Montgisard, November 25, 1177
Dr. Helena Schrader
On
November 25, 1177 a Frankish army under the command of a 16-year-old
leper routed the army of the mighty Sultan of Cairo and Damascus, Salah
ad-Din. It was a surprise victory to say the least, and won by a mere fragment of the Frankish chivalry (because a large portion of the knights of the kingdom were campaigning in the north) and the hastily summoned, amateur infantry of the arrière ban.
In in 1177, Salah-ad-Din (known in the West as Saladin) launched a full-scale invasion of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was less than ten years since Saladin had assassinated his way to power in the Fatimid Caliphate in Cairo, and only three years since the coup d’etat in Damascus by which he had established himself in the heart of Syria. Although he had yet to take the key cities of Aleppo and Mosul (both of which remained loyal to the son of Nur ad Din), Saladin had for the most part united the Caliphates of Cairo and Baghdad for the first time in 200 years. However, his hold on power was precarious. In Egypt his faced suspicion and opposition because he was Sunni, and in Syria he was viewed as a usurper and upstart because he was a Kurd and had stolen the Sultanate from the rightful heir.
A Contemporary Depiction of Salah-ad-Din from an Islamic Manuscript
Saladin
countered these internal doubts and dissatisfaction with his rule with the
age-old device of focusing attention on an external enemy: the Christian states
established by the crusaders along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.
These states represented not merely a military threat to his lines of
communication between Egypt and Syria, but had also five times in the 1160s invaded
Egypt. These were not all outright wars of aggression, as in three of them the Shia Viziers had
requested Christian help against their Sunni enemies,
but the fact remained that army of Jerusalem, often aided by Byzantine fleets,
had conducted repeated campaigns on Egyptian territory and once come close to capturing
Cairo.
Saladin
did not simply beat the drum of alarm concerning an external enemy in order to
rally his subjects around him; he took up the cry of “jihad” — Holy War. This was a clear attempt to increase his stature
vis-a-vis his remaining rivals in Syria. Salah-ad-Din means “righteousness of
the faith,” and Salah-ad-Din throughout his career used campaigns against the
Christian states as a means of rallying support.
Another depiction of Saladin; Source Unknown
Saladin had
not invented jihad. The word itself
appears multiple times in the Koran, but with varying meanings. It was also
used as justification for the Muslim conquests of the 7th Century. It had, however, become less popular in later centuries until Nur ad-Din, the Seljuk ruler of Syria from 1146-1174,
reinvigorated the concept. Most historians agree, however, that Nur ad-Din used jihad when it suited him, but remained a
fundamentally secular ruler. He had, however, unleashed the jinni from the
bottle and the concept of “Holy War” soon gained increasing support in the
madrassas and mosques across the Seljuk territories of the Near East. By the
time Saladin came to power there was a body of already radicalized youth eager
to follow the call to jihad.
Meanwhile,
in
the Kingdom of Jerusalem, King Amalaric, who had been so intent on
conquering
parts if not all of Egypt, had died. He
had been succeeded by Baldwin IV, a youth suffering from leprosy.
Conscious of his own weakness and immanent death, Baldwin IV sent to the
West for
aid, and in early August 1177, Count Philip of Flanders reached Acre
with a
large force of Western knights.
On the advice
of the High Court, Baldwin IV offered Philip of Flanders the regency of his
kingdom, whose armies were preparing yet another invasion of Egypt aided by a
large Byzantine fleet. Flanders, however, insisted on being made king of any
territories the joint Christian forces conquered. The idea did not sit well
with either the King of Jerusalem or the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire,
both of whom were footing the bill and providing the bulk of the troops for the
expedition. The result was that the entire expedition was called off, the
Byzantine fleet withdrew and Philip of Flanders took his knights and half the
barons of Jerusalem north to attack the Seljuk strongholds of Hama and Harim
instead.
A Medieval depiction of a Crusading Host
Salah ad-Din
had
gathered his forces in Egypt to repel the impending attack. He rapidly
learned
that not only had the invasion of Egypt been called off, the Byzantine
fleet had withdrawn and the bulk of the fighting forces of Jerusalem had
moved north. It was
a splendid opportunity to strike, and the Sultan seized the opportunity
with a
force estimated at 26,000 light horse — which leaves open the question
of
whether there were infantry with him or not. The force also
allegedly
included some 1,000 mamluks of the Sultan’s personal body guard.
According to
an anonymous Christian chronicler from northern Syria, the news of Saladin’s
invasion plunged Jerusalem into despair. The king was just 16 years old, had no
battle experience of his own, and his most experienced commanders (or many of
them) were besieging Hama. The Constable of the Kingdom, the competent and wise
Humphrey de Toron II, was gravely ill. But according to Archbishop William of Tyre, Baldwin’s former tutor now his
chancellor and our best contemporary source, Baldwin rallied his forces and with just 376 knights made a dash
to Ascalon, the southern-most stronghold of his kingdom.
Arriving there
only shortly before Saladin himself on November 22, King Baldwin took control
of the city, but then hesitated to risk open battle with the Saracens because of the imbalance of
forces. Thus, while King Baldwin's dash to Ascalon had
been heroic, it had been less than wise strategically. Salah ad-Din was now in a position to bottle up the King and his knights inside
Ascalon, and nothing lay between Saladin and Jerusalem except scattered
garrisons. Rather than wasting time besieging a fortified city with a strong garrison, Saladin left a force of undefined size to maintain the siege of
Ascalon and moved off with the bulk of his troops.
But this was where Salah ad-Din miscalculated. The Sultan and
his emirs were so confident of victory that they took time to plunder the rich
cities of the coastal plain, notably Ramla and Lydda, but also as far inland
as Hebron. In Jerusalem, the terrified population sought refuge in the Citadel
of David.
 |
| The Citadel of David as it appears today. |
But Baldwin IV
was not yet defeated. With the number of Saracen troops surrounding Ascalon dramatically
reduced, he risked a sortie. Even more impressive, he somehow managed to get word to the Templars in the fortress of Gaza, and they sortied out to rendezvous with the King. Together this mounted force started to shadow Saladin’s
now dispersed and no longer disciplined army. Frankish tactics,
however, required a combination of cavalry and infantry, so King Baldwin
could not engage the enemy until he had infantry as well. He therefore
issued the arrière ban, a
general call to arms that obligated every Christian to rally to the royal standard
in defense of the realm. Infantry started streaming to join him.
On the afternoon
of November 25, King Baldwin’s host of about 450 knights (375 secular knights
and 84 Templars from Gaza), with their squires, Turcopoles and infantry in
unspecified numbers caught up with the main body of Saladin’s troops at a place
near Montgisard or Tell Jazar, near Ibelin (modern day Yavne). The Sultan, as he later admitted to Saracen
chroniclers, was caught off-guard. Before he could properly deploy his troops,
the main force of Christian knights, led (depending on which source you believe)
by Reynald de Chatillon, “the Ibelin brothers” or the Templars, smashed into Saladin’s
still disorganized troops, apparently while some were still crossing or
watering their horses in a stream.
A modern portrayal of the Battle of Montgisard by Mariusz Kozik
Although the
battle was hard fought and there were Christian casualties, the Sultan’s forces
were soon routed. Not only that, Salah ad-Din himself came very close to being killed or captured and allegedly escaped on
the back of a pack-camel. Yet for the bulk of his army there was no escape.
Those who were not slaughtered immediately on the field, found themselves
scattered and virtually defenseless in enemy territory. Although they abandoned
their plunder, it was still a long way home — and the rains
had set in. Cold, wet, slowed down by
the mud, no longer benefiting from the strength of numbers, they were easy prey
for the residents and settlers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The latter, after the sack of Lydda, Ramla
and other lesser places, had good reason to crave revenge. Furthermore, even
after escaping Christian territory, the Sultan’s troops still found no refuge
because once in the desert the Bedouins took advantage of the situation to enslave
as many men as they could catch in order to enrich themselves. Very few men of the
Sultan’s army made it home to safety in Egypt.
Saladin was
badly shaken by this defeat. He had good reason to believe it would discredit
him and initially feared it would trigger revolts against his rule. Later, he
convinced himself that God had spared him for a purpose. Certainly he was to learn
from his defeat. He never again allowed himself to be duped by his own
over-confidence and his subsequent campaigns against the crusader states were
marked by greater caution. It was not until the crushing defeat of
the Frankish armies at Hattin in July 1187 — almost ten years later — that he
had his revenge.