Battle of Hattin (1187)

Also known as Horns of Hattin

The single most catastrophic day in Crusader history. By mid-1187 Saladin had united Egypt and Syria and assembled the largest Muslim army the Crusaders had ever faced. King Guy of Jerusalem, goaded by aggressive barons, marched his entire field army — some twenty thousand men, virtually every knight in the kingdom — away from the springs of Saffuriya on a waterless July march toward Tiberias. Saladin's cavalry harassed them relentlessly through the scorching heat. On the morning of 4 July the exhausted, parched Crusader army was trapped on the dry plateau near the twin-peaked hill known as the Horns of Hattin. Saladin's troops set fire to the scrub, blinding the Franks with smoke, and attacked from all sides. The relic of the True Cross was captured, King Guy was taken prisoner, and nearly every Crusader knight was killed or enslaved. In the aftermath Saladin received Guy in his tent and offered him a cup of iced water; Guy drank and passed it to Reynald of Châtillon, the lord of Oultrejordain whose attacks on Muslim pilgrim caravans had done more than anything else to trigger the war. Saladin, remarking that he had not given the cup to the traitor and so was not bound by the obligations of hospitality, personally struck Reynald down. Within months he had swept across the kingdom virtually unopposed, taking Jerusalem itself in October. The kingdom that had stood for eighty-eight years was reduced to the single port city of Tyre.

Coordinates: 32.8022°, 35.4400°

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