What happened at the Siege of Acre?
In August 1189 King Guy of Lusignan laid siege to Acre, which Saladin had taken in 1187. Saladin’s army soon surrounded the besiegers, who held their camp through battles, famine and two winters while ships from Europe brought men and food. Philip II of France arrived in April 1191 and Richard I of England in June, and on 12 July 1191 the garrison surrendered on terms. When the ransom was not delivered, Richard had the Muslim prisoners killed outside the city on 20 August.5
Thomas Asbridge calls the siege arguably the twelfth century’s “most remarkable and fascinating military engagement”, and R. C. Smail notes that it was the only major siege in twelfth-century Syria carried to success while an enemy field army harassed the besiegers. The wider war is told in our guide to the Crusades, and the two kings who ended the siege in Saladin vs Richard the Lionheart.6
Acre after Hattin
Acre was the chief port of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Four days after his victory at Hattin, Saladin arrived before its walls on Wednesday 8 July 1187, and on the Friday, Lane-Poole writes, he heard the first Muslim prayers said on that coast since the First Crusade. He freed four thousand Muslim captives there, and the stores of the great market town paid for his war.7
Within two years the kingdom was gone except for Tyre. Smail explains that its garrisons had been stripped to fill the army destroyed at Hattin, so the towns and castles, undermanned and without hope of relief, surrendered almost without resistance. Tyre held out under Conrad of Montferrat, and the Franks who escaped the disaster gathered there.8
Guy marches from Tyre
King Guy of Lusignan, captured at Hattin, was released by Saladin in July 1188 after pledging never to bear arms against him. Lane-Poole writes that he was absolved from the oath at once. Conrad refused to let him into Tyre, and Smail notes that it was his only remaining city.9
Smail sees only two choices before a king without a city: give up, or try to win his kingdom back. Guy chose to march on Acre. Ibn al-Athir writes that the Franks kept to the very edge of the sea all the way, with their ships sailing level with them, ready to take them off if things went wrong.10
The sources disagree on the day they arrived and on their numbers. The Itinerary of Richard I puts the start of the siege on St Augustine’s day, 28 August 1189, Baha ad-Din on Monday 13 Rajab, which his editors give as 27 August, and Ibn al-Athir on 15 Rajab, 29 August. The Itinerary speaks of 700 knights and an army of under 9,000 men in all, while Baha ad-Din writes of 2,000 horse and 30,000 foot and says he never met anyone who estimated them at less.11
Guy pitched his tent on a hill east of the town, which the Itinerary calls Mount Turon and Baha ad-Din the Hill of those who pray. The Pisans came by sea and took up their station on the shore. According to the Itinerary, the first assault was made on the third day, with ladders and shields alone, and was broken off when a false report said that Saladin was at hand.12
The besiegers besieged
Saladin had been besieging Beaufort, the castle Baha ad-Din calls esh-Shakif. Warned on 26 August, he marched by way of Tiberias and drew up his army on the plain east of Acre, its wings resting on the river Belus and on the hill of el-Ayadiya. He slipped detachments into the city until it was filled with men and provisions.13
From then on the Franks were caught between the walls and the sultan’s army. The Itinerary says that those who came to besiege others were now besieged themselves, and Abu al-Fida that the Franks besieged Acre but were themselves, so to speak, besieged. Reinforcements kept arriving by sea, and the Itinerary tells of fifty ships bringing 12,000 men of the northern lands.14
On 14 September Saladin attacked to open a road into the city, and the next day his men broke through. By Baha ad-Din’s account the city was relieved for a time, and Ibn al-Athir writes that the people of Acre ceased to see themselves besieged.15
The battle of 4 October 1189
On Wednesday 4 October the Franks marched out of their camp in battle order, their king in the centre with the Gospels carried before him under a satin canopy, Baha ad-Din writes. Saladin’s army waited in front of its tents, its right wing on the sea and its left on the river.16
Saladin weakened his centre to support his nephew Taqi ad-Din on the right, and the Franks charged the gap. Baha ad-Din, who watched, saw the infantry keep pace with the knights. The troops of Diyarbakr broke, much of the right wing fled, some men as far as Tiberias and even Damascus, and Franks reached the sultan’s tent and killed a water carrier there. Saladin, left with five men of his suite, rode from battalion to battalion to rally them.17
The Franks who had reached the hill turned back to rejoin their army. Saladin led the rallied men against those coming down from the hill, and the left wing pressed in. The Itinerary calls it the flight and slaughter of the Christians: Andrew of Brienne was killed calling his comrades back to the fight, and King Guy was saved only when Conrad, his rival, came to his help. Ibn al-Athir writes that the master of the Templars, whom Saladin had once captured and freed, was taken again and killed.18
The dead are counted very differently. The Itinerary gives 1,500 Christians. Baha ad-Din reports an estimate of 7,000 and doubts it, having seen the bodies carried to the river, but adds that the man in charge of the carts counted 4,100 dead from the Frankish left wing alone. Ibn al-Athir gives about 10,000. On the Muslim side Baha ad-Din names 150 unknown youths and several well-known emirs among the fallen.19
Lane-Poole thought the siege could have ended that day. While the fighting went on, the camp servants had plundered Saladin’s own camp, the army was worn out, and a council persuaded the sick sultan to withdraw to the hills of el-Kharruba on 16 October. The Franks used the time to dig in.20
Ships, towers and reinforcements
Over the winter the Franks dug a great trench round their camp, and the rains stopped the fighting. Lane-Poole writes that an Egyptian fleet of fifty sail under Admiral Lulu fought its way to Acre. In spring Saladin advanced again from el-Kharruba, with contingents from Aleppo, Harran, Sinjar, Mosul and Irbil, and Ibn al-Athir writes that the Franks fought both his army and the garrison without flinching.21
The Franks built three wooden towers, sixty cubits high and five storeys each by Ibn al-Athir’s description, covered with hides against fire, and pushed them up to the walls. The garrison burned them, and Lane-Poole tells of a young coppersmith of Damascus whose fire destroyed them and who refused any reward for what he had done in the cause of God.22
In summer 1190 the crusade from Germany failed. Lane-Poole writes that Frederick Barbarossa had drowned in the river Salef in Asia Minor and that his son Frederick of Swabia reached Acre at the beginning of October with a bare thousand men. Henry of Champagne had already landed at the end of July with a large force and taken command of the army.23
The winter of hunger
The winter of 1190 to 1191 brought famine to the camp. The Itinerary devotes a run of chapters to it: men ate grass, gnawed bones the dogs had left, ate the flesh of horses in Lent, and two friends spent their last coin on thirteen beans. Lane-Poole writes that corn sold at a hundred pieces of gold the sack.24
Disease took the leaders as well. Lane-Poole lists Queen Sibylla, through whom Guy held his crown, and Ranulf de Glanville among the dead, and both he and the Itinerary record the death of Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, in November 1190. Conrad of Montferrat then married Sibylla’s sister Isabella, the new heiress of the kingdom, after her marriage to Humphrey of Toron was dissolved, and went back to Tyre.25
The kings arrive
Philip II of France arrived first, on 20 April 1191 by Baha ad-Din’s dating, and Lane-Poole writes that he was welcomed at Easter with hymns and floods of tears. He set up his siege engines at once. Baha ad-Din adds that his white falcon flew off to the walls and was sent to Saladin, who would not return it even for a thousand dinars.26
Richard I of England had stopped on the way to conquer Cyprus. He reached the camp on Saturday 8 June 1191 with twenty-five galleys, by the account of both Baha ad-Din and Ibn al-Athir. Baha ad-Din writes that the Franks lit huge fires in their camp that night and that his coming filled the Muslims with alarm.27
Both kings soon fell ill. Norgate and Lane-Poole, following the crusader chronicles, describe Richard carried to the edge of the ditch wrapped in a silken quilt and shooting at the walls with a crossbow from under a shelter of hurdles. Gale’s reference library calls his illness malaria and writes that he had to be carried to the siege on a litter.28
The last assaults
The kings’ engines and miners broke the walls in several places. Ibn al-Athir dates the setting up of seven mangonels to 30 May, and Norgate describes a mine fired under one tower that brought down turrets and opened a great breach in the curtain wall.29
Saladin attacked the Frankish trenches whenever the city was assaulted. On one such day he ordered his men to take spades and fill the ditches, and Baha ad-Din admits that the troops would not follow him and cried that he would destroy all Islam. Lane-Poole writes that the sultan went without food all day, his eyes full of tears as he watched the struggle at the walls.30
Inside the city hope ran out. Three emirs slipped away by night in a small boat, which both Baha ad-Din and Ibn al-Athir record, and the garrison saw their flight as a sign of the end. By the Itinerary’s count, as quoted by Lane-Poole, 6,000 Turks still held the city under Qaraqush and al-Mashtub, whom the crusaders called Caracois and Mestoc.31
The terms of surrender
Al-Mashtub went to King Philip to offer the city in return for free departure. Baha ad-Din reports the king’s answer, that the Muslims were the Franks’ slaves, and Ibn al-Athir that he refused. The Franks then asked for all the prisoners in Muslim hands and the coastal cities, and Saladin’s offers of the city and then of the True Cross as well were turned down.32
The final terms are given in different forms. Baha ad-Din lists the city with its engines and ships, 200,000 dinars, 500 prisoners of no rank and 100 of rank chosen by the Franks, the Cross, and 4,000 gold pieces for Conrad, who had mediated. Ibn al-Athir gives 200,000 dinars, 500 notable prisoners, the Cross and 14,000 for Conrad, with two months to pay. The Itinerary speaks of 2,000 noble captives and 500 of lower rank. Norgate, comparing them, settles on the Cross, 1,600 prisoners and 200,000 bezants.33
Whether Saladin agreed to the terms is itself disputed. The Itinerary says he did. Baha ad-Din writes that the garrison made the treaty on its own and that the sultan was writing to forbid it when he saw the Frankish banners on the walls, and Lane-Poole follows him. Thomas Asbridge warns that Baha ad-Din had every reason to distance his master from the agreement.34
Acre changes hands
The Frankish banners rose over the walls on Friday 12 July 1191, a little after midday, as Baha ad-Din, Ibn al-Athir and Abu al-Fida all record. Baha ad-Din, on duty in Saladin’s tent that day, saw the sultan struck down with grief like a mother who has lost her child. That night Saladin moved his baggage to Shefa-Amr.35
The Itinerary describes the garrison coming out on the walls to leave, and the crusaders marvelling at the cheerful faces of men losing everything. The defenders were not set free, however, but held as hostages for the treaty. The kings divided the city, the stores and the captives between them: Philip took Qaraqush, the Templars’ house and his share of prisoners, and Richard took al-Mashtub and the royal palace.36
Philip did not stay. Roger of Howden dates his departure for Tyre to 31 July, and the Itinerary writes that he left the greater part of his army with Richard under the duke of Burgundy. He took his share of the prisoners with him, and Conrad, to whom he entrusted them, at first refused to send them back.37
The ransom that never came
Saladin gathered the first instalment. Baha ad-Din lists it as the Cross, 100,000 dinars and 1,600 prisoners, and Ibn al-Athir confirms that the sultan had collected 100,000 pieces of gold. The Frankish commissioners found everything ready except some of the named prisoners.38
The quarrel was over guarantees. Saladin asked either that the garrison be released first, with hostages from him for the rest, or that the Franks give him hostages until his men were freed. The Franks would give only their oath. Ibn al-Athir adds that Saladin asked the Templars to stand surety and that they refused, and La Monte, in his notes to Ambroise, reports the same refusal.39
The crusader writers tell the story the other way round. The Itinerary accuses Saladin of sending constant presents and messengers to gain time while he neglected his own men, and Roger of Howden writes that on the appointed day the Muslims produced neither the Cross nor the captives nor the money.40
The killing of the prisoners
On Tuesday 20 August 1191 Richard rode out with the whole army to the plain between the hills of el-Ayadiya and Tell Kisan and had the prisoners brought out. Baha ad-Din, writing from Saladin’s camp, writes of “more than three thousand, all tied together with ropes”, killed with sword and lance. Ibn al-Athir and Norgate give the same date, and Norgate notes that every source that dates it says 20 August except the Itinerary, which says the Friday after the Assumption, 16 August.41
The number of the dead is the most disputed figure of the siege. The Itinerary and Ambroise give 2,700 and Baha ad-Din more than 3,000. Norgate cites a letter of Richard himself giving about 2,600, and Roger of Howden writes of 5,000. All agree that men of rank were kept back for ransom, and Ibn al-Athir and Baha ad-Din add those strong enough to work or rich enough to pay.42
The motives were argued at once. Baha ad-Din reports two explanations, revenge for Muslims’ killing of Franks, or Richard’s wish not to leave so many prisoners behind when he marched on Ascalon, and adds: “God knows what his reason really was.” The Itinerary and Ambroise give revenge for the Christians killed by bolts and arrows during the siege.43
Who killed prisoners first is disputed too. Roger of Howden writes that Saladin beheaded his Christian captives on 18 August. Lane-Poole answers that nothing in any other authority supports this, and La Monte that the consensus of evidence shows Richard was the first. Lane-Poole himself saw no imaginable excuse for the massacre.44
After Acre
Saladin kept the money he had raised for other uses and sent the prisoners and the Cross back to Damascus, writes Ibn al-Athir. Richard left Acre within days. Roger of Howden says he crossed the river of Acre with his army on 22 August, and Ibn al-Athir dates the departure to 21 August. On the march south along the coast Saladin attacked the column at Arsuf, as Ibn al-Athir and Abu al-Fida both record.45
Smail points out that it took twenty-one months to win back a town which in 1187 had surrendered to Saladin in a single day. Asbridge counts twenty-two gruelling months and two crippling winters, and he notes that historians long neglected all but the last three months of the siege. The debate over Saladin’s handling of it goes on: John Hosler’s study of 2018 criticises his generalship, and Asbridge calls that criticism hindsight.46
UNESCO, which listed the Old City of Acre in 2001, describes it as the capital of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem until 1291, and notes that the remains of the crusader town survive almost intact above and below the Ottoman streets. The rest of Richard’s war, to the truce of 1192, is told in our life of Richard the Lionheart and that of his opponent in our biography of Saladin.47
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