Battle of Hattin (1187): Saladin Destroys the Crusader Army

The Battle of Hattin was fought on 3–4 July 1187 near Tiberias in Galilee, between the army of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem under King Guy of Lusignan and the forces of Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria. Saladin trapped the Franks on a waterless plateau and destroyed almost their entire field army at the twin hill known as the Horns of Hattin. The defeat led within three months to the fall of Jerusalem and prompted the Third Crusade.

Background: a divided kingdom

Since 1174 Saladin had united Egypt, Damascus, Aleppo and northern Iraq under his rule, bringing together the resources that the crusader states had long feared. Against him stood a small Frankish kingdom torn by quarrels. After the death of Baldwin IV, the Leper King, in 1185 and of the child-king Baldwin V in 1186, Sibylla had seized the throne with her husband Guy of Lusignan. Count Raymond III of Tripoli, lord of Tiberias through his wife and former regent, refused to recognise Guy and made a separate truce with Saladin.

The truce between Saladin and the kingdom was broken when Raynald of Châtillon, lord of Kerak, attacked a Muslim caravan travelling between Cairo and Damascus around the turn of 1186–1187. Raynald refused to return the goods. Saladin, who had already sworn to punish Raynald for his earlier raid into the Red Sea, began gathering a great army.

On 1 May 1187 a small force of Templars and Hospitallers attacked a Muslim reconnaissance party at the Springs of Cresson, near Nazareth. They were almost wiped out. The Hospitaller master Roger de Moulins was killed; the Templar master Gerard de Ridefort escaped. The disaster shocked Raymond into reconciling with King Guy, and the whole strength of the kingdom was called to arms.

The armies

The Frankish army gathered at the springs of Sephoria (Saffuriya), a well-watered position about 25 kilometres west of Tiberias. To raise as many troops as possible, Guy used money sent by King Henry II of England for a future crusade to hire soldiers. The kingdom stripped its castles and towns of their garrisons.

All these numbers are estimates based on chroniclers’ figures, and historians continue to debate them. What is clear is that both sides had brought together unusually large armies.

The march from Sephoria

Saladin crossed the Jordan at the end of June. On 2 July he attacked Tiberias and took the town, while Raymond’s wife, Eschiva, held out in the citadel. Saladin’s aim was to lure the Frankish army away from its water.

That evening the king’s council debated what to do. According to the main Frankish accounts, Raymond advised staying at Sephoria, even at the cost of losing Tiberias, because the summer heat and lack of water on the route would favour Saladin. Gerard de Ridefort and Raynald of Châtillon accused Raymond of cowardice and treachery. During the night Gerard persuaded Guy to march.

On the morning of 3 July the army set off east across the dry plateau of Lower Galilee. Saladin’s mounted archers harassed it constantly, especially the rearguard of Templars and Hospitallers. By the afternoon the army had covered only part of the distance. Guy decided to halt for the night near the village of Meskenah, on open ground without a spring. Saladin’s troops surrounded the camp, and Muslim sources describe the soldiers singing and calling out through the night.

The battle of 4 July

At dawn the Franks were exhausted and desperate for water. Saladin’s men set fire to the dry grass and scrub, and the smoke drifted into the Frankish ranks. The army tried to push towards the springs at the village of Hattin, below the twin peaks of the Horns.

The infantry broke first. Many foot soldiers left the formation and climbed onto the slopes of the Horns, refusing to come down despite the king’s orders. Without infantry to shield them, the knights’ horses were exposed to Muslim archers.

Raymond of Tripoli led a charge from the vanguard. Saladin’s nephew Taqi al-Din ordered his men to open their ranks and let the charge through, then closed them behind it. Raymond and his knights rode on and escaped to Tyre, and later to Tripoli. Balian of Ibelin and Reginald of Sidon also escaped.

The remaining knights gathered around King Guy’s red tent on the Horns. They made several charges at Saladin’s position. The historian Ibn al-Athir later recorded an account from Saladin’s son al-Afdal, who watched his father grow pale as the charges came close, and then cry out in joy when the king’s tent finally fell. The True Cross, carried by the Bishop of Acre, was captured.

Key people

• Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub), sultan of Egypt and Syria and founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, who planned the campaign. See Saladin.
• Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem since 1186, whose decision to march from Sephoria proved fatal.
• Raymond III of Tripoli, the most experienced Frankish lord, who argued against the march and escaped from the battle.
• Raynald of Châtillon, lord of Oultrejordain, whose attacks on caravans and pilgrims provoked the war.
• Gerard de Ridefort, master of the Knights Templar, who urged the king to fight.
• Taqi al-Din, Saladin’s nephew and one of his leading commanders.

The fate of the prisoners

Guy and the leading nobles were brought to Saladin’s tent. Saladin offered the thirsty king a cup of iced water, a sign under custom that his life was safe. When Guy passed the cup to Raynald, Saladin made clear that he had not offered it himself. He then accused Raynald of breaking his oaths and killed him with his own sword. Guy was later released in 1188.

Saladin ordered the execution of the captured knights of the military orders, the Templars and Hospitallers, about 200 men in all, whom he considered the most dangerous enemies of Islam. Sufis and scholars in his army carried out the killings. Gerard de Ridefort was spared and released in 1188 after ordering the Templar garrison of Gaza to surrender. Thousands of ordinary soldiers were sold into slavery, and the slave markets of Damascus were reportedly flooded with captives.

Consequences

With the field army destroyed and the garrisons emptied, the Kingdom of Jerusalem lay open. Tiberias surrendered on 5 July, and Acre on 10 July. Nablus, Jaffa, Sidon and Beirut followed during the summer, and Ascalon surrendered in early September in exchange for King Guy’s eventual release. On 2 October 1187, after a short siege, Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin.

Only a handful of places held out, most importantly the port of Tyre, which was saved by the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat. Tyre became the base from which the Franks would recover part of the coast.

News of Hattin and the loss of Jerusalem caused shock in western Europe. Pope Gregory VIII issued the bull Audita tremendi in October 1187 calling for a new crusade. The kings of England and France and the Holy Roman Emperor took the cross, launching the Third Crusade of 1189–1192.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Raymond of Tripoli betrayed the army. Some contemporary Frankish writers accused him of treachery, but most modern historians see his escape as the result of Taqi al-Din’s tactic of opening the ranks, not a plot with Saladin.
• Myth: Pope Urban III died of grief at the news. A later chronicle tradition says so, but the link between his death in October 1187 and the news from Hattin is uncertain.
• Fact: the True Cross captured at Hattin was never returned. Later negotiations, including during the siege of Acre, failed to recover it.

Legacy

Hattin is one of the most decisive battles of the medieval Mediterranean. It ended the kingdom created by the First Crusade in its original form; although the crusaders regained a coastal strip, Jerusalem was held only briefly again in the thirteenth century.

Military historians study Hattin as a lesson in logistics and the danger of leaving water in a hot climate. Excavations and surveys at the site, near the modern village of Kfar Hittim, have recovered arrowheads and other remains. The Horns of Hattin are also traditionally close to a shrine venerated by the Druze community as the tomb of the prophet Jethro (Nabi Shu’ayb).

In the Arab world Saladin’s victory became a lasting symbol of unity and resistance, recalled in literature, art and political rhetoric into modern times.

Timeline

• 1186–1187, winter: Raynald of Châtillon attacks a Muslim caravan, breaking the truce.
• 1187, 1 May: Templars and Hospitallers are defeated at the Springs of Cresson.
• 1187, late June: Saladin crosses the Jordan; the Frankish army gathers at Sephoria.
• 1187, 2 July: Saladin takes the town of Tiberias; the king’s council decides to march.
• 1187, 3 July: The Frankish army marches east and camps without water.
• 1187, 4 July: The Frankish army is destroyed at the Horns of Hattin; Guy is captured.
• 1187, 10 July: Acre surrenders to Saladin.
• 1187, 2 October: Jerusalem surrenders to Saladin.

Why it matters

Hattin decided the fate of the first Kingdom of Jerusalem in a single day. By destroying the only army the Franks could field, Saladin was able to take Jerusalem and most of the crusader lands, and the shock of the defeat brought Europe’s most powerful rulers to the East in the Third Crusade.