Who won the Battle of Arsuf?
On 7 September 1191, during the Third Crusade, King Richard I of England, the Lionheart, defeated Saladin at Arsuf on the coast of the Holy Land. Marching south toward Jaffa under constant attack, Richard held his column together until his rearguard charged, then committed his whole army to a charge that shattered the enemy. It was a clear defeat for Saladin in the open field, though not a crushing one.1
Two of the most famous soldiers of the Middle Ages faced each other on a hot September day on the road to Jaffa. One had built an empire and taken Jerusalem; the other had come from the far west to win it back. Arsuf would not decide the war, but it would decide something almost as important: whether Saladin could be beaten in the open field.
The Third Crusade
In 1187 Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria, had destroyed the crusader army at Hattin and retaken Jerusalem, shocking Christian Europe. In answer came the Third Crusade, and with it Richard I of England, the Lionheart, one of the finest soldiers of the age. After taking the port of Acre in 1191, Richard set out down the coast toward Jaffa, the gateway to Jerusalem.2
A march under fire
Richard knew his danger and marched in a tight, disciplined column, the sea and his supply fleet on his right, his infantry and crossbowmen screening the knights from Saladin's mounted archers on his left. For days the Muslims harassed the column with arrows and feints, trying to goad the crusaders into breaking ranks and charging early, where they could be surrounded and cut down. Richard forbade it, and held the army together mile after punishing mile.3
The charge
As the army neared Arsuf, Saladin threw in his full strength, and the pressure on the rearguard, held by the Knights Hospitaller, became almost unbearable. When the Hospitallers could take no more and charged, Richard read the moment and committed his whole line. The sudden, massed charge of the crusader knights caught Saladin's army out of shape and drove it from the field in confusion.4
Did Richard the Lionheart defeat Saladin?
Yes, twice in battle, but he did not win the war. Richard beat Saladin in the open field at Arsuf on 7 September 1191 and again at Jaffa in August 1192. Yet he never took Jerusalem, and the Third Crusade ended in a three-year truce that left the holy city in Saladin's hands.5
The second victory is less famous than Arsuf and in some ways more remarkable. On 27 July 1192, as Richard prepared to leave the Holy Land, Saladin laid siege to Jaffa. Richard came down the coast by sea, waded ashore and drove the besiegers out of the town with a small force.6
When Saladin struck back days later, on 5 August, Richard had only fifty-four knights, just fifteen of them mounted, and some 2,000 foot soldiers, many of them Genoese and Pisans. He formed his men behind a hedge of grounded spears, with a crossbowman between each pair of spearmen and a second man behind him loading a spare bow. Five or six times the Ayyubid cavalry charged and broke against the spears, and in the end Saladin could not get his men to attack again.7
Neither victory broke the deadlock. On 2 September 1192 the two rulers agreed the Treaty of Jaffa: a three-year truce, the coast from Tyre to Jaffa left to the crusaders, Ascalon demolished, and safe passage for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. Richard sailed from Acre on 9 October 1192. For a point-by-point comparison of the two men, see Saladin vs Richard the Lionheart. Both men are among the faces in Guess the Commander.8
How many died at the Battle of Arsuf?
No exact count survives. Christian chroniclers claimed that Saladin lost 32 emirs and about 7,000 men, while Richard's own dead were put at no more than 700. The Muslim total may well be too high: Baha al-Din, who rode in Saladin's army that day, named only three of its leaders among the dead.9
The best-known crusader casualty was James of Avesnes, who had commanded one of the rear divisions on the march and was cut down after riding too far ahead of the rest.10
The numbers tell only part of the story, though. The charge that decided the day was started by the Hospitallers' marshal and a notable knight, Baldwin de Carron, who pushed through their own infantry with a cry of "St George!" The charge went in before Richard had given the signal, but only moments before the time he would have chosen himself.11
Richard then halted the pursuit after about a mile, wary of being drawn into a Turkish counterstroke, and rallied his men on the English and Norman knights around the great standard, who had barely fought. Saladin's army was routed but not destroyed. What changed was his appetite for risk: shaken by the charge, he was no longer willing to launch another full-scale attack on the crusader column.12
Victory, but not Jerusalem
Arsuf was a clear crusader victory, and by Baha al-Din's own admission the spirit of Saladin's army was broken. Richard reached and refortified Jaffa, and the crusaders regained the coast. Yet the war ground on without a decisive end: Richard twice advanced toward Jerusalem and twice judged he could not hold it, and in 1192 the two men agreed the Treaty of Jaffa, leaving the city in Muslim hands but open to Christian pilgrims. Richard sailed for home, and the two great rivals never met in person: Saladin had declined Richard's request for a meeting.13
