Battle of Arsuf
The Battle of Arsuf took place on 7 September 1191, as part of the Third Crusade. It saw a multi-national force of Crusaders, led by Richard I of England, defeat a significantly larger army of the Ayyubid Sultanate, led by Saladin.
Following the Crusaders' capture of Acre, Saladin moved to intercept Richard's advancing army just outside of the city of Arsuf as it moved along the coast from Acre towards Jaffa. In an attempt to disrupt the cohesion of the Crusader army as they mobilized, the Ayyubid force launched a series of harassing attacks that were ultimately unsuccessful at breaking their formation. As the Crusaders crossed the plain to the north of Arsuf, Saladin committed the whole of his army of 35,000 troops to a pitched battle. The Crusader army, with 25,000 troops, maintained a defensive formation as it marched, with Richard awaiting the ideal moment to mount a counterattack. However, after the Knights Hospitaller launched a charge at the Ayyubids, Richard was forced to commit his entire force to support the attack. The Crusader charge broke the Ayyubid army; Richard was able to restrain his cavalry from a rash pursuit, regrouping them to achieve victory.
Following the engagement, the Crusaders secured control over the central coast of Palestine, including the city of Jaffa.
Prelude: south from Acre
Following the capture of Acre in 1191, Richard opted to capture the port of Jaffa as a source of provisions and possible reinforcements arriving by ship before making an attempt on Jerusalem and in case of a siege. Richard began to march down the coast from Acre towards Jaffa in August. Saladin, whose main objective was to prevent the recapture of Jerusalem, mobilised his army to attempt to stop the Crusaders' advance. Richard organised the advance with attention to detail. A large part of the Egyptian fleet had been captured at the fall of Acre, and with no threat from this quarter, he could march south along the coast with the sea always protecting his right flank. Saladin had destroyed Jaffa's fortifications in the summer of 1190 due to its potential importance to the Crusaders.Mindful of the lessons of the disaster at Hattin, Richard knew that his army's greatest need was water and that heat exhaustion was its greatest danger. Although pressed for time, he proceeded at a relatively slow pace. He marched his army only in the morning before the heat of the day, making frequent rest stops, always beside sources of water. The fleet sailed down the coast in close support, a source of supplies and a refuge for the wounded. Aware of the ever-present danger of enemy raiders and the possibility of hit-and-run attacks, he kept the column in tight formation with a core of twelve mounted regiments, each with a hundred knights. The infantry marched on the landward flank, covering the flanks of the horsemen and affording them some protection from missiles. The outermost ranks of the infantry were composed of crossbowmen. On the seaward side was the baggage and also units of infantry being rested from the continuous harassment inflicted by Saladin's forces. Richard wisely rotated his infantry units to keep them relatively fresh.
Though provoked and tormented by the skirmish tactics of Saladin's archers, Richard's generalship ensured that order and discipline were maintained under the most difficult of circumstances. Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad, the Muslim chronicler and eyewitness, describes the march:
"The Moslems discharged arrows at them from all sides to annoy them, and force them to charge: but in this they were unsuccessful. These men exercised wonderful self-control; they went on their way without any hurry, whilst their ships followed their line of march along the coast, and in this manner they reached their halting-place."
Baha al-Din also described the difference in power between the Crusader crossbow and the bows of his own army. He saw Frankish infantrymen with from one to ten arrows sticking from their armoured backs marching along with no apparent hurt, whilst the crossbows struck down both horse and man amongst the Muslims.
Saladin's strategy
The Crusader army's pace was dictated by the infantry and baggage train; the Ayyubid army, being largely mounted, had the advantage of superior mobility. Efforts to burn crops and deny the countryside to the Frankish army were largely ineffective as it could be continuously provisioned from the fleet, which moved south parallel with it. On 25 August, the Crusader rearguard was crossing a defile when it was almost cut off. However, the Crusaders closed up so speedily that the Muslim soldiery was forced to flee. From 26 to 29 August, Richard's army had a respite from attack because while it hugged the coast and had gone round the shoulder of Mount Carmel, Saladin's army had struck across country. Saladin arrived in the vicinity of Caesarea before the Crusaders, who were on a longer road. From 30 August to 7 September, Saladin was always within striking distance and waiting for an opportunity to attack if the Crusaders exposed themselves.By early September, Saladin had realised that harassing the Frankish army with a limited portion of his troops was not going to stop its advance. In order to do this, he needed to commit his entire army to a serious attack. Fortuitously for Saladin, the Crusaders had to traverse one of the few forested regions of Palestine, the "Wood of Arsuf", which ran parallel to the sea shore for more than. The woodland would mask the disposition of his army and allow a sudden attack to be launched.
The Crusaders traversed half of the forest with little incident, and they rested on 6 September with their camp protected by the marsh lying inland of the mouth of the river Nahr-el-Falaik, called by them Rochetaillée. To the south of the camp, in the that the Crusaders needed to march before gaining the ruins of Arsuf, the forest receded inland to create a narrow plain wide between wooded hills and the sea. This is where Saladin intended to make his decisive attack. While threatening and skirmishing along the whole length of the Crusader column, Saladin reserved his most sustained direct assault for its rear. His plan appears to have been to allow the Frankish van and centre to proceed, in the hope that a fatal gap might be created between them and the more heavily engaged rearmost units. Saladin would have thrown his reserves into such a gap in order to defeat the Crusaders in detail.
Battle
Estimation of the size of the opposing armies
The Itinerarium Regis Ricardi implies that the Ayyubid army outnumbered the Crusaders three-to-one. However, unrealistically inflated numbers of 300,000 and 100,000, respectively, are described. Modern estimates of Saladin's army place it at around 25,000 soldiers, almost all cavalry. Based on the number of soldiers that the three kings brought to the Holy Land, as well as what troops the Kingdom of Jerusalem could muster, McLynn calculates the total Crusader forces at Arsuf as numbering 20,000: 9,000 troops brought by Richard from his dominions, 7,000 French troops left by Phillip, 2,000 troops from Outremer, and 2,000 more soldiers from every other source. Boas notes that this calculation doesn't account for losses in earlier battles or desertions, but that it is probable that the Crusader army had 10,000 men and perhaps more. The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare lists Richard's army as possessing 10,000 infantry and 1,200 heavy cavalry, with Saladin's army possessing twice as many men with a preponderance of cavalry.Organisation and deployment
At dawn on 7 September, as Richard's forces began moving out of camp, enemy scouts were visible in all directions, hinting that Saladin's whole army lay hidden in the woodland. King Richard took especial pains over the disposition of his army. The probable posts of greatest danger, at the front and especially the rear of the column, were given to the military orders. They had the most experience of fighting in the East, were arguably the most disciplined, and were the only formations which included Turcopole cavalry who fought like the Turkish horse archers of the Ayyubid army.The vanguard of the Crusader army consisted of the Knights Templar under Robert de Sablé. They were followed by three units composed of Richard's own subjects, the Angevins and Bretons, then the Poitevins, including Guy of Lusignan, titular King of Jerusalem, and lastly the English and Normans who had charge of the great standard mounted on its waggon. The next seven corps were made up of the French, the Flemings, the barons of Outremer and small contingents of crusaders from other lands. Forming the rearguard were the Knights Hospitaller led by Garnier de Nablus. The twelve corps were organised into five larger formations, though their precise distribution is unknown. Additionally, a small troop, under the leadership of Henry II of Champagne, was detached to scout towards the hills, and a squadron of picked knights under King Richard and Hugh of Burgundy, the leader of the French contingent, was detailed to ride up and down the column checking on Saladin's movements and ensuring that their own ranks were kept in order.
The first Saracen attack did not come until all the crusaders had left their camp and were moving towards Arsuf. The Ayyubid army then burst out of the woodland. The front of the army was composed of dense swarms of skirmishers, both horse and foot, Bedouin, Sudanese archers and the lighter types of Turkish horse archers. Behind these were the ordered squadrons of armoured heavy cavalry: Saladin's mamluks, Kurdish troops, and the contingents of the emirs and princes of Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia. The army was divided into three parts: left and right wings and centre. Saladin directed his army from beneath his banners, surrounded by his bodyguard and accompanied by his kettle-drummers.