The catastrophic massacre of the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin

The Kingdom of Jerusalem in the late 1180s relied on a fragile coalition of barons, military orders, and newly arrived Western pilgrims, yet few among them trusted King Guy of Lusignan, whose reign began in 1186.

His weak claim to the throne came through marriage to Queen Sibylla, but his authority never won full acceptance across the nobility, since Raymond III of Tripoli had previously acted as regent and maintained his own alliances and territory.

These rivalries fractured the court and delayed critical decisions at the moment of greatest danger. 

During the years before the battle, the Latin states had failed to maintain consistent military readiness, since internal power struggles diverted attention from frontier defence.

Garrison strength across castles and key towns had remained low. Supply coordination between the Templars, Hospitallers, and secular lords had remained inconsistent.

Supply lines had become stretched. Both military orders had retained discipline, but their total numbers could not offset the fractured command structure and shortages of trained men-at-arms.

Contemporary estimates suggest that the Crusader host at La Sephorie numbered around 15,000, including 1,000 to 1,200 knights, yet many of these troops lacked experience and unity. 

After King Guy learned that Saladin had raided Tiberias, he decided to respond swiftly and called his vassals to arms at La Sephorie, a fortified base with access to water and secure roads.

However, many of the assembled knights had arrived recently from Europe and lacked experience in desert warfare, which affected their endurance and judgment in the days ahead.

Motivated by honour and reputation instead of practical understanding of the region’s strategic needs, they argued for immediate confrontation and rejected containment.

The presence of the relic of the True Cross, carried by the Bishop of Acre, further encouraged them to view the campaign as a sacred duty. 

Earlier in 1187, Saladin had begun launching increasingly aggressive raids along the frontiers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, focusing on Galilee and northern Transjordan.

His commanders targeted vulnerable towns and disrupted trade routes, but their most effective move came when they besieged Tiberias, a city held by Count Raymond’s wife, Eschiva.

Saladin hoped this would bait the Franks into leaving their stronghold and marching into unfavourable terrain.

Taqi al-Din and Gökböri, two of his most trusted lieutenants, played key roles in coordinating these operations. 

Within the Crusader camp, arguments raged over how to respond. Raymond of Tripoli warned that abandoning the defensive position at La Sephorie would expose the army to ambush and exhaustion, but Gerard de Ridefort, Grand Master of the Templars, claimed that retreat would signal cowardice and embolden Saladin’s forces.

Pressured by competing voices and anxious about losing prestige among his peers, King Guy ultimately accepted the risk and ordered the army to march east. 

On 3 July, the Crusader host set out across the arid hills of Galilee with the aim of reaching Tiberias to confront Saladin in battle.

Almost immediately, they encountered attacks from Muslim light cavalry, who blocked access to water sources, cut supply lines, and set fires in the dry brush to choke the column with smoke.

They faced a constant threat and the heat of the midday sun, and the army became increasingly disorganised and tired, with no opportunity to rest or regroup.

By that evening, Muslim forces had already secured the high ground around the Horns of Hattin. 

The area surrounding the Horns of Hattin offered Saladin significant tactical advantages, since it sat between the highland route from La Sephorie and the Sea of Galilee, where the Crusaders hoped to resupply.

Saladin's forces had secured control of the area’s springs and roads, which forced the enemy into a barren zone with little shelter or access to fresh water.

By choosing this ground carefully, he placed the Crusaders at a disadvantage long before the fighting began.

Contemporary chroniclers noted the severe July heat and the parched terrain as critical environmental factors. 

Overnight, the Crusaders camped near the Horns without water, exposed to the elements and under constant attack.

Saladin’s army had ringed their position and had maintained the pressure through the night.

They had used continuous fire and noise together with frequent missile attacks to wear down their already weakened morale.

By morning, the Latin forces had split into smaller detachments, each trying to reach water or to break through the encirclement, but the terrain offered few escape routes and no protection from cavalry charges.

One of the knights' main goals had been the spring at Hattin, but it had remained firmly under Saladin’s control. 

As the fighting escalated on 4 July, the Muslim army made full use of the slopes and ridgelines around the Horns.

Mounted archers fired arrows into the Crusader lines. Trained infantry blocked their movements along the narrow passes.

When King Guy ordered a direct charge to seize the spring at Hattin, the exhausted knights advanced without cohesion and soon lost their formation, allowing Saladin’s troops to isolate and destroy them in turn. 

Saladin refused to engage in a formal pitched battle until his opponents had been weakened both physically and mentally, which gave him total freedom of movement when the confrontation began.

Muslim chroniclers, such as Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, described how Saladin’s forces prepared the battlefield days in advance. 

As dawn broke on 4 July, the Crusader army had become trapped and divided.

Saladin’s forces attacked in waves. They used arrows to disrupt formations, to obscure vision, and to disorganise the enemy’s command structure.

Attempts to rally failed when the Franks lost visual contact with each other due to dust and smoke.

Those who tried to fight uphill received arrow fire from both flanks, and any units that retreated found themselves pushed further into dry grass that Muslim skirmishers had set alight.

The psychological toll of thirst and heat, made worse by the sense that they were surrounded, broke discipline across the army. 

The final collapse came when the main infantry lines lost cohesion. King Guy attempted to hold the centre, but most foot soldiers broke formation or surrendered.

Saladin’s men encircled the knights and captured hundreds of prisoners, including the king himself.

He personally executed Raynald of Châtillon for his earlier attacks on Muslim caravans and violation of truces, and he also oversaw the mass killing of captured Templar and Hospitaller knights whom he regarded as implacable foes.

Contemporary sources suggest that around 200 to 230 knights from the military orders were executed. 

By the end of the battle, the Crusader army no longer existed as a fighting force.

Most of the nobility had either died in combat or fallen into captivity. Only a handful escaped to the coastal fortresses.

Saladin had crushed the last major field army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in a single day, and he had captured the relic of the True Cross and had reportedly sent it to Damascus, though its ultimate fate is unknown. 

After his clear victory, Saladin had launched a series of rapid sieges and conquests across the Levant.

Within days, Muslim forces had captured Acre on 10 July, and they then took Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon.

They encountered little resistance because of the loss of the main Crusader army.

By early October, Saladin had reached the gates of Jerusalem and he had taken the city after a short siege and had negotiated its surrender.

The city surrendered peacefully after negotiations led by Balian of Ibelin, avoiding widespread bloodshed.

The fall of the Holy City on 2 October sent shockwaves through Europe. 

In response, European monarchs began preparations for the Third Crusade. Pope Gregory VIII issued the papal bull Audita tremendi on 29 October 1187, calling for renewed efforts to reclaim the Holy Land.

Richard I of England, Philip II of France, and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa vowed to recover the lost territories, though they never regained the full extent of the Crusader holdings.

Frederick died en route in June 1190 after drowning in the Saleph River, now known as the Göksu River in modern Turkey. 

The Latin states never again held unified control over the interior of Palestine. The military orders shifted their effort toward fortress defence instead of launching large-scale campaigns.

The Battle of Hattin destroyed the Crusaders’ military capacity, encouraged Muslim forces, and forced Christian Europe to reconsider its approach to warfare in the East.

Saladin’s success showed that a disciplined strategy grounded in local knowledge and reinforced by coordinated planning defeated disorganised foreign armies, even those backed by distant empires and powerful monarchs.