The Battle of Arsouf

September 7th 1191 was a key meeting between Richard the Lionheart of England and Saladin’s larger Ayyubid army. After his successful capture of Acre in the Third Crusade Richard demonstrated his strategic nous. He realized he needed the port of Jaffa. Assembling his forces he began to march down the coastal plain of Palestine, then known to the Franks and Normans as Outremer.

Richard understood that the advantage for the Arab armies lay with their light cavalry. If they were given room to maneuver they could make mincemeat of the heavy Norman cavalry and Infantry. So he cautioned discipline above all. On the march his men were subjected to relentless attacks by the horse archers seeking to disrupt the Frankish formations. By keeping to the sea Richard could supply his men from his fleet, and did not have to risk parties of men foraging inland.

When they got as far as Arsuf Saladin understood that their target must be Jaffa. He elected to press his advantage before the Western armies secured the port city.

Richard placed his back to the sea, protecting his baggage train with his heavy cavalry. He arranged his infantry inland of the cavalry. There he demanded the heavy Western troops absorb the skirmishing attacks of the Arabic and Turkic foes.

Saladin concentrated his attacks on the rear of Richard’s column, in the hope that he could split the rearguard from the centre and the van. The Hospitaller crossbowmen who held the very rear of the column were marching backwards while loading and firing crossbows. Unsurprisingly their lines began to fray. The Bedouin and Nubian infantry began to penetrate their lines and break them up. Any gap in the line was exploited by the rapidly charging horsemen armed with compound bows and scimitars.

Richard had to delay his response until the very last moment, when the horses of the attackers were tired and when they were fully committed to the attack. Only a head to head charge could favour the western knights. At last the Hospitaller knights of the rearguard could take no more and charged to defend their infantry. French contingents followed and Richard realized that it was now or never. He ordered his cavalry to charge.

On both flanks the knights smashed the Ayyubid cavalry to smithereens. Their centre fell back to do what the Arabs always did. Their intention was to feign retreat and then round on the Franks once their charge was strung out. Richard was all too aware of this practice so he assembled his vanguard cavalry and launched a second charge himself. His timing was immaculate and he smashed into Saladin’s cavalry just as they turned to stand again.

Richard then succeeded in reassembling his scattered cavalry, reforming and mounting a third charge. This was enough for the Muslim forces and they melted away into the forest of Arsuf and the hills behind. It was a complete rout of a larger Islamic army by Richard and his forces. Arsuf cemented his reputation as a great war leader, and of course gave him the massive chip on his shoulder described by Brian Bilston in the poem below.

Richard was unable to move inland and retake Jerusalem, but he had sufficient clout to negotiate a truce from a position of power. Saladin provided access to the holy places of Jerusalem and nearby shrines to Christian pilgrims and Richard could sell this as victory.

Richard the Lionheart; by Brian Bilston

He had the heart of a lion.
He was as strong as an ox.
But he had the liver of a goat
and the stomach of a fox.

The doctors were sent for
to allay the king’s fears,
but they were confounded
by his cauliflower ears
and the crow’s feet beneath his eyes
which shed crocodile tears.

Was he animal, vegetable or mineral?
They had no idea, but growing bolder
the doctors operated on the king
and removed the chip from his shoulder.

-=o0o=-

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Teutonic Order

In terms of fame the Teutonic order of Knights tend to come third after the Templars and the Hospitallers.  Certainly in the Crusades of the Holy Lands they maintained only a modest presence.

The key focus for the Teutonics was the pagan tribes of the Baltic in the areas now populated by Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Russians and Finns.  Their mission was to bring these peoples to God and they did this at the point of a lance.

Understandably the Baltic tribes did not just lie down and accept their fate.  The Northern Crusades were long, drawn out, bitter affairs.  Progress was measured in yards.  Campaigning was possible in the normal Spring/Summer season when grass was available to feed horses.  In a quirk of climate much of the fighting took place in the winter.  Frozen rivers and lakes in this area of the world make veritable highways through the dense forest and scrub.

So it was that in the winter of 1336 a force of Teutonic Knights besieged the Samotigian hill fort of Pilénai.  Accounts hold it that the defenders of the fort alone numbered 4,000 not counting women and children.  The Teutonic Knights must have numbered many thousands because the inhabitants of Pilénai realised that they could not defend themselves from the besieging army.

In a grand gesture of defiance the Lithuanians set fire to their own fort to deny it to the Crusaders.  Then, on this day, Feb 25th 1336, they committed what is the largest mass suicide in history.

 

A Song of Suicide; by Robert William Service

Deeming that I were better dead,
“How shall I kill myself?” I said.
Thus mooning by the river Seine
I sought extinction without pain,
When on a bridge I saw a flash
Of lingerie and heard a splash . . .
So as I am a swimmer stout
I plunged and pulled the poor wretch out.

The female that I saved? Ah yes,
To yield the Morgue of one corpse the less,
Apart from all heroic action,
Gave me a moral satisfaction.
was she an old and withered hag,
Too tired of life to long to lag?
Ah no, she was so young and fair
I fell in love with her right there.

And when she took me to her attic
Her gratitude was most emphatic.
A sweet and simple girl she proved,
Distraught because the man she loved
In battle his life-blood had shed . . .
So I, too, told her of my dead,
The girl who in a garret grey
Had coughed and coughed her life away.

Thus as we sought our griefs to smother,
With kisses we consoled each other . . .
And there’s the ending of my story;
It wasn’t grim, it wasn’t gory.
For comforted were hearts forlorn,
And from black sorrow joy was born:
So may our dead dears be forgiving,
And bless the rapture of the living.

 

Sciberras Peninsula

Capture of Fort St Elmo by Matteo Perez d’Aleccio

Valetta was founded on this day in the year 1566 on the Sciberras Peninsula in Malta.  The foundation stone for the City was laid by the eponymous Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller Order, Jean de Valette.

It is fitting that the Maltese capital should be named after Valette.  It was he who commanded the defence of the Island against the Turkish invasion the previous year.  A force of only 500 knights and about 2,000 soldiers defended the island against an invading force of Turks and Algerians numbering between 30,000 and 50,000.

The defending force withstood 4 months of constant frontal attacks by elite Turkish troops and endured a relentless barrage from the Turkish cannon.  They rebuilt walls even as they were destroyed.

It was one of the greatest and most uplifting victories in history.  It is one of three great battles that stemmed the expansion of the Ottoman Empire; the others being the Siege of Vienna and Lepanto.

Valetta was built upon the ruins of Fort St Elmo, which was lost to the Turks in the siege.  The small star shaped fort was reduced to rubble by Turkish guns within a week of their arrival.  Still, it held out for two incredible months, the defenders fighting for every scrap of stone with every drop of their blood.  St Elmo took the lives of 6,000 Turkish attackers, and half of the elite Janissary force.

Farewell to Malta; by Lord Byron

Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!
Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat!
Adieu, thou palace rarely enter’d!
Adieu, ye mansions where I’ve ventured!
Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs!
(How surely he who mounts you swears!)
Adieu, ye merchants often failing!
Adieu, thou mob for ever railing!
Adieu, ye packets without letters!
Adieu, ye fools who ape your betters!
Adieu, thou damned’st quarantine,
That gave me fever, and the spleen!
Adieu, that stage which makes us yawn, Sirs,
Adieu, his Excellency’s dancers!
Adieu to Peter–whom no fault’s in,
But could not teach a colonel waltzing;
Adieu, ye females fraught with graces!
Adieu, red coats, and redder faces!
Adieu, the supercilious air
Of all that strut ‘en militaire’!
I go–but God knows when, or why,
To smoky towns and cloudy sky,
To things (the honest truth to say)
As bad–but in a different way.

Farewell to these, but not adieu,
Triumphant sons of truest blue!
While either Adriatic shore,
And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more,
And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,
Proclaim you war and woman’s winners.
Pardon my Muse, who apt to prate is,
And take my rhyme–because ’tis ‘gratis.’

And now I’ve got to Mrs. Fraser,
Perhaps you think I mean to praise her­
And were I vain enough to think
My praise was worth this drop of ink,
A line–or two–were no hard matter,
As here, indeed, I need not flatter:
But she must be content to shine
In better praises than in mine,
With lively air, and open heart,
And fashion’s ease, without its art;
Her hours can gaily glide along,
Nor ask the aid of idle song.

And now, O Malta! since thou’st got us,
Thou little military hothouse!
I’ll not offend with words uncivil,
And wish thee rudely at the Devil,
But only stare from out my casement,
And ask, for what is such a place meant?
Then, in my solitary nook,
Return to scribbling, or a book,
Or take my physic while I’m able
(Two spoonfuls hourly by the label),
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver,
And bless the gods I’ve got a fever.