Diplomacy of the Third Crusade: Negotiating from Weakness

The Third Crusade, as was noted two days ago, was the first -- but not the last -- crusade to end with a truce, meaning it was ended by diplomatic rather than military  means. It is therefore an interesting case-study in diplomacy at the interface between Christendom and the Dar al-Islam. It is particularly interesting because the principle actors, Richard the Lionheart and Salah ad-Din, are more famous as men of war then men of peace. The last entry looked at 1191 and the opening diplomatic moves, including the absurd offer by al-Adil to marry Richard's sister Joanna. Today’s entry looks at diplomacy in 1192 that led to the conclusion of a successful truce, the Treaty of Ramla, in early September.

As the year 1192 dawned (cold, bleak and snowy for the crusaders huddling outside Jerusalem), Richard of England faced the unpleasant task of convincing his exhausted army to withdraw back to the coast of Palestine. The advance on Jerusalem had been made against his better judgement because the bulk of the crusaders were motivated by sincere religious zeal to free Jerusalem from Muslim rule. 

Richard the Lionheart as a seasoned military commander, on the other hand, had rapidly recognized what the military orders and the local barons had pointed out: that the force he had was 1) unlikely to take Jerusalem by storm against a determined, well-supplied and well-lead defense (such as Saladin had at hand), and 2) wholly inadequate to re-establish Christian control over Jerusalem for an extended period, even if they did take it. The Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi put it this way: "...[Jerusalem] could not have been held for long, because when the pilgrimage was completed the people would have gone home and there would not have been anyone left who could defend it."

On or about January 10, 1192 a council composed of representatives from all the contingents of the crusading army was persuaded by the arguments of the militant orders and the native barons that an assault on Jerusalem at this point was pointless. A much demoralized crusader army riven by rivalries between the French and Richard's vassals withdrew back to the coast. Here Richard led his army to the coastal city of Ascalon, whose defenses had been torn down when Saladin evacuated and abandoned it the previous fall.

The significance of Ascalon was that it lay on Saladin's lines of communication and supply between Egypt and Syria. Throughout his reign, Saladin depended primarily upon Egyptian wealth to support his ambitious campaigns against both his Muslim rivals and the crusader states. If Ascalon was in Frankish hands, it could be used for as a base for interdicting Saladin's supplies. 

But Richard by this point was thinking even farther: he saw Ascalon as a staging ground for an assault on Cairo itself. His reasoning was simple. Jerusalem was economically insignificant and religiously only of secondary interest to Islam, whose holy cities were Mecca and Medina. Cairo on the other hand was Saladin's treasury and power-base. In short, Saladin lost little more than prestige if he gave up Jerusalem, but he would likely lose his throne if he lost Cairo. Richard calculated that if he threatened Cairo (note, he didn't even have to capture it), Saladin would be forced to withdraw from Jerusalem. At that point, seeing that his own resources were not infinite, Richard was probably banking on a diplomatic solution: Richard expected to force Saladin to recognize the right of Christian rule over Jerusalem by treaty. That this was not a far-fetched idea was demonstrated by later crusades (5th and 6th) in which Muslim leaders indeed offered to surrender Jerusalem during negotiations. 

The ruins of Ascalon today. Copyright HPSchrader

The plan, however, came to naught because the latent tensions between Richard and the large contingent of French crusaders (led by the Duke of Burgundy after King Philip's departure) came to a head. The French deserted Richard and returned to Acre, leaving Richard's army too gutted to conduct offensive operations. Furthermore, it was while Richard was at Ascalon that word reached him of his brother John's revolt against him. His chancellor and justicars in England begged him to return to England, while the news that Philip of France was preparing to prey upon his continental possessions added further urgency to his return. 

Nevertheless, Richard was persuaded to remain in the Holy Land long enough for another assault on Jerusalem, although none of the essential facts had changed. The advance was duly made, and again ended short of its goal. Again the army withdrew back to the coast without having achieved the objective of the crusade: the liberation of Jerusalem. 

Notably throughout this period, we hear of no efforts on the part of either Richard or Saladin to seek a diplomatic solution. The reason seems clear: the Franks were steadily losing strength. Not only had they been forced to withdraw from Jerusalem twice, Saladin would have been well informed about the didissdivisions within the crusader camp -- and about the dire situation in Richard's lands. Saladin had no reason to negotiate since he had every reason to expect he could win without a major battle or concessions at the negotiating table. Saladin had time on his side. He was winning and he knew it.

Medieval Wishful Thinking - Richard defeats Saladin in a joust.

Richard knew it too, and it was at this juncture that he tried to re-open negotiations with Saladin. He sent word to Saladin's brother that he was ready to consider a truce recognizing the status quo until such time as he could return with a fresh army to resume the crusade. The Sultan had no reason to agree to these terms, but he revealed how right Richard's reasoning on Cairo had been by insisting that first Ascalon be razed to the ground.

Clearly, Richard needed another military victory in order to bring Saladin to the negotiating table. Since the strategic goal was beyond reach with the resources he could command, he sought a tactical victory that was both obtainable and valuable, even if more limited in scope; he started to prepare the capture of the coast north of Tyre. This plan was intended to strengthen the viability of the remaining crusader states, by re-establishing contiguous Frankish control over the coast from Ascalon to Tripoli and beyond to the Principality of Antioch. The importance of this was that it increased the probability that the crusader states would survive long enough for a new crusading army to be raised, equipped and sent from the West. Richard was already talking about bringing a new army to the Holy Land -- just as soon as he'd taught his younger brother and Philip of France a lesson at home. 

Before he could carry out even his modest tactical campaign, however, Saladin struck in his rear. The Sultan's army seized control of the vitally important city of Jaffa. Richard the Lionheart, the remnants of his crusading force and the fragile crusader states were once again on the defensive.                 Richard rushed back to Jaffa with just a handful of troops, while the army of Jerusalem started down the coastal road to the relief of Jaffa. In two separate engagements, Richard the Lionheart managed to not only secure Jaffa for the Franks, but to humiliate Saladin and demoralize his entire army.

Now, and only now, was Saladin willing to negotiate in earnest. Richard this time selected one of the most prominent barons of Jerusalem as his envoy, and a man who was known to hold Saladin's respect: Balian d'Ibelin. The choice is significant in that Richard and Ibelin had been at odds for much of Richard's stay in the Holy Land because of Ibelin's refusal to support Guy de Lusignan. Now, however, Richard had himself abandoned Guy in favor of his nephew Henri de Champagne, who had married the hieress of Jerusalem after her husband Cononrad de Montferrat was assassinated.

The terms Ibelin negotiated left the Christians in control of the coastal strip only as far as Jaffa and Lydda. Ibelin's own baronies (Ramla, Mirabel and Ibelin) and the holy cities of Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem remained in Saracen control. Worse, the Treaty required the Franks to destroy their strategic position on Saladin's lines-of-communication: Ascalon. The city was to be destroyed and left unoccupied by both sides. If these terms sound paltry or humiliatingting, it is important to remember that a year earlier the Franks had controlled only two isolated cities: Tyre and Acre. Furthermore, the overall strategic situation still overwhelmingly favored Saladin. Richard and the crusaders were going back to the West; the great crusade led by the three richest monarchs in Christendom was over. It is rather amazing that Saladin was prepared to negotiate at all, much less give the Franks a three-year and almost-nine-month breathing space. The Treaty reflects the fact that Saladin's own army was exhausted and demoralized and also wanted peace.

As so often in human history, the weapons are only put away after they have failed to achieve their objective, for if war is the continuation of politics by other means, it is by no means always successful.

The negotiation of the Treaty of Ramla is an important episode in "Envoy of Jerusalem."

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader has joined the Real Crusades History Team and taken over the position as Editor in Chief of the + Real Crusades History + Blog.

War by Other Means: Diplomacy of the Third Crusade Part I

                                     

The German military philosopher, Carl von Clausewitz, famously described war as “the continuation of politics by other means” and as “an act of force to compel the enemy to do our will.” Diplomacy on the other hand is the attempt to obtain political objectives without the use of force. War and diplomacy, however, are intimately related because every military leader seeks to obtain his objectives (both military and political) with the minimum casualties. A diplomatic victory that delivers an important military objective bloodlessly ― whether it’s as small as a bridge or as big as a kingdom ― is always preferred over a bloody battle or all out war.

Thus, both methods of obtaining political objectives (war and diplomacy) are as old as history itself. The crusades ― despite often being characterized as acts of mindless barbarism ― were no exception. In addition to the battles familiar to most students of the crusades, there were frequent, complex and often highly successful diplomatic maneuvers as well. 

The Third Crusade was the first (but not the last) of the crusades that ended with a truce, and as such was concluded diplomatically rather than militarily. It is therefore an interesting case-study in diplomacy at the interface between Christendom and the Dar al-Islam. It is particularly interesting because the principle actors, Richard the Lionheart and Salah ad-Din, are more famous as men of war than men of peace. In two entries I wish to examine the diplomacy of the Third Crusade. Today’s entry looks at diplomacy in the first six months of the crusade; a period in which both sides were probing the other more than seeking agreement.

The political objectives of the Third Crusade were crystal clear: the restoration of Christian rule over the Holy Land. The later was defined roughly as the land in which Christ had lived and died, most especially the site of his execution, burial and resurrection: Jerusalem. All the crusaders that embarked upon the Third Crusade understood this as their goal ― and Saladin knew it. His political objective was quite simply to defend the status quo: Muslim control over the territory coveted by the crusaders.

The Christian forces making up the Third Crusade first encountered the forces of Salah ad-Din at Acre. The choice of venue was not strategic and had not been chosen by any of the commanders. Rather, it was imposed on both parties by Guy de Lusignan’s questionable decision to lay siege to Acre two years earlier (See Siege of Acre). (One can’t help but speculate what Richard the Lionheart’s choice venue for an assault would have been if the siege of Acre had not already been in place; I suspect Jaffa or Ascalon.)

After nearly two years of stalemate, the arrival of the fleets commissioned and commanded by the powerful European kings Philip II of France and Richard I of England immediately tipped the scales at the siege of Acre in favor of the crusaders. I say the fleets and not the armies because it was ultimately the airtight blockade of the city of Acre that forced the Egyptian garrison of Acre to seek terms. 

So the first diplomatic move in the Third Crusade was made by the Saracens (the garrison of Acre) seeking very generous terms of surrender. The newly arrived crusaders, still fresh and cocky, rejected the terms. Instead, they continued their assaults and finally forced the garrison, which was now quite desperate, to surrender on less favorable terms. The terms included the return of the relic captured at the Battle of Hattin and believed to be a piece of the cross on which Christ was crucified (True Cross), a large payment in gold (200,000 gold pieces) and the liberation of a large number of Christian captives, most probably a number equal to the number of hostages. Two-thousand five hundred hostages (by some accounts more, but a number equal to the captives to be released) from the garrison were surrendered to the crusaders as surety for the fulfillment of the terms of the treaty. In short, the first round of diplomatic maneuvering went to the Christians.

Salah ad-Din, however, had either not been involved in the negotiations at all, or only at the last moment, when the desperate garrison begged him to sanction the terms they had already obtained. He was almost certainly not pleased with the terms, which may well have placed him in an awkward position. Salah ad-Din’s problem was that he: 1) may not have had the True Cross in his possession (Islam considers reverence for objects idolatry and had little reason to keep the Christian relic intact), 2) may have been short of ready cash, and 3) would have needed to buy back the captive Christians from the men who had captured them or purchased them since. In short, Salah ad-Din may have had difficulty fulfilling the terms of the agreement. Equally or possibly even more important, Salah ad-Din had every reason to drag out the fulfillment of the agreement. The campaign season in the Holy Land lasts only through the summer and ends when the rains start in November or December. It was already July when Acre surrendered. The longer Salah ad-Din dragged out the negotiations, the less time the crusaders would have to make an assault somewhere else.

Salah ad-Din as portrayed by a artist in the West

Salah ad-Din chose to play for time, missing at least two deadlines for the delivery of the True Cross, the captives and the gold. This inaction on the part of Salah ad-Din now put Richard of England in the awkward position of having to respond. The campaign season was ticking away, his troops were getting fractious, the Saracens hostages were consuming food and required guards. Most important of all: Salah ad-Din appeared to be mocking and belittling him. Aside from the fact that Salah ad-Din appeared to have made a fool of him in the eyes of many of his own followers, Richard had to wonder what Salah ad-Din would think of him if he meekly accepted the excuses and delays. The military objective, the surrender of Acre to the crusaders, had already been achieved. What was now at stake were only secondary, not to say marginal objectives: money, the symbolic True Cross, and captives, who were not Richard's own men but natives of Outremer, men that Richard at this time may have more-or-less looked down on.

Since Salah ad-Din had not fulfilled the terms of the agreement, Richard was completely within his rights to execute the hostages according to the customs of war at this time. His decision to do so, however, had little to do with what was his “right,” and more to do with what impact he thought his action would have. The execution of the hostages was of negligible military value; 2,500 men were a drop in the bucket of what Salah ad-Din could conscript or recruit. The execution of the hostages served, rather, the diplomatic objective of increasing Salah ad-Din’s respect for Richard as a negotiating partner. The diplomatic message was: this English king is not to be trifled with. Whether we like it or not, Richard got his message across.

Significantly, it was Richard that made the next diplomatic move. Shortly after the crusading army had left Acre and before the battle of Arsuf, Richard sought a meeting with Salah ad-Din. His apparent objective at this time appears to have been no more than meeting him face-to-face so he could take the measure of him. Richard, remember, had up to now fought men he knew well ― his father, his brothers, his vassals, his would-be brother-in-law Philip of France. Salah ad-Din was known to him only from hear-say and it is understandable that he wanted to meet. 

Richard I's Tomb at Fontevrault

Salah ad-Din rebuffed him. He said kings only met after an agreement has been hammered out. (The same is true today: treaties are negotiated at the working-level, and only signed ― when ready ― at summits.) Richard lost this round.

After the Battle of Arsuf, Richard made a renewed attempt to open diplomatic channels and Salah ad-Din agreed to let his brother al-Adil meet with Richard. Richard opened the negotiations with a demand that Salah ad-Din turn over all territories that had ever belonged to the Kingdom of Jerusalem (i.e. even territory lost decades earlier) and, furthermore, do homage to the restored Christian King of Jerusalem for Egypt. The fact that al-Adil mildly characterized these demands as “excessive” but indicated willingness to continue talking is highly significant. 

At the same time that Saladin was negotiating with Richard, he was also negotiating with Conrad de Montferrat. Conrad’s initial proposal was that the Sultan recognize him as Count of Tyre and in addition restore Sidon and Beirut, with their surrounding territory, to him in exchange for Montferrat recognizing the Sultan’s right to everything south of Tyre (i.e. from Acre to Ascalon and including the heartland of the former Kingdom of Jerusalem ― Nazareth, Galilee and Jerusalem.) While on the surface this offer was a hundred times better than Richard's, Salah ad-Din called Conrad’s bluff by pointing out that he could not give away what he did not control. This diplomatic exchange is significant because it exposed Conrad the Montferrat’s greed and weakness. Thereafter, the Sultan knew that his only serious opponent was Richard the Lionheart and he focused his attention on driving Richard out of the Holy Land. 

But “driving him out” did not have to be by military means and so he pursed the diplomatic contacts established by Richard. What followed were a series of meetings, the exact number and date of which we can no longer reconstruct, between Richard and/or his representatives and al-Adil as Salah ad-Din’s ambassador. At one of these, al-Adil put forward the preposterous idea that he marry Richard's sister, Joanna Plantagenet, Dowager Queen of Sicily. (See A Curious Proposal) Both sides, however, treated the proposal as a joke. By the end of November it was clear that the negotiations with Richard were going nowhere and had yielded nothing concrete. The diplomatic back-and-forth broke down and was replaced by a renewed military offensive directed at Jerusalem.

Yet the diplomatic contacts established in 1191 were not unimportant. They laid the groundwork for successful negotiations the following year. If nothing else, they enabled Richard and al-Adil to establish a degree of trust and rapport that had been singularly lacking at the start of the summer, when Richard had felt he had to execute thousands of prisoners to demonstrate his resolve. While the exchange of gifts should not be exaggerated into “friendship,” they were nevertheless an indication of a degree of “normalization” of relations that kept the door to a diplomatic solution open.

Balian d’Ibelin was directly involved in much of the diplomatic maneuvering, serving in one instance as Conrad de Montferrat’s envoy. The diplomatic game is a major plot factor in “Envoy of Jerusalem.”

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader has joined the Real Crusades History Team and taken over the position as Editor in Chief of the + Real Crusades History + Blog.

Book Review: Envoy of Jerusalem

                             

Envoy of Jerusalem, third volume in Dr. Helena Schrader’s superlative Jerusalem trilogy, opens in the first week of October 1187, on a distinctly bleak note. Three months after the disastrous Battle of Hattin and ensuing onslaught of Salah ad-Din, displaced fighting men gathered in a shabby tavern behind the walls of Tyre, the last Crusader stronghold remaining in Christian hands, take a bitter potion with their ale: the fall of Jerusalem to the Sultan. In that city, holiest to Christendom, thirty thousand women and children, elderly, and poor spared on the strength of the heroic Balian d’Ibelin’s hard negotiations desperately scramble to meet the Sultan’s price of ransom from a fate worse than death, a lifetime as slaves forever lost in the far-flung Islamic world.

Little is to be gained by further summarizing the story. Suffice to say Balian d’Ibelin and his wife, the Dowager Queen Maria Zoe Comnena, continue their leading roles in this vast, immersive, and well-told tale of the tumultuous events in the Holy Land preceding, over the course of, and after the Third Crusade. For review purposes, most pertinent is Dr. Schrader’s continuing success in translating her encyclopedic knowledge of the Crusader States and her proven abilities as a purely creative writer into works of high literary and historical value.

As in the previous two volumes, a convincingly evocative sense of physical environment marks every setting. In Envoy, a kingdom ninety years in its building lying ravaged, fallow, and desolate in the wake of Salah ad-Din’s armies, remains hauntingly poignant in memory.

Action, be it a meeting among dissenting hot-tempered barons, cruel words between husband and wife, or an all-out blood-splattered battle on land or sea, is vividly shown with a sure hand for all aspects, verbal, emotive, and physical. In characterization, Balian d’Ibelin faces a formidable challenge to his leading role with the show-stealing Richard I Couer de Lion, capably portrayed  as a great king, leader, and warrior who yet shows human strengths and failings, whose deeds and persona match the historical record, and is worthy of his legendary status.

As known to serious students and scholars of the Middle Ages, women in High Medieval Europe and its transplanted culture in the Crusader States were most decidedly not a class of downtrodden beings, solely present to be used by men as sexual toys, heir factories, or currency. In her numerous and extensive characterizations of women of all social stations, Dr. Schrader strictly avoids the clichés of modernist feminism, as well as the common ‘medieval’ stereotypes regularly seen in historical fiction. Consequently, her female characters stand in strong and authentic contrast to these too often seen typecasts. She doesn’t neglect to sharply illustrate the wide disparities between the status and treatment of women in the Christian and Islamic cultures of the time.

Envoy of Jerusalem continues at the same compelling, page-turning pace established in Knight of Jerusalem and Defender of Jerusalem, not relenting until the conclusion of the final scene. Also, like these preceding volumes, Dr. Schrader’s unfailing attention to the complexities of the historical and environmental frameworks make careful reading an agreeable necessity. The extensive supplementary materials:  genealogical charts, maps, introduction, historical afterward and notes, and the glossary and list of additional reading, are easily accessible, and contain answers to any questions that might arise. In themselves, these well written and organized resources provide ample evidence of the author’s scholarly qualifications and standards.

In conclusion, Envoy stands alone as captivating and entertaining, as well as scholarly and far-reaching in scope and intent. As a complete work, the Jerusalem trilogy represents an outstanding achievement; a literary oeuvre constructed in keeping with the highest academic principles for research and verifiable accuracy.

From Real Crusades History, a solid five stars and a hearty Deus Vult for Envoy of Jerusalem! ~ Scott Amis

Book Review: Seven Myths of the Crusades.

After languishing for long years in a post-Enlightenment intellectual backwater of fabrication, speculation, and distortion, the historical Crusades of the High Middle Ages began to attract serious scholarly attention in the nineteenth century. Continuing into the twentieth, these early efforts to gain a fresh understanding effectively culminated with Sir Steven Runciman’s A History of the Crusades, first published 1951-54, in three volumes. For four decades following, A History of the Crusades served as the standard Crusades reference for students, professors, and the reading public.

Beginning in the 1970s, a new generation of Crusades scholars and students had begun to supplant the previous, and, along with them, came a new effort to understand and interpret the Crusades strictly within their medieval context. Though questions raised concerning the thoroughness of Runciman’s research and of his personal biases have proven his conclusions, for the much larger part, inaccurate and outdated in the light of present knowledge and continuing research, A History of the Crusades yet commands a wide readership, and has continued to contribute to common myths prevalent today. 

Now, sixty-five years after the release of A History of the Crusades, and fifteen years after the devastating terrorist attack of September 9, 2001, the historical Crusades are indeed a hot topic, and myths about these long-ago wars abound. A casual session of ‘net-surfing’ will reveal a bewildering number of articles and web pages devoted to the Crusades. A scant few are scholarly, unbiased, and well-managed; the majority, at best sloppily mediocre; at worst, wildly biased and dedicated to political and religious agendas venturing into the fanatical.

Myths about the Crusades and the medieval era are topics often raised on these internet pages, and the answers provided range from the carefully-researched and cited to, much more frequently, a single author’s personal, uninformed opinions. Thankfully, Seven Myths of the Crusades has come at a time when most needed, as a long overdue collection of careful analyses and commentaries that address prevalent and destructive myths, written by the best of the mature new generation of Crusades scholars.  Unlike internet sources, even the best, usually brief, the authors represented in Seven Myths meticulously deconstruct common falsehoods, and, referencing primary and a wide variety of secondary sources, reconstruct the truths underlying the myths with challenging evidence and scholarly argumentation. The introduction provides a short yet ample history of Crusades scholarship; this, the theses following, and the conclusion are accompanied by numerous footnotes that precisely inform the text. The many volumes and sources included in the list of suggested reading are carefully chosen and conveniently divided into categories of general and special interest.   

Seven Myths can be confidently added to Crusades literature which is scholarly yet accessible and pleasurably readable, and not of daunting length. Read accompanying Thomas Madden’s A New Concise History of the Crusades and Jonathan Riley-Smith’s What Were the Crusades?, readers new to Crusades history will gain a solid foundation from which to further explore this vast subject. The more seasoned will find in Seven Myths a fresh, fascinating perspective and a comprehensive basis for refutation of the ignorance so pervasive in Crusades dialogue of the present.

From Real Crusades History, a solid five stars and a hearty Deus Vult! for Seven Myths of the Crusades! ~ Scott Amis