Third Crusade

Third Crusade, 1189 - 1192

The papal bull summoning the Third Crusade was issued by Gregory VIII in 1187, after Jerusalem had been recaptured by the armies of Islam under Saladin. Among the responders to Gregory's call were three of Europe's greatest kings: the Western emperor, Frederick Barbarossa; Philip Augustus, king of France; and Richard I, the Lion-hearted, king of England. Frederick, nearly seventy, set out overland with an army of one hundred thousand, of which fifty thousand were on horseback. He drowned before reaching Jerusalem, in the Kalycadnus river near Cilicia. His son, Frederick of Swabia, led a demoralized, and much smaller, remnant of the army on to Acre (Ptolemais), which was already under siege by Guy of Lusignan.

In the meantime, Philip and Richard with their armies, departing only in July, 1190, crossed the sea and, after stops at Sicily and Cyprus, landed at Acre—Philip in April and Richard in June—where they joined the siege, and the city surrendered in July, 1191. Philip departed for France in August, leaving Richard in control. The terms of the surrender of Acre included a prisoner exchange and the return, by Saladin, of the True Cross, which he had captured with Jerusalem in 1187. Upon some failure in the negotiations over the prisoner exchange, Richard ordered all of the Muslim prisoners, with their wives and children, to be killed, which was carried out in full view of Saladin's army.

The crusaders failed to capture Jerusalem, but obtained from Saladin, by treaty, the seacoast from Tyre to Joppa for three years, and protection for pilgrims on their journey to Jerusalem.

A dark blot rests upon Richard's memory for the murder in cold blood of twenty-seven hundred prisoners in the full sight of Saladin's troops and as a punishment for the non-payment of the ransom money. The massacre, a few days before, of Christian captives, if it really occurred, in part explains but cannot condone the crime.
¶ The recapture of Acre and the grant of protection to the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem were paltry achievements in view of the loss of life, the long months spent in making ready for the Crusade, the expenditure of money, and the combination of the great nations of Europe. In this case, as in the other Crusades, it was not so much the Saracens, or even the splendid abilities of Saladin, which defeated the Crusaders, but their feuds among themselves. Never again did so large an army from the West contend for the cross on Syrian soil.
History of the Christian Church, by Philip Schaff, Volume V, Chapter 7, § 53

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