1. The Third Crusade

3. A new context
The Third Crusade was called in conditions of dire emergency. News of the Battle of Hattin reportedly killed Pope Urban III and his successor Gregory VII’s call to crusade ‘Audita tremendi’ was very clear that the very survival of the Holy Land depended on its success.
Recalling perhaps the squabbling over hierarchy that had self defeated the Second Crusade, Gregory urged humility from the outset, emphasising the penitential aspect of the crusade and urging the wearing of simple clothing.
The language of persuasion was more sophisticated on this crusade too, Bishop Joscius of Tyre being used as a propaganda chief, preaching and even producing very vivid pictures of Arabs defaming Christian sites

4. Conrad of Montferrat and Tyre
Before the great monarchs of Europe were roused to launch the Third crusade, a prequel was unintentionally launched by Conrad.
Conrad had arrived at Tyre in July 1187 to find it on the verge of surrender to Saladin's besieging forces. By sheer force of personality he persuaded the inhabitants to transfer their allegiance to him.
He reformed the city militia and managed to defeat repeated assaults by land and sea. In November Saladin abandoned the siege to seize the more vulnerable remaining ports south of Tyre.
This would prove to be a vital strategic mistake on Saladin’s part. Tyre’s harbour was large enough for the Crusader fleet to use it as a base from which it would strike inland. Moreover the epic story fuelled Crusading fever in Europe, fuelled by the able propagandist Bishop Joscius whom Conrad sent back to Europe to spread the message.

5. Raising the Third Crusade
Joscius convinced the kings of England and France, Henry II and Phillip II to take the Cross at the sermon of Gisors in January 1188.
Since the Second Crusade, west European politics had changed, England’s new Plantagenet dynasty having secured control over western France. As a result France felt herself permanently under threat from the Plantagenet Empire in the west and the Holy Roman Empire in the east and nearly permanent war was the result.
A truce rather than peace was agreed between Phillip and Henry and the tensions between the monarchies would resurface and disrupt the Third Crusade. Nonetheless the two presided over the best organised of all the Crusades, it was paid for by a special tax ‘the Saladin tithe’ and the English and French contingents even agreed to wear distinctive crosses as uniform.
Veteran Crusader Frederick Barbarossa raised a large German contingent too.
The French and the English planned to journey by sea to Tyre whilst the Germans would advance overland via Constantinople.

6. The German Crusade
Barbarossa’s crusade set out first in January 1189 and was dogged by misfortune. News that Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos was negotiating with Saladin provoking recriminations, skirmishes and a plan by Barbarossa to capture Constantinople after Isaac imprisoned his ambassadors.
After Isaac provided shipping to ferry them across the Bosphorus, the German Crusaders refocussed their energies on the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum successfully, occupying their capital of Iconium in May.
Shortley afterwards the German momentum was shattered when Barbarossa accidentally drowned. Many Germans returned home whilst Barbarossa’ son Frederick of Swabia led the remainder southwards to join the Crusader siege of Acre. Frederick too would die in January 1190 and command devolved to Duke Leopold of Austria.
Phillip II and Richard I’s refusal to recognise Leopold as an equal after the fall of Acre caused him to return to Europe. Thereafter the Germans formed a subordinate contingent led by Richard.

7. The English and French journey
The departure was delayed by a collapse in relations between Henry II and his eldest son Richard who conspired with Phillip, a crisis averted by henry’s death in July 1189.
His successor Richard I ‘The Lionheart’ was an aggressive general who restored momentum and the English and French fleets set sail in July 1190.
The journey was not direct. Both fleets stopped at Sicily to liberate Richard’s sister Joan of England from captivity by pretender the Sicilian throne Tancred. After the capture of Messina Tancred released Joan and Richard made a diplomatic betrothal to Berengaria of Navarre.
Both fleets departed for the Holy Land in March 1191, the French directly, the English were diverted via Cyprus when some of their ships were seized by the Byzantine pretender on the island Isaac Dukas Comnenus.
With the aid of the Knights Templar, Richard overran the island in 15 days and added it to Outremer gaining substantial quantities of loot to finance the Crusade and a valuable new ally for the embattled Outremer kingdoms.

8. The siege of Acre
Acre was originally besieged by the remnants of the Crusader armies under a newly released Guy de Lusignan in the winter of
They were soon contravallated by Saladin who left them to starve between his lines and the city garrison. The death of Queen Sybilla during this period eroded morale still further with a successional dispute breaking out between Guy and Conrad of Montferrat.
Morale was partially restored when the survivors of the German crusade arrived in October and the city narrowly survived an assault.
Phillip and Richard arrived by June The English and French brought heavy artillery with them and within a month several breaches had been made in the walls. Saladin’s attempts to relieve the garrison were halted and the city surrendered on 12 July.
At this moment of victory the joint leadership of the Crusade fractured. The German leader Leopold of Austria departed after his banner was scorned whilst Phillip II left after a severe bout of dysentery and the news of a successional dispute in his fiefdom of Alsace. This denuded the Crusade of much needed troops but it did leave Richard as the undisputed leader of the operation.

9. Richard, Saladin and the collapse of the Treaty of Acre
After the fall of Acre a prisoner exchange had been agreed between Saladin and Richard. After a month the exchange still had not taken place, possibly because Saladin wanted to delay Richard's movement until the end of the campaigning season.
Richard did not have the manpower to guard the prisoners and advance southwards.
Accordingly on 20 August all 2700 Muslim prisoners were beheaded in full view of Saladin’s army.
Interestingly Saladin does not seem to have seen this as an outrage, perhaps recalling his execution of Templars and Hospitallar.
However its results were mixed from the Crusaders’ perceptive. On the negative side it meant several thousand prisoners languished in Ayubbid prisons and the True Cross remained in Saladin’s hands. On the positive, Richard as now free to march south with his full strength and the ‘Lionheart’ legend had taken root amongst the Saracens, many of whom would refuse point blank to fight him in the future.

10. The Coastal March and Arsuf
Richard led his men southwards in three tightly disciplined battles heading for the port of Jerusalem Jaffa. They followed the coast and were constantly supplied by ship.
Saladin’s much larger army harried them constantly but Richard’s discipline made it impossible to isolate and destroy as they had at Hattin.
At Arsuf on 7 September Saladin risked a close engagement with the Hospitallars. Their spontaneous countercharge was exploited by Richard who turned it into an envelopment of Saladin’s entire army driving it headlong away from the sea. Their camp was captured and looted, and only nightfall prevented a full massacre.
Victory at Arsuf gave Richard control of the coast of Outremer but not Jerusalem. Saladin rallied his troops on the approach between Jaffa and Jerusalem and prepared a fresh defence.

12. Jaffa and the first advance on Jerusalem
Richard ended the campaigning season by seizing the port of Jaffa where he overwintered his army. Saladin, still on the defensive, hastily demolished the defences of the final port of Outremer, Ascalon to prevent Richard occupying them.
From a position of relative strength Richard opened negotiations with Saladin in October 1191 – although victorious Richard lacked the manpower to seize and hold Jerusalem and he hoped to gain it by negotiation.
Negotiations proceeded amicably, although an attempt to marry Saladin’s brother to Richard’s sister founded on religious differences. As a demonstration of strength Richard advanced within 12 miles of Jerusalem in January 1192 in an attempt to force Saladin's hand.
The result was an agreement which recognised Crusader possession of the coastal cities, the return of the True Cross and free access to Christian pilgrims but not the surrender to Jerusalem.
Détente emerged between Richard and Saladin in spring 1192, the former refortifying Ascalon and making preparations to return to Europe where Phillip II was eyeing Plantagenet possessions in Normandy.

13. Successional crisis May 1192
Richard’s reasons for breaking his truce with Saladin on May 1192 are unclear, but it may have been as a result of the collapse of the succession settlement of Jerusalem may have caused it.
The High Council of Jerusalem had decisively backed Conrad of Montferrat’s candidacy for the throne of Jerusalem and Richard had quietly removed Guy de Lusignan from the scene by arranging for him to buy the kingdom of Cyprus. However on April 28 Conrad was murdered by two Assassins before he could be crowned.
Richard was blamed for the murder, as the new king was his nephew Henry II of Champagne. In reality the authors of the assassination were probably Pisan merchants who would have lost out to the Genoese in trading monopolies had Conrad been crowned.
Possibly these recriminations caused Richard to renew his offensive operations.

14. The final phase of the Third Crusade
In May 1192 Richard established a foothold on the road to Jerusalem by seizing the fortress of Darum. From here he renewed his advance on Jerusalem and encamped, once again 12 miles short of his objective.
From this position Richard seized a trade caravan heading to Egypt from Jerusalem, news which convinced Saladin that a siege of the city was imminent.
In the midst of his siege preparations Saladin received the news that Richard had without warning fallen back to the coast once more.
This time Saladin was not passive. When he heard that Richard had retired to Acre he rapidly advanced and captured Jaffa, for once loosing control of his men who pillaged freely. The garrisons survived within the citadel and managed to get a message to Richard.
Richard’s response was remarkable – counterattacking by sea with just 54 knights. Remarkably he succeeded and Saladin withdrew to Jerusalem once more.
Subsequently both leaders fell ill and their armies were exhausted. By the end of August 1192 hostilities had ground to a halt.

15. The end of hostilities
As both leaders recuperated the original terms agreed in autumn 1191 were used as the basis for a final agreement. In addition an agreement to demolish the new defence of Ascalon on the Crusaders part and an agreement to allow Catholic mass to be celebrated in Jerusalem on the Ayubbids’ part was reached and the Treaty of Jaffa duly signed on 2 September.
His vow to liberate Jerusalem still unfulfilled, Richard departed from the Holy Land on 9 October. He planned to return and complete the conquest once he had dealt with Phillip II’s designs on his possessions in France. However his untimely death in a siege in 1199 ended his involvement.

16. The Holy Land after 1192
Outremer now comprised the complete Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and the coastal half of the Kingdom of Jerusalem under the leadership of King Henry II safeguarded by a three year truce with Saladin.
Pope Celestine III called for a fresh Crusade to capture Jerusalem in 1195 but it achieved nothing beside the short lived capture of Sidon and Beirut.
Richard’s pioneering use of diplomacy over violence established a precedent for a more conciliatory relationship between the Ayubbids and Outremer. Future crusades would focus more on consolidation, less on renewed conquest.
Economically the restored Crusader kingdoms were very viable, all the more given the acquiring of Cyprus. Longer term however, the reduced territories of the kingdom of Jerusalem were far less easy to defend, all the more after the weakening of the Byzantine Empire after Constantinople fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1203.
Saladin had died in 1193, but his Ayubbid successors maintained his policy of détente but in the 1260s they were supplanted by the far more aggressive Mamlukes who would eliminate Outremer entirely by 1291.