History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 58 the Third Crusade Roman numeral 6.

Hello again.

Last week we saw the first battle in the military campaign known as the Siege of Acre.

While the Muslims won the day on the battlefield, it was not a decisive victory and neither side was able to force the other from the field.

Both sides have now settled in for a long campaign.

The week following the Battle of October 1189 was a bad one for

sullard din. He became ill and the Muslim army was ordered to move their camp further away from the Latin Christian semicircle, perhaps as a precaution against disease. While he was recovering from his illness, he received the news he had

been dreading. His spies confirmed that Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was on his way with a massive army.

Saladin was told it contained upwards of 200,000 men. We of course know that Saladin has nothing to worry about.

We know that Barbarossa will drown before reaching the Holy Land and his crusade will only result

in a few thousand men reaching Acre.

But Saladin doesn't know this. The news for him is a worst case scenario.

The Muslims inside the city of Acre are besieged by tens of thousands of Franks, whose

numbers are growing daily with the arrival of new ships.

Saladin is in turn partly besieging the Latin Christians.

He doesn't have enough men to surround them entirely,

but he has set up camp in a loose semicircle some distance away, leaving quite a large patch of no man's land between the two camps.

An army of 200,000 German Christians would be sufficient to besiege the Muslims who would

be crushed against the new arrivals and the besieging Latin

Christians.

It was time to call for reinforcements.

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