Grinding down the Crusaders: A Review of Saladin the Strategist by Ben Duval
An enlightening case study on military strategy in the Holy Land
Saladin, or more fully, an-Nasir Salah ad Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub is chiefly remembered in common historiography as the foil to the gallant Richard the Lionheart. But while the struggle of the Third Crusade was in many ways the high point of Richard’s life as a King and Warrior, for Saladin it marked the twilight of his career.
Saladin’s military career spanned a period of some 30 years, beginning as a humble courtier rising to become undisputed master of the Egypt and the Levant. It is this story that Ben Duval, Bazaar of War/Byzantine Emporia tells in his new book Saladin the Strategist: How the Crusaders Lost the Holy Land.
The book focuses primarily on the titular character, focusing primarily on Saladin’s military exploits and objectives. By staying tightly focused on the military and strategic, Ben attempts to paint a picture of Saladin’s overall military strategy. How it was constrained first by the resources at hand and colored by his individual personality, and later evolved over time through experience and often time setbacks.
The book is divided into five sections with the first three dedicated to his military and political rise, beginning first as a young man serving in his Uncles army at the behest of their mutual overlord/sponsor Nur ad Din and culminating with him as Sultan of Egypt and greater Syria and Al Jizira. The Crusaders states feature in these sections as foes and major campaigns and raids are described, but ultimately, the conflict with the Crusader States acts in minor parallel with Saladin’s far larger struggle against his co-religionists.
Due to the myriad of threats Saladin faced, Christian and Muslim, and the multiple frontiers he fought on, Ben describes Saladin’s overarching military vision as one which relied on patience and optionality. Like a great millstone, Saladin would learn to grind his enemies down bit by bit.
By the time of Part IV, where Saladin finally turns his full attention to the Crusader States and ultimately defeats them, he is a mature and disciplined commander. Ben demonstrates how it was Saladin’s overall strategy, not tactical acumen, that would force the decisive Battle of Hattin leading to the total annihilation of the Crusader army and the conquest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. But perhaps more penetrating, Ben demonstrates how even if the Crusaders could evade total disaster at the Battle of Hattin, Saladin’s overall strategy would still allow him to come away with gains and advance the overall conflict in his favor.
Saladin’s methods meant the Crusaders had to win every battle, while Saladin needed to win only once.
It is the wake of his total victory that Part V begins and contains Saladin’s most famous conflict with Richard. Saladin is an older man by now, and has switched from campaigns of conquest to those of defense and containment. To stem the tide of the Third Crusade. Here again Ben dissects Saladin’s overall strategy, the very same which crushed the Crusaders and honed over decades of warfare, and how it was ultimately inadequate to the task of pushing the Third Crusade and Richard the Lionheart back into the sea.
Yet despite ending on this bitter failure and Saladin’s own admission and belief that his life’s work in the Holy Land would be largely undone, history as Ben points out has vindicated Saladin’s military record. Richard was ultimately confined to the narrow coast and subsequent crusades would almost all fail to reclaim Jerusalem and much of the Holy Land. Non-Muslims would not rule Jerusalem again until nearly 800 years after Saladin. In time, Muslim princes would eject the Crusaders in full, completing Saladin’s dream of an Islamic Levant.
Saladin the Strategist was brilliant.