond. It is not clear whether this was a serious attempt at conquest, or merely a reconnaissance in force to test the capabilities of the Fatimid army. Perhaps it was an attempt to extort money to finance a more serious attempt at a later date. Certainly, the Fatimid government started paying protection money to the Franks from this time onwards, and was rapidly approaching ‘vassal state’ status. The payments only stopped in 1163 when Baldwin III died of dysentery, aged just 33.31 But his plans for Egypt lived on. His brother Amalric succeeded him on the throne and pursued the Egyptian strategy with just as much enthusiasm. In September 1163, within a few months of his accession, he launched the first of five invasions of Egypt.32 Amalric ‘assembled a strong force of knights and a large army and . . . descended upon Egypt with a great host’. Dirgham, the Egyptian vizier, was (entirely correctly) keen to engage the invaders in the desert, as the sandy conditions would slow any Frankish cavalry charge. He threw his troops as far forward as possible. They intercepted the crusader army on the eastern approaches to the Nile Delta.33 186

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY The Fatimid force was well equipped and looked great on paper. As always, however, they performed far less well on the battlefield than they did at palace duties. The Franks had made a policy of cultivating good relations with the local Bedouin and they recruited them as guides and as auxiliary cavalry. Despite having a ‘countless multitude’, the Egyptians were routed and the vizier ‘lost the greater part of his men either by capture or death’. He was forced to retreat to Bilbais with the remnants of his forces. Frankish troops advanced to within 55 kilometres of Cairo, and were stopped only when the desperate Fatimid government deliberately flooded the Nile to hinder their advance. As Amalric wrote to King Louis VII of France shortly afterwards, the only barrier to success was a lack of numbers. With assistance from Western troops, he suggested in his usual, slightly wheedling manner, ‘Egypt could easily be marked by the sign of the Holy Cross’.34 Invasion of 1164 The logic of the Egyptian strategy was compelling for the Franks. Ominously, however, its merits were equally clear to Nur al-Din and his growing Syrian empire. Turkic troops, commanded by his Kurdish general Shirkuh (whose nephew was a young man named Saladin), were sent to muscle their way into the fight for control.35 Neither of the two main protagonists in the contest that followed were physically appealing. Amalric was vividly described as being so fat that he had ‘breasts like those of a woman hanging down to his waist’. When he laughed (which was not often), his ‘entire body’ shook – literally. Shirkuh was ‘small of stature’ but also hugely fat. Just for good measure, he had the added misfortune of being ‘afflicted with a cataract in one eye’.36 Despite their physical challenges, both were tough and determined characters. The Muslims had respect for the tenacity and intelligence of Amalric, describing him as one ‘whose like for bravery and subtle cunning the Franks had not had since they appeared in Syria’.37 The Franks, in their turn, had a grudging admiration for the Kurdish general, as ‘an able and energetic warrior, eager for glory and with wide experience in military matters . . . a man of great endurance under hardships’.38 The fate of the Latin East was decided between these two superficially unappealing but deeply impressive individuals. Egypt was militarily weak and lurching from one civil war to another. The contenders for power in the Fatimid government were forced into the extraordinarily 187

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY delicate position of playing each of their main neighbouring states off against the other. Matters deteriorated so quickly that one foreign army was called in after another, each supporting a different clique and each (in theory at least) acting as a counterweight to other foreign entrants. In such a fragile political and military environment, there could only be one winner. And it looked increasingly unlikely that the winner would be an Egyptian. Shirkuh and his army had been invited into Egypt to help one of the factions in the bloody disputes that paralysed the Fatimid regime. Once firmly established, however, they showed an entirely predictable disinclination to leave. Shirkuh seized Bilbais, on the east of the Nile Delta, and ‘began to claim the city as his own’. The Egyptian military were incapable of ejecting the unwelcome guests. In an extraordinary volte face, their erstwhile Fatimid employer was forced to call for Frankish help.39 Amalric was offered huge sums of money as an inducement to come back and encourage Shirkuh to leave.40 Accordingly, in July 1164 he ‘marched forth at the head of his entire army and went down to Egypt a second time’. The Frankish troops and their new Egyptian allies put the citadel of Bilbais under siege and were eventually able to starve the Turks out. The situation for the Franks was less than ideal, however. Shirkuh had surrendered Bilbais only on condition that he and his army were able to withdraw, unhindered, to Damascus. The redoubtable Shirkuh lived to fight another day. And, even more galling, Amalric did not have any time to exploit his new success. As an almost inevitable consequence of the crusaders’ lack of manpower, Turkic troops in northern Syria and the Golan were wreaking havoc in the absence of the main Frankish field army. The Franks were forced to return home. By October Amalric and his men were back in Jerusalem. He had led an ostensibly victorious army into Egypt, but in reality they had achieved little.41 Invasion of 1167 At the beginning of January 1167, word reached Cairo and Jerusalem that Shirkuh was preparing to invade Egypt yet again, leading a Turkic army across the Sinai desert.42 The scale of the threat was reflected in the risks that Amalric was prepared to take. Without waiting for the full muster, and refusing to be slowed down by any infantry, he gathered as many mounted troops as he could find on the frontier – 188

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY knights, Turcopoles and Bedouin – and rushed off to intercept. He pushed into the desert at a brutal pace, with tired and dehydrated horses, hoping to catch the enemy while they were on the march. He quickly reached the oasis known to the Franks as ‘Kades-Barnea’, but it was already too late. Shirkuh and his men had slipped past. Amalric was forced to retreat to Ascalon to gather the full army around him.43 The Fatimids submitted to the humiliation of having crusader knights in Cairo to negotiate a ‘treaty of perpetual peace’, and paying them handsomely for the privilege of agreeing to do so.44 With the funding in place, further Frankish reinforcements flowed in, including contingents led by Humphrey of Toron, the Royal Constable, and Philip of Nablus. Amalric could go on the offensive. A detachment of troops led by the Frankish Lord Milo of Plancy and the son of the vizier overran an island which Shirkuh had garrisoned in an attempt to protect his flanks, and captured many of his troops.45 Things were not looking good for the Kurdish general. Faced with the combined armies of Egypt and Jerusalem and the prospect of being surrounded, Shirkuh was forced to retreat. Resourceful as ever, he did the best he could under the circumstances. He withdrew upriver, forcing Amalric and his Egyptian allies to leave their infantry behind, taking them ever further from their protection, and ever deeper into areas of desert where the Frankish knights would find it difficult to launch one of their ‘famous charges’.46 Shirkuh eventually turned to face his pursuers. But it was on ground of his own choosing, and he had chosen well. Battle was joined at ‘a place called Babayn’, on 18 March 1167. The Franks had 374 knights with them (a substantial force by their standards), but were accompanied by larger numbers of Turcopoles and Egyptians. Both of the latter were described as being ‘for the most part, useless’ or, showing the effortless blend of racism and homophobia in which medieval commentators were so accomplished, ‘worthless and effeminate’.47 Regardless of prejudice, however, the performance of the Egyptian contingent was poor, in the best traditions of the Fatimid military. They were barely mentioned by either side, despite probably forming the majority of the allied army, and even Muslim accounts speak of the encounter as a battle between Turks and Franks. Whatever the exact numbers, and despite the views they held of their allies, the Franks also thought that they were severely outnumbered, both by Shirkuh’s Turks and by a large Bedouin contingent.48 189

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The ensuing battle was confused and disjointed. Swirling masses of cavalry, manoeuvring in a desert, inevitably conjured up vast, enveloping dust clouds. Geography hindered visibility still further, as the ground was ‘uneven, broken by sand dunes and depressions, so that those coming or going could not be seen from a distance’. Crucially, the nature of the battlefield, carefully chosen by Shirkuh so that it was ‘on the borderland between the fertile country and the desert’, made it unsuitable for the crusader knights to launch a battle-winning charge.49 Accounts of the fighting are as partial and as contradictory as one would expect under those circumstances, reflecting the poor visibility and appalling conditions. The outcome is often described as ‘indecisive’, but that is to flatter the FrancoEgyptian army considerably. The Turkic army was deployed in the traditional three divisions. A central division, on flat ground and with the baggage train behind it, was led by Shirkuh. The two wings had been positioned ‘with energetic foresight’ on small hills on the flanks, with Saladin and his men on the right and a Kurdish force on the left. Hugh of Caesarea later led the attack on the hill occupied by Saladin’s men and complained to William of Tyre that the ‘rising ground and the soft sand made it difficult for our men to charge this position’.50 The Franco-Egyptian army mirrored this deployment and advanced towards the Turkic enemy that they had pursued so tenaciously for the past few weeks. King Amalric personally led the central division into combat against Shirkuh and his men. Hollywood, or a day at the races, creates the image of a cavalry charge as an unstoppable rush, an elemental torrent of horseflesh breaking upon the enemy ranks at appalling speed. But this was different: dehydrated horses, desert sand everywhere, heavily armoured riders. And, of course, Amalric’s huge weight. Everything was calculated to slow down their advance and dissipate the energy of their impact, just as Shirkuh had planned. The charge was probably delivered at little more than a trot.51 In the centre, on the relatively flat ground between the hills, even this was enough, however. Amalric and his men routed their opponents and set off in pursuit, hoping to inflict as many casualties as possible and prevent any chance of a rally. It was a different story on the flanks. Moving uphill on sand dunes, the Frankish and Egyptian cavalry were struggling to get above a walking pace. Turkic countercharges reduced both wings of the battle to a churning chaos in which the Christian knights were at a significant disadvantage. Disordered and scattered, the Franks fled 190

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY in small groups. Saladin’s troops followed close behind, killing and capturing the disorientated cavalry and pillaging their baggage train.52 This was a catastrophe for King Amalric. He was separated from most of his men and his surviving knights had no infantry to rally behind. There was no supply train to help rebuild his shattered forces. And the remnants of both his flanking divisions were thrown across a confusing plain of dust and death. The chase for Shirkuh had ended in an almost complete disaster. The redoubtable Amalric was eventually able to recoup the situation. Shirkuh and his nephew led their men north to Alexandria, where they were trapped and besieged by the Franks and a Pisan squadron of 10 galleys. Shirkuh escaped but Saladin, who had been left in command, was forced to surrender the city in return for safe conduct for himself and his men. Frankish troops entered Alexandria in triumph and installed a garrison there, with the agreement of a compliant Fatimid government. Huge tribute payments were collected and the main body of the royal army returned home, reaching Ascalon on 21 August 1167. Frankish success in Egypt was at its height.53 Invasion of 1168 The following year, Amalric and his men were back again. Negotiations had opened up between the Fatimid government and Nur al-Din, as the Egyptians sought to play their powerful neighbours off against one another.54 In October 1168 Amalric launched a pre-emptive strike. As an expression of long-term strategic focus, this could hardly be clearer – this was his fourth invasion of Egypt in five years. If a lack of manpower had been a limiting factor in previous campaigns, every effort was made to rectify that situation now. Local resources were stretched to the limit. The Templars refused to take part, mainly because of their huge military commitments in the north.55 But the Hospitallers stepped up with enthusiasm, agreeing to raise a significant army in their own right, consisting of 500 knights and 500 Turcopoles and, given the normal proportions of Frankish armed forces, a much larger number of squires, grooms and infantry. In return, they were to be given vast swathes of land around Bilbais, together with holdings in 10 other Egyptian cities. Significantly, these estates stretched up to the coast, allowing the order to develop harbours and naval facilities, and their own 191

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY transport links back to Europe – this had huge implications for commercial gain and political independence. Amalric was building an Egyptian empire, the only way left to safeguard the Holy Land. And the Hospitallers were building a principality within it. The stakes were high and everyone was betting accordingly. Like the king, the Hospitallers were prepared to almost bankrupt themselves to make the big push.56 The Egyptian military were incapable of meeting the Franks in the field. Amalric and his army marched unopposed down to Bilbais and captured it on 3 November, after a siege of only three days. Cairo lay open and ready for the taking. Everything was set for a resounding victory. It was not to be. The situation unravelled with appalling speed. Given that Bilbais was the natural base from which to attack Cairo, and as it was to be the centre of the new Hospitaller state within a state, the plan must have been to capture it intact. The Frankish commanders completely lost control of their victorious army, however. A few high-ranking prisoners were taken, including the vizier’s son and one of his nephews. But the troops went on a violent and destructive rampage, the civilian population were slaughtered and the town was largely destroyed in the fire and pillaging that followed.57 The usually energetic Amalric was strangely lethargic and indecisive for the rest of the campaign. William of Tyre, who knew the king well, described him as someone who was morose, normally silent ‘unless he had no choice or unless perhaps being annoyed by being spoken to first’. He ‘lacked a genial temperament and was far too taciturn’. This, combined with his predilection for other men’s wives, always made the king a less than ideal dinner party guest. More importantly for an army deep in enemy territory, however, it seems that he entered into a depressive state after the fiasco at Bilbais, which severely impaired his decision making.58 The other main Frankish commander, Gilbert of Assailly, the elderly Master of the Hospitallers, was little help. He too was prone to fits of depression. Contemporaries described him as being ‘extremely generous’ and animated when he was up (‘a man of high spirit’), but ‘unstable and vacillating’ when he was down. He was possibly bipolar, later bankrupting the entire order and resigning in the middle of a particularly deep depressive bout to become a hermit. Watching the capital of his new ‘principality’ destroyed, his dreams literally going up in flames, was hardly conducive to a steady state of mind in such a personality. The leaders of the Frankish army were distracted and emotionally unstable at the very moment when clear heads were needed most.59 192

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Amalric had the assistance of a Pisan fleet for the campaign and this sailed down the eastern waters of the Nile Delta to support the army. As the Frankish army moved to Cairo, these ships captured the coastal town of Tinnis and made efforts to link up with the main army. The Fatimid government still had a substantial and professional navy at its disposal, however. They were normally no match for an Italian fleet, but the confined nature of the fighting neutralised any advantages the Pisans might have had in terms of superior seamanship. The Egyptians ‘blocked the Nile with their vessels, and prevented its passage’. Humphrey of Toron, the king’s constable and one of his most trusted commanders, was sent to help by outflanking the Egyptians ‘with a picked body of cavalry’, but the decision was eventually taken to retreat. The Christian squadron was ‘ordered to sail out to sea immediately and return home’, though not without the further embarrassment of losing one of their galleys in the narrow waterways on the way back.60 Things were going little better on land. The army had left Bilbais laden with plunder and heavy siege equipment, and marched towards Cairo. Inevitably, they ‘made very slow progress, scarcely advancing the distance of one day’s march in ten days’. When they eventually arrived at Cairo they did not launch an immediate assault on the virtually undefended city, but instead paused while they ‘established camp before the city, and had the [siege] machines made ready for action’.61 The town of Fustat (‘Old Cairo’) was looted by the Egyptian army and deliberately burnt down to prevent it falling into Christian hands. The fires ‘continued to burn for fifty-four days’.62 Frankish decision making was distorted by the rules of plunder. Bilbais was sacked by the army, acting directly against orders, because the interests of the men and their commanders were so fundamentally misaligned. William of Tyre, having debriefed participants, sardonically commented that when ‘a city is taken by storm, the army usually reaps a far richer harvest of spoils than is the case when the surrender is made to a king’. A peace treaty would mean that the assets went straight to the king (or, in the case of Bilbais, to the Hospitallers) – but a frenzied couple of hours spent pillaging meant that everyone in the army had a chance to gather potentially life-changing rewards.63 Amalric had lost Bilbais to the remorseless logic of game theory and his army’s self-interest. He was determined that Cairo should not go the same way, particularly as he could see Fustat already burning in front of him. After his previous salutary experience of conquest, he was looking for a negotiated surrender, rather than a 193

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY bloodbath. In doing so, however, he was playing straight into the Fatimid government’s hands. In the absence of military force, the vizier did everything he could to delay the inevitable, hoping against hope that Turkic troops would arrive in time to counterbalance the Franks. ‘What they lacked in strength,’ wrote William of Tyre, ‘they accomplished by strategy and . . . subtle schemes.’64 Their most ‘subtle scheme’ was money, and even the promise of it might be enough. The authorities in Cairo bought time by haggling. Amalric, a king with huge ambitions and an almost bankrupt state, was easily swayed. The Franks were offered huge sums of money (suspiciously huge sums in fact) to withdraw from the city. On the promise of 1,000,000 dinars, Amalric pulled his troops back.65 But the only money he ever saw was a down payment of 100,000 dinars. For that welcome but relatively modest sum the Egyptians bought themselves time, and the prospect of a relief force from Syria. Amalric’s withdrawal was arguably the turning point of the entire history of the crusader states. The Franks had shown themselves strong enough to wound the already weakened Fatimid state – but not strong enough to supplant it. Instead, they had opened up the opportunity for Nur al-Din to step in and create their worst nightmare: a unified Muslim empire stretching from Yemen in the south up to Syria and Iraq in the north; an empire, moreover, that would not only surround the crusader states, but dwarf them financially and demographically. That was exactly what happened. Even if the Hospitallers had been able to raise their full contingent of troops (and there were caveats in their agreement with the king which suggested that they might not be able to do so), the Christian army probably had fewer than 1,000 knights in its ranks. On 2 December, as the Franks sat listlessly waiting for their promised money to appear, Nur al-Din sent Shirkuh and an army of 8,000 cavalry to Egypt. Amalric tried (and failed) to intercept them en route. Once the Turks had joined up with the regular Egyptian army (who seem to have been able to field at least the same number of troops in their own right), Amalric’s position was completely untenable.66 Outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and demoralised, the Frankish army was forced to retreat. On 2 January 1169, without having faced Nur al-Din’s armies in battle, they set off back to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The last best chance to save the Christian Middle East was gone.67

194

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Invasion of 1169 For the first time, Nur al-Din’s men were left in Egypt on their own, operating without fear of Frankish intervention. They exploited this situation to the full. They had been invited in under strict guarantees of safety, but these promises were soon forgotten. With hindsight, it is clear that the vizier had ‘placed too much reliance on the goodwill of the Turk’, but in practice he had little choice.68 He was killed by his new guests soon after the Franks had left, murdered by Saladin himself or by one of his bodyguards. There was no attempt to pass it off as a ‘tragic accident’: they ‘threw him to the ground, stabbed him through and through, and cut off his head’.69 With Turkic armies now in control, the Franks knew that their strategic situation had deteriorated significantly: as one chronicler wrote, ‘all the regions around us are subject to the enemy’ and ‘all things are now for the worse’. Egypt was now under competent military control, and its resources (including a professional navy and a huge revenue stream) could be turned against the crusader states to the north.70 The position of Nur al-Din’s armies in Egypt was still uncertain, however. The possibility existed that they might be ousted before regime change was fully consolidated.71 Even more fortuitously from the Franks’ perspective, the victorious Shirkuh died on 23 March 1169, indulging in some celebratory binge eating, just a few weeks after taking on the viziership. His nephew, Saladin, took over but was still a relatively unknown quantity. He faced a brutal backlash by the increasingly disenfranchised remnants of the old Fatimid regime, culminating in the outbreak of the first of a series of revolts in August. At the end of September 1169 a vast Byzantine fleet arrived at Acre, where it began detailed planning and liaison with the army of Jerusalem. It was said to have consisted of ‘one hundred and fifty [galleys]. There were in addition sixty larger boats, well armoured, which were built to carry horses . . . The fleet also included ten or twenty vessels of huge size called dromones, which were loaded to capacity with stores . . . and, in addition, engines and machines of war’.72 It was so large that it could not fit in the harbour and was forced to ‘lay at anchor in a quiet roadstead between the river and the port’.73 The opportunity for the Franks was immense. The allied forces mustered together at Ascalon on 15 October. The land forces set off on 16 October, taking relatively easy staged marches towards Farama, which they reached nine days later, 195

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY joining the fleet once again.74 The fleet ferried the army across to the opposite shore of the Delta and the army arrived at the fortified coastal city of Damietta two days later, on 27 October. But there were problems from the very beginning. There was a pause of three days while the fleet settled in and the armies set up their encampments near the city. The delay was crucial. Saladin used this short respite to rush reinforcements down river, including ‘a host of Turks, infinite in number, and ships loaded with armed men. Thus our army was obliged to look helplessly on while the city which earlier had been practically empty was filled to overflowing.’75 The Byzantine engineers were as professional as ever. Catapults were built, ‘designed to hurl huge rocks’ and to clear the battlements directly in front of the approaching assault towers. Mining operations were also started, and large movable protective frames were pushed up to the walls ‘to protect the sappers who, safe within them . . . could construct tunnels beneath them, causing the walls to collapse’.76 The ‘approaches to the city had been levelled in such a manner that the [siege] engines which had now been built could now be set up against the walls’. These engines included a series of impressive assault towers, the tallest of which was ‘seven stories high . . . from the top of which the entire city could be surveyed’. Snipers ‘in the movable tower kept up a continual pressure upon the besieged’.77 None of the towers was successful, however. The garrison built towers of their own, to contest domination of the approaches to the walls. And the positioning of the Christian assault teams was felt (with a huge dose of hindsight, of course) to have shown ‘less skill and wisdom than usual . . . one of the newly built towers [was] applied to the walls in a steep and almost impossible place’, where the walls were ‘strongest and best fortified’.78 And, far from being a tight, enclosing siege, it appears that the allied armies never had enough manpower to enforce a full blockade, either on land or, even more disappointingly, by sea. Far from being intimidated, the defenders found that ‘their number was greatly increased by reinforcements of brave and gallant fighters’. The Christian armies were now facing a garrison so numerous that ‘they were able to withstand our attacks, not only within the city itself, but even on the field outside’.79 Attacks on the city were made every few days but ‘occasionally, however, the besieged . . . emerged from a postern gate opposite the Byzantine camp and made unexpected attacks on that part of the army’.80 196

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Frustratingly, a quick victory continued to prove elusive. A fireship was launched downstream by the garrison, where ‘fanned by the south wind, the flame spread rapidly to the fuel with which the boat was loaded. The blazing craft sailed down upon the fleet, where it was caught among our closely massed vessels and held fast. In this manner . . . six of the . . . galleys were burned to ashes.’ In an almost pantomime image from the ensuing panic, King Amalric got his huge frame out of bed, (hopefully) put on his nightdress and ‘without waiting even to put on his shoes, he quickly mounted his horse and roused the sailors’.81 Even more importantly, logistical problems meant that the fleet rapidly ran out of supplies and the Byzantines, ‘who had come in large numbers in the fleet now began to suffer from a shortage of provisions’. They complained that the Franks were unwilling to share their food.82 Mutual suspicion between the two allied forces grew as the initiative passed inexorably to the defenders. The ‘strength of the besieged . . . was continually increased by large detachments which were ever arriving both by land and by sea’. The garrison of the city was now larger than the allied army facing them and ‘were a source of greater terror to their opponents, than were the Christians to them’.83 Eventually, the whole enterprise had to be called off. A compromise peace treaty was agreed, and for three days afterwards a market was set up for all parties to trade and barter with local merchants – embarrassingly, even at the end of the ‘siege’, the townsfolk were better supplied than their enemies. In a further public humiliation, the allied army ‘tore down the engines of war’ before they left, ‘and burned them’. The Frankish army got back to Ascalon by forced marches just before Christmas.84 Part of the problem had been the time of year. The Byzantine fleet did not arrive in Palestine until October, and its size made the prospect of over-wintering difficult. The lateness of the season also made it far more difficult for the besiegers to forage for supplies, and was a major factor in forcing the allied forces to withdraw. The time of year also brought acute dangers for shipping. On the way back the fleet was decimated as ‘the boats were shattered by the waves and thrown onto the shore. Nearly all were wrecked. Of the great fleet which had come to us, only a few ships . . . were able to return under their own power.’ Forced to sail home in late December, the imperial navy was almost entirely destroyed by storms.85 197

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Needless to say, campaigning at that time of year was not entirely irrational, regardless of the easy hindsight of the chroniclers. If Saladin and his Kurdish–Turkic forces were to be dislodged from Egypt, it needed to be done quickly, before they became too entrenched and too firmly in command of Egypt’s immense wealth. Similarly, striking in 1169, however late in the year, meant catching Saladin while he was under attack from the newly disenfranchised but still active remnants of the Fatimid regime. It was a gamble, and a gamble which both the Frankish and Byzantine commanders thought worth taking. But the campaign, like that of the previous year, was a fiasco that ended in mutual recriminations. 1174 Sicilian invasion of Egypt Amalric refused to accept defeat and continued to plan new expeditions. He did not give up on the Egyptian strategy, because he knew that there was no viable longterm alternative. On 11 July 1174 a Norman Sicilian fleet (an armada of some 200 vessels) arrived off the Egyptian coast at Alexandria, expecting to link up with the field army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. What perhaps their commanders could not know (because word had not had time to reach the court of Palermo) was that King Amalric had died a couple of weeks earlier. In the ensuing confusion at court, the muster of the Frankish armed forces, if it had indeed been planned, had not taken place. Making the best of a bad job, the Sicilians carried on with the assault regardless.86 They never had the manpower to put the city under a full blockade – Muslim reinforcements continued to arrive throughout the short siege. The number of defenders was eventually so great that they felt confident enough to sortie out through the main gate. In the full-scale fighting that ensued, the siege towers were set alight, and the Sicilians suffered significant casualties. Without land forces from Jerusalem to back them up, and with Saladin approaching with a relief army, they were forced to withdraw hurriedly. In the confusion, several hundred of their own men were cut off and left behind as the Muslim troops overran their encampment. King Amalric did not live to see it, but the Egyptian strategy, which had begun with great optimism and had been pursued with enormous tenacity, ended with a whimper.87 198

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Egypt: Tunnel Vision or Strategic Insight? Campaigning in Egypt in the 1160s and beyond was clearly consistent. One could hardly accuse Baldwin and Amalric of being anything other than single-minded. But was it truly part of a long-term, planned approach? Was it really a ‘strategy’? Unlike the impression sometimes given by the chronicles, there was nothing happenstance about the planning for the Egyptian campaigns. On the contrary, a continual stream of diplomatic missions, letters and pleas for help were sent back to the West. Such was the huge volume of requests and the time lag involved in strategic planning that it is even difficult to establish which campaign Amalric and his advisers were drumming up support for. In practice, planning for the Egyptian strategy was a constant thread of foreign and military policy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 1160s and early 1170s. So much so, in fact, that the timing of support given by individuals in the West probably did not matter too much. At almost any point in that period, anyone who turned up with military assistance could be put to good use, and Jerusalem was never too fussy about the timing. Their need was constant: they needed all the help they could get, whenever they could get it. Everyone was put to good use in tapping up their contacts: the address books of the Latin East were increasingly well thumbed. Clerics wrote to their fellow priests back home. The patriarchs of the crusader states sent messages to the papacy or the archbishops. And the leaders of the military orders, glamorous role models for the new knighthood, sent missions to drum up support from the pious and adventurous nobles of Christendom.88 Above all, the king was permanently, relentlessly, trying to drum up support. Amalric sent a seemingly unending stream of missions and begging letters to the leaders of Western Europe. Most of these letters and briefing documents have been lost, but one particularly interesting cache of correspondence with King Louis VII of France still exists (or at least the letters sent from the East have survived, if not the replies). Louis was clearly seen as a particularly fruitful target for an intensive lobbying campaign. The king had been an ardent crusader, participating (and almost dying) on the Second Crusade, staying on to live in the Latin Kingdom for a year after the fiasco of the siege of Damascus in 1148 and showing interest in the possibility of a new crusade in 1150.89 199

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Amalric would do, or say, or promise almost anything to get help from him. In one spectacularly obsequious letter he wrote that ‘We bow to your majesty’, like ‘tassels hanging from your headdress’. Although he was a king in his own right, Amalric was explicit in offering his complete obedience to Louis if only he would bring an army to the Holy Land. ‘All of us, including ourselves,’ he wrote, ‘will obey your commands.’90 The tone of Amalric’s letters is ingratiating to the point of embarrassment. The strategic thrust behind them is abundantly clear, however: Egypt is the key to the defence of the Holy Land, and with sufficient help from the West we can bring it back into Christian hands. The papacy responded well to such calls and helped as much as it could. In July 1165 the Pope called for a new crusade to be launched to help the Latin East. The recruitment drive failed to gain much traction, but after prompting from the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Master of the Hospitallers a further call was made the following year. This seems to have been somewhat more successful, at least on a local or regional level.91 There was another major mission to the West in the period 1169–1171. The leaders of the mission were specifically tasked to find a senior member of the nobility to marry Sibylla, King Amalric’s daughter, and hence possibly to take over the kingship of the Latin Kingdom at some future date. More generally, and more importantly, they were trying to persuade one or more (preferably more) of the Western kings to raise an army and come to their aid.92 The response was initially hopeful. In July 1169 the Pope offered his support by issuing yet another bull proclaiming a new crusade for the defence of the East, and was blunt in asking for more fighting men to volunteer for the cause.93 King Henry II of England was making serious noises about going on crusade. And if he was on crusade, King Louis would be far more inclined to participate also. The envoys of the Latin Kingdom, sensing a breakthrough, even offered the keys of Jerusalem to Louis.94 But all these missions failed. The kings of the West could not be mobilised, however persuasive the emissaries or persistent the cries for help. The poor state of relations between England and France throughout the decade was an underlying problem. It prevented them from turning their attention and resources eastwards.95 The dispute between Archbishop Thomas Becket and Henry II, culminating in the former’s murder in December 1170, caused additional political upheavals in the West, complicating relations between the papacy, England and 200

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY France still further.96 To make matters worse, there was a schism in the papacy, and relations between the Church and Emperor Frederick I of Germany were almost always strained. Everyone had something nearer home to occupy them. And everyone had something better to do than spend their money or risk their lives on the increasingly dangerous prospect of crusading in the East.97 Although missions to the West failed to hit the jackpot, they were able to muster some support from individuals, often from families with close ties to the Latin East. At Babayn in 1167, for instance, the only battle for which we have relatively detailed accounts, the named celebrity casualties on the Frankish side were all Western volunteers, perhaps those who had come in response to the papal appeals of 1165. This certainly suggests a much higher level of participation from the Western nobility than we might otherwise suppose. Eustace Cholet, for instance, a lord from Ponthieu, died in battle at the head of his contingent, as did Hugh of Creona, a young Sicilian Norman lord. We know that William IV, the Count of Nevers, also left the West in 1167 to bring a small army to Jerusalem (he came ‘attended by a noble band of knights’), only to fall ill and die there the following year.98 The Earl of Hereford and his men had also gone out to the East by 1160, probably to join the Templars.99 And there was occasional help with money. Both King Henry II of England and Louis VII of France raised taxes on behalf of the Holy Land in 1166.100 There was goodwill. There were volunteers from the West. But never in sufficient numbers. The size of the Christian armies available for the Egyptian campaigns was always inadequate. Armies were important, but the other essential ingredient for success in Egypt was a navy. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had no fleet of its own but, among the Christian states of the Mediterranean, it knew those who did, and those who might be inclined to help: Byzantium, Pisa and Sicily. Each was lobbied intensely and cajoled in an unashamedly focused way to produce the help the Franks needed. Longer-term planning was certainly under way, though we only hear the occasional echoes of it in the sources. In 1156, for instance, we find King Baldwin concluding an agreement with the Pisan authorities to enforce an arms embargo on the Fatimid regime. There was a particular emphasis on hindering Egyptian shipbuilding capabilities, strongly suggesting that he and his brother Amalric were already considering plans for naval assaults on the Nile Delta.101 In the absence of high-level support from the West, the Franks sought closer ties with the East: efforts to get Byzantine help were ramped up in earnest.102 Planning 201

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY for the capture of Egypt almost certainly took place with the Byzantines in the 1150s, and once discussions got going, the confidence was infectious. Joscelin Pisellus, one of Baldwin’s most trusted advisers, was on the first embassy to Constantinople in 1157, and accompanied the king on his mission to develop a personal relationship with the emperor in Cilicia in 1159. Baldwin committed to give Joscelin ‘a fief of 100 knights in Egypt, when that land falls to him’.103 Significantly, the grant was to take place ‘when’, rather than ‘if ’, the land was conquered. Egypt was felt to be ripe for the taking. The mission of 1157 was a great success. In the short term it resulted in a marriage alliance: within a few months Emperor Manuel sent his niece Theodora to Jerusalem to marry Baldwin. Soon afterwards, in April 1159, Baldwin and Manuel met in Cilicia, and established a close and friendly relationship. ‘For ten days’, wrote William of Tyre, ‘Baldwin was constantly with the emperor; he enjoyed agreeable conversations with him and they had frequent discussions both in private and in the assembly of the nobles. The king was of an affable and friendly disposition, and during his stay he won great favour with the emperor.’104 The interests of the two parties were, of course, never completely aligned, but the friendship seems to have been a genuine one. When Baldwin injured his arm in a hunting accident, Manuel personally treated the fracture. While he was convalescing, the emperor ‘visited the king daily, renewing the poultices and healing ointments himself ’.105 Byzantine armies entered Syria to kick the northern Franks into line and intimidate their Muslim opponents. The expedition reinforced Christian unity in the region and persuaded Nur al-Din to back off, temporarily at least.106 This relationship was far more than just a medieval bromance, however. Baldwin always had his eye on the bigger picture. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had only a small army and, importantly for expeditions that would inevitably involve assaults on the fortified coastal towns of Egypt, no way of enforcing a naval blockade. Byzantine help made the process of capturing Egypt a far more realistic prospect. Baldwin’s brother continued the charm offensive, for much the same reasons. In late 1165 or early 1166 another embassy was sent to Constantinople to seek closer relations. The mission was successful and resulted in Amalric’s marriage to the daughter of one of Emperor Manuel’s nephews.107 Whatever the attractions of a Byzantine princess, the real purpose behind these closer familial links was, of course, greater military and political cooperation. 202

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Amalric suggested a joint expedition against Egypt, and the final planning stages of the exercise were ratified by treaty in the autumn of 1168. The arrival of a Byzantine fleet off the coast of Palestine in October 1169 might appear in the chronicles to be a fortuitous accident but, on the contrary, it was the culmination of several years of hard work, dogged diplomacy and strategic planning.108 On 10 March 1171 another embassy set off to Constantinople. Extraordinarily, Amalric led the mission himself, surprising both his courtiers and the Byzantine court: this was the first time a king of Jerusalem had visited the heart of the empire in person. Amalric, proving again that he was someone who would do almost anything to get support for his strategy, agreed to a relatively vague form of words to give his submission to the emperor, and in return plans were put in place for yet another invasion of Egypt. Planning and detailed discussions were probably still under way when Amalric died in 1174.109 When Byzantine help was not available, the Franks turned to the Italian city states. The Pisans sent squadrons out to the East in 1167 and 1168 to provide naval support for Amalric’s Egyptian campaigns.110 This did not happen by chance. In 1166 Amalric had sent envoys to Pisa to arrange for an alliance and for the services of a fleet (Pisa eventually helped with the siege of Alexandria in 1167).111 Further diplomatic work continued immediately afterwards to cement the good relations between the two states and a treaty was signed to confirm Pisan privileges in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem for ‘the fine service which they had rendered during the siege of Alexandria’.112 Another embassy was sent to Pisa at the end of 1167, arriving in January 1168, to organise further military cooperation, which eventually resulted in their participation in the 1168 campaign.113 Their contribution was no more successful than that of the Franks, but it was not because of any lack of commitment on their part – they sent land forces which included knights and archers, as well as another significant fleet.114 Their contribution was appreciated. In September 1169 they were given further extensive privileges in the event of Egypt being captured. Care was taken to ensure that they would be motivated to give a repeat performance if necessary.115 Far from being a happy coincidence, Pisan assistance in the Egyptian strategy was the result of long-term planning and negotiations stretching out over a period of years. Norman Sicily was the other potential source of naval support. Relations with the crusader states had often been difficult, but had improved considerably once 203

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY King William II of Sicily took the throne. Amalric included Norman Sicily at the heart of his wide-ranging charm offensive and we know, for instance, that embassies were sent to the Sicilian court in 1169 and 1171. It seems that further diplomatic connections were made in 1173, once the breakdown of other initiatives with the West had become clear.116 Amalric planned to create an alliance with which to link up with Shi’ite rebels in Egypt. In a major diplomatic coup for the Franks, he managed to get Norman Sicilian agreement to a joint expedition.117 The Sicilian government held to their side of the bargain and it was only the death of King Amalric in July 1174, just a couple of weeks before their fleet arrived off the coast of Egypt, that prevented a joint invasion taking place.118 As well as making every attempt to gather external support, the Franks went to extraordinary lengths to use their internal resources to best effect. In January 1167, as the army of the Latin Kingdom was hurriedly mustering to intercept Shirkuh and yet another Turkic army on its way into Egypt, King Amalric ordered a national assembly to be convened in Nablus, at which he persuaded everyone of the need to impose a one-off wealth tax – a levy of 10 per cent on all movable goods, to help fund campaigning in Egypt and the defence of the state.119 Strategic planning for the Egyptian campaigns was also helped by a substantial intelligence-gathering effort. Taking the 1167 campaign as an example, we know that information was continually being sourced on a tactical level. As well as the normal network of patrols, Bedouin auxiliaries and spies along the southern borders and on into the desert, the interrogation of prisoners provided increasing insight as the armies closed in on each other. When Shirkuh’s army arrived in Egypt, for instance, stragglers were ‘seized and bound’ by the Franks. These prisoners ‘gave the Christians a great deal of useful information, especially in relation to Shirkuh’s crossing of [the Nile] and the number of his troops’.120 Operationally, the Franks also made a point of gathering intelligence efficiently. Again using the example of the 1167 campaign, it is clear that Amalric knew far more than the Fatimids about the intentions of the Syrian government, their military preparations and the progress of Shirkuh’s invading army.121 Extraordinarily, we even have evidence of genuine strategic research, carried out within the chancellery of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and focused specifically on the Egyptian campaigns. King Amalric personally commissioned William of Tyre to compile background information on Egypt and Syria, using multiple Arabic 204

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY sources. This database was then used as an extended briefing paper to inform different aspects of military and diplomatic decision making. Within the limitations of the available resources, nothing was being left to chance.122 With the establishment of Saladin’s new family firm in Cairo, and the death of King Amalric in 1174, it was clear that the Franks had failed. They had sufficient military clout to help topple the already severely weakened Fatimid regime, but had insufficient manpower to take over the country. There had been a consistent strategy, but ultimately it failed because of far more prosaic, tactical reasons – there were never enough Franks on the ground to make the strategy stick. And while the contest for Egypt had been going on, a brutal example of realpolitik had been played out further north. Such ambition could not go unpunished. The Muslim Response The crusaders’ Egyptian strategy inevitably had its Muslim counterpart. Nur al-Din’s response was a simple but effective twin-track strategy: to contest control of Egypt itself, while simultaneously exploiting the absence of the main Frankish field army to chip away at the frontiers of the crusader states. The basis of the first of these tracks – that of contesting control of Egypt – was inevitably a mirror-image of that used by their Frankish counterparts. Both sides wanted to control Egypt and its assets or, if that were not possible, to deny those assets to their enemy. But there was one key difference for Nur al-Din – suspicion. Nur al-Din’s predicament: damned if you do, damned if you don’t Nur al-Din’s strategy for Egypt worked on a macro level, and was certainly a success for the Muslim cause. Perversely, however, it also represented a massive personal failure on his part. The crusader states had their own internal rivalries and squabbles, but their ruling elite were generally cohesive: they had the same religion, the same culture and a shared awareness of mutually assured destruction if they did not cooperate on military matters. The empire that Nur al-Din had built had no such cohesion. 205

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Suspicion was the main barrier to the Muslim strategy of contesting Egypt with the Franks. Nur al-Din could not trust his subjects, many of whom he had only recently conquered. And he could not trust the governors or generals he had appointed: he was forced to continually play them all off against each other in a complex system of checks and balances, in the traditional manner of dictatorships past and present. Events in Egypt had their own momentum. Nur al-Din had no choice but to act. Capturing Egypt – or at least depriving the Franks of it – was a strategic imperative. But to intervene in the affairs of the terminally ailing Fatimid empire he needed to find someone he could trust. The problem was that such a person did not exist. Nur al-Din wanted Egypt but, unlike Amalric, he could not campaign there in person, because he could not trust his administrators and subjects in the northern parts of his empire. Eventually, Nur al-Din ran out of options – he had to make a choice. The Franks needed to be stopped, and as Nur al-Din could not go himself, someone else had to be trusted. But even in the face of such inevitability, Nur al-Din could not easily be brought to do it.123 He decided, grudgingly and probably against his better judgement, to trust the mission to one of his old, ostensibly reliable generals – a Kurdish cavalry commander named Shirkuh, who had been lobbying furiously to show just what he and his extended family could do. At the beginning of 1167, for instance, we know that Shirkuh was pressuring for the project of invading [Egypt]. He was extremely eager to do this. When this year came, he equipped troops and set out at the head of a powerful force . . . Nur al-Din sent several emirs with him . . . Nur al-Din disliked the plan but, when he saw how serious Shirkuh was about going, it was impossible for him to do other than send a force with him.124

Perhaps Nur al-Din felt that as Shirkuh was an ethnic Kurd in charge of a largely Turkic army it would be more difficult for him to fashion his men into an independent force, with ties based upon personal loyalty. Perhaps, in the traditional fashion of military dictatorships, he thought that by sending several of his other emirs along, and hence dividing decision making on the expedition, he could retain better control. If so, he was deeply mistaken. 206

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Nur al-Din’s misgivings had been absolutely correct. When the job was finally done, he realised, as he already knew deep down, that paranoia was a perfectly sound basis for decision making when trying to command restless and ambitious nomadicheritage subordinates – they really were all out to get you. Rolling up the frontiers If sending a deputy to campaign in Egypt was complicated and fraught with worry, the other track of Nur al-Din’s strategy – that of destroying the Frankish frontiers while their army was absent – was far more straightforward and satisfying. Regardless of success or failure, the mere act of trying to capture Egypt brought painful consequences with it for the Franks. Even for the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, for whom the upside of success was clear and immediate, the strategy inevitably left much of Palestine and its newly established Frankish colonies wide open to attack. This was an opportunity which Nur al-Din exploited to the full. The soldiers of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem were the firefighters of the crusader states. Even under what passed for ‘normal’ conditions, Antioch and Tripoli could barely defend their own frontiers. Without continuing help from the south, they faced disaster. This embarrassing but unavoidable truth was exacerbated by an alarming and seemingly inexorable trend in the politics of the region – the Muslim states were becoming larger and increasingly well resourced. As they reached critical mass, they could hire and field nomadic mercenary armies to operate in Egypt, while simultaneously deploying troops on several other fronts, and in sufficient numbers to overrun entire regions. The regularity with which Muslim armies were set loose upon the crusader states meant that their troops became more experienced and more ‘regular’ in nature. These were increasingly veterans of several campaigns and this was reflected in the quality of their specialist troops, such as miners or artillerists, as much as in the battlefield performance of their cavalry. The procedures and processes used to undertake sieges were well known and increasingly effective. Under Nur al-Din, perhaps for the first time in the twelfth century, Muslim Syrian armies could be described as an effective and well-organised war machine, rather than as a dangerous but potentially volatile collection of warriors. But Nur 207

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Shaizar

Orontes Eixserc(?) (Aasseïle)

Hama Laicas

Valania Marqab

Eixserc(?) (Hisn al Sharqi)

Memboa (Maou’a)

Masyâf Melechin

Ma rqi yé

Maraclea

Cadenois

Al Kahf

Cartamare Montferrand Raphaniya

La Colée

Al Khawabi

Lo Camel (al Akma)

Teledehep

Les Fontaines

Mariamin Touban

Erbenambre Marmonize

Toklé (Tres Claves?) Chastel-Blanc

Tortosa; Ruad (Arados)

Chastel-Rouge

Syn

Le Crat T ERRE DU C ALIFE

h ras Ab Aieslo Arima T. Khalifé

Homs

` Anaz

La Resclause

BOQUÉE Lacum

Lake of Homs

Felicium

Kebir

Mediterranean Sea

Chades Coliath Arcas

Calmont

Mount-Pilgrim Alma Arde Misdelia

Sîr

Buissara

k

Deria Belmont Besarma Nephin Puy du Besmedin Connétable Cafaracha Qa Abdin d Bethelion Bella isha

tes

Barid

Or on

Tripoli

Artésia

Gibelacar

a

1000 2000 3000 metres

a

Altitude

z

B

Jo u

e

Botron

Bechestin N

Gibelet

Le Moinetre

Baalbek

Ibrahim

0

miles 0

Djuniye ( Junie)

Map 8 The County of Tripoli

208

km

20 20

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY al-Din was to Saladin as Philip of Macedon was to his son Alexander. The early rulers created the state and the military apparatus that made it all possible – it was left to their successors to take the glory. Nur al-Din first took advantage of the absence of the Frankish field army in Egypt to attack the north. He confronted the armies of Antioch and Tripoli at Artah on 10 August 1164 and in the ensuing battle almost completely destroyed them. Many of the few remaining Frankish knights were killed and all the leaders of the north were captured: the Count of Tripoli, the Prince of Antioch, the titular Count of Edessa, even the local Byzantine commander, all were taken prisoner. There was now, for all practical purposes, no significant Christian field army in any of the crusader states. This gave Nur al-Din the time to do just what he needed. His troops rushed to besiege Harim, a strategically vital castle just 30 kilometres from the city of Antioch. It was quickly surrounded, and artillery batteries began their work of weakening the battlements. Frankish morale had plummeted in the aftermath of the defeat at Artah. With no realistic prospect of relief, and with a large and professional army focused entirely on the siege, the small garrison must have felt that further resistance would achieve nothing. They decided instead to enter into discussions and save their own lives by a negotiated surrender. The loss of Harim on 12 August, just a couple of days after the capture of the northern Christian leaders, was a serious blow for Antioch. There was much worse still to come, however.125 The end for Banyas, the vital frontier castle between Damascus and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, came soon after. In the autumn of 1164, with the northern Franks destroyed and the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem still on campaign in Egypt, Nur al-Din was free to attack Galilee. He ‘proceeded with haste to Banyas,’ we are told, ‘because he knew how few were the defending garrison. He besieged it closely and made assaults.’126 The cumulative casualties of recent sieges meant that the population of Banyas had been greatly reduced and many of the survivors had, entirely understandably, taken their families back to safer areas – it had been hard to persuade new settlers to take their place. Besides the lack of defenders, the manpower situation was made doubly worse by a lack of leadership. Even a strategically vital position such as Banyas had had its garrison stripped out to provide troops for campaigning in Egypt.

209

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Nur al-Din’s army ‘found it undefended, because Humphrey, the royal constable to whom it belonged by hereditary right, was absent with the king in Egypt. The bishop of the place was also away.’127 The siege itself took on the usual shape. Siege engines were deployed and mining operations started at the base of the most vulnerable walls. Large numbers of archers were easily capable of keeping the heads of the weakened garrison down below the parapets.128 The end was inevitable. On 18 October, with no help in sight, the town and its citadel surrendered. When news of Banyas’s surrender reached King Amalric, he was absolutely incandescent, and accusations of treachery were quick to surface. William of Tyre named one of the local knights, Walter of Quesnoy, and a priest called Roger, a canon of the town’s cathedral, as the prime suspects in this ‘conspiracy’, but admits that the accusation was never proven.129 In any case, the search for a scapegoat was a sterile exercise. The real answer was much simpler, but far more unpalatable. The lack of Frankish manpower relative to the increasingly substantial Muslim forces meant that castle garrisons were regularly being hollowed out to build up numbers for a field army on campaign. When that field army was far away (in Egypt, in this instance) and when there were no other relief forces available (having been destroyed at the battle of Artah, in this instance), there was little that local garrisons could do. The loss of Banyas in 1164 was a serious blow to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It had provided a good jumping-off point for attacks on the Hauran, and on towards Damascus. Now, with Banyas in enemy hands, the situation was reversed. The Patriarch of Jerusalem rightly described Banyas as ‘the key, the gate and the shield of the whole kingdom of Jerusalem’. With its loss Galilee became far more vulnerable to enemy attack.130 But it was just one of many such setbacks. Over a relatively short period of time a number of strong crusader castles fell. A scapegoat, a traitor or an accident can explain a single incident, but it cannot explain a pattern, and that pattern continued to be repeated throughout the 1160s. The Franks were facing systemic, rather than tactical, issues. Frankish garrisons, and the relief forces they relied on, were becoming cowed and demoralised. The size and expertise of the new generation of Muslim armies made them something to be feared. In 1166 it was the turn of the County of Tripoli, 210

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY militarily the weakest of the three remaining crusader states, to be on the receiving end of Nur al-Din’s attentions. The field army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was enjoying a respite in between campaigns in Egypt, and could normally be relied on to help its northern neighbours when they were under attack. Nur al-Din acted accordingly. He chose the frontier castle of Le Moinetre as his target and assembled only a lightly equipped army to attack it, centred around his regular ’askar, to avoid warning the Franks of his intentions and thereby triggering a full mobilisation of the Christian forces. The castle was at the southern end of the Beqaa Valley, and close to the borders between the County of Tripoli and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was a strategically important location, built on a hill by the main road from Muslim-held Baalbek down to the coast at Gibelet (part of the County of Tripoli), and thence down to the Lordship of Beirut, in the north of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.131 Nur al-Din ‘seized the opportunity, marched to [Le Moinetre] and put it under siege, attacking energetically. He took it by storm and killed or made captive those within and took large amounts of booty. The defenders had felt safe but [he] . . . overwhelmed them suddenly before they were aware.’132 As is often the case with the County of Tripoli, details are scarce but certain things can be deduced. The jumping-off point for Nur al-Din’s forces was Baalbek, with its direct road links providing relatively quick access for a small and lightly equipped army. The Muslim troops would not have carried many catapults with them, certainly not heavy artillery, and would have relied instead on more easily transportable siege assets such as mining equipment and scaling ladders. The walls must have been breached quickly, because there were no negotiations with the garrison, and no terms were offered. The element of surprise was also important. The garrison was small and illprepared. The mobilisation of a relief force took so long that Nur al-Din’s troops were on their way back to Baalbek before any help arrived. Muslim sources suggest, probably correctly, that the late arrival of the relief column owed much to the Franks’ increasing wariness of meeting Nur al-Din and his men in the field, and because they had, it seems, overestimated the size of his army. The Franks ‘gathered to repel him only after he had already taken it. Had they known that he was lightly equipped with a small number of troops, they would have hastened against him, but 211

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY they imagined that he led a large host.’133 Nur al-Din seems to have left a garrison behind, as we are told that the Frankish relief force ‘dispersed and despaired of recovering it’.134 Given its position, however, Le Moinetre was always going to be a difficult fortification for Nur al-Din to retain. In the event, it seems that the Franks recaptured it relatively quickly once more substantial forces had been mustered, and it was back in Christian hands by 1176 at the latest.135 But the point had been made. The new Muslim armies were capable of taking castles quickly, and had intimidated both the garrison and the local troops who had come to their aid. Having demonstrated the value of surprise and intimidation at Le Moinetre, Nur al-Din was keen to exploit similar opportunities elsewhere. The Transjordan (or Oultrejourdain), the Frankish lands to the east of the River Jordan, were an obvious target. They were strategically important, both economically and politically, but were on the fringes of the Latin Kingdom and correspondingly hard to defend. As with the frontiers of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch, responsibility for defence was increasingly being handed over to those who had consistent access to sufficient resources for the task: the military orders. In January 1166 a substantial part of the lordship of the Oultrejourdain had been given to the Templars. Nur al-Din, generally well informed about such things, may have identified the change of garrisons and local commanders as an opportunity, aiming to attack before they became accustomed to the nuances of their new fortifications and the local environment.136 The attack was swift and effective. His men laid siege to ‘an impregnable cave, lying beyond [the River] Jordan on the borders of Arabia’. The castle was quickly (embarrassingly quickly) ‘surrendered . . . by the brothers of the Knights Templars, into whose care it had been given’. The Templar garrison of the so-called ‘impregnable cave’ seem to have felt that their position was hopeless and negotiations with the Muslim besiegers were soon under way. King Amalric raised a relief force as quickly as possible, but the castle surrendered while Frankish troops were rushing to its aid.137 The king, sick of losing castles before he could get help to them, was uncontrollably furious. The Templars commanding the garrison were put on trial, and twelve of them (perhaps the entire Templar presence) were hanged, presumably because they, as the new owners of the castle, would have been the ones to have concluded 212

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY negotiations with the Muslims so quickly. ‘Disconcerted and infuriated at this news’, William of Tyre wrote drily, ‘the king caused about twelve of the Templars responsible for the surrender to be hanged from a gallows’.138 Details of the aftermath are vague, but given the huge jurisdictional problems that the authorities must have encountered in sentencing members of the military orders to death, it is likely that the Templars themselves agreed that the garrison’s poor performance was an embarrassment. No one suggested that it was overt treason in the sense that the Templars had taken bribes or sought to apostatise after handing the castle over. They were hanged for dereliction of duty, rather than genuine treachery. But however useful hangings might be in calming the king down, they would not bring the castle back. The epithet ‘impregnable’ was looking more and more ironic when applied to these cave fortresses.139 Even more worryingly, it was clear that the surrender was part of a growing trend, rather than anything that could just be blamed on personalities or local conditions. Nur al-Din adopted a similar plan just a few months later when, in 1167, he started to investigate the possibility of capturing the castle of the Cave de Tyron, which had been constructed by the Franks at some point after 1134. This fortification was built into the side of a cliff overlooking the main route from the Beqaa valley (and Baalbek) down towards Sidon and Tyre. Sited halfway up the cliff and with the only access up a narrow path, it looked impossibly forbidding from below. Visitors had to go down on their hands and knees at one point, edging slowly above a precipitous 300-metre drop below. A small garrison could live up there, as it had its own granary, and cisterns to store water brought in by a system of canals from springs a kilometre away.140 The size of the garrison could never have been large and the nature of its location obviously precluded the presence of cavalry. Its main function was probably that of an observation post and signalling point, but its strategically vital location meant that the castle was considered important by both Muslims and Franks alike. The element of surprise, as before, was critical, and the castle, caught unprepared, was soon captured. Shirkuh, we are told, seized the fortress ‘suddenly and without warning’, despite it having been ‘considered impregnable’.141 Once again, treachery was suggested as being the main reason for the quick collapse. After they had surrendered, the garrison, probably made up largely of native Christians, quickly disappeared. Rumour suggested 213

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY that the capture was accomplished by bribing the custodians. That the fortress had fallen into the enemy’s hands through collusion with its guardians was quite apparent, for as soon as it was surrendered all those within escaped to the enemy’s country, with the exception of their chief. By a lucky chance he was caught and came to a miserable end at Sidon, where he was hanged.142

The hanging of the 12 Templars of the similarly ‘impregnable’ cave fortress in the Oultrejourdain a few months earlier had been designed to send a clear message – that giving up too easily was not going to be tolerated, and that no one, however important, was exempt. In fact, however, another quite different message was also sent, particularly to the non-Frankish elements of frontier garrisons: if you are forced to surrender, do not bother coming back, just try to make a run for it. And, even more unhelpfully, if you are expecting to have to run anyway, you might as well come to terms with the enemy sooner rather than later. The castle seems to have eventually been recaptured and was back in Frankish hands at some point between 1182 and 1187, but its fall was yet another disaster at a time when the defence of Frankish castles and frontiers was at its lowest ebb.143 What was going wrong? Why had ‘impregnable’ cave castles so quickly become a liability, regardless of whether their garrisons were Templars, native Christians or secular Frankish knights? Tactically, it may partly be that the very nature of these cave castles meant that they did not adjust well to the process of necessary change. The early, simple crusader frontier castles had begun to evolve into far more sophisticated and substantial structures as the century progressed. The cave castles, unlike more traditional fortifications, however, were much more of a ‘fixed item’, and far harder to upgrade. In an earlier age, with smaller armies and the more limited resources available to all the players in the region, one could call these cave castles ‘impregnable’ without raising a wry smile. But their physical situation made them far more vulnerable over time. Their garrisons were always going to be small, and the structure of the fortifications was always going to be hard to change. As Muslim armies grew in size, quality and professionalism, an ‘arms race’ in castle building was under way. The cave castles were incapable of substantive adaptation in line with the imperatives of that race, and paid the penalty. 214

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Strategically, however, the answer was both simpler and more intractable. The same dynamics that had led to the fall of Banyas and other castles further north were gradually being rolled out across the whole region – large numbers of extremely warlike and effective nomadic mercenaries were being drafted into the service of the increasingly centralised and economically powerful Muslim states. The balance of power had shifted significantly. And in 1167, as if to prove the point beyond any doubt, Nur al-Din chose to deliver a masterclass in the art of strategic raiding and the destruction of an enemy frontier. With the Count of Tripoli languishing in a Muslim prison and the main body of the Frankish army still campaigning in Egypt (it was absent from January to August 1167), Nur al-Din now felt he had a perfect chance to wreak havoc on the Frankish defences of Tripoli and the northern marches of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Once again he had the opportunity to besiege castles whose garrisons had been stripped back to the bone to help provide a field army for the Egyptian campaign and where, probably more importantly, the prospect of any relief forces arriving in time were slight. In January 1167 both Turkic and Frankish armies were campaigning in Egypt. But, unlike the Franks, Nur al-Din also had other armies at his disposal. His own troops, the army from Mosul and other forces, gathered at Homs and then set off across the mountains into the County of Tripoli. They first besieged Arcas and, when that did not fall quickly, moved on to easier targets. Castrum Album was next, ‘which they took and destroyed’.144 These were not castles which Nur al-Din felt comfortable trying to garrison and defend – the mission was purely to destroy the defences and economic fabric of the Frankish landscape. After destroying the castle, the Muslim troops ‘marched left and right through their lands, raiding and destroying’. Heading north as part of a destructive loop on the way back to Homs, they next besieged and captured Arima.145 After destroying as much of its fortifications as they could, Nur al-Din headed a few kilometres north to Chastel Blanc, which was also besieged and quickly captured.146 Pausing only to dismantle as much of the castle as possible, the Muslim forces continued their destructive path back to their own territory, laden with booty and prisoners. At the end of June they returned again. Nur al-Din’s army celebrated Ramadan at Homs, sold its plunder, resupplied and regrouped, and set off again. This time it 215

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY moved towards the Muslim base at Banyas, recaptured, as we have seen, from the Franks in 1164 and now the natural jumping-off point from which to invade the northern lordships of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. As the army moved from Banyas towards the nearby crusader castle of Chastel Neuf, the garrison, unnerved by the previous sieges, did not even wait for them to arrive. In a shocking act of cowardice, the local Franks ‘fled and set fire to it. The day after that Nur al-Din arrived and razed its walls completely.’147 The campaign of 1167 in Tripoli and the north of the Latin Kingdom had been a tour de force by Nur al-Din. He was able to operate on several fronts simultaneously, while the Franks struggled to find enough men to fight even on one. He marched through the Frankish lands in such numbers that he encountered no opposition. The small Christian garrisons hunkered down until the danger had passed, hoping that his troops would move on elsewhere. In the case of Chastel Neuf, as morale plummeted still further, they did not even do that. The Egyptian Strategy: Inevitable Failure or Avoidable Mistake? The Franks had started the decade at a disadvantage, with Egypt as their only strategic option for breaking the deadlock in a long-term and sustainable way. By 1169, with Saladin in charge of the old Fatimid empire, even that last vestige of hope had been taken away. Surrounded and increasingly outnumbered, they needed to exert every sinew just to hang on to what they already had. Although the efforts to recover Egypt eventually met with failure, the crusaders’ strategic intent in trying to do so was entirely correct. The capabilities of the increasingly large Muslim–Syrian states made the hinterlands of the crusader states ever more vulnerable. Expansion to the south was the only viable option left to the isolated Frankish colonies. The problem was that the stakes were high and, win or lose, there were severe penalties to be paid for participating in the grand strategic game. The penalty was Frankish control of their northern marches. By the 1160s the Muslim states in Syria had begun to reach critical mass: they could hire and field nomadic mercenary armies to operate in Egypt, while simultaneously deploying troops on several other fronts, and in sufficient numbers to overrun entire regions. As the Master of the Templars wrote in a letter of November 1164: 216

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY Although our King Amalric is great and magnificent . . . he cannot organise a fourfold army to defend Antioch, Tripoli, Jerusalem and [Egypt], in which he remains with his sons and which is most to be feared. But Nur al-Din can attack all four at one and the same time if he so desires, so great is the number of his [troops].148

A few months later, the Patriarch of Jerusalem came to much the same conclusion. Writing to the princes and bishops of the West, he said that the strength and the boldness of the Turks have grown to such an extent that they have almost completely dispossessed the whole of the Christian territory of its men . . . its land and its kingdoms, its arms and its wealth. As the Christians are weak and disheartened, while the pagans are strong and brave, we fear that the Turks will all the more easily defeat and destroy our smaller forces, seeing that they easily defeated and destroyed much larger numbers.

The cumulative sense of loss and hopelessness is palpable. Men were dying every day, and villages were regularly being overrun and torched. Even worse, however, was the seemingly insoluble nature of their predicament – there was no end in sight, no way to stop the horror. ‘We have lost through capture and slaughter’, he wrote, ‘many times more men than the whole of Christendom can now muster in the kingdom of Jerusalem.’149 While the king and his army were campaigning in Egypt, the far more numerous Muslim forces were free to move, almost at will, along the unguarded frontiers. During the first half of the twelfth century, Frankish relief forces were still a major threat to any besieger. By the 1160s, however, the length of time available for Muslim forces to conduct a siege was increased by the absence of Frankish field armies in Egypt, and the relative weakness of local forces available to the Christians. Speed was always important for the besiegers, but there were increasing occasions when Muslim armies had the time and resources to see the job through. If time was important for the besiegers, it was, for the garrisons, literally a matter of life or death. Castles can only be held by people. Most people will, if at all possible, seek to avoid death in the face of certain defeat. The time for a garrison to negotiate a surrender was while a relief force was still in prospect, and before a breach was 217

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY made or seemed inevitable. Beyond that point they had no leverage – there was nothing left to talk about. As crusader relief forces became weaker and more distant, and as Muslim besiegers had greater numbers with which to focus on creating breaches, so the tempo of those negotiations inevitably shifted. Garrisons now knew that they had to surrender more quickly if they were to have any chance of negotiating favourable terms. As each garrison surrendered, so the morale of the remaining garrisons suffered, and an emotional ‘domino effect’ set in. This shift in mindset was dictated by the logic of survival rather than by any inherent ‘treachery’ among Christian garrisons. But the new balance of power certainly encouraged behaviour which could understandably be interpreted by a frustrated monarch as, at the very least, a dereliction of duty. Irritatingly, however satisfying hanging survivors and throwing accusations of treachery around might be, it could not alter the underlying drivers of change. Only a strategic shift could alter the fundamental balance of time and psychology that was causing these castles to fall so easily. The Frankish military lacked the manpower to succeed, even with allied help, although their strategy of trying to gain control of Egypt was correct. Indeed, their strategic options were becoming so limited that they had little choice – the Fatimid government was the weakest link in regional political and military affairs and, even if the Franks did not want to take Egypt, they needed to prevent or delay it falling into the hands of the Muslim superstate that was forming in Syria. With Egypt beyond their control, and in the hands of Saladin, room for manoeuvre was becoming even more limited.

218

THE EGYPTIAN STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY

25 April 1154

Nur al-Din takes over Damascus

1155

Reynald of Châtillon attacks Byzantine Cyprus

19 June 1157

Defeat of Baldwin III at Jacob’s Ford by Nur al-Din

Autumn 1157

Third expedition of Thierry of Flanders

Early 1161

Campaign of Baldwin III to al-Arish

11 September 1161

Death of Queen Melisende

November 1161

Capture of Reynald of Châtillon by Majd al-Din of Aleppo

10 February 1163

Death of Baldwin III

18 February 1163

Coronation of King Amalric

1163

Bohemond III gains power in Antioch

September 1163

First campaign of King Amalric to Egypt

August–October 1164

Amalric’s second Egyptian campaign

10 August 1164

Battle of Artah

12 August 1164

Capture of Harim by Nur al-Din

219

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY 18 October 1164

Capture of Banyas by Nur al-Din

January–August 1167

Amalric’s third Egyptian campaign

August 1167

Frankish occupation of Alexandria

October–January 1168–1169 Amalric’s fourth Egyptian campaign 23 March 1169

Death of Shirkuh

October–December 1169

Amalric’s fifth Egyptian campaign

28 July–2 August 1174

Unsuccessful Sicilian attack on Alexandria

220

EIGHT

w THE FRONTIER STRATEGY 1170–1187

An early February morning. The merchants of Aydhab, a vibrant Red Sea trading port, set out their wares, getting ready for the day ahead. Smoke rose lazily into the air as the last fires were put out. Traders were erecting their stalls. The first low-level arguments of the day were starting, mostly about pitches and breakages. Pots were noisily arranged on boards under canvas awnings. Spices of green and yellow, gold and ochre were laid out in open hemp bags, filling the quayside with the smells and colours of a prosperous Eastern market. Goats looked on impassively, tethered nearby and relentlessly reminding anyone, everyone, that they needed feeding. The small skiffs approaching the port were idly noticed by one or two local customs officers. It was too early for the local fishermen to be returning. Maybe vessels from the other side of the sea? Or perhaps a few of the pious on their way back from pilgrimage down to Mecca? But nothing much out of the ordinary. Even as the boats got close to docking no one was too interested. They were scruffy, so clearly not rich. And the turbans of the crew, the indistinct shouts in Arabic, gave no hint of what lay in store. As the first vessel reached the town’s main jetty, the crew leapt out. Swords were pulled from beneath their dirty robes. The nearest traders and the customs guards were cut down in an instant, blood drenching their clothes. Cries of pain were bizarrely restrained for what seemed like an eternity. The victims reeled, but more with surprise than with terror. In a couple of seconds, surprise turned to panic. As more of the raiders reached the port, just moments behind the first, the town seemed almost to explode with shock. The buildings just off the quays were going up in flames, the screams of the dying mingling with the shouts of their attackers. Anything of value was gathered up 221

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY and quickly taken back to the ships. After 600 years of Muslim dominance, the tranquillity of the Red Sea was shattered.1 What happened at Aydhab was just one episode in an extraordinary campaign. In 1183 Reynald of Châtillon, lord of the Transjordan, had found a way to take the fight back to the enemy, to make a statement of aggressive intent. Most importantly, he had been able to taunt Saladin in an extremely public and personal way. Reynald was the most persistently belligerent of the crusader commanders. Arrogant and energetic in equal measure, his sense of humour and appreciation of Islam had not been improved by sixteen years in a Muslim prison.2 The latest expression of his restless animosity had been to build a squadron of prefabricated small boats and have them transported by camel down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Crewed by his own troops and the local Christians, they brought havoc to the unsuspecting sailors and merchants of the Muslim ‘mare nostrum’. It is hard to know what the objectives of the raid had originally been. Though with hindsight the expedition looks like a suicide mission, it is extremely unlikely that the participants viewed it as such. Information is limited because no one came back to talk about it. Every member of the Frankish force was either killed in action or taken prisoner and then executed at leisure. On a purely practical level the raid failed. No Muslim towns were permanently captured. No plunder was brought home. But Reynald of Châtillon had made his point. His attack down into the Red Sea was dramatic. It was hugely embarrassing for Saladin. Surely, one imagines, this shows that the crusader states were still extremely aggressive, a force to be reckoned with, even into the 1180s? Far more important naval activity was taking place elsewhere, however – far less glamorous, far less headline-grabbing, but a much better indicator of the real balance of power. From the 1170s onwards we see the Italian trading communities increasingly making agreements with Saladin rather than with the crusader states. Their fleets no longer came to the aid of the Holy Land. This was no accident. Markets, the accumulation of millions of decisions made by humans acting in their own perceived self-interest, are rarely wrong. Then as now, merchants make canny, relatively unemotional decisions based on the best real-time information about the state of the world. The Italians knew exactly what they were doing: they were betting on the winning side.3 222

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY The near collapse of the eastern frontiers of the crusader states in the 1160s, while the Frankish field armies were trying – and ultimately failing – to take Egypt, had led to a radical rethink of strategy. With the rise of Saladin and the creation of a new Muslim empire stretching from Yemen and Egypt in the south, up to Syria and Mesopotamia in the north, the crusaders found themselves ever more surrounded and outnumbered. Saladin could exploit his strong geopolitical position, playing one crusader state off against another and striking whenever and wherever the Franks were at their weakest. He could take action to help ensure their strategic isolation, for instance by forging trading alliances with the Italian states that might otherwise offer them naval support. And he could set his men on a relentless series of raids to gradually destroy the Franks’ small towns and villages – settlements that underpinned their long-term ability to recruit armies and control the hinterlands of their increasingly embattled states. Although the Franks continued to be a dangerous opponent on the battlefield, that danger could be reduced by gradually degrading their military capabilities and the economic infrastructure which supported their field army. The balance of power had changed – fundamentally and for the foreseeable future. To deal with the deteriorating military situation, the Franks were forced to develop ways in which they could stem the impact of seemingly unending Muslim invasions: the ‘frontier strategy’. This strategy, rolled out from the 1170s onwards, was essentially a highly defensive phase, focusing on pushing resources out to shore up the border zones. Its defensive and reactive nature reflected the lack of available policy options and manpower, as the crusader states desperately tried to resolve the ultimately insoluble military problems with which they were faced. This was to be accomplished partly by providing additional manpower where feasible, but mostly by increasing the scale and effectiveness of critical fortifications. The level of financial commitment this required was way beyond the means of most local barons, and was often even beyond the resources of the king himself. With the exception of a few noblemen such as the irrepressible Reynald of Châtillon, who could call on the revenues he generated by controlling the roads between Egypt and Damascus, the defence of the frontiers moved increasingly into the hands of the military orders. 223

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY By Land and Sea But it was not just on land that the balance of power had shifted. By conquering Egypt, Saladin had inherited one of the biggest fleets in the region, and a state with a long-standing naval heritage. The Franks, reliant upon help from the West and without a fleet of their own, were now vulnerable by sea as well as by land – they were surrounded in a way they had never been before. Rebuilding the Egyptian navy and using it in conjunction with his land forces in Palestine and Syria was an obvious move for Saladin.4 Its reinvigoration became a priority. The Fatimid navy had been reduced to fewer than 100 vessels by the middle of the twelfth century.5 By the early 1170s the operational strength of the navy seems to have fallen still further, with Muslim sources suggesting that only 40 ships were available, presumably not all of which would have been functional at any given time.6 The attack by the Norman Sicilian navy on Alexandria in July 1174 was a wake-up call. They failed to capture the city but demonstrated the dangerous capabilities that ownership of an effective fleet gave. It also highlighted the complete failure of the Egyptian navy and its inability to contribute to the defence of the city. The few Muslim warships in port were sunk by their own crews rather than face the Christian fleet. The failure was widely commented on by those analysing the lessons of the Sicilian attack. Even the Caliph of Baghdad became aware of the poor performance of the Egyptian navy. He wrote to Saladin a few months later, urging him to improve the fleet and Egypt’s coastal defences, and saying that, ‘there is no doubt that the fleet must be developed and strengthened, since that is the weapon to which one turns to put an end to misfortune’.7 The advice was patronising, and all the more irritating for being correct. But it could not be ignored. In March 1177, Saladin ordered a major overhaul of the Egyptian fleet. He visited the ports of Alexandria and Damietta and commanded that large numbers of warships should be constructed. Two years into this new building programme, in 1179, al-Fadil, Saladin’s secretary, was proud to point out that the fleet had doubled in size and now consisted of some 80 vessels, 60 of which were galleys.8 The investment programme continued, and more and more money was pumped into the navy over the coming years.9 Saladin was trying to do three things with his new naval capability. On a very basic, defensive level, he wanted to use it to protect his financial and military power 224

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY base in Egypt, acting as a deterrent to prevent further attacks on the Egyptian coastal cities. In this he was broadly successful – as the coastal defence and naval investment programme gathered pace from 1177 onwards, the ports gradually became far safer. The second objective was to create a fleet capable of patrolling the coast of Palestine, deterring crusaders and other visitors from the West, and picking off valuable commercial vessels. In this, he was far less successful. The water supplies available to the Egyptian navy on the coast of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had almost entirely disappeared once Ascalon had fallen. And without access to water, the fleet could not station itself for long in Palestinian waters, on the main sea routes from Europe to the crusader states.10 Under such circumstances, encountering any Christian vessels was largely accidental, and the damage inflicted on the Franks mere pinpricks. There was some intermittent raiding off the Palestinian coast, with the occasional well-publicised success. In May 1183, for instance, we know that a large Christian vessel was seized by the Egyptian fleet.11 Some of the prisoners were killed on the spot, and the others taken into slavery. But the capture of a single ship by the entire Egyptian fleet was hardly a major victory. Most importantly, however, Saladin wanted to use the navy to support his armies in their frequent attacks on the Franks, and particularly on the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli. This was a far more ambitious objective, and potentially far more dangerous for the crusaders. By the end of the 1170s it was clear that although a well-led Frankish army could still be extremely intimidating on the battlefield, the balance of military resourcing had shifted significantly in the Muslims’ favour. So significantly, in fact, that it was increasingly possible, almost commonplace, for Saladin’s armies to be able to ‘swamp’ the Frankish defences by attacking simultaneously, in force, at several different locations. A naval component was a natural development of this approach. As well as attacking the Franks on several fronts by land, the Ayyubid military would now be able to open up a new front by launching joint land–sea operations against the vital crusader coastal cities. A Forlorn Hope Under-resourced and surrounded on all sides, the crusader states were faced with increasingly limited strategic options. The answer, if it can be called that, was the 225

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY frontier strategy: bolstering the border marches, preparing the civilian communities as best as possible, and desperately trying to build an army with the critical mass to meet the Muslim invaders in the field. It could hardly pretend to be a long-term solution. Rather, it was an extended delaying action, deferring what looked like an inevitably disastrous outcome. It was unsatisfactory but it was also the least bad option from an increasingly unpalatable range of choices. Given the lack of alternatives, every effort was put into making it work as well as possible: galvanising diplomatic help wherever it could be found, building up the number of local troops and putting state-of-the-art castles on the ground to ensure that the limited available manpower was used to best effect. Diplomatic initiatives in support of this new, and increasingly desperate, strategic phase continued with energy but few tangible results. External help was needed more than ever, as the political situation had deteriorated markedly. King Baldwin IV had inherited the throne of Jerusalem just a few weeks before Saladin had moved to take Damascus, the de facto capital of his erstwhile master Nur al-Din.12 This was a double disaster. The unity of the new Muslim empire was an obvious threat. Less obvious, but just as dangerous, was Baldwin’s accession. He was a 13-year-old leper. He was inexperienced and his health was inevitably deteriorating. He lived for another 11 years (longer than was expected) and was a good leader for his people. But he was dying, and could father no children. At the moment when the crusader states most needed stability and unity, political considerations encouraged rampant factionalism, as different groups each sought to make the crown their own. Internal problems were mirrored by external difficulties. There were a lot of specific reasons why diplomacy failed, why people could not or would not help, or why the help on offer was inadequate. But the underlying reason was just simple game theory. Only the most fanatical settlers would want to take their families to live in the Holy Land. There was little land, and a lot of danger – hardly the most compelling combination. Similarly, the Italian merchants were sometimes pious but always canny. They followed the money, and made agreements with Saladin, rather than sending fleets to support the crusader states. And other potential allies were increasingly disincentivised from helping what was felt to be a losing, if not lost, cause. With the crusader states looking like a basket case, there was no queue to throw good money after bad. 226

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY The list of friends grew ever shorter. The Norman rulers of Sicily, inconsistent but occasionally very useful allies, made it clear where they thought their best interests lay. They negotiated a 10-year truce with Saladin in August 1181 – this allowed him to shift troops and money away from the defence of Egypt’s coastal cities and divert them towards the relentless assaults on the Holy Land.13 Equally unhelpfully, violent regime change took place in Byzantium in 1182, resulting in attacks upon Westerners in the city and the decapitation of the papal legate. Strained relations between Eastern and Western Christendom meant that no more help would be coming from that direction.14 Within a few months both of the last remaining hopes for immediate naval assistance had disappeared. Only the West remained to call on for help. Delegations were sent to rally support. The crown of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was even offered to those who might come to help. Humiliatingly, no one was interested. The financial drain of an increasingly indefensible state, combined with the likelihood of a violent and premature death, made kingship an unattractive prospect. A senior diplomatic mission was dispatched to the West in 1184. The hopes of the Latin East rested firmly on its shoulders. There was no doubting the seriousness of the situation. The delegation was led by the heads of both military orders, the Templars and the Hospitallers, men able to appeal directly to the chivalrous and militaristic feelings of the secular authorities, as well as their piety. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, the guardian of the True Cross (an elaborate cross which Christians of the time believed to contain a piece of the wood of Christ’s crucifixion),15 came along as well for good measure, adding an extra dimension of spiritual urgency to an obviously pressing military need.16 They lobbied strongly and persuasively for help: for a new crusade to take the pressure off the frontiers; for money or troops to help defend the borders; and for a senior Western figure to travel east to the Holy Land, to take on the leadership of the Latin East and to act as a conduit to channel assistance from the West into the defence of the East. It came to nothing – there was goodwill, there was some money, but nowhere near enough. King Baldwin IV died before they returned, and it was perhaps just as well. He ended his sad life and doggedly brave reign with the hope of Western aid still alive.17 There was always a trickle of pious and motivated crusaders to call upon. Helpful as they were, however, they were never enough: small-scale, temporary assistance could not suffice for states whose military needs were substantial and constant. They 227

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY could provide occasional, tactical help, but were never suitable for the needs of strategy. The armies of Europe were no longer on the march. Despite the failure to raise armies or attract high-profile leaders, however, there had at least been some fund-raising successes. Donors in the West were offered remission of their sins if they could send money to help the cause. The consciences of kings too preoccupied or too indifferent to help in person were assuaged by making such gifts, generally, of course, raised at their subjects’ expense.18 Financial success abroad was mirrored by some innovative and far-reaching initiatives within the crusader states themselves. A General Council of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1183 set up a census upon which to base a universal tax, raising money from all sections of society to help fund increased defence expenditure. Such extraordinary taxation was normally extremely unpopular, but it was seemingly approved with relative ease: the danger was so great that even the most recalcitrant taxpayer could hardly challenge the need.19 This money was helpful and could be converted into better equipment and bigger fortifications. But, with the exception of a few mercenaries, it could not easily be turned into warm bodies, and particularly not trained and experienced ones. Manpower was a hard ceiling that the Franks just could not break through.20 Saladin had extensive, well-populated dominions and access to almost limitless mercenary bands. The crusader states, by contrast, had run out of land. Even if they had been able to persuade settlers to overlook the dangers of the region, they had nowhere to put them. Crusader armies grew as quickly as they could, but there were severe limitations. The infantry could be expanded by conscripting shopkeepers and farmers, the young or the old. But this could only be done at the expense of quality. Either way, the situation was a long way from ideal. Ultimately, scraping the barrel to expand the numbers in the field army was the least bad option, but it was hardly inspirational. The best it could deliver was larger bodies of inexperienced infantry, accompanied by increasingly outnumbered cavalry. The inescapable reality was that every knight who fought at Hattin in 1187 had to face 10 heavy cavalrymen in Saladin’s ’askar. The maths could not be avoided. The political situation was worsening and there was no obvious solution to the manpower problem – the crusaders’ strategic options were, effectively, reduced to maximising the returns on their existing resources. They were left with no choice but 228

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY to make castles a central part of their broader frontier strategy. Throughout the 1170s and 1180s we find the Franks making huge efforts to upgrade their fortifications, transforming simple defensive structures into complex bastions, better equipped to present a sustainable in-depth defence against even the strongest Muslim armies.21 The development of the concentric castle, a fortification with multiple layers of walls, and additional, more sophisticated defensive features, was the most overt feature of this effort. But the shift was more far-reaching than just that, symptomatic of an ‘arms race’ in the region that, unless political unity among the Muslim states fractured, would continue to pile increasing pressure upon the crusader states. For a society with very limited manpower and no way of remedying the situation, castles were an obvious way of making the available resources go further. Fifty men in a desert were easy meat for nomadic cavalry. Fifty men in a castle were an entirely different matter. Defensively, they now had survivability, and could provide a safe haven for other soldiers or civilians. More aggressively, they now had the capability to ambush raiders when they were returning laden with booty, and to kill stragglers. Castles were both a jumping-off point and a refuge. In an age of limited technology, they were the great ‘force multiplier’, allowing relatively small groups of men to project a disproportionate influence on the landscape around them. The military orders and the richer barons stepped in to shore up the borders with a new generation of powerful fortifications, built by channelling funds and reinforcements from Europe. The shift increased their power, which inevitably extended increasingly into economic and political influence as well as military responsibilities. Contemporaries referred to the warrior monks as ‘the new knighthood’, but perhaps the most vital military contribution they made was to preside over the creation of ‘the new castles’. A far more powerful type of fortification, the concentric castles, formed the spine of this defence, providing fixed-point security on the frontiers in the absence of sufficient manpower. These castles were the most tangible part of the frontier strategy. They have captured the imaginations of countless numbers of onlookers throughout the centuries, and remain an enduring monument to the breathtaking vision of those who designed them. The strength of that vision, and the massive leap forward that they represented in terms of the military architecture of the region, is plain to see. 229

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY But were these castles a genuinely planned, ‘strategic’ response? Or were they merely a natural evolution, a common-sense and gradual set of improvements to an already well-established set of structures? There are two key factors that strongly suggest a truly strategic intent, rather than just an ad hoc response. First, the new castles were revolutionary (rather than evolutionary) in terms of the design changes they incorporated. These were not just better versions of the old castles. In many cases they represented an entirely new design generation.22 Secondly, they were not isolated advances. If one or two lords, separated by large distances, had developed new kinds of strongholds, one might describe the developments as being coincidental. Perhaps they could be due to local conditions, the vagaries of taste, or to the availability of money. In this case, however, the opposite is true. Across different social and economic conditions, across different regions in different geographies, we see the whole map of fortifications changing – and in the same way. All the crusader states, within a relatively short space of time, made concerted efforts to transform the castles which defended their frontiers. There was no formal memo headed ‘Revamping Castle Design’. But structured conversations were clearly taking place about the kinds of changes that were needed, and how quickly they should be implemented. The new castles were innovative in many different ways. Reflecting the innate aggression of the Franks, even when implementing a fundamentally defensive strategy, they were proactive and intimidating whenever possible. They incorporated ways to take the fight out to the enemy; ways to inflict increasing casualties upon any attacker; and ways to create layers of ‘killing zones’, ratcheting up the pressure on enemy morale. The form they took was not entirely new. The castles were concentric, but there were many earlier examples of late Roman and Byzantine fortifications which also had those features. The Frankish castles of the frontier strategy took these basic design principles to a new level, however. The most advanced of the new generation castles incorporated a range of interlocking features which made them increasingly daunting to assault.23 The layers of walls were the most obvious, most visible, point of departure.24 The advantages of having two sets of walls would have become apparent even 230

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY before any assault was in prospect. The inner walls were designed to be part of an active defence, not just a passive line of safety for a potential retreat. Developments in catapult technology and counter-battery fire were at the root of this active defence capability. Towards the end of the twelfth century the deployment of heavy artillery was an increasingly important component of any major siege. There was no element of surprise in this. Catapults took time to build, assemble and position. Everyone, defenders and besiegers alike, was well aware of where the attack was to be focused, even before the first stone was thrown. It was here that the second layer of walls provided additional capability. The defenders’ catapults were generally focused on counter-battery fire in an attempt to suppress the bombardment of the castle walls. Having two layers of walls (of which, importantly, the inner walls were higher) allowed counter-battery fire to take place in depth. Given that there was little element of surprise in an artillery bombardment, the defenders were able to position their counter-battery catapults on both layers of walls, and concentrate their fire on critical targets. Similarly, crossbowmen and archers from both wall circuits could concentrate their fire on assault parties as they approached. The new walls also had an intangible but perhaps even more significant impact on the way the besiegers viewed any assault. Most Muslim siege forces consisted largely of nomadic-heritage cavalry or impoverished ‘volunteers’. For these men the opportunities for plunder (and particularly quick plunder) were a major motivating force. Concentric walls, however, took the chance of a ‘quick win’ firmly off the table. Where once there could be a chance of a lottery-winning, life-changing outcome to scaling a wall, now there was just another obstacle, and another chance of getting killed. Morale suffered disproportionately as the prospect of easy gratification was taken away. And there were not just more walls. They were wider and higher. The depth of many curtain walls almost doubled in size over the course of the twelfth century, making mining at their base increasingly difficult. The walls of Bethgibelin, for instance, were just over 2 metres wide when it was first built in 1136. When it was upgraded as part of the frontier strategy, however, they were made over 4 metres wide.25 They also got higher, making them harder to climb and creating a deeper ‘shadow’ behind them, offering increased protection from enemy catapult projectiles.26 231

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY In front of the walls were massive moats and ditches. The moat at Safad castle, for instance, was later said to be 13.5 metres wide and 15.5 metres deep.27 These ostensibly simple design features had a surprisingly wide range of benefits. They kept siege towers and other siege engines at bay, made it easier to disguise posterns (concealed exits) and hindered the use of scaling ladders. Most importantly, however, they made the job of mining far more time-consuming. Muslim armies were renowned for their expertise in sapping and mining, and deep moats made it far more difficult for them to get to the base of the walls, where they needed to do their work. Vaults and storage facilities got bigger and stronger, offering greater protection from catapults and, more importantly, allowing garrisons to hold out for months or even years before starvation forced them to surrender.28 Protection for firing points was strengthened, allowing small garrisons to better survive the arrow-storms of massed Turkic archers.29 Posterns were also improved. These allowed greater flexibility in making sorties from the castle and increased opportunities for aggressive raids on the besiegers’ lines.30 The Hospitaller castle of Belvoir, for instance, which underwent a transformative rebuilding programme from the 1160s onwards, had five postern gates down in the moat.31 As if to demonstrate how effective the new posterns could be, the garrison launched a surprise attack out of one on a January night in 1188, six months into a siege by Saladin’s men. They overran the Muslim lines and killed the emir in charge. The supplies they captured and took back into the castle allowed them to hold out for another full year.32 The sophistication of these new castles was impressive. But so too was their sheer size. They were up to four times the size of their predecessors, and this was reflected (particularly where the military orders were concerned) in the size of their garrisons. The best of the late twelfth-century crusader castles were the aircraft carriers of their day: dramatic, dominating and impossible to ignore.33 Just as the design of the new castles was evidence of an underlying strategy, so too was their distribution. The consistent nature of the way they were rolled out across the crusader states was no coincidence. The change reflected an extraordinary regularity of purpose. Muslim military pressure was applied increasingly intensively from north to south, with the crusader territories closest to the core Turkic power bases suffering first. As we have seen, the Franks responded by shifting towards greater reliance on 232

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY the military orders and, associated with this, a significant upgrading of border fortifications. This response naturally proceeded from north to south too, mirroring the level of threat. In the Principality of Antioch the Templars took over responsibility for the defence of the northern frontiers of the principality, with a string of castles that gave them the role of hugely powerful and semi-independent marcher lords. This was heady stuff, and their responsibilities and power were accompanied, inevitably, by huge expense.34 But despite the costs involved, massive castle upgrades were unavoidable. At Bourzey (Rochefort castle) the original Byzantine citadel was eventually dwarfed by Frankish walls which enclosed the whole of the plateau at the top of the mountain on which it stood.35 Similarly, at Saone a massive castle was built along the summit of a ridge, vastly overshadowing the old Byzantine fortress at its centre. Work on improving the fortifications seems to have started in the early decades of the twelfth century, but by the 1180s it was absolutely massive. It had its own walled town on the western side of the ridge, and layers of interior walls running along the ridge from west to east. These led to a superb keep at the eastern edge of the castle, perched above a precipitous man-made cliff which the locals unromantically described as ‘the great trench’. The defences of Saone are impressive but also evocative: only a society at war and increasingly aware of the precarious nature of its very existence needs such defences.36 As the arms race gathered pace and pressure on the northern frontiers increased, so the expenses involved in castle upgrades grew ever more onerous. This had political as well as military consequences. The baronial families were increasingly forced into the background. By the 1180s, even the traditionally safer areas of the principality were becoming untenable for those who had only local feudal resources to call on. The Mazoir family, for instance, the richest in Antioch, had from 1140 made their base at Margat, near the coast. They had fortified the town and castle at huge expense and built a series of other, smaller castles across their domains. By the 1180s, however, even they were forced to throw in the towel. With superb timing and instincts that would do justice to the most astute property speculator, they managed to sell their entire estates to the Hospitallers in February 1187, just months before the collapse at Hattin.37 233

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY The same shift was under way in the County of Tripoli, and followed the same logic. The Templars created what was, in effect, a semi-independent state within a state. They took over the castle of Chastel Blanc and massively rebuilt it after an earthquake in 1170. The castle eventually took the shape of a substantial tower with underground cisterns, surrounded by two layers of walls.38 From the top of the castle the garrison could see another major Templar stronghold at Arima. The castle had been occupied three times by Nur al-Din in recent years, in 1148, 1159 and 1171: there was no starker reminder of how close the Tripolitan frontiers were to collapse. Like Chastel Blanc, it was damaged by the earthquake of 1170 and needed substantial (and expensive) rebuilding and upgrading by its new Templar owners.39 Again, with responsibility and expense came power. The new military solutions imposed new, hybrid political structures onto the existing feudal boundaries. Thus the Templars in their Tripolitan marches were ruling semi-independently over large swathes of the local population, both Muslim and Christian. Particularly tellingly, it was even acknowledged that they were entitled to have independent dealings with the neighbouring Muslim states – to have, in effect, their own foreign policy.40 For the rulers of the crusader states the costs of upgrading the frontier defences were not merely financial. The Hospitallers also took over large parts of the county. The massive earthquake of 1170 gave the transition a particular urgency, but the underlying factors were identical – coping with increased Muslim pressure on the frontiers, particularly when the Frankish army was campaigning in Egypt, coupled with the need to repair and upgrade the frontier fortifications. Immediately after the earthquake, the Hospitallers were given the castles of Arqa and Akkar. Despite their riches, even they were beginning to feel the financial pressure, however, and it is unclear whether they were ever able to fully occupy and rebuild them. Gilbert, the master of the order, went into a state of depression brought about by the huge expenses and responsibilities the order had taken on. He and his men were trying to recover Egypt while simultaneously patrolling the frontiers of the crusader states. The defence of the East was grinding even the most dedicated of men into despair.41 Crac des Chevaliers, the main Hospitaller base in the County of Tripoli, was another case in point. As the pivotal point of the order’s marches in the north-east of the county, it had to be upgraded, again, at huge expense and with the added impetus of 234

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY the damage caused by the devastating earthquake of 1170. The Hospitallers originally took over the castle in 1142 and had built a classic courtyard-type castle on the site.42 But the changing balance of power meant that this simple design was no longer sufficient. A concentric outer wall may have been built at this time, and additional defensive features were added to the original castle. In the tower at the north-west corner of the original castle, for instance, we find a postern gate in one flank and three openings through which stones or other objects could be thrown down onto attackers at the base of the wall – both of these are characteristic of the late twelfth-century castle upgrades.43 Crac des Chevaliers was by no means as elaborate as the structure we see today, but it certainly went through a substantial process of improvement soon after 1170. Even so, despite this huge investment, the castle was symptomatic of weakness rather than strength. In 1180 Saladin invaded the County of Tripoli and his troops devastated the region around the castle. The Frankish garrison were well armed and highly motivated, but, as in 1166 when Nur al-Din’s men invaded, they were far too few in number to ride out to meet his army. They could make it difficult for Muslim troops to occupy an area permanently. They could pick off stragglers. But they could not stop enemy armies repeatedly ravaging the countryside and destroying rural communities. Even the best castles were only a partial solution to a problem which the Franks were never adequately resourced to address.44 Castles were highly prized assets across most of the medieval world, but frontier castles in the crusader states (even with extensive estates attached to them) were now so vulnerable and so expensive to maintain that one could barely give them away. And yet, ultimately, the military orders had to take up the slack. No one else could.45 As Muslim armies grew in size, and the frontiers became more permeable, so the danger moved further south, into the hinterlands of Palestine. The growth of a Frankish population in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had been an important part of the recovery of the Holy Land. It was also a vital aspect of long-term stabilisation and its hopeful reintegration back into a broader Christendom. As the arms race of the 1160s gathered pace, local Christians and settlers were a vital source of manpower for the Frankish armies and civilians were increasingly called upon to bolster the ranks. Ironically, this source of strength was also a source of vulnerability. The defence of a civilian colonial community brought increasing challenges with it. It meant that there were isolated rural communities to defend, there were Frankish farmers and native Christian communities, women and children, to protect. With Turkic mercenaries 235

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY being brought down in vast numbers to bolster the Muslim armies of Syria, the age-old contest between nomads and sedentary communities was about to play itself out again. A nomadic warband has very little to protect, and very little to lose. For a settled rural community, however, its economic infrastructure, irrigation, plantations built up over decades, are extremely fragile. Overlaid across this nomadic–sedentary conflict were the less tangible but nonetheless vital obligations that formed the cornerstone of any feudal society. A lord or a knight was part of an elite class who were, within the parameters of the time, hugely privileged. With that privilege came responsibility, however, and foremost among those responsibilities was the duty to protect those who owed them service. On the grandest scale this meant that the king had a moral obligation to go to the aid of his barons when their castles were besieged. Entire campaigns could hinge on such obligations. Much of the debate in the days preceding the battle of Hattin revolved around the moral obligation of King Guy to bring the Latin field army to the aid of his vassal, Raymond of Tripoli, whose castle – and family – were trapped by Muslim troops in Tiberias.46 Such obligations flowed all the way down the feudal chain. As the Frankish settlements in western Galilee increased in number during the twelfth century, so there were more families, more priests, more women and children to protect. Where Nur al-Din had been able to destabilise the eastern borders of Antioch and Tripoli, his successor Saladin was able to bring greater numbers of troops increasingly further south. The defences of the Galilean frontiers of the Latin Kingdom needed a quantum shift to help them face the new level of threat and, once again, it was only the military orders, with their consistent access to resources from Western Europe, who could step up to meet the challenge. A few examples show just how profound was the shift towards the ‘new castles’ in Galilee: the scale of the response reflected the urgency of the need. Protecting pilgrims was the long-standing ‘corporate objective’ of the Templars. The Galilean castle of Safad fitted that objective well, as it was close to all the main places of pilgrimage in the north of the Latin Kingdom. The first, very simple, Frankish castle on the site had been built in 1102. But it was no longer sophisticated enough for the new pressures on the region, particularly following the loss of Banyas and the near collapse of the Tripolitan frontiers just to the north.47 Around 1168, probably because he was (quite rightly) worried about the possibility of Muslim fron236

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY tier incursions while he was away campaigning in Egypt, King Amalric realised that something needed to be done. He formally gave the castle of Safad to the Templars.48 The legal documentation underpinning the grant is not entirely clear, but from the way it is phrased, it seems likely that the Templars were already in possession of the castle and were renting it from the Constable of Tiberias. It also seems that they had only recently rebuilt the castle.49 Specific changes in castle design are notoriously difficult to date but the rebuilding of Safad was so substantial that contemporaries described it as a castle that was ‘newly built’.50 Whatever the exact nature of the rebuilding of Safad, however, we know that it was able to hold out against Muslim armies for about 18 months after the battle of Hattin, so it was almost certainly one of the new generation of concentric castles.51 The stronghold was boosted by troops fleeing from the battlefield of Hattin and despite a monthlong catapult bombardment in November–December 1188, it only fell when food supplies became so low that the garrison were too weak to man the walls.52 Belvoir was a remarkably similar story. So similar in fact that one could be forgiven for seeing it as part of the same planning process thrashed out in the royal chancery and among the military leaders of the kingdom in the late 1160s. Like Safad, Belvoir was sold to the military orders – this time the Hospitallers – by a secular lord in 1168, in what was probably a coordinated attempt to shore up the frontier defences of Galilee at a time when the Latin field army was often absent in Egypt. The archaeological remains at Belvoir are much better preserved than those of Safad, however, and show that the castle was constructed in a single programme of building activity, at some point between 1168 and 1187.53 What the Hospitallers achieved was simple but extremely impressive. The castle is sited on a strong position overlooking the Jordan Valley, with views towards the Galilean hills, and northwards towards Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee. Belvoir itself is a classic rectangular concentric castle with outer walls some 100 metres square, a rockcut moat and an inner ward (in effect a smaller castle inside) some 40 metres square. Layer after layer of killing zones within the castle made it a besiegers’ nightmare.54 The castle managed to hold out until January 1189, a full 18 months after most of the Latin Kingdom had been overrun in the aftermath of the disaster at Hattin. Even then surrender came only after a focused siege supervised by Saladin himself, during which a lengthy bombardment and mining operations had brought down part of the castle’s barbican.55 237

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Chastel Neuf was one of the few late-generation castles to be rebuilt in secular hands, albeit on a less lavish scale than those of the military orders. It had been constructed by Hugh of Fauquembergues in the early years of the Principality of Galilee (1105–1107) but, as we have seen, it was set on fire by its own garrison and further damaged by Nur al-Din’s troops in 1167. The site itself was too important to remain derelict for long, however, as it was close to one of the main jumping-off points for Muslim armies raiding down into Galilee.56 The archaeological evidence is limited but it is clear that the new rectangular castle was substantial in size (85 metres by 65–7 metres), with an extensive outer ward to the south. It was also defended by a rock-cut moat on three sides, and by a precipice on the fourth.57 As always, the castle was not designed for passive defence alone. Within a few months of its construction (perhaps even while it was still being built), its lord, Humphrey II of Toron, was killed while leading his men out raiding towards Banyas. Castle building on such a scale was more than just a financial risk.58 The Lull: 1170–1177 With the frontiers being strengthened by new castles such as Chastel Neuf and Belvoir, it was still possible to overlook just how bad things really were. Although the geopolitical situation had changed, the full consequences were not yet clear. The Franks remained as aggressive as ever. Saladin was untried and untested. His qualities as a general were largely unknown, and many viewed his inexperience with optimism. Even as late as 1177 plans were still being made to invade Egypt yet again, with help from the Byzantine navy and visiting crusaders. Encouragingly, when Saladin invaded the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at the end of the year, the result was a fiasco. He split his army in the face of his Frankish opponents and manoeuvred them clumsily. Despite heavily outnumbering the forces of King Baldwin and Reynald of Châtillon, his men were routed and almost wiped out during a catastrophic flight back to Cairo. The clash at Mont Gisard seemed to show that Saladin was an incompetent general, and that Frankish field armies were still battle winners.59 More importantly (but less visibly), Muslim disunity provided a continuing distraction, as Saladin sought to neutralise his rivals and take over Nur al-Din’s dominions. We tend to look back on Saladin through the aura of his later power and victories. For most of his reign, however, his position was far more vulnerable. 238

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY Everything was fragile, nothing was predetermined to be successful. The early years of his rule were characterised by the need to face a continual stream of enemies, mostly Muslim, before an Ayyubid military superpower could be consolidated. Egypt: internal enemies The example of Egypt shows just how much energy this process required, and what a significant drain on resources it was. A lot needed to happen before Saladin could go wholeheartedly on the offensive against the crusader states, even if that was what he had planned. But did such plans exist? If we look at Egypt as a case study, for instance, we might expect to find evidence of his overarching military strategy against the Franks. Egypt was, after all, the centre of his original Kurdish state and the heart of his domains for the first five years of his rule, until the death of Nur al-Din gave him the opportunity to expand into Syria. When one looks in more detail at the situation facing Saladin, however, one is immediately struck by the sheer volume of pressing military threats he faced, and the mass of disparate objectives that needed to be addressed. The Franks were certainly on his ‘to do’ list, but it was a very long list, and most of the items on that list related to disposing of Muslim rivals, rather than Christians. He had betrayed Nur al-Din, his master. The first thing he needed to do was survive that act of betrayal, and the consequences that would likely bring. It is unclear why Nur al-Din did not step in immediately to suppress the nascent Kurdish state. Perhaps he thought Saladin could be brought back into line, and did not want to force him into a position where war became inevitable. Or perhaps he wanted Saladin to do the hard and risky work of fully suppressing the old Shi’ite Fatimid regime before he made his move. Saladin only felt able to make the transition to proclaim Egypt’s allegiance to the Sunni Abbasid caliphate in September 1171. Even after that turning point, however, he was, as we shall see, still putting down a succession of revolts until 1174. Nur al-Din may have felt, with some justification, that attacking Saladin prematurely could unleash a resurgence of the old Fatimid factions, and might undo all the work he had devoted to the conquest of Egypt.60 239

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Far better, he may have reasoned, to let Saladin weaken himself militarily in trying to establish his regime in Egypt, before attempting to dislodge him. In the meantime, Nur al-Din could cut him off from high-quality reinforcements. Saladin’s best troops, his only reliable soldiers, were Kurdish and Turkic cavalry, and they were spread very thinly. Saladin was forced to deploy them to suppress the Egyptian army and, in order to bolster up his new state, to invade Yemen, to launch attacks into North Africa, and to invade Christian Nubia. All of this inevitably meant that his veterans were subject to considerable attrition, however, and Nur al-Din could control the flow of replacement troops into the region: Kurdish and Turkic troops could only get to Egypt with the permission of the rulers of Syria. The effectiveness of the Fatimid army had been severely degraded by just such a technique. Nur al-Din knew that the most powerful element of the fledgling Ayyubid army would inevitably diminish over time. As well as controlling the supply of Turkic troops to Saladin’s army, Nur al-Din was confident that Saladin would find other sources of military manpower increasingly hard to access. The so-called ‘Black’ regiments (the ‘Sudani’), which formed the largest part of the Egyptian infantry, had been disbanded, often in the most violent manner. This did not just mean that they were unavailable for recruitment into the new Ayyubid army. Many of the unemployed Nubian troops went into active opposition, and launched violent revolts in 1169, 1170, 1172 and 1174. Similarly, the Armenian archers and cavalry that had formed some of the more elite Egyptian units were disbanded and marginalised by Saladin for political and religious reasons. There was an exodus of the Armenian community into the Latin Kingdom in this period. The Armenian patriarch led many of his flock over the border into Jerusalem in November 1172.61 They actively helped to swell the ranks of the Frankish enemy. Nur al-Din’s death in May 1174 was fortunate for Saladin and almost certainly prevented a full-scale invasion of Egypt by Syrian troops. But even that did not mean the Egyptian military were immediately freed up to focus on the crusaders. Controlling Egypt undoubtedly had many advantages. It occupied a vital geopolitical position in the region, and had a history as a major naval power. Most importantly, it was a major cash cow which could be used to fund the expansion of the Ayyubid army. But, with its ethnically and religiously disparate population, affected by centuries of officially enforced demilitarisation, it was never going to be the most useful source of manpower. On the contrary, in the short term at least, it was a drain. As we have 240

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY seen, the Egyptian army went into revolt shortly after Saladin took over, fearing – entirely correctly – that the imposition of an orthodox Sunni state, founded as a Kurdish family enterprise and based on Turkic military power, would be severely limiting for their career prospects.62 In the summer of 1169 the Black infantry regiments led the first major revolt and took over the great square at Cairo. The mutineers were estimated by Saladin himself in a letter to Baghdad as being 100,000 strong, and by Imad ad-Din, his secretary, as numbering some 50,000. Either way, this was formidable opposition.63 They were joined by others from the old regime, the Fatimid elite and the Armenian military, together with some of the local Shi’ite population. Saladin took refuge in the vizier’s palace, while fierce fighting carried on in the square for two days. For a while the rebels seemed to be getting the upper hand. Armenian archers even forced their way into the adjacent palaces and directed sweeping fire onto Saladin’s troops below them.64 In a dramatic escalation of the fighting, however, the snipers were brutally burnt out of the buildings as Saladin’s Turks stormed their positions and used naphtha hand grenades, an early form of napalm, to dislodge them. This was the turning point. The Black regiments were forced back down the main street and away from the square, and their barracks in the Mansuraya district were burnt down. The rebellious troops asked for quarter and retreated across the river to Giza. Saladin could not just let them go, however. Demoralised and perhaps already partially disarmed, the Black regiments were pursued by troops led by Turanshah, Saladin’s elder brother, and almost wiped out. The revolt in Cairo petered out on 23 August 1169.65 But, like the Fatimids before him, Saladin still needed to station large numbers of troops in Cairo to ensure political stability. And, having driven the rebels out of the main cities, they were able to take their grievances with them into the provinces. In 1170 there was another revolt, this time in Upper Egypt, which was instigated jointly by disgruntled troops from the old Black regiments and local Arabs. This was successfully put down, and the region was given to Turanshah as a fief. Within a couple of years, however, at the beginning of 1172, yet another rebellion flared in the region, only to be suppressed again with much violence.66 In the summer of 1172 an even more serious uprising broke out, this time fomented by a Nubian army acting in tandem with unemployed and disgruntled 241

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Fatimid troops based on the Egyptian border. This very mixed force, including Armenians, Nubians, ex-Black regiment infantry and local ‘volunteers’, laid siege to Aswan. An initial relief force could not dislodge them, and a substantial army eventually had to be sent south to see them off, again led by Turanshah. He routed the Nubian and rebel force, and launched a punitive expedition down into Nubia itself, destroying the northern town of Ibrim early in 1173.67 The trouble in Egypt would still not go away, however. Just a few months later, in March–April 1174, a serious Fatimid conspiracy was exposed, supposedly plotting with the Franks and Armenians to overthrow the new Ayyubid government. Once again, the main conspirators were drawn from among those disinherited by the new regime, mainly unemployed Fatimid officials and remnants of the old Fatimid armies – Armenians, and soldiers from the old Black regiments. The conspiracy was eventually betrayed and the ringleaders crucified in the central square of Cairo, but it showed that Saladin could not afford to relax.68 That was the last major problem for Saladin in Cairo itself, but there was more trouble in store elsewhere. Later in 1174 Upper Egypt went into revolt yet again. This time the rebels consisted of Muslim Bedouin, together with Christian Nubians and other Fatimid supporters. It was even joined, somewhat mysteriously, by the Governor of Aswan and his troops – a Bedouin by birth, he may have had tribal links with the rebels that outweighed his allegiance to Saladin. Another of Saladin’s brothers, al-Adil, was sent to put down the revolt. The leaders were killed and the rebel army was defeated on 7 September 1174.69 Throughout these upheavals, the Bedouin population, and the auxiliaries they traditionally provided for the Egyptian army, were studiedly neutral at best. In many ways they were natural enemies of the Ayyubid empire. They wanted weak government that allowed them as much autonomy as possible, rather than a strong and ethnically foreign state of the kind Saladin was building. The Bedouin continued to be a military distraction and a danger to everyone, including their fellow Muslims.70 They were just as likely to be found helping the crusader forces in the desert frontiers around Gaza, Darum and Kerak as they were Saladin’s army. Their interests were steadfastly their own. The old regime could clearly not be relied on. But trust was a commodity in scarce supply, even among Saladin’s ostensible friends. His apologists might protest – and often protested too much – but it was clear to all that his new Ayyubid empire 242

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY was founded on opportunism and bad faith. He had betrayed his master, and it was only the convenient accident of Nur al-Din’s death that stopped a full-scale civil war erupting across the Muslim Middle East. Egypt: weapons of mass seduction Saladin had learnt well from his uncle. Shirkuh, also a Kurdish outsider in a Turkicrun regime, knew that he might eventually need his men to follow him, rather than their ultimate master, Nur al-Din. He also knew that loyalty could be bought. He was, as even the Christian chroniclers recognised, ‘loved by his followers because of his generosity’. He used lavish gifts as a carefully crafted tool to create his own personal following.71 Saladin understood the wisdom of this approach, and took Shirkuh’s generosity to new levels. Where Nur al-Din had been less than generous, the new Ayyubid regime was founded on the distribution of largesse to those who might be useful or a threat.72 His soldiers in Egypt were rewarded with large gifts of land. Judges, lawyers and religious leaders were all beneficiaries of his open-handedness. Even poets were enlisted for the cause and given suitable amounts of cash – vitally important for a government with precious little legitimacy, they were literary PR men, paid to shape and direct public opinion with every appearance of enthusiasm.73 Some have seen Saladin’s apparently lax approach to financial matters as a character trait – perhaps a personality flaw, perhaps something more noble, or perhaps the somewhat childish reaction of a nomadic-heritage leader rewarding his followers more in the fashion of a war band than a government. It was certainly hugely frustrating for those officials who were tasked with the efficient running of the state, and were continually trying to balance the books in the wake of his famous gift-giving.74 That is to do Saladin a disservice. He was using generosity as a tool of policy, raising it to the level of strategic lever – he was doing so, moreover, in conjunction with an increasingly shrill emphasis on the supposed role which his regime was playing in leading a jihad, a holy war against the Franks. His new state was founded on treachery and opportunism, rather than legitimacy. But if he did not have loyalty by right he could at least, like his uncle, buy it.75

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THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Egypt: external enemies Numerous though they were, it was not just internal problems that Saladin had to worry about in Egypt. Potentially far more serious threats were posed by the Normans in Sicily, the Franks in Jerusalem and, most dangerous of all until his death in 1174, his putative overlord in Damascus, Nur al-Din. The threat from Norman Sicily was real. Their king, William II, had planned an expedition against Alexandria in 1174. The Sicilians built a very substantial navy for the campaign, together with ‘a splendid force of cavalry and infantry’. Muslim sources described the fleet as numbering ‘two hundred galleys carrying men, thirtysix transports carrying horses, six large ships carrying war materials and forty vessels with provisions’.76 They also brought a full siege train with them, including artillery and what appears to have been pre-prepared sections of siege towers. This was no mere raid. The Sicilians meant business. The expedition had set off from Palermo before news of King Amalric’s death reached them but when they arrived at Alexandria they decided to try to besiege it on their own. The Sicilian army encamped before the city for five or six days but achieved nothing. They eventually burnt what was left of their siege equipment (some of which had already been destroyed in a Muslim sortie on 31 July), and set off back home on 1 August. Without the extra manpower and support of the Latin Kingdom’s field army, Alexandria was too difficult a prize for them to take.77 Despite this setback, the Sicilians remained a dangerous distraction. In 1175–1176 they attacked the port of Tinnis, on the eastern side of the Nile Delta, and soon after, in 1177–1178, they even succeeded in taking and destroying it.78 The Sicilians ultimately failed to create a sustainable foothold on the Egyptian coast, but their efforts posed a continuing threat. The Franks in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem were also a constant problem for Egypt in the 1160s and 1170s. Some of the best Frankish commanders and troops were garrisoned on their borders. To the south, Reynald of Châtillon and his veteran troops, operating out of strongholds such as Kerak and Montréal, sent patrols and small expeditions deep into the Sinai and made communication between Egypt and Syria extremely difficult. To the north, the Templars were raiding further and further into the frontier zone. The Bedouin, whose interests, like the Franks, lay in having a feeble government in Cairo, worked closely with the local Christian troops on the 244

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY border, providing reconnaissance and auxiliary support. Most importantly, they were able to guide Frankish cavalry units far into the desert, taking them to water sources they would otherwise have been unable to find, and increasing the range and striking power of their patrols. Like the Sicilians, the Franks of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem also posed the threat of invasion by sea. They did not have a permanent fleet of their own but could pull together surprisingly effective makeshift naval squadrons when they needed to. More worryingly, they were continually lobbying their Byzantine coreligionists for support. In October 1169, as we have seen, King Amalric and the Byzantine imperial fleet had launched a joint attack on Damietta. The siege lasted 50 days – and failed – but the prospect of a return was always real.79 And in 1171 King Amalric had gained Byzantine agreement for a new allied expedition against Egypt, something of which Saladin and his spies would have been well aware.80 The level of threat in Egypt meant that Saladin was forced to divert significant resources into major building projects. Cairo was the subject of substantial fortification work. The walls of the old Fatimid quarter of Cairo, al-Qahira, were improved as a priority but far more ambitious plans were made. The two separate settlements of al-Qahira and al-Fustat were to be enclosed by an elaborate series of walls and towers running north to south for almost 20 kilometres. The project was started in 1176 – in the aftermath of Sicilian attacks on Alexandria and Tinnis – but its monumental scope meant that it was still unfinished when Saladin died. In the meantime, Saladin set about building a citadel in Cairo for his family and administration, in much the same tradition that he was familiar with in the fortified towns of Syria such as Aleppo, Edessa and Damascus. It was still work in progress when he left Egypt for the last time (in 1182) but, in tune with the scale of his ambitions, it was planned to be the largest structure of its kind in the Middle East.81 With his power base in Cairo strengthened, Saladin turned to shoring up his Mediterranean defences. With a continuing naval threat from Sicily, Byzantium and the Franks, Saladin had little choice but to make a massive investment in coastal fortifications. In 1171 he made a personal inspection of the fortifications of Alexandria, and had parts of the walls and towers renovated, but this was just the beginning of a long-term and extremely expensive building programme. In February 1177 he wrote that he had built a citadel at Tinnis (which had recently been attacked by the Sicilians) and had done much to improve the defences of Damietta and Alexandria.82 245

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY This diversion of resources was welcome from a crusader perspective. It was always a poor second best to the capture of Egypt, but at least it took funds away from the Ayyubid army and deferred the day when Saladin could focus on attacking Palestine. The situation in Egypt was echoed, to a greater or lesser extent, across the other parts of Saladin’s domains. There is a tendency to view his empire in a crusadercentric way, but we need to continually remind ourselves that, particularly in the early years, the Ayyubid armies were extremely busy elsewhere and there were many times when Saladin was on the defensive. Attacking the crusader states was not always high on his agenda, and often impossible, even if it had been. Saladin could not exercise his full military potential until he had built an empire and consolidated its resources under his control. It took years before he felt truly confident enough to confront the Franks in a concerted way. Collapse: 1178–1187 By 1178 the Franks’ time had come. At Jacob’s Ford, Saladin’s offensives against them began to achieve real momentum. Muslim appreciation of the new generation of concentric castles was palpable. They showed their respect in the most tangible way: by their actions. We have, in 1178–1179, an extremely well-documented example – complete with archaeological evidence – of how focused they were on stopping the new building programme, and the extraordinary lengths to which they would go to do so.83 Besieging a concentric castle was a major investment. Huge resources went into building them. Huge resources were similarly required to pull them down. They were so impressive that everyone knew the best way to conduct a successful siege against a concentric castle was to attack before it was completed. The effort devoted to stopping the castle of Le Chastellet being completed at Jacob’s Ford was a prime example of how important it was to prevent a concentric castle being built: once it was in place it would be almost impossible to take quickly by siege. The Templars already had a state-of-the-art castle at Safad, guarding some of the eastern approaches to the Latin Kingdom, but they wanted to push the line of defence forward to a more natural – and more aggressive – boundary, by the River Jordan itself. By the late 1170s they were also in the process of creating a powerful 246

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY marcher region for themselves, such as they had in the northern crusader states. William of Tyre, who may have been involved in the negotiations himself, certainly implies that a Templar frontier ‘principality’ was being formed to shore up the borders with Damascus after the loss of Banyas. The Templars, he wrote, said that the king ‘had granted them control of the whole region, as soon as it was completed, and placed [it] under their protection’.84 The site was at a crossing of the Jordan on one of the main routes to Damascus, and the strategic strengths of the location were evident to both sides. The Muslims certainly felt that it would make aggression by the Templars inevitable and that it was well situated for attacking Damascene lands. As one chronicler put it, ‘if the building remained, it would enable them to control much Muslim territory’.85 Launching raids into the Hauran was a useful way of taking the fight to the enemy and keeping Saladin off-balance. The eventual size of the castle’s garrison was said to be some 80 Templar knights and a total force of almost 1,000 men. This was an entire army by crusader standards and certainly suggests that it was planned to be an aggressive jumping-off point rather than merely a base for passive defence. Saladin still needed to shore up his position in northern Syria, and while he and his ’askar were absent campaigning against rival Muslim states in the north, the force based at Jacob’s Ford would pose a significant threat to his Damascene lands. Saladin’s advisers told him that ‘when they strengthen this fortress the Islamic frontier will be weakened . . . for between it and Damascus is [only] a day’s journey’.86 The crusaders called the new castle Le Chastellet. The foundations were laid in October 1178. The king, ‘with the entire strength of the realm, began to build a fortress beyond the Jordan in the place commonly called Jacob’s Ford . . . There . . . they laid foundations of suitable depth and . . . erected a fortification of solid masonry in the form of a square, of marvellous thickness.’87 Interestingly, the castle was sited in a way which clearly showed that strategy could consciously trump tactics in the Franks’ planning process – the position itself was by no means a strong one in a tactical sense. Even contemporaries described it as being only upon a hill of ‘moderate height’. It is considerably overlooked by the ridge line on the east of the Jordan.88 Work on the inner walls continued until April 1179.89 The ultimate plan was to construct a double line of walls in the classic concentric fashion of late-generation crusader fortifications. Because the building of the outer wall was still unfinished, 247

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY however, and because the inner ward would need to have daily access to all other parts of the castle, it was decided to construct it initially with no fewer than five gates. This was acceptable for a second, inner layer of defence (as it would soon have become), but for the brief period before the outer walls could be built, it made the castle vulnerable. The building of the castle had required a huge effort on the part of the Franks, with the king and the entire royal army in situ for six months just to get the first stage of building works completed. The fact that it took such an effort was no coincidence. The area was hotly contested by Saladin, and as the resources of his empire grew, so his ability to attract and employ nomadic mercenaries was continually growing. Events were to prove that the castle at Jacob’s Ford, and control of the area around it, were no longer sustainable for the Franks. The impact of this military and demographic shift can be seen from the very early stages of the building of Le Chastellet. In April 1179, just as the first phase of building works were completed, and perhaps as a final attempt to intimidate the local population before the royal field army withdrew, the Franks launched a cavalry attack on nomadic tribes to the north, in the forests around Banyas. If intimidation had been the desired effect, it could not have been more of a failure. The Franks encountered the Turks in difficult terrain, and in the confused melee that ensued, the king himself was almost killed. Humphrey of Toron, one of the local frontier lords and constable of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, moved in with his men to protect the king, so ‘that the enemy might not rush upon him to his peril’. But while Humphrey ‘was thus engaged, the enemy again and again rained furious blows upon him which inflicted fatal wounds. From this critical situation he was with difficulty rescued by his men and carried off on horseback.’90 It was too late. Humphrey died soon afterwards, together with several other leading knights. The Franks thought they were just skirmishing with local nomads: in fact they had run into the ever-increasing ranks of Saladin’s reinforcements, gradually mustering around Banyas. Saladin had been receiving reports of how the building work was progressing over the winter. In April he made a personal reconnaissance of the site, and took with him an envoy who had just arrived from the Caliph of Baghdad, his nominal overlord.91 What he saw made him distinctly uneasy. A few days later he started an extraordinary set of negotiations, even offering to pay the Templars to abandon the 248

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY project. The prospect of having such a castle abutting onto his lands was so disturbing that he was prepared to pay ‘protection money’ for them to go away.92 Even by the time of its capture and destruction (on 30 August 1179), less than 25 per cent of the excavations required for the completion of the proposed castle had been carried out.93 What Saladin saw in front of him in April was merely the inner curtain wall and some of the buildings. The whole project remained very much ‘work in progress’, little more than an intensive building site. But even as a building site, Le Chastellet was intimidating, and it would only become more formidable over time.94 When negotiations failed, Saladin started to pile on the pressure. On 16 May he brought his troops back. They surrounded the building site, and launched one or two probing attacks before heading back across the Jordan. Both sides misrepresented the incident. The Franks believed that they were under siege and commented on the showers of arrows that were directed at the battlements.95 The Muslim chroniclers similarly tried to explain away an apparent failure, suggesting that Saladin chose to wait until reinforcements from Egypt were available, even though he had found the castle ‘easy to take’.96 In truth, however, it had been little more than a chance for Saladin to take his engineering experts to the site, so that they could identify its weaknesses and start to draw up detailed plans for a full siege. There were no siege engines, no mining operations, just a short series of exploratory attacks shielded by the now usual arrow storms designed to suppress the defenders on the battlements.97 But Saladin’s siege engineers now knew that they needed to act quickly. With every passing week the castle at Jacob’s Ford was getting stronger. Saladin continued to ratchet up the tension, hoping to destabilise the construction works and deter any Frankish field army which might come to its aid. In May he transferred troops from Egypt to Syria, boosting the size of his field armies in the region, and ordered the Egyptian navy to make raids up and down the Frankish coast.98 His efforts paid off. On 10 June 1179, just a few weeks after the death of Humphrey of Toron and the defeat of his forces near Banyas, the Frankish field army was ambushed and badly cut up at Marj Ayun. Many senior Frankish leaders were killed or captured, along with their men. The unpopular Master of the Templars, Odo of Saint-Amand, was blamed by many of the participants for their defeat. He was captured for a second time and had the good grace to die in captivity a year later.99 249

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY After the victory at Marj Ayun, Saladin paused to resupply his army and, more importantly, continued to gather reinforcements. He collected different contingents of his ’askar from across Syria and boosted their numbers by hiring large groups of nomadic light cavalry, both Turkic and Bedouin. Saladin once again used the power of generosity to good effect – he provided them with money and provisions on a lavish scale, regardless of ‘the extent of the expenditure, which’, as one Muslim commentator dryly pointed out, ‘is more than can be afforded’.100 With the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem reeling from its recent defeat, and with reinforcements from Egypt in place, Saladin felt confident enough to start a full-scale siege. Saladin and his troops set off on 18 August, but did not arrive at Le Chastellet until the 24th. He was moving slowly due to the large number of irregular infantry that he needed to have with him if he were to complete the siege quickly.101 Interestingly, he was not unduly slowed down by heavy artillery. Light catapults were used, protected, once they had been deployed, by wooden screens, but the main focus of the siege was to be on mining, followed by massive assaults, with ‘arrow fodder’ in the front ranks to absorb the worst of the initial casualties. Concluding the siege quickly was important. The Frankish field army had suffered losses over the preceding months, at Banyas and at Marj Ayun, but it had been reinforced in July by the arrival of new crusader forces from Europe. Saladin wanted the siege over before the newcomers could advance and force his withdrawal. He need not have worried. The normal Frankish muster was disrupted, perhaps by the recent death of both the constable and marshal of the Latin Kingdom, problems which were possibly further exacerbated by low morale.102 The Frankish army gathered at Tiberias but was slow in doing so. There were suggestions that parts of the army had refused to march without the presence of the True Cross and there were further delays (and perhaps excuses) while it was brought up from Jerusalem. A Western chronicle, based on Templar accounts of the siege, said pointedly that the Christian army assembled without ‘the speed which was customary’. The Templars clearly felt let down by the lack of urgency the relief forces had shown.103 Some of the planned outer works of the castle seem to have been at least partly completed, and the besiegers took steps to neutralise these outposts before starting a full siege. The Muslim infantry 250

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY attacked and the fighting was furious and intense. One of the common people in a ragged shirt climbed the [external] barbican of the fort and fought on the wall when he reached the top. Others of his comrades followed him. They were joined by the troops and the barbican was taken. At that the Franks retired behind the fort’s walls to defend themselves and their fort until reinforcements could reach them.104

Saladin’s engineers had worked hard at their planning since their previous reconnaissance mission and knew exactly where to start sapping. Once they had decided precisely where to attack, they ‘mined the fort and deepened the mine’. With five gates to defend around the site (always weak spots), the Templar garrison knew that their position was extremely precarious. There were about 700–1,000 men in the castle, but most of them were non-combatants. Not surprisingly, given that it was still a building site, the majority of the men were construction workers: a Muslim letter written after the event talks of the large number of artisans taken prisoner, including masons, architects, blacksmiths and carpenters.105 The Muslim sappers had underestimated the strength of the walls, and particularly the solidity which their depth provided. The initial mining failed, and because the fires were still burning it was hard to immediately make another attempt. But it was only a matter of time before they started again in earnest.106 Saladin, concerned that a Frankish relief force would soon be on its way from Tiberias, eventually lost patience. The army ‘waited for two days, but [the wall] still did not fall. Saladin ordered the fire in the mine to be extinguished. Water was brought and thrown in and the fires were put out.’ In a high risk and extremely courageous operation, the sappers started mining again along the already weakened shaft ‘and broke [further] into the wall’. Their bravery was rewarded – they fired the mine again and the wall fell on 30 August.107 As the miners did their remorseless work, the garrison had built large wooden barricades behind the areas where they knew a breach would occur. They created flammable obstacles with which to stem any immediate influx of enemy troops and to provide a brief time for the defenders to gather themselves. They were helped in this by the nature of a medieval building site, and had access to large numbers of the planks and timbers used in scaffolding. However, they could only ever provide a short respite. 251

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY As soon as it was clear that a breach had been made, the garrison set fire to the wooden barricades and formed up behind them. There was a short pause in the fighting, with the Muslim assault squads understandably unwilling to try to fight their way across the flames. The Templars used the opportunity to try to negotiate terms of surrender, but it was far too late for that. The burning barricades might hold back the besiegers for a while, but everyone knew the time for talking had passed. Terms were refused and the attackers poured in. The defenders had had time to prepare makeshift bolt-holes around the site, but the end inevitably came quickly. Le Chastellet is one of the very few medieval sites where the bodies of the fallen soldiers have been discovered in situ and subjected to modern scientific analysis, and this gives us an insight into the kinds of trauma one would typically find at the end of any siege that had not come to a negotiated conclusion.108 The skeletons of five members of the garrison have been found beneath the ash layer of a collapsed building in which they made a last stand. The bodies were surrounded by large numbers of Muslim arrows, and the wounds they received suggest that they were cornered and killed in combat, rather than executed after surrender (as happened with most of the garrison). It seems likely that the men retreated into the building, and that their attackers directed archery fire inside the building to kill or wound them, before rushing in to finish them off with close quarter weapons such as swords or axes. The archery had been brutally effective. Three of the bodies had been struck by arrows, one in the pelvis and another in the upper arm. A third had been repeatedly shot in the neck, with the archers presumably aiming below the protection a helmet would have offered. The fighting inside the building was fierce. Two of the bodies also had sword or axe wounds, some of them very significant. One soldier had a particularly savage end. His arm was cut off at the elbow, a wound that had probably been inflicted before he retreated into the building, as no trace of his lower arm was found there. His lower jaw was chopped in two, and there is evidence of a glancing blow to the cheek. Just in case that was not enough to finish him off, he also received a massive axe or sword blow to the head, splitting his skull in two, and suggesting that his helmet, if he ever had one, had been lost by this stage in the fighting. Significantly, of the five sword wounds that we can identify, four were in areas that were not protected by the mail shirts that most of the men in the castle wore: we 252

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY know from Muslim letters written after the siege that enough suits of chain mail were available to protect the artisans as well as the professional soldiers – all were expected to fight in an emergency.109 Some of the arrow wounds were in locations that suggest they had penetrated these hauberks, but given the extremely close range of the fighting, this is perhaps not entirely surprising. This was a fierce and deadly struggle. All the sword wounds were on the front of the body, and on the left side, where a right-handed opponent would be most likely to strike in face-to-face combat. This small group of soldiers, desperate and hopeless, nonetheless had the discipline to keep on fighting: they all knew that they were going to die, and tried to give a good account of themselves in their final moments. If they were Templars, the track record of Muslim armies in executing prisoners from the military orders would have given their actions some additional reckless bravado. The Templar garrison commander, for instance, seeing that the castle was lost, was said to have thrown himself on the fires raging around the breaches – he killed himself to deprive Saladin’s troops of the entertainment value of his execution.110 There are other clues, just as tantalising, as to the fate of other members of the garrison. Twenty-two coins have been excavated from within the castle grounds. The majority were found scattered across the site, surrounded by Muslim arrowheads, as isolated groups of defenders fought their way back from the breach, and beneath a barrel-vaulted building, mingled with the remains of human and animal skeletons.111 The garrison died hard. Saladin personally interrogated all of the prisoners to identify which of the local Christians were Muslim converts. These he had executed immediately. The Templar prisoners and the Frankish crossbowmen were also killed out of hand, an interesting, if unwelcome, compliment to their military effectiveness.112 He took around 700 other prisoners and remained on the site for several days, trying to demolish it as far as possible: doubtless the Christian prisoners were used to help pull down the walls they had only recently erected.113 Once this was over, the majority of the remaining prisoners were also killed by enthusiastic nomadic tribesmen and townsfolk or, as Imad ad-Din described them, ‘the volunteers and the assembled ruffians’.114 Bizarrely, the most significant death toll in the siege of Le Chastellet was still to come. The mass of Christian casualties had been dumped into the castle’s cistern. Rotting corpses took their own macabre revenge while the demolition was under 253

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY way. The August heat, the large numbers of troops in unhygienic siege conditions and the unburied bodies were a lethal cocktail. Disease broke out in Saladin’s army, causing more fatalities than they had sustained in any of the assaults. His nephew, Taqi al-Din, and Shirkuh’s surviving son, Nasir al-Din Muhammad, both became seriously ill and 10 of his commanders died, along with large numbers of the troops involved in the siege.115 After three days Saladin moved off to raid the Frankish lands in the north of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.116 Neither side ever occupied the position again. The battle for Jacob’s Ford was over. The capture of Le Chastellet was heralded as a major victory by the Muslims, and on one level it was. But far from showing the ineffectiveness of concentric castles, it only served to show how formidable they really were. Even as an unprepared building site, the castle had proved difficult to take. Saladin’s view of its eventual strength, if it were ever to be completed, is shown by the extraordinary effort he made to stop the building work being finished. It never became a concentric castle, but Saladin knew that it would be almost impregnable if it did. The real significance of the siege of Le Chastellet was not that a concentric castle had fallen (it had not), but rather that the Frankish field army, only a few kilometres away in Tiberias, was unwilling or unable to intervene. It was becoming clear that the vast numbers of Muslim troops being fielded on campaign, year after year, were rapidly making the crusader states indefensible. The invasion of 1180 As well as surrounding the crusader states on land, Saladin also used the period 1177–1187 to surround the crusader states by sea. As we have seen, from the mid1170s onwards he had rebuilt the Egyptian navy and improved its coastal bases. Having a fleet and using it in a coordinated way with his land forces in Palestine and Syria, allowed Saladin to open up yet another front against the beleaguered Franks.117 The first attempt to put this new approach into practice took place in April 1180, when Saladin tried to organise coordinated attacks by land and sea in the north of the kingdom of Jerusalem. He started by leading his army to attack the town of Tiberias in Galilee. The assault was inconclusive and no ‘harm resulted to the citizens, however, and he again withdrew into the countryside around Banyas. There he 254

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY remained with his armies, waiting, as was afterwards learned, for the arrival of a fleet of fifty galleys which he had ordered to be prepared during the course of the winter just past.’118 While the fleet was still on its way, a truce was established with the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Saladin moved on to ravage the County of Tripoli. The Egyptian navy arrived off the coast of Beirut, fully expecting to cooperate in an attack on the city, but the inevitable difficulties of coordination and communication between land and sea meant they were unaware that Saladin’s plans had changed. William of Tyre wrote that when the commanders of that force learned for a fact that Saladin had concluded a treaty with the king, they respected the terms of the peace . . . Learning that their lord was with his army in the land of Tripoli, they went there and seized [Ruad], an island opposite the city of Tortosa, some five kilometres away. There in the harbour they found a convenient anchorage for their galleys.119

It may not have seemed like it at the time, but the landing of the fleet at Ruad was driven by necessity rather than some highly developed strategic plan: the fleet needed water and an impromptu base, and the primitive facilities offered by the island were merely the best available option. For the local population, however, this was understandably deeply disturbing, and the landing of these forces at the island of [Ruad] sent a wave of terror through the whole region. While awaiting the commands of their master, the troops set fire to a house above the harbour of Tortosa and tried to injure the citizens as much as possible. Their efforts proved futile, however. Meanwhile, Saladin had devastated the region to his satisfaction, and he now ordered the fleet to return.120

The expedition had been upsetting for the shopkeepers of Tortosa but the difficulties of coordinating such attacks meant that it had achieved almost nothing. But it was not entirely irrational. The temporary occupation of the island of Ruad, which looks like a quixotic aberration on one level, makes perfect sense in the context of someone looking to project strategic naval power in the region. Saladin could not get access to the major Palestinian ports (not yet, at least) so he tried to find 255

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY new naval facilities of his own, further up the coast. Somewhere like Beirut or Tortosa would be much better, but Ruad might be an occasional and temporary staging post to making that happen.121 This was never going to be entirely satisfactory, but it enabled him to step up the pressure on the crusader states still further. And Saladin did not necessarily need a fleet of hundreds of veteran warships, able to besiege coastal cities. Just having sufficient naval power to capture unarmed pilgrim ships and interrupt the twice yearly flow of reinforcements and financial aid from Europe would be extremely helpful. The invasions of 1182 Saladin was back in strength in 1182. His forces in Egypt attacked Kerak again in the summer. Showing immense fortitude, the terminally ill King Baldwin led the royal army in person to meet him in the desert and relieve the siege. A stand-off ensued, and Saladin eventually withdrew. At the same time, however, other Muslim armies invaded the north of the kingdom, burning and looting much of Galilee and ranging up around Acre to the coast. And, while all this was happening, yet more Muslim troops captured the cave castle of Habis Jaldak in the territories east of the Jordan. Whether he chose to fight or not, Saladin was now in a position where he could still inflict significant damage – Frankish forces were spread far too thin to prevent him doing otherwise.122 Within a few weeks Muslim troops had returned yet again, this time destroying Baisan and attacking its castle. Frankish relief forces engaged Saladin’s troops in a hard-fought battle at Le Forbelet on 15 July, and came off best in the encounter, forcing them to withdraw. But each encounter was now loaded in the Muslims’ favour. A defeat for the crusaders could mean catastrophe. For Saladin’s men, it merely meant regrouping and sending for more recruits. The risk–reward equation was becoming terminally skewed.123 With such an array of resources at his disposal, Saladin decided, in August 1182, to use his navy once again. The basic idea was a good one. Saladin ‘sent strict instructions to his brother, whom he had left in charge of his affairs in Egypt, to assemble a fleet . . . and dispatch it to Syria as quickly as possible’. Once the fleet arrived at Beirut, it was ordered to liaise with Muslim land forces to make a formidable combined arms assault – ships, sailors, marines and large numbers of cavalry, all working 256

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY together. Saladin’s intention was to ‘blockade Beirut both by land and by sea . . . [and] within a few days, a fleet of thirty galleys arrived as he had directed . . . Punctually, about August 1 [1182], the fleet arrived off the coast near Beirut’.124 The core of the plan was similar to the disappointing expedition of 1180, but this time there was much better coordination between land and sea forces. While the Ayyubid army was in the north of the Latin Kingdom, Saladin sent detachments of scouts into the Lebanon mountain range to give him advance warning of the arrival of the Egyptian fleet. Once it had been spotted, word was sent back and he crossed the mountains with his army. The assault on Beirut was well coordinated. Saladin’s army besieged the city on land, helped by Egyptian marines and naval engineers, while the navy enforced a blockade at sea.125 It had been many years since the coast of Palestine had been seriously threatened by the Egyptian navy, and the Franks did not have a standing navy of their own. In order to meet this new threat, King Baldwin rushed to hire or requisition all the vessels currently at anchorage nearby. He ‘summoned his forces and at the head of the entire army proceeded to Tyre, where he ordered the fleet which lay at anchor in the harbours of Acre and Tyre to be made ready. Within seven days, sooner than all expectation, a fleet of thirty-three ships, well-armed and manned with valiant men, was ready for action.’126 The Egyptian marines and engineers had played an active part in the siege of Beirut, but the entire naval squadron left without daring to confront the makeshift Christian relief force. As the Frankish ships approached, the Muslim ‘naval forces withdrew to the galleys by Saladin’s command and at nightfall on the third day silently and furtively sailed away’.127 The plans to revitalise the Egyptian navy, using it to isolate the crusader states and attack their coastal cities, seem logical and attractive. Given that the Frankish states had no real fleets of their own, it even seemed superficially achievable. The crusader states were certainly extremely nervous about the new naval capabilities which the capture of Egypt gave to Saladin.128 In practice, however, it never worked. Thankfully for the Franks, the Egyptian navy signally failed to repay the investment it absorbed. Saladin was a cavalry general in charge of a cavalry army and, not surprisingly, showed no great empathy or insight into how to handle a naval force. There were also major practical problems before any fleet could even set sail. Obtaining sufficient supplies of suitable 257

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY wood for shipbuilding was always difficult. Saladin tried hard to overcome this by concluding trade agreements with the Italian city-states from 1173 onwards, but this long-standing problem was never fully resolved. More importantly, access to water supplies in the region remained extremely limited, and made extended patrolling in Palestinian waters dangerous and difficult. And, as if that was not bad enough, recruitment was always tough. Serving in the navy was poorly paid, low- status work and understandably extremely unpopular. There were some professionals serving in the fleet, mainly Maghrebis, but most of the men were barely trained and of poor quality, and this was often reflected in their performance.129 The Egyptian navy was never sufficiently effective or confident to face even the small Frankish naval forces that were gathered to see it off. At Beirut in 1182 they were desperate to avoid contact with the ragtag flotilla sent to confront them, and their performance at the siege of Acre in 1189–1191 confirmed their inferiority in combat against Western warships. But, Saladin probably reflected, it was worth a try. He now had an embarrassment of riches. Unlike his opponents, he only needed one big win, and in the meantime he could just enjoy wearing them down. The invasions of 1183 The Franks would not go down without a fight. They always had some operational and tactical latitude, giving them the opportunity to vent their frustration and revert to their habitually aggressive modes of warfare. Large-scale raids could occasionally be launched. Imaginative strikes could be undertaken into the heart of Muslim territory, designed to undermine Saladin’s prestige as much as for any immediate military objectives – Reynald of Châtillon’s remarkable naval raid down into the Red Sea in 1183 was, as we have seen, one such example.130 Much could also be done to test the unity of the newly linked Muslim lands. Communications between Egypt and Syria were severely limited by the aggressive patrolling of the Templars in the Sinai. The garrisons of the Oultrejourdain, operating out of castles such as Montréal and Kerak, could make a nuisance of themselves. Few Muslim groups below army size dared to make the journey, making everyday communication difficult, and unrestricted commerce impossible. 258

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY These actions were probably the correct response under the circumstances, but ultimately they were irritations and embarrassments for Saladin, rather than any kind of mortal threat. He remained firmly in the driving seat. Saladin made sure that 1183 started badly for the Franks and got worse. By June he had finally taken over Aleppo, removing the distraction of his last major Muslim rival and adding yet another army to the forces under his command. Ominously, he negotiated a truce with the Principality of Antioch, to prevent their marching to the aid of their Frankish neighbours. He gathered his forces.131 At the end of September the Ayyubid armies poured over the River Jordan, spreading out onto the Plains of Baisan. They were met by every man that the Franks could gather at short notice – the field army of Jerusalem, the muster of Tripoli, and any crusaders who happened to be in the country on pilgrimage. Even Italian sailors, often handy with a crossbow, were called up for the emergency. King Baldwin was too ill to travel, so Guy of Lusignan, his brother-in-law, was given command. The Frankish forces rushed to the Springs of Saffuriya, one of the traditional mustering points, and manoeuvred between there and the Springs of Tubania to the south in an attempt to thwart the invasion without committing to the risks – and potentially cataclysmic consequences – of a full-scale battle. After nine days of bloody but inconclusive skirmishing, Saladin withdrew. He needed to resupply his armies, and he had the satisfaction of having destroyed many of the civilian settlements across Galilee, including Forbelet and Le Petit Gerin. He knew he could return whenever he wanted.132 Saladin was back within a matter of weeks, and he had a very specific target in mind. Reynald of Châtillon had made a name for himself as an irritant, or worse. His castle of Kerak in particular was a problem for the local Muslim states. It dominated the overland route between Egypt and Syria. Its aggressive garrison meant that even the smallest group of merchants or diplomats required significant military protection if they were to have a chance of getting through. This had been an inconvenience when Egypt was under (Shi’ite) Fatimid rule, and Syria was controlled by various (Sunni) Turkic warlords. It had made communications more difficult and hindered coordinated action between them, on the relatively rare occasions when that was required. For Saladin, however, having united Egypt and Syria under his control, Kerak posed a much more persistent problem. Armies could pass through, albeit carefully, 259

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY but normal commerce and communication between the two major parts of his new empire were continually disrupted by this castle. Even strangers to the area were quickly made aware of its importance. Ibn Jubayr, a Spanish traveller who arrived in the Middle East in 1184, described Kerak as ‘one of the greatest of the Christian strongholds lying astride the Hejaz road and hindering the overland passage of the Muslims’.133 If his empire was ever to be more than two loosely connected fiefdoms, Saladin had no choice but to neutralise Kerak. In the autumn of 1183 he amassed a huge army to do just that. Gathering his Syrian troops and a significant siege train, he set out from Damascus on 22 October and camped at al-Rabba, some 10 kilometres north of Kerak, to regroup and allow his troops to prepare themselves for the siege ahead.134 Shortly afterwards, the army moved forward to invest the town, and to destroy as much as possible of the local villages, whose inhabitants were mainly Arab Christians. The siege was so strong that a very tight blockade was immediately imposed on the castle. No one was able to get in or out.135 The Frankish leadership were gathering in Jerusalem to discuss, among other things, the government of the kingdom. King Baldwin’s leprosy was entering into its terminal phase: the decline was steep and irreversible. The subject was difficult and sensitive, but unavoidable. Christian scouts were screening the progress of Saladin’s army at a distance and, as soon as their likely destination became clear, sent news through to Jerusalem.136 The Frankish response to Saladin’s move on Kerak was layered. The castle had been the administrative and military centre of the Oultrejourdain since 1142 and Reynald of Châtillon was naturally keen to be the first on the scene.137 His response was typically energetic, perhaps even straying into over-confidence. ‘As soon as he learned of [Saladin’s approach towards Kerak] through scouts’, wrote William of Tyre, he ‘moved there rapidly with a body of cavalry which seemed large enough to ensure the protection of the place.’138 Other troops from the lordship were also summoned, and rushed to reinforce it while they could still get through.139 The king, meanwhile, was still at Jerusalem and started to summon his troops from across the kingdom – this was inevitably a longer process, but was the only way in which the Franks could muster an army capable of meeting Saladin in the field with any significant chance of success. 260

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY We do not know much about the ethnic composition of Reynald’s small army in the Transjordan. They were predominantly Christian, as were the local population, though Muslim mercenaries were not unheard of, particularly in these frontier zones. But it was certainly a broad church. In the town of Kerak itself we find a range of different denominations catered for, reflecting the spiritual and cultural needs of the garrison and the local community. The castle chapel itself was Catholic, with a series of Frankish chaplains, but many of the other soldiers were Armenians or local Arabs who were Greek or Syrian Orthodox by faith.140 Kerak was a strong castle, improved by successive lords of the Oultrejourdain over the course of the twelfth century, and their skills as castle builders played well to the site’s natural strengths. The castle and its town lay on a plateau which ran broadly from north to south, and was protected by steep natural slopes on all sides. The castle was at the southern end of the plateau, at the strongest position on a narrow promontory and, importantly, was divided from the town by a huge rock-cut moat, some 30 metres wide.141 The town was also walled and had several defensive towers of its own, but the position was less strong and its defences were spread out across a much greater area. It was always going to be more susceptible to assault by strong enemy forces. The town was already overcrowded, even before the siege began in earnest. Frankish scouts and Turkic raiders operating in advance of the Muslim army ensured that much of the local population had sought refuge there.142 But on top of the town’s usual population and the large number of refugees, there was also a wedding party. Weddings are always stressful, and particularly so if your future father-in-law is Reynald of Châtillon. It was unusual by any standards. The bride, Isabel, the younger half-sister of King Baldwin, was only 12 at the time. The groom, Humphrey IV of Toron, was the stepson of Reynald of Châtillon. As well as soldiers and displaced civilians, the town was packed with additional guests, caterers and entertainers. To this already heady cocktail was added a large Muslim army as unwelcome guests and a full siege train. The siege itself started in earnest on the same day as the wedding: ‘when the nuptial celebrations were barely over – in fact on that very day, it is said – Saladin appeared before the place’.143 Muslim troops soon penetrated the town’s walls. Reynald and his men just managed to get back across the wooden bridge to the castle, helped by the literally last-ditch efforts of a single Frankish knight and his men. ‘Had it not been for the 261

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY remarkable firmness of one knight, named Iven,’ wrote William of Tyre, ‘those Turks who were already close to the fortress would without difficulty have forced a free entrance for their comrades over the bridge and through the gate next to it.’144 They had survived for the moment, but the prospects were not good. Quite apart from the casualties sustained in the fall of the town, there were a large number of civilian mouths that needed to be fed. The wedding celebrations meant that the citadel was full of entertainers. Shockingly, and to William of Tyre’s evident disapproval, these included ‘many actors and performers on the flute’: morally dubious by his standards and pretty much at the bottom of the list of useful people to have watching your back in a siege. The citadel was absolutely packed. Even walking down the streets was made difficult ‘on account of the dense crowds’, who ‘became a hindrance and an obstruction to the more able-bodied men and to those who were trying to defend the place’.145 The last troops fleeing across the bridge had destroyed it behind them, cutting the castle off from the Muslim-occupied town. Although the Frankish chronicles comment on this disparagingly (suggesting that it was a decision made too precipitously), it is hard to see what other course of action was feasible. It certainly helped make the castle more defensible, as ‘this was the only way across the moat, the one way by which those inside the citadel could come or go’.146 Not surprisingly, Saladin used the newly captured town as a base for his siege operations. A battery of six or seven catapults was set up in the town, with a couple more placed at the foot of the slopes below the castle. The bombardment ‘was carried on ceaselessly by night and day, and stones of such great size were hurled that no one inside dared raise a hand or look out of the openings’.147 Depressingly for the local civilians, the Muslim artillery had a ready supply of ammunition to hand in the form of the town of Kerak. The buildings were slowly dismantled and thrown into the castle, as they ‘continued to hurl stones night and day’.148 Their houses were literally falling down around their heads. The loss of the bridge linking the town and castle meant that no sortie was possible. Frustrated by the remorseless pounding they were receiving, the garrison managed to rig up a single mangonel of their own, to make some form of amateurish response. But every attempt to engage the Muslim catapults was met with a furious riposte. Counterbattery fire eventually forced the Frankish artillerists to keep their heads down, ‘rather than to expose themselves to death by attempting any kind of defence’.149 262

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY It was not just on the ramparts that the enemy fire made itself felt. Once again, the fear and intimidation caused by the catapults were all-pervasive, particularly among the civilians. Even ‘those who had fled to the innermost apartments, the most retired seclusion’, William of Tyre wrote, ‘shrank with terror before the crash and roar of the incoming missiles. It seemed to them like thunder . . . and they continually waited for the striking of the bolt.’150 In a pre-industrial society, the random death delivered by a catapult was particularly unnerving because of its arbitrary nature. The feeling of powerlessness was an all too tangible manifestation of the will of God. Efforts were made to keep the newlyweds safe from the bombardment that was slowly demolishing the castle. One of the Frankish sources suggests that messengers were sent to give Saladin food from the table of the wedding banquet, appealing to the chivalrous side of his character. This was not just politeness or bravado. It was a powerful symbol, placing him in the role of ‘guest’, with all the moral obligations that implied. Saladin, we are told, agreed that his catapults would not be trained on the tower where the young couple were enjoying their precarious honeymoon. The story sounds implausible but may not be entirely without substance. Even if one were being cynical, there were good reasons to preserve the lives – and potential ransoms – of what would be two very valuable prisoners.151 Saladin could afford to be magnanimous. The catapult battery was doing its work well. The battlements of Kerak were being knocked down, piece by piece. Even before Saladin’s brother arrived with another army from Egypt on 22 November, the besiegers were elated. Al-Fadil, Saladin’s secretary of state, wrote that the towers of Kerak were already damaged and that the coverings of the mantlets had been shot off: victory, he thought, was not far off.152 But it never came. After the event Muslim sources tried to suggest that the siege had not been a serious one, that it had merely been ‘a raid’. Or defeat was ascribed to the idea that Saladin had not brought a full siege train with him – he ‘had thought’, wrote one of his apologists, ‘that the Franks would not allow him to besiege Kerak, that they would exert all their efforts to make him withdraw, so he had not brought with him sufficient siege engines for such a great fortress and impregnable stronghold’. But neither excuse was true.153 The truth was far more prosaic and irritating. The deep and sheer-sided moat (or ‘fosse’) between town and castle was a stout defence, and not one that could be 263

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY brought down by catapults. Even if a substantial breach could be made in the castle walls (and there is no evidence that the catapults of this period were capable of making such breaches), the fosse needed to be filled before Muslim troops could get to the castle. This was always going to be a hugely laborious task and the mustering of crusader relief forces meant that Saladin no longer had time to do it.154 The gathering of the Frankish army was nearing completion. At the end of November the beacons were lit, first on the Tower of David in Jerusalem, and from there in a chain up towards Kerak, to show the garrison that help was on the way.155 The army, accompanied by the True Cross and led by King Baldwin, carried in a litter, moved slowly down towards the southern end of the Dead Sea. They posed a threat to Saladin’s communications back to Damascus. As so many Egyptian troops had been transferred into Syria to join Saladin, perhaps they even endangered Egypt itself.156 Some of Saladin’s troops had been sent back to Egypt with Saladin’s nephew, Taqi al-Din, on 3 December, before the Franks arrived, to counter their threat to him in the south. The rest of the army was not confident enough to face King Baldwin and his men in open combat and the remaining troops raised the siege, heading back with Saladin towards Damascus.157 The frontier strategy, essentially a cautious defence of the borders, centred around much improved and well-sited fortifications, had worked. Reynald and Kerak had survived yet again – but it had been very close. An end in sight: 1184–1187 The crusaders were hanging on by their fingernails. Frankish policy was increasingly made in the absence of a strong king and was characterised by the fractures of disunity – the different crusader states, different lordships and the different military orders, all increasingly conducted their own policy based on perceived self-interest. Turmoil and political upheaval were natural consequences of Baldwin IV’s years of chronic and worsening ill-health. His death early in 1185 simply made an already serious situation even worse. Now it was the turn of the Muslim states to ‘divide and rule’, whereas before that had been the prerogative of the Franks.158 Saladin and his armies may have temporarily left the Holy Land in the winter of 1183, but the rhythm of invasion and destruction was well established. In the summer of the following year his men were back again, ranging far across the Kingdom of Jerusalem, wreaking havoc wherever they went. Kerak was attacked again, and the 264

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY local Arab Christian villages destroyed once more. Galilee also suffered severe losses, with Muslim raiders attacking Nablus, Sebaste and other Frankish settlements. Probing assaults were even made on the state-of-the-art Hospitaller castle of Belvoir.159 This was a seemingly unending onslaught. There was no end in sight and no obvious way of preventing the inevitable conclusion. A brief respite was offered in 1185. The Franks were able to negotiate a four-year truce, but only at Saladin’s convenience. Having defeated and incorporated most Muslim neighbours into his empire, Mosul remained his only significant independent competitor. With the Franks reduced to observer status, Saladin wanted to devote his attentions fully to the assault on the last recalcitrant player in the region. He attacked Mosul in the summer of 1185 and failed. He tried again in the winter but had to call the siege off due to illness. Like the Franks, however, the ruler of Mosul realised that the attacks were not going to stop. Saladin now had the resources to remain on the offensive almost indefinitely. Mosul blinked first, and decided to surrender while it still had some leverage in the negotiations.160 By the spring of 1186 Saladin’s armies were bigger than ever before and, with their last Muslim rival swept aside, they were undistracted at last. The crusaders had made their way to the top of the Ayyubid ‘to do’ list. The truce with the Franks, due to run until 1189, was now an inconvenience. A way would have to be found to break it. In early 1187 Reynald of Châtillon’s men attacked a Muslim caravan on its way from Egypt to Syria. Goods were stolen. Merchants were taken prisoner and dragged back to Kerak. When asked for their return, Reynald refused. Pathologically antagonistic as ever, he had duly provided Saladin with a pretext for war.161 The stage was set for the end game – and events unfolded with all the terrible, hypnotic appeal of a recurring nightmare. War Without End April 1187. Saladin launched yet another series of coordinated assaults on the crusader states. One army, commanded by his nephew, Taqi al-Din, was sent north to threaten the borders of Antioch and the crusaders’ fellow Christian Armenians. Another army was summoned from Egypt. It set out to raid and probe along the southern frontiers of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, pinning down the elite Templar garrisons along the frontier, and moving slowly towards Eilat. 265

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Saladin himself, meanwhile, personally led a third army down towards Bosra. From there he crossed the border to attack the native Christians of the Oultrejourdain, letting loose Turkic mercenaries to take slaves and destroy their villages. He then joined up with his Egyptian reinforcements and, in what was becoming an almost annual ritual, both armies proceeded to besiege the vital – and extremely irritating – castle of Kerak once again. While these traditional hostilities were unfolding in the south, yet another army, this time led by Saladin’s son, al-Afdal, was posturing on the eastern frontiers of Jerusalem, raiding across the Frankish colonial settlements and threatening the town of Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee. A detachment from this army, led by the lord of Harran and Edessa, carried out a massive cavalry foray deep into the heart of the kingdom of Jerusalem, ‘to plunder and destroy’ the poorly defended villages around Acre. As it headed back across the River Jordan on 1 May 1187, it bumped into Gerard of Ridefort and his small band of knights, triggering, as we have seen, the momentous encounter at the Spring of the Cresson.162 At the end of April there were four Muslim armies operating simultaneously in the crusader states. The defenders were completely swamped. To put things into perspective, the raiders who destroyed the Templars at Cresson, just a contingent from one of those four armies, were a larger cavalry force than anything the Franks could field, even if they had been able to gather all their mounted troops together in one place.163 One can romanticise the undoubted bravery of the Frankish knights, but the reality was that Gerard and his men had been swatted to one side by their opponents. The Muslim forces were so large that destroying the elite Templar force had barely even slowed them down. In the face of such overwhelming numbers, there was very little that the Franks could do. This was a vision of the future. A vision of all that the crusader states had to look forward to. A remorseless grinding down of their communities. No end in sight. Very limited prospects of relief, for who would want to give up a comfortable life in Europe to put down roots in such a suicidally hostile environment? And no obvious solution, other than to dig in and hope for the best. Saladin continued to muster ever more troops from across his dominions. By the end of June they were camped just to the east of the Jordan. Ironically enough, this was near as-Sennabra, the site of the disastrous Frankish defeat in 1113 when the 266

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY young Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem had almost been completely destroyed. The Muslim forces were so large that they were described as being an ‘ocean, enveloping the area to such an extent the land disappeared under the spread of their tents’. The omens were not looking good.164 The Franks gathered at the Springs of Saffuriya again, to make a stand. The army was substantial by their standards, but many, maybe most, of the new recruits were barely trained civilians. And even with the ranks padded out by more or less willing amateurs they were still grossly outnumbered. The vast Muslim armies were able to multi-task. Some surrounded the encampment at Saffuriya, cutting the crusaders’ rudimentary supply lines. Others were sent to destroy the civilian communities across Galilee and beyond. With the smoke still rising from the burning villages, more troops were sent to besiege the regional centre at Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee. They smashed their way into the town and besieged the citadel. The Frankish military were disorientated, off-balance, and faced with insoluble problems. There was no obvious way forward: all the realistic options were bad. King Guy of Lusignan, Baldwin’s successor, was weak and mistrusted by his nobles who, entirely correctly, doubted his leadership abilities. He now chose the worst possible course of action. The crusader army set out in the height of summer to relieve Tiberias. Even its own lord, whose family were trapped inside, argued that it was a mad idea. They marched without a clear plan, along a dusty, waterless path, and were increasingly bogged down by Turkic skirmishers. On the second day of a catastrophically misjudged manoeuvre, they were completely surrounded and ground to a halt near a village called Hattin. Bereft of hope, the dehydrated, ragged army was destroyed. The entire force, a large proportion of the adult male population of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, was dragged off to slavery or execution. In the aftermath of their failure, and the failure of the frontier strategy, the hinterlands of Christian Palestine were lost.165 Limitations of the Frontier Strategy The frontier strategy was the correct approach, given the limited resources which the Franks had to hand, and the scale of the threat they faced. But it was a frustrating 267

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY and debilitating approach that did not sit well with the proud and aggressive men who were called upon to implement it. It was defensive. It was largely passive. Perhaps most importantly, it was extremely limited in its scope for success. Even when it was working well, it brought with it no prospect of delivering a knock-out punch – survival was the best it had to offer, and achieving even that required monumental powers of self-discipline. Until the death of King Amalric in 1174, the strategic predisposition, the default mode of the Frankish army, was generally aggressive. Not always, of course – they were usually outnumbered, often outmanoeuvred, and frequently forced to react to enemy initiatives. But their normal reaction was to take the fight to the enemy, and to behave proactively. With the failure of the Egyptian strategy, from 1170 onwards, however, there was a slow shift in strategic culture, as the crusader states moved inexorably, unwillingly, towards retrenchment. Surrounded and increasingly outnumbered, the culture of military defence (rather than offence) was more and more frequently the correct response. The crusader states were still aggressive whenever they could be, but the opportunities to be so were increasingly rare.166 The new castles, for instance, were good tactical responses to the problems they faced. But they were always only a partial solution to a problem whose resolution lay outside Frankish control. The stakes had grown so large that the crusader states had barely sufficient resources left to play – they needed to hang on and hope that the Muslim rulers would fall out among themselves again. But that might never happen, and it was a future over which the crusaders had increasingly less influence, let alone control. From a military perspective, they were looking more like bystanders than players. The concentric castle was the correct, but hugely expensive, answer to the problem of how to ensure castles could hold out until a substantial relief force could get to their aid. The trouble was that by this time Muslim armies were huge, and capable of being quickly rebuilt, even if they were defeated. They were less concerned about the presence of a relief column. On the contrary, sieges could become a provocation in their own right, with the potential upside being as much about enticing a Frankish relief force into the open, where it could be surrounded and overrun, as it was about capturing the castle which was the ostensible objective of the siege. The sieges of Kerak in 1170, 1173, 1183, 1184 and 1187–1188 were all genuine enough attempts to take the castle – they also devastated the surrounding region, 268

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY degraded the Frankish rural infrastructure and undermined the credibility of their leadership.167 But the relief armies that came to help were usually characterised by their tactical restraint. This was deliberate policy: their defeat would have given Saladin a far greater victory than the capture of the castle itself. The Hattin campaign of 1187 showed how these strategies played in the Muslims’ favour when a Frankish army was poorly led. Tiberias was besieged, and would have been a good prize in itself. It was not the real goal, however. Wiping out the relief force was the true victory. Hence the irony that the crusader knights, who charged with such reckless bravery in combat, could also behave with the utmost caution when led by an astute commander. The new, bigger Frankish army was similarly impressive, but only from a distance. True, the crusaders were fielding larger forces in the 1180s than at any other time in their history. The money raised from home and abroad could be used to recruit more mercenaries and equip more Arab Christian cavalry. But their forces looked better on paper than in action. Many of the men who died at Hattin were illequipped farmers or shopkeepers, a barely trained militia. And after they had padded out the Frankish ranks, Saladin’s men still outnumbered them significantly. Even if they had been better led at Hattin, the deck was always going to be stacked against the crusaders. Overwhelming numbers and geopolitical resilience meant that the Muslim forces only needed to win once. Regardless of strategy, the Franks needed to win every time. The timing of defeat was a variable but there was only one likely ending.

269

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY

29 June 1170

Major earthquake in Syria

From 1170

Hospitaller rebuilding of Crac des Chevaliers

10 September 1171

Saladin proclaims Egyptian allegiance to the Abbasid Caliphate

1174

Murder of the Assassins’ envoy by the Templars

15 May 1174

Death of Nur al-Din

11 July 1174

Death of Amalric

15 July 1174

Coronation of Baldwin IV

28 July–2 August 1174

Unsuccessful Sicilian attack on Alexandria

28 October 1174

Saladin enters Damascus

Summer 1176

Release of Reynald of Châtillon and Joscelin of Courtenay from Muslim captivity

August 1177–April 1178

Crusade of Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders

25 November 1177

Battle of Mont Gisard

10 June 1179

Victory of Saladin over Latin forces at Marj Ayun

24–29 August 1179

Destruction of the castle at Jacob’s Ford by Saladin

April 1180

Marriage of Sibylla of Jerusalem and Guy of Lusignan 270

THE FRONTIER STRATEGY: CHRONOLOGY May 1180

Truce between Saladin and Baldwin IV

February 1183

Council agrees levy of an extraordinary general tax in the Kingdom of Jerusalem

February 1183

Reynald of Châtillon’s ships attack Aqaba and Aydhab on the Red Sea

11 June 1183

Saladin gains control of Aleppo

29 September–8 October 1183 Stand-off between the armies of Saladin and Guy of Lusignan in Galilee 20 November 1183

Guy of Lusignan removed as regent

November 1183

Baldwin V crowned coruler

July 1184–July 1185

Embassy of the patriarch and the masters of the military orders travel to the West

Early April 1185

Raymond of Tripoli reappointed regent

Spring 1185

Raymond of Tripoli makes four-year truce with Saladin

15 April 1185

Probable date of the death of Baldwin IV

Late summer 1186

Death of Baldwin V and coronation of Sibylla and Guy

Early 1187

Attack by Reynald of Châtillon on a Muslim caravan, breaking the truce

February 1187

Hospitallers purchase the castle of Margat

1 May 1187

Battle of the Spring of the Cresson

4 July 1187

Battle of Hattin

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The crusaders were intuitive strategists. Modern politicians, generals and PR gurus talk incessantly of strategy – far too much. They wave grand words around to dignify small and tawdry ideas. The crusaders did not talk much about strategy. They had neither the vocabulary nor the intellectual structure to do so. But their actions show that they were clear-thinking and focused on what they needed to achieve. Crusader strategy was inevitably formulated in the absence of a clear, intellectually rigorous, theoretical framework. But, given that they usually arrived at a workable and credible solution by intuitive means, it is interesting to assess just how much of the detail of modern theory they instinctively understood. The Franks may not have been theorists, but in the Western medieval world they were, after all, the most experienced practitioners of the art of war.1 Theorists and military philosophers from the eighteenth century onwards, from Clausewitz through to a plethora of contemporary academics and political and military advisers, have identified a number of features that define and characterise ‘strategy’. If we are to suggest that the crusader states were in any way operating along strategic lines, and enacting genuinely strategic plans, however informally expressed, we must be able to demonstrate that they had at least an instinctive grasp of these characteristics, and acted upon them when possible. Models of strategic thinking have moved on radically over the past 50 years. Far removed from the warfare of the twelfth century, the Cold War and the lopsided conflicts in Vietnam and Iraq have all exercised, at entirely different ends of the strategic spectrum, an obsessive attraction for military theorists. The Cold War, with its emphasis on game theory and the possible routes of escalation, naturally led abstract thinking to focus on macro-strategic perspectives: saving the entire human race from a nuclear holocaust is, of course, just about as 272

REFLECTIONS ‘macro’ as it gets. Vietnam and Iraq, on the other hand, taught different lessons. They encouraged modern theories of strategy to embrace the experience of how to deal with far less symmetrical forms of warfare. Both of these avenues of thinking have interesting implications for the history of the crusades. An emphasis on asymmetry in warfare greatly increases our understanding of sedentary versus nomadic warfare.2 Similarly, the understanding of strategic game theory developed during the Cold War adds much to the way in which we analyse diplomatic and strategic relations between the crusader states and their Muslim neighbours, particularly in the first half of the twelfth century. Self-interest and local politics often explain far more than the over-simplified metrics of religiosity.3 More recently, freed from the obsessions of the Cold War, academic thinking about strategy has embraced a range of other issues. These include the role of ‘doctrine’ in strategic planning; the place of leadership, and the impact of differing leadership styles on strategy; issues around the role of policy in creating a ‘top-down’ approach; and, conversely, the place of tactical circumstances in driving ‘bottom-up’ planning. So, if the Franks were intuitively able to arrive at a good approximation of ‘strategy’ on a macro level, it is perhaps worth looking at some of these underlying tenets of modern strategic theory. Did the crusaders have an instinctive grasp of such principles, albeit in a way that they would have struggled to articulate within a theoretical framework? Did they, for instance, understand (and try to deal with) the issues raised by Clausewitz’s famous ‘fog of war’ and its impact on the conduct of campaigns? Did they come to a natural appreciation of the modern concept of ‘swamping’ an enemy in a geopolitical context? Or of the ‘overstretch’ that might contribute to it? To have any chance of answering these questions, we need to look at some of the main strands of current thinking on strategic theory and compare them to the reality of warfare on the ground in the twelfth century. Strategy and Policy Modern strategic thinking – quite rightly – places great emphasis on the links between strategy and policy. War is, after all, ultimately a political act, and strategy is inevitably ‘a compromise between the ends of policy and the military means available to implement it’.4 273

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY It is sometimes argued that politics and strategy ‘converge in a major war of national survival, but they diverge all too easily in wars presented as limited or “discretionary” ’.5 This may well be true in many modern conflicts, such as the wars in Vietnam or Iraq. There was little that was ‘discretionary’ in the warfare of the Latin East, however, and any ‘divergence’ of policy and strategy was a luxury that could rarely be afforded by the Franks. The intimacy of the relationship between strategy and politics was extraordinarily pronounced in the crusades. Military expenditure took the overwhelming priority in all combatant states. When it came to spending disposable income, there were few options. We do not have precise figures from any of the crusader states but we know, for instance, that Saladin’s expenditure on the army in Egypt was over 80 per cent of his local revenues, and that most of the remaining money was spent on the navy and coastal defence works. Even in the richest state in the region, well in excess of 95 per cent of governmental income was being spent on the military.6 The ruling elite were warriors, trained from birth in the practice of warfare. This was not a coincidence. War was no abstract idea: everyone was highly motivated. A particularly poignant detail, so ordinary that it received no special attention by the chroniclers, speaks volumes for the consequences of warfare in the Latin East. When the Egyptians invaded the south of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the summer of 1101, King Baldwin and the tiny Frankish army, just over 1,000 men, marched out to meet them at Ramla, their traditional arena. Before they did so, however, they made radical plans. The port of Jaffa, the main route back to Europe, was strengthened and resupplied. The royal family, and presumably the families of many other participants, were sent there to take refuge. If the battle went badly, mass evacuation was a likely outcome. The only way to give the civilian communities a decent chance of survival was for them to escape back to Europe. In the crusader states, a wise king hoped for the best, but planned for the very worst.7 King Baldwin was not being paranoid. When the County of Edessa was lost in the 1140s, the entire Frankish population was subjected to ethnic cleansing – everyone who could not run or ransom themselves was raped, killed or enslaved.8 Similarly, when the hinterlands of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem collapsed in 1187, the surviving Frankish civilian population were ejected or forced into slavery.9 The successful implementation of strategy meant everything to those who fought and to the lives of their families. 274

REFLECTIONS Clausewitz wrote that there are two kinds of war, and we see both forms of warfare in the crusader states at different times – total war, designed to crush opponents and render them ‘politically helpless’, and limited war, designed to capture a few border towns, as bargaining chips to use as a lever in peace negotiations.10 The defining (and unusual) characteristic of much of the warfare in the Latin East was that the threat of total war was ever present. Ultimately, the nature of conflict in the Latin East was binary – success or failure, survival or death, win or lose. And however pragmatic and adaptive the crusaders might be in a tactical context, this inevitably meant that warfare had to be conducted to the full, à l’outrance. In many cases this was an ethnic, cultural and religious conflict, one in which the ‘normal’ social boundaries of warfare were blurred, and where the stakes were unbearably high for entire societies. These were communities living on a perpetual knife-edge.11 But regardless of the stakes, even the best strategy cannot accommodate an impossible – or impossibly ambitious – set of policy objectives. As we have seen, the strategic thinking of the crusader states was often sound, but given the huge constraints in manpower with which they were working, its implementation was almost always under-resourced. The Franks were certainly correct, at least from a policy perspective, to identify the need to break out of the coastal strip and attempt to recover the old Christian hinterlands of Syria. The strategy which was developed to implement that policy was similarly logical. But, critically, the resources never existed to allow that strategy to gain long-term traction. Similarly, policy planners correctly identified Egypt as the priority target for a new wave of colonisation from the 1150s onwards. The strategy to conquer it was developed in detail and played out remorselessly over an extended period. And yet, once again, the available resources were too limited to deliver long-term success. But any consideration of policy and strategy also highlights one of the crusaders’ few advantages. Traditionally, most states have tensions – sometimes profound tensions – between their political leaders (who set policy) and their military commanders (who develop the strategies to fulfil those policy objectives). This was rarely the case in the crusader states. Their numbers were so small, and the imperatives of survival so overwhelming, that there was generally a unity 275

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY of purpose and a relatively flat decision-making process. The king and his advisers might make the policy, but they were often the same people who, as the commanders, were setting strategy. And these same commanders would often be leading a charge or marching from castle to castle like everyone else in the army. Everyone was at risk, everyone put their life on the line. Most members of the government of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem were in the thin line of cavalry who charged into the Fatimid invaders at Ramla in 1102, for instance. Many of them, perhaps the majority, died in the battle and in the ensuing massacre of prisoners a day later. The king escaped only with difficulty, helped by what was, in effect, a suicide squad of household knights.12 Even the leper king, Baldwin IV, personally led his armies into battle when he was clearly dying, propped up in his saddle when he was able, or carried in a litter when he was not. Nothing about leading a crusader army or developing Frankish strategy was abstract. The dangers were profound, but they focused the mind wonderfully. Even more importantly, the distinctions between policy, strategy, operational practice and tactics were limited. Decision makers knew what worked and what did not, and knew, all too well, the risks involved. The job of strategy was both more simple and more difficult – resources were slim but all the problems (and all the solutions) belonged to the same small class.13 When things went wrong, it was usually because objective setting was running too far ahead of the means available to achieve those objectives. There was great clarity about what success would look like, and what was needed to succeed: but the armies were often too under-resourced to follow through. On one level, of course, this means that the crusader states were employing ‘bad strategy’ – they were trying to achieve, one could argue, unfeasibly ambitious policy objectives in the face of overwhelming enemy numbers. But they did not have many options. These objectives were correct if the crusader states were to have any real future. This also explains why Frankish strategic thinking was surprisingly sensitive and flexible. The stakes were high, and the military elite were often the same people who were strategic planners and battlefield commanders – there was a convergence of interests.

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REFLECTIONS Decision Making Arthur: ‘I am your king.’ Peasant: ‘Well, I didn’t vote for you.’ (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) Any discussion of policy and strategy naturally raises the basic questions of decision making. Who was making those decisions about strategy, or influencing them? How were those decisions debated and ratified? And, perhaps even more importantly in societies with very limited bureaucracies or policing mechanisms, how were they implemented? This was no dictatorship. Regardless of their personal inclinations, the rulers of the Latin East needed to persuade their subjects to carry out their plans. Time and time again, it is clear that lively – sometimes far too lively – debates helped shape ideas and decision making. Every plan had to be justified and every idea had to be defended on its own merits. Unlike the peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the crusader states never operated as ‘anarcho-syndicalist communes’, but there was usually a surprisingly inclusive and open discussion about determining and agreeing major decisions. Consensus – and consent – was the ultimate aim. The system could break down when political dysfunctionality trumped normal social protocols – in the Hattin campaign, for instance, a weak king, intense political infighting and a fractured political elite meant that the normal checks and balances were overridden.14 But, by and large, dispersed day-to-day authority and the ‘first among equals’ nature of Frankish kingship tended to produce relatively sensible policies that had broad levels of support. The aftermath of the siege of Shaizar in 1157 provides a simple example of just how diffuse this decision making might be in practice, and how much emphasis was placed on the principles of agreement and consent. The siege had collapsed amid recriminations because King Baldwin III had allegedly promised the town, if it should be captured, to Thierry of Flanders, while Reynald of Châtillon wanted to absorb it into his Principality of Antioch. Even afterwards, however, it was still felt important to regain some sense of unanimity among the gathered decision makers. We are told that 277

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY . . . the Christian leaders were still lingering at Antioch. Notwithstanding the fact that they had been somewhat at variance before Shaizar, they had now . . . arrived at unanimity of spirit. They therefore resolved in the bonds of peace to undertake again some notable work which would be worthy of remembrance forever. With the approval and aid of all, it was determined to lay siege to a fortress about twelve miles from Antioch . . . Accordingly . . . the entire army, as with one mind, went there and encamped before the place.15

Anything done without consent, and without the weight of tradition behind it, was suspect and hugely unpopular. Such decisions were not to be made lightly or without consequences. Calling out the arrière-ban (general call to arms) in time of emergency, for instance, was thought to be acceptable. It had been agreed by all classes of society in principle, and its use had been consolidated and condoned by tradition. Ad hoc conscription, however unavoidable it might be, was neither popular nor acceptable. Pilgrims unfortunate enough to have arrived in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the spring of 1113 were rapidly conscripted to help fend off a Turkic invasion, and many died when the Frankish army was overrun at the battle of as-Sennabra a few weeks later.16 Similarly, in the weeks before the disastrous attack on Damascus in 1148, pilgrims who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time were dragooned into the army and forced to march into Syria with the field army of Jerusalem and the remnants of the Second Crusade.17 William of Tyre later wrote that there had been severe consequences to this act of conscription, and that fear of being caught up in the fighting had led to fewer people making the trip to the Holy Land.18 Buy-in was sought from the nobility, the Church and, more broadly, from the population as a whole. And, once one view had prevailed, everyone was expected to go along with the outcome ‘unanimously’ – an early example of collective responsibility. With life or death decisions that affected entire communities, everyone needed to be visibly committed. The devolved nature of decision making was an issue for all feudal societies. It inevitably created huge problems. Reynald of Châtillon was once confronted about how his actions might be detrimental to the interests of the kingdom as a whole. He is reported to have said that he was ‘lord of his land, just as [the king] was lord of 278

REFLECTIONS his’.19 It is hard to imagine a less encouraging environment in which structured or centralised decision making might take place. But even if he was misquoted, as he possibly was, Reynald was making a broader point. Devolved authority may have its place, but it is usually not suggestive of coordinated decision making. On the surface, medieval political structures do not provide an obviously effective route for military innovation and the formulation of strategy. Poor communications, a lack of central infrastructure and dispersed economic productivity were inevitably reflected in the devolution and dispersal of military authority – given the resources available, there was no viable alternative. The knights had their own fiefs, which were often greatly dispersed geographically. Lesser lords had their own castles and strongholds. The greater lords, particularly on the frontiers, almost had their own kingdoms within a kingdom. Even those who were entirely loyal to the king had considerable autonomy. If they were more independently minded, they could use their own small armies to develop local strategies and even, in extreme cases, their own foreign policies. There were times, notably in the 1180s, when these forces showed signs of getting out of control. Ironically, however, this unprepossessing material also had strange advantages for innovation and strategy. Everyone had their own resources, but they came together frequently, far too frequently for comfort, when they went on campaign. Whatever they had learned, whatever successes they had achieved, could be shared with their peers and comrades extremely quickly. Particularly among these highly competitive elite groups, knowledge transfer in military matters was a very natural and fluid process. The development of strategy was necessarily relatively simple – as the best strategies often are – but dissemination and buy-in from the military leadership was surprisingly straightforward. Strategic Leadership: Dreamers and Pragmatists Historians have sometimes been harsh about the leadership styles of Frankish generals. But strategy, and the leadership styles of those who implement it, is a series of trade-offs. Arguably the most fundamental trade-off is that between those who identify capabilities and those who identify aspirations: ‘pragmatists’ and ‘dreamers’. ‘Pragmatists’ are those who take a practical view of what is genuinely possible. They see the problems. They develop strategy from the bottom up. They see the gaps 279

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY between what is available and what one would ideally want in place. The main danger is that they might then fail to act at all.20 ‘Dreamers’, on the other hand, are those who focus only on ambition, and the opportunities in store. Dreamers have a tendency to fail to achieve a realistic connection between ends and means. They develop strategy from the top down. They have a grand view of what they want, but sometimes take a less than realistic view of what they have at their disposal to make it happen.21 Strategy at its highest level is arguably the juxtaposition of these two conflicting views, and much modern work has been done to explore the ramifications of each. As one recent commentator astutely wrote, strategy – and strategic leadership – is in some respects ‘the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities’.22 The best strategists are those who can combine both views (and these are generally contradictory views) in their heads simultaneously: understanding the difficulties but, despite having an acute awareness of the risks, still moving forward to implement a strategy that has realistic ambition and vision.23 Aligning aspirations with capabilities is central to the implementation of successful strategy, as it ‘requires a sense of the whole that reveals the significance of respective parts’.24 The crusaders accomplished much of this alignment through playing to their strengths: by launching their superb heavily armoured cavalry into the centre of the enemy’s ranks whenever possible; by building sophisticated fortifications to offset their inferiority in numbers; by maximising their use of Western military assets, such as Italian fleets or French crusading contingents, whenever they became available. They did the best they could within the limitations they were facing. These limitations found expression in the very different styles of strategic leadership in the Latin East. King Baldwin I, for instance, was in many ways the archetypal pragmatist. He presided over the capture of many of the coastal cities, and did so in a determined and focused way. But his boundless energy also took him on campaign every year, restlessly probing for weakness among his opponents, keeping them off-balance and ensuring that his reputation as an aggressive and unpredictable opponent was maintained. He instinctively took the fight to the enemy.25 Accompanied by just a few dozen men, he had carved out his own state in the north, establishing the County of Edessa in 1098.26 As King of Jerusalem, he launched raids into Syria with his tiny army. He built castles and founded colonies in 280

REFLECTIONS the south, pushing the borders of the state further into the Fatimid empire. Even in death, the ramifications of his restless opportunism reverberated. His body finally had to be brought back from al-Arish, with great difficulty and with inevitable problems of preservation in the appalling heat – daring as ever, he had invaded the Fatimid empire in 1118 accompanied by only 600 men.27 He followed the path of rational planning (the coastal strategy) when he could, but he was also a risk-taker and chancer par excellence. He made opportunities, and he took opportunities. But where Baldwin was pragmatic and opportunistic, a ruler such as Amalric seems far more dogmatic – more of a ‘dreamer’, focused on ends rather than means. King Amalric was certainly remorselessly focused on the Egyptian strategy. He tried, time after time, to make a major breakthrough in the south. He stretched his meagre resources to the limit, and beyond. He did not give up. His planning had its own momentum, and the Egyptian strategy petered out, rather than stopping with his death.28 But the Egyptian strategy was an undeniable failure. Worse, it was also a clear case of strategic ‘overstretch’. While the Frankish field army was on campaign in the south, weakened garrisons were falling to Nur al-Din’s assaults further north, and the frontiers were ravaged on a regular basis. Ground was being lost that could never be regained. So one might argue that Amalric displayed a style of leadership which was far too single-minded, and over-reached itself. He put objectives ahead of resources, an unattainable outcome ahead of what was really achievable. Neither example is quite so clear-cut though. Baldwin I lived through a time of great danger, but it was also a period of opportunity. The Muslim enemy was deeply split. He could roll out the coastal strategy whenever naval assets – generally from Italy – were available, while at the same time moving aggressively inland to intimidate his opponents. Baldwin was operating at a time when everything seemed possible, and when the array of strategic options ahead seemed to have no end. Amalric, on the other hand, reigned at a time when strategic options were almost exhausted. The focus on conquering Egypt seems over-ambitious, but it was the only game-changing route left open to him. The alternative was defence and passivity, stagnation and a slow path towards inevitable destruction. We can examine ‘strategic leadership’ in theory, looking at the crusader states and casting judgements on their styles of leadership from the comfort of our armchairs. But it was rarely as simple as that. In most cases they behaved in the way 281

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY they had to, rather than in the way they might have wanted to. Generalship in the Latin East, with intrinsically limited resources, was extraordinarily confined and constrained. It was dictated by what was possible, what was available, rather than chosen on the basis of individual preference. Frankish leaders played with the cards they had been dealt, and they played them with greater or lesser degrees of skill. But they did not have the luxury of choosing the deck. Crusader strategy was often biased towards a ‘dreamer’ visionary mentality. Frankish leaders usually had a clear focus on what they needed to achieve, but often lacked the resources to implement it effectively. This is not to imply that they were consistently turning a blind eye to reality – as we have seen, they knew the problems and tried to gather the resources needed to mitigate them. But, more to the point, they often had little choice. Their strategic options were extremely limited. The Franks were ambitious because they needed to be; they took risks because doing nothing was rarely an option. Strategic Culture and Adaptability What an army sets out to achieve might be explained by policy and leadership style. How it behaves, and its underlying beliefs and attitudes, however, are better understood as its basic culture.29 It is a well-known and recently much studied phenomenon that armies tend to share common belief systems about how they should operate, how they develop strategy and how they implement it. This ‘strategic culture’ dictates how an army ‘thinks’, and what its basic operating principles are. Beyond that, it also helps to explain how an army can adapt to change, as well as explaining, conversely, how it might be inflexible and incapable of change. One might expect fairly rudimentary societies such as the crusader states to be severely constrained in their thinking – that they might, for instance, have an overly reactionary ‘strategic culture’. These were, after all, basically feudal societies, with legal and economic systems firmly based on existing precedents and traditions – conservatism was built into the system to a very high degree. And, on a superficial level, one can see this conservatism manifested in the behaviour of some crusader armies and commanders. As we have seen, the battle at the Spring of the Cresson can be interpreted as the foolish knee-jerk response of a hidebound and overly rigid military elite.30 282

REFLECTIONS It would be a mistake to extrapolate too fully from such examples. The decision to charge at Cresson was ultimately a tactical error rather than a strategic choice. And while individuals might make foolishly overconfident decisions on the battlefield, the practice of strategy by the crusader states was surprisingly subtle and adaptive. Flexibility is one of the key components of any military culture. It was also, potentially at least, an obvious limiting factor for the development of strategy in the crusader states: in an era where religion played such a large part in everyone’s lives, there was an inevitable tension between faith and logic, ideology and pragmatism. There were times when rationality was tested, but it is perhaps all the more surprising under the circumstances to see just how often it triumphed.31 As the men following Gerard of Ridefort at the Spring of the Cresson found out, knowing that God is on your side can only take you so far. Like Gerard, the Duke of Alba was a pious man, but he was also the Spanish general responsible for implementing the vague and impractical policy objectives that constituted the scheme of the ‘Great Armada’ – the invasion fleet that sailed against England in 1588. His misgivings about the strategy he was being asked to implement, and the culture it arose from, are a masterclass in the expression of understated frustration. Writing to his king shortly before the fleet set sail, he complained that although ‘the principal means must come from God, as your Majesty very virtuously and piously suggests, it seems necessary to examine what human resources would be needed to carry out your wishes’. His words echo the frustration felt by strategists throughout the ages. Grand objectives and a belief that God is on your side are just an interesting starting point – making it happen requires a much more prosaic understanding of resources and capabilities.32 The tension between pragmatism and principle inevitably plays out in the development of any strategy. And, in the case of the crusader states, one might imagine, there are surely few more absolute examples of how ‘principles’, however rigid or bigoted, might play out in practice. The binary nature of a religious war with Islam would certainly seem to suggest as much. The principles of Christianity might appear absolute from a distance, but on the ground, and at that time, the demands of good strategy (‘pragmatism’ in the more literal sense that Machiavelli used the word) required a high level of flexibility and adaptation. 283

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Almost as soon as the crusaders arrived in the Middle East, we find them allying themselves with local Muslim warlords, recruiting large numbers of ‘heretical’ native Christians and intermarrying as quickly as they could with Syrian, Armenian and Arab women. This was integration on a scale that would have been inconceivable in Catholic Christendom. The rigidity of prejudice, and the stultifying effect this would have had on strategy, could not survive contact with the harsh and threatening environment of Middle Eastern geopolitics. The crusader states were under permanent threat, and any state under such threat can have no fixed moral principles – to paraphrase Lord Palmerston, such a state has interests, rather than friends or rigid beliefs, and those interests need to be pursued with flexibility.33 As individuals, everyone might have been extremely devout, but this piety could not always find an outlet in effective strategy. The local Christians might be seen as ‘heretics’ by many of those back in the European homelands, but the Franks in the Levant never had the luxury of such easy certainties. They needed all the help they could get, wherever they could get it from. Similarly, assistance from the Italian states for maritime blockades and siegecraft was often sought. When such help arrived, it might be given with genuine piety, but was also accompanied by ferocious negotiations aimed at furthering the Italians’ long-term commercial objectives. And their help was gratefully accepted, even in the face of such financial self-interest. Although help from the Catholic West might be preferable, soldiers from Orthodox Byzantium could be every bit as useful. King Amalric, for instance, went to great lengths to engage with the empire. Much of the last decade of his life was spent desperately organising closer links and joint military expeditions with Constantinople. Even after his death in 1174, continuing efforts were made to improve military cooperation between the Franks and their Orthodox neighbours. Pragmatism was as fully ingrained in the policy making of the crusader states as in any of our more modern, secular societies – it had to be. Much the same was true of the Franks’ Muslim opponents, as pragmatism and the imperatives of survival imposed their own inexorable logic. Muslim states were societies with strict moral and behavioural codes. But, as with the Franks, it was far easier to express these codes from the pulpit or the minbar than on the battlefield or in the planning rooms of state. 284

REFLECTIONS So, ironically, the best opportunities to oust the crusaders in the early years of the twelfth century were thwarted as much by the active and deliberate interference of local Turkic players as by the efforts of the Franks. In 1113, for instance, Mawdud, the leader of Mosul who was coordinating the counteroffensive, was assassinated by his fellow Muslims. He had to be removed, not because he was ineffective but, on the contrary, because he was far too successful: he was unifying the Islamic cause in a way that was simply too threatening for many of the local players, who feared for their independence.34 Similarly, when the Sultan of Baghdad tried once again, in 1115, to galvanise a unified response, the results were just as poor. His general Bursuq, lord of Hamadhan, led an army to invade Frankish territory and found himself facing not just the crusaders, but also their Muslim allies, the armies of Mardin and Damascus.35 Everyone knew that pragmatism and flexibility went hand in hand. Maintaining flexibility in strategic implementation, a lightness of touch that turns a fixed plan into an adaptable way to achieve policy objectives, is always vital to success.36 This was an area which the Franks always found immensely difficult, for reasons which were largely beyond their control. Without regular armies or reliable long-distance communications, responding to enemy activity and mustering local forces was always going to be cumbersome. Geography was another hugely limiting factor, particularly from the 1140s onwards, as the local Muslim states grew increasingly large, and capable of surrounding the crusader states at every turn. Flexibility was also limited by an inherent lack of manoeuvrability on the ground. Fighting armies of horse archers with a steppe heritage, the heavy European knights and armoured infantry were permanently in danger of being outmanoeuvred. The ability to develop flexible strategies was limited at every turn. The King of Jerusalem did not have enough money for a fleet of his own, so if he needed naval assistance he was forced to cajole, beg or negotiate for help. These negotiations could often extend over a period of years, at the end of which he might, just might, get the help he needed, albeit at a cost he could probably ill afford. The ability to manoeuvre and stay flexible was hard to find, and always came at a high price. But the opportunity was grasped whenever possible. The manoeuvring we find around Saladin’s mega-armies in the 1180s, for instance, avoiding combat but limiting the enemy’s capacity for destruction, was proving frustrating for their 285

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Muslim enemies. It was only the ill discipline and poor judgement of Guy of Lusignan and his advisers in 1187 that brought that period of painful but strategically correct evasiveness to a close. Ironically, not making decisions can often prove to be the best course of action, and the one most likely to retain strategic flexibility. As Guy of Lusignan showed at Hattin, a weak man trying to act decisively, behaving as he thought a strong man would, was a recipe for disaster. Some of that flexibility was reflected in the ability to learn. Learning is a key part of strategic development, and particularly learning when to stabilise, when to stop – for every Alexander, ripping his way through the pages of history, there needs to be an Augustus, consolidating, embedding, stabilising.37 The crusader states did this whenever they could. Even in periods of only moderate peace, the colonisation of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem gained rapid momentum, and men were brought over to populate settlements that could provide soldiers to defend the new states. And there was certainly a sense of institutionalised knowledge, precedents and protocols that increased over time. But the Franks never had the Augustan luxury of being able to draw a firm line around the boundaries of their states and say ‘enough’. Their resources were too meagre and the pressures heaped upon them were too immense for such niceties. If they had succeeded in recovering Egypt for Christendom they might have gained the resources to do so. But the failure of the attempts to conquer it in the 1160s spelled the end of any such dream. Flexibility is at the heart of successful strategy, but this path was often denied to the crusader states. As the years progressed, there was increasingly little scope for flexibility, however hard they tried. They were adaptive on a tactical and operational level (for instance in recruiting large numbers of their own light cavalry archers), because they could be. But in a region increasingly dominated by macro demographics and geopolitics they could rarely achieve flexibility on a strategic level.38 Strategy Without Victory The crusader states were fighting on the wrong side of history. The underlying demographic, anthropological and geopolitical forces that confronted them were profound. In fact, although they knew things were tough, and fought doggedly 286

REFLECTIONS against the enemies they faced, they were generally unaware of just how bad things really were. Any modern observer with a basic understanding of the resources available to the Franks and access to Google Earth can see within five minutes that this is not going to be a story with a happy ending. The crusaders occupied an isolated and narrow strip of land, at the furthest end of what barely passed for a supply line from Europe, surrounded by a mass of Muslim-dominated states. On a macro level – though they would not have recognised it at the time – crusader strategies are striking in that the most they could realistically hope for was to delay the inevitable. On a micro level too, strategy without victory was a consistent feature of their warfare. Although we often characterise the Franks as being blunt and rough individuals, they understood that successful strategy is never purely about fighting successfully – though that always helps. As Clausewitz wrote, it is more strictly and usefully seen as ‘the use of engagements for the [objectives] of the war’. In other words, you might theoretically win a war – or at least fulfil your objectives – without fighting a single battle. And so it was with the crusader states.39 Some of the most effective military actions undertaken by the crusader states were those which were based around manoeuvre rather than bloodshed. Entire campaigns could take place without close contact with the enemy. Less could be more. In 1111, for instance, a major invasion by the armies of the lord of Mosul was seen off without much bloodshed. Castle garrisons just hunkered down. The field army refused to make close contact, but doggedly masked the movements of their Muslim opponents. The invaders, many of whom were unruly nomadic mercenaries, soon got bored and dispersed, having achieved nothing.40 In crusading warfare, a passive-aggressive approach to the enemy was a good way of maximising positive results while minimising risk. This distinction was not necessarily appreciated by all participants at the time. Evasion and subtlety did not sit well with chivalric ideals of how best to conduct oneself in the face of the enemy. In the midst of an invasion, it took nerves of steel to manoeuvre slowly or just sit tight and wait for reinforcements, however sensible that might be. Guy of Lusignan fell victim to this tension between logic and emotion. The seeds of the cataclysmic Frankish defeat at Hattin in 1187 were firmly planted four years earlier. In 1183 Saladin invaded the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in overwhelming 287

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY force. Once again, fortresses provided refuge for civilians and a safe haven for garrisons and local militia. The crusader field army, meanwhile, mustered at their traditional watering holes close to the eastern frontiers. Rather than risk a full-scale battle, they shadowed the main Muslim army, but were forced to watch Turkic cavalry detachments ravage the local villages and undefended small towns. Eventually, Saladin gave up. He withdrew his forces back across the River Jordan. This style of campaigning, conducting a defence without destroying or even directly confronting the enemy, was unheroic and nerve-wracking. It also meant persuading large numbers of proud and testosterone-fuelled knights to sit back, immobile behind makeshift field fortifications, while watching their estates going up in flames all around them. Guy of Lusignan may have been successful in thwarting the invasion of 1183, but the whole process was so painful that he was dismissed from his post as soon as the danger had passed. The lesson he learned was the wrong one: he needed, so he thought, to be bolder in confronting invaders. And four years later, when he was both king and field commander, he did just that. The catastrophic defeat of Hattin was the result.41 Strategy, even successful strategy, came at a price. Tactics Driving Strategy In theory, as we have seen, policy dictates the direction of strategy. But in practice that is not always the dominant dynamic. The implementation of strategy often creates its own momentum and, ironically, the tactics that arise can create a feedback loop that helps reshape that strategy.42 The tactical failure of the old generation of crusader castles in the 1160s, for instance, inevitably helped shape the frontier strategy that followed. The new generation of castles were so expensive, but simultaneously so essential, that their development dictated a large part of the strategy that had initially demanded their existence. Similarly, if the Franks had not captured Ascalon in 1153, it is unlikely that the Egyptian strategy of the 1160s would have developed in the way it eventually did. The capture of Ascalon was sparked only by a raid and a series of minor skirmishes around the city, the usual to and fro of intimidation and one-upmanship. This rapidly turned into something more serious, almost by coincidence. Events were driven by the vagaries of Fatimid internal politics and the actions of a few overly aggressive 288

REFLECTIONS Turcopoles rather than by any master plan on the part of the Franks. The exact timing of the key crusader strategy of the central twelfth century was thus ultimately driven by tactics and accidents on the ground, little more than random chance, rather than by anything more coordinated or predictable. The Franks recognised that tactics sometimes had to drive the direction of strategy. This was not always helpful, and it was never ideal. But they knew that they often had little choice in the matter. Ignoring the realities of warfare on the ground, while continuing to focus on a chosen strategy, was a choice they never had the resources to contemplate.43 Another area over which the Franks had relatively little control was strategic ‘overstretch’: this was a continuing and fundamental problem, particularly in the second half of the twelfth century. Overstretch can be described as ‘the enfeeblement that comes with confusing ends and means – [it] allows enemies to apply leverage: small manoeuvres that have big consequences’.44 Critically for the crusaders, it comes to the fore when strategic objectives run ahead of the resources needed to implement them. As we have seen, the Franks were often unavoidably overstretched and hence disproportionately exposed to enemy intervention at vulnerable points, with all the increased leverage this gave them. Once an army is overstretched, it loses all flexibility of response, and becomes a hostage to events unfolding around it. Even relatively small enemy forces can be used to dramatic effect – the incremental impact of their deployment is enough to ‘swamp’ the over-committed forces. In the 1160s, for example, Nur al-Din had the ability to distract and interfere, almost at will, because the Franks were so overstretched – the Egyptian strategy was correct in terms of focus but was also a classic case of ends running far ahead of means. Similarly, in the 1180s Saladin used his vast numerical and geographical advantages to continually run his Frankish adversaries ragged. He could pin the crusader forces with just one of his armies and still send others to create havoc in the areas left undefended. The overstretched crusaders could do little other than watch their country being burned around them – and it was the frustration born of overstretch which led to the disastrous decision making that culminated in Hattin. The political elite of the Kingdom of Jerusalem tore themselves apart trying to find the right way forward – precisely because they were so overstretched that there was, in reality, no ‘right way forward’ to find. 289

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY Resources were so constrained, and the geopolitical environment so challenging, that the Franks had to develop strategy on the basis of ‘needs must’. It would have been preferable to have more Western knights in the army. But numbers were severely limited, so local Christians were recruited as Turcopoles. There were usually only enough men, at most, for one field army, and even that had to be created by hollowing out castle garrisons. Deploying a field army on offensive actions inevitably left large swathes of Frankish territory wide open to enemy incursions. Everywhere you looked, strategy could only be implemented by making hard choices. The crusaders had an intuitive grasp of strategic principles, but theory had to take second place to reality. Emergencies were always just around the corner, and grand plans had to be subordinated to the needs of the moment. In the modern world, just as much as the medieval one, the implementation of strategy is a pragmatic process, and always an art rather than a science. As Lord Kitchener said of the British army in the First World War, ‘We wage war not as we would like, but as we must’. That could stand as the strategic motto of the crusader states.45 Fog and Friction The ‘fog of war’ is a fundamental limitation on the actions of any general. It lies at the heart of Clausewitz’s ground-breaking philosophical analysis of strategy and warfare, largely written in the 1820s. It was a feature of strategy that was instinctively understood by the Franks and factored into their planning. Strategy, Clausewitz suggested, is continually undercut by reality. Even the best resourced and most modern armies suffer enormously from the two inter-related factors that detract from their ability to implement strategy – the ‘fog of war’ and ‘friction’. Clausewitz wrote that ‘war is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty’.46 This ‘fog of war’ represents a continual limitation and can lead, at one extreme, to a paralysis of decision making (where, for instance, one remains unaware of enemy intentions or potentialities); conversely, at the other extreme, it can lead to the most appalling overconfidence or miscalculations. The crusaders were all too aware of this ‘fog’, and of the consequences it could have at both ends of the spectrum. Like any sedentary society, their armies had huge 290

REFLECTIONS difficulty in fighting enemy forces which consisted largely of nomadic heritage cavalry. Intelligence gathering in the face of masses of light cavalry was so difficult that it was extremely hard to assess their intentions. Combined with the common Turkic tactics of feigned flight and swarming round the flanks and rear of their opponents, caution was a necessary default mode in most circumstances. At the end of a Muslim raid on the settlement at Bethgibelin in 1153, for instance, one of the participants wrote that the Franks are the most cautious of all men in war. They climbed up a hill [as we retreated] and stayed there, and we climbed a hill directly across from them. Between these two hills was an open space where our comrades who had been separated from us and those who led the extra horses crossed right beneath them. The Franks didn’t even send one horseman down against them for fear of some ambush or trick. If the Franks had just come down, they would have captured our comrades down to the last man . . . [we were saved by] their exaggerated sense of caution.47

The tone of the account was crowing, but the Frankish behaviour was born of experience rather than cowardice. These were veteran Hospitaller troops. They knew the penalties for recklessness in the face of the enemy all too well. They had seen the raiders off, killed the stragglers and recovered most of their plunder. The Franks were happy to quit while they were ahead. Overconfidence could bring far harsher consequences with it. King Baldwin I was an effective general. He was also recognised, under normal circumstances, as someone who used intelligence sources well, and had a good instinctive grasp of strategic issues.48 In May 1102, however, a large Egyptian army marched north to invade the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and he made an error of cataclysmic proportions. Having defeated the Fatimid military just a few months earlier, he was feeling cocky. Even more dangerously, the ‘fog of war’ reared its head in the form of illinformed and misleading reports coming in from the countryside. As we have seen, these reports led him to seriously underestimate the size of the Fatimid forces. Gathering just a couple of hundred cavalry around him, he charged towards the enemy without waiting for any infantry to join him. By the time he realised his mistake (and the scale of his mistake was huge: he was outnumbered by 291

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY perhaps twenty to one), it was too late to do anything about it. He was committed. In the ensuing charge and the inevitable pursuit, the cream of Frankish knighthood were wiped out. Interestingly, in the aftermath of the battle, Baldwin was blamed for all the right reasons – for fighting without the correct cooperation with any infantry support, for recklessly attacking without waiting for an effective muster of the local troops, but mostly for moving forward rashly in the absence of proper intelligence. The fog of war was identified – correctly – as being responsible for the crucial mistake. Next time the Franks did things properly. A cautious muster of the kingdom’s forces took place over the following days, and the Egyptians were soundly beaten before the end of the month.49 Even when they were breaking the rules of war, the Franks at least knew what rules they were breaking. The ‘fog of war’ also contributed significantly to one of Clausewitz’s other main precepts: the idea of ‘friction’. Clausewitz wrote that Everything in war is very simple, but [even] the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war . . . Countless minor incidents – the kind you can never really foresee – combine to lower the general level of performance, so that one always falls far short of the intended goal.50

Even if there is a moderately accurate sense of what the enemy is capable of, or likely to do, the ability to deploy forces efficiently is always compromised, to a greater or lesser extent, by the accidents and eventualities of real life. Friction creates the difference between war as it might be, with all the absolute violence that that implies, and war as played out in reality: how potential is converted into imperfection.51 ‘Friction’ explains why the theoretical performance of military assets – an army, say, or a unit of spearmen – is degraded before they even get into battle. In the crusader states, friction always loomed large. Even basic tasks, such as gathering troops together, were often appallingly difficult and dangerous operations. In 1170, for instance, Saladin’s armies invaded the south of the Latin Kingdom, partly destroying the southern castle of Darum. A number of the younger members of the colonial militia from the Frankish settlement at Magna Mahomeria were late in joining the muster. The royal army had retreated, having tried – and failed – to stop 292

REFLECTIONS the Muslim advance. The isolated militia unit took refuge in Gaza. The castle survived the siege that followed, but the young men were trapped in the town and almost wiped out.52 Similarly, in 1183 we know that a large body of troops from the lordship of the Oultrejourdain (the Transjordan) were intercepted on the way to a royal muster point and wiped out.53 With poor transport links and even more rudimentary communications, getting to a battlefield was a dangerous business. Less obviously, but often just as damaging, there was also friction by time. In the absence of anything other than the most rudimentary communications technology, by the time troops were gathered, it was often too late to stop the enemy doing its worst. Particularly as Muslim armies grew increasingly larger in the second half of the century, it took longer and longer for the Franks to pull their scattered penny packets of garrisons together.54 As a consequence, even when relief forces gathered, it was often too late. As we have seen at the siege of Jacob’s Ford in 1179, for instance, the Frankish field army which should have come to their aid was delayed in mustering at Tiberias, and they also had to wait to include groups of crusaders who had recently arrived in the East. By the time they were ready, the Templars’ vital new castle had been overrun.55 These delays were not necessarily due to any negligence or cowardice – though the size of Saladin’s armies was certainly enough to discourage the faint of heart. In the latter decades of the twelfth century, gathering forces of sufficient critical mass to meet the enemy with any degree of confidence inevitably took longer. In an era of such chronically poor communications, short cuts had to be found. The Franks went to great lengths to make decision making, policy formulation and strategic responses as quick and seamless as possible. Over time – remarkably quickly in fact – the different crusader states arrived at ways to develop policy in tandem. They established a methodology that allowed them to act together swiftly in times of emergency. One of the main ways they did this was through the development of informal protocols which guided behaviour and responses. These created default responses to specific situations, bypassing the need to send detailed and specific instructions every time a new military threat emerged. Protocols can create a military shorthand – tactical and operational responses that allow simple or dispersed societies to react quickly, almost instinctively, to military emergencies. To a large extent these loosely defined doctrines embody much of 293

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY the DNA of the army. They allow best practice in military matters to be transferred quickly from generation to generation, but were particularly important in the crusader states. They provided a speedier, easily replicable response to habitual events, such as mutual support in the event of enemy invasion. They also created an instinctive ‘welcome pack’ and induction programme for newcomers as they arrived, either as part of formal expeditions – such as crusades – or as small groups of warriors or individual pilgrims. Warfare in the East was so different, so much more intense, that newcomers needed to hit the ground running if they were to have any chance of survival. At the highest level, there were widely understood protocols about the need for each of the crusader states to offer each other support in the event of invasion, regardless of personal animosities or rivalries. Help was usually led by the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem whose pre-eminence was generally recognised and acknowledged, albeit sometimes uncomfortably. These duties were serious and onerous. The kings of Jerusalem spent much of their reigns riding to the rescue of their northern neighbours. This was dangerous, often unappreciated, work. But it had to be done. King Fulk spent most of his time in the north, knocking heads together among the fractious Frankish nobility as well as helping them stave off Muslim invasion. He worked, usually successfully, to defend their lands but frequently had to remind even his own vassals that their mutual interdependence required continual commitment and self-sacrifice. Regardless of petty internal disputes, there was a shared interest in maintaining a common front and, at a basic level, ensuring each other’s existence. The County of Edessa, for instance, provided a buffer for the other crusader states for as long as it survived. Once it had definitively collapsed (in 1150) the danger just moved further south, threatening the remaining crusader states still more. Neighbours might be irritating but no one wanted them gone. At an operational level, having well-established mustering points also helped. These were ideally well watered, and close enough to likely points of enemy incursion. But they also had to be far enough back to allow manoeuvrability and a degree of safety for troops approaching from different locations. While men were mustering at these points, messengers would be sent to the other crusader states to ask for immediate assistance. The springs at Cresson, Saffuriya and Tubania met these criteria for the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’s eastern borders and were often used as bases for the field army.56 294

REFLECTIONS On a smaller scale, the men of each lordship or region knew where to gather at short notice, often before setting off together towards the main army muster. The other crusader states similarly had their own customary gathering points. In the days leading up to the disastrous engagement at Ager Sanguinis, for instance, Prince Roger was correct in asking for help from the other crusader states and gathering his men at an appropriate mustering point. His mistake lay only in moving camp and marching towards the enemy before that help arrived.57 Another form of protocol, the arrière-ban (a full military summons), was never popular but was occasionally necessary. It was usually only required in a state of emergency, such as a major invasion by the enemy. In the single-minded pursuit of vital strategic interests, however, exceptions could be made. In January 1126, for instance, a general muster of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was called to invade Damascene territory. William of Tyre wrote: The king and the lords gave orders that all the people, from the least even up to the greatest, be assembled. Through every city of the realm these orders were proclaimed by the voice of the herald. Thus within a few days, the entire military strength of the kingdom was levied and the entire body concentrated near the city of Tiberias, prepared to invade the land of Damascus.58

But the precedents for the raising of the arrière-ban were always jealously guarded. Regardless of need, it was only in the era of Saladin, when even the most conservative subject had to confront the seriousness of the military situation, that it could be called on regularly. Protocols and other standard responses to specific military situations were inevitably a blunt instrument. They channelled activity down predictable avenues, and this helped the Franks’ enemies in making their own plans. They limited the range of options available to crusading generals, at least in the early stages of any campaign. And, in some cases, they may have encouraged lazy thinking. But they were also sensible and, given the circumstances, probably even unavoidable. They speeded up response times enormously. They allowed the crusaders to bypass a lot of the more lengthy decision-making processes. And, in a relatively simple society which valued tradition and consent above innovation, it gave strategic and operational activity the veneer and credibility of custom. 295

THE CRUSADER STRATEGY ‘Just Like Soldiers Believe They’re in Control of the War’59 This book began with a question. Can a medieval state – and specifically the crusader states – truly be said to have understood, developed and implemented coherent plans of action? And can these plans legitimately be described as ‘strategy’? The answer, with all the provisos we have discussed, is yes. But that is not the same as trying to suggest that all their strategies were successful. Many failed, and we are still living with the consequences of that failure. The fundamentals of life in the Middle East made Muslim forces resilient. Individual dynasties might come and go but they surrounded the crusader states, they were close to the heartlands of Islamic political power in Iraq, and the demographics of the region meant that the Christian states would always be vastly outnumbered. Above all, there was, for most practical purposes, an endless supply of hardened light cavalry coming off the steppes with which to fill the ranks of Muslim armies.60 The position of the Franks, on the other hand, was intrinsically fragile. Although the local communities in most of the crusader states were still largely Christian, these were not highly militarised societies, particularly in Palestine. A major defeat for the Muslims was a temporary setback, but little more. But by the end of the twelfth century, a defeat for the crusaders was a catastrophe, and one from which they would find it hard to ever recover. The Roman Empire in the fifth century, with a huge professional army, elaborate border fortifications and the scope for defence in depth across much of Western Europe, failed to halt a similar demographic deluge: nomadic societies collided with their sedentary neighbours, propelled by climate change on the steppes, and pushed aside all attempts to resist them.61 The Franks, with only a small fraction of the Roman Empire’s resources, had no chance of stemming the same tide. The crusader states could come up with sticking plaster solutions. Ultimately, however, they were confronted with primal demographic forces that were way beyond their capabilities or resources. We started our examination of crusader strategy with the battle of the Spring of the Cresson: ostensibly an outrageous example of foolhardiness and arrogance, the very antithesis of rational military thinking. And that is certainly true on one level. But there is another, more empathetic, way of interpreting it. 296

REFLECTIONS From the 1170s onwards the Frankish states were increasingly on the defensive, with no aggressive strategic options left. They hunkered down and tried to delay the inevitable. The frustration that this caused was profound. The crusader leadership was a warrior elite whose natural inclination was to take the initiative in the most assertive way they could. The extraordinary naval campaign by Reynald of Châtillon in the Red Sea, the heroic but futile charge at Cresson and the vacillating decision making at Hattin that ultimately destroyed the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem – they were all part of the same pattern. All were acts of increasingly reckless desperation. With no plausible long-term strategic path available to them, the Frankish military were forced either to dig in and wait for a slow death behind castle walls or to lash out and risk a fast one. The head dictated the former, but the heart of a brave knight sought the latter. Where demographics and geography were more favourable, the crusading movement could deliver long-term success. In the western Mediterranean, for instance, far from the steppe nomads who dominated warfare in the Levant, the fightback was sustained and effective – areas such as Portugal, Spain, Sicily and southern Italy, which we now take for granted as being part of Europe, were recovered. But circumstances were far more difficult in the East. The crusader states developed rational strategies to address their profound geopolitical deficiencies. They pursued those strategies with consistency, focus and, by medieval standards, impressive efficiency. These policies ultimately failed to save the Christian states of the Middle East. But they did help to preserve the Frankish colonies of the hinterland for almost a century. And they deferred the moment at which the Muslim states could focus their full attention on the coastal cities. Medieval statesmen and commanders had an instinctive understanding of strategy. Despite our modern prejudices, they also had the patience and focus to put their strategies into practice over extended periods of time, sometimes even decades. The Franks were extremely lucky that their leaders were generally of high quality – perceptive, committed and superbly dynamic in defence of their people and the Holy Land. The medieval ‘Great Game’ of the Levant was eventually, inevitably, lost by the crusaders: but it was a game played with bravery, energy and intelligence, against increasingly long odds.

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NOTES

Foreword 1. See, for instance, B.S. Bachrach and D. Bachrach (2017), Warfare in Medieval Europe for an excellent overview of current academic thinking about warfare in Western Europe in this period, and particularly pp. 335–88 for an examination of the role and practice of strategy. 1 Strategy in a Medieval State: Do Fish Need Bicycles? 1. See Rule, pp. 58–61, 175–88 for the way in which a Templar battle line was structured, and how a charge was launched. See D. Pringle (2001), ‘The Spring of the Cresson’ for the significance of the spring and the debate about the exact location of the battle. See also S. Tibble (2018), The Crusader Armies, pp. 133–8. 2. La Fève was a substantial Templar frontier base, with a massive garrison (by the standards of the time) consisting of some 50–60 knights, other troops and prepositioned supplies. Caco was another Templar centre, about 6 kilometres away from La Fève, and provided additional troops for the emergency. See B.Z. Kedar and D. Pringle (1985), ‘La Fève’; Pringle Sec., pp. 49, 83–4; Pringle I–IV, vol. I, p. 207, vol. II, pp. 164–5. 3. Ernoul mistakenly refers to James of Mailly as the Marshal of the Templars. The marshal at the time, Brother Robert Fraisnel, was also present, however. Both men died on the battlefield. See also the papal letter to the clergy of England in WT Cont., pp. 156–7. See M. Barber (2012), The Crusader States, p. 298, n. 45; M. Barber and K. Bate (2010), Letters from the East, p. 76. 4. For Gerard of Ridefort see Barber, Crusader States, pp. 294–9; M. Barber (2008), ‘The Reputation of Gerard of Ridefort’; P.W. Edbury (2011), ‘Gerard of Ridefort and the Battle of Le Cresson’; WT Cont., pp. 38–9; Ernoul, p. 114. 5. WT Cont., p. 32. 6. Ernoul wrote that the crusader force consisted of 80 Templar knights, 10 Hospitaller knights who were acting as a bodyguard for their master, Roger of Moulins, and 40 secular knights from the royal garrison at Nazareth, Ernoul, p. 146; WT Cont., p. 32; Barber, Crusader States, p. 298. The Libellus says that the Franks consisted of ‘no more than 130 knights and 300 or 400 foot soldiers, and they were wretchedly separated from each other’, The Conquest of the Holy Land by Salah al-Din, pp. 118–19. Muslim sources suggest that some Turcopoles, the Frankish light cavalry archers, were also present, L&J, p. 249. 7. Muzafar was operating under the command of Saladin’s son, al-Afdal. We know that al-Afdal was not actually present at the battle but boasted in a letter to his father in a way that tried to imply that he had been. He claimed that at Cresson he had ‘stood in his father’s place and struck with his sword’, L&J, p. 250. 8. IA, pt II, p. 319; L&J, p. 249; Barber, Crusader States, p. 298; Tibble, Crusader Armies, p. 102. This column was detached from an army operating in Galilee under the command of Saladin’s son,

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9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

al-Afdal, see L&J, pp. 249–50. A letter from Pope Urban III, based on information provided by Gerard of Ridefort shortly after the battle, suggested that there were 6,000 Muslim cavalry, WT Cont., pp. 156–7. The Libellus suggests, unconvincingly, that, few as they were, the Templars ‘all took up arms glad at heart, drew up [their] battle array, though small, and advanced against the enemy with every joy’, The Conquest of the Holy Land, pp. 118–19. The Conquest of the Holy Land, pp. 126–9. Barber, Crusader States, p. 298. ‘. . . the master of the Order of the Temple, battered by maces, and seeing that they had been handed over to death and that no hope of deliverance remained, escaped alive by fleeing’, Conquest of the Holy Land, pp. 120–1. A letter to the Pope from Gerard of Ridefort reported that 50 Templar knights and 10 squires died in the fighting, WT Cont., pp. 156–7. Barber, Crusader States, p. 299. ‘The master of the Hospital had his head cut off, and so did all the knights of the Temple. Only the master of the Temple together with just three knights escaped. The forty knights who were in the royal garrison [from Nazareth] were all taken . . . After the Saracens had taken and defeated the Christians, they took the heads of the Christian knights and attached them to the points of their lances, and they led the prisoners bound, and so passed before Tiberias’, WT Cont., pp. 32–3. A Templar letter to the West, written a few weeks after the battle, referred to ‘sixty [brothers] who were killed on the first of May’, M. Barber (1994), The New Knighthood, p. 115. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican, South Carolina. See, for example, E.N. Luttwak (1976), The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire; E.N. Luttwak (2009), The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire. S. Tibble (1989), Monarchy and Lordships in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem explores this process in more detail and looks at the ways in which the kings of Jerusalem manipulated the feudal system wherever possible, in order to maintain at least a modicum of central control over their extremely limited military resources. The word ‘has acquired a universality which has robbed it of meaning, and left it only with banalities’, H. Strachan (2013), The Direction of War, p. 27. In the words of one Napoleonic general and statesman, ‘Strategy . . . produces the overall plans, and takes into its hands and decides on the general course of military enterprises; it is, in strict terms, the science of the commander-in-chief ’, Archduke Charles of Austria, quoted in Strachan, The Direction of War, p. 29. Strachan, Direction, pp. 28–9. Strachan, Direction, p. 27; C.S. Gray (1999), ‘Why Strategy is Difficult’, p. 83. ‘Strategy implies that the government has a policy and that the strategy flows from the policy: it is an attempt to make concrete a set of objectives through the application of military force to a particular case’, Strachan, Direction, p. 64. See also L. Freedman (2013), Strategy: A History, pp. 86–7. C. von Clausewitz (1976), On War, p. 177; Strachan, Direction, p. 27. See Gray, ‘Why Strategy is Difficult’, p. 83. WT Cont., pp. 156–7. WT Cont., p. 33. L&J, pp. 249–51. See J. France (2006), ‘Thinking about Crusader Strategy’ for a fascinating discussion of papal strategy with regard to the crusades, and some of the policy issues facing the crusader states – particularly the extent to which the policy interests of the northern and southern crusader states diverged. 2 Prelude: A Time Before Strategy?

1. For a wonderful description of the geography and demographics of the Middle East on the eve of the crusades see M. Barber (2012), The Crusader States, pp. 26–49.

299

NOTES to pp. 20–36 2. For the Muslim world the crusaders encountered in the late eleventh century see P.M. Cobb (2014), The Race for Paradise, pp. 70–103; M. Brett (2014), ‘The Near East on the Eve of the Crusades’; J. France and N. Morton (2014), ‘Arab Muslim Reactions to Turkish Authority’. 3. WT, vol. I, p. 223. 4. See Barber, Crusader States, pp. 85–7, 98. 5. AA, pp. 230–1. 6. WT, vol. I, p. 223. 7. See J.L. Bacharach (1981), ‘African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East’; S. Tibble (2018), The Crusader Armies, pp. 211–20. 8. See Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 44–9 and 68–98 for a more detailed examination of the problem, and the efforts which were made to increase Frankish military manpower in this period. 9. RC, p. 155; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 69, 87–8. 10. Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 211–51. 11. Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 252–92. 12. News of Hattin seems to have taken about three months to reach the western Mediterranean and a further month to reach Germany and northern France. See Helen Birkett’s (2018) wonderful article on international news stories in the aftermath of the defeat: ‘News in the Middle Ages’. 13. See chapter 4 for a more detailed discussion of Edessa’s strategic situation. 14. T. Asbridge (2000), The Creation of the Principality of Antioch, p. 50; A.D. Buck (2017), The Principality of Antioch, pp. 32–41. 15. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 88–9; see also K.J. Lewis (2017), The Counts of Tripoli and Lebanon in the Twelfth Century. 16. The late Shelby Foote in Ken Burns’s 1990 PBS documentary, The Civil War. 3 The Coastal Strategy: 1099–1124 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Saewulf in JP, p. 99; M. Barber (2012), The Crusader States, p. 55. Saewulf in JP, p. 99. Saewulf in JP, p. 100. He later wrote that ‘No eye which beheld it could be so hard and strong as to refrain from tears’, Saewulf in JP, pp. 99–100. R. Rogers (1992), Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century, pp. 64–90. J.H. Pryor (1988), Geography, Technology and War, pp. 112–25. Pryor, Geography, Technology and War, pp. 112–25. C. Marshall (2003), ‘The Crusading Motivation of the Italian City Republics in the Latin East’, pp. 60–79. As the late British sports commentator David Coleman may (or may not) have famously said, ‘Welcome to Tel Aviv, a real Mecca for tourists’. IJ, p. 301. Caffaro, p. 55. Caffaro, p. 55. Caffaro, p. 55. The archaeological remains show no trace of two layers of walls at Caesarea, but Caffaro may perhaps be referring to impromptu barricades put up by the defenders to assist them in the event of an enemy breakthrough (a not uncommon practice in such instances). RA, pp. 123–5; Caffaro, pp. 11, 55, n. 29. Caffaro, pp. 54–6; AA, pp. 562–7; FC, pp. 153–5. S. Tibble (2018), The Crusader Armies, pp. 157–71. FC, pp. 151–3; AA, pp. 474–5, 486–95. AA, pp. 486–7. AA, pp. 488–9. AA, pp. 490–1; FC, pp. 152–3. The brave – and desperate – knights were called Rothold and Peter the Lombard. Albert of Aachen wrote, with no apparent irony, that they survived ‘with God’s protection, and with very strong helmets’, AA, pp. 490–1.

300

NOTES to pp. 37–43 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49.

AA, pp. 492–5. ‘Nearly a hundred Franks who fell from it were desperately wounded . . .’, FC, pp. 152–3. Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare, pp. 50, 89. AA, pp. 494–5. AA, pp. 498–9. AA, pp. 498–503. AA, pp. 502–3. Pringle I–IV, vol. I, p. 224; AA, pp. 506–7; A.V. Murray (2000), The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, p. 199. WT, vol. I, pp. 409–10. See Barber, Crusader States, p. 67. Caffaro says 26 galleys and six ships at one point (p. 151), but 26 galleys and four other vessels elsewhere (p. 117). The Genoese were clearly the dominant naval force, but there may have been other, smaller contingents present too. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem never had a standing navy, even at its height, but we know that the king and even the nobility were able to requisition vessels if required. King Baldwin certainly had ‘fast escort ships’ with which to greet the Genoese when they arrived in port, and doubtless there were others which he could commandeer or lease. More significantly, however, there is evidence that a Pisan squadron also took part in the sieges of 1101. The Genoese accounts naturally tend to airbrush out the contributions of their civic and commercial competitors. The Frankish chroniclers, however, had no such motivation. Albert of Aachen mentions a Pisan presence alongside the Genoese, and Bartolf of Nangis is explicit in stating that there were Pisan as well as Genoese ships over-wintering in Latakia at that time. If true, this might explain the lack of aggression displayed by the Egyptian navy in the spring of 1101. Although the Fatimids seem to have had 40 galleys stationed in Acre at this time, they would probably have been outnumbered and outclassed by a combined Genoese and Pisan fleet. Bartolf of Nangis, pp. 522–3; Edgington (2014), ‘The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium of “Bartolf of Nangis” ’, pp. 31–4; AA, pp. 562–3. AA, pp. 562–3. AA, pp. 562–3; FC, p. 152. IA, pt I, p. 61. AA, pp. 660–1. FC, p. 176. AA, pp. 660–1. AA, pp. 660–1. AA, pp. 660–1; IA, pt I, p. 61. AA, pp. 660–3. AA, pp. 662–3. AA, pp. 662–3. AA, pp. 662–3. FC, p. 174. The actual identity of the author of the chronicle is almost certainly unknown. More accurately, one should probably refer to it as ‘the chronicle usually ascribed to Bartolf of Nangis’, which is in itself largely a reworking and abridgement of Fulcher of Chartres. Tom Smith and Sue Edgington are currently completing a new edition and translation of the text (conversation with Tom Smith). Bartolf of Nangis, p. 536; Edgington, ‘The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium’, p. 32. Caffaro, pp. 174–5. The use of the word ‘fifty’, presumably meaning ‘50 vessels’, gives a clear sense of what contemporaries thought constituted a fleet substantial enough to enforce a blockade on the Palestinian coast at this time. RRH, no. 43; WT, vol. I, p. 455. AA, pp. 670–1. Baldwin must have had his eyes on a deal with the Genoese from an early stage. They had carried out a demonstration off Tripoli in early April 1104, but probably realised that Raymond of Toulouse did not have sufficient land forces to allow them to take the city quickly. They were ready to be enticed away. The size of the Italian fleet, perhaps with some additional vessels provided by the king, made this a perfect opportunity. Fulcher of Chartres believed they had brought an armada of 70 galleys with them but Muslim commentators thought the fleet was even larger. Ibn al-Qalanisi wrote that King Baldwin had ‘with him the Genoese vessels which had

301

NOTES to pp. 43–51

50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

captured the port of [Gibelet], over ninety vessels in all’. The two figures are, of course, not necessarily mutually contradictory. The Genoese fleet may have consisted of approximately 70 vessels, and the king’s impromptu squadron may have added almost 20 more to the total. Qal, p. 61; FC, p. 176. AA, pp. 670-1; IA, pt I, pp. 78–9. AA, pp. 670–1. WT, vol. I, p. 455. WT, vol. I, p. 455; FC, p. 176. AA, pp. 672–3; Qal, p. 61. WT, vol. I, p. 455. AA, pp. 672–3. Qal, pp. 61–2. IA, pt I, pp. 78–9. The city gates were opened to the crusaders on 26 May. The emir’s arrival in Damascus on that same day would indeed suggest that he had arranged the terms of the surrender but had then left quickly, under a personal guarantee of safety, a couple of days before the crusading army entered the city. AA, pp. 674–5. FC, p. 176. AA, pp. 674-5. Prawer (1988), The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, p. 42. The chronology of the ownership and sieges of Latakia in this period is complex and confusing. For more explanation and a fuller discussion see T. Asbridge (2000), The Creation of the Principality of Antioch, pp. 33–4, 43, 48, 52–3, 56, 64. RC, p. 160; Asbridge, Creation of the Principality of Antioch, pp. 52–3. RC, pp. 162–3. Anna, p. 318. Barber, Crusader States, p. 84; RC, pp. 167–8, 172–3; Asbridge, Creation of the Principality of Antioch, pp. 56, 64; Anna, pp. 327–9. The Franks seem to have held out in the citadel of Latakia for a while but, lacking naval support, presumably surrendered soon after. The circumstances and timing of its recapture are unclear, but we know that the Byzantines were in possession of the town soon after the massive defeat of the Antiochene army at Harran in May 1104. Presumably they took advantage of temporary Frankish military weakness to recover several of their recently lost Syrian coastal bases. RRH, no. 53; Barber, Crusader States, p. 84. For the capture of Tripoli see K.J. Lewis (2017), The Counts of Tripoli and Lebanon, pp. 22–53; Barber, Crusader States, p. 86. RC, pp. 160–1. RC, p. 161. IA, pt I, p. 60. AA, pp. 660–1. IA, pt I, p. 74. In 1105, for instance, troops from Aleppo were sent to aid the Tripolitans. KD RHCr Or., p. 593. IA, pt I, p. 105. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 90, 98. AA, pp. 776–7. AA, pp. 782–3. AA, pp. 782–3. WT, vol. I, p. 478. IA, pt I, p. 148; Qal, pp. 88–9. AA, pp. 782–5. Messengers were sent from the city ‘to the king and the count with proposals of surrender under the following conditions: those who wished should be allowed to depart freely . . . and to transfer their households and goods wherever they wanted; but those who did not wish to go should be permitted to remain in their houses in peace and safety and to retain their possessions, under a fixed annual payment to the count’, WT, vol. I, p. 478.

302

NOTES to pp. 51–59 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

91. 92.

93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104.

105. 106. 107.

108. 109. 110.

Qal, p. 89. Caffaro, p. 124. IA, pt I, p. 149; AA, pp. 784–5. IA, pt I, p. 148. ‘Their spirits were lowered by universal despair at the delay of the Egyptian fleet in bringing provisions and reinforcements by sea, for the stores of the fleet had been exhausted and the direction of the wind remained contrary . . .’, Qal, p. 89. Qal, p. 91; IA, pt I, p. 149. R. Ellenblum (2007), Crusader Castles and Modern Histories, pp. 166–70. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 86–7; RC, p. 161. The Frankish chronicles downplay or entirely overlook any Byzantine contribution to the siege of Tripoli. But from the perspective of the empire, the castle was very largely a Byzantine affair, designed to help a junior ally, and to reinvigorate Byzantine influence in the area. The Byzantine princess Anna Comnena wrote that ‘after informing the emperor of [his victory outside Tortosa on April 14, 1102, Raymond] asked him to build a very strong fort there before bigger forces turned up . . . against which he would have to fight. The emperor entrusted to the dux of Cyprus the task of building this fortress and instructed him to use the fleet to supply whatever materials as well as manpower were necessary to build it in the position identified by [Raymond]’, Anna, pp. 317–18. See also IA, pt I, p. 104. There was an outer wall (a bailey), and within this was a Frankish church, incorporating the remnants of a Fatimid shrine. It was only lost to Sultan Baybars in 1289. H. Kennedy (1994), Crusader Castles, p. 63. Caffaro, p.121. The castle acted as a focal point for the Franks, but it was also a centre for the local Christian communities, which had been hit hard in the raiding and counter-raiding that characterised the loose siege warfare around Tripoli. Raymond ‘built walls and towers and many houses, and many Christians from all around began to make their homes there’. WT, vol. I, p. 454. IA, pt I, pp. 60, 74. Qal, p. 65. IA, pt I, p. 104. WT, vol. I, p. 462. Kennedy, Crusader Castles, p. 63. M. Benvenisti (1970), The Crusaders in the Holy Land, p. 310; Pringle Sec., p. 102; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 367–8. WT, vol. I p. 469; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 367–8. It measured approximately 430 metres east– west and 530 metres north–south. Qal, p. 82; IA, pt I, p. 134. Qal, pp. 74–5; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, p. 367. WT, vol. I, pp. 514–15. See also Pringle Sec., p. 51; Pringle I–IV, vol. I, p. 251. WT, vol. I, pp. 514–15, vol. II, p. 5; Pringle I–IV, vol. I, p. 251; FC, p. 220; Bartolf of Nangis, p. 543; IJ, pp. 319–21. After the fall of Tyre, the castle naturally lost its primary function but became the administrative centre of a small lordship attached to the royal domain at Acre. S. Tibble (1989), Monarchy and Lordships in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, p. 52. WT, vol. II, pp. 19–20. Marshall, ‘The Crusading Motivation of the Italian City Republics’, pp. 60–79. See, for example, the letter of Daibert of Pisa sent to the West in April 1100 and accompanied by a certain Arnulf. The letter explicitly tells the recipients that Arnulf will give them a fuller oral briefing to accompany the written communication. ‘Daibert entrusted one Brother Arnulf (not Arnulf of Chocques, as is sometimes claimed) to carry the letter back to Germany, and, as Daibert’s letter states, Arnulf also had oral messages to supplement the written text and would recount the events of the First Crusade as well as answer any questions that his hosts might have had’, T.W. Smith (2017), ‘Scribal Crusading’, p. 148. FC, p. 243. WT, vol. I, p. 548. WT, vol. I, p. 553.

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NOTES to pp. 59–74 111. J. Phillips (1996), Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 14–15; WT, vol. I, p. 535; Orderic Vitalis, vol. VI, pp. 104–9. 112. Cerbanus Cerbani, pp. 322–3; Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 15. 113. J. Riley-Smith (1986), ‘The Venetian Crusade of 1122-1124’, pp. 340–5. 114. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 17; Pryor, Geography, Technology and War, pp. 115–17. 115. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 18; RRH, no. 105. The witness list for the treaty shows that many of the leading magnates of the land were present. King Baldwin II himself was not, as he was being held captive in the north, but he later ratified the terms of the treaty at yet another assembly in 1125. 116. WT, vol. I, pp. 550–2. 117. Ascalon still remained, of course, but its southerly position, its lack of a good harbour and the difficulty the Fatimid navy had in finding water supplies further up the coast meant that it was in no position to block communications between the crusader states and Europe. 4 The Hinterland Strategy: 1125–1153 1. WT, vol. II, p. 190; Phillips (2007), The Second Crusade, p. 220. See S. John (2015), ‘Historical Truth and the Miraculous Past’ for a nuanced discussion of oral traditions in the First Crusade, which sheds light on the transmission of potentially stereotypical narratives. The presence of similar stories in other texts (and the disturbingly large number of pubs in England called ‘The Turk’s Head’) shows how such stories might enter popular legend. For example, ‘William of Malmesbury stated that it was “well known” that Godfrey of Bouillon cut a Turk in two during the siege of Antioch.’ John, ‘Historical Truth’, p. 282; William of Malmesbury, pp. 658–9. 2. T. Asbridge (2000), The Creation of the Principality of Antioch, pp. 42–76. 3. For the importance of Aleppo, see T. Asbridge (1997), ‘The Significance and Causes of the Battle of the Field of Blood’; T. Asbridge (2013), ‘How the Crusades Could Have Been Won’; M. Barber (2012), The Crusader States, pp. 121–2. 4. Asbridge, ‘How the Crusades Could Have Been Won’, pp. 73–86. Joscelin of Edessa had also attacked Aleppo and put it under siege for four days the previous year, WT, vol. I, p. 545. 5. Asbridge, ‘How the Crusades Could Have Been Won’, pp. 80–1; N. Morton (2018), The Field of Blood, pp. 139–44. 6. IA, pt I, p. 254. 7. Of the 300 tents in the siege camp, 200 were said to be occupied by the Christian troops, KD RHCr Or., p. 646. 8. KD RHCr Or., p. 647. 9. WT, vol. II, p. 22. 10. Baldwin and his troops plundered Koik and its surrounding lands. Joscelin of Edessa and most of the Muslim troops in the allied army set out from Tell-Bashir and devastated the al-Bab valley, ‘ravaging its fields of cotton, millet and other crops’, KD RHCr Or., pp. 645–6. 11. Qal, p. 172. 12. KD RHCr Or., p. 648. 13. IA, pt I, p. 254. 14. KD RHCr Or., p. 646. 15. IA, pt I, p. 254; Qal, p. 173. 16. IA, pt I, p. 254; Qal, p. 173; KD RHCr Or., pp. 645–7. 17. KD RHCr Or., pp. 646–7. 18. KD RHCr Or., p. 647. 19. IA, pt I, p. 254. 20. FC, p. 274; WT, vol. II, p. 22. 21. KD RHCr Or., p. 649. 22. FC, p. 274. 23. Qal, p. 173; IA, pt I, p. 254; KD RHCr Or., pp. 649–50. 24. FC, pp. 273–4.

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NOTES to pp. 74–84 25. Asbridge, ‘How the Crusades Could Have Been Won’, p. 86; IA, pt I, pp. 339–40; Ibn al-Adim in RHCr Or., vol. III, pp. 675–7; Qal, p. 250; A.S. Tritton and H.A.R. Gibb, ‘The First and Second Crusades’, pp. 278–9; Niketas Choniates, pp. 14–18; John Kinnamos, pp. 24–5; MS, p. 245; Bar-Hebraeus, p. 264. 26. They arrived on 10–11 April 1138, Qal, p. 249; IA, pt I, p. 339. 27. See Barber, The Crusader States, pp. 169–70. 28. Qal, p. 250; IA, pt I, p. 340. 29. Qal, p. 250; IA, pt I, p. 340. 30. For the position and importance of Shaizar see Cobb (2009), Usama ibn Munqidh, pp. 1–5. 31. R. Ellenblum (2007), Crusader Castles and Modern Histories, p. 213. 32. WT, vol. II, p. 83; Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, p. 213. As well as the best equipment, the Byzantine siege train also had no shortage of experience by the time it got to Shaizar. From the summer of 1137 onwards it had been working its way through Cilicia, capturing towns such as Tarsus, Adana, Mamistra and Anazarba. By mid-August 1137, Frankish Antioch itself was under siege. As William of Tyre succinctly put it, ‘machines and engines were placed in strategic positions around the city and ever-increasing pressure was exerted upon the place’, WT, vol. II, p. 85; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 168–9. The Byzantines were using heavy catapults and, as was often the case, these were deployed around a main gate, the weakest point of any castle. The emperor ‘caused immensely heavy rocks to be hurled from the mighty machines and engines. In this way he sought to weaken and break down the defences of the city and to shatter the walls and towers at the gate of the Bridge’. Simultaneously, the Byzantines used two techniques more commonly employed by Muslim armies. Large numbers of missile-armed troops, archers and crossbowmen, but also including ‘a strong band of slingers’, were used to clear the battlements while, under the protection of their covering fire, sappers and miners were used to ‘approach and undermine the fortifications’, WT, vol. II, p. 92. Antioch capitulated soon afterwards: the Frankish sources claimed this was as a result of arbitration, but in reality it seems they had little choice. 33. See S. Tibble (2018), The Crusader Armies, pp. 155–71. 34. WT, vol. II, pp. 94–5. 35. Cobb, Usama ibn Munqidh, pp. 23–4. 36. Usama, p. 125. 37. Usama, pp. 125–6. 38. Usama, p. 126. 39. Usama, p. 126. 40. Usama, p. 106. 41. Barber, Crusader States, p. 211. 42. Qal, p. 339; Cobb, Usama ibn Munqidh, pp. 44–6. 43. WT, vol. II, p. 267. 44. WT, vol. II, p. 267. 45. WT, vol. II, pp. 269–70; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 211–12. 46. Asbridge, ‘How the Crusades Could Have Been Won’, pp. 86–93; J. Phillips (1994), ‘Hugh of Payns’, pp. 141–7; J. Phillips (1996), Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 40–3. 47. FC, pp. 288–92; WT, vol. II, pp. 27–30; Qal, pp. 174–7. 48. WT, vol. II, p. 40 (my italics). 49. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 143; WT, vol. II, p. 40. 50. They were also known as the Nizari Isma’ilis. 51. IA, pt I, pp. 277–8; Asbridge, ‘How the Crusades Could Have Been Won’, pp. 89–91. 52. Asbridge, ‘How the Crusades Could Have Been Won’, pp. 88–91. 53. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 38–40; WT, vol. II, p. 40; Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, p. 61; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pp. 194–5. It is fascinating to see how Fulk’s men and the other recruits enlisted by Hugh often became merged in the different contemporary accounts. Ibn al-Qalanisi described the Frankish forces on the offensive against Damascus as being ‘reinforced also from the sea by the king count . . . having with him a great host’, Qal, p. 195. 54. Qal, p. 195. 55. Qal, p. 196.

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NOTES to pp. 85–93 56. IA, pt I, pp. 278–9. 57. Qal, pp. 196–7. 58. Qal, pp. 196–7. The Damascene field army consisted of four main groups. Most were Turkic mercenaries, hired on a tribal basis. There were also Arab ‘auxiliaries’ supplied by the emir Murra b. Rabi, together with the more regular ’askar of the atabeg of Damascus, comprising recently settled Turkic elements; and they were supplemented by the ’askars of some of their tributary towns, such as Hama. The Arab–Syrian infantry, the urban militia of Damascus itself, would be helpful in the event of a close siege, but were not usually deployed on more mobile operations. Interestingly, Ibn al-Qalanisi’s description of the Frankish position also tallies closely with the Rule of the Templars with regards to camp discipline, see Rule, pp. 103–4. 59. WT, vol. II, p. 41. 60. Qal, pp. 197–8. The Damascus Chronicle describes him as the ‘leader and hero’ of the Franks. 61. WT, vol. II, p. 41. 62. IA, pt I, p. 278. 63. Qal, p. 198. 64. Qal, p. 199. 65. Qal, p. 199. 66. Qal, p. 199. 67. Qal, pp. 198–9. 68. WT, vol. II, pp. 41–3. 69. Qal, p. 199. 70. Qal, p. 199; IA, pt I, pp. 278–9. 71. For the siege of Damascus see Phillips, The Second Crusade, pp. 207–27; M. Hoch (1996), ‘The Choice of Damascus as the Objective of the Second Crusade’; M. Hoch (2001), ‘The Price of Failure’; J. Richard (1995), ‘Le siège de Damas dans l’histoire et dans la légende’; Qal, pp. 282–7; WT, vol. II, pp. 186–96; Usama, p. 108; IA, pt II, pp. 21–2; AS, pp. 55–60; D. Nicolle (2009), The Second Crusade; G. Loud (2005), ‘Some Reflections on the Failure of the Second Crusade’; A.J. Forey (1984), ‘The Failure of the Siege of Damascus’. 72. WT, vol. II, p. 186. The choice of words is interesting, implying that the Frankish cavalry and infantry were those in the normal feudal hierarchy, perhaps supplemented by mercenaries. The ‘natives’ are mentioned separately, probably mainly in the context of their providing Turcopole light cavalry, but perhaps also implying the involvement of other local Christian troops. 73. WT, vol. II, p. 193. 74. WT, vol. II, p. 187. 75. WT, vol. II, p. 188. 76. WT, vol. II p. 189. The orchards seem mainly to have been defended by the local populace and the city militia of Damascus, the ’ahdath, who were best suited to the task of fighting in such built-up areas. 77. Qal, pp. 283–4. 78. WT, vol. II p. 189. Presumably either heavy crossbows or perhaps small mobile spear-throwing machines. 79. WT, vol. II, p. 189. 80. Nicolle, The Second Crusade, p. 63. 81. Qal, p. 284. 82. He died fighting by the Barada, alongside his eminent friend, Sheikh Abd al-Rahman. IA, pt II, p. 21; Usama, p. 108; Phillips, The Second Crusade, pp. 220–1; Nicolle, The Second Crusade, pp. 67–9. 83. Qal, p. 284. 84. Nicolle, The Second Crusade, pp. 67–9. 85. WT, vol. II, p. 190. 86. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles and Modern Histories, p. 273. 87. Qal, p. 285; see Phillips, The Second Crusade, pp. 223–5 for religious and devotional aspects. 88. We know from other sieges, for instance, that a robust siege tower could take up to a fortnight to construct, even with skilled craftsmen supervising the process and good materials (particularly long, seasoned beams) to hand. See R. Rogers (1992), Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century.

306

NOTES to pp. 93–111 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129.

Qal, p. 286; Barber, Crusader States, p. 191. Qal, p. 285. Qal, pp. 285–6. Qal, p. 286; AS, pp. 58–9. Phillips, The Second Crusade, pp. 221–3. WT, vol. II, pp. 190–3. John of Salisbury, Historia Pontificalis, pp. 57–8. IA, pt II, p. 22; Qal, pp. 286–7. Qal, pp. 286–7. Phillips, The Second Crusade, pp. 221–4; John of Salisbury, pp. 57–8; MS, p. 276; Annales Herbipolensis, p. 7; Tritton and Gibb, ‘The First and Second Crusades’, pp. 298–9; W.R. Taylor (1929–30), ‘A New Syriac Fragment’, p. 123. WT, vol. II, pp. 193–4. WT, vol. II, pp. 193–4. M. Barber and K. Bate (2010), Letters from the East, p. 47. Phillips, The Second Crusade, pp. 223–5. Hoch, ‘The Price of Failure’. S.B. Edgington (2019), Baldwin I of Jerusalem, pp. 38–58. See A.V. Murray (2000), The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, pp. 61–2 for a discussion of the composition of his retinue at this point; see also Morton, The Field of Blood, p. 23. C. MacEvitt (2008), The Crusades and the Christian World of the East, pp. 74–99. Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 3–4, 76–81. WT, vol. II, p. 212. See Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 101–3. Though, perhaps inevitably, that close cooperation was not always mirrored in the relations between their respective commanders. See Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 266–7. The breakdown of relations between King Baldwin III and his mother, Queen Melisende, for instance, led to him having difficulties in mustering her followers for campaigning in the north in 1150, Barber, Crusader States, p. 196. IA, pt I, p. 76; Morton, Field of Blood, p. 35. AA, pp. 688–95; ME, pp. 192–4; RC, pp. 164–7; Morton, Field of Blood, pp. 35–6; Asbridge, Creation of the Principality of Antioch, pp. 53–8. KD RHCr Or., pp. 633–6; Tritton and Gibb, pp. 90–1; ME, pp. 228–9; Qal, p. 167; FC, pp. 237, 239–40; IA, pt I, p. 232; Morton, Field of Blood, pp. 128–9; Barber, Crusader States, p. 138. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 99–100; ME, pp. 205–6. R.C. Smail (1956), Crusading Warfare, p. 140. Turbessel is also known as Tell Bashir. KD RHCr Or., pp. 599–601; Qal, pp. 110–11,114–19; IA, pt I, pp. 154, 156–7; Smail, Crusading Warfare, pp. 140–3; Morton, Field of Blood, pp. 57–60. Morton, Field of Blood, pp. 57–8; Smail, Crusading Warfare, p. 141; Qal, p. 115; KD RHCr Or., p. 600. Smail, Crusading Warfare, p. 141; Qal, pp. 116–17. Smail, Crusading Warfare, p. 141; Qal, p. 114; KD RHCr Or., p. 599. Smail, Crusading Warfare, pp. 141–2; FC, pp. 201–3; WT, vol. I, pp. 490–1. ME, pp. 203–5; IA, pt I, p. 157. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 101–2. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 101–2; WT, vol. I, pp. 493–5; FC, pp. 205–9; Morton, Field of Blood, p. 91. Qal, pp.139–42; Barber, Crusader States, p. 102. Barber, Crusader States, p. 102; FC, p. 209; ME, p. 214; IA, pt I, pp. 162–3. ME, p. 214. Morton, Field of Blood, p. 91. Smail, Crusading Warfare, p. 143; Barber, Crusader States, p. 104; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 261–3. A.D. Buck (2017), The Principality of Antioch and its Frontiers, p. 36; Barber, Crusader States, p. 180.

307

NOTES to pp. 111–124 130. WT, vol. II, p. 141. 131. For the career of Balak see Morton, Field of Blood, pp. 126–36. 132. For the career of Zengi see C. Hillenbrand (2001), ‘ “Abominable acts”: The Career of Zengi’; Morton, Field of Blood, pp. 160–3. 133. For the siege as a whole, see Barber, Crusader States, pp. 179–82; Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 225–6; Bar-Hebraeus, pp. 268–70; Qal, pp. 266–9; WT, vol. II, pp. 140–4; IA, pt I, pp. 372–3; Hillenbrand, ‘ “Abominable acts” ’, pp. 118–19; Gregory the Priest, pp. 243–4; Nerses Snorhali, pp. 49–105. 134. Qal, p. 266. 135. Qal, pp. 269–70. The informers warned that he was ‘preparing a prodigious number of mangonels and appliances of war and materials required for the subjugation of strong and impregnable places of every kind’. 136. IA, pt I, pp. 372–3; WT, vol. II, pp. 142–3. 137. Bar-Hebraeus, p. 268. 138. Qal, p. 267. 139. Bar-Hebraeus, p. 268. 140. Qal, p. 267; Bar-Hebraeus, pp. 268–9. 141. Bar-Hebraeus, p. 269. 142. Barber, Crusader States, p. 180. They were all lost, with the single exception of al-Bira, which was very close to the river itself. 143. Qal, p. 268. 144. Barber, Crusader States, p. 180. 145. Michael the Syrian, trans. in Barber, Crusader States, p. 182; MS, pp. 271–2. 146. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 195–6; WT, vol. II, pp. 210–12. 147. IA, pt II, pp. 45–6, 72–3. Aintab and Duluk surrendered to the Seljuk Turks, while Samosata and Birejik were taken by the Ortoqid Turks. Ravendel was captured by Zengi’s son, Nur al-Din, and a short while later, in July 1151, Turbessel finally followed suit. 5 The Ascalon Strategy: 1125–1153 1. FC, pp. 163–4. For the Ascalon strategy as a whole, see also S. Tibble (2018), The Crusader Armies, pp. 181–6. For the second battle of Ramla, 1102, see S.B. Edgington (2019), Baldwin I of Jerusalem, pp. 134–9. 2. FC, pp. 163–4. We know from later sources (Usama, for example) that this kind of aggressive raiding was indeed a pattern of warfare that the Ascalon garrison adopted. The garrison was rotated frequently and newly arrived contingents were particularly keen to show off their skills, WT, vol. II, p. 81. 3. AA, pp. 644–5, n. 21; Barber (2012), The Crusader States, p. 70; Qal, pp. 55–6; FC, pp. 163–70; GN in RHCr Occid. IV, p. 244. 4. In an Egyptian army of this kind (a major expeditionary force), about half of the troops might be regulars, with a broadly even split between infantry and cavalry, IA, pt I, pp. 61, 73; Qal, pp. 55–6; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 242–3; M. Brett (1995), ‘The Battles of Ramla’, pp. 24–6, 31–37. 5. Qal, pp. 55–6; FC, pp. 163–70; AA, pp. 640–1. 6. AA, pp. 640–1. 7. AA, pp. 640–3. 8. Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 182–6; AA, pp. 642–5; WT, vol. I, pp. 443–6. 9. FC, pp. 169–70; AA, pp. 642–5; WT, vol. I, pp. 445–7; William of Malmesbury, pp. 684–7; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 70–1. 10. IA, pt I, p. 61; Qal, pp. 55–6; FC, pp.167–70; AA, pp. 642–9. 11. Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 61–9. 12. See Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 181–6 and H. Kennedy (1994), Crusader Castles, pp. 30–3 for the castle building around Ascalon. 13. The only time they managed to defeat the Franks was in 1102 when, as we have seen, a relatively small cavalry force led by King Baldwin I accidentally blundered into a full Egyptian army

308

NOTES to pp. 124–127

14.

15.

16. 17.

advancing towards Ramla, and was unable to withdraw in time, Edgington, Baldwin I, pp. 134–9; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 242–3; Brett, ‘Battles of Ramla’, pp. 17–37. The situation of Ramla, the nearest significant town, showed the limitations of what was available. It was the old provincial capital of Fatimid Palestine, and a natural point for enemy forces to march through on their way north into the Kingdom of Jerusalem. There was an obvious need for it to be quickly integrated into the flimsy Frankish defences on the southern marches. But when the Franks arrived the town was deserted. It had suffered from a series of earthquakes in the eleventh century and an extended period of economic and demographic decline that significantly pre-dated the arrival of the crusaders. See Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 181–99. As a consequence, Ramla in 1099 ‘had neither outer defences nor a moat, and when the . . . crusaders poured into those parts, all the inhabitants left and fled to Ascalon, which had far better fortifications’. The depopulated town was completely indefensible. The Franks had to fortify just one section as an impromptu citadel because it ‘would have been difficult to occupy the entire city when the inhabitants were so few. They therefore merely fortified a stronghold with walls and a moat in one part of it’, WT, vol. I, pp. 438–9. Defensible or not, however, its strategic importance was self-evident. Ramla could not be ignored: it was on the main north–south route along the coast (the ancient Via Maris) and commanded the vital route from Jerusalem down to Jaffa, the principal Frankish port in the early days of the Latin Kingdom. A group of 15 knights was put in the citadel to try to bring some stability to the region. In a sad testament to the manpower problems facing the Franks, particularly when they first arrived, even this small contingent was felt significant enough to be mentioned in letters back to Europe as an important garrison, FC, p. 163. The Patriarch of Jerusalem also referred to it in a letter he wrote in the late spring of 1100, RRH Add., no 30a. The fortification, and the local Christian community which soon grew up around it, was never substantial enough to prevent Egyptian raids. The site was also too far north to protect the southernmost marches of the Latin Kingdom. But it could delay the enemy until help arrived from Frankish forces in Jerusalem or Jaffa. In 1102, for instance, we know that troops from Ascalon ‘came up to Ramla one day and pitched their tents in front of it. Up ahead of them in a fortified tower of the city were fifteen knights whom Baldwin had left as guards. In front of the tower lived some rural [Christian] Syrians in a kind of suburb. The Saracens persistently molested and disturbed these Christians, trying to destroy them and to demolish the tower. [But the Fatimid troops] . . . could not go around freely in the open country because of the men holding the tower’, FC, p. 163. Shortly afterwards, as we have seen, the improvised fortifications also provided temporary refuge for the survivors of the second battle of Ramla (17 May 1102), AA, pp. 638–45. But Ramla and its tiny garrison offered a makeshift defence at best. If the threat from Ascalon was to be fully defused, a far more serious investment needed to be made. The invasion of 1123 was a disastrous exception to this new policy, and seems to have owed more to the internal politics of the Fatimid state, following on from the death of the Egyptian vizier, al-Afdal, in December 1121, than to any carefully considered change of strategy. Brett (2017), The Fatimid Empire, pp. 251–7; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 247–9. WT, vol. II, p. 81, see also p. 220. WT, vol. II, p. 81. Interestingly, the huge success of the reconstruction of the unromantically named ‘Castel Arnold’, built near Bethnoble, on the more northern of the two roads leading from Jaffa up to the Holy City, was probably the accidental catalyst for the Ascalon strategy. It was originally designed to provide some protection for pilgrims on a particularly dangerous part of their route from the coast up to Jerusalem. The castle was captured and destroyed in a raid by Fatimid troops in October 1106, so the fortifications were clearly built at a very early stage, AA, pp. 730–3. It was repaired soon afterwards. The dangers posed by the narrow defile through which the Jaffa–Jerusalem road had to pass at this point inevitably made Castel Arnold a prime candidate for upgrading, as the kingdom’s resources gradually increased, WT, vol. II, p. 58; Pringle Sec., pp. 106–7; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, p. 31. It was completely rebuilt and extended in the winter of 1132–3. ‘There,’ wrote William of Tyre, ‘. . . they built a fortress of solid masonry to ensure the safety of pilgrims passing along that route.

309

NOTES to pp. 127–133

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

In the narrow mountain pass, among defiles impossible to avoid, pilgrims were exposed to great danger. Here the people of Ascalon often fell upon them suddenly. The work, when successfully completed, was called Castel Arnold . . . because of this fortress, the road became much safer and the journey of pilgrims to or from Jerusalem was rendered less perilous’, WT, vol. II, p. 58. The castle was built by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, William of Messines, and its main purpose was the control and safety of the roads, rather than any explicit desire to apply direct pressure on Ascalon. In fact, it was too far away from Ascalon to be able to do so in any meaningful way. But it succeeded well in its main function: improving security and communications between Jerusalem and the coast. It was no coincidence that the castle later passed into the hands of the Templars, who became the acknowledged experts at roadside policing within the kingdom. Although it was a useful step forward, however, Castel Arnold was not the beginning of a new aggressive castlebuilding programme. Rather, it was the culmination and last phase of the old strategy: acting purely defensively against the Fatimid army, and improving internal security. Ratcheting up the pressure on Ascalon would be the role of the next generation of fortifications. Barber, Crusader States, p. 162; M. Benvenisti (1970), The Crusaders in the Holy Land, p. 314. WT, vol. II, p. 82. WT, vol. II p. 82. The fact that this level of resourcing and commitment was already in place by 1134–1136 and capable of being entrusted with such a vital strategic post clearly implies that the order had been undergoing a process of militarisation for some time before, Riley-Smith (2012), The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, p. 29. Usama, p. 92. WT, vol. II, p. 130; Pringle Sec., p. 109; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 378–84; Benvenisti, Crusaders in the Holy Land, pp. 207–9. IA, pt I, p. 357; see also Qal, p. 263. WT, vol. II, pp. 130–1. WT, vol. II, p. 131; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 31–2; Pringle Sec., p. 93; Benvenisti, Crusaders in the Holy Land, p. 205. It was given into ‘the care of wise men who had had long experience in warfare, men whose loyalty and devotion were recognised as well proved’, WT, vol. II, p. 132. After the fall of Ascalon in 1153 the castle came into the possession of the new Frankish Count of Ascalon, and later developed into a separate lordship owned by the Brisebarre family, Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 47–9. WT, vol. II, p. 132. ‘Often by themselves, more often in company with men at arms from the other fortresses built with similar intent’, wrote William of Tyre, ‘these men used to issue forth to encounter and defeat the enemy when they tried to make raids from the city.’ WT, vol. II, p. 202. WT, vol. II, p. 203. Usama, pp. 18–19. See P.M. Cobb (2009), Usama ibn Munqidh, pp. 36–7. Usama, p. 24. Usama, pp. 24–5; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 219–20; J.L. Bacharach (1981), ‘African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East’, pp. 471–95. Usama, p. 24. Usama, pp. 25–6; Cobb, Usama ibn Munqidh, pp. 36–7. Usama, p. 25. Usama, pp. 25–6. Usama, p. 26. WT, vol. II, p. 203: ‘quasi regni limes’; Barber, Crusader States, p. 201. Qal, pp. 298–9; AS, pp. 66–7. The Damascenes were allied with the Franks at the time. A.J. Boas (1999), Crusader Archaeology, p. 166. Pringle Sec., p. 27; Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 95–101, vol. IV, pp. 250–6; Boas, Crusader Archaeology, pp. 101–6. Changes to the castle chapel in the inner ward (which significantly reduced its defensibility) certainly suggest that the outer walls were a later addition, and that they were deemed a sufficient improvement to allow the inner walls to be somewhat downgraded. This ‘castrum’ style of castle is also sometimes referred to as a ‘quadriburgium’ design.

310

NOTES to pp. 134–150 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

Pringle Sec., pp. 93, 109; WT, vol. II, pp. 131–2. WT, vol. II, p. 81. WT, vol. II, p. 130. WT, vol. II, p. 202. WT, vol. II, p. 81, ‘. . . twelve miles from Ascalon they built a strong fortress surrounded by an impregnable wall with towers, ramparts and a moat’. Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller, p. 29; Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 95–101. WT, vol. II, p. 130. See Pringle Sec., p. 109; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 378–84; Benvenisti, Crusaders in the Holy Land, pp. 207–9. RRH, no. 333. The town eventually had its own court and viscount. WT, vol. II, p. 131. WT, vol. II, p. 132. WT, vol. II, p. 202. T. Asbridge (2003), ‘Alice of Antioch’. 6 Interlude: The Strategy of Repression?

1. Major inputs for this chapter come from Benjamin Kedar’s excellent ‘The Subjected Muslims of the Levant’ (1993); the two case studies by Denys Pringle about security issues posed on two sections of the road network, ‘Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan’ (1994) and ‘Templar Castles between Jaffa and Jerusalem’ (1998); Jochen Schenk’s study of ‘Nomadic Violence in the First Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Military Orders’ (2010); and Ronnie Ellenblum’s Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1998) and Crusader Castles and Modern Histories (2007), both of which have major implications for the way we view nomadic incursions, community relations and internal security. 2. Ellenblum, Frankish Rural Settlement, pp. 20–6. 3. Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, p. 46; Ellenblum, Frankish Rural Settlement, pp. 268–70. 4. P.M. Cobb (2014), The Race for Paradise, pp. 78–88; M. Brett (2014), ‘The Near East on the Eve of the Crusades’, pp. 296–8; M. Brett (2017), The Fatimid Empire, pp. 180–232. 5. Cobb, The Race for Paradise, p. 84; Brett, The Fatimid Empire, pp. 180–206. 6. Cobb, Race for Paradise, p. 99. 7. Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, p. 43. 8. M. Barber (2012), The Crusader States, pp. 102, 116; AA, pp. 839–41; FC, pp. 204–9. 9. See, for instance, Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 165–86. In fact, far from being built to repress the local Muslim population, castles and refuge towers were more likely to be sited in areas where we believe there to have been a larger Christian population (conversation with Mike Fulton). 10. FC, p. 207. 11. Qal, p. 139. 12. Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 94–6; Pringle Sec., p. 76. 13. B.Z. Kedar (1993), ‘[The Samaritans in] the Frankish Period’, pp. 84–6. 14. WT, vol. II, pp. 88–9; Kedar, ‘[The Samaritans in] the Frankish Period’, pp. 91–2. 15. Kedar, ‘[The Samaritans in] the Frankish Period’, pp. 92–3. 16. Qal, p. 139. 17. Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, p. 155; C. Cahen (1940), La Syrie du Nord à l’Époque des Croisades, pp. 353, 428. 18. WT, vol. I, pp. 408–9. 19. Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 138, 151–2; B.Z. Kedar and M. al-Hajjuj (1994), ‘Muslim Villagers of the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem’. 20. D.E.P. Jackson (1996), ‘Some Considerations Relating to the History of the Muslims in the Crusader States’. 21. Jackson, ‘Some Considerations’, p. 23; IJ, p. 316. 22. Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 169–70. 23. Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 145–6.

311

NOTES to pp. 151–167 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

KD RHCr Or., pp. 597–8; Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, p. 147. FC, p. 200; Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, p. 146. Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 140, 151. Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 141–2. J. Richard (1978), The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, pp. 202–4. IA, pt I, p. 139. Usama, p. 147. IJ, p. 323. Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 161, 167, 169–71. Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, p. 156. AS, p. 205. WT, vol. II, pp. 392–4. WT, vol. II, pp. 252–3. Barber, Crusader States, p. 290; Roger of Howden, Gesta, vol. II, pp. 341–2. WT, vol. I, pp. 487–8. Livres des Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois, p. 172; Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 160–1. J. Riley-Smith (1973), The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, pp. 89–91; Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, p. 164. Livres des Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois, p. 172; Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 164–5. IJ, p. 317. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord à l’Époque des Croisades, pp. 41–2, 278, 343–4; Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, pp. 156–7. A.-M. Eddé (2011), Saladin, p. 438. S. Tibble (2018), The Crusader Armies, pp. 310–13; WT, vol. II, pp. 430–4. WT, vol. II, p. 433. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 183–4; WT, vol. II, pp. 154–6. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 165–86. D. Talmon-Heller (2003), ‘The Cited Tales of the Wondrous Doings of the Shaykhs of the Holy Land’, p. 149. Usama, pp. 152–3; Kedar, ‘The Subjected Muslims’, p. 155. Rule, p. 49; Pringle, ‘Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan’, pp. 151–2. JP, p. 305; Pringle, ‘Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan’, pp. 150–1. AA, pp. 880–1; Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, p. 47. Nasir Khusraw, pp. 13–14, written in 1047. See also Palestine under the Moslems, pp. 306–8. JP, pp. 100–1. JP, pp. 136, 154–5; AA, pp. 742–3. WT, vol. I, p. 426; FC, p. 144. WT, vol. I, pp. 408–9. D. Talmon-Heller (1998), ‘Arabic Sources on Muslim Villagers under Frankish Rule’, pp. 111–13. Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, pp. 43–4; WT, vol. II, pp. 102–5. WT, vol. II, p. 437; Ellenblum, Frankish Rural Settlement, p. 217. Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, p. 44; Ellenblum, Frankish Rural Settlement, p. 217. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, p. 315. AA, pp. 750–3; Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, p. 47. Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, p. 45; AA, pp. 874–9. He had attacked a smaller Bedouin group, the Banu Khalid, and ‘questioned them about the rest of their people, the Banu Rabi’a. They told him that they were . . . in the Wadi al-Salala between Damascus and Tiberias’, IA, pt I, p. 205. IA, pt I, p. 205. AA, pp. 876–9. See, for example, the revolt of Guy of Lusignan in 1184. Barber, Crusader States, p. 285. See Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, p. 42. See Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, pp. 39–40. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 162–3.

312

NOTES to pp. 168–177 73. At this point it is perhaps worthwhile reminding ourselves of the earliest rationale for even having a military order. As we have seen, in the aftermath of the pilgrim massacre of 1119, the Templars were established by Patriarch Warmund and the other bishops of the Latin Kingdom to ‘keep the roads and highways free from the menace of robbers and highwaymen, with special regard for the protection of pilgrims’, WT, vol. I, p. 525; M. Barber (1994), The New Knighthood, pp. 3–6. 74. See Pringle’s excellent case study: ‘Templar Castles between Jaffa and Jerusalem’. 75. WT, vol. I, p. 525. 76. Pringle, ‘Templar Castles between Jaffa and Jerusalem’, pp. 92–4; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 377–8; Pringle Sec., p. 108. 77. Pringle, ‘Templar Castles between Jaffa and Jerusalem’, pp. 94–102; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 5–9; Pringle Sec., pp. 64–5. It was originally a keep and bailey castle, with a central tower and surrounding walls. Later in the century, as the arms race gained momentum, this early castle was surrounded by an additional outer set of walls which themselves included another two large towers. As the castle was midway on the journey to Jerusalem it may also have acted as a way station for travellers. Pilgrims would perhaps have spent the night there to refresh themselves and prepare for their entrance into Jerusalem the following day, for many the culmination of a long and arduous journey. See M. Ehrlich (2015), ‘The Lost Castle of Count Rodrigo Gonzalez’ for an alternative view of Frankish fortifications in the area. 78. As Albert of Aachen described it, referring to the siege of 1106 when it was attacked and destroyed by the Muslim garrison of Ascalon, the castle ‘had been built with walls and ramparts in the mountainous region towards Jerusalem and stood out there to protect the district on the orders of the Christian king’, AA, pp. 732–3; WT, vol. II, p. 58. 79. A.V. Murray (2000), The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, pp. 206–7; Pringle, ‘Templar Castles between Jaffa and Jerusalem’, pp. 103–8; Pringle Sec., pp. 106–7. 80. Pringle, ‘Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan’ provides another excellent case study of the policing problems facing the Franks. 81. Pringle, ‘Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan’, pp. 153–62; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 345–6; Pringle Sec., pp. 78–9. 82. Pringle, ‘Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan’, pp. 162–5. 83. JP, p. 304; Pringle, ‘Templar Castles on the Road to the Jordan’, pp. 151–2; Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 252–8; Pringle Sec. p. 52. 84. JP, p. 302. 85. For this section see Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, pp. 48–51. 86. See V. Shotten-Hallel, E. Sass and L. Perelis Grossowicz (2016), ‘The Hospitaller Castle of Belvoir’. 87. RRRH, nos 659, 1008, 1009, 1053. See Schenk, ‘Nomadic Violence’, pp. 49–50. 88. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 258–74. 89. When Amalric granted it to the Templars in 1168, it appears that it had been recently rebuilt on a much larger scale, and that the Templars were already in possession of the castle (i.e. with the implication being that they were holding it from Constable Fulk of Tiberias before 1168). See Pringle Sec., p. 49 for La Fève and pp. 91–2 for Safad. 90. Relations between the Bedouin and local people remained as strained as ever, as in 1179 we find a dispute being resolved after the Hospitaller Turcopoles of Gibelin had attacked Bedouin under the protection of the Templars, RRRH, no. 1020. 91. Pringle Sec., pp. 79–80. 92. Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 286–95; Pringle Sec., pp. 59–60; Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, p. 177. 93. Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 304–14; Pringle Sec., pp. 75–6. 7 The Egyptian Strategy: 1154–1169 1. See WT, vol. II, pp. 319–21 for the entire episode. 2. His brother Eustace had been forced to join the leper Order of St Lazarus, M. Barber (2012), The Crusader States, p. 243; J.L. La Monte (1947), ‘The Lords of Caesarea’, pp. 145–61. 3. WT, vol. II, pp. 334–43.

313

NOTES to pp. 177–189 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

J. Phillips (1996), Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 182–3. Barber, Crusader States, p. 242. See also M. Barber and K. Bate (2010), Letters from the East. RRRH, no. 854. Active efforts were being made at least as far back as 1104. See, for instance, RRH, no. 43 in Caffaro, pp. 174–5, where Baldwin offers the Genoese ‘one third of the city of Cairo with the three of the better houses which they would select, if I capture and secure possession of it with the help of the Genoese’. See Barber, Crusader States, pp. 116–17, 204–5 for an assessment of the capabilities of Egypt in terms of being able to support a larger Frankish army by providing lands, money and other resources; and pp. 237–8, 241–2 for Egypt as a strategic imperative. WT, vol. II, p. 302. See Barber, Crusader States, p. 237, for the loss of Ascalon and the Egyptians’ consequential coercion into paying annual protection money to King Baldwin III. K.J. Lewis (2017), The Counts of Tripoli and Lebanon, pp. 160–4 and 170–2. A.D. Buck (2017), The Principality of Antioch and its Frontiers, pp. 36–44. WT, vol. II, p. 219. Pringle Sec., p. 21; Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 61–9; WT, vol. II, p. 219. WT, vol. II, p. 220. WT, vol. II, pp. 217–18. Barber, Crusader States, p. 202. IA, pt II, p. 65. Usama, pp. 24–5; J.L. Bacharach (1981), ‘African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East’, pp. 471–95. WT, vol. II, p. 218. WT, vol. II, pp. 221–2. IA, pt II, pp. 64–5. Qal, p. 314. WT, vol. II, p. 223. They were described as being ‘of immense size’. This was at the upper end of the size of squadron which the Egyptian navy was accustomed to field in Palestine. It was of a scale with which they could comfortably overpower the makeshift crusader squadron. WT, vol. II, p. 230. WT, vol. II, p. 230. WT, vol. II, p. 232. P.M. Cobb (2009), Usama ibn Munqidh, p. 36. WT, vol. II, p. 234; Qal, pp. 316–17; Bar-Hebraeus, p. 280. IA, pt II, p. 65. IA, pt II, p. 68, ‘. . . he left Egypt to go to Syria with his treasure that he had which was beyond counting and the luxury objects and things without parallel that he had taken from the palace’; Usama, pp. 32–7; WT, vol. II, pp. 251–3. WT, vol. II, p. 302. For the campaign of 1163 as a whole see WT, vol. II, pp. 302–3; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 237–8. WT, vol. II, p. 302. WT, vol. II, p. 302. ‘If therefore your magnificent force was willing to help us . . .’, Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, pp. 54–5. For the campaign of 1164 see M. Brett (2017), The Fatimid Empire, pp. 289–90; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 238–40; L&J, pp. 7–9; IA, pt II, pp. 144–6; WT, vol. II, pp. 304–5. WT, vol. II, pp. 300, 303. IA, pt II, p. 172. WT, vol. II, p. 303. WT, vol. II, p. 305. Ibn abi-Taiyi, quoted in AS, p. 125. WT, vol. II, pp. 304–5; IA, pt II, pp. 144–6. For the campaign of 1167 see Brett, Fatimid Empire, pp. 290–1; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 241–6; L&J, pp. 10–19; WT, vol. II, pp. 313–21, 325–43; IA, pt II, pp. 163–5. WT, vol. II, p. 314.

314

NOTES to pp. 189–196 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

Barber, Crusader States, pp. 243–4; WT, vol. II, pp. 318–21. WT, vol. II, p. 326. WT, vol. II, p. 328. For charges see, e.g., Qal, p. 292. WT, vol. II, p. 331. Frankish knights were typically dismissive of auxiliary troops in their postmatch reports (see, for instance, WC, p. 117). The number of Frankish knights said to be on the field is strangely precise and may even be broadly accurate, as William of Tyre was given a personal debrief by several participants. These included Hugh of Caesarea, who was captured in the battle and presumably had plenty of time to reflect on what had happened in the days that followed. WT, vol. II, p. 331. The estimate they give of the size of Shirkuh’s army, in excess of 20,000 men, was a wild exaggeration. The Bedouin were described as ‘ten or eleven thousand Arabs who, according to their custom, fought with lances only’. WT, vol. II, p. 332. WT, vol. II, p. 332. Sibt ibn al-Jauzi in L&J, p. 14 broadly confirms the dispositions suggested by William of Tyre. Other Muslim sources (such as IA, pt II, p. 164) are more contradictory. WT, vol. II, p. 332. WT, vol. II, pp. 332–3. WT, vol. II, pp. 334–43. The Pisan squadron also carried with it a siege tower, presumably in kit form, and various catapults, Bernardo Maragone, Annales Pisani, p. 45. They helped ‘cum x galeis; et castella et varia menia machinasque circa ipsam civitatem fecerunt . . .’. For the campaign of 1168 see Brett, Fatimid Empire, pp. 290–1; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 248–52; L&J, pp. 20–5; IA, pt II, pp. 171–5; WT, vol. II, pp. 349–58. See Barber, Crusader States, pp. 250–1 and M. Barber (1994), The New Knighthood, pp. 96–7 for a fuller discussion of the Templar absence from this campaign. As brokers of the 1167 agreement with the Egyptian government, they may have felt uneasy about the legitimacy of the invasion. Rivalry with the Hospitallers almost certainly had a part to play in their decision making too. See also A.V. Murray (2015), ‘The Grand Designs of Gilbert of Assailly’. Barber, Crusader States, p. 249; RRRH, no. 809; J. Riley-Smith (2012), The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, pp. 33–4. WT, vol. II, pp. 351–2. WT, vol. II, p. 297. WT, vol. II, p. 350; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 249–50. For the sad end to Gilbert’s time as master see Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller, pp. 34–6. WT, vol. II, pp. 353–4; Bernardo Maragone, Annales Pisani, p. 47. WT, vol. II, p. 352. IA, pt II, p. 172. WT, vol. II, p. 355. WT, vol. II, p. 354. IA, pt II, p. 173 suggests 1,000,000 Egyptian dinars (‘some as a down payment and some in later instalments’) but William of Tyre says the promised sum was 2,000,000 dinars. Given the fantastical nature of the offer, the exact figures hardly matter, WT, vol. II, p. 353. The Franks certainly estimated that the available size of the Fatimid field army was approximately the same as Shirkuh’s army (i.e. some 8,000 cavalry, 2,000 of whom were from the ’askar of Damascus) and suggested that ‘the enemy’s strength would be doubled by these reinforcements’ sent from Nur al-Din, WT, vol. II, p. 356. See also WT, vol. II, p. 354. WT, vol. II, pp. 355–6; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 251–2. WT, vol. II, p. 357. For the campaign of 1169 as a whole see Brett, Fatimid Empire, p. 292; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 253–5; L&J, pp. 36–8; IA, pt II, pp. 183–4; WT, vol. II, pp. 361–70; John Kinnamos, pp. 208–9. WT, vol. II, p. 358. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 140–67. WT, vol. II, p. 361. John Kinnamos, p. 208, describes it as ‘. . . a fleet of vessels, horse transports, and very numerous warships’. WT, vol. II, p. 362. WT, vol. II, pp. 362–3.

315

NOTES to pp. 196–203 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87.

88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108.

109. 110. 111. 112. 113.

WT, vol. II, p. 364. WT, vol. II, p. 364. WT, vol. II, p. 364. WT, vol. II, pp. 364–5. WT, vol. II, pp. 365, 367. WT, vol. II, p. 367. WT, vol. II, p. 367. WT, vol. II, p. 366. WT, vol. II, pp. 367–8. WT, vol. II, p. 368. WT, vol. II, pp. 368–9; John Kinnamos, p. 209; Barber, Crusader States, p. 255. The degree of coordination and planning between the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Norman Sicilians is not entirely clear. Current thinking tends to incline towards the view that coordination was, at most, extremely limited. See, for example, Mike Fulton’s (in press) ‘Disaster in the Delta?’. For the 1174 campaign as a whole see B. Hamilton (2000), The Leper King and His Heirs, pp. 75–6, 86–8; Barber, Crusader States, p. 263; R. Rogers (1992), Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century, pp. 120–1; Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 222–4; L&J, pp. 76–7; WT, vol. II, pp. 399–400; IA, pt II, pp. 229–30; al-Maqrizi (1980), A History of the Ayyubid Sultans, pp. 48–50. See Barber and Bate, Letters from the East. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 143–5. For diplomacy to the West in this period see also J.G. Rowe (1993), ‘Alexander III and the Jerusalem Crusade’. Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, pp. 54, 57. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 150–2. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 168–208. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 186–7. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 190–1. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 154. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 201–4. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 165–7. WT, vol. II, pp. 332, 347; Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 154. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 173. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 193–4, 206. RRRH, no. 593. The treaty explicitly banned the sale of ‘iron, wood, pitch, or arms’ to Egypt, Barber, Crusader States, p. 204. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp.154–9; J. Harris (2003), Byzantium and the Crusades, pp. 108–10. WT, vol. II, p. 274; RRRH, no. 623; Barber, Crusader States, p. 204. WT, vol. II, p. 278. WT, vol. II, p. 280. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 132–9. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 155; WT, vol. II, pp. 344–5. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 156–9; John Kinnamos, p. 209. William of Tyre was an envoy on the mission, continuing his role as one of the planners behind the Egyptian strategy. He later wrote that ‘As the bearer of letters, I was to visit the emperor and convey to him the decision of the king and the entire realm. Furthermore, I was empowered to ratify the agreement between them as might be required of me, but under the form already decided upon’, WT, vol. II, pp. 347–9. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 208–13; John Kinnamos, p. 209; WT, vol. II, pp. 377–83. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 156, 159–67. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 162–3; Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare, pp. 83–4; M.S. Omran (1985), ‘King Amalric and the Siege of Alexandria’. RRH, no. 449; RRRH, no. 801. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 163–4.

316

NOTES to pp. 203–214 114. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 164–5. The Pisans provided ‘. . . galeis et quibusdam militibus et sagittariis’, Bernardo Maragone, Annales Pisani, p. 47. 115. RRH, no. 467; RRRH, no. 841. 116. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 222–3. See D. Matthew (1992), The Norman Kingdom of Sicily, pp. 260–2 for Norman Sicilian naval capabilities in this period. 117. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, p. 223; Matthew, Norman Kingdom of Sicily, p. 279. 118. Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 222–4; WT, vol. II, pp. 399–400; R. Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare, pp. 120–1. As previously noted, however, current thinking tends to take a more sceptical view of the true extent of military cooperation and planning between Sicily and Jerusalem at this stage. See Fulton, ‘Disaster in the Delta’. 119. WT, vol. II, p. 314. 120. WT, vol. II, pp. 317–18. 121. WT, vol. II, p. 315. 122. William’s work, the now lost Gesta orientalium principum, was ‘written with great care from the Arabic sources at the request and command of King Amalric’. It gathered as much information as was available about ‘the princes of the East and their acts from the time of [Mohammed]’, WT, vol. II, p. 325. 123. See, for example, IA, pt II, p. 163. 124. IA, pt II, p. 163. 125. IA, vol. II, pp. 146–7. See also KD ROL, 3, p. 539; WT, vol. II, pp. 307–8; Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, p. 62. Harim was also known as Harenc. 126. IA, pt II, p. 149. 127. WT, vol. II, p. 309. 128. WT, vol. II, pp. 309–10; KD ROL, 3, pp. 540–1; IA, pt II, p. 149. 129. WT, vol. II, p. 310. See Pringle I–IV, vol. I, p. 108 for the cathedral of Banyas. 130. Letter from Amalric of Nesle, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to the prelates, princes and churches of the West (1165 or 1166) in Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, pp. 68–9; letter from King Amalric of Jerusalem to Louis VII, King of France, on 12 January 1165 in Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, p. 62; letter from Bertrand of Blancfort, Master of the Templars, to Louis VII, King of France, in November 1164 in Barber and Bate, pp. 60–1. Bertrand described the loss of Banyas in particularly bitter terms, describing it as ‘the strongest city in the kingdom . . . handed over to the Turks by the ruse of traitors’. 131. See P. Deschamps (1977), Les Châteaux des Croisés en Terre Sainte, vol. 3, pp. 305–6. Le Moinetre is also known as Munaytira. 132. IA, pt II, p. 161. 133. IA, pt II, p. 161. See also BD, pp. 42–3, who gives a more truncated account and says that the attack was in April–May 1167. 134. IA, pt II, p. 161. 135. It had been recovered by 1176 when Count Raymond III led his troops up the Beqaa valley, WT, vol. II, pp. 412–3. 136. Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, pp. 77–8. 137. ‘The king hurried to its rescue with a strong company of knights, but while he was encamped on the banks of the Jordan, news came that the stronghold had already fallen into the hands of the enemy’, WT, vol. II, p. 312. 138. WT, vol. II, p. 312. 139. Barber, The New Knighthood, pp. 99–100; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 250–1; R. Ellenblum (2007), Crusader Castles and Modern Histories, p. 232; WT, vol. II, p. 312 (though note that this incident is hard to date exactly: WT says 1165). 140. H. Kennedy (1994), Crusader Castles, p. 54; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, p. 372; S. Tibble (1989), Monarchy and Lordships in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, pp. 54–5, 179–80. There was even a rock-cut chamber which seems to have served as a chapel for the garrison, P. Deschamps (1939), Les Châteaux des Croisés en Terre Sainte, vol. 2, p. 220. 141. WT, vol. II, p. 312. 142. WT, vol. II, p. 312.

317

NOTES to pp. 214–228 143. Tibble, Monarchy and Lordships, pp. 54–5, 179–80; Pringle I–IV, vol. II, p. 372; Pringle Sec., p. 103; Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, p. 232; Hamilton, Leper King, pp. 76–7. 144. IA, pt II, p. 165. Arcas was also known as Arqa. Castrum Alba was also known as Halba. 145. IA, pt II, p. 165; Deschamps, Les Châteaux des Croisés, vol. 3, pp. 313–16; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 68–73. Arima was also known as Urayma. 146. IA, pt II, p. 165; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 138–41; Deschamps, Châteaux des Croisés, vol. 3, pp. 249–58. Chastel Blanc was also known as Safitha. 147. The castle of Chastel Neuf (also known as Hunin) was described as ‘one of their most impregnable fortresses’, IA, pt II, p. 166. If one were being generous – perhaps overly so – it might be possible to explain the garrison’s actions as a desire to deprive the enemy of supplies. King Amalric could be excused for failing to see their side of the story, however. 148. Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, p. 61. 149. Barber and Bate, Letters from the East, pp. 68–9. 8 The Frontier Strategy: 1170–1187 1. For the raid on the Red Sea see AS, pp. 230–5; IA, pt II, pp. 289–90; B. Hamilton (2000), The Leper King and His Heirs, pp. 179–85; L&J, pp. 185–8. 2. C. Hillenbrand (2003), ‘The Imprisonment of Reynald of Châtillon’. 3. A.-M. Eddé (2011), Saladin, pp. 448–54; J. Phillips (2019), The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin, p. 99. 4. See Eddé, Saladin, pp. 431–7 for Saladin’s attempts to improve the Egyptian fleet and coastal fortifications; Phillips, Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin, pp. 132, 141; Y. Lev (1999), Saladin in Egypt, pp. 161–84; A.S. Ehrenkreutz (1955), ‘The Place of Saladin in the Naval History of the Mediterranean Sea’. 5. Eddé, Saladin, p. 431; Lev, Saladin in Egypt, pp. 161–2. 6. Eddé, Saladin, p. 435. 7. Eddé, Saladin, p. 432. 8. Eddé, Saladin, p. 435. 9. In 1181 we find Saladin increasing the revenues allocated to the fleet still further. He also revamped the bureaucracy in charge of naval administration, Eddé, Saladin, p. 433. 10. See J.H. Pryor (1988), Geography, Technology and War, pp. 112–34 for an excellent analysis of the impact of a lack of water supplies on the capabilities of the Fatimid and early Ayyubid navies. 11. IA, pt II, pp. 292–3; Eddé, Saladin, p. 435. 12. M. Barber (2012), The Crusader States, pp. 260–3. 13. Hamilton, The Leper King and His Heirs, pp. 169–70. 14. See J. Harris (2003), Byzantium and the Crusades, pp. 111–25 for a far more detailed and nuanced discussion of the accession of Andronicus Comnenus and the impact this had on Byzantine relations with the crusader states; Hamilton, The Leper King, pp. 173–4. 15. For the use of the True Cross in crusading warfare see A.V. Murray (1998), ‘Mighty Against the Enemies of Christ’. It was thought that St Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, had discovered the cross, and that she had divided it into two pieces, one of which was kept in Jerusalem, while the other was sent back to Constantinople. The crusaders believed that they had recovered the Jerusalem fragment shortly after the liberation of Jerusalem in 1099. The True Cross was an impressive focus of devotion and a much needed morale booster for the generally outnumbered Frankish army. It seems to have consisted of a larger piece of wood, embedded within which was the actual fragment, both of which were adorned with precious metals. 16. J. Phillips (1996), Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 251–66. 17. Hamilton, The Leper King, pp. 212–14. 18. Barber, The Crusader States, pp. 279–80. 19. WT, vol. II, pp. 486–9; B.Z. Kedar (1974), ‘The General Tax of 1183 in the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem’. 20. S. Tibble (2018), The Crusader Armies, pp. 317–24.

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NOTES to pp. 229–233 21. There is a debate among historians and archaeologists as to the extent to which fortifications were upgraded. Certainly, the crusader castles of the early thirteenth century were extremely impressive and carried on the process of defensive development, but should not be conflated with those of the twelfth century. Some view the period from the late 1160s onwards as encompassing transformational and radical improvements, while others would see it as a more gradual process. There is general agreement, however, that major upgrades, whether revolutionary or evolutionary, took place at this time. This discussion of the frontier strategy inevitably focuses on the larger, most high-profile fortifications. But it was not just the bigger frontier castles that received massive upgrades. As the climate of fear ratcheted up, so more and more hitherto peaceful and barely fortified locations were transformed. The Monastery of St Samuel (on the famous hill of ‘Mount Joy’ on the road to Jerusalem from Jaffa) was fortified at about this time. Outer defences on this monastic way station were still under construction in 1187 when it was overrun by Saladin’s troops, Pringle I–IV, vol. II, pp. 85–94. The settlement at St Elias also seems to have been fortified at this time, probably being upgraded around 1175 when it was acquired by Joscelin of Courtenay. The Christian village seems to have already had a small refuge tower but the simple defensive structures of a rural community in the early years of the kingdom were no longer adequate. Again, at huge expense, the original courtyard buildings were surrounded by a polygonal outer wall, steeply sloping to make the task of Muslim assault parties more difficult, Pringle Sec., pp. 98–9; A.J. Boas (2007), ‘Three Stages in the Evolution of Rural Settlement in the Kingdom of Jerusalem’, pp. 90–1. 22. R. Ellenblum (2007), Crusader Castles and Modern Histories, pp. 177–86. 23. M. Piana (2016), ‘Crusader Fortifications’; Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 231–57. 24. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 255–6. 25. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 239–42; K. Raphael (2010), ‘Mighty Towers and Feeble Walls’. For Bethgibelin see Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 95–101, vol. IV, pp. 250–6. 26. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 240–2. 27. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 245–7. Though note that these estimates were made in the thirteenth century, by Benoit of Alignian. 28. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 242–5, 253. Food stocks sufficient for the most extended sieges were now feasible, with Margat, for instance, having enough food on hand to sit out a five-year siege. 29. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 249–50. 30. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 250–1. Sorties were notoriously dangerous exercises. One Christian source ascribes the loss of the town of Banyas to Nur al-Din in 1157 to the failure of just such a sortie: ‘One day, while the enemy was pressing them more fiercely than usual, the besieged opened the city gate and made a sally against the enemy outside. Since they offered battle without due caution, however . . . the Turks rushed upon them, and the citizens, unable to maintain their position, tried to withdraw into the city. The gate could not be shut, however, because the pressure of the crowd trying to enter was so great. Consequently, the enemy, intermingling with the townspeople, entered in such numbers that the town was taken by force’, WT, vol. II, p. 258. 31. H. Kennedy (1994), Crusader Castles, p. 61; Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, p. 251. 32. BD, pp. 79–80; IA, pt II, p. 339; Imad ad-Din in L&J, p. 292; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 194–6, 353–4. It is possible that the Franks launched their sortie through the main gate, but the main Muslim source talks of the Franks launching a surprise attack ‘with their swords’ (i.e. rather than with the lances that one might have expected in a mounted charge through a gate), IA, pt II, p. 339. 33. See Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 181, 183–5 for diagrams; R. Ellenblum (1996), ‘Three Generations of Frankish Castle-Building in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’, p. 528. 34. A.D. Buck (2017), The Principality of Antioch and its Frontiers in the Twelfth Century, pp. 43–4; M. Barber (1994), The New Knighthood, pp. 77–9. The Templars seem to have taken on the more substantial role, but as so little of their archives have survived, the details of their defences are not always clear. Certainly the Antiochene commander of the Templar troops seems to have had a higher status in the principality than his Hospitaller counterpart. 35. Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 79–84. A second series of walls were also constructed to the south to create a lower bailey.

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NOTES to pp. 233–242 36. Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 84–96. 37. Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 78–9; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 317–19. They kept an annual pension and a small coastal castle. The Hospitallers took over the family estates and the expense of defending lands which were looking increasingly indefensible. 38. Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 138–41; Barber, The New Knighthood, pp. 81–3. Chastel Blanc was also known as Safita. Note that there is some debate as to whether the tower itself pre-dates or postdates the battle of Hattin (conversation with Mike Fulton). 39. Kennedy, Crusader Castles, p. 141; Barber, The New Knighthood, pp. 81–2. 40. Barber, The New Knighthood, p. 83; J. Riley-Smith (1969), ‘The Templars and the Castle of Tortosa in Syria’. 41. See chapter 7 above. 42. Kennedy, Crusader Castles, p. 150. Though note that the early plan of the castle is by no means easy to discern. 43. Kennedy, Crusader Castles, p. 152. It should be noted that signs of a concentric layer of walls from this period are no longer visible. The openings at the top of the tower are known as slot machiolations. More prosaically, and far less romantically, these openings may also be interpreted as toilets. If so, the objects dropped down below may have had the characteristics of chemical, rather than conventional, weapons (conversation with Mike Fulton). 44. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 166–7, 276. 45. See J. Riley-Smith (2012), The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, pp. 34–5 for the way in which castle building contributed to almost bankrupting even the wealthy Order of the Hospitallers. 46. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 299–302. 47. Pringle I–IV, vol. II, p. 206. 48. Barber, Crusader States, p. 250. 49. Pringle I–IV, vol. II, p. 206, i.e. suggesting that it had been significantly rebuilt in the mid or late 1160s. 50. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 179–80. 51. Pringle Sec., pp. 91–2. 52. IA, pt II, pp. 338–9, 355–7. 53. Probably towards the earlier part of that period, Pringle Sec., pp. 32–3; Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 120–2; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 59–61; V. Shotten-Hallel, E. Sass and L. Perelis Grossowicz (2016), ‘The Hospitaller Castle of Belvoir’. 54. The high and ‘commanding’ position that Belvoir occupies in the middle of the Hospitaller Galilean estates overlooking the Jordan valley is in fact so high that its ability to genuinely ‘command’ it is in serious doubt. The castle is in such a remote and difficult location that it could certainly see the movement of Muslim forces along the valley (and be able to signal to other Frankish centres) but the garrison would have had serious difficulties in attempting to come down quickly to intercept them (conversations with Mike Fulton); Barber, Crusader States, pp. 315–16. 55. IA, pt II, p. 356; BD, pp. 79–80, 89; L&J, p. 292. 56. Pringle Sec., pp. 79–80; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 42–3. 57. S. Tibble (1989), Monarchy and Lordships in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, pp. 13–23; P. Deschamps (1939), Les Châteaux des Croisés en Terre Sainte, vol. 2, p. 130. 58. Tibble, Monarchy and Lordships, p. 22. 59. Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 300–13. 60. Conversation with Jonathan Phillips. Phillips, Life and Legend, pp. 55, 81, 91. 61. Eddé, Saladin, p. 52. See Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 212–22 for a fuller discussion of the Armenians’ role in the Fatimid army. 62. L&J, pp. 32–6. 63. L&J, pp. 32–4. Though note that both of these numbers are probably exaggerated. 64. Eddé, Saladin, p. 51; L&J, pp. 34–5, 375. 65. Phillips, Life and Legend, pp. 61–3; L&J, pp. 34–6; Eddé, Saladin, pp. 40–3; A.S. Ehrenkreutz (1972), ‘Saladin’s Coup d’État in Egypt’. 66. Eddé, Saladin, p. 57. 67. Eddé, Saladin, p. 57; L&J, pp. 60–1.

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NOTES to pp. 242–249 68. L&J, p. 67; Eddé, Saladin, pp. 58–9. 69. Eddé, Saladin, p. 70; L&J, p. 77. 70. And sometimes even themselves: in 1184, for instance, Saladin had to send his own troops to break up disruptive in fighting that had broken out among the Judham tribe, Eddé, Saladin, p. 438. 71. WT, vol. II, p. 303. 72. See Phillips, Life and Legend, p. 104 for Nur al-Din’s far more restrained approach to gift-giving. He had less need for it, having fear and legitimacy as substitutes. 73. Phillips, Life and Legend, p. 105. 74. See Phillips, Life and Legend, pp. 61, 104–5, 318–19 for an excellent analysis of Saladin as gift-giver. 75. Far from helping the idea of a jihad against the Franks, Saladin’s betrayal had, of course, put the cause of Islam back by several years, just at a time when Nur al-Din had almost beaten them. See Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 293–5. 76. IA, pt II, p. 229. These figures were broadly corroborated by William of Tyre: WT, vol. II, p. 399. 77. IA, pt II, pp. 229–30; WT, vol. II, pp. 399–400; BD, p. 50; Eddé, Saladin, pp. 69–70, 188; L&J, pp. 76–7; Barber, Crusader States, p. 263. 78. Eddé, Saladin, p. 188. 79. Eddé, Saladin, pp. 43–4. 80. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 257–8. 81. Eddé, Saladin, pp. 189–90. 82. Lev, Saladin in Egypt, pp. 161–6; L&J, p. 113. 83. AS, pp. 203–11; IA, pt II, pp. 264–6; WT, vol. II, pp. 443–5; Bar-Hebraeus, pp. 308–9; MS, pp. 378–9; Barber, The New Knighthood, p. 86; M. Barber and K. Bate (2002), The Templars, pp. 78–82; Barber, Crusader States, p. 273; L&J, pp. 141–3; Hamilton, The Leper King, pp. 145–7. 84. WT quoted in Barber and Bate, The Templars, p. 82. 85. IA, pt II, p. 266; WT, vol. II, p. 437. 86. Imad al-Din in L&J, p. 133; Hamilton, Leper King, p. 142. 87. WT, vol. II, p. 437. William is mistaken in describing the castle as ‘beyond the Jordan’, however: it is sited on the western bank of the river; Barber, Crusader States, p. 272. 88. WT, vol. II, p. 437. 89. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, p. 267; RRH, no. 579. 90. WT, vol. II, p. 439. 91. L&J, p. 138. 92. L&J, p. 133 suggest that Saladin ‘unsuccessfully offered the Franks up to 100,000 dinars to stop their work on the castle’. Ibn al-Athir wrote that ‘previously he had offered the Franks 60,000 Tyrian dinars to demolish it without any fighting’, IA, pt II, p. 266. 93. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, p. 264. 94. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles, pp. 268–9. 95. See Pringle Sec., p. 85. WT, vol. II, p. 440. William of Tyre wrote that ‘Saladin began to besiege the recently built fortress. Without intermission he sent forth dense showers of arrows and harassed the besieged within its walls with repeated assaults. But suddenly an arrow sent by one of the besieged whose name is said to have been Rainerius of Marum [i.e. Renier from Maron, a Frankish settlement just to the north-west of the new castle] chanced to deal a fatal wound to one of the richest of Saladin’s emirs. The death of this noble threw the infidels into such utter confusion that they abandoned their project, raised the siege and departed.’ 96. Imad al-Din quoted in L&J, p. 138. 97. WT, vol. II, p. 440; L&J p. 138. 98. L&J, p. 143. 99. Odo died ‘lamented by no one’, according to William of Tyre. William’s account of the engagement was particularly sad and downbeat as his own brother, Ralph, had died in the battle. William’s view of Odo, an unlikeable man at the best of times, was understandably coloured by his brother’s fate and his opinion of Odo’s role in his death: conversation with Malcolm Barber. See William of Tyre. Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, vol. II, p. 1002, n. 28; WT, vol. II, pp. 440–3; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 273, 417, n. 57; Barber, The New Knighthood, pp. 86, 95, 109; IA, pt II, pp. 264–5.

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NOTES to pp. 250–260 100. L&J, p. 141. 101. IA, pt II, p. 265. These were ‘volunteers’ or, as Ibn al-Athir less flatteringly put it, ‘common people’. 102. Hamilton, The Leper King, p. 146. 103. William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, vol. III, p. 244. 104. IA, pt II, p. 265. 105. AS, pp. 207–8. 106. IA, pt II, pp. 265–6. 107. IA, pt II, pp. 265–6. 108. P.D. Mitchell, Y. Nagar and R. Ellenblum (2006), ‘Weapon Injuries in the 12th Century Crusader Garrison’. 109. Though note, there may be an element of exaggeration here, given the cost of such hauberks. 110. Bar-Hebraeus, p. 309; AS, p. 208. He may, of course, simply have been killed in the fighting around the burning barricades. 111. R. Kool (2002), ‘Coins at Vadum Jacob’. The outbreak of plague soon after the fall of the castle meant that the scavenging of the site was brought to a premature conclusion, leaving us with some unusually clear numismatic evidence. 112. AS, p. 205. 113. IA, pt II, p. 266. 114. Imad ad-Din in L&J, p. 142. 115. L&J, p. 143. The cistern has still not been found by archaeologists, but when it is located it should provide a mass of valuable insight into trauma wounds of the period. 116. L&J, p. 143. Saladin raided the Frankish territories around Tiberias, Tyre and Beirut. 117. See Eddé, Saladin, pp. 431–7 for Saladin’s efforts to improve the Egyptian fleet and coastal fortifications; Lev, Saladin in Egypt, pp. 161–84; Ehrenkreutz, ‘The Place of Saladin’, pp. 100–16. 118. WT, vol. II, pp. 446–7. 119. WT, vol. II, p. 448. 120. WT, vol. II, pp. 448–9; L&J, p. 147; Eddé, Saladin, p. 435. 121. In the event, the reconnaissance raid on Ruad led nowhere. It seems to have been decided that the island’s position, however tempting, was ultimately unsustainable. No attempt was made by the Muslim forces to fortify or garrison the island at this point. 122. WT, vol. II, pp. 470–1. 123. WT, vol. II, pp. 472–5; Hamilton, The Leper King, pp. 172–9. 124. WT, vol. II, p. 476. The squadron consisted of 30 vessels according to William of Tyre, but the Muslim sources, who were in a better position to know the true figures, suggest 40, L&J, p. 170. 125. L&J, p. 170; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 277–8. 126. WT, vol. II, p. 477. 127. ‘. . . those who had come by sea also showed equal fury and courage in attacking’, WT, vol. II, pp. 478–9. 128. See, for instance, the letter from the Master of the Templars to Louis VII in November 1164, in which he suggested that ‘Nur al-Din hoped to take control of the kingdom of Egypt . . . so that he could put pressure on the kingdom [of Jerusalem] and by blocking the sea with pirates he could close even this escape route for the base and cowardly’. Note also the shocking admission that under increasing Muslim pressure, large numbers of Frankish settlers (‘the base and cowardly’) were considering returning to Europe, M. Barber and K. Bate (2010), Letters from the East, pp. 60–1. 129. Eddé, Saladin, pp. 432–4. 130. See Hamilton, The Leper King, pp. 179–85. 131. WT, vol. II, pp. 489–92; IA, pt II, pp. 293–5; BD, pp. 59–60. 132. BD, pp. 61–2; AS, pp. 244–8; WT, vol. II, pp. 492–8; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 280–2; L&J, pp. 205–8. 133. The castle, he wrote, ‘occupies the choicest part of the land in Palestine, and has a very wide dominion with continuous settlements, it being said that the number of villages reaches four hundred’, IJ, p. 301. 134. L&J, p. 209.

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NOTES to pp. 260–262 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140.

141. 142. 143.

144. 145. 146.

IA, pt II, pp. 297–8; WT, vol. II, pp. 498–9. WT, vol. II, pp. 501–4. Tibble, Monarchy and Lordships, pp. 29–36, 93–4. WT, vol. II, p. 499. We know that this was the normal protocol in emergencies. Earlier in the year, for instance, we hear of local reinforcements from Montréal and Kerak being badly cut up as they tried to force their way into the royal muster at Saffuriya, AS, p. 243; L&J, p. 206. RRH, no. 596. It was probably a certain Fr. Nicholas who was in charge of the castle chapel when the siege began, Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 287, 290. The chapel had a suitably militant aspect to it, helping the garrison combine piety with the needs of their profession: vivid frescoes set out stories of saintly martyrdom, while another showed a king in his armour. We also know that there was a Catholic cathedral in the town, because of its status as an archbishopric but, appropriately enough, and reflecting the multi-denominational nature of its population, this was an archbishopric whose only suffragan (i.e. subordinate bishop) was the Greek Orthodox abbot of Saint Catherine’s monastery in Sinai. There were two Greek Orthodox churches in the town, both dedicated to the warrior Saint George, who was himself, again appropriately, half-Palestinian. There may also have been an Armenian church in the town, again dedicated to the ever popular Saint George, catering for the needs of the Armenian contingent in the garrison. See Pringle I–IV, vol. I, p. 295 for the Armenian involvement, though note that the evidence for the presence of an Armenian church in our period is not definitive. Kerak and Montréal were the two most important fortifications of the lordship of the Oultrejourdain, Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 286–95; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 45–52. WT, vol. II, pp. 500–1; Kennedy, Crusader Castles, pp. 51–2. Given the chronic overcrowding within the town, Reynald was anxious to defend it for as long as possible, and hopefully keep everyone safe until the Frankish field army arrived. Critically, however, while the number of civilians in Kerak had increased significantly, the garrison had been recently diminished. Only a few weeks earlier (on 30 September) a large party of troops from Kerak and Montréal, the two main military centres of the lordship, had been intercepted by enemy cavalry while on their way to join the royal army, L&J, p. 206. The Muslim detachment that encountered them later claimed to have taken 100 prisoners, on top of those they had killed or wounded, and it is unlikely that these losses could have been made good by the time the siege started, AS, p. 243. Reynald refused to allow the townsfolk to move into the castle, or to carry their possessions in. Perhaps he was keen to keep the non-military but able-bodied men within the town and fully engaged in its defence. Or perhaps he was simply conscious that the castle would struggle to accommodate all the refugees. Either way, he resolved to ‘try to defend the outer place and the village next to the citadel. He therefore forbade the people who wished to carry their goods into the fortress and to provide for their own safety there to forsake their homes’, WT, vol. II, pp. 499–500. Whatever his motives, Reynald was mistaken if he thought he could defend the town. Its defences were adequate under normal conditions but, unlike the castle, they were not state of the art. The slopes were difficult to scale, but not impossible. Much of the garrison and the makeshift town militia were thrown into its defence, but they were overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. The Frankish troops ‘vigorously engaged in trying to block the enemy’s path up the mountain, but the multitude of the foe proved too much for them. Those who were trying to obstruct the passage were put to flight; Saladin’s forces gained possession of the mountain and opened a path by the sword’, WT, vol. II, p. 500. The loss of the town was not the worst of it, however. Inevitably, the sudden breach of the walls caused a chaotic retreat by the panic-stricken civilians. They rushed towards the narrow wooden bridge across the sheer rock-cut moat that separated the castle from the town. In the push of the bodies and the infectious terror that followed the fall of the town, Turkic assault teams intermingled with the fleeing Christians and almost managed to force their way into the castle. WT, vol. II, p. 500; IA, pt II, pp. 297–8. WT, vol. II, pp. 500–1. WT, vol. II, p. 500. It was not all bad news. Despite the problems with overcrowding, the ‘fortress was well stocked with provisions, although the supply of weapons was not as large as seemed

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NOTES to pp. 262–274

147. 148.

149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167.

necessary for the defence of the place’, WT, vol. II, p. 501. The Arab villagers from the surrounding countryside had brought their precious animals up the mountain, turning the moat of the citadel into a makeshift corral for the livestock. The main hope now was that they could hold on long enough for the field army to come to their rescue. WT, vol. II, p. 503. IA, pt II, p. 298. Fire from the catapults and archery was overwhelming. It soon became dangerous for anyone to show their face above the battlements. The firepower was so intense that even the moat was effectively controlled by the besiegers, and they were able to use it as a bizarre, open-air larder for the troops. Saladin’s men felt bold enough to slide ‘down by ropes and killed with impunity the animals which the refugees had brought inside the moat around the citadel. Without encountering the least opposition or danger, the Turks cut up the carcasses into joints and drew the pieces up to be used as food for themselves’, WT, vol. II, p. 503. WT, vol. II, p. 503. WT, vol. II, pp. 503–4. Hamilton, The Leper King, pp. 192–4; Ernoul, pp. 102–6. L&J, p. 210. IA, pt II, pp. 297–8; Imad ad-Din quoted in L&J, p. 210. al-Maqrizi, History of the Ayyubid Sultans, p. 72; KD ROL 4, p. 170. Ernoul, pp. 104–5. Hamilton, The Leper King, p. 196. Raymond of Tripoli was the Frankish field commander. They left on 4 December and arrived in Damascus on 12 December, L&J, pp. 210–11; BD, p. 62; Hamilton, The Leper King, p. 196; WT, vol. II, p. 504. M. Kohler (2013), Alliances and Treaties Between Frankish and Muslim Rulers, pp. 244–5. IA, pt II, pp. 300–1. WT Cont., p. 17; Ernoul, p. 124; KD ROL 4, pp. 173–5; L&J, pp. 221–39; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 290–1. WT Cont., p. 29. IA, pt II, p. 319. IA, pt II, pp. 318–19; AS, pp. 260–1; L&J, pp. 249–50. Imad ad-Din in AS, p. 263; Barber, Crusader States, p. 299. J. France (2015), Hattin; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 321–39. See H. Strachan (2013), The Direction of War, pp. 136–50. Pringle I–IV, vol. I, pp. 286–7. 9 Reflections

1. Even Clausewitz, the doyen of military strategic thinkers, argued that strategy should be primarily considered in practice, rather than in theory. Crusader planning and activity, therefore, are best examined in the realms of applied, rather than theoretical, strategic thinking. 2. See S. Tibble (2018), The Crusader Armies, pp. 23–64. 3. See, for instance, M. Kohler (2013), Alliances and Treaties Between Frankish and Muslim Rulers, pp. 59–174. 4. It is ‘a dialogue where ends also reflect means’, H. Strachan (2013), The Direction of War, p. 45. ‘Clausewitz made clear that, because wars should be thought of as acts of policy, not as something autonomous, they “must vary with the nature of their motives and of the situations which give rise to them” ’, Strachan, Direction of War, p. 63; ‘Strategy is designed to make war useable by the state, so that it can, if need be, use force to fulfil its political objectives’, Strachan, Direction of War, p. 43; L. Freedman (2013), Strategy: A History, pp. 86–7. 5. Strachan, Direction of War, p. 217. 6. Tibble, Crusader Armies, p. 316; L&J, p. 240. 7. Tibble, Crusader Armies, p. 238; FC, pp. 161–2. 8. MS, pp. 271–2; M. Barber (2012), The Crusader States, pp. 179–83, 195–6. 9. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 307–23; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 351–4.

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NOTES to pp. 275–282 10. Strachan, The Direction of War, p. 126. ‘War can be of two kinds, in the sense that either the objective is to overthrow the enemy – to render him politically helpless or militarily impotent, thus forcing him to sign whatever peace we please; or merely to occupy some of his frontier-districts so that we can annex them or use them for bargaining at the peace negotiations’, C. von Clausewitz (1976), On War, p. 69. 11. ‘The most important single task for strategy is to understand the nature of the war it is addressing. Its next task may be to manage and direct that war, but it cannot do that if it starts from a false premise. Strategy in practice is therefore pragmatic’, Strachan, Direction of War, p. 103; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 23–7. 12. Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 242–3; Barber, Crusader States, p. 70. 13. C.S. Gray (1999), ‘Why Strategy is Difficult’, p. 85. 14. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 299–302; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 326–7. 15. WT, vol. II, p. 269 (my italics). 16. AA, pp. 839–43. 17. ‘Accordingly, the matter was thoroughly discussed. Various opinions . . . were offered and arguments pro and con presented, as is customary in matters of such importance. At last it was agreed by all that under the circumstances it would be best to besiege Damascus, a city of great menace to us. When this decision was finally reached, the herald was ordered to proclaim that upon the appointed day all with one accord must be ready to lead their troops to those parts. Accordingly, the entire military strength of the realm, both cavalry and infantry, natives and pilgrims alike, was mustered. The two great sovereigns . . . also arrived with their forces’, WT, vol. II, p. 186. These ‘pilgrims’ were conscripted, and perhaps paid for their troubles, as they are mentioned separately from the crusading contingents. Later, William implies strongly that the pilgrims had been involuntarily conscripted, WT, vol. II, p. 193. 18. ‘. . . even to the present day, those who do come [to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem] fear lest they be caught in the same toils and hence make as short a stay as possible’, WT, vol. II, p. 193. 19. WT Cont., p. 29. 20. J.L. Gaddis (2018), On Grand Strategy, pp. 200–1. 21. Gaddis, Grand Strategy, pp. 1–21. 22. Gaddis, Grand Strategy, p. 21. 23. Gaddis, Grand Strategy, p. 14. It is not just modern commentators who have puzzled over the nature of strategic leadership. Classical thinkers from Herodotus and Thucydides through to Plutarch thought long and hard about the qualities required to make the decisions that saved states or led men to their deaths. In the 1820s Clausewitz noted that ‘it is precisely the essence of military genius that it does not consist in a single appropriate gift – courage, for example – while other qualities of mind or temperament are wanting or are not suited to war’. Rather, it needs ‘a harmonious combination of elements, in which one or the other ability may predominate, but none may be in conflict with the rest’. ‘The man responsible for evaluating the whole must bring to his task the quality of intuition that perceives the truth at every point. Otherwise a chaos of opinions and considerations would arise, and fatally entangle judgement’, Clausewitz, On War, pp. 100, 112; Gaddis, Grand Strategy, pp. 200–1. 24. Gaddis, Grand Strategy, p. 58. 25. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 75–117. See S.B. Edgington (2019), Baldwin I of Jerusalem, for the first in-depth study of his career. 26. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 75–6; FC, pp. 88–92; AA, pp. 168–73. 27. FC, pp. 221–3; AA, pp. 861–71. 28. Barber, Crusader States, pp. 231–61. 29. ‘Strategic culture explains why strategy does not change, not why it does. It contains strategy within a familiar framework, assuming that strategic culture limits choice and inhibits any adjustments in priorities, despite the fact that both are essential to the making of strategy’, Strachan, The Direction of War, pp. 136–7. 30. The tension between conservatism and adaptability is one of the major issues at the heart of defining ‘military culture’: ‘Strategic thought requires a capacity to interrogate strategic practice, to reflect on the experience of the application of theory, and to do so in a way which produces ideas

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NOTES to pp. 282–296

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

which are applicable beyond historical boundaries in terms of widening our understanding of war and its utility. Such an approach embodies the possibility of change, not just the straitjacket of continuity’, Strachan, The Direction of War, p. 141. See Gaddis, Grand Strategy, pp. 93–119. Gaddis, Grand Strategy, p. 137; G. Parker (1998), The Grand Strategy of Philip II, pp. 157–62. ‘We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow’, Lord Palmerston, speech, House of Commons, 1 March 1848. Qal, pp. 141–2; Barber, Crusader States, p. 102. WC, pp. 66, 84–95; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 102–4; R.C. Smail (1956), Crusading Warfare, pp. 143–8. Gaddis, Grand Strategy, pp. 143–50. See Gaddis, Grand Strategy, pp. 63–91. Gaddis, Grand Strategy, pp. 151–83. Clausewitz, On War, p. 128; Gray, ‘Why Strategy is Difficult’, p. 83. Smail, Crusading Warfare, pp. 140–3. WT, vol. II, pp. 491–502; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 280–2. ‘Once war has broken out, two sides clash, and their policies conflict: that reciprocity generates its own dynamic, feeding on hatred, on chance and on the play of military probabilities. War has its own nature, and can have consequences very different from the policies that are meant to be guiding it. In other words, war itself shapes and changes policy’, Strachan, The Direction of War, pp. 54–5. See Gaddis, Grand Strategy, pp. 121–50. Macro-management is the inevitable sphere of good strategies: with so many moving parts, it is hard to see how it can be anything else. But even if they had wanted to, the crusader states never had the communications technology or logistical infrastructure to make anything even approximating to micro-management a realistic possibility. They could only macro-manage on a strategic level (through the use of accepted best practice and protocols established over long periods of time): micro-management was the realm of battlefield command. See Gaddis, Grand Strategy, pp. 214–15. Gray, ‘Why Strategy is Difficult’, p. 82. Strachan, The Direction of War, p. 48; Gray, ‘Why Strategy is Difficult’, p. 83. Usama, pp. 25–6. Usama, as he often did, tells this story for moral edification and effect rather than logic: ironically, this anecdote is immediately preceded by another, contradictory, tale about the perils of following up the enemy in an ill-disciplined way, Usama, pp. 24–5. He seems to have had a large network of scouts and spies among the local Christians and Bedouin, supplementing his own Turcopole light cavalry. William of Tyre, for instance, describes one of his many campaigns as taking place ‘at the suggestion of certain men whose duty it was to investigate the condition of the neighbouring districts and spy out the enemy’s weak points’, WT, vol. I, p. 429. See S.B. Edgington (2014), ‘Espionage and Military Intelligence During the First Crusade’ for a discussion of early crusader intelligence gathering. See also Edgington, Baldwin I of Jerusalem, pp. 48, 154. Barber, Crusader States, p. 70; Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 242–3. Freedman, Strategy: A History, p. 87; Clausewitz, On War, pp. 119–21. Freedman, Strategy: A History, p. 87. WT, vol. II, pp. 374–5; L&J, pp. 42–3; Barber, Crusader States, pp. 256–7. L&J, p. 206. See, for instance, Gray, ‘Why Strategy is Difficult’, p. 83. WT, vol. II, pp. 443–5; B. Hamilton (2000), The Leper King and His Heirs, p. 146; Barber, Crusader States, p. 273. See, for instance, D. Pringle (2001), ‘The Spring of the Cresson in Crusading History’ for a detailed contextual study of the Spring of the Cresson. WC, pp. 110–15. WT, vol. II, p. 27. ‘We’re pretending to see what the future will hold.

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NOTES to p. 296 We appear to be in control of our fate, Just like soldiers believe they’re in control of the war. It’s moving so fast we cannot see what we’ve done’. From ‘Pretending to See the Future’, from the album Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980). 60. Tibble, Crusader Armies, pp. 23–33. 61. E.N. Luttwak (1976), The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire; P. Heather (2005), The Fall of the Roman Empire.

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INDEX

al-Abbas, vizier of Egypt (1153–1154) 186 Acre 40–6, 49, 51, 62–3, 119, 146–7, 150, 159, 195, 256–8, 266, 301n32, 303n104 al-Afdal ’Ali, Saladin’s son (d. 1225) 266, 298n7, 299n8 al-Afdal Shahanshah, vizier of Egypt (1094–1121) 65, 121, 309n15 Ager Sanguinis (battle of the Field of Blood) 59, 102, 295 ’ahdath, city militia 91, 94, 306n76 Ahmad b. Muhammad, Hanbali leader 148–9 Akkar, castle 234 ’Ali, brother of Usama 130–1 Alba, duke of 283 Albert, abbot of St Everard, bishop of Tripoli (c.1103–1110) 54 Aleppo 19, 22, 25, 30, 67–71, 73–6, 80–2, 103, 107–8, 112–14, 118–19, 137, 139, 143–4, 173, 219, 245, 259, 271, 302n75, 304n3 Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC) 209, 286 Alexandria 31, 177–8, 191, 203, 220, 224, 244–5, 270 Alp Arslan 143 Amalric, king of Jerusalem (1163–1174) 174, 177, 179, 181, 186–94, 197–206, 210, 212, 217, 219–20, 237, 244–5, 268, 270, 281, 284, 313n89, 317n122, 318n147 American Civil War 27 Andronicus Comnenus, Byzantine emperor (1182–1185) 318n14 Angevin, Anjou 82, 84, 118, 139 Anglo-Saxon chronicle 84 Anna Comnena, daughter of Alexius I (d. 1153/4) 303n90 Antioch, Principality of 11, 18, 25, 46–7, 50–1, 63–5, 67–9, 73–6, 80, 84, 89, 96, 102, 105, 107, 109–12, 118–20, 137, 139–40, 148, 151, 155, 181, 207, 209, 212, 217, 219,

233, 236, 259, 265, 277–8, 302n63, 302n67, 319n34 city 59, 75, 305n32 siege and capture (1097–1098) 54, 62, 304n1 Aqaba 222, 271 Aqunsur see Bursuqi Arabia, Arabs 20, 38, 69, 71, 74, 81, 130, 135, 141, 143, 147, 149, 162, 168, 183, 204, 212, 221, 241, 260–1, 265, 269, 284, 306n58, 315n47, 317n122, 324n146 Arcas see Arqa Arima, castle 215, 234, 318n145 al-Arish 156, 185–6, 219, 281 Armenia, Armenians 33, 38, 69, 80, 102, 114, 130, 174, 183, 240–2, 261, 265, 284, 323n140 Arpin, viscount of Bourges, prior of La Charité-sur-Loire (d. before 1130) 121, 123 Arqa 49, 234, 144, 215, 318n144 arrière-ban 278, 295 Arsuf 34–42, 44, 62–3, 123 Artah 25, 209–10, 219 artillery 49–50, 52, 59, 93–6, 129, 223, 225, 227, 247, 260, 266, 278 see also catapults; mangonels Ascalon 15, 30, 37–40, 53, 60, 64, 67, 121–38, 159–61, 167–70, 175, 189, 191, 195, 197, 225, 304n17, 308n1, 308n12, 309n14, 309n17, 310n25, 311n46, 313n78, 314n9 battle (1099) 62, 155 siege and capture (1153) 92, 120, 140, 179, 181–6, 288 ’askar 5, 70, 86–8, 91–2, 98–9, 108, 113, 211, 228, 247, 250, 306n58, 315n66 Assassins 25–6, 83, 88, 118, 139, 153, 270 Aswan 242 al-Atharib 76, 151, 155 Augustus, emperor 286 Aydhab 221–2, 271 ‘Azaz 112

346

INDEX Baalbek 26, 211, 213 Babayn, battle (1167) 189–91, 201 Baghdad 19–22, 49, 106–10, 112–13, 116, 144, 224, 241, 248, 285 Baisan 146, 172, 256, 259 Bait al-Ahzan see Jacob’s Ford Bait Jubr at-Tahtani, tower 169, 171 Balak ibn Bahram, Nur al-Daulak, Artuqid ruler of Saruj, Mardin and Aleppo (d. 1124) 65, 107, 122, 308n131 Baldwin I (of Boulogne), count of Edessa (1098–1100), king of Jerusalem (1100–1118) 39–40, 42–6, 55–6, 62–5, 102–3, 109, 121–3, 146, 151–3, 160–1, 163, 174, 179, 274, 276, 280–1, 291–2, 301n32, 307n104, 308n13, 309n14, 314n7, 326n48 Baldwin II (of Bourcq), count of Edessa (1100–1118), king of Jerusalem (1118–1131), regent of Antioch (1119–1126, 1130–1131) 51, 59, 65, 69–71, 103, 106–7, 112, 118, 139, 304n115 Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem (1143–63) 80, 82–4, 86–8, 90, 96–8, 115, 119–20, 131, 140, 173, 179, 184–6, 199, 201–2, 219, 277 Baldwin IV, king of Jerusalem (1174–1185) 162, 226–7, 238, 256–7, 259–61, 264, 267, 270–1, 276 Baldwin V, king of Jerusalem (1185–1186) 271 Baldwin, convert and godson of Baldwin I, king of Jerusalem 153–4 Baldwin, lord of Marash (c.1136–1146) 119, 140 Balian II, lord of Ibelin (c.1169–1193) 16–17, 128 ballistae 91, 93 Banu Sulayha, Shaykh of 155 Banyas 15, 68, 83–4, 88–9, 118–19, 137, 139–40, 145, 174, 179, 209–10, 215–16, 220, 236, 238, 247–50, 254, 317n129, 317n130, 319n30 Barada River 90–3, 95, 306n82 Barin, see Montferrand Bartolf of Nangis, chronicler 42, 301n32, 301n46 Batini, see Assassins Bedouin 69, 84, 143–4, 154–6, 162–6, 173–5, 179, 185–7, 189, 204, 242, 244, 250, 312n66, 313n90, 315n48, 326n48 Beirut 52, 211, 255–8, 322n116 Bela, king of Hungary 177–9 Belvoir, Hospitaller castle 15, 172–3, 232, 237–8, 265, 320n53, 320n54 Benjamin of Tudela 147 Beqaa Valley 211, 213, 317n135

Bertrand of Saint-Gilles, count of Tripoli (1109–1112) 50, 109 Bethany 158–9 Bethgibelin, castle and settlement 126–8, 131, 133–5, 139, 231, 291, 319n25 Bethlehem 127 Bethsan see Baisan Bilbais 187–8, 191–3 al-Bira, in county of Edessa 308n142 al-Bira (Magna Mahomeria), village north of Jerusalem 157, 292 ‘Black’ Regiments, Fatimid infantry (Sudani) 38, 183, 240–2 Blanchegarde, castle 126, 128, 134–5, 140 Bohemond of Taranto, prince of Antioch (1098–1111) 62–3 Bohemond II, prince of Antioch (1126–1130) 59 Bohemond III, prince of Antioch (1163–1201) 219 Bosquet, general 6 Bosra 266 Bourzey, castle (Rochefort) 233 Burchard of Mount Sion 163 Bursuq ibn Bursuq, lord of Hamadhan (d. 1116–1117) 64, 110, 285 al-Bursuqi, atabeg of Mosul (1113–1126) 72–3, 110 Byblos, see Gibelet Byzantines, Byzantium 20, 29–30, 34, 46–8, 62, 68, 74–9, 81, 102, 115, 118–19, 123, 134, 138–9, 143, 163, 168, 179, 195–8, 201–3, 209, 219, 227, 230, 233, 238, 245, 284, 302n67, 303n90, 305n32, 318n14 Caco, Templar castle 1, 298 Caesarea 32–3, 41–2, 63, 136, 176, 190, 300n13, 315n47 Caffaro, son of Rustico of Caschifellone, Genoese admiral and chronicler (d. after 1163) 52, 300n13, 301n31, 314n7 Cairo 21, 49–50, 124, 170, 176, 178, 187–9, 192–4, 205, 238, 241–2, 244–5, 314n7 Calixtus, pope 60 Cardigan, lord 6 Casale des Plains (Casale Balneorum) 169–70 Castel Arnold 126, 139, 170, 309–10n17 Castellum Novum see Chastel Neuf Castrum Album 215, 318n144 catapults 35, 40–1, 43, 70, 73, 77–9, 93, 98, 113, 196, 211, 231–2, 237, 250, 262–4, 305n32, 315n53, 324n148 see also artillery; mangonels Cave de Tyron, castle 213 Chastel Blanc 215, 234, 318n146, 320n38

347

INDEX Chastel Neuf 174, 216, 238, 318n147 China 20 Church of the Ascension, Mount of Olives 171 Church of the Confessors, Edessa 114 Church of John the Baptist, near the Jordan 171 Church of Lazarus, Bethany 158–9 Cilicia 118, 138–9, 202, 305n32 Cisterna Rubea 169, 171 Clausewitz, C. von 15, 272–3, 275, 287, 290, 292, 324n1, 324n4, 325n10, 325n23 Clermont, council of 62 Conrad, imperial constable 123 Conrad III, King of Germany (1137–1152) 66, 68, 91, 97, 119 conscription, conscripts 32, 89, 183–4, 228, 278, 325n17 Constance, regent of Antioch (1149–1153, 1161–1163) 120 Constantine, Roupenid prince of Cilicia (1092–1100) Crac des Chevaliers, castle 119, 140, 234–5, 270 Cresson, spring of the, battle (1187) 3–4, 6–7, 15–16, 266, 271, 282–3, 294, 296–7, 298n1, 298n4, 298n7 Crimean war 6, 16 Crusades First (1095–1101) 18, 20–3, 29, 55 Second (1147–1148) 24, 88–100, 116–17, 119–20, 140, 306n71 Custer, general 164–5 Cyprus 31, 34, 46, 48, 219, 303n90 Damascus city-state 22, 30, 44, 48–9, 52, 55–6, 63, 68–9, 105, 108–9, 112–13, 118, 132, 137, 143–4, 147–9, 151, 156–7, 162, 164, 173, 177, 184, 188, 209–10, 219, 223, 226, 244–5, 247, 260, 264, 270, 285, 295, 302n58, 305n53, 306n58, 312n66, 315n66, 324n157 siege (1129) 81–8, 117–18, 139 siege (1148) 24, 66, 88–100, 117, 120, 139, 199, 278, 325n17 Damietta 196, 224–5 Daniel of Kiev, abbot (d. after 1108) 160 Danishmend Turks 62 Darraya 85–9, 95–6 Darum 242, 292 Dead Sea 152, 174, 264 Dirgham, vizier of Egypt (d. 1164) 186 Dromones 195 Dubais ibn Sadaqa, Bedouin leader (d. 1136) 69, 71–2

Edessa city 4, 88, 103, 108–9, 245 county 11, 18, 24–5, 50–1, 62–3, 65, 67, 69, 74, 84, 100–17, 119–20, 137, 140, 161, 179, 181, 209, 280, 294, 300n12 siege and capture (1144–1146) 24, 113–16, 177, 274 Egypt, Egyptians 13–15, 20–3, 26, 30–1, 33–5, 37–41, 43–4, 46, 48, 50–3, 60, 62–5, 82, 121–38, 143–5, 153, 159, 163, 167, 174, 176–220, 223–5, 227, 234, 237–50, 254–9, 263–6, 268, 270, 274–5, 281, 286, 288–9, 291–2, 301n32, 303n87, 308n4, 309n14, 314n8, 315n55, 316n101, 318n4, 322n117 Eleutheropolis 134 Embriaco, Genoese family 33, England, English 24, 28, 84, 132, 153, 159, 200–1, 283, 298n3, 304n1 Euphrates, river 25, 103, 108, 111, 114, 143 Eustace Cholet 201 al-Fadil, qadi (d. 1199) 156, 224, 263 Fakhr al-Mulk Ibn Amar, emir of Tripoli (1099–1109) 49 al-Farama 65,195 Fatimid dynasty, Egypt 20–3, 30–1, 34–5, 38, 40–1, 43–4, 48–53, 55–6, 121–38, 143–4, 150, 159, 163, 167, 170, 175, 176–205, 206, 216, 218, 224, 239–42, 245, 259, 276, 281, 288, 291, 301n32, 303n91, 304n117, 309n14, 309n15, 309–10n17, 314n35, 314n42, 315n54, 315n66, 315n69, 318n10, 320n61 La Fève (al-Fula), Templar castle 1, 16–17, 173, 298n2, 313n89 Field of Blood, battle (1119) see Ager Sanguinis Forbelet, castle 256, 259 France, French 50, 60, 96, 98, 102, 117, 174, 187, 199–201, 280, 317n130 Franco of Mechelen 36 Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, German emperor (1152–1190) 201 Fulcher of Chartres, chronicler, chaplain of Baldwin of Boulogne (d. 1127) 40, 42, 58, 73, 122, 145–7, 151, 301n46, 301n49 Fulk V, count of Anjou (1109–2119), king of Jerusalem (1131–1143) 82–8, 118–19, 127, 137–40, 294, 305n53 Fustat 193, 245 Galilee 1, 68, 89, 107, 109, 130, 136, 153, 160, 162–3, 172–3, 209–10, 236–8, 254, 256, 259, 265–7, 271, 298–9n8 lordship 26, 55–6, 86, 164, 238 Sea of 237, 266–7

348

INDEX Gardens of Abraham 171 Gargar 107 Gate of Iraq, Aleppo 72 Gate of Sha’e, Edessa 113–14 Gaza 126, 129, 131–2, 134–5, 140, 242, 293 Gazelle, Baldwin I’s horse 122 Genoa, Genoese 30, 38–9, 42–3, 45, 50–2, 60, 150, 301n32, 301n49, 302n49, 314n7 Geoffrey I Jordan of Vendôme 122 Gerard of Avesnes, lord of Hebron (d. 1102) 35–8 Gerard of Ridefort, master of the Temple (1185–1189) 3, 6, 15–16, 266, 283, 298n4 Germany, Germans 24, 60, 66, 68, 89–91, 94–8, 117, 119, 201, 300n12, 303n107 Gettysburg, battle 27 Gibelet 45, 63, 208, 211, 301n49 Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine (1087–1100), ruler of Jerusalem (1099–1100) 35–9, 62, 304n1 Godfrey of Bures 164–5 Golan Heights 188 Greater Gate, Ascalon 182, 184 Gunfrid, castellan of the tower of David 170 Guy of Lusignan, count of Jaffa (1180–1186), king of Jerusalem (1186–1192) 6, 236, 259, 267, 270–1, 286–8, 312n69 Habis Jaldak, cave castle 256 Haifa 63 Hainaut 35 Halba, castle see Castrum Album Hama 22, 26, 75, 78, 80, 113, 137, 306n58 Hanbali 148, 151, 161 Haram al-Khalil 38 Harim 25, 209, 219, 317n125 Harran 4, 63, 67, 103, 106, 112, 266, 302n67 Harvard–Yale boat race 27 Hattin, battle (1187) 6, 24, 54, 56, 115, 148, 228, 233, 236–7, 267, 271, 286–9, 297, 300n12, 320n38 Hauran 82, 87, 119, 156, 210, 247 Hebron (St Abraham), castle and lordship 38, 127 Hejaz 260 helmets 1–2, 32, 36, 85, 252, 300n21 Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, chronicler (d. 1156/60) 84, 305n53 Henry, archbishop of Rheims 177 Henry, Hospitaller knight (d. 1187) 5 Henry I, king of England (1100–1135) 84 Henry II, king of England (1154–1189) 200–1 Hierapolis see Manbij Hisn al-Akrad see Crac des Chevaliers

Homs 22, 26, 48, 63, 67, 75, 80, 113, 119, 137, 215 horses 1–2, 4–5, 16, 26, 66, 73, 83–4, 87, 90–1, 115, 122, 171, 189–90, 195, 197, 244, 285, 291, 315n72 Hospitallers, Order of John 1, 6, 16, 64, 119, 127, 135, 140, 158, 165, 171–4, 179, 191–4, 200, 227, 233–5, 237, 271, 315n55, 320n37, 320n45 Hugh, lord of Caesarea (c.1154–1168) 176–7, 190, 315n47 Hugh of Brolis 122 Hugh of Creona 201 Hugh of Fauquembergues, lord of Tiberias (1101–1106) 55, 238 Hugh of Payens, master of the Temple (c.1119–c.1136) 82, 84 Hugh Wake 132 Humphrey II, lord of Toron, constable of Jerusalem (1152–1179) 174, 189, 193, 210, 238, 248–9 Humphrey IV, lord of Toron (d. 1198) 261 Hunin see Chastel Neuf Ibelin, lordship and castle 125–8, 131, 134–5, 140, 148 Ibn al-Athir, chronicler (d. 1233) 4, 85, 183, 321n92, 322n101 Ibn Jubayr, Spanish traveller, chronicler (d. 1217) 32, 150, 152, 155, 260 Ibn al-Qalanisi, chronicler (d. 1160) 44, 70, 85, 93, 146–7, 301n49, 305n53, 306n58 Ibn al-Salar, vizier of Egypt (d. 1153) 183–4 Il-Ghazi, Najm al-Din, ruler of Mardin (1108/9–22) 65, 110 ’Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, secretary to Nur al-Din and Saladin, chronicler (d. 1201) 151, 241, 253 Inab, battle (June 1149) 120, 140 Iran 20 Iraq 7, 69, 72, 104, 108, 116, 194, 272–4, 296 Isis 7 Isma’ilis see Assassins Israel 18 Italy, Italians 42, 44–5, 50–1, 222, 281, 297 Iven, knight 261–2 Jabal Bahra 148 Jabal Talat 25 Jabala 64, 148, 151 Jacob’s Ford, castle and battle (1157) 15, 92, 152, 162, 173, 219, 246–9, 250, 252–4, 270, 293 Jaffa, port, battles (1102 and 1192) and county 28, 35, 39–40, 62–3, 121, 126, 134, 136, 159, 168–70, 274, 319n21

349

INDEX James of Mailly, Templar knight (d. 1187) 2–3, 5, 298n3 Jammail 148 Jamnia 134 Jane Austen 22 Jazira 106, 110 Jericho 158, 171 Jerusalem, city 18, 29, 33, 37–8, 42, 55, 59, 62, 84, 111, 126–7, 134–6, 143–6, 152, 158–61, 168–71, 183, 188, 200, 202, 217, 240, 260, 264, 317n30, 318n15 Jerusalem Gate, Ascalon 182 Jerusalem, Latin kingdom of 4, 6, 10–11, 18, 23, 25–6, 31, 35, 40, 48, 50, 53, 62–3, 65, 66–9, 74, 80–2, 89, 97, 99, 102, 104–5, 109, 115, 122–4, 132–6, 141–2, 148, 155, 162–3, 165, 167, 172, 174, 176–82, 189, 194–5, 198–204, 207, 209–11, 215–17, 225–8, 235, 238, 244–5, 248, 250, 254–5, 259–60, 265–7, 271, 274, 276, 278, 280, 285–7, 289, 291, 294–5, 297, 299n16, 301n16, 309n14, 310n17, 316n86, 317n18, 322n128, 325n17 Jezebel Valley 173 Jikirmish, lord of Mosul (d. 1106) 107 John Comnenus, Byzantine emperor (1118–1143) 74–9, 118–19, 139–40 John of Salisbury, bishop of Chartres (1176–1180) 96 John of Würzburg, German pilgrim 96 Jordan, river 6, 26, 158, 164, 168, 171–3, 212, 246, 259, 266, 288, 321n87 Joscelin (of Courtenay) I, count of Edessa (1119–1131) 51, 63, 65, 69, 103, 107, 164–5, 304n10 Joscelin (of Courtenay) II, count of Edessa (1131–1159) 111–12, 119–20, 140 Joscelin (of Courtenay) III, titular count of Edessa (1159–1200), seneschal of Jerusalem (1176–1193) 270, 319n21 Joscelin Pisellus, knight 202 Jubail see Gibelet Judaean hills 127–8 Kavanaugh, judge 8 Kebir, river 25 Kerak, castle 119, 140, 174, 178, 242, 244, 256, 258–66, 268, 323n139, 323n141, 323n143 Kharput, castle 103, 112 Khorasan, Khorasanian 113–14 Kilij Arslan, sultan of Rum (1092–1107) 63 Kipling 102 Kitchener 290

Kurds, Kurdish 148–50, 187, 189–90, 198, 206, 239–41, 243 Langres, bishop of 95 Latakia 46–7, 64, 137, 151, 301n32, 302n63, 302n67 Lebanese mountains 161, 257 Lebanon 18, 25, 48, 98, 105, 161 Le Chastellet, castle see Jacob’s Ford Le Mans 83 Le Moinetre, castle 211–2, 317n131 Lee, general 27 Little Big Horn, battle 164–5 Louis VII, king of France (1137–1180) 187, 199–201, 317n130, 322n128 Lydda 121, 126, 160, 168 Maghreb, Maghrebi 152, 258 Magna Mahomeria see al-Bira Majd al-Din, governor of Aleppo 219 Malik Ghazi, Danishmend ruler (1095–c.1105) 62 Malik-Shah, Seljuk sultan (1072–1092) 22 Manbij 112 mangonels 40, 78–81, 113, 262 Mansuriya, district of Cairo 241 Manuel Comnenus, Byzantine emperor (1143–1180) 202 Mar Buniya 155 Mardin 65, 107, 110, 285 Margat, Hospitaller castle and lordship (Marqab) 233, 271, 319n28 Marj Ayun, battle (1179) 249–50, 270 Mawdud, Sharaf al-Din, lord of Mosul (1108–1113) 64, 108–9, 112, 285 Mazoir family 233 Melisende, queen of Jerusalem (1131–1152) (d. 1161) 82, 118–20, 137, 139–40, 219, 307n110 mercenaries 10, 24–5, 33, 84–8, 91, 93, 98, 110–11, 115, 130, 143, 153, 156, 185, 215, 228, 235, 248, 261, 266, 269, 287, 306n58, 306n72 militia 10, 17, 23, 34, 47, 54, 69–71, 73, 75, 91–2, 94, 98, 133–5, 138, 182, 184, 269, 288, 292–3, 306n58, 306n76, 323n143 Milo of Plancy, seneschal of Jerusalem, lord of Transjordan (d. 1174) 189 mining, miners (sappers) 37, 70, 77, 80, 113–14, 196, 207, 210–11, 231–2, 237, 249–51, 277, 305n32 Montferrand 118, 137, 139 Mont Gisard, battle (1177) 156, 238, 270 Montréal, castle 64, 174, 244, 323n139

350

INDEX Monty Python 8, 277 Morphia, queen of Jerusalem (1118–1126/8) 65 Mosul 22, 64, 74, 85, 107–8, 110, 113, 118, 215, 265, 285, 287 Mount of Olives 160, 171 Mount Pilgrim, castle 53–7, 126 Mount Quarantene 169, 171 Mount Tabor 147 Mountjoy 177 Mubarak, servant 45 Munqidh dynasty 68, 80 Muzaffar al-Din, lord of Harran and Edessa (d. 1191) 4–5, 266

Philip of Milly, lord of Nablus (1144–1161), lord of Transjordan (1161–1166), master of the Temple (1169–1171) 189 pilgrims, pilgrimage 23, 28–31, 40, 89, 119, 136, 151, 157–60, 165, 168, 170–1, 174, 183–4, 221, 236, 259, 278, 294, 309–10, 313n73, 325n17 Pisa, Pisans 42, 45, 47, 50–1, 191, 193, 201, 203, 301n32, 303n107, 315n53, 317n114

Nablus 120, 146–8, 151, 157, 161, 173, 204, 265 council (1120) 59, 65 naphtha, Greek fire 41, 241 Nasir al-Din Muhammad 254 al-Nayrab 92 Nazareth 1–2, 4, 298n6, 299n13 Nile River 23, 65, 178, 180, 186–8, 193, 196, 201, 204, 244 Nizari see Assassins Nubia, Nubians 33, 130, 240–2 Nur al-Din Mahmud, Zengid ruler of Syria (1146–1174) 69, 80–1, 116–17, 119–20, 130, 132, 140, 167, 172, 180–1, 186–7, 191, 194–5, 202, 205–7, 209–13, 215–17, 219–20, 226, 234–6, 238–40, 243–4, 270, 281, 289, 308n147, 315n66, 319n30, 321n72, 321n75, 322n128

Al-Rakka 106 Ramla 37–8, 125–6, 128, 159, 161, 168–70 battle (1101) 63, 274 battle (1102) 63, 121–3, 276, 308n4, 308n13, 309n14 battle (1105) Raymond of Poitiers, prince of Antioch (1136–1149) 96, 111, 120 Raymond IV, count of Toulouse (1088/93– 1105), count of Tripoli (1102–1105) 48, 50, 54–5, 63–4, 301n49, 303n90 Raymond II, count of Tripoli (1137–1152) 119, 140 Raymond III, count of Tripoli (1152–1187), bailli of Jerusalem (1174–6), bailli of Jerusalem (1185–1186) 236, 271, 317n135, 324n90 Red Sea 221–2, 271, 297, 318n1 Reinold, crossbow commander 41 relics see True Cross Reynald of Châtillon, prince of Antioch (1153–1163), lord of Transjordan and Hebron (1177–1187) bailli of Jerusalem (1177–1180) (d. 1187) 80, 120, 174, 219, 222–3, 238, 244, 258–61, 264–5, 270–1, 277–9, 297, 323n143 Richard, earl of Cornwall (1227–1272) 132 Ridwan, ruler of Aleppo (1095–1113) 108 Roger, priest at Banyas 210 Roger of Salerno, regent of Antioch (1112– 1119) 64–5, 102, 295 Roman Empire 9, 85, 163, 168, 171, 230, 296 Romanovs 102 Rothold 300n21 Ruad, island 255–6, 322n121 Rule of the Templars, The 158

Odo of Saint-Amand, marshal and butler of Jerusalem, master of the Temple (c.1171–1179) 249 Orontes River 76, 181 Oultrejourdain see Transjordan Pagan the Butler, lord of Transjordan (1126–1142) 119, 140 Palermo 198, 244 Palestine 6, 20–1, 23, 29–31, 34–5, 47, 53, 57, 59–60, 67, 121, 124–5, 134, 136, 141–5, 158–9, 162, 170, 175, 179, 181, 197, 203, 207, 224, 235, 246, 254, 257, 267, 296, 309n14, 314n23, 322n133 Palmarea 119, 140 Paschal II, pope (1099–1118) 64 Pelusium see al-Farama Peter the Lombard 300n21 Pharos, lighthouse of 177 Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders (1168–1191) 270 Philip of Macedon 209

Qalat Jabar 106 Qinnasrin 137 Quwaiq, river 75

Saewulf, early twelfth-century English pilgrim 28–9, 159 Safad, Templar castle 173–4, 232, 236–7, 246, 313n89

351

INDEX Saffuriya, springs of 259, 267, 294, 323n139 Safita see Chastel Blanc St Abraham see Hebron St Albans 153 St John Besides the Jordan, monastery 158 Saladin, Salah al-Din Yusuf, ruler of Egypt (1169–1193), ruler of Syria (1174–1193) 32, 147, 152, 155–6, 162, 172–4, 187, 190–1, 195–6, 198, 205, 209, 216, 218, 222–8, 232, 235–7, 239–66, 270, 274, 285, 287–9, 292–3, 295, 298n7, 319n21, 322n116, 323n143, 324n148 Hattin, battle (1187) 269, 271 Mont Gisard, battle (1177) 238 Samaria, Samaritans 134, 147 Saone, lordship and castle 233 Al-Sawad 48 Scandelion, castle 55–7 Scotland 84 Seljuk Turks 20, 22, 63, 143–4, 308n147 as-Sennabra, battle 64, 109, 144, 266, 278 Shaizar 26, 67–8, 75–81, 103, 119–20, 139, 277–8, 305n30, 305n32 Sharaf al-Ma’ali, son of al-Afdal 121 Shi’ites 21, 23, 26, 71, 73, 83, 129, 143, 155, 179, 204, 259 Shirkuh, Asad al-Din, Kurdish military commander for the Zengids (d. 1169) 187–9, 194–5, 204, 206, 213, 220, 243, 254, 315n47 Sibylla, queen of Jerusalem (1186–1190) 200, 270–1 Sicily, Sicilians, Norman Sicily 179, 186, 198, 201, 203–4, 220, 224, 227, 244–5, 270, 297, 316n86, 317n116 Sidon 41, 52, 64, 151, 153–4, 213–14 Silk Roads 31,100 Sinai desert 188, 244, 258, 323n140 mount 127, 174 Soqman, ruler of Diyar-Bakr (1101–1104) 107 squires 4, 17, 122, 191, 299n12 strategy theory 13–15, 272–97 ‘overstretch’ 288–90 ‘swamping’ 225, 266, 273, 288–90 ‘fog of war’ 290–2 ‘friction’ 292–5 strategic culture 282–6 leadership styles 279–82 strategy and policy 273–6 strategic decision making 277–9 Sudani see ‘Black’ Regiments Sultanshah of Aleppo 69

Sunnites 21–2, 49, 71, 84, 125, 129, 155, 179, 239, 241 Syria, Syrians 18, 20–3, 25, 29–30, 32, 34, 46, 49, 53, 57, 60, 67, 69, 75, 80, 82, 94, 99, 102–3, 105, 112–13, 129, 131, 137, 142–5, 149–50, 161–3, 167, 174–5, 177, 179–80, 186–8, 194, 202, 204, 207, 216, 218, 223–4, 236, 239–40, 244–5, 247, 249–50, 254, 256, 258–61, 264–5, 270, 275, 278, 280, 284, 302n67, 306n58, 309n14, 314n30 Tancred of Hauteville, regent of Antioch (1101–1103, 1104–1112), regent of Edessa (1104) 46–7, 51, 63–4, 151 Taqi al-Din Umar, Saladin’s nephew, Ayyubid governor of Hama (d. 1191) 254, 264–5 Tell Danith, battle (1115) 105 Tell al-Safiya see Mont Gisard Templars, Order of the Temple 1–6, 16–17, 65, 74, 82–4, 88, 92, 94, 96–7, 127, 129, 131–2, 152–3, 158–9, 168, 170–1, 173–4, 191, 201, 212–14, 216, 227, 233–4, 236–7, 244, 246–53, 258, 265–6, 270, 293, 298n2–3, 298n6, 299n9, 299n12–13, 306n58, 309–10n17, 311n1, 312n51–2, 313n73, 313n76–7, 313n79–83, 313n89–90, 315n55, 317n130, 319n34, 320n40, 321n83–4, 322n128 Theoderic, German pilgrim (d. after 1174) 158 Theodora Comnena, queen of Jerusalem (1158–1163) 202 Thierry of Alsace, count of Flanders (1128– 1168) 80, 96, 119, 162, 219, 277 Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury (1162–1170) 200 Tiberias 6, 89, 160, 172, 236–7, 250–1, 254, 266–7, 269, 293, 295, 299, 312n66, 313n89, 322n116 Tinnis 186, 193, 244–5 Toledo, count of 170 Toron, castle 55–7, 150, 174 Toron des Chevaliers 126, 169–70 Tortosa (Syria), battle, town and castle 48, 63, 255–6, 303n90 Tower of David, citadel of Jerusalem 170, 264 Transjordan (Oultrejourdain) 174, 179, 212, 214, 222, 258, 260–1, 293 Tripoli city 21, 41 county of 11, 18, 25–6, 67–8, 76, 84, 105, 109, 111, 119, 137, 140, 172, 181, 207, 209–12, 215–17, 225, 234–6, 255, 259, 301n49, 302n69, 303n90 siege of (1102–1109) 15, 48–55, 64, 126, 150

352

INDEX True Cross 227, 250, 264, 318n15 Tubania, springs 259, 294 Tughtigin, Zahir al-Din, atabeg of Damascus (1104–1128) 83, 108–9, 118 Turanshah, Shams al-Duala (d. 1180) 241–2 Turbessel (Tell Bashir) 108, 304n10, 307n115 Turcopoles 189, 191, 289–90, 298, 313n90 Turks, Turkic 4–5, 18, 20–3, 25, 30, 32, 49–50, 53, 62, 66, 69, 71, 73–4, 76, 84, 87–9, 91, 93, 98, 100, 102–10, 112–16, 124, 130, 137–8, 143–50, 156, 162, 166–7, 175, 179, 185–90, 194–6, 198, 204, 206, 215, 217, 232, 235, 240–1, 243, 248, 250, 259, 261–2, 266–7, 278, 285, 288, 291, 304n1, 306n58, 308n147, 317n130, 319n30, 323n143, 324n148 see also Danishmend Turks; Seljuk Turks Turris Neapolitana, fortification in Nablus 146 Tyre 41, 52–3, 55–7, 59–60, 64–5, 67, 84, 136, 159, 181, 213, 257, 303n104, 322n116 Usama Ibn-Munqidh (d. 1188) 78–80, 129–31, 151, 157, 185, 305n30, 308n2, 326n47 Valania 64 Venice, Venetians 57–60, 65 Vietnam 272–4

Walter of Quesnoy, knight (d. after 1164) 210 William of Bures, prince of Galilee (1112–1142), constable of Jerusalem (1123–1142), custos of Jerusalem (1123–1124) 82, 86–8, 164–5 William Dorel, lord of Botron (d. after 1174) 3 William-Jordan, count of Cerdagne, count of Tripoli (1105–1109) 50–1, 64 William IV, count of Nevers 201 William II, archbishop of Tyre (1175–c.1186), chancellor of Jerusalem, chronicler 21, 56, 59, 77, 80–1, 89, 92, 96, 104, 111, 126–8, 132–5, 153, 156, 161, 181, 190, 192–4, 202, 204, 210, 213, 247, 255, 260, 262–3, 278, 295, 305n32, 309n17, 310n17, 315n47, 315n50, 316n108, 317n122, 321n76, 321n87, 321n95, 321n99, 322n124, 325n17, 326n48 William II, king of Sicily (1166–1189) 204, 244 Yemen 194, 223, 240 Yusuf al-Findalawi, lawyer and imam 92 Zengi, ’Imad al-Din, atabeg of Mosul (1127–1146) 69, 74, 81, 112–19, 137–40, 158, 167, 308n132 Zengids 81, 94, 98–9, 114

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