On 4 July 1187, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, An-Nasir Yusuf Salah ad-Din ibn Ayyub—better known to us as Saladin—won a tremendous victory, one of the most famous of the Middle Ages. Beneath the Horns of Hattin, the twin peaks of an extinct volcano, his forces destroyed the largest army that the Crusader states ever fielded, killing or capturing the great majority of knights and foot soldiers. In a stroke, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was left defenceless, and in the following months, Saladin captured most of its towns and castles, including Jerusalem itself. The following year he campaigned against the other states of the Latin East, leaving them small rumps which barely extended past their principal cities. Hattin was like an earthquake that left the Crusader states crippled, unable to take the initiative ever again. Although waves of counteroffensives arrived from Europe in the following decades and managed to recoup some of their losses, the native Christian barons would never again be a force of their own.
This episode was written by Ben Duval
Ben is a military historian and analyst who served over a decade in the US Marine Corps and Marine Reserve. His most recent book is Saladin the Strategist: How the Crusaders Lost the Holy Land, a history and analysis of Saladin’s campaigns, available now on Amazon. He has also written Midway Through the Plunge, about 13 dark years in Byzantine history which saw the empire’s power irreversibly collapse, and has published a critical edition of F.L. Taylor’s classic study of Renaissance warfare, The Art of War in Italy. You can find more of his writing on byzantinemporia.com and bazaarofwar.com. Ben can be found on Twitter @bazaarofwar
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