The Two Marches on Jerusalem, 1191–1192, and Why Richard Turned Back Both Times

Richard the Lionheart twice led the Third Crusade to within a day's march of Jerusalem, at Beit Nuba, and twice withdrew without a battle. Here is why.

4 October 2026 · Part of The Crusades — a guide to 15 articles →

Twice in six months, Richard the Lionheart brought the army of the Third Crusade to Beit Nuba, about twelve miles from Jerusalem, and twice he turned it around without fighting a battle. The retreats have been read as cowardice, as piety turned to politics, or as the plain realism of a commander who understood a siege better than his critics did. The sources agree on the sequence and disagree, sharply, on whom to blame.

The coast is won, the city is not

After the victory at Arsuf in September 1191 and the refortification of Jaffa, the crusaders held a strip of coast. Jerusalem lay inland, in the hills, and had been in Muslim hands since Saladin took it in October 1187. For the crusaders it was the stated purpose of the whole expedition, and for Saladin it was the proof of his legitimacy as a champion of Islam. Both sides understood what was at stake.

Richard, however, had reasons to move slowly. His army was a coalition: Angevin and English troops under his own command, the French contingent left behind by Philip II under Hugh III of Burgundy, the Templars and Hospitallers, and the barons of the surviving Latin kingdom, whose interests did not always match those of visitors from the West. His conquest of Cyprus earlier that year had given him a base, but not a united army.

The first advance, winter 1191–92

Richard moved inland from Jaffa in the autumn and the army spent Christmas near Latrun. In early January 1192 it reached Beit Nuba, which the Latin sources call Betenoble. Saladin, for his part, had dismissed much of his field army to winter quarters in December, a decision that the Muslim sources present as a sensible response to the season and the Latin sources later describe as an opportunity that was missed.

What happened next is the part of the story that depends on the chroniclers. The weather turned savage. The Itinerarium describes torrential rain, hail and cold that rusted armour, spoiled food and rotted tents, and the army, already worn by months on campaign, was losing men to sickness and desertion. A council was held. According to the Latin accounts the Templars and Hospitallers, together with the barons of the Latin kingdom, advised against a siege: even if the city fell, the army would melt away once the pilgrims had fulfilled their vows, leaving too few men to hold it against Saladin's return. Richard accepted the advice. The army fell back to Ramla and then to Ascalon, which Richard spent the spring rebuilding.

The second advance, summer 1192

Between the two advances much changed. In late April 1192 Conrad of Montferrat, elected king of Jerusalem only days before, was murdered in Tyre. Henry of Champagne, Richard's nephew, married Conrad's widow and took over the title. Richard took Darum in May and then, in June, led the army inland again. Bahā' ad-Dīn reports that Saladin was warned on 6 June that the Franks were moving in force, and the Muslim command, which had expected the winter campaign to be the last, began to prepare for a real siege. Richard's army captured a large Egyptian supply caravan at Tell al-Khuwaylifa in the same month, which hurt Saladin's logistics and raised crusader spirits.

The army again reached Beit Nuba and again, the sources say, debated. This time the argument was about method as much as principle. Richard, by the account most favourable to him, pointed to the heat and the shortage of water: Saladin's men had been fouling or blocking the wells around the city, and an army besieging Jerusalem in July would be thirsty and exposed. Hugh of Burgundy and the French wanted to attack at once. Richard's alternative, reported in some sources, was a strike on Egypt, the economic base of Saladin's power. The army split into two factions, neither strong enough to carry out its plan. Richard is said to have offered to go to Jerusalem as a simple soldier but not to lead the army. Without a single commander, the host drew back to the coast in early July.

Why he turned back: the arguments

Historians weigh the same few explanations.

Supply and water. Jerusalem sits on a limestone ridge, far from the coast and its fleet. Every sack of flour and every barrel of water had to come up from Jaffa through country where Saladin's cavalry could cut the road. This was the argument Richard himself is reported to have made.

Holding the city. A siege might succeed, but the army that took Jerusalem would need to hold it for years. The military orders, who had learned this at Hattin, said that the crusaders did not have the men to do so.

Politics. Richard's brother John was intriguing with Philip II, and the king knew that he could not stay in the East indefinitely. Gillingham argues that this pressure explains his preference for a negotiated settlement over a gamble. Our record of these operations lists both advances as campaigns withdrawn without battle, which is a useful reminder that the Third Crusade's most celebrated moments were also its least decisive.

Command. The coalition had no single will. When the French and the Latin barons wanted one thing and Richard another, the army could neither take Jerusalem nor agree to do otherwise.

A later legend has Richard climb a hill and see the city in the distance, then cover his face with his shield, saying that he was not worthy to look on a city he could not free. Nothing in the surviving contemporary chronicles proves it, and it should be read as a later story that expresses what people felt about the retreat rather than what Richard did.

Chronology

Conclusion: a city that could be reached but not held

The two marches show a commander who could bring an army within sight of its objective and who judged, twice, that reaching it was not the same as keeping it. The judgement was probably sound on military grounds, and the kingdom that survived on the coast outlasted Richard by a century, until the fall of Acre in 1291. But it was also a judgement that left the crusade without its central prize, and later crusades, from the Fourth Crusade onward, show how little the movement could do without a leader whom all its factions would follow. The Templars, who advised caution at Beit Nuba, would spend the next hundred years defending the same narrow coast.

Frequently asked questions

How close did Richard get to Jerusalem? The crusader army reached Beit Nuba, about twelve miles from the city, on both advances: in January 1192 and again in June 1192. Some later accounts say the walls could be seen from nearby heights, but the contemporary sources do not agree on this.

Did Richard ever see Jerusalem? A well-known story says he refused to look at it. The surviving contemporary chronicles do not record that, and historians treat it as legend. Richard left the Holy Land in October 1192 without having entered the city.

Why did the military orders advise against a siege? According to the Latin chroniclers, they feared that the army could not hold Jerusalem once the pilgrims went home. They also knew that Saladin could cut the road from the coast, which made supply and water a constant problem.

Was Richard's decision a mistake? Historians disagree. Gillingham defends it as sound military judgement, while others point to Saladin's weakened army and see a missed opportunity. The evidence, mostly written by partisans on one side or the other, cannot settle the question.

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