Saladin & the 3rd Crusade | Middle Eastern History | Extra History Complete transcript

Sephoris, July 2nd, 1187. The armies of the Crusader states march to war. Leading them are three nobles of the Christian kingdoms of the Middle East founded during the First Crusade. Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, Raymond III, Count of Tripoli, and the Grand Master of the Knights Templar. Before them, they carry the True Cross, a piece of wood from the crucifix Christ died on, secured in an ornate silver box. And they're on a rescue mission to relieve the besieged city of Tiberias.

But, they are not allies. In fact, until a few days ago, these men were divided over a bitter succession crisis. However, now they've put that aside to face a threat so great no one kingdom can face it. The man who united the Muslim Middle East against them, Saladin. And they don't know it yet, but they're marching right into a trap. A trap at the Horns of Hattin. This Extra History Complete is brought to you by you, our phenomenal patrons over on Patreon, who voted for Saladin's tale to be made into an Extra History series.

Thanks a million. >> [music] >> The man who would unite the Islamic Middle East and battle the Crusader states was born into Tikrit in 1137. His personal name was Yusuf with the honorific Salah ad-Din, meaning "the righteous of the faith", a name Westerners would contract to Saladin, which we'll be using for this series for simplicity. But whatever you call him, young Saladin was born into a world politically defined by the Crusades.

Now, if you've watched our series on the First Crusade, you might wonder how that uncoordinated trash fire managed to be so successful. The answer is weakness. By happenstance, the First Crusade managed to strike the Islamic Middle East at a time of fragmentation and infighting, when the Turkish Seljuk Empire was losing control over satellite states and breaking into competing provinces that were unable to coordinate a response.

After all, why let a united Muslim front get in the way of a good crusade? Sorry, sorry, had to do it once. In that vacuum, the invading Franks were able to carve out a series of Crusader states, which became new wildcard players in Middle Eastern politics. By the time Saladin became a young adult, there were three main kingdoms. The County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. A fourth had fallen to the Turks, sparking a Second Crusade that failed to capture Damascus.

Saladin's family were Sunni Muslims of Kurdish origin and served as soldiers and politicians under a family allied to the Seljuk Turks. Growing up with a classical Islamic religious education and frequent games of polo to train him as a cavalryman, he would actually receive most of his useful tutelage under his uncle, who trained him as a soldier and commander. Now, we could probably do a whole series on Saladin's early life and battles, but for the sake of brevity, let's just say this.

The first four decades of Saladin's life found him fighting other Muslims far more than the Crusader states. And this is because Saladin and his uncle served under Nur ad-Din, the ruler of the Seljuk Empire's Syrian province. And while Nur ad-Din's leadership was a critical factor in defeating the Second Crusade, he devoted much of his life to consolidating Muslim power in the Middle East, trying to unite the disparate Muslim provinces behind a jihad or holy war, declaring a crusade against the Crusaders.

Of course, political, religious, and ethnic divisions stood in the way of unity, but Nur ad-Din believed the only way to defeat the Crusader states and reclaim their territory, especially the holy city of Jerusalem, was to create an allied force among the Muslim states. As part of that effort, Saladin and his uncle took control of Egypt, which had been a Shia kingdom prior. Then, when his uncle died, the young Saladin took over as vizier of Egypt, where the charismatic soldier showed great talent for leadership, particularly in attracting talent through generosity, until he was declared sultan by his patron, the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad.

Saladin also began putting his brothers and sons in high-ranking positions, building his family into what would be the Ayyubid dynasty. And when Nur ad-Din died, Saladin took on his mission to unite the powers of Islam against the Crusader states via force when necessary. By 1186, he'd been named the sultan of both Egypt and Syria, skirmished with the secret of assassins, and had become famous for largely fighting other Muslims.

He mounted a propaganda campaign arguing that his conquest was necessary to defeat the infidels, but critics pointed out that when he did battle the Crusaders, he didn't always win. Eventually though, he finally had sufficient force to confront the Crusader states. And it just so happened to be a good time to attack because the most powerful of the Crusader states, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, was in a succession crisis.

King Baldwin IV, a sickly teenager, had come to the throne in 1174. Unable to have children and expected to die at any time, Baldwin was surrounded by plots throughout his 11-year reign with Raymond III, Guy de Lusignan, his sister Sibylla, and a freebooting noble named Raynald of Châtillon among the chief plotters. When Baldwin died, followed by Sibylla's son that he named as his heir, who also was sickly by the way, the nobles nearly came to blows.

So, to keep the crown away from Guy, Sibylla became the compromise candidate. But then, upon her coronation, she shocked the court by marrying Guy, thus putting him on the throne. An event so divisive, Raymond temporarily allied himself with Saladin against the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which just goes to show that politics often played as much a role as religion during these conflicts. Meanwhile, Raynald of Châtillon, a man who acted more like a pirate than an idealized image of a knight, was provoking Saladin.

He began raiding Muslim trade routes on the Red Sea, striking close to Mecca and Medina. But it was his blundering of a pilgrim caravan headed to Mecca in 1186 that made Raynald one of the most hated men in the Muslim Middle East. In retaliation, Saladin sprung his trap. He besieged the fortress of Tiberias, knowing that the Crusaders would be forced to attempt a rescue. And they did. The rivals put their squabbles aside and formed an alliance to crush Saladin.

Though really, even then they argued. Raymond insisted it was a trap that Tiberias, which was his fort commanded by his wife, should be sacrificed. But the others called him a coward, so they marched. July 3rd, 1187. It is so hot. The Crusader forces, weighed down by armor, trudge toward Tiberias. Saladin, they find, has filled the wells along their route, and mounted archers keep ambushing them with volleys of arrows before slipping away.

The plan had been to march to Tiberias in a day, but wounded men are slowing them down. So, they decide to stop at a spring for the night. But Saladin got there first. Instead of attacking, however, the exhausted Crusader army stakes camp. Then, Saladin's troops surround the Crusaders, beating drums through the night to keep them awake, yelling that God is great, and lighting grass fires to blanket the encampment in smoke.

Meanwhile, Saladin has a supply chain of camels bringing his forces fresh water. And in an extra twist of the knife, they take skins of it up to the Crusader lines and dump it out in front of the exhausted, parched men. The next morning, exhausted and choked by smoke, the Crusaders make a desperate drive toward the springs at the village of Hattin. Again and again, the demoralized Crusaders smash against Saladin's infantry, pierced by an unending rain of arrows.

At this point, Raymond, who had not wanted this plan in the first place, gives up and manages to break his forces through and flee to Lake Tiberias where he can withdraw. Saladin lets him go. He wants King Guy. He wants Jerusalem. And with Raymond's forces gone, this fight is unwinnable for the Crusaders. The sun beats down. Knights stumble into the Muslim lines, unarmed, begging to be killed. But Guy makes one last gamble.

He withdraws his forces to a ruined Iron Age hillfort on a high plain. Two low hills, the Horns of Hattin, guard the approach. And when Saladin's army begins to press him, he calls on God and the True Cross for aid, and orders a charge. If he can kill Saladin, he reasons, the Muslims will break. The assault takes Saladin off guard. Directing his troops, his son by his side, he suddenly sees the Christians surging toward him in a downhill charge.

The desperate attack buckles his infantry line, driving his front ranks back, so the combat swirls mere feet from him. But Saladin advances, yelling encouragement to his troops. They throw the Christians back, only for the enemy to rally once more and crash the front line again, the combat nearly reaching Saladin, who by this point realized that he was the objective. But his lines hold, and the Crusaders are sent scrambling back uphill.

His son says it's over, but Saladin says it will not be over until the king's opulent tent falls. But as he says this, he sees the canvas topple in the distance. The sultan dismounts and prostrates himself in prayer. God has given victory. Saladin has just annihilated the military power of the Crusader states, captured the King of Jerusalem, taken their most holy relic, and now the city of Jerusalem lies nearly undefended. >> [music] >> The Horns of Hattin, July 4th, 1187.

The battle is over. Bodies lie across the slopes, dismembered and baking in the sun. There are thousands of captives, but Saladin has asked for two of them by name. Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, and Raynald of Châtillon. When they come, Saladin's palatial tent is still being set up. Saladin then offers Guy a glass of iced julep, and the king, dying of thirst, sucks it down. It's a relief in more ways than one. He knows that in Muslim culture, to offer someone sustenance is a promise they will not be harmed.

Guy then hands the cup to Raynald, but Saladin interrupts. He had given the cup to Guy, not Raynald. The sultan stands, berating Raynald for his blasphemy and treachery, for breaking the peace between Saladin and the Crusader states by attacking pilgrim caravans, for blaspheming God and torturing Muslims. He then gives Raynald a choice, convert or die. Raynald refuses, and with one stroke, Saladin strikes off his head.

And upon seeing how the king now shakes, the sultan leans in and assures Guy no harm will come to him. "Kings," he says, "do not kill kings." The Battle of Hattin is often listed among the most pivotal military victories in world history. This is because Saladin had done much more than engage and defeat the armies of the Crusader states. He had utterly destroyed them. He had broken the military power of the Latin kingdoms to the point that they could garrison castles, but had no field army.

He'd captured the True Cross, the most holy relic of the Crusader states, dealing a severe blow to the kingdom's morale, and spurring a minor crisis of faith. And finally, he had taken hostage the king of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and so many high-ranking nobles that once the captives' families ransomed them back, their financial ability to wage war was diminished. The lower-ranking captives, those without a noble family to bail them out, were largely sold into slavery, flooding the Damascus markets to the point that a Christian slave could be had for only three dinars.

Knights of the military orders, the Knights Templar and Hospitaller, who were too dangerous to let live and useless as captives because they refused to be ransomed, were executed clumsily by clerics a few days after the battle. Only those few who did convert to Islam were spared. It was a monumental victory, but to make it count, Saladin knew he had to capitalize on it quickly. See, much like the Christian force that they had just defeated, Saladin's army was a coalition of semi-rivals.

For over a decade, Saladin had essentially struck a bargain with the leaders of the Muslim Middle East. Unite under the leadership of Saladin, accept the primacy of the Ayyubid dynasty, and he would defeat and conquer the Crusader states. And while this victory had shut the doubters up temporarily, he still needed to take a big prize in order to make that bargain seem fully worthwhile. And there was really only one objective that would truly vindicate him, Jerusalem.

Granted, it wasn't the most strategically important target, that would be Tyre with its defensive walls and positions on the Silk Road, but Jerusalem was symbolically crucial. Considered the third most sacred city in Islam, Jerusalem contained the Dome of the Rock, the site where the Prophet Muhammad was said to have ascended to heaven, standing on the rock where Abraham had prepared [clears throat] to sacrifice his son to God.

Across from it was the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where the Prophet had led prayers. And both were on the Temple Mount, a site also sacred to Jews and Christians. But when the First Crusade took Jerusalem in 1099, they'd turned the Dome of the Rock into a Christian church, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque into a palace, and later headquarters for the Knights Templar. By Islamic standards, this had spiritually polluted both sites, particularly the Dome of the Rock, since the alterations had included religious art depicting human figures, which are forbidden in Islam.

But if Saladin could reverse what the Muslim world looked on as an 88-year occupation, it would legitimize his campaign. And Jerusalem lay nearly undefended, with Guy having thrown everything into Hattin. Saladin swept into Christian-held Palestine, taking city after city. Knowing that his forces might splinter if defeated or even pinned down in a siege, he kept the speed of the advance up by offering the Christian cities generous terms if they surrendered without a fight.

All Christians had the option to stay, their properties unmolested, provided they agreed to pay a tax. And those that wanted to leave would have 40 days to settle their affairs, and would not be attacked as they made their way to Tyre. When the cities agreed, and most did, he ensured the agreements were honored. That summer, Saladin captured most cities in the Latin kingdom, save Tyre, and arrived outside Jerusalem in late September with an army of 20,000, where they found themselves facing a pitiful defense force.

The Christian leader was Balian of Ibelin, a Crusader noble who'd escaped Hattin and made it to Tyre with 3,000 men, the only noble to escape with his troops. Separated from his wife and children in Jerusalem, which everyone knew was headed for a siege, he'd brokered a safe passage agreement with Saladin that allowed him to pick up his family and escort them through the Muslim lines to his home city of Tripoli. But to get that sweet deal, he'd sworn an oath not to fight Saladin or stay in Jerusalem for longer than a day.

But when Balian and his 16 knights arrived in the holy city, the patriarch of Jerusalem declared him absolved of the oath and charged him with the city's defense. He accepted, even though it would mean murdering his family. Balian then sent a message to Saladin, informing him that he would be staying in Jerusalem. Saladin's reaction? He sent soldiers to escort Balian's family to safety in Tripoli, the kind of merciful act Saladin would later become famous for.

But with no knights in the city but his escort, Balian hastily knighted 60 squires and scratched together a few thousand in a defense force. Tradesmen carried spears, women manned the wall defenses, and on September 20th, Saladin attacked the Tower of David and the Damascus Gate, sending clouds of arrows into the fortifications. Again and again, they assaulted the walls with siege towers, but the defenders pushed them back, sallying out to harass the attackers.

So, Saladin changed tactics, attacking the city from the east with his host of siege artillery and Greek fire. Engineers tunneled under the defensive wall, collapsing a breach that his army took by assault. Inside, Christians carried out desperate acts of penance in hopes God would save them. They cut their hair, chanted prayers while walking the city barefoot, and Balian came to Saladin to negotiate a surrender. Though Saladin was not in the mood.

He was generous to cities that capitulated without a fight, but by the customs of medieval warfare, a city that resisted got sacked. Heck, the Crusaders had done as much when they took Jerusalem, slaughtering the Muslim inhabitants. So, Saladin stated he would kill the defenders and sell anyone left into slavery. To which Balian made a counter-threat. Breach the city, and they would not only slaughter the city's Muslim population, but destroy every mosque and shrine.

Saladin took a moment and met with his captains, weighing the risk of damage against the possibility of looking weak to his allies. He decided to make the deal. The final negotiation centered around ransoms, with the Crusaders coming up with enough money to pay ransoms for 7,000 of their citizens, with the 15,000 they could not afford sold into slavery. However, Saladin was able to free 3,000 Muslims previously kept by the Crusaders as slaves, and in the spirit of celebration, he released nearly a thousand Christian prisoners of war.

The holy city was handed over without a bloody sack. Muslim clerics stripped the images out of the Dome of the Rock and purified the Temple Mount with incense and rosewater. Saladin then hand-picked the cleric to give the first sermon there, a man who called the recovery of Jerusalem after 88 years a gift from God, comparing Saladin's achievement to that of the Prophet Muhammad himself. His victory was complete, casting Saladin as both a victorious general and a man of integrity.

In taking Jerusalem, he had killed no innocents, treated captive noble women well, and abided by his oaths. Even when advisers pushed him, he refused to attack the ransomed Christians headed to Tyre or destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, reportedly built over Christ's tomb. But the backlash was already on its way. The Vatican, October 20th, 1187. The Archbishop of Tyre approaches Pope Urban III. The Pope is surprised to see him so far from the Holy Land.

The Archbishop kisses the Pope's ring and tells him of the disaster of Hattin, of the capture of King Guy, and of the loss of the True Cross. He says Jerusalem is vulnerable. He doesn't know it's already fallen. Pope Urban's face goes red, then purple. His guards think it's rage until the Holy Father coughs and grasps at his chest. Dead of a heart attack, the last casualty of Hattin. But the word is out across Europe now, and nobles, including kings, are volunteering for a Third Crusade, including one that will prove himself Saladin's greatest foe, Richard the Lionheart. >> [music] >> City of Acre, September 1189.

The force of 8,000 Christians stands before the defensive walls, dug in between the port city and the shore. Among them flies the banner of Guy de Lusignan, the dispossessed king of Jerusalem, and until recently Saladin's captive. Saladin could destroy them now, and perhaps he should. Acre's garrison forces were larger than the besieging army, and Saladin's troops lay in wait, but he had also heard that the army of Frederick Barbarossa, King of the Holy Roman Empire, plans to march into Syria via Turkey, so he can't afford to pin himself down or reduce his dwindling forces.

Then, he sees dots on the horizon, ships, all along the sea, reinforcements from France, Germany, and Italy. He attacks, but the window for an easy victory has been lost, and the struggle for Acre will be one of the bloodiest engagements of Saladin's career, and the opening battle of the Third Crusade. Though the capture of Jerusalem was Saladin's most triumphant moment, it also marked the pinnacle of his power and influence.

For years, he had advocated that the full powers of the Islamic world be placed into his hands, with leaders setting aside disagreements over religion, politics, and ethnicity in order to retake Jerusalem. But now that that objective had been achieved, that unifying sense of jihad began to fracture. Old rivalries and differences reemerged, along with a new concern that Saladin and his Ayyubid dynasty was becoming a bit too powerful.

Troops began trickling back to their original rulers, with many never coming back. And just as this Islamic coalition began to splinter, Europe united under a new crusade. In the near century since the first crusade, support for crusading efforts had ebbed and flowed. European kings might send money, but they only rallied to go to the Holy Land personally during times of obvious crisis. And the disaster at Hattin, the loss of the True Cross, and the capture of Jerusalem was one heck of a big rallying cry.

This crusade, however, was different than previous ones. The recruitment message was much more coordinated via the church, the goals more clear. In fact, a new vernacular developed around the effort. While participants in previous efforts had termed themselves pilgrims, now the act of joining was increasingly called taking the cross, a term which led to the modern term crusader. And much of this effort was focused personally on Saladin.

Depicted as unfathomably evil by Christian propagandists, he was referred to by preachers as the son of Satan and depicted in illuminated manuscripts as one of the seven heads of the dragon of the apocalypse, which is metal AF if you ask me. Plus, kings going on crusade instituted a new tax to fund their military efforts, aptly named the Saladin tithe. But it's important to remember that these European leaders were no more united than Saladin's fragile alliance.

In fact, of the three kings who joined the crusade, the only one beginning their quest relatively quickly, Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, set out on his journey in April of 1189. Whereas Richard the First of England and Philip the Second of France by contrast spent several years squabbling first. While Richard took the cross almost immediately, when he was still a prince, he had to settle some matters before he could leave.

Namely, Richard wanted to be king of England, so he allied himself with Philip of France to fight a war against his own father, and he won. As you can imagine, Richard's family politics were a bit bonkers. Anyway, Richard became king while also holding vast territories in France, but that made going on crusade a bit awkward for Richard and Philip. See, Richard's holdings in France were actually more valuable than Philip's, and each wanted to usurp the other out to rule all of France.

But now, both were rallying crusader armies next door to each other, meaning they had to agree to set out for Palestine at the exact same time, so neither of them could invade the other's territory once they were gone. So Saladin, who knew taking Jerusalem would mean fending off a crusade, had some time to prepare. But he didn't. In fact, he kind of squandered his momentum. Though in fairness, his troops were exhausted from years of drawn-out warfare against the crusader states, and he likely wanted to preserve his fragile alliance by taking easy victories.

He swept up small fortresses and cities that he could argue into capitulating without a fight, sometimes even trading high-value captives for them. Anything to avoid costly and demoralizing sieges. But this meant that he left the city of Tyre, its defenses swelled by Christian refugees from Jerusalem and other cities, as a center of resistance and an easy place for crusaders to disembark. Another major mistake was letting King Guy of Jerusalem go.

An act so mind-bogglingly reckless, historians still argue about his motive. He may have simply felt bad for Queen Sibylla, as Saladin always had a soft spot for his rivals' families, and he did love to be generous, even to the point of recklessness. In fact, his lieutenants actually used to hide money to prevent him from giving it away. Or perhaps he thought that Guy would create discord among the other crusaders who were competing to replace him.

Whatever the reason, he miscalculated. After a noble named Conrad, who had seized and defended Tyre after Hattin, refused Guy entrance into the city, the dispossessed king rallied a small army and put Acre to siege. And then came Saladin's worst mistake, dawdling rather than committing forces to destroy Guy, which drew the Third Crusade to his small army like a magnet. Saladin finally hit the Christian camp on October 4th of 1189, but by then it was too late to be easy.

The combined forces of the crusader kingdoms and the foreign reinforcements numbered 30,000, and they were in high spirits. Crossbowmen savaged the Muslim front ranks, followed by a charge of men-at-arms and heavy knights. Saladin's right wing, his weakest troops, broke, and the crusader forces stormed all the way into Saladin's camp. But there, the crusaders broke ranks to plunder, as they seem to always kind of do.

Then Saladin hit them with force, sending them fleeing from the slaughter. Other Christians, seeing their companions routed, believed the battle lost and broke, only to then find themselves attacked by Acre's garrison that sallied out to join the battle. Then Saladin sent the enemy corpses down the river so they'd float through the crusader camp. It was a victory, but barely. Several of Saladin's commanders had lost their fortunes due to the Christian plundering, and the near defeat wrecked morale.

He had not relieved Acre, and Saladin could not commit his whole military force to dislodging them, for Frederick Barbarossa would invade Syria within months. So Saladin entered the thing he desperately wanted to avoid, the grind of endless siege warfare. And with both sides controlling portions of the port, they could both endlessly reinforce by sea. The result of which was a double siege. The Christians dug in, besieging Acre, and Saladin dug in to besiege the Christian besiegers.

A double ducking of siege, if you will. Harassing fire from catapults peppered Acre's defenders. Crusader barges with tall siege engines rode into port as floating artillery platforms until Saladin's own siege engines burned them down with pots of incendiary Greek fire. Both sides captured men and tortured them within view of the enemy, and the besiegers used anything, including human bodies, to fill in the defensive trenches before Acre.

Whatever was thrown in, the Muslim defenders had to pull out. When the Christians did breach the wall, the garrison would sally out to fight the besiegers while engineers in the city hastily repaired the damage. Saladin's only stroke of luck came in June of 1190, when he received word that Frederick Barbarossa had been thrown from his horse while crossing a river in Anatolia, and the German king drowned in his heavy armor, leaving his contingent leaderless and racked with disease.

And while a few managed to arrive at Acre, they did so just in time to suffer through one of the worst winters Palestine had seen in decades. Their food so short, the crusaders ate pack animals and possibly even human corpses. And then, 18 months into the siege, Richard and Philip arrived, and things changed. Because they brought with them enormous catapults named Wait, no. Really? Named Bad Neighbor and God's Own Catapult.

Oh, I'm loving this. So expensive were they to maintain that a priest had to stand by them during their operation, praying and asking for donations to pay for repairs when they broke down or were damaged. An equally large Muslim catapult, dubbed Bad Relative, returned fire. This was a new type of siege warfare. The previous catapults could do no more than harass and injure defenders, but these named beasts knocked great holes in the defensive walls.

It was clear Acre would fall. Yet something else appeared in Saladin's camp. A diplomat secretly sent by Richard without Philip's knowledge. Richard, ill with scurvy and calling on codes of chivalric honor, asked for a gift of fruit and ice, and he suggested they meet for talks. Saladin, ever hospitable to enemies, sent the requested peaches, dates, figs, and ice along with a message. No meeting. Not until they had a peaceful truce.

For if the kings met as friends, then later fought, it would bring dishonor on both of them. And fight they would, in a battle that would stand as one of the greatest personal rivalries in all of history. >> [music] >> Outside Acre, August 20th, 1191. An aide calls Saladin out of his tent. The crusaders, it seems, are making some kind of move. In the months since Acre's surrender, Saladin and Richard have been mired in negotiations.

Saladin has agreed to pay 200,000 dinars, return the True Cross, and release captives in exchange for Richard releasing the 2600 men of Acre's garrison. But these talks have drawn out as Saladin scrapes up the money and seeks assurances that Richard will release prisoners of rank. And when the deadline for the full payment arrived, Saladin could only offer 100,000 dinars for half of the prisoners. Richard said no, and now his troops are on the move.

Clearly, this troop deployment is some new negotiating tactic. Then Saladin sees the tied-up prisoners at the center of the crusader army. That doesn't make any No. Swords flash and spears strike, and in an industrial display of brutality, Saladin's army watches as Richard's men butcher every last Muslim captive. The fight for Jerusalem has begun. After the siege of Acre, Saladin's position was more precarious than ever.

He had poured enormous amounts of both blood and treasure into its defense, and now, in addition to the humiliation of the loss, he had to shoulder the shame of being unable to save his captured men. His only recourse being to execute crusader captives in retaliation. His army was exhausted and dispirited, crucial support from the sultans and caliphs were drying up, and his Egyptian fleet berthed in the harbor had been captured.

Worse than all of that, during the siege of Acre, his Ayyubid power structure, the family members he'd placed in high positions, failed to deliver. Key relations had held back reinforcements and resources, looking after their own domains rather than aiding their sultan. The truth was, Acre revealed the limitations and weaknesses of Saladin's leadership. True, he was a charismatic commander who was excellent at inspiring troops and rallying disparate camps behind a single message, and no one could doubt that his magnanimous generosity, spotting talented soldiers and administrators, then rewarding them handsomely to gain support, was politically astute.

But more than anything, he was lucky. Nur ad-Din had died just as he and Saladin were about to come to blows. Guy had neglected to leave a garrison at Jerusalem when he marched to Hattin, and Frederick Barbarossa drowned in a river. This luck tended to look a lot like divine favor, supporting Saladin's claim to be God's instrument. But it was becoming increasingly clear that Saladin, despite his many talents, was not a great general.

And with this series of losses, the flip side of his best qualities were coming out. His extreme generosity now looked foolish, having left the army financially vulnerable. His charisma and campaign of rallying support by sponsoring schools and preachers to carry his message now just looked a lot like dragging allies into a costly conflict. And with his luck seemingly deserting him, people began questioning whether God still favored him.

So what did Saladin do? He turned to his best weapon, letters. He and his scribes drafted correspondence to all of his allies, emphasizing that if they did not send aid, Jerusalem might be lost. Despite Saladin's loss of face, the crisis of losing Acre and potentially Jerusalem re-galvanized his patrons in Baghdad and allies whose support had wavered, which was good for him. Because Richard was now in sole command of the Crusade, and he was ready to move.

After the Crusaders victory at Acre, several nobles declared their part of the Third Crusade done and went home. This included Philip II of France, who having seen the Count of Flanders die during the siege, decided to return in order to settle the succession. Richard was now the only king in the army and able to minimize some of the political infighting. For instance, who would be king of Jerusalem? Conrad, who held Tyre, or Guy?

Well, Guy was Richard's relative, so that kind of solved that. But more important was Richard's monopolization of military strategy. And unlike Saladin, there was no question of Richard's abilities as a general. Richard marched south, but not an ill-considered march like the one that had doomed the Christian army at Hattin. Rather, a steady, disciplined move along the coast, supported and supplied by a fleet of ships.

As before, Saladin hurried his force with archers, trying to slow them as he had at Hattin. But the difference was Richard had planned for a slow, careful march, never stretching his force out to make it vulnerable. So slowly they marched, with the heavily armored knights from Europe sometimes having 10 arrows sticking from their backs. And this march worried Saladin because it was clear that Richard intended to take the city of Jaffa, one of the ports serving Jerusalem.

And not only would off Saladin's Palestinian territories from the sea, it meant Richard could then strike one of two targets, both vital to the Sultan. The first and most obvious was Jerusalem, the holy city. But the second, the city of Ascalon, was the gateway between the Ayyubid territories of Syria and Egypt, a terrifying prospect since Egyptian wealth funded most of Saladin's armies. He had to strike. Arsuf Wood, September 7th, 1191.

Saladin's forces come out of the forest, banging kettle drums, blowing trumpets, and banging gongs. Almost entirely mounted, their light crossbowmen fire, then part for the cavalry to come through and unleash their own rain of arrows. Then, when gaps open in the Crusader line, they surge forward with swords and maces until they're beaten back. The Crusader vanguard has already reached Jaffa, and Saladin hopes to stretch the army out by goading units into a counterattack, then [clears throat] surrounding and destroying them.

He goes to the battle line personally, urging his troops on. But the Knights Hospitaller have had enough. Against orders, they unexpectedly charge Saladin's troops, catching many of his archers dismounted. And after a hesitation, the rest of the Crusader army follows in the attack. King Richard himself is seen fighting in the thick of combat. It's a route. Saladin's army flees, deeply dishonored, and the Christians take Jaffa and thus the sea.

Saladin's response is scorched earth. Knowing he has to choose between the holy city and Ascalon, he makes the only real choice. He destroys Ascalon's defenses, as well as those of every fortress and captured Crusader castle between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Then, he mounts an intelligence campaign, sending spies into the Crusader camp and tasking Bedouin tribesmen with kidnapping and interrogating Crusader prisoners. And he also opens secret negotiations because Richard once again wanted to talk, though this time it was a little different.

So Saladin sent his most dependable brother, al-Adil, to handle the diplomacy and the spying which went along with it. al-Adil had been Saladin's partner in conquest for a long while, managing the wealth of Egypt so it could be funneled to military pursuits. But he was also a charming figure, an excellent sportsman and hunter, and an embodiment of the developing European idea of chivalry. Richard took a liking to him immediately, and with these negotiations, the Crusaders image of Saladin as the son of Satan began to dissipate, replaced by the image of a fair and noble opponent.

Moral of the story, get to know your neighbors before you decide to go to war with them. In fact, Richard took such a liking to al-Adil that he proposed a secret plan to marry al-Adil to his sister. Oh, you heard that right. Richard wanted to make al-Adil his brother-in-law and install the couple as king and queen of Jerusalem. Muslim troops would hold the city and Christian troops the towns outside. Saladin seriously considered this, even though he knew it might have been a ploy to try to separate the brothers by appealing to greed.

But then Richard insisted that al-Adil would have to convert to Christianity, so it was a hard pass. With negotiations now breaking down, Richard opted to march to Ascalon and on to Jerusalem because Saladin's army was falling apart. The crises had mounted for Saladin. His leaders were restless and his empire in need of maintenance. His method of stalling the Crusade by keeping an army in the field, threatening their forces for years on end, had taken a major toll on all of his men.

So, on December 12th, his commanders forced him to disband the army, and Saladin had to take what remained of his personal troops and fortify Jerusalem against the eminent attack. The defenders were so dispirited, there was question whether any would stand. Richard, seeing victory within his reach, marched for Jerusalem. The peasants in his army, though beaten down by the unusually harsh winter weather and eaten by lice and camp disease, were still kind of in a religious ecstasy.

Some had traveled and fought for years to achieve this goal. And now they were finally here, and they would take the holy city from the hated Saladin. But after they took it, Richard couldn't help but wonder, what then? There would be a counterattack, and they might not be able to hold the city. Not to mention his supply lines were stretched too long for a siege if it came to that. Woo, particularly in winter. Despite Saladin's defeats, he had slowed Richard just enough that attacking Jerusalem now was too dangerous.

So 12 miles from Jerusalem, he ordered his army to go back to Ascalon for the winter. Now this was the right decision militarily, but it most assuredly broke the Crusaders morale, especially when it leaked that Richard had been secretly negotiating with Saladin. So dissent grew in the Crusader ranks. In four months, Saladin had lost most of the cities he'd won after Hattin, but he still held Jerusalem. And that's when it hit him.

He didn't need to beat Richard. All he had to do was outlast him. Jerusalem, July 3rd, 1192. It's one of the darkest nights of Saladin's life. Last winter, with his forces in disarray after the defeat at Arsuf, Saladin thought he'd lose Jerusalem. But Richard's army had turned back when they were within sights of the holy city, the English king worrying that the cold weather and his fragile supply lines would not withstand a siege.

Now Richard is back, only 12 miles away, and the Sultan knows he cannot defend Jerusalem. Days ago, his emirs had pledged loyalty to his face, but he's heard that in private they're discussing whether to abandon him, and tensions between his Turkish and Kurdish contingents are heading towards violence. So he spends a night walking in the city, accompanied by his biographer, and he prays one more time at the al-Aqsa mosque, tears falling onto his prayer rug.

And the next morning, Saladin announces that they will abandon the holy city. In July of 1192, it looked all but sure that Saladin would lose Jerusalem, even though he'd done all he could to keep it. After Richard and his army had turned back from their winter attack in 1191, Saladin then changed tactics because the Muslim army wasn't going to be able to defeat Richard on the field in a conventional stand-up battle due to the coalition being too fragile and Saladin's men being too exhausted.

So rather than outright fight the Crusaders, Saladin had decided to outlast them. Richard was operating far from home, and though he insisted that he would not return until he'd retaken Jerusalem, Saladin knew that was easier said than done. In fact, he knew that all too well. The Ayyubid empire had deteriorated during his years managing the jihad, and compared to Richard, he was practically next door to his home territories.

Plus, everyone knew Philip II of France was interested in acquiring the Lionheart's French possessions, meaning Richard was always nervously glancing back towards Europe. So in the spring of 1192, Saladin stuck it out, attacking the Crusader supply lines and using diplomacy to exploit fractures in the Crusaders leadership. For instance, he entered in secret negotiations with Conrad, the man holding Tyre, who is in a dispute with Guy de Lusignan over the throne of Jerusalem.

That was such a bizarre knot of kidnapping and murder, we're actually going to do a whole postscript episode on it all next week, and it's going to be a doozy. But for now, all you need to know is that Saladin did his best to exploit those divisions and keep Richard occupied. For the record, Richard eventually just put his nephew on the throne anyway before making his second attempt at capturing Jerusalem. So on the eve of the attack, Richard's coalition already had some fault lines, and that was before he got the reports that his brother Prince John was secretly plotting to take over the throne of England.

Yeah, he needed to wrap things up quickly and return home. Which brings us right back to where we started off, Saladin despondent, convinced he's about to lose Jerusalem. Yet that's when Richard made the mistake that doomed his second expedition. Now, we talked a lot last episode about how Richard was a better general than Saladin, but Saladin, you see, he was the better leader. After Hattin, when Saladin had to choose between seizing the strategically important Tyre or the religiously important Jerusalem, he chose Jerusalem because he knew that if he turned away from the Holy City, his troops would consider it a betrayal.

But Richard, ever the good soldier, concluded that it made better military sense for this new attack to be directed toward Egypt. He would strike Saladin's most profitable province and then force the Sultan to hand over Jerusalem via negotiation. Looked great on paper. The only problem was Richard forgot he was fighting a crusade, not a war. His announcement that they would, for a second time, turn back from Jerusalem fatally damaged morale.

Worse, he let the army get within sight of Jerusalem before changing the target to Egypt. His war council split into factions, both nobles and common people who'd endured years of travel, hardship, and personal suffering in order to take Jerusalem insisted on making the attack. Richard, believing it wasn't feasible and worrying for his reputation if they lost, threatened to resign as leader. So, the crusade fractured, its leaders unable to agree on a strategy and withdrew to Ascalon.

Saladin, seeing this and thanking God for the return of his incredible luck, decided to strike back at Jaffa. Saladin's forces hit the city in late July hoping to overwhelm it and strand Richard in Ascalon. They took the outer defenses quickly, but then Saladin lost control of them. His army, still furious over the massacre at Acre, began to execute captured Christians. Horrified, Saladin managed to evacuate some of the defeated Christians into the city's citadel, which still held out, before reimposing discipline.

A week later, they'd nearly taken that citadel when Saladin heard shouts and turned to see ships pulling close to shore. A strike force of knights jumped into the shallows and began running in a charge, Richard at their head. Attacked from behind, the Muslim army fled, though not before Saladin tried to stage a surprise assault, but it was spotted and broken. Yet another loss, one which brought Saladin personally to the brink of collapse.

Throughout his life, Saladin had always suffered bouts of illness. Years of high-stress command duties while also running an empire had taken their toll. But after Jaffa, his exhaustion and digestive issues became particularly severe. Richard, ironically, was also burning with fever, fighting a camp disease. And since their armies were faring no better, fatigued and falling apart, and the Third Crusade locked in a stalemate, Al-Adil went back to the Crusader camp and the two forces entered negotiations to end the war.

Once again, Al-Adil worked his magic, displaying his courtly manners and bringing excellent gifts, reminding the Crusaders of Saladin's many good deeds towards Christian women and children, highlighting the Sultan's regular gifts to the poor, and pointing out that Jews, Greek Orthodox, and Coptic Christians lived in Muslim territory without issue. In fact, under Saladin, Coptic Christians had been invited back to Jerusalem.

They'd been expelled by the Crusaders. And through Al-Adil, the Western view of Saladin began to permanently shift. During previous talks, Richard had come to like Saladin, considering him honorable and chivalrous. But now, increasingly, the Crusaders respected his governance and generosity and would bring stories of this image back to Europe. Likewise, Saladin's camp took a liking to Richard, especially since the king personally cultivated relationships with Saladin's emirs in hopes of undermining the Sultan's power base.

He even offered to knight some of them. After months of haggling, they finally settled on an agreement. Muslims would hold Jerusalem but allow unarmed Christian pilgrims to visit, while the Christian states would hold the coastal land they'd taken with the exception that Richard would return Ascalon to Saladin but diminish its defenses. And there would be peace between Saladin and the Crusader states for 3 years. Not something either side considered a total win.

In fact, both were disappointed, but not a total loss, either. And with that, Richard got on a boat and sailed back to Europe. Saladin had indeed outlasted him. Then, Saladin made celebratory tours of forts, exercising his characteristic generosity by giving away the gifts Richard had given him. Even though he'd lost most of what he'd gained after Hattin and had failed to destroy the Crusader states, he was still greeted in Damascus as a hero.

Throngs of people came into the street cheering for the champion of Islam. Happy he could finally turn to domestic and economic matters, Saladin talked about finally making the hajj to Mecca. But the Sultan's closest advisors were worried. Even as he celebrated, they noticed his chronic fatigue and migraine headaches. Becoming more and more forgetful and easily tired, he declined in the next 3 months. Then, on March 4th, 1193, Saladin died, an imam sitting next to him reading the Quran.

And when his family went to pay his funeral expenses, they found in his personal treasury only one gold coin and 36 silver dinars. He owned no personal estates and had given all he had to the poor. In the end, his family had to borrow money to bury him. Saladin's sons fought to control the Ayyubid dynasty after his death, but it was Al-Adil who would ultimately take charge. And though in the 13th century, the Ayyubid dominance would fall apart piece by piece, for a time, it fostered a peaceful environment for trade and culture in the region.

But it would be the memory of Saladin, not his achievements, that would ultimately last. Remembered as a chivalrous and honorable opponent in the West, even held up as a model for European monarchs, in the Middle East, he's been cast as everything from a patriotic figure for Egyptians and Kurds to a model for pan-Arabists and those that see themselves as battling the West. Yet neither of those images are what we see when we look at the real Saladin.

We see a complicated man who could be both merciful and ruthless, an inspirational leader who managed to hold onto the greatest victory of his life by the skin of his teeth, and whose greatest strength was not as a military conqueror, but as a negotiator and coalition builder, always willing to approach enemies with respect and broker deals. A rare historical figure that in the end was respected by friends and enemies alike.

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