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 major setback in the fortunes of the Crusader movement, enabling the Muslims to regain control of Jerusalem from the Christians.
| Battle of Hattin | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Crusades | |||||||
 The Battle of Hattin, from a medieval manuscript | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Ayyubids | Kingdom of Jerusalem | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Saladin |
Guy of LusignanFile:White flag icon.jpg Raymond III of Tripoli | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Est. 12,000-45,000 | Est. 18,000-24,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown; very heavy | ||||||
Location
The battle took place near Tiberias, in an area whose chief geographic feature is 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. This battle was tgreat the Muslims kicked ass and really batterd them told christans! They ran off like lil panzies!
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 1186. 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. During one of these raids, Raynald captured Saladin's sister; Raynald also threatened to attack Mecca itself, and Saladin vowed revenge.
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.
Siege of Tiberias
Saladin had assembled his own army at Raymond's fortress of Tiberias. When Raymond reconciled with Guy, this assembly turned into a siege, and the town fell on July 2. Raymond's wife Eschiva was besieged in the citadel. Raymond and Guy met at Acre with the bulk of the crusader army, which consisted of 1200 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. Muslim sources claim that the crusaders had over 80,000 men. 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.
Raymond argued that a march from Acre to Tiberias was exactly what Saladin wanted and that Sephoria was a strong position for the Crusaders to defend. Furthermore, Guy should not worry about Tiberias, which Raymond held personally and was willing to give up for the safety of the kingdom. Despite their reconciliation, internal court politics were still strong and Raymond was accused of cowardice by Gerard and Raynald. The latter influenced Guy to attack immediately. Guy ordered the army to march against Saladin at Tiberias, which is 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.
The battle
The crusaders began their march from Sephoria on July 3, with Raymond leading the vanguard, Guy the main army, and Balian, Raynald, and the military orders the rearguard. They were almost immediately under harassment from the Muslim skirmishers on horseback. By noon on that day Saladin had joined his forces at Cafarsett and sent his army to engage the exhausted and depleted Crusaders. The rearguard was forced to a halt by continuous attacks, thus halting the whole army. The crusaders, after a day with no fresh water, were forced to make camp in the middle of the plain, surrounded by the Muslim army. Saladin's forces set fire to the grass around the camp during the night.
On the morning of July 4, the crusaders were blinded by smoke, through which the Muslim cavalry pelted them with arrows. 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, 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 demoralised, 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 knight's horses were cut down by Muslim archers and they were forced to fight on foot, and they, too, retreated on to the Horns. The crusaders were surrounded and, despite three desperate charges on Saladin's position, were eventually defeated by the Muslims.
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, Raynald, William III of Montferrat, Gerard, Humphrey IV of Toron, Hugh of Jubail, and many others. Perhaps only as few as 3,000 Christians escaped the defeat, including Raymond, Joscelin, Balian, and Reginald of Sidon, who had trampled their own men while retreating. The exhausted captives were brought to Saladin's tent, where Guy was given a goblet of iced water as a sign of Saladin's generosity. When Guy offered the goblet to his fellow captive Raynald, Saladin allowed the old man (Raynald was about 60) to drink it but shortly afterwards said that he had not offered water to Raynald and thus was not 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, beheading him with his sword. Guy fell to his knees at the sight of Raynald's corpse. Saladin bade him to rise, saying, "Real kings do not kill each other." The Templars and Hospitallers, considered by Muslims to be the most ardent partisan of Christian cause, who had been captured were also killed, although Guy was taken to Damascus as a prisoner and the others were eventually ransomed. Raymond of Tripoli, having escaped the battle, died of pleurisy later in 1187.
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 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 travellers. 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 in order to finance expenses. The subsequent Third Crusade did not get underway until 1189, in three separate contingents led by Richard Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa.
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.
External links
- Excerpt from the Chronicle of Ernoul at Internet Medieval Sourcebook
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.