Battle of Hattin
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| Battle of Hattin | |||||||
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| Part of the Crusades | |||||||
 The Battle of Hattin, from a medieval manuscript |
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| Combatants | |||||||
| Ayyubids | Kingdom of Jerusalem | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Saladin | Guy of Lusignan #, Raymond III of Tripoli, Balian of Ibelin |
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| Strength | |||||||
| Est. 12,000-20,000 | |||||||
| Casualties | |||||||
| Heavy | |||||||
| Ayyubid-Crusader War, 1177–1187 |
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| Montgisard - Jacob's Ford - Kerak – Cresson – Hattin – Jerusalem |
The Battle of Hattin took place on Saturday, July 4, 1187, between the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the forces of the Ayyubid dynasty under Saladin. It was a decisive setback in the fortunes of the Crusader movement, enabling the Muslims to regain control of Jerusalem from the Christians who had invaded the Middle East from Europe.
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[edit] Location
The battle took place in the Galilee near Tiberias in present day Israel. The battlefield, near the town of Hittin, had as its chief geographic feature a double hill, in fact an extinct volcano, (the "Horns of Hattin") beside a pass through the northern mountains between Tiberias and the road from Acre to the west. The Darb al-Hawarnah road, built by the Romans, served as the main east-west passage between the Jordan fords, the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean coast.
[edit] Background
Guy of Lusignan became king of Jerusalem in 1186, in right of his wife Sibylla, after the death of Sibylla's son (and Guy's stepson) Baldwin V. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was at this time divided between the "court faction" of Guy, Sibylla, and relative newcomers to the kingdom such as Raynald of Chatillon, as well as Gerard of Ridefort and the Knights Templar; and the "nobles’ faction", led by Raymond III of Tripoli, who had been regent for the child-king Baldwin V and had opposed the succession of Guy. Raymond left Jerusalem for Tripoli. The situation was so tense that there was almost open warfare between Raymond and Guy, who wanted to besiege Tiberias, a fortress held by Raymond through his wife Eschiva, Princess of Galilee. War was avoided through the mediation of Raymond's supporter Balian of Ibelin.
Meanwhile, the Muslim states surrounding the kingdom had been united during the 1170s and 1180s by Saladin. Saladin had been appointed vizier of Egypt in 1169 and soon came to rule the country as sultan. In 1174 he imposed his rule over Damascus; his authority extended to Aleppo by 1176 and Mosul by 1183. For the first time, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was encircled by Muslim territory united under one ruler. The crusaders defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, and in the early 1180s there was an uneasy truce between the two sides, which was broken by the raids of Raynald on Muslim caravans passing through his fief of Oultrejordain. Raynald also threatened to attack Mecca itself.
When Guy became king, Raymond made a separate truce with Saladin, and in 1187 allowed the sultan to send an army into the northern part of the kingdom. At the same time, an embassy was on its way from Jerusalem to Tripoli to negotiate a settlement between Raymond and Guy. This embassy was defeated at the Battle of Cresson on May 1, by a small force under the command of Saladin's son. Raymond, wracked with guilt, reconciled with Guy, who assembled the entire army of the kingdom (essentially a levée en masse) and marched north to meet Saladin.
[edit] Siege of Tiberias
After reconciling, Raymond and Guy met at Acre with the bulk of the crusader army. According to the claims of some European sources, it consisted of 1,200 knights, possibly as many as 20,000 foot soldiers, and a large number of mercenaries (including Turcopoles and other Muslims) hired with money donated to the kingdom by Henry II of England. A more likely figure would be approximately 15,000 Franks and 18,000 Muslims. Also with the army was the relic of the True Cross, carried by the Bishop of Acre, who was there in place of the ailing Patriarch Heraclius.
On July 2 Saladin, who wanted to lure Guy into moving his army out from Sephoria, personally led a siege of Raymond’s fortress of Tiberius while the main Muslim army remained at Kafr Sabt. The garrison at Tiberius tried to pay Saladin off, but he refused, later stating that "when the people realized they had an opponent who could not be tricked and would not be contented with tribute, they were afraid lest war might eat them up and they asked for quarter. . . . But the servant gave the sword dominion over them." The fortress fell the same day. A tower was mined and, when it fell, Saladin's troops stormed the breach killing the townspeople and taking prisoners. The town was then plundered and burnt.
Holding out, Raymond's wife Eschiva was besieged in the citadel. As the mining was begun on that structure, news was received by Saladin that Guy was moving the Frank army east. The Crusaders had taken the bait.
Guy's decision to leave the safety of his defenses was the result of a Crusader war council held the night of July 2nd. Though reports of what happened at this meeting are biased due to personal feuds among the Franks, it seems Raymond argued that a march from Acre to Tiberias was exactly what Saladin wanted while Sephoria was a strong position for the Crusaders to defend. Furthermore, Guy shouldn't worry about Tiberias, which Raymond held personally and was willing to give up for the safety of the kingdom. In response to this argument, and despite their reconciliation (internal court politics remaining strong), Raymond was accused of cowardice by Gerard and Raynald. The latter influenced Guy to attack immediately.
Guy thus ordered the army to march against Saladin at Tiberias, which is indeed just what Saladin had planned, for he had calculated that he could defeat the crusaders only in a field battle rather than by besieging their fortifications.
[edit] The battle
The crusaders began their march from Sephoria on July 3. Raymond led the vanguard; Guy the main army; and Balian, Raynald, and the military orders made up the rearguard. The crusaders were almost immediately under harassment from the Muslim skirmishers on horseback.
By noon on that day the Frankish army had reached a spring at the village of Turan some six miles from Sephoria. Here, according to Saladin, "The hawks of the Frankish infantry and the eagle of their cavalry hovered around the water."
It was still nine miles to Tiberias. Therefore, with only a half day of marching time remaining, any attempt to leave this sure water source to seek that objective the same day, all while under the constant attack of Saladin’s army, would be foolhardy. (In 1182 the Frankish army had only advanced 8 miles in a full day in face of the enemy and in 1183 Guy had managed but six miles in a similar situation, taking a full day.) But, as Saladin wrote, "Satan incited Guy to do what ran counter to his purpose." That is, for unknown reasons, Guy set out that very afternoon, marching his army forward, seeming to head for Tiberias.
It was a fatal mistake. When Saladin arrived from the taking of Tiberias, and after the Frankish army left Turan, the Muslims began their attack in earnest. Saladin sent the two wings of his army around the Frankish force and seized the spring at Turan, thus blocking the Frankish line of retreat. This maneuver would give Saladin his victory.
In the ensuing struggle the Frankish rearguard was forced to a halt by continuous attacks, thus halting the whole army on the plateau. The crusaders were thus forced to make camp surrounded by the Muslims. They now had no water nor any hope of receiving supplies or reinforcements.
Behe ad-Din summarizes the situation of the Frankish army:
- They were closely beset as in a noose, while still marching on as though being driven to death that they could see before them, convinced of their doom and destruction and themselves aware that the following day they would be visiting their graves.
On the morning of July 4 the crusaders were blinded by smoke from fires that Saladin’s forces had set to add to the Frankish army’s misery, through which the Muslim cavalry pelted them with 400 loads of arrows that had been brought up during the night. Gerard and Raynald advised Guy to form battle lines and attack, which was done by Guy's brother Amalric. Raymond led the first division with Raymond of Antioch, the son of Bohemund III of Antioch, while Balian and Joscelin III of Edessa formed the rearguard. While this was being arranged, five of Raymond's knights defected to Saladin and told them of the dire situation in the crusader camp.
Thirsty and demoralized, the crusaders broke camp and changed direction for the springs of Hattin, but their ragged approach was attacked by Saladin's army which blocked the route forward and any possible retreat. Count Raymond launched two charges in an attempt to break through to the water supply at the Sea of Galilee. The second of these saw him cut off from the main army and forced to retreat. Most of the crusader infantry had effectively deserted by moving on to the Horns of Hattin. Guy attempted to pitch the tents again to block the Muslim cavalry, but without infantry protection the knights' horses were cut down by Muslim archers and the cavalry was forced to fight on foot. Then they too retreated to the Horns.
Now the crusaders were surrounded and, despite three desperate charges on Saladin's position, were eventually defeated. An eyewitness account of this is given by Saladin’s son, al-Afdal. It is quoted by Ibn al-Athir:
- When the King [Guy] reached the hill with that company, they launched a savage charge against the Muslims opposite them, forcing them to retreat to my father [Saladin]. I looked to him and saw that he had turned ashen pale in his distress and had grasped his beard. . . . Then the Muslims returned to the attack against the Franks and they went back up the hill. When I saw them retreating with the Muslims in pursuit, I cried out in joy: "We have beaten them." But the Franks charged again as they had done before and drove the Muslims up to my father. He did what he had done before and the Muslims turned back against them and forced them back up the hill. I cried out again: "We have beaten them." My father turned to me and said: "Be silent. We shall not defeat them until that tent [Guy’s] falls." As Saladin spoke these words, the red tent of the King fell.
[edit] Aftermath
The Muslims captured the royal tent of King Guy, as well as the True Cross after the Bishop of Acre was killed in the fighting. Prisoners included Guy, his brother Amalric II, Raynald, William V of Montferrat, Gerard de Ridefort, Humphrey IV of Toron, Hugh of Jabala, Plivain of Botron, Hugh of Gibelet, and many others. Perhaps only as few as 3,000 Christians escaped the defeat. The anonymous text De Expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum Libellus claims that Raymond, Joscelin, Balian, and Reginald of Sidon fled the field in the middle of the battle, trampling "the Christians, the Turks, and the Cross" in the process, but this isn't corroborated by other accounts and reflects the author's hostility to the Poleins.
The exhausted captives were brought to Saladin's tent, where Guy was given a\s fellow captive Raynald, Saladin allowed the old man (Raynald was about 60) to drink but shortly afterwards said that he hadn't offered water to Raynald and thus wasn't bound by the Muslim rules of hospitality. When Saladin accused Raynald of being an oath breaker, Raynald replied that "kings have always acted thus." Saladin then executed Raynald himself, doing so after Raynald refused conversion to Islam (as conversion to Islam would no longer justify his execution), beheading him with his sword. Guy fell to his knees at the sight of Raynald's corpse but Saladin bade him to rise, saying, "Real kings do not kill each other." The True Cross was fixed upside down on a lance and sent to Damascus. Several of Saladin’s men now left the army, taking Frankish prisoners with them as slaves.
On Sunday, July 5th, Saladin traveled the six miles to Tiberias and, there, Countess Eschiva surrendered the citadel of the fortress. She was allowed to leave for Tripoli with all her family, followers, and possessions. Raymond of Tripoli, having escaped the battle, died of pleurisy later in 1187.
On Monday, July 6th, two days after the battle, the captured Templars and Hospitallers were given the opportunity to convert to Islam. According to Imad al-Din,
- only a few accepted, although those that did became good Muslims. The rest were given over to amateur executioners chosen from amongst the sufis and "men of piety," some of whom appointed substitutes lest they be laughed at, while Saladin watched with a glad face.
The executions were by beheading. Saint Nicasius, a Knight Hospitaller venerated as a Christian martyr, is said to have been one of the victims.[1] Guy was taken to Damascus as a prisoner and the others were eventually ransomed.
By mid-September Saladin had taken Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon. Tyre was saved by the fortuitous arrival of Conrad of Montferrat. Jerusalem was defended by Queen Sibylla, Patriarch Heraclius, and Balian, who subsequently negotiated its surrender to Saladin on October 2 (see Siege of Jerusalem).
News of the disastrous defeat at Hattin was brought to Europe by Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre, as well as other pilgrims and travelers. Plans were immediately made for a new crusade; Pope Gregory VIII issued the bull Audita tremendi, and in England and France the Saladin tithe was enacted to fund expenses.
The subsequent Third Crusade, however, didn't get underway until 1189, being made up of three separate contingents led by Richard Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa.
[edit] Legends and fiction
According to the chronicler Ernoul, news of the defeat caused Pope Urban III to die of shock.
The battle, and much of the background of the conflict, is depicted in the novel The Brethren by Sir Henry Rider Haggard. Although the battle itself was not shown, the aftermath, including the execution of Raynald, was depicted in the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven.
[edit] External links
- Excerpt from the Chronicle of Ernoul at Internet Medieval Sourcebook
- De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History
[edit] Sources
- M. W. Baldwin, Raymond III of Tripolis and the Fall of Jerusalem (1140-1187). Princeton University Press, 1936.
- De Expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum, trans. James A. Brundage, in The Crusades: A Documentary Survey. Marquette University Press, 1962.
- Peter W. Edbury, The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation. Ashgate, 1996.
- P. M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. Longman, 1986.
- R. L. Nicholson, Joscelyn III and the Fall of the Crusader States, 1134-1199. Brill, 1973.
- Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187. Cambridge University Press, 1952.
- Kenneth Setton, ed. A History of the Crusades, vol. I. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958 (available online).
- R. C. Smail, Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193. Cambridge University Press, 1956.
- John Gillingham, "Richard I", Yale English Monarchs. Yale University Press, 1999.
- Lyons & Jackson, "Saladin-The Politics of the Holy War". Cambridge University Press, 1982.
- Jonathan Phillips, "The Crusades 1095-1197". Longman, 2002.
