Two main roads led southward from Acre. One crossed the river Kishon at a point which on the map is about half way between Nazareth and the sea, passed over the middle of Mount Carmel, and then along the eastern side of the plain which lies between the coast and the mountain-range of Samaria and Judea. Cross-paths through the defiles of this range led from the road to the Holy Places of southern Palestine—Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron—and connected it with the great lines of communication running through these places southward to Egypt and Mecca and northward up the Jordan valley to Damascus; paths across the plain connected it with the other great main road, which followed the coast-line all the way to the mouth of the Nile. The inland route was the more direct way to Jerusalem; but for the Crusaders the coast route was the safer, indeed the only safe one. The re-conquest of the land must begin with the re-conquest of the seaboard towns. Acre might serve as principal base for the whole expedition; but this was not enough; before the Crusaders could venture into the interior of the land they must make sure of being able to communicate with Cyprus and with Europe through other ports besides Acre, and with Acre itself by sea as well as by land. They must also endeavour to block at least 1191 one of the enemy’s lines of communication with Egypt; and of these the most frequented and important was the coast route, to which the entrance from Egypt, both by land and sea, was commanded by the great fortress of Ascalon. Thus the plan of campaign implied in the order issued on the night of August 20 was to regain, first and foremost, the whole seaboard of the Holy Land.
The fortifications of Acre had been carefully repaired
under Richard’s personal superintendence;[744] and the other
preparations for departure were so far advanced that one
day sufficed to complete them. The two queens and the
damsel of Cyprus were left in the palace, with the king’s
treasure, under suitable guard. Bertram de Verdon and
Stephen de Longchamp were appointed constables of the
city.[745] Every man in the host was bidden to take with
him food for ten days; the ships were already loaded up
with the rest of the stores, and their skippers were instructed
Aug. 21
to sail close along the shore, ready to put in at intervals
and supply the host with whatever it might need. “Thus
they were to go,” says one of the pilgrims, “in two bodies,
one by sea and one by land; for Syria could be reconquered
from the Turks in no other manner.”[746] The total number
of the Frank forces is reckoned by the same authority at
three hundred thousand.[747] On Thursday August 22 they
began to cross the “river of Acre” (the Belus, or Nahr el
Namein, which falls into the sea just below the city) and
pitch their tents between it and the sea.[748] A large proportion
of them, however, had become already so demoralised by
their stay in the city, now once more filled with all the
luxuries and temptations of Eastern life, that they were
Friday
Aug. 23
very reluctant to leave it; and it was not till the next day
that Richard succeeded in getting the greater part of the
1191
host together in its new encampment, and himself followed
it thither, having taken his position in the rear to guard
against possible attack from the Moslems.[749] The detachment
at Keisan was, however, too small to venture upon anything
more than a harmless demonstration at a safe distance;[750]
Sat.
Aug. 24
and it was altogether withdrawn next day, when Saladin,
being now assured of the route which the Franks intended
to take, disposed his army on the hills above Shefr’ Amm,
ready to attack them on their march along the shore.[751]
They seem not to have started till Sunday, August 25.[752]
Richard led the vanguard; his English and Norman followers
had charge of the great Standard which was surmounted
by his royal banner and was to serve as guide and rallying-point
for the whole host. The Frenchmen under the duke
of Burgundy formed the rearguard. They soon found
themselves in difficulties. The roads of Palestine had been
originally good Roman ones; but by the closing years of
the twelfth century even the highroads had become in many
places little more than trackways. The transport corps,
struggling through an awkward passage, fell into confusion;
at the critical moment the Saracens swooped down, cut
them off from the rearguard, and drove them towards the
sea. One John FitzLuke spurred forward and told Richard
what had occurred; “and the king with his meinie galloped
back at a great pace; he fell upon the Turks like a thunderbolt—I
know not how many he slew”;[753] “and they fled
before him like the Philistines of old from the face of the
1191
Maccabee.”[754] The Franks re-formed in order, and proceeded
Aug. 25
without further interruption till they found a convenient
camping-ground, seemingly near the mouth of the Kishon,
whence a short day’s march brought them to Cayphas,
the modern Haïfa. Here they encamped for two days
between the castle, which they found deserted, and the sea.
This first brief stage of their journey from Acre—it is only
about ten miles—had taught them at least one practical
lesson: that on a march along the burning sand of the
Syrian coast in August superfluous baggage was to be
avoided. They therefore discarded everything that was not
strictly necessary. The fight on the way had also another
good result; it had healed Richard’s feud with William
des Barres. William had fought with such valour that the
king’s admiration had overcome his anger, and the gallant
Frenchman was received back into favour by the Lion-Heart.[755]
On Tuesday August 27 the Crusaders set out again, and wound their way unmolested round the point of Carmel to Capharnaum, a distance of about eight miles; finding this place also deserted, they stopped there to dine; and thence another march of four miles brought them to a spot where in later days the Templars were to rear a famous fortress known as Athlit, or Pilgrims’ Castle, but which the earlier pilgrims called the Casal (village) of the Straits—why, it is hard to guess, for the distance from the shore to the foot of the Carmel range increases all the way from Capharnaum southward, so that even from the north the approach to Athlit is much less of a “strait” than the pass which the host had just come through round the promontory.[756] The 1191 site indeed afforded an ample and convenient camping-ground, and also a place where the ships could put in. This they had been ordered to do, so the host waited there two Aug. 27 days to receive from them a fresh store of provisions.[757]
Meanwhile Saladin had on the night of the 24th removed his headquarters from Shefr’ Amm to Kaimoun (the ancient Jokneam of Carmel), where the inland road from Acre to Aug. 25 the south crosses the Kishon. Next day he rode over Carmel on a reconnoitring expedition to Mallâha, “the Salt-pit,” called by the Franks Merle. Returning on the 26th to Kaimoun, he there reviewed his army, and on the Aug. 28 morrow led it across the mountains to “the head of the river which runs by Caesarea.”[758] Caesarea lies, fifteen miles south of the Casal of the Straits, midway between the mouths of two rivers which are five miles apart. The northern one was called by the Crusaders “the River of Crocodiles”;[759] between its two principal springs passes Aug. 28-30 the main road leading south from Kaimoun. In the next three days Saladin shifted his camp three times among the hills above these springs.[760] From these hills, or from the last spur of Carmel, a little further south, he would see his first opportunity of checking or hindering his enemy’s advance. The slopes of the Carmel range were too steep to be practicable for his cavalry; it was doubtless for this reason that Cayphas and Capharnaum had been evacuated, and also that the fortifications of Caesarea had been dismantled.[761] When the Crusaders should reach Caesarea, however, they would be on the verge of Sharon, “the Level,” on whose eastern border the comparatively low mountains of Samaria rise by a gradual ascent, in terrace-like ridges, broken by many easy passes leading into the valleys and level spaces among the hills; while the distance between mountains and sea, which round the promontory of Carmel is only two hundred yards, is at the lower end of 1191 the Carmel range six miles. On August 28 Richard advanced from Casal of the Straits to Merle and spent the night on the ground where Saladin had been three nights before. Aug. 29 Next day the whole host followed, and with the king at its head and the Knights of the Temple and Hospital forming the rearguard proceeded towards Caesarea. By Richard’s orders all the sick had been transferred to the ships; but even for the able-bodied the day’s march—some fifteen miles—was a long, slow, and painful one over the burning sand in the heat of an August day in Syria; not a few died by the way; and the outskirts of the host were attacked by some skirmishing parties of Turks, who were, however, driven off by Richard. The weary pilgrims camped that Aug. 30 night on the bank of the River of Crocodiles, and next day entered the ruins of Caesarea, which were evacuated at their approach. Here on that evening or the next the ships came into port, bringing further supplies and also some of the “lazy folk” from Acre, who in response to an urgent summons sent to them by Richard had thus at length come to rejoin their comrades in arms.[762]
With these reinforcements the march was resumed on Sunday, September 1. On the preceding day Saladin had taken up a position on the hills whence he could, as soon as the Franks issued from Caesarea, make it impossible for them to avoid an encounter. They had scarcely set out when they were well-nigh surrounded by his light cavalry, 1191 and a shower of arrows fell upon them from all directions.[763] But his attack proved less effective than he had hoped, owing to the order of march which the Crusaders had now adopted. The princes, knights, and mounted men-at-arms advanced between two columns of infantry, of which one, marching on their left—the side nearest to the hills and the enemy—“protected them,” says an eye-witness, “as with a wall.” These foot-soldiers in their thick felt jerkins and mailcoats recked little of the Turkish arrows, while the heavier missiles which they hurled at their assailants in return wrought execution on both horses and riders. On the other side of the cavalry, along the sea-shore, marched another body of foot-soldiers who carried the baggage, and, being safe from attack, were always comparatively fresh, and ready to change places with their comrades on the exposed side when the latter were worn out with fatigue or wounds. Of the cavalry thus enclosed, the van consisted of the knights of the kingdom of Jerusalem under King Guy; the rearguard was composed of the mounted troops of Galilee and others, including no doubt the Military Orders; in the centre were the king of England, the duke of Burgundy, and their followers, with the Standard in their midst. Thus, slowly and cautiously, the host moved along; on this first day it advanced only about two or three miles, to the “river of Caesarea.”[764] This seems to be what is now called the Nahr el Mefjir; the Crusaders called it the Dead River, perhaps because the Turks—such at least is the pilgrims’ account of the matter—had done their utmost to choke it up and conceal its existence, so as to make it a trap for the strangers to fall into; but the trap may have been the work of nature, for the stream appears to be the same to which Bohadin gives the name of Nahr el Casseb, river of reeds or rushes. The host reached this stream at Sept. 1 mid-day, crossed it in safety, and pitched their tents on its southern bank: whereupon the Turks retired, “for,” says 1191 Bohadin, “whenever they were in camp, there was no hope of doing anything with them.” That afternoon Saladin shifted his headquarters to a place a little higher up on Sept. 1-3 the same river;[765] and for two nights both parties remained in their respective encampments, close to each other, but quiescent.
Thus far the pilgrims had been journeying along the edge of a plain consisting chiefly of moors, marshes, and sand. Before them lay a tract of more wooded country, and also, it seems, a part of the coast-road so neglected and overgrown with brushwood as to be impassable for their heavy cavalry. It appears that in consequence they made their way up the left bank of the Dead River till they struck the inland road.[766] Here they were much nearer to the hills and to the enemy. But Saladin had no mind to risk a general engagement till he had collected all his forces on a battle-ground of his own choosing; and on that same Sept. 3 day he again removed his camp further south, into the midst of a great forest where he hoped to intercept the Christians on their way to the city which must be their next objective, Arsuf. His cavalry continued to hang about the Christian host[767] and harassed it incessantly on its march; yet the pilgrims plodded on, keeping in the same order as before, never breaking it except when the enemy’s attacks became so intolerable that the infantry had to open its ranks to let the cavalry pass through for a charge. On one of these occasions Richard was wounded in the left side by a Turkish javelin, but so slightly that the wound only inflamed his eagerness for the fight, and all day he was constantly driving off the assailants.[768] At nightfall they retired, and the host encamped near the “Salt River”—now the Nahr Iskanderuneh—which runs down to the 1191 plain from Shechem and falls into the sea seven or eight miles south of Caesarea. Here, again, they stayed two nights (September 3-5). The horses had suffered more severely than the men from the Turkish missiles; the badly wounded ones were now killed and sold by their owners to the men of lower rank for food; owing to the rush for them and the high prices charged there was much strife over this matter, till Richard checked it by proclaiming that he would give a live horse to any man who would make a present of a dead one to his poorer comrades in arms.[769]
From the Salt River a tract of wild wooded country called the Forest of Arsuf stretched southward for twelve miles or more. Saladin had taken up his position on a hill almost in the middle of it; here his foot-soldiers had rejoined him on the morning of September 4; and here, on the same day, he received a message from the Christian princes asking for a parley about terms of peace between him and the native Franks of the kingdom, “such as might enable those from over-sea to return to their homes.” They were Sept. 5 evidently becoming awake to the extreme difficulty of their enterprise; and the Sultan’s apparent reluctance to engage in a pitched battle may have raised hopes of a peaceful settlement with him. He, on his part, was glad of anything to delay their further advance till the Turcoman reinforcements which he was expecting had arrived; so a meeting took place between Richard and Safadin, with Humphry of Toron as interpreter, early on Thursday, September 5. Richard spoke first; at the mention of peace Safadin asked, “What conditions am I to propose to the Sultan in your name?” “One condition only,” answered Richard, “that you restore the whole land to us, and go back to your own country.” This brought the conference to an abrupt end; Safadin returned to his brother,[770] and the Christians set forward on their march through the Forest. They seem to have traversed it in a south-westerly direction which brought them back to the coast-road. A 1191 report had reached them that the enemy intended to set fire to the Forest “and make of it such a blaze that they would all be roasted”; but nothing of the kind took place; “no host ever had a better day’s march; they met with no hindrance at all”; they passed the “Hill of Arsuf”—seemingly the hill which Saladin was occupying—and came safely out on the plain, where they found a good camping-ground beside what they called “the River of the Cleft Rock” (Rochetaillie).[771] They soon learned why they had been thus left unmolested through the day’s march; Saladin was disposing his whole force—estimated by a scout at three hundred thousand men, while the Christians were only about a third of that number[772]—to give them battle as soon as they should emerge from the cover of the Forest into the open fields and cultivated land around Arsuf. It was therefore in very carefully planned array that they set forth again on Saturday, September 7.[773] The host was divided into five battalions; the vanguard consisted of the Templars; next came the Bretons and Angevins; then the Poitevins, who were placed under the command of King Guy; after these the Normans and English with the Standard; in the rear the troops of the Hospital. Every battalion was subdivided into two squadrons, one of horse, one of foot, which advanced parallel to each other; the duke of Burgundy and some picked followers rode up and down and round about the host to regulate and direct its movements according to what they saw of those of the Turks; and Count Henry of Champagne acted as special “side-guard” on the flank nearest to the hills, where he rode continually alongside of the foot-soldiers.[774]
Saladin, meanwhile, had rapidly disposed his forces so as to occupy the hills parallel with the Crusaders’ line of march from the River of the Cleft Rock to Arsuf. By the coast-road the distance between these two places is little more than four miles. Setting out probably at dawn, the Christian vanguard reached the outskirts of Arsuf before nine o’clock, and some of the footmen began to pitch the tents among the fields and gardens.[775] Then the Saracen archers swarmed down upon the flank of the advancing host, pouring on it an overwhelming shower of arrows.[776] It was, however, in the rear that Saladin hoped to deliver his most effectual blow. Here his line curved round from the hills towards the mouth of the river, so that, as a Frank writer says, the Christian rearguard, “packed together so closely that you could not have thrown an apple at it without hitting either a man or a horse,” filled the whole space between the sea-shore and the enemies.[777] Thus surrounded, the crossbowmen and archers in the rearguard struggled on for hours, constantly compelled to turn round and sometimes to march backwards, returning as best they could the continuous fire of missiles in their rear. At length it ceased, only to be succeeded by an attack at close quarters from another body of Turks with maces and swords, who fell upon the foot-soldiers of the Hospital in overwhelming force. Once already the Knights had sent a message to Richard, begging for leave to disperse their assailants by a charge, but it had been refused. Now the Grand Master himself spurred forward and urged the same request. “Be patient, good Master; one cannot be everywhere,” was the reply. Richard was determined not to risk a charge till he saw the fitting moment for a general one all along the line. It had been pre-arranged that when the charge was to take place, two trumpets should be sounded in the van, 1191 two in the centre, and two in the rear, so as to be heard above and distinguished from the din of the innumerable Turkish brass drums and other noisy instruments, and to let the three divisions of the host know their relative positions. At last the leaders decided that the moment had come, and the signal was about to be given, when the Marshal of the Hospital and a Norman knight, Baldwin le Caron,[778] burst through the ranks without waiting for it, and shouting “Saint George!” dashed into the midst of the enemy. The other knights at once turned their horses and followed the rash example. For a moment the whole rearguard was in confusion, and a great disaster seemed imminent; but Richard’s promptitude retrieved the day.[779] The trumpets were sounded so instantaneously that the Turks seem never to have discovered what had really precipitated the charge.[780] While Richard himself, “quicker than quarrel from crossbow,” spurred at the head of his picked followers to what had now become the van instead of the rear, and drove off its assailants—the Turkish right wing—with great slaughter,[781] the rest of the Frank cavalry charged the Turkish centre and left wing and put them both to headlong flight, also with heavy loss of life. Saladin’s secretary and friend, Bohadin, escaping from the rout of the centre, tried to rejoin first the left wing and then the right, but found each division in worse plight than the one he had quitted; and when he reached the reserve he found there only seventeen men remaining to guard the Standard, all the rest having been called up by the Sultan to support their comrades, and shared their fate. Saladin tried hard to rally the fugitives, and when the Franks, having also rallied to their Standard, re-formed their ranks and sought to continue their march, they were impeded by repeated attacks which they had to turn and repel. At last another charge, led by William des Barres and Richard on the famous Fauvel, which he had brought with him from 1191 Cyprus, drove the assailants and carried the pursuers right up into the hills. There the dangers of the unknown and difficult ground were too great for the Franks to venture on an engagement; they therefore withdrew from the pursuit, and proceeded along the lower ground till the whole host was encamped outside Arsuf,[782] Saladin making no further attempt to molest them. He had succeeded in collecting all that was left of his army; but his losses were very heavy, and they included several emirs, while among the Christian slain was only one man of distinction, James of Avesnes.[783] Richard’s assertion that the battle of Arsuf had cost Saladin more lives of noble Saracens than he had lost in any one day for the last forty years[784] may not be literally exact; but Bohadin does not attempt to minimize Sept. 7 the disaster or to disguise its effect on the survivors and on Saladin himself. “God alone knows what intense grief filled his heart. All our men were wounded, if not in their bodies, in their hearts.”[785]
That night Saladin pushed on as far as the Nahr el
Aoudjeh, crossed it, and encamped on its southern bank.[786]
This river is called by the Frank writers “the River of
Arsuf,” but might have more fittingly taken its name from
Joppa, for its mouth is seven miles south of the former
place and only three miles north of the latter. It is formed
by the union of three streams, one of which rises at the
foot of the hills of Samaria, another in the valley which
divides Mount Ephraim from the Judean range, and the
third flows through the northernmost of the passes leading
from the plain into the hill-country of Judah. The inland
road through the plain crosses these three streams some
three miles above their meeting-point, and a road branching
off from the crossing-place runs alongside of the southernmost
stream up the pass, and thence over the plateau to
1191
Jerusalem. Saladin appears to have thought that the Franks
might march across the plain and attempt an advance
Sun.,
Sept. 8
upon the Holy City by this route; next day he re-crossed
the river and took up a position nearer to Arsuf, ready to
intercept them.[787] They, however, had no such intention.
They spent that Sunday at Arsuf, keeping the feast of our
Lady’s Nativity, and burying their dead hero, James of
Avesnes. On Monday the 9th they resumed their southward
march,[788] pursued it steadily despite the provocations
of the Saracen bowmen, and encamped that night on both
sides of the river near its mouth. Hereupon Saladin,
perceiving that their immediate objective was Joppa and
that he could not prevent them from reaching it, let
Tues.,
Sept. 10
them proceed thither unmolested and encamp next day
outside its ruined walls (for, like Arsuf and the more northerly
coast-towns, it had been evacuated and dismantled some
time before),[789] while he with all his forces hurried to take up
his position at Ramlah,[790] whence he could easily watch all
the three possible routes of the Christians’ next advance.
Two of these routes led—one through Ramlah itself—to
Jerusalem; the third led coastwise to Egypt. Either of the
two former Saladin might hope either to block or defend;
but with the third it was otherwise. The plain south of
the Nahr el Aoudjeh is much wider than further north:
Joppa is ten miles from the foot of the hills; between
Joppa and Ascalon the width of the plain varies from ten
to eighteen miles. The character of the country, too, is
different; instead of sand-dunes, marshland, moorland, and
forest, the way lies through cornfields, palm-groves, villages
and towns. It was thus not a place where the Saracen
mode of warfare could be made effective against that of
the Franks in a pitched battle; yet if the Franks decided
to continue their march down the coast, nothing but defeat
1191
in a pitched battle could prevent them from laying siege
to Ascalon.
Ascalon was a post of far greater importance than any
other on the whole coast south of Acre. It was the key to
Egypt, the only sea-port of any consequence between Joppa
and Alexandria, the only fortified city, now that Caesarea
was destroyed, on the whole length of the coast between
Acre and the Egyptian frontier. To the Arabs Ascalon
was “Syria’s Summit,” “Syria’s Bride.” Strong as were
her walls, Saladin knew that the garrison within them was
wholly inadequate for their defence, and that an attempt
to reinforce it might lead to trouble with his army, owing
to the unwillingness of men who had seen the fate of their
brethren at Acre to incur the risk of a like destiny by
shutting themselves up in another great fortress;[791] and he
knew, too, that if the Franks did besiege the place, his
troops would be unable to harass them from the hills as
they had done at Acre, the hills opposite Ascalon being
more than fifteen miles distant. He saw, in short, only one
means of preventing Ascalon from falling into the hands
of the Franks and becoming thenceforth as formidable a
danger as it had been hitherto a valuable protection to his
communications with Egypt. Giving out that he intended
to concentrate all his forces on the preservation of Jerusalem,
and commissioning his brother Safadin to keep watch
on the movements of the enemy, he on Wednesday, September
11, left the main body of his troops at Ramlah
under Safadin, and himself set out for Ascalon. He spent
Thurs.,
Sept. 12
a sleepless night outside its walls, and declared next morning
to Bohadin that he would rather lose all his sons—one of
whom, El Afdal, was present—than pull out one stone of the
place, but there was no alternative. Under his personal
superintendence the town was cleared of its inhabitants, and
the troops which he had brought with him, with every
other available man, were set to destroy its fortifications.
Ten days of incessant work, picking, digging, and burning,
reduced “the Summit of Syria” to a heap of ruins.[792]
These operations were just beginning when Safadin, who
Sept.
12-13
had transferred his headquarters to Jafna (called by the
Arabs Yebnah and by the Franks Ibelin), on the coast-road,
about thirteen miles south of Joppa, received from
the Frank leaders some new overtures for a treaty.[793] Their
object probably was to ascertain, if possible, something as
to the plans and movements of their adversaries; and
Safadin did his utmost to spin out the negotiations, his
brother having charged him to detain the enemy at Joppa
by every means he could devise till the Sultan’s work at
Ascalon, which he was most anxious to keep secret from
them, should be done.[794] The Franks were in no great haste
to move; the rich orchards and vineyards and olive-yards
round Joppa formed a delightful camping-ground; moreover,
they must in any case wait till their fleet came into
the harbour. Soon after its arrival some of the poor folk
who had been turned out of Ascalon wandered into Joppa
c. Sept.
20-22?
and astonished the Crusaders by telling them what Saladin
was doing. The tale seemed so incredible that Richard
despatched Geoffrey de Lusignan and some others by sea
to reconnoitre Ascalon and find out the truth. When these
scouts confirmed the report of the refugees, a council was
held to decide what should be done. Richard’s military
instinct told him that the plan with which they had set
out from Acre—the securing of the whole coast before they
risked any attempt on the interior—was the only sound
one. “The Turks are razing Ascalon; they dare not
fight us. Let us go and recover it. All the world ought to
hasten thither!” he pleaded. But the duke of Burgundy
and the French party urged that the shortest route to the
goal of their pilgrimage was the route which started not
from Ascalon but from the place where they now were, and
that Joppa should be rebuilt and made the base for an
advance upon Jerusalem. Richard, feeling that anything
1191
was better than dissension within the host, yielded to their
urgency. A tax was levied for the expense of the restoration
of Joppa;[795] and on October 1 Richard wrote home:
“Know ye that by God’s grace we hope to recover the Holy
City within twenty days after Christmas, and then we will
return to our own land.”[796]