Original subtitles

Tens of thousands of crusaders lay siege

to the walls of achre, the largest port

of the mediterranean.

The siege lasts for 2 years and becomes

one of the longest and bloodiest in

medieval history.

20 m siege towers are driven toward the

city walls. In response, the defenders

of akre unleash everything they have.

Catapults batter the structures so

violently that splinters fly in all

directions. They douse the towers with

Greek fire and the towers burst into

flames despite their wet hides and iron

plating. From one of the towers, knights

break onto the crest of the wall and a

bloody battle begins. Underground,

sappers dig tunnels toward the

foundations while the Garrison of ache

digs toward them. And when the tunnels

meet, men slaughter each other in

complete darkness. At sea, Italian

galleys intercept Muslim transports in

boarding battles where anyone who falls

overboard in chain mail sinks within

seconds. Over two years, the besieges

camp grows into an entire city.

Blacksmiths, bakers, taverns, brothel, a

marketplace. At the same time, a

situation emerges that has almost no

parallel in military history. A double

siege. Saladine with his army besieges

the besiegers camp. The crusaders

besiege the city while saladine besieges

the crusaders. The camp is trapped

between the powerful walls of akre on

one side and the sultan's army on the

other. Saladin's cavalry attacks

regularly from one side. While the

Garrison of akre launches sorties from

the other. The crusader's supplies come

only by sea. The Wells around have been

poisoned on saladin's orders. Within

this encirclement, famine,

scurvy, and dissentry begin to spread.

But before telling the story of the

siege, we must understand what led to

it. In 1187, saladin destroyed the

crusader army at hatton and swept

through their cities like fire. The

entire coastline of the holy

land fell within a matter of months. Of

all the coastal cities, only one

remained in Christian hands. Ty.

Jerusalem. The city where Christ was

crucified. The city for which the

crusades began was now in Muslim hands.

At hatton, saladin also captured the

true cross, a crucifix set in gold

and precious stones. For the

crusaders, it was the most sacred object

on earth. They carried it into battle as

a banner, and now it was in Muslim

hands. When news of the fall of

the holy city reached Rome, pope urban

III is said to have died of grief. His

successor, Gregory viii, proclaimed the

third crusade. But time would pass

before the crusaders were called and

made their way to the holy land. The

initiative fell into the hands of a man

whom no one took seriously anymore. The

king of the fallen Jerusalem, guy of

lucin. Guy of lucin had been captured at

hatton, but saladine released him after

extracting an oath that he would never

again raise arms against the muslims.

Guy broke the oath. He had sworn to

saladin. He gathered 400 knights and

several thousand infantry and did what

everyone considered madness. He marched

to besiege acre, the main port of the

holy land with powerful walls and a

Garrison of many thousands under

saladin's command. The idea that the

pitiful remnants of a defeated

army could besiege such a city seemed

absurd. The first week seemed to confirm

that guy's plan was doomed. The

crusaders did not even have enough men

to fully encircle the city. The Garrison

of akre was well supplied. The city's

commander, Baja adin carakush, defended

it desperately. An experienced and

determined leader loyal to saladin to

the end. But news of the siege spread

throughout the Christian world, and

people began to arrive. Flemings,

friszzians, Germans, Italians, and even

scandinavians, famed for their ferocity

in battle, who had sailed around all of

Europe in their ships. Detachment after

detachment, ship after ship, warriors

and pilgrims flowed to achre from across

Europe. Many chose not to wait for the

organization of a grand crusade. Genoa,

pisa, and venice provided their fleets.

But each republic bargained for its own

quarters, trading privileges and

warehouses in the future acre. The war

was not yet over, and the merchants were

already dividing the profits. The

crusader camp grew. By the Autumn of

1189, it had become an entire city of

tents stretching in a Crescent around

the walls of achre. The camp included

both templars and hospitalers, true

military corporations with their own

intelligence, finances, and diplomacy.

Soon, saladine appeared. His army took

up positions on the heights surrounding

the crusader camp. A remarkable

situation emerged. The crusaders were

besieging the city while saladin was

besieging the crusaders. A double siege,

an extremely rare phenomenon in military

history. The crusader camp found itself

trapped between the walls of akre and

saladin's army. Supplies came only by

sea. Saladin poisoned and filled in the

Wells around the city. Fresh water

became a strategic resource. The

crusaders depended on a few sources and

on rainwater. Struggles for access to

water sometimes led to clashes within

the camp itself between different

national contingents. On October 4th,

1189, the crusaders launched a

large-scale assault. The plan was

ambitious. The army was divided into two

groups. One facing saladin was to hold

back his forces and prevent an attack on

the rear. The other turning toward the

city walls was to storm akre. The

crusaders advanced to the

attack. The templars struck the right

flank of saladin's army. Heavy nightly

cavalry clad in male and circot crashed

into the Muslim horsemen with such force

that saladin's right wing was crushed.

The muslims broke and fled. With

triumphant cries, the templars rushed in

pursuit. The cavalry thundered across

the plane, cutting down the fleeing

enemy. At the same time, at the walls of

achre, the assault columns moved

forward. Infantry with ladders

and battering rams approached under a

hail of arrows and stones. Several units

secured positions at the base of the

walls and began raising their ladders.

The Garrison was pushed back. It seemed

that just a little more and the

crusaders would break into the city. But

then disaster struck. The templars

became carried away with the pursuit and

broke away from the main force by

several kilometers. The center and left

flank of the crusader blocking line were

left unsupported. A gap opened.

Saladine, an experienced and cool-headed

commander, saw it immediately. He hurled

his center into a counterattack.

Muslim cavalry struck into the breach

between the crusader units and surged

into the rear of the assault columns.

Those storming the walls suddenly found

themselves under attack from two sides.

From above, stones rained down on them

along with boiling water and Greek

fire.

From behind, saladine's cavalry slammed

into them. A massacre began.

Crusaders trapped between the wall and

the cavalry were cut down in their

dozens. Formation collapsed. A chaotic

retreat began. Men fled back to

the camp, abandoning ladders and

weapons. Seeing the route, the Garrison

of akre launched a sorty. The gates flew

open and Muslim warriors struck the

fleeing crusaders from behind. The

retreat turned into a slaughter. Losses

were catastrophic.

Thousands killed and wounded.

Among the dead were prominent

commanders, knights, and sergeants of

the military orders. When the templars

returned from their pursuit, they found

the fields strewn with the bodies of

their comrades. By the evening of

October 4th, the crusader camp was

plunged into mourning, the groans of the

wounded, the cries for the dead, the

smell of blood and smoke. The first

major attempt to take the city had

failed. After the failed assault, the

siege entered a phase of prolonged

stalemate. And this is when the worst

began. The crusader camp. Tens of

thousands of people packed into a

confined space without sanitation turned

into an epidemiological

nightmare. The corpses of humans and

animals rotted beside the tents.

Flies and rats were everywhere.

Dissentry claimed more lives than

swords. Chroniclers described a stench

that could be smelled for miles. One

writer noted that new arrivals

began vomiting as soon as they came

ashore. Particularly terrifying was a

disease the chronicers called arnaldia.

People's hair and nails fell

out, their skin peeled away. Most

likely, this was severe scurvy, the

result of months without fresh

vegetables and fruit. Field surgery in

the 12th century was a horror of its

own. Arab physicians were far more

skilled than their European

counterparts. One chronicler describes

how a frankish doctor chopped

off a wounded man's leg with an axe

while an arab medic had proposed

treating him with ointments.

At a

hospital maintained field hospitals, but

their methods were primitive

cauterization with red hot iron,

amputations without anesthesia,

and prayer as the primary remedy.

The first winter of the siege became a

true nightmare. Rains turned the camp

into a swamp. Food was scarce.

There was nowhere to Bury the dead.

Bodies were piled into ditches. Prices

for food skyrocketed to absurd

levels. An egg cost as much as an entire

meal in Europe. People ate grass,

leather from shields, and horses. Winter

storms regularly destroyed ships in the

harbor, depriving the crusaders of

supplies for weeks.

One particularly strong storm wrecked

several large transports and the camp

found itself on the brink of starvation.

Saladine, by contrast, received

supplies by land and deliberately

intensified pressure precisely at those

moments when bad weather

deprived the crusaders of naval support.

Not everyone could endure it.

Chroniclers describe widespread

desertion. People simply boarded ships

and sailed home. There were even cases

of conversion to islam. Some crusaders

in despair defected to saladin. Clergy

in the camp organized public

acts of repentance and processions with

relics to raise morale. Preachers

explained the failures as the result of

the crusader's own sins, claiming that

god was punishing them for debauchery

and drunkenness in the camp. Each

spring, new ships arrived with

reinforcements and provisions. The camp

came back to life. Blacksmiths and

bakers worked there. There were taverns,

brothel, and a marketplace.

Chronicers describe gambling, drinking,

and preachers moving from tent to tent

calling for repentance. The songs of

trouidors could be heard. People played

dice, held wrestling matches, and told

stories around campfires. Children were

born in the camp. Chroniclers mentioned

baptisms of infants under field

conditions. The wives of knights and

infantrymen who had come with their

husbands along with laresses, cooks,

servants, and prostitutes all were

present in the camp. Women played a

significant role. Chronicers mention

women carrying earth to fill in ditches

under enemy fire. Between the walls of

achre and the camp, a constant

engineering war was underway. It was one

of the most technically intensive sieges

of the middle ages. A true arms race.

The crusaders built siege towers up to

20 m high. The towers were slowly moved

toward the walls along carefully leveled

roads. On the upper level were archers

and crossbowmen firing down on the

defenders. The middle level served as a

platform for a drawbridge. When the

tower reached the wall, the bridge was

dropped and knights charged onto the

battlements. The construction of a

single such tower took weeks. Thousands

of men cut and hauled logs while

blacksmiths forged iron clamps and

fittings.

The towers were covered with wet hides

and dowsted with vinegar to prevent them

from catching fire. Some were even

plated with sheets of iron. During one

of the largest assaults, the crusaders

brought three siege towers to the walls

at once from different directions to

disperse the defense. At the same time,

a battering ram, a log tipped with iron

and suspended on chains beneath a

wooden shelter, pounded at the

gates. Crossbowmen from the towers

showered the walls with bolts,

preventing the defenders from showing

themselves. The Garrison

responded with everything they had.

Catapults on the walls hurled stones at

the towers. Heavy impacts shook the

structures, sending splinters flying in

all directions. But their most

formidable weapon was Greek fire. The

defenders hurled pots filled with

incendury mixture and one of the three

towers burst into flames. The fire

instantly engulfed the wet hides that

were meant to protect it. The

substance burned regardless of any

precautions. Men inside the tower leapt

down. Some were crushed on impact,

others burned alive. The second

tower managed to reach the wall. The

bridge was lowered and a group of

knights stormed onto the battlementss.

For several minutes, fierce hand-to-hand

fighting raged along the narrow crest of

the wall. Swords, axes, daggers, but the

Garrison brought up reserves and

the crusaders were thrown back. The

bridge was cut down and the tower,

having lost contact with the wall,

became useless.

That night, the Garrison launched a

sorty and set it on fire as well. The

third tower was destroyed before it even

reached the walls. A direct hit from a

catapult stone shattered its supporting

frame and the structure

collapsed, burying dozens of men beneath

it. The assault failed. The crusaders

lost all three towers and hundreds of

warriors, but they continued to

build new ones. Underground, another war

was being fought. The crusaders dug

tunnels toward the foundations

of the walls and towers. Work continued

around the clock. Sappers dug in three

shifts. The tunnel began far from the

walls so the Garrison would not notice

and ran underground at a depth

of several meters. The work was carried

out mainly by infantrymen and hired

miners, some of whom had been brought

specifically from the mining regions of

Europe. The tunnel was narrow. Two men

could barely pass each other. Air was

scarce. Light came from oil

lamps that constantly went out due to

lack of oxygen.

The earth was passed along a chain in

baskets from hand to hand. When the

tunnel reached the base of the wall, the

sappers excavated a chamber beneath it,

a hollow space supported by wooden

beams. Then the beams were packed with

brushwood and straw, set a light, and

the men withdrew. The fire

consumed the supports, the chamber

collapsed, and the wall above it

subsided or crumbled. But the

Garrison of achre knew this technique

well. The defenders dug countermines.

Tunnels aimed to intercept those of the

crusaders. To detect tunneling, they

placed copper basins filled with

water on the walls. Ripples on the

surface revealed the direction of

digging.

When a countermine met an enemy tunnel,

hell broke loose. The two tunnels would

converge. And in the cramped space where

it was impossible to swing a sword, men

stabbed each other with daggers and

short axes in the dim light of lamps.

Sometimes there were no lamps at all,

and the fighting took place in complete

darkness, by touch, guided only by the

sound of the enemy's breathing.

At times, the Garrison did not engage in

combat at all, but simply filled the

enemy tunnel with smoke, pumping it in

with blacksmith's bellows. The sappers

suffocated and died before they could

escape.

One of the crusader mines did achieve

its goal. A tower began to sink after

fire destroyed the supports in the

underground chamber. A crack spread

through the masonry. The defenders in

panic tried to reinforce the wall from

within with sacks of earth and

logs, but it was too late. Part of the

tower collapsed. The crusaders rushed

into the brereech. Fighting erupted amid

the ruins. Muslims battled among the

debris, blocking the passage with bodies

and stones. The breakthrough failed. The

Garrison held the gap and overnight

built a temporary wall behind it out of

stone and earth. But the tower was never

fully restored and remained a weak point

in the defenses. At sea, battles were

also being fought. The struggle for

control of the sea was critically

important. Without it, the crusaders

were doomed. Maritime supply was the

single threat sustaining the entire

siege. Muslim ships regularly attempted

to break the blockade and deliver

reinforcements, weapons, and provisions

into the city. Naval combat in the 12th

century meant boarding actions. Ships

closed in. Archers fired onto the enemy

decks. Then vessels grappled with hooks

and Poles, and hand-to-hand combat

began. Decks were slick with blood and

seaater.

Fighters hacked at each other on swaying

planks at constant risk of falling

overboard. And in chain mail, that meant

certain death, drowning within seconds.

Fast and maneuverable, Italian gs

patrolled the approaches to achre,

intercepting Muslim transports.

The most famous naval episode is the

story of a disguised ship. The muslims

outfitted a large transport loaded with

weapons, Greek fire, and

reinforcements for the Garrison. To

deceive the blockade, they hoisted sails

marked with crosses. The crew dressed in

European clothing, and pigs were brought

onto the deck. The Italian lookouts let

it pass. But something aroused suspicion

in one of the captains.

Several galleys moved closer for

inspection.

The deception was uncovered. A pursuit

began. The Muslim ship tried to break

through to the harbor under oars.

Italian gs surrounded it.

Boarding parties swarmed aboard. The

fighting on deck was brief and brutal.

When it became clear the ship was lost,

the Muslim sailors chose to sink it.

They opened the seox and smashed the

hull. The ship went down, but the

muslims found another way into the city

underwater.

Swimmer divers slipped into achre

carrying messages and even gold

in waterproof bags to pay mercenaries

inside the city.

One such swimmer drowned and his body

washed ashore with a belt of gold and

three incendury tubes of Greek

fire he had been carrying to the

Garrison. That was how the crusaders

discovered the underwater link and they

began setting underwater nets. Saladin

also used carrier pigeons to

communicate with the Garrison, but for

especially important messages, he used

trained ravens. A raven could carry a

heavier message and was less noticeable

at night. For a long time, the crusaders

were unaware of this and

intercepted only the pigeons. Both sides

waged psychological warfare as well. The

Garrison of achre demonstratively

desecrated crosses on the walls

in full view of the crusaders. The

crusaders responded by executing

prisoners before the walls. Saladine had

letters with false reports of Christian

defeats in Europe thrown into the camp.

Akre sent saladine pigeons with

desperate messages. Saladine stood on

the hills, seeing the signal fires from

achre, pleased for help. Chronicers

write that he wept in helplessness. His

army repeatedly attacked the crusader

camp, but each time it broke against

the ditches and palisades.

During the siege, the region was shaken

by earthquakes. They damaged the walls

of achre, but also brought down the

crusader's siege structures. Both sides

saw this as a sign, each interpreting it

in their own favor. The year 1190

brought tragedy to the crusaders. Of the

three great monarchs who had set out on

the crusade, the first to move was

Frederick barbarasa, emperor of the holy

Roman empire. He led a massive army

overland but drowned while crossing a

river. His army demoralized and weakened

largely dispersed and in the winter of

1190 to 1191,

hunger reached its peak. The chronicler

ambro mentions cases of cannibalism in

the camp. At acre, money decided

everything. Mercenaries switched from

one commander to another. Genoies and

peas and captains bargained over every

supply voyage. The economy of the siege

camp was brutal. Propheteers grew rich

on hunger while knights pawned

their weapons for a piece of bread. But

there was hope. Everyone knew that two

of Europe's greatest kings were on their

way to achre. Richard the lionheart

and Philip ii Augustus. Philip Augustus

arrived first on April 20th, 1191.

With him came French knights, siege

engineers, and catapults. Assaults

resumed with renewed energy. But the

real turning point came on June 8th,

1191, when the fleet of Richard

the lionheart appeared on the horizon.

25 galleys under English banners. With

his arrival, crusader morale soared. The

English king brought not only warriors,

but also money and technology.

His engineers immediately set to work

building new siege engines. Richard paid

generously to any man willing to remove

stones from mines beneath the walls, a

gold coin for each stone. On one

occasion, he bought an entire shipment

of grain intended for sale simply to

prevent speculators from driving up

prices in the camp. Both kings

fell ill. The same arnaldia spared

neither of them. Richard and Philip lost

their hair, their skin peeled. But

Richard refused to leave the

front. He personally directed

operations, at times even firing a

crossbow from a stretcher. With

Richard's arrival, the siege entered its

final furious phase. The English king

waged war methodically and ruthlessly.

First came the artillery

preparation. Catapults worked day and

night. Richard had massive trebuchets,

the largest of them the crusaders

nicknamed bad neighbor. It

pounded a single section of wall

continuously until the masonry began to

crumble. Philip Augustus, unwilling

to be outdone, ordered his own

trebuche built. It was called god's

stonethrower. Stones struck the walls

without paws. The Garrison tried to

cushion the impacts by hanging

bales of straw and sacks of wool along

the walls, but against such heavy

projectiles, it helped little.

Gradually, the outer facing of the walls

began to break apart, exposing the

softer core beneath.

At the same time as the bombardment,

mining operations resumed. Richard the

lionheart personally organized the

system. Sappers worked in shifts, and

anyone who carried stones out of the

tunnel was paid a gold coin.

It was a brilliant move. The mine

advanced at unprecedented speed.

The Garrison of achre launched desperate

sorties trying to destroy the siege

engines. Units of Muslim warriors rushed

out of the gates or descended from the

walls on ropes carrying pots of Greek

fire. Some were essentially suicide

attackers. They threw themselves at the

trebuchets with incendiary charges,

knowing they would not return. The

crusaders maintained heavy

guards around the machines, but several

times the muslims succeeded in setting

the siege works ablaze.

Richard responded to these

sorties with lightning speed. He kept

units of mounted knights in reserve,

ready to charge at a signal and cut off

the raiding parties from the city. Those

who failed to retreat behind the walls

in time found themselves trapped

and were killed.

The decisive assault came in early July.

By that time, a mine beneath one of the

key towers had been completed. Richard

ordered the support set on fire. The

ground trembled. A cloud of dust and

smoke Rose above the walls, and the

tower collapsed, bringing down an entire

section of the wall with it. A massive

breach opened in the defenses. The

crusaders surged into the gap. Infantry

went first, armed with shortsords and

shields. In the cramped breach, long

weapons were useless. Behind them

came the knights. The fighting

among the ruins was ferocious. The

muslims had already constructed a second

defensive line behind the wall, a

barricade of stones and logs. The battle

raged for every meter, but the Garrison

no longer had the strength. Two years of

siege, hunger, and losses had brought

them to the limit. They held the

barricade, but the situation of acres

defenders was hopeless. The walls had

already been breached in several places.

Crusader mines had brought down key

towers. No reinforcements were coming

from saladine. His attempts to break the

blockade had failed. Saladin saw that

the city was doomed, but could do

nothing. His army was exhausted by 2

years of fighting, while the crusaders,

strengthened by the arrival of kings,

had grown far more powerful. On

July 4th, 1191,

exactly 4 years after the

catastrophe at the battle of hatton, the

Garrison of achre began negotiations for

surrender. Both sides understood the

symbolism of the date. For the

crusaders, it was a sign that god had

finally turned in their favor.

For the muslims, that the wheel of fate

had turned. The Garrison

surrendered without saladine's

permission. The sultan was furious. The

terms were harsh. The Garrison would

hand over the city and all weapons.

Saladine was to return the true cross,

pay 200,000 dinars, and release 1,500

Christian prisoners.

If these conditions were fulfilled, the

Garrison would be spared. On July 12th,

1191, the gates of achre opened. The

crusaders entered the city. The banners

of Richard the lionheart and

Philip ii Augustus were raised over the

walls. But after the capture of akre,

events took a dark turn. Saladin delayed

fulfilling the terms of the

capitulation. Payments were postponed

and the true cross was not returned.

On August 20th, 1191, Richard the

lionheart ordered nearly 3,000 Muslim

prisoners from akre's Garrison, men,

women, and children, to be brought out

onto the plane in full view of

saladine's army. Saladine hastily sent

cavalry units in an attempt to rescue

the captives. Muslim horsemen attacked,

but Richard formed his army in battle

order. Infantry with Spears and shields

created a wall behind which stood

crossbowmen. Again and again, the

cavalry charged and fell back, cut down

by bolts. They failed to break the line.

The execution began. The

crusaders cut down the prisoners with

swords and axes on the open plane

in daylight before the eyes of

saladine and his army. Muslim chronicers

described the cries that carried across

the field. The massacre lasted for

hours. When it ended, the plane was

covered with bodies. The mass execution

shocked the Muslim world. Saladin, once

known for his mercy toward captured

crusaders, responded by executing

Christian prisoners. Saladin, exhausted

by war, died 2 years later. Akre became

the capital of the second kingdom of

Jerusalem, one of the most Cosmopolitan

cities in the world.

Italian quarters, eastern bazaars,

nightly orders, bankers. But akre would

stand for exactly one more

century. In 1291, the mammluks took it

by storm. It was the last major

stronghold of the crusaders in the holy

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