[Music] the summer of 1189 the Jordan Valley in Palestine in the Battle of hatin Muslim troops Slaughter 16,000 Christian Knights and soldiers Europe's kingdom of Jerusalem the most sacred territory in Christendom falls into the hands of a new charismatic Muslim leader Saladin the Pope Urban III as soon as he heard the news dropped dead from a heart attack they saw Saladin as the son of Satan he was even depicted as the sixth of the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse in Europe tens of thousands of men answered the Pope's call and swore to reconquer the Holy Land thus began the Third Crusade they fight in the name of Faith they kill in the name of faith and in this they understand each other very well on the other side they have exactly the same type of reasoning The Crusade was led by the greatest leaders of the Christian world the king of England Richard the lonard and the King of France Philip Augustus it was a Titanic Clash of arms where all the major figures in military history fought and lived and died in the same circumstances the epicenter of the conflict is the Fortress of St John of Aer for 2 years this port city on the shores of the Mediterranean is the scene of one of the the longest sieges in medieval history summer 1189 700 Frankish Knights and 9,000 infantry leave Tire in modern Lebanon and head for the south of Palestine at their head is G lucon whose Army was massacred at natin 2 years earlier K lucon is the king of Jerusalem but he no longer has possession of Jerusalem uh in fact he has no longer has possession of any major piece of territory in the Old Kingdom and so to get back his territory to get back his Prestige he's almost forced to uh begin the campaign uh begin the counter offensive against a Muslim Force the pope has called for more Crusaders to come but for now G is on his own his first destination is the Strategic Port City of acre if he wants to reconquer his kingdom he'll have to set Siege to it in the 12th century the city of acre is a beautiful commercial Port this is the center of the kingdom of Jerusalem in an economic sense for that reason it was an crucial strategic Target it was very very important to hold this arterial route back to Western Europe supplies pilgrims reinforcements could come and go out of this port on the 28th of August ghee arrives at the gates of the [Music] city it's built on a peninsula bordered to the west by the Mediterranean and to the South by the Bay of hia its lofty ramparts are protected by a wide moat that extends to the north for over 3,280 ft and to the east for 1,148 Ft its residential District's markets and mosques spread over 290,000 square yards and they're defended by a Garrison of 20,000 troops more than twice gese numbers when G arrived at acre he would have had a great knowledge of the city itself he spent time there uh he had spent numerous meetings there um he would have been very well acquainted with the defenses as well as the topography around the city he knows only a Siege will take acre and so when he gets to acre his first consideration is where can I be safe where can I uh put myself in a position to survive until reinforcements arrive G and his Crusaders they set themselves up on a small hill called the ton which is about 35 M High just to the southeast of the city and that may not sound much but actually it's quite a steep hill and a really good defensive [Music] position he must dig in quickly because not far away another Army is preparing for battle and it's led by one of the most legendary Warlords the Muslim world has ever known saladine the first Sultan of the aid Dynasty Saladin was the leader of the Muslim near East at the time he positioned himself as the the hero of Sunni Islam he'd removed the Shia from control of Egypt and he assembled an Empire of Egypt in modern terms Syria and Northern Iraq and that enabled him to unify all these Amir these Sultans who had all been fighting each other and whose division had led them to collaborate with the westerners who' settled in the Holy Land since the first crusade on the 28th of August saladine deploys his forces an Allied Army of fighters from Syria Mesopotamia Egypt and the mreb they form a front from the shores of the Mediterranean all the way around to the Bellos river right behind G's Army [Music] G's decision to besiege them is a very very bold one because he knows that sadan is likely to besiege him and as one of the Muslim commentators write it's as if the Crusaders plac themselves between the hammer and the Anvil and I think that's a really powerful image and a self-choice to put yourself in the middle of these two powerful forces and so we have something that is almost unique in the annals of Siege Warfare a double Siege with the battle lines drawn on the plane of acre tens of thousands of Christian and Muslim soldiers prepare to fight and die for their faith none of them knows that this Siege is destined to be one of the longest in medieval warfare city city in September 50 ships lay anchor in haa Bay on board a 14,000 German Breton and Flemish soldiers reinforcements from Christendom they join G lucan's Army to form an impassible barrier around three sides of the city but they still must cut the city off from the sea you can barricade a city on its landward side but if they're shipping in supplies from the sea then you can never really cut them off you can never put them under the kind of privation that you'd like the kind where now that their stomachs are empty and hope is dwindling the decision may be made to surrender the city instead of keep holding out the port is particularly well defended and protected by two break Waters standing on them at the entrance to the port Two Towers serve as a defensive position between them a heavy chain that once raised prohibits all access from the sea G knows that it will be difficult to capture it but he can surround it so the West's Fleet will blockade the port we now have an amphibious siege that will last until the end for two years that Siege will continue both by land and by sea held in a vice likee grip AA is now cut off from the [Music] world in the Muslim Camp saladine summons his Amir and plans his first major offensive he knows that the Garrison inside is trapped so his first concern is to open up a corridor to get into the city so he can move supplies into the Garrison and here we're not only talking about um arms and armor and the the the stuff of War but also rudimentary things like like food and um and cloth textiles the things that you'll need to survive in order to engage the entire Crusader Army as a whole saladin's men will be divided into three units the one on the left will be positioned along the river bellus the one on the right will be under the command of saladin's nephew General talin the one in the middle will be under his own command saladin's formation at acre seems to mirror earlier practices the idea of having a strong Center uh typically where the Sovereign would sit as well as a right-wing and a left wing and this was in part inspired by the makeup of armies at this time these were in the West in a kind of feudal sense where you had a different Lord controlling each uh contingent usually and there was a similar balance to that for Saladin who would entrust certain parts of his army to those people who had helped to raise those parts of the army at dawn on the 14th of September they launched their attack the Infantry will be in the first row followed by The Archers and then the Cavalry but it's the Cavalry that begins the attack back the Muslim Horsemen charged the Crusaders at full Gallop what you do tend to see though is a greater emphasis placed on the mobility of Muslim Cavalry they would uh charge forward they would harass the Crusaders and then as the fighting ensued appear to move backwards as if they are afraid of the rush it's designed to draw your enemy to abandon their discipline and to depart their ranks and come after you and of course that's what you want because as soon as they charge they've left their strong lines now they're in the open field and they're vulnerable on the Left Flank the Crusaders are outnumbered and forced to retreat saladin's forces push the Christians back along the ramparts opening a route to the city it all happens very fast The Siege is broken to the north of the city he manages to establish a channel through and is able to have a corridor in which reinforcements and supplies can get into the city saladine himself goes up on the wall and surveys the Christian Army so here is your main opponent you're now staring at him on the wall he has just defeated you in a sense and now he's looking down on you with contempt uh it's one of those horrible moments where uh as a crusader you you Poss possibly lose heart and say you know this sounded like a good idea I think we may have already lost scarcely after we began but saladine then makes a curious move convinced of his superiority and that he can force open a supply line to acre at any time he returns that very evening to his Camp giving back to the Crusaders the passage to acre that so many of his men just died for his pride is to cost him dearly Autumn 1189 the 22nd day of The Siege the Crusaders have suffered heavy losses but reinforcements have arrived answering the Pope's Call to Arms the Marquis Conrad of Monera with a force of a th000 Knights and 20,000 infantry lands on the plane of akre his arrival is timely but he gets a cool welcome from GID to lucino Conrad deont forat is the largest rival to gidad both have the same aim to become king of Jerusalem there's only one Throne though so the Rivalry between the two men is extremely strong so what that means is on the Frankish Crusader side you have two Rivals both with their supporters and their adance so that is in some sense is going to split the focus of the Frankish effort a little bit but for the time being they share a common enemy in saladine they'll never be able to take acre as long as they have the sultan on their backs they have to worry about saladine but then they also have to attack this city and get through its walls and you really can't do both at the same time whenever the Franks try to attack the walls of acre they get caught in the crossfire as soon as an attack on the city is imminent The Garrison there sends word to Saladin so the moment the Franks launch their attack on the walls Saladin attacks their camp and the attackers are forced to retreat in order to defend themselves the double Siege is becoming a war of attrition the Christians cannot win on the evening of October 3rd gee summons his Barons to develop a plan of attack they thought that if Adine was left there he would surely be their destruction and that their best opportunity was to charge and bring him to battle hopefully either crush him or significantly defeat him so that he might think twice and leave the area and give them some Breathing Room on October 4th at 9:00 a.m. they launched their attack on saladin's Army behind [Music] them a swarm of Crusaders falls on the Muslim Vanguard while Conrad and his Cavalry managed to break through Taki alin's lines killing nearly 500 of his men saladin's nephew has no choice but to sound The Retreat Saladin worries about his nephew and sends men over to help him and in doing so weakens the center of the Muslim line the Crusaders see this and punch a hole through that Central section right into saladin's camp and then they stop because they are so hungry they sit down inside their enemy tents and they start to eat the food that the Muslims had prepared and at that moment they lose all of the initiative of the [Music] operation meanwhile saladine tries to save his army that's in full route [Music] and for this he relies on a powerful weapon their faith jiad is totally Central to saladin's thinking every time he feels the need to raise an army he does so in the name of religion and he proclaims a Jihad that is to say that they fight in the name of faith that they kill in the name of faith and in this they understand each other very well on the other side they have exactly the same type of reasoning while the Muslims are regrouping the Crusaders sure now of Victory continue their plundering when a totally unpredictable event changes the course of the battle a single Crusader loses his way there's a horse that turns around and starts running back to the Crusader camp in front of acre and you can imagine its owner taking off after it come back come back right running after it and he chases it but to the people on the further plane as they see this it looks like several people running away from the battle in fear and the moment starts to develop and more people start running and following and pretty soon it looks like the Crusaders are on the retreat that they're being routed and of course this happens at the exact wrong time the same time that saladine is launching his Counterattack sadin registers this turns his own troops around pursues the Crusaders very very hard there's a lot of fierce fighting the master of the templers is killed the Muslims take a lot of casualties too some senior EMAs are lost so it's a pretty Savage engagement for the Crusaders the defeat is terrible 7,000 Warriors fallen in battle a third of the Army's strength the smell of death hangs over the plane from his Camp G knows that trying another attack could be fatal he needs to change tactics the Christians figure out that they were in a horrible position trapped between the Garrison and acre and saladin's Army and so they decide to build rorts around themselves G orders his men to dig two ditches facing both the city and the Sultan's armies they will fill them with razor sharp pieces of wood and steel to protect the camp from Cavalry attacks behind the ditches ramparts built with Earth from the excavations and topped with wooden Palisades will make the camp impenetrable it's exhausting work and everyone even the kns lends a hand now that kind of work takes a lot of time it's not easy to go out with shovels and dig massive ditches and pound up Earth this is something that's going to take um a month two months three months and you're doing it at the coldest time of the year so you're entering into November December January February this is very very difficult work particularly for a force that's not well fed what more it's not easy to find the materials they need to build their defenses because they were cut off from the interior of Palestine they would have relied on very little of the local trees this would have been at most just little Orchards however any larger defenses they would have had to construct using Timber salvaged from the ships that arrived dozens of Christian ships lie scrapped on the beach outside akre from the ramparts the men of the Garrison can only look on in frustration the Muslims see this they see what they're doing they see them ensconcing themselves with defenses and again there are some of the amirs that go to saladine and say we must attack we have to destroy these guys before they defend themselves but again saladine dither if the sultan hesitates it's because when he's alone in his tent he's fighting an evil that nuseed him from the [Music] inside he suffers from what the Chronicles describe as colic which seems to be this chronic stomach pain debilitating excruciating stomach pain his immune system seems to pack up he gets terrible boils all over his legs he really does struggle very very badly indeed which actually stops him riding stops him taking part in battles so ex saladin's health is one of the major influences on the siege of AA unable to lead his troops into battle saladine postpones his attack on the Christian Camp and that ends up being the most critical failure of uh The Siege because once those defenses are in place you can no longer dislodge the Christians saladine could no longer Force open a supply line to the city surrounded by the fortified Christian Camp AKA is now cut off from the world now everyone prepares for a war of attrition a cold war whose goal is to force the other to surrender but for the time being they just have to wait because the siege of ACA stretches over the winter months it seems there's a period in which there's very little fighting the mud is is prohibitive to move through for horses and Men the temperature is rain cold so I think both sides need a rest almost there's a sense of almost a sort of an agreement that we we we park this for a few months which sounds odd in a in a long Siege or military situation but that's simply the reality of it it's the Calm before the storm because 1900 miles away two powerful new combatants are about to join the Crusade [Music] spring 1190 the 205th day of The Siege led by Conrad of Monera dozens of Warships appear off [Music] acre Saladin quickly responds thousands of his men fill the port and board a fleet of 50 the Egyptian ships waiting in the harbor they arrived from Alexandria just before winter forming a row the Muslim ships set sail towards Conrad Conrad also prepares his Fleet for battle except that his ships advance in a concave Crescent [Music] line the idea is to almost lull the Army into an envelopment if you have this concave that the the force sails towards you and the back of your Fleet bends which allows the two sides of your ships to wrap around the enemy so it's a very useful technique if it works the Egyptian Fleet sails straight into Conrad's trap caught in a pins grip they are unable to flee the Deluge of arrows that rains down but the Muslims aren't finished yet for they have a secret weapon is if you do get attacked on the Seas you can respond with things like Greek fire or what we call NAPA NAPA a mixture of petroleum sulfur and animal fat is highly [Music] flammable this Greek Fire really scares the westerners not only does it come in terrifying flaming projectiles but if you're hit with Napa you can't get it off you and it'll keep burning even in the water also fire because of its burning because of the pain it provokes it reminds us of the hell of the internal punishment so there's something terrifying about it especially at a time when Muslims are being demonized they're seen as Satan's minions the proof is that they use fire perfectly against the Christians once the Muslims are set fire to Christian galleys the next step is to board them the man-to-man combat begins with some unpredictable outcomes there is this comic scene where the Christians managed to get uh on top of this vessel and um and they they seize part of the ores and you have Christians on one level rowing ores you have Muslims on another level rowing ores and they're going in opposite directions and so as they're rowing against each other the boat is actually spinning in circles and it doesn't stop until one side can get enough skirmishers on the end to kill some of these ormen and then finally straighten the ship out the battle itself is turning too in the Christians favor Conrad repeals the Egyptian Fleet which takes Refuge behind the heavy chain of the port of [Music] acre the Christians quickly try to capitalize on their victory at the Crusaders have spent the winter building Siege engines for their next assault on the city among them three towers financed by G lucino and Conrad de MOA these 89 ft High five-story rolling structures can each transport up to 500 soldiers at their Summits the large platform feature mobile Bridges which the troops can use to get onto the city's ramparts webs of rope stretched across the front will protect them from projectiles fired from those ramp Parts The Defenders inside acre as well as Saladin looking from outside acre recognize that this is a serious threat so you really need to deal with these constructions to break them to stop them getting up to the walls in the first instance they're very worrying indeed the three towers start moving towards the city because of their size they're moving very slowly as they're being pushed on either logs or Wheels towards the city so it's like creeping death as it comes towards you slowly and you're shooting at it you're using catapults against them uh you're throwing stones you're attacking them and Nothing is Stopping them they just get close closer and closer and closer but there is still one obstacle in their path the ditches at the foot of aka's ramparts the engines must cross them to get Within Reach under a rain of arrows the Crusader infantry rushes aka's walls we will see considerable efforts to fill in not all of the ditches but certain points of the ditches so as to bring in Machinery we hear stories of throwing just about anything they can into these ditch including humans there's one story where someone wants to be thrown into the ditch as they're kind of dying will from a defender's perspective clearing these ditches is very important because if the ditch is compromised the city then gets into uh some serious trouble Muslim catapults loaded with pictures of Napa make a desperate attempt to set fire to the three terrible machines unfortunately the crusaders had protected these things very well they had covered The Siege towers with animal skins and then splashed on those animal skins vinegar which has a warding effect when the Greek Fire would hit the vinegar it would sort of fizzle it would put the fire out stuck in his camp on the other side of the Crusader's fortified line saladine and his army are unable to help the city when all hope seems lost a man arrives asking to see the sultan according to our Muslim sources we're told that the son of a damine cauldron maker uh comes up with the idea or promises that he's able to destroy these towers and people are a bit skeptical well you know we've tried this before but he convinces Saladin that he can they smuggle him into the city where he gets these enormous copper Vats and he makes up his special Brew of Greek Fire he fires a couple of sighting shots at the towers doesn't really work and the Crusaders laugh at him but then he fills up a really big vat lights the fuse fires it and it explodes and engulfs this Tower in flame and at that point the Garrison commanders they become Believers of course and they mix up more of this stuff and one by one by one they completely emulate The Siege Towers they are burned to a crisp with the three toes destroyed all hope of a quick victory for the Christians is lost it's a hard blow especially since for the troops The Siege has already gone on too long there's a sense in the camp that nothing is being done that we're wasting our time that our leaders have not successfully prosecuted this seed and so there is a movement to attack saladin's Army the men insist on launching an attack to break the double Siege but ghee and Conrad refuse they say it would be suicidal but their men won't back down so they give in but on one condition that it'll be without Knights and Cavalry and so there's this great stirring of 10 to 12,000 of the regular soldiers infantry they line up in formation and they attack saladin's Army taken by surprise the Muslims retreat but very swiftly saladine organizes his response his Horsemen charge into the Christians ranks and crush them and the sad part of this story is the knights and the counts see what is happening to them and most of them refuse refuse to go and help they stay back behind the protective walls and they essentially let their compatriots die it's almost one of those moments of I told you so right I warned you not to do that you didn't listen to me and so this is what happens it's a lesson that comes at a high price between 4 and 8,000 Christian Soldiers lie dead their corpses abandoned on the Battlefield the dead are left to rotten the ditches they poison the water these harsh conditions mean that illness really kicks in we find throughout the whole Siege of ACA more people die of illness than they do in battle westerners who come over are particularly susceptible to to new stomach bugs and often die of dentry so it really is an incredibly tough environment to endure without reinforcements G de Luc has reached a dead end the Third Crusade is slowly dying on the plane outside akre but a new player is about to join the [Music] game Autumn 1190 the 395th day of the siege [Music] the Frenchman HRI de champag count of trra lands in haab Bay he's ready to take advantage of ghee and Conrad's failure to take the city Henry of champagne this is a senior Western figure a man with a great crusading ancestry a man of energy Authority money and a good number of troops Henry is curiously enough the nephew of both Richard the Li and Philip Augustus he's therefore perfectly placed to become king of Jerusalem he's an accomplished Warrior and right now has just one Obsession to bring down AO it's incredibly depressing for the Muslims because every time they inflict a severe blow against the Christians fresh Crusaders seem to arrive and so when Henry of champagne arrives he arrives with numerous ships and supplies and reinforcements and so this is a major psychological blow saladine knows that if he gives the city no reason to Hope and no supplies it will eventually surrender so to get around the Christian blockade of the port he shows considerable imagination the better method is to go Incognito and so what they'll do is they'll take their vessels and try to transform them into into Western looking ships they get the crew to to shave their beards off they put Christian flags on top of the Mas they even allow pigs to run around on the decks and so as they sail past the Christian ships the alarm is not rung until it's too late so but it's a very successful way of getting three large ships and all their supplies into acre once again the Crusaders efforts to starve the city have come to nothing hry decides to try to take control of the port once and for all Henry of champagne decides to attack the Tower of flies if you can take that Tower you can control the entrance to the port the Tower of flies is the most imposing of the two towers that defend the entrance to the [Music] port it's heavily defended and can only be approached by sea so to take control of it HRI has one of his gyss equipped with an assault Tower a floating Siege engine it was some kind of a maritime Tower built up from the deck of a ship that had a bridge that was going to be used to help to get to the top of the tower of the Flies AR's Galley drops anchor within range of the tower the Christian archers send up a rain of arrows while the Infantry men equip equipped with two ladders set out to attack but from the top of their Tower The Defenders retaliate hurling large pieces of wood that wipe out all the Christian soldiers in their path finally a Muslim Soldier throws a jar of napar at the ship it immediately bursts into flame A's attack has failed The Siege has been going on for more than a year now and for the Crusaders the bad news is piling up Europe's two most powerful Kings England's Richard the lionard and Francis Philipe Augustus aren't coming they will spend the winter in Sicily entangled in Endless political quarrels the long- awaited reinforcements and supplies won't arrive until the spring of 1191 when you think about having to feed 10,000 people 15,000 20,000 that's an awful a lot of mouths to feed and that's just for the soldiers when you start counting the camp followers the cooks the laundresses uh everyone else who's involved it's an awful big crowd and so they never seem to have enough food they're resorting to eating things like root vegetables and Carib beans and drinking wine and even eating grass to keep themselves alive hunger and disease thin the Crusaders ranks All Eyes of a turned to the Horizon in the hope of finally seeing the great leaders of the West [Music] appear spring 1191 the 596 day of The Siege at last Philip Augustus King of France arrives on the plane of akre he's only 26 years old the arrival of Philip Augustus is not really something that triggers great fear amongst the Muslims they don't think of him as a very impressive figure actually I think they underestimated him a bit he's got some very senior commanders with him he has a lot of money and a lot of equipment as soon as he disembarks Philipe inspects the camp and the state of the ramparts after almost 2 years of Siege he's dism made by what he sees he's very frustrated that the Crusaders have not been able to take the city of Acer yet he lands and almost demands from them sort of what have you been doing in all this time on the 30th of May Philipe summons his Barons to his tent he is determined that he the king of France will bring down the city and for that he has a plan they must Focus all their efforts on one strategic point of the ramparts the accursed tower it's located at the northeast corner of the city and offers its Defenders an angle of fire of 270° its nickname was well deserved from the Crusader point of view this was by accounts a very large and a very strong tower and so it would have dominated the landward defenses of the City by focusing on the accursed tower I think Phil pH was not only trying to take the hardest part of the city in terms of its fortifications but I think that he realized that if that Salient were to be captured it was just very quickly a matter of time before the rest of the city would fall along with it to destroy it Philipe relies on a tried and trusted technique the other major part of Siege technology is mining digging under the walls and you get an object called a cat which is a a big wielded screen that your men can push up to the walls and then while that's protecting you from people raining down stones and molten liquid on your head you're trying to dig under the walls and while you're pulling out that material you prop up the wall above using wooden posts those are then set on fire and these burn out the posts that are holding up the wall above with nothing to support them the Wall comes crashing down this is the most effective method of destroying a wall throughout the medieval period a whole section of the tower collapses in a deafening D immediately the French launch their attack the problem is that as the wall collapsed it seemed to have left a great mound of stones so it's not like you can just just walk into the city on a post you have to climb up these rocks and you have to get over them into the City and those rocks as soon as the dust cleared are going to be heavily defended of course by the Muslims and they managed to kill enough of them that the French hesitate the Crusaders failed to take the breach but for the first time the city's defenses have been weakened 3 Days Later King the lonard himself arrives at the Crusader Camp he's greeted by the sound of trumpets and a cheering crowd he's a flamboyant ostentatious character very much given to public display when he arrives in places he wants a great Fanfare it's all very ceremonial very much about himself he is a man of great great ego he's also the dashing Warrior as a great strategist as a shal knight he takes unprecedented risks in war when he was very young barely 15 he took a castle in the duy of aquan which everyone thought was impregnable and so the arrival of Richard in AA is a real game changer he brings thousands of men with him an awful lot of supplies and equipment the Muslims are very very worried their hearts were filled with Dread as one writer wrote just like his French counterpart Richard studies the battlefield and especially how he can regain control of the operations from Philip the two men are supposedly friends but in reality are extremely competitive there's a fierce rivalry between the two Philip had promised these Knights the wage of three gold bazant every month if they would fight in service of him at acre Richard the lionheart hears about this and he UPS the wage he goes to those Knights and says if you serve me Philip is paying you three I will pay you four and so they will come and join Richard's Services instead and that's taken as a personal insult by Philip Augustus Richard doesn't stop there he wants to be certain of Victory so he's brought his own war machines having impressive war machines is a sign of power it's much admired to have the brightest the biggest and the strongest this is as much an effort to demonstrate your prowess as it is an effort to actually build effective Siege engines that are going to help take this city this is a case of guys wanting to show off their sports cars in this arms race Richard has a really bright and shiny new war machine a jewel of technology for its time the trebuchet this is the period when we have the first evidence for counterweight trebuchets though so those that are powered by a large heavy counter Poise making use of gravity rather than pullers the potential with these engines is that they can throw much larger and heavier projectiles and when Richard shows up he also takes uh what are identified as River stones my belief here is that these are particularly hard stones from Sicily that are going to be used with particular effect against the very soft Sandstone that the walls of acre are made of starting on the 14th of June the English king unleashes his terrible machines on the walls of AA and they soon start to have their effect a whole section of the parapet collapses saladine knows now that that the surrender of the city is only a matter of days away he decides to go for Brook after hesitating for 2 years he finally orders his men to storm the Christian Camp in early July sadin tries to intensify the pressure on the Crusader Camp he leads from the front he's taking his men right up to the ditch that protects the Crusaders and wants to fill it in so he can then move across but his people won't come with him this is a really shocking moment the hero of Islam the man who has recovered Jerusalem for his people is just not getting to support the reaction that he needs a real sign that moral has plummeted in the Muslim camp on July 11th the accursed tower subjected to intense bombardment and incessant undermining finally collapses completely for one last time the Crusaders launched attack the Crusaders are able to climb over the rubble through the dust and it looks like they're about to break into the city there's a makeshift defense is established once again the Muslims defend the breach in acr's walls but now they know defeat is inevitable six 53rd day of The Siege at the end of almost 2 years of fighting the Amir of the city negotiate a surrender with Richard the lionard and Philip Augustus they don't even notify saladine and when on the morning of the 12th of July somebody comes out of the city and informs him he's of course shocked angered and horrified and within a couple of hours Christian banners appear on the walls and the towers of the city a huge cheer comes up from the Crusader ranks AA has fallen the Crusaders enter the city in Triumph its Garrison is now held hostage they wait in anguish for their Sultan's response tradition dictates an exchange of prisoners and that the defeated have a price to pay Sou is supposed to pay an extraordinary sum of money to the Crusaders in exchange for the release of the Garrison 200,000 Doos is an awful lot of money to get together and Saladin has spent a lot of money he struggles to gather that and it starts to infuriate Richard Richard the strategist Richard the general he thinks saladan is playing for time on the 20th of August Richard the lionard gathers the 2,600 to 3,000 men of the Garrison in front of the walls of the city and relentlessly one after the other they're executed Richard's execution of the acre Garrison is easily the most controversial moment of the entire Siege and probably one of the most controversial moments during the entire period of the Crusades he sh Richard the lionhardt has the attitude of the newcomer to the region who simply acts on impulse who has little understanding of the local situation and who commits a huge blunder that destroys any possibility of negotiation now it's all out and Perpetual War until the destruction of one of the parties in this case it will be the Christian party after the fall of AA Philip Augustus decides to return to his kingdom to the great dismay of the Crusaders Richard the lonard and his army head for Jerusalem but with the Muslims enmity hardened by the slaughter of the Garrison at AA this time the king fails to bring down the [Music] city G lucino then loses what remains of his kingdom to Conrad deona but the latter is assassinated one year later or of champag becomes the new king of the kingdom of Jerusalem with the the holy city under Muslim control AO would then become the new heart of the kingdom of Eastern Christianity before falling a century later back into the hands of the Muslims [Music]
