Battle of Arsuf (1191): Richard I Defeats Saladin's Army

The Battle of Arsuf was fought on 7 September 1191 near the coastal town of Arsuf, in what is now Israel, between the crusader army of King Richard I of England and the forces of Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria. It was the largest open battle of the Third Crusade. Richard’s victory showed that Saladin could be beaten in the field after the disaster of Hattin four years earlier, and it secured the crusaders’ march to Jaffa.

Background

In July 1187 Saladin destroyed the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin and went on to take Jerusalem and most of the kingdom’s towns. The Third Crusade was the Latin West’s response. After a long siege, the crusaders recaptured the port of Acre in July 1191, with Richard and Philip II of France both present.

Philip returned to France soon afterwards, leaving Richard as the leading commander. His aim was Jerusalem, but he judged that the army first needed a secure port close to the city. Jaffa, about 100 kilometres down the coast from Acre, was the obvious base. On about 22 August 1191 the army began to march south.

The fighting march

Richard organised the march with great care. The army kept to the coast road, so that its seaward flank was protected and the fleet could sail alongside with supplies. The infantry, including crossbowmen and spearmen, walked on the landward side as a protective screen, while the mounted knights rode in the middle. The baggage train moved next to the sea.

For more than two weeks Saladin’s troops shadowed the column. Mounted archers rode close, shot arrows into the ranks and tried to provoke the knights into charging out of formation, where they could be surrounded. Chroniclers describe foot soldiers walking on with several arrows stuck in their padded coats without serious harm. The march moved slowly, often only a few kilometres a day, with rest days to recover from the heat.

Saladin, aware that the crusaders would soon reach the open plain north of Arsuf, prepared to make a full attack there, with the forest of Arsuf on his flank to hide his troops.

The battle on 7 September

On the morning of 7 September the crusader army was arranged in twelve divisions, with the Templars in the vanguard and the Hospitallers in the rearguard. Saladin’s army attacked in strength, concentrating on the rear, where the Hospitallers took heavy losses among their horses.

Richard intended to hold back until the enemy was fully committed and tired, then launch a single concentrated charge. The Hospitallers repeatedly asked permission to attack. Before Richard gave the signal, the Hospitaller marshal and an English knight, Baldwin Carew, broke ranks and charged, and the rest of the rearguard followed. Richard responded by ordering the whole army forward rather than leaving the Hospitallers isolated.

The massed charge of the knights drove Saladin’s troops back. Richard held his men together and made further charges as Saladin’s commanders tried to rally. By the afternoon the Ayyubid army had withdrawn towards the hills, and the crusaders camped at Arsuf. Among the dead on the crusader side was James of Avesnes, a leading Flemish knight.

Casualties and numbers

Figures from the period are unreliable. A Latin chronicle, the Itinerarium, claims that Saladin lost several thousand men and the crusaders only about 700, but most historians think Ayyubid losses were much lower. Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad, who was with Saladin, admits a defeat but presents it as a setback rather than a rout.

Aftermath

The crusaders reached Jaffa on 10 September and began rebuilding its walls. Saladin dismantled the defences of Ascalon to stop Richard using it as a base. Arsuf restored the crusaders’ confidence, but it did not destroy Saladin’s army, which remained intact in the hills.

Richard advanced towards Jerusalem twice, reaching Beit Nuba in January and again in June 1192, but on both occasions concluded that he could not take and hold the city once the Western crusaders went home. After fighting at Jaffa in August 1192, the two sides agreed the Treaty of Jaffa on 2 September 1192: a three-year truce that left the coast from Tyre to Jaffa to the Franks and allowed Christian pilgrims to visit Jerusalem. Richard sailed for home in October and was captured on the way, an episode told in the article on the ransom of Richard the Lionheart.

Key people

Richard I of England commanded the army and is credited with the disciplined march and with turning the premature charge into a general attack. Saladin directed the harassment and the main assault but could not break the column. Hugh III, Duke of Burgundy, led the French contingent. Garnier of Nablus, master of the Hospitallers, commanded the rearguard.

Timeline

• 1191, 12 July: Acre surrenders to the crusaders.
• 1191, about 22 August: Richard’s army leaves Acre and marches south along the coast.
• 1191, 7 September: Battle of Arsuf.
• 1191, 10 September: The crusaders reach Jaffa.
• 1192, January: First advance on Jerusalem halts at Beit Nuba.
• 1192, 2 September: Treaty of Jaffa ends the fighting.

Why it matters

Arsuf showed that a well-ordered crusader army could defeat Saladin in battle and keep its cohesion under constant attack. It secured the coast for the later Kingdom of Jerusalem, centred on Acre, but also showed the limits of military victory: Jerusalem itself stayed out of reach.