This episode follows the brutal closing days of the Siege of Acre and the seven-day death march that followed, when Richard the Lionheart’s exhausted army staggered south under nonstop harassment from Saladin’s cavalry. The story then explodes into the Battle of Arsuf, retold blow by blow with first-person perspectives from the ranks on both sides. No romance, no fairy tales, no knightly fantasy. This is hunger, disease, slaughter, panic, and momentum deciding who lives and who doesn’t. From prisoners executed at Acre to men collapsing in the sand on the road to Arsuf, this is the Crusade as it actually felt to the people bleeding through it.
Sources:
Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land. Simon and Schuster, 2010.
Baha ad Din. The Life of Saladin. Translated by D. S. Richards, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Ibn al Athir. The Chronicle of Ibn al Athir for the Crusading Period. Translated by D. S. Richards, Ashgate, 2006.
Riley Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A History. Yale University Press, 2014.
Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades. Cambridge University Press, 1951.
Tyerman, Christopher. God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. Harvard University Press, 2006.
Folda, Jaroslav. The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades. Audiobook, Tantor Audio, 2018.
BBC Radio 4. In Our Time: Saladin and Richard the Lionheart. British Broadcasting Corporation.
Robinson, Tony. The Crusades. Channel 4 Documentary Series.
History Hit. The Crusades Podcast Series.
Dan Carlin. Hardcore History. Context episodes on medieval warfare and siege warfare.
