The Strategy of Saladin 1: The Takeover of Egypt (1164-1169)

The Strategy of Saladin 1 

The Takeover of Egypt (1164-1169)

  

Introduction

Yusuf ibn Ayyub: also known as Salah ad-Din or Saladin, meaning ‘Righteous of the Faith’. To Muslims, he was the Sultan who reclaimed their Holy City of Jerusalem from Christian European Crusaders. To those same Crusaders, he became a symbol of generosity and chivalrous rulership. Beyond them, his career was also one of the more dramatic in the medieval Middle East, rising from obscurity to ruler of Egypt and Syria, and founding a dynasty that would last for a hundred years.

Welcome to Strategy Stuff, and this is the story of how Saladin became the greatest prince in an age of great princes.

Background: Nur ad-Din

Saladin first appeared in history in the early 1160s. By that time, the Crusaders had already been in the Levant for over 60 years: combined, the Crusader states of Antioch, Tripoli, and Jerusalem stretched down the entire Mediterranean coastline, their minority rule anchored by formidable castles, defended by the well-financed Military Orders, and supplied by the various Italian navies.

Above all, Crusader rule was sustained through the disunity of the Muslims who surrounded them. The split between the Shiite Arabs of Fatimid Egypt and the Sunni Turks of nominally-Abbasid Syria, which was responsible for the success of the First Crusade, was still going strong at this time. On top of this, both regions suffered from internal infighting that prevented any focus on external affairs.

Syria, in particular, had long been a land of competing warlords. In the 1130s, the Turkic emir Zengi finally united Northern Syria and Northern Iraq under one banner: using their combined forces, he practically extinguished the Crusader state of Edessa. But upon his assassination in 1146, his realm was split between his sons, and the region fell back into disunity.

But this time, any Crusader respite from Zengi’s death would be short-lived. A new cultural and religious atmosphere was taking root within the Syrian cities, spurred on by decades of conflict and Christian rule over Jerusalem. Muslim clerics were now preaching Holy War against the infidel, and were willing to transfer their support – and the support of their flock – to any ruler who dedicated himself to it.

Zengi’s second son, Nur ad-Din, recognized and acted on this opportunity, fashioning himself as a pious ruler and heir to his father’s anti-Crusader legacy. He established a simple and austere court, funded only by taxes that were religiously allowed. He promoted Sunni Islam within the realm, subsidizing its imams and institutions while driving away those of other creeds. And finally, he promised to wage Holy War on behalf of the Sunni Abbasids: not just against the Crusaders, but also against the Shiite Fatimids of Egypt, and the Muslims who allied with them.

These initiatives greatly accelerated Nur ad-Din’s expansion across Syria. Rival Muslims couldn’t face him without being smeared as a ‘Crusader ally’, which came with the grave risk of urban riots or even wholesale defection. Instead, they were forced to become the vassals of Nur ad-Din, who used their forces to first beat back the Second Crusade and then conquer half of Antioch soon after. These achievements, in turn, boosted Nur ad-Din’s religious credentials, and granted him the policy freedom needed to stabilize his new conquests, with the clergy explaining away his many deals with the Crusaders as being incremental steps towards the final recovery of Jerusalem.

By the early 1160s, Nur ad-Din was master of most of Syria, with his realm nearly enveloping the Crusader Levant. Despite this, the resources of Syria alone were not enough to overcome the Crusaders’ advantages, and in any case, Nur ad-Din also had other regional rivals to worry about: the Turkish Sultanate of Rum, and a re-emerging Byzantine Empire. Under these circumstances, Nur ad-Din had to be satisfied with piecemeal strikes against the Crusaders, alternating them with periods of truce where he could focus on other fronts instead.

This was a strategic stalemate. But then came a golden opportunity, in the form of a political refugee from Egypt.

 

Fatimid Egypt’s Decline and Shirkuh’s First Expedition, 1164

Egypt had always been a land of plenty, and it had often used its wealth to conquer both the Levant and Syria. By the 1150s, however, Egypt could no longer exert power beyond its borders. While the ruling Fatimid Caliphate employed a large bureaucracy to manage Egypt’s resources, by the 1130s their control over the government had been usurped by their Viziers. These Viziers, in turn, were soon challenged by provincial governors in charge of the country’s trade ports, leading to an endless cycle of civil war and usurpation.

In 1163, the latest cycle of this political instability played out, as the Vizier Shawar was overthrown by his lieutenant Dirgham. Unlike his predecessors, Shawar survived the coup and fled Egypt, eventually ending up in Nur ad-Din’s court at Damascus. There, for the first time since the start of Egypt’s instability, Shawar asked for foreign help in recovering the Vizierate, promising to become a vassal of Nur ad-Din and to pay him a third of Egypt’s revenues as tribute.

The impact of Egyptian tribute would, of course, greatly enhance Nur ad-Din’s capabilities. But the risks of an Egyptian expedition were also high. Any force sent there would not only be facing the large Egyptian army in unfamiliar territory, they would also have to slip past several fortresses owned by Jerusalem on the way, making reinforcement and retreat difficult. And with regional foes poised to pounce upon any failure, Nur ad-Din was hardly going to gamble much on Shawar’s proposal. What he could do was dispatch a small elite force, which at best might provide a decisive edge for Shawar, and at worst return with some intelligence at relatively little cost.

To lead this distant expedition, Nur ad-Din needed a general he trusted, and for that, there was nobody else but Shirkuh, a Kurdish general who had served him since the beginning of his reign. But Shirkuh was a military man, and winning control of Egypt would require diplomacy as well as arms. Shirkuh’s brother Ayyub was the logical choice, having negotiated Nur ad-Din’s takeover of Damascus, but he was old. So the role fell to Ayyub’s son Yusuf – later known as Saladin – who had experience governing Damascus' population.

 

Shirkuh and Saladin were allowed to recruit a small band of Turkic and Kurdish cavalrymen, and in spring 1164, they set out towards Egypt with Shawar, bypassing Jerusalem’s fortresses and oasis-hopping across the Sinai. Upon hearing the news, Dirgham sent out Egypt’s infantry-heavy army to intercept, but they proved no match for the Syrian cavalry, and were defeated on the edge of the Nile Delta at the fortress of Bilbeis. There Shirkuh left Saladin with a garrison, while he proceeded with Shawar to the capital, Cairo, where Dirgham launched a last-ditch attack and was killed. So with limited resistance, Syrian cavalry had successfully re-installed Shawar back onto the Vizierate.

Shawar’s gratitude lasted less than a month. He had not returned to power just to be ruled by Syrians, so now he made a new proposal, one where Shirkuh would be paid for his work and then leave. Unsurprisingly, Shirkuh rejected this, so Shawar turned to a plan that the late Dirgham had been working on. Egyptian envoys were sent to King Amalric of Jerusalem, promising to pay him tribute if he would lead an army to Egypt and eject the Syrians.

The perils of letting Nur ad-Din seize the resources of Egypt were obvious enough to the Crusaders, and so in July, Amalric set out on the coastal road from Jerusalem to Egypt. Recognizing that his small Syrian force was about to be overwhelmed, Shirkuh fell back to rejoin Saladin at Bilbeis, followed by Amalric and Shawar who besieged the fortress. After three months, all sides saw that there was no profit in continuing the fight, so Shirkuh accepted Shawar’s new payment and everybody went home.

Saladin’s first campaign had ended rather ingloriously, though not before first achieving outsize success. Most importantly, the campaign had revealed the full weakness of the Fatimid state: it couldn’t resist the Syrian cavalry, and probably not the Crusaders either. By voluntarily inviting in foreign intervention, Shawar had set in motion a new phase of instability that he would find difficult to stop.

 

Shirkuh’s Second Expedition, 1167

Shirkuh returned to Syria not only with a greater appreciation of Egypt’s weakness, but also of Egypt’s wealth - which, if he could control it, would make him one of the richest people in the world. On the other hand, Nur ad-Din had obtained a greater appreciation of the difficulties of controlling wealthy Egypt from embattled Syria. It wouldn’t be easy to get him to authorize another expedition again.

Shirkuh did this by invoking the religious basis for Nur ad-Din’s rule. As mentioned, a Holy Warrior had to fight heretics as well as infidels, so Shirkuh wrote to the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, pointing out that this was a golden opportunity to end the Fatimid Caliphate and bring Egypt back to Sunni Islam. The Abbasid Caliph reminded Nur ad-Din of his religious obligations, and accordingly Shirkuh and Saladin were authorized to outfit another expedition.

Shirkuh’s preparations were detected early. By the time he left for Egypt in January 1167, Jerusalem had already dispatched another royal army to rescue Shawar. Not wishing to fight this army head-on and perhaps recognizing the longstanding tensions between Cairo and the provinces, Shirkuh decided to try and instigate a rebellion against Shawar’s government.

For months, Syrians and Crusaders faced off across the Nile as Shirkuh tried to bring the local provincials and Bedouin to his side. Eventually, King Amalric bridged the river and the Syrians were forced to leave, though not before bloodying the Crusaders in a cavalry clash. Shirkuh now focused on Egypt’s main Mediterranean seaport, Alexandria, a longtime rival of Cairo as well as a bastion for the Sunni faith. The city opened its gates to him in May, and Saladin was again put in charge with orders to resist the inevitable siege.

For the next three months, Shirkuh tried fruitlessly to raise the banner of revolt in southern and northern Egypt, while Saladin tried to govern Alexandria as it suffered under a joint blockade by the forces of Shawar, Jerusalem, and the Italian Republic of Pisa. The experience left a bad taste in Saladin’s mouth, and at times the Syrians seemed to be more like the prisoners of the unruly Alexandrians. So when Shawar and Shirkuh finally struck another deal in August to have everybody evacuate Egypt, Saladin was only too happy to oblige.

Saladin fully expected – and wanted – this failed Second Expedition to be the end of his time with Egypt. Shawar’s government had the support of Jerusalem, and their combined force would surely outmatch whatever Shirkuh was allowed to bring on his expedition. Nur ad-Din’s commitment to Holy War made him the most dangerous threat to both Crusader and Fatimid alike, and so long as that situation held, the Syrians could have no place in Egypt.

 

Crusader Invasion of Egypt and Shirkuh’s 3^rd Expedition, 1168-9

Luckily for Saladin’s future career, the international situation was rapidly changing, driven by events far beyond Egypt and possibly already in motion even before Shirkuh’s First Expedition.

The main driver for this change was the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenos: by 1160, he had decided to oppose the other Empire in Europe, the Holy Roman Empire of Friedrich ‘Barbarossa’. To this end, he aligned himself with many Christian Mediterranean states, including the Pope, Sicily, and the Crusader states. And while the focus of this diplomacy was to counter Friedrich’s expansion in Italy, it also offered opportunities to mutually support Christian expansion into the Muslim Middle East.

Soon after ejecting Shirkuh’s Second Expedition from Egypt, King Amalric decided to put his Byzantine alliance to the test. Like Nur ad-Din, the Crusaders clearly would gain much from the conquest of Egypt, but they had always been constrained by their scarce resources and the need to defend against Syria. Now, the King sent an embassy to Emperor Manuel, asking for Byzantine forces to help conquer Egypt.

But under Jerusalem’s feudal system, the King was not the only one with a say in strategy. He needed the cooperation of his lords and Military Orders as well, if only to obtain their forces for the proposed attack. And they were not happy about the appeal to Emperor Manuel, whose influence might well displace their own at court. Of the two Military Orders, only the Knights Hospitaller joined the expedition, while the High Court of the lords forced the King to adopt an alternative strategy: attack Egypt immediately, without waiting for the Emperor’s response.

So on October 1168, King Amalric’s army assembled and rapidly marched towards the Nile Delta, seizing the fortress of Bilbeis as Shirkuh had done four years ago. The Crusaders might have hoped to take Cairo by storm, but when they got there, they found that Shawar had already devastated the outskirts to deny war materiel to the invaders. The Vizier was still willing to pay the Crusaders to leave, however; lacking any better options, Amalric agreed to give Shawar time to collect the tribute.

Instead, Shawar did what he did best. He sent an urgent appeal to Damascus, asking Nur ad-Din to defend Egypt from the Crusaders. He again offered a third of Egypt’s revenues as tribute, and promised this time to let Shirkuh permanently stay in the country. Even accounting for Shawar’s unreliable character, it was clearly in Nur ad-Din’s interest to stop the Crusader takeover. So he quickly topped up Shirkuh’s expedition with some cavalry of his own, and sent them all to Shawar’s aid.

Shirkuh and Saladin arrived just in time to see the army of Jerusalem withdrawing before them, King Amalric having abandoned even the demand for Egypt to pay tribute. On January 1169, Shirkuh entered Cairo, and soon found an excuse to kill the duplicitous Shawar. Shirkuh now became the new Vizier, but he died shortly thereafter. As his closest relative in Egypt and with a fair bit of experience under his belt, Saladin was chosen by the Syrian cavalry to be their new leader. Still, the choice was not unanimous, and many dissenters decided to return home to Nur ad-Din instead.

The Fatimid Caliph now approved Saladin as the new Vizier, making him the 5^th person to hold the position within the past 6 years. One might have considered this promotion more of a curse than a blessing: not only was Saladin now the focus of the many plots festering within the Egyptian bureaucracy, he also had to tread a fine line between the demands of his Syrian master, the Sunni Holy Warrior Nur ad-Din, and the demands of the Shiite Fatimid Caliph, under whose authority he was Vizier. Beyond that, King Amalric might have withdrawn to Jerusalem empty-handed, but he did so in the knowledge that he would likely return to Egypt soon, and this time with a Byzantine fleet in support.

The next few years would be treacherous waters indeed, and to survive them, Saladin would need not just all of his skill, but perhaps all of his luck as well.

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