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00:00For thousands of years, the holy lands of the Middle East have run with blood.
00:10Here, the scars of battle fought between three of the great religions of the world are etched
00:16into the earth.
00:22At the end of the 12th century, after 80 years of disunity, the Muslim world finally forced
00:29together under the mighty Saladin, encircled the Christian kingdom from Edessa to Jerusalem.
00:36Poised and ready to strike, strangle and seize Jerusalem from Christian hands, Saladin and
00:42his army lay in wait for the chance to begin their jihad.
00:54This was the collision of two great faiths.
00:58The clash between the crescent and the cross.
01:02This was the Crusades.
01:28By 1183, Saladin was at last ready to strike against the Christians and claim Jerusalem.
01:40The ambition of the greatest Muslim leader in the century hung like a cloud over the
01:45Crusaders as they prepared to do battle for their kingdom.
01:50Any rise in Saladin's power is a cause for suspicion in our eyes.
01:56He was a man wise in counsel and valiant in war.
02:02So we had great reason to fear that when Saladin had increased his empire twofold, he would
02:07rise against the kingdom with greater force and harass us more violently than ever.
02:18While the Muslims were unified, the Christians in Jerusalem were at their weakest.
02:23They were led by Baldwin IV, a king who from an early age had been crippled by disease.
02:29He was playing one day, and as playful boys do, they began to pinch each other's arms.
02:37The other boys gave evidence of pain, but Baldwin felt nothing.
02:46As he began to reach years of maturity, it became apparent that he was suffering from
02:52the terrible disease of leprosy.
02:58Impossible to refrain from tears when speaking of this great misfortune.
03:04Day by day his condition grew worse.
03:09Baldwin became so ill, it was clear he could no longer rule his kingdom.
03:15In the autumn of 1183, from his sickbed, he appointed his brother-in-law, Guy of Lusignan,
03:22as regent of the realm.
03:27Many thought Guy too weak to rule.
03:30But he was determined to prove his leadership by taking on the might of Saladin.
03:36He would be helped by an ally at court, a brutal prince with a deep hatred of Saladin.
03:44Raynald of Chantillon.
03:47It was Raynald who would trigger the long-awaited war.
03:52For four decades, Christians had respected the rights of Muslims to pass through their
03:58territory on trade routes between Egypt and Syria.
04:03But in January 1187, Raynald broke the truce.
04:15He launched an unprovoked attack on a richly laden Muslim caravan.
04:23He took the noblemen and women prisoner and plundered their possessions.
04:27He seized it treacherously, taking the booty, animals and weapons.
04:34He threw all the travelers in dungeons, maltreating and torturing them.
04:39When they reminded him of the truce, he replied,
04:42Tell your Mohammed to release you.
04:46When news of this attack was brought to Saladin, he said,
04:51This is unacceptable, killing unarmed pilgrims on their way to worship.
04:56And whatever else I do or don't do, this is one head I must have.
05:04Raynald's brutal attack gave Saladin his excuse for war.
05:09He gathered a formidable army, drawn from every corner of his empire.
05:15With 20,000 foot soldiers and over 10,000 cavalry,
05:20he marched towards Hattin, near the shores of Lake Galilee.
05:25Till that point that that army was created, Saladin was viewed, essentially,
05:31as an important leader, but one amongst many,
05:34who had basically been fighting his own side in order to achieve this unity.
05:39The first big chance for him to show what this army he had created
05:45was capable of doing was at the Battle of Hattin.
05:50In June 1187, the forces that Saladin had gathered
05:53began to assemble in this broad plain down behind me here.
05:57We can imagine streams of Muslim horsemen and foot soldiers
06:00coming in from Iraq, from Syria, from Egypt.
06:04Saladin had thrown down the gauntlet, and Guy had to respond.
06:12He assembled the entire Christian force from castles and cities across the kingdom.
06:171,300 knights, including Templars and Hospitallers, and 15,000 foot soldiers.
06:2414 miles in that direction, behind that modern settlement and over the hills,
06:28was Safaria, the base where the Frankish army gathered.
06:33As their standard, they carried the most prized holy relic, the true cross.
06:39They believed it would protect them from defeat and ensure victory.
06:47Today, many Catholics still believe in the power of holy relics.
06:52In a tranquil monastery in Jerusalem,
06:56protected in a gold reliquary, lies a fragment of what is said to be the true cross.
07:03The very little piece of wood in form of a cross
07:07is a part of the real cross on which Jesus was crucified.
07:14The cross is so precious to us,
07:17you can imagine.
07:23We should not consider relics as magic objects.
07:27If we are protected by a relic,
07:30this is because God protects us,
07:34or his holy angels protect us.
07:38Believing God was on their side, Guy renounced his faith.
07:44Believing God was on their side,
07:46Guy, Renault and the Christian army were ready to face Saladin.
07:53On July the 3rd, the Franks set out from their camp at Safaria in good order.
07:57Initially, the march went reasonably well,
08:00but as the day wore on, it got hotter and hotter and hotter.
08:07With no water in the desert plains,
08:10the heavily armoured Christian army suffered from severe dehydration.
08:15In the heat of the day, the Franks were struggling intensely.
08:18They began to slowly lose cohesion, they began to lose formation.
08:22Like an enormous train slowly running out of momentum,
08:25going up a long, long hill, they ground to a halt.
08:29They were there in an open place, no water, hardly anything to eat.
08:34Then, like an oasis in the distance,
08:37the Christians spotted Lake Galilee,
08:40a chance at last to quench their thirst.
08:43Saladin's biographer, Baha al-Din,
08:46revealed how that day his master laid a trap for the Christians.
08:51The Christians, surrounding themselves with infantry,
08:54tried to fight their way towards the lake in the hope of reaching water.
09:01But Saladin realised their objective and planted himself and his army in the way.
09:08Saladin and his men now stood between the crusader army and the lake.
09:18Guy of Lusignan had no option.
09:21In a desperate bid to reach the water, he ordered a charge on Saladin's men.
09:38But the weakened crusader knights were no match for Saladin's highly disciplined army.
09:46Charge after charge was repelled by the Muslims.
09:51And at the end of the day, Saladin still had another trick up his sleeve.
09:57In the summer, this place is a tinderbox.
09:59This stuff's called tar.
10:01It's made of tar.
10:03It's a kind of clay.
10:05It's made of clay.
10:07It's made of clay.
10:09It's made of clay.
10:11It's made of clay.
10:13It's made of clay.
10:15It's made of clay.
10:17It's made of clay.
10:19It's a tinderbox. This stuff's incredibly dry.
10:21Saladin compounded the crusaders' thirst by setting fire to it.
10:25And the smoke was driven onto the crusaders by the wind and made their throats even drier.
10:44The Muslim soldiers piled on the misery,
10:47creating a terrible constant noise,
10:50drums, cymbals, chanting,
10:53to inflict fear and foreboding on the crusader army.
11:00It must have been an awful experience to be stuck out in the open
11:04knowing that really the following day you were likely to meet your death.
11:10On the morning of July 4th, the Christians who remained prepared to make a final stand.
11:16The foot soldiers saw here the Horns of Hattin,
11:19an old Iron Age fort where they thought they could be safe.
11:22They marched up this ascent here,
11:24and here in the crater was set up the red tent of King Guy of Lusignan.
11:34You can imagine here in this crater very evocative scenes,
11:37the few remaining hundred horsemen twirling around trying to get themselves organised.
11:42Chronicles record that the sacred gold reliquary
11:46holding the precious relic of the true cross
11:49was hustled into Guy's red tent for safety.
11:53As the exhausted Christians began to collapse,
11:56the disciplined Muslim army closed in for the kill.
12:01Sensing victory, Saladin commanded his troops to capture Guy,
12:06Reynold and the red tent.
12:09I was at the Sultan's side
12:11when we saw the Franks retreating before the Muslim onslaught.
12:16And I cried out for joy,
12:18we have conquered them.
12:21The Sultan turns to me and said,
12:23be quiet,
12:25we will not have beaten them until the tent falls.
12:30As he spoke, the tent fell.
12:34The relic of the true cross was seized.
12:37Saladin's victory over the Crusaders seemed to be complete.
12:47July 1187, the battle of Aten was over.
12:58Saladin had defeated the Crusader army.
13:01Finally, he was face to face with his sworn enemy, Reynold.
13:07Saladin wanted revenge for the brutal attack on the Muslim caravan.
13:13He had given orders for both Prince Reynold
13:16and the King of the Franks, Guy,
13:18to be brought before him.
13:21The King complained of thirst,
13:23so the Sultan had a glass of rose water
13:26brought for him from which he drank.
13:33And then he passed it on to Reynold.
13:37The Sultan cried out at the King,
13:39this godless man did not have my permission to drink
13:42and will not save his life that way.
13:47And with one hand, cut off Reynold's head.
13:58Guy assumed he would be next.
14:02Saladin assured him very peacefully, very gently,
14:05that kings, he said, literally, kings do not kill kings.
14:08And Reynold was an evil man
14:10and he deserved to be killed because of his evil deeds.
14:14And that was really the exception and not the norm.
14:22But there was no mercy for the Hospitallers and the Templars,
14:25the finest knights of the Crusader states,
14:28dedicated to fighting the forces of Islam.
14:32The Sultan chose to put them to death.
14:35He did not kill them all without exception.
14:39It was partially the decision of Saladin to impose some shock,
14:44you know, these, you say, are your best warriors,
14:47there, they exist no longer.
14:59Losing the Battle of Aten
15:01was a catastrophe for the Crusader states in the Holy Land.
15:05He and the King of Jerusalem had lost almost everything.
15:08They had stripped almost every castle,
15:10almost every city of its defenders.
15:12They had, as it were, gathered up all their dice in their hand
15:15and thrown it, and they had all turned up wrong.
15:19The Christian army had been annihilated
15:21and the King of Jerusalem was now a prisoner of Saladin.
15:28Saladin's dream was finally realized.
15:32I think it's true to say that Aten is a key victory for Saladin
15:36and that he's aware that this is a moment in history
15:40in which he's going to be able to make his mark in Islam.
15:43Saladin could justify all the years of struggle
15:46to bring his people together.
15:48He had delivered the crushing victory they so desired.
15:54They drank the cup of fate and the spears courted them.
16:01The horses' hooves massed dust and clouds for them,
16:06merged together by the thunder of neighing horses
16:10with the lightning of polished swords flashing alongside them.
16:16This was a hard day for them, believers.
16:19God decreed the victory of our faith.
16:27The captured gold relic containing the fragment of the True Cross
16:30was paraded through the streets of Damascus,
16:33a final insult to the Christians.
16:39In fact, the Christian defeat had been foretold two years earlier
16:44by their official chronicler, William of Tyre.
16:48Weary by the sad disasters which are occurring in the kingdom so frequently,
16:54indeed, almost continually,
16:58I have resolved to abandon the pen
17:01and commit to the silence of the tomb
17:04the chronicle of events which we had undertaken to write for posterity.
17:15Saladin swept through the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem.
17:19Acre, Caesarea and Jaffa all quickly fell.
17:24In October 1187, the Muslim army reached the greatest prize of all, Jerusalem.
17:33They set up camp outside the walls and prepared to lay siege to the city.
17:39The defenders begged for mercy.
17:42At first, Saladin wasn't minded to grant the Christians this.
17:45He wanted to slaughter them in the way that the crusaders had killed the Muslims back in 1099.
17:51Inside Jerusalem, the Christians knew they stood no chance
17:55in a siege against Saladin and his mighty army.
17:58So they played a clever psychological game.
18:01If Saladin attacked the city, they threatened to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque,
18:06one of Islam's most sacred sites.
18:11Saladin thought about this. He decided to take a prudent line of action.
18:15He would spare the Christians if they paid a ransom.
18:18This was agreed and Saladin entered the holy city, his goal, his target, in peace.
18:41For our Lord Saladin, this was a great victory.
18:45A great victory.
18:48A great victory.
19:01The reason he is hero-worshipped in the Arab world
19:05is that he was the one who took back Jerusalem,
19:09made it an open city once again for believers of the book,
19:13and transformed the fortunes of that world.
19:20Jerusalem was in Muslim hands again, and it had been taken peacefully,
19:25unlike the crusader occupation 88 years earlier.
19:30But the Muslims showed their contempt for the Christians in symbolic ways.
19:36When Saladin's victorious troops entered Jerusalem in October 1187,
19:40one of the first things they did was to tear the cross off the Dome of the Rock
19:43and have that cross dragged through the streets of Jerusalem,
19:46kicked, abused, spat on.
19:52The crusader kingdoms were crushed.
19:56The fall of Jerusalem sent shockwaves through the Christian world.
20:00But not for long.
20:02Almost immediately, there would be a call for a third crusade.
20:11The shocking news of the crusader's defeat at Hattin in 1187,
20:16and especially the loss of Jerusalem, reverberated throughout the West.
20:25Almost immediately, Pope Gregory VIII made an emotional appeal for a third crusade.
20:41Anyone of sane mind, who does not weep,
20:44would seem to have forgotten not only his Christian faith,
20:48but even his very humanity.
20:52With those savage barbarians thirsting after Christian blood,
20:56and using all their force to profane the holy places,
21:00and banish the worship of God from the land.
21:05The difference for the third crusade as opposed to the second
21:08is that now Western Europe has a very clear goal.
21:11It's very clear what this crusade is going to be about.
21:14It's going to be about getting Jerusalem back.
21:16And the kind of shockwaves that went through Western Europe
21:19after Hattin and after the loss of Jerusalem were immense.
21:24Europe's most powerful leaders rallied to reclaim the holy city of Jerusalem once and for all.
21:32In May 1189, the first army of 100,000 men left Germany,
21:38led by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
21:41Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was the Holy Roman Emperor,
21:44the most powerful man in Western Europe.
21:46He'd been on the throne for over 40 years by this time.
21:49He was a veteran from the second crusade,
21:51one of the few men still living at the time of the third crusade.
21:54His authority was enormous. Saladin was terrified.
21:58He knew that this was the strongest card that the Christians had to play.
22:05But Barbarossa drowned in a freak accident crossing a river on the way to Jerusalem.
22:11Most of his vast army lost heart and turned for home.
22:20This left the newly crowned king of England at the head of the largest crusader army.
22:26The 33-year-old Richard I.
22:30In our mind, we think of him as one of the greatest kings of England,
22:33one of the mythical kings of the English past.
22:35In reality, he probably thought of himself far more as what we might think of today as a Frenchman,
22:40because his key lands were in what we'd now think of as France,
22:44and the Angevin Empire, which held England and large parts of the continent,
22:49stretched throughout what we'd now think of as the French world.
22:54Richard I was the son of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and already an experienced general.
23:01He'd spent most of his life fighting in Europe,
23:03and knew that success in battle required a full war chest.
23:08He's very aware that crusading costs money,
23:11and that if he wants to prosecute a successful crusade,
23:15and he wants to achieve his goals, he's got to have the financial backing necessary.
23:20To do this, he's prepared to literally take money anywhere he can get it.
23:24A new tax, called the Saladin Tithe, had been levied to finance this third crusade.
23:30In addition, Richard sold everything he owned,
23:33castles, towns, and lordships,
23:36to ensure he could buy the very best military hardware.
23:40It was said he would have sold London, if he could have.
23:46He was determined not to repeat the fiasco of the second crusade.
23:51His was to be the best organized and most highly equipped campaign ever.
23:58After 14 months of preparation,
24:01Richard set off to the Holy Land on the third crusade.
24:10Meanwhile, confident in his power,
24:13Saladin decided to release his prisoner, Guy of Lusignan.
24:17He believed the deposed Christian king was no longer a threat.
24:22The Sultan had undertaken to release King Guy.
24:26He stipulated that the king should not draw sword against him ever again,
24:30and he would be his servant forever.
24:33But the king broke faith, and God cursed him.
24:38But Guy, breaking his pledge to Saladin,
24:41gathered his remaining forces and set out to redeem himself,
24:44and rebuild his kingdom.
24:47He was a man who'd been humiliated.
24:49He was shamed in the eyes of Christendom.
24:51He was the man who'd lost the holy city of Jerusalem.
24:54In order to get his reputation back, he had to do something spectacular.
24:57And he settled upon a very, very bold idea indeed.
25:00Here we see the city of Acre.
25:02It was the most important port in the Levant.
25:04It could be the base of a new, wealthy kingdom.
25:07Guy was a king without a kingdom.
25:09He needed to start somewhere.
25:12The fortified port of Acre had fallen to Saladin's forces
25:16soon after the loss of Jerusalem.
25:19Now, with his army of 400 knights and 7,000 foot soldiers,
25:24Guy was determined to take it back.
25:27We can actually see some of the area that he attacked here,
25:30looking at this map.
25:31We have down here the Tower of Flies,
25:33which you can see out there in the harbour.
25:35And stretched along there are the sea walls.
25:37And this really is the medieval city that Guy had chosen to besiege.
25:40He set his troops up in a ring around here,
25:44and that was where he entrenched his men and dug in.
25:55The Muslims inside Acre bombarded Guy's army with stone, rocks,
26:00even body parts.
26:03Word of the siege got back to Saladin,
26:06and his army charged down the coast to help defend the city.
26:11With Saladin's forces in place,
26:13Guy and his besieging army couldn't break through.
26:19Over two punishing years,
26:21Muslims and Christians fought an on-and-off battle over Acre.
26:27Guy knew that to break the deadlock,
26:29Guy knew that to break the deadlock,
26:31he would need help.
26:32And it would come.
26:34Richard I and his army of 17,000 were on the way.
26:43In June 1191,
26:45after months of meticulous preparation and a year-long journey,
26:49Richard I of England and his 17,000-strong army arrived in Acre.
26:56The accursed king of England arrived.
26:58His coming had a great ceremony,
27:00for he was a mighty warrior of great courage.
27:03And his coming had a dread and frightening effect on the heart of the Muslims.
27:09Richard and his men were an instant source of inspiration
27:12to the weary Christian army.
27:18Richard seized control of the battle,
27:20and within weeks, he broke the deadlock.
27:24He came with the cutting edge of Western military technology.
27:27He had enormous siege engines, which he was able to bring with him.
27:30These things were almost individual characters to the crusaders.
27:33They had names like God's Own Catapult and Bad Neighbour,
27:36and they struck the fear of God into their Muslim opponents.
27:41Siege engines brought in pieces and then reassembled in the east,
27:45allowed the crusaders to intensify their bombardment of Acre,
27:49and to get right up to the wall.
27:54CRUSADERS
28:07But the chronicles revealed how Saladin managed to counterattack these huge towers.
28:14A Syrian soldier offered Saladin a recipe for Greek fire,
28:18a kind of mirevel napalm,
28:20made from crude oil and sticky wood resin.
28:23It was devastating, burning to a cinder anything or anyone in its path.
28:30This is actually very difficult stuff to make,
28:33and the key component is naphtha,
28:37because naphtha provides sticky fire,
28:40that is fire which will not really splash all over something,
28:44that's not so difficult,
28:46but will stick to it and hold and set it afire.
28:54Volley after volley of Greek fire rained onto the crusader army.
28:59CRUSADERS
29:15Suddenly, Richard was on the defensive,
29:18as all three of his giant siege towers went up in flames.
29:23The blazing meteors of Greek fire hit their targets.
29:29They were consumed in flames.
29:37Deprived of his great war machines,
29:40Richard desperately needed a new strategy.
29:43He offered his soldiers four gold coins
29:46for every stone they could remove from the base of one of the towers.
29:52What he did was to put so much effort onto one particular point
29:55that a breach in the wall was created.
29:57It was a gaping hole through which the crusaders would be able to enter the city.
30:05After five weeks of fighting,
30:07Richard's troops broke through the wall,
30:10capturing the city and taking 2,700 of Saladin's men hostage.
30:18The unimpeded rise of Saladin had been brought to a halt.
30:24Baha al-Din witnessed the impact of this defeat on the Muslim leader.
30:30I came into Saladin's prisons.
30:33He was like a parent bereft of a child.
30:42I offered him what comfort I could and exalted him
30:45to think of his duty to Palestine and Jerusalem
30:50and to save the Muslims left in the city.
30:53Acre was a great victory for the crusaders and for Richard.
30:57His courage in battle gained him fame throughout the Christian world
31:01and with it, a new name,
31:04Richard the Lionheart.
31:07The third crusade could now advance to Jerusalem
31:10to recapture the holy city.
31:15The crusaders were now in control of the city.
31:18The third crusade could now advance to Jerusalem
31:21to recapture the holy city.
31:24But first, Richard had to deal with the thousands of hostages.
31:30He issued an ultimatum to Saladin.
31:33The men would be released in return for a ransom of 200,000 gold pieces
31:38and the return of the relic of the true cross.
31:41Negotiations dragged on
31:43and Richard the Lionheart had began to conclude, probably correctly,
31:47that Saladin was using those hostages as a way to drag out the negotiations
31:51and wear down the Franks.
31:53Richard became increasingly frustrated
31:56and eventually he did something that some people have considered a war crime
32:00and that he was criticized for at the time.
32:05Richard's actions that day at Acre
32:08have gone down in history as one of the most ruthless episodes
32:12throughout all the crusades.
32:16The enemy brought out the prisoners for whom God had decreed martyrdom.
32:21With the sword, they killed them in the cool blood.
32:36The massacre of the Muslim prisoners that were taken in Acre
32:41is still talked about.
32:43It's a very brutal episode.
32:46Richard was totally brutal, in my opinion.
32:52Richard took such drastic action because he believed he had no alternative
32:56and in the coldest, most stark military terms, it's true.
32:59These men were a drain on him.
33:01He had to feed them, he had to look after them, he had to guard them.
33:04He was hardly going to release them. They'd come and attack him again.
33:07So what he did was try to resolve the situation quickly and effectively.
33:11It was a terribly brutal thing to do, but it enabled him to carry on his momentum,
33:15to begin to march south and to fulfill his mission of recapturing the Holy City.
33:24The triumphant crusader force of 12,000 men
33:27left Acre in August 1191
33:30and marched south toward their final goal, Jerusalem.
33:41Saladin had to stop Richard the Lionheart's march south toward Jerusalem.
33:46If not, he risked losing the Holy City and his grip on the Muslim world.
33:52When the crusaders left Acre, they were in super confident mood.
33:55They were convinced that they would be able to defeat the Muslims.
33:58They set out in a very, very particular formation.
34:01Inland were the foot soldiers with their vital role of protecting the heavy cavalry.
34:06The cavalry themselves were lined up with the Templars at the front
34:09and the hospitalers at the back,
34:11the strongest men to protect the most vulnerable parts of the march.
34:14Then, between the cavalry and the sea, came the baggage train,
34:18the weakest, the slowest, the most difficult bit to defend.
34:21Then finally, out to sea there, came the crusader fleet,
34:24essential to keep the army supplied.
34:27This was a textbook march.
34:32The Third Crusade had become a war of wills between two great men,
34:37Richard and Saladin.
34:39Both were warriors, diplomats and strategists of the highest order.
34:46Saladin was determined to draw the crusaders into battle.
34:50He bombarded them constantly, but Richard was unstoppable.
34:55And what he demonstrates in this period is enormous charisma as a military leader
35:00and enormous discipline.
35:02He shows himself to be able to keep his troops marching,
35:05even as they're being peppered by arrows.
35:07We hear about people having ten arrows sticking out of them
35:09and still staying in formation, still marching.
35:15This completely wrecked Saladin's plan to pick off the crusaders
35:19as they're making this march.
35:21And it's this discipline that shows Richard was a true military genius.
35:26Richard's army survived the onslaught by Saladin
35:29and reached the crusader town of Jaffa in September 1191.
35:35A month later, he left the coast and rode inland towards Jerusalem.
35:41Richard was now tantalizingly close to the Holy City.
35:48But then he made a monumental and startling decision
35:51that shocked his army to the core
35:53and has been debated by historians ever since.
35:59It was 45 miles from Jaffa to Jerusalem,
36:01yet Richard stopped a few miles short of the Holy City.
36:04He'd come to realize that if the crusaders captured it,
36:06they would not be able to hold on to it.
36:08The masses in the army were furious.
36:10They'd come to free the Holy City.
36:11They couldn't countenance not attacking it.
36:13Richard overruled them, turned them round and went back to the coast.
36:24Richard feared his depleted force of 12,000 men
36:27couldn't hope to take the Holy City
36:29and defended against Saladin's vast army
36:31drawn from across the Muslim world.
36:36He had failed in the primary mission of the Third Crusade
36:40to recapture Jerusalem.
36:44Deep in his heart and deep in his motivation, I think,
36:46was a real desire to march on Jerusalem and to take this Holy City.
36:50That was what the crusade was all about.
36:52But at the same time, he was also a general and he was a king.
36:57And so he knew that military sense told him
37:00Jerusalem could not be taken.
37:01He didn't have the resources.
37:03And at the very best, it couldn't be held
37:05even if he managed to take it through some miracle.
37:11In the spring of 1192, Richard returned to Acre,
37:15the coastal town captured eight months earlier.
37:19He decided to consolidate the cities he had taken along the coast,
37:22leaving the door open for a future crusade.
37:27But his decision handed the initiative back to his arch-rival, Saladin.
37:32No longer forced to protect Jerusalem,
37:34Saladin launched a lightning attack on the coastal town of Jaffa,
37:38next to modern-day Tel Aviv.
37:41Here at Jaffa, Saladin tried to break the Christian stranglehold on the coast.
37:45He sent a group of men in and they besieged the city.
37:48Very quickly, they got in and only the citadel resisted.
37:51The garrison was desperate.
37:53It was a deal up to Richard, who was way up the coast at Acre.
37:58Richard reacted immediately.
38:00He gathered a tiny force of only 55 knights and crossbowmen
38:04and sailed down the coast to Jaffa.
38:10On the beach just in front of the town,
38:12Richard would display his inspired military leadership.
38:16Ah!
38:21The crusaders were staring defeat in the face.
38:24But showing immense personal bravery,
38:26Richard was beginning to turn the battle around,
38:29as Saladin looked on.
38:32Both these men developed a healthy and real respect for one another
38:37in the course of this expedition.
38:39I think Saladin knew that Richard was a real military force to be reckoned with.
38:43And I think Richard knew that Saladin was almost unique in the Muslim world
38:48in the fact that he had created this unified empire.
38:54Saladin's admiration for the crusader king grew
38:57as he watched Richard drive the Muslim forces off the beach and into the town.
39:02The battle was fought street by street
39:04as the Christians tried to take Jaffa back from Saladin's troops.
39:09During the battle, a volley of arrows brought down Richard's horse.
39:15Seeing the king vulnerable and exposed,
39:18Saladin ordered his men to send him a replacement.
39:27As the battle wore on,
39:29both sides were overcome by exhaustion and fatigue.
39:33But ultimately, Richard's highly disciplined and organized army
39:37proved too much for Saladin's men,
39:39and they retreated.
39:44By September 1192,
39:46the two armies had fought each other to a standstill.
39:49Saladin faced increasing discontent from his Muslim allies.
39:54He was no longer sure
39:56that he could maintain this level of armed struggle and armed warfare indefinitely.
40:01The reason for that was that his soldiers were from the lands.
40:05They had not come from abroad.
40:07They had not been paid.
40:09They were not going to follow their leaders till kingdom come.
40:12These were people who came from neighboring villages,
40:15who came from the towns,
40:17who had families, who had property,
40:20who had lands they had to tend to,
40:22and they did not like being away from that permanently.
40:30Saladin decided the best option
40:32was to make a truce with Richard the Lionheart.
40:37It was agreed the Christians would keep the coastline towns from Jaffa to Tyre,
40:41but Jerusalem would remain in Muslim hands.
40:46As a concession,
40:47Christian pilgrims would be allowed to enter Jerusalem to worship at the Holy Sepulchre.
40:55Richard the Lionheart himself never set foot in the Holy City.
40:58He refused to enter Jerusalem as long as it was in the hands of his enemy.
41:05In October 1192, Richard left for Europe.
41:09Saladin received an envoy from his archrival
41:12pledging he would return to wrest the whole territory of Jerusalem back
41:15once he had raised more money and men.
41:20Through messengers, Saladin sent his reply.
41:24If the land were to be lost,
41:25he would rather it be taken into Richard's mighty power
41:27than into the hands of any other prince.
41:35Just six months later, in March 1193,
41:38Saladin was dead at the age of 56,
41:41worn out by more than five years of relentless marching, sieges and battle.
41:47His loyal friend Baha al-Din recalled the sad day.
41:52He arrived when he was already dead
41:54and transported to God's favour and the seat of His grace.
42:01The citadel, the city, the world,
42:03was overwhelmed by such a sense of loss as God alone could comprehend.
42:13Each man's grief, sorrows, tears and cries for help
42:19kept him from looking at anyone else.
42:37I think Saladin's legacy was that he was the man who captured back Jerusalem.
42:43Capturing it really fulfilled many aspirations
42:48among the Muslims of the Middle East.
42:52But for Richard the Lionheart,
42:54there was bitter irony in Saladin's death
42:57so soon after he left the Holy Land.
43:01Had Richard stayed just over that one last winter,
43:04his chief enemy would have gone.
43:06The Muslim world fragmented.
43:08There was a real succession struggle after Saladin's death.
43:11Richard would have been perfectly placed to exploit that.
43:16Richard the Lionheart never returned to the Holy Land.
43:20He died in 1199 from an arrow wound he received while fighting in Europe.
43:27Crusades would be periodically launched over the next 100 years,
43:31but the enthusiasm for reclaiming the Holy Land eventually began to wane.
43:36Really, this movement only achieves one victory,
43:39only has one success, and that's the First Crusade.
43:43The reality, of course, is that the Crusades never really managed to dominate Islam
43:48in the course of the 12th and 13th century,
43:51and that really, throughout that period, they're fighting a losing battle.
43:54They're trying desperately to hold on or to retake,
43:57and they never achieve full victory.
44:01In 1291, the last Christian outpost, Acre, fell to the Muslims.
44:06The 200-year crusader military occupation of the Holy Land was over,
44:11but the psychological scars remained.
44:16The Crusades had a very deep impact on Arab society.
44:20They were seen as a barbarian incursion,
44:23and stories of those Crusades are still told in cafes and in families
44:29as if they happened yesterday.
44:32And so, whenever the West has invaded that region again,
44:36people say it's another crusade.
44:43After their victory in the First Crusade,
44:46the Christians struggled desperately to keep hold of the Holy Land.
44:54Yet, in the end, Saladin's capture of Jerusalem in 1187
44:59was the death knell to the Christian cause.
45:10The Crusades saw the collision of two civilizations,
45:13each fighting for the Holy Land,
45:15each believing God was on their side.
45:20The blood spilled on both sides
45:22redefined relations between Christians and Muslims forever.
45:27That epic clash almost a thousand years ago of two ideals,
45:31crusade and jihad,
45:33still casts its shadow to this day.