Kingdom of Heaven - A DOOMED DEFENSE

This image, from medieval times, depicts Saladin mounting an assault on Jaffa.  Its French title is “Saladin à l'assaut de Jaffa," and it is maintained at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris.

When the Franks lost the battle at the Horns of Hattin, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was essentially defenseless. One by one, during the summer of 1187, Crusader settlements fell:

• Acre, of strategic importance (and known today as Akko, or Acco), surrendered.
  
  
• Jaffa resisted, was stormed and its inhabitants were sold into slavery.
  
  
• Tyre prepared to surrender until late July, when Conrad of Montferrat (the brother of Sibylla’s first husband), arrived (by happenstance) from Europe. He organized an effective resistance, defying Saladin. The sultan and his troops bypassed Tyre.
  
  
• Sidon surrendered.
  
  
• Beirut (in today’s Lebanon) surrendered.
  
  
• Ascalon (today a part of the Gaza Strip) surrendered.
  
  
• Gaza surrendered.

By late September, virtually the entire coast (except Tyre) was controlled by Saladin.

He would next turn his sights toward the job he believed he was born to do: Capture Jerusalem.