King Saladin or King Richard ?

[MuhammedAli]

No he wasn't, stop inventing fairy tales.Saladin had a clear advantage in absolute numbers, reinforcements, supplies and the advantages of home base.
Nope...wrong....see Battle of Jaffa,outnumbered 5 to 1. ...Richard wins,same at Arsuf. Crusaders were almost always vastly outnumbered by muslims and short on supplies and fresh reinforcements.

Salah ud-Din al-Ayubi's army was ill armed. Most of his army did not have amor protection. In contrast the crusader army was cream of cream from Europe. Knights and their horses were fully armor protected. Salad ud-Din's army composed of farmers, peasents who had picked up arms to fight for sake of protecting religion and lives of Muslims. Richard on other hand fielded the best armed, best army trained from childhood. The disparity between the two armies can be summed with modern comparision USA (i.e. Richard) vs Taliban (i.e. Salah ud-Din).

Coming to battle of Jaffa. Like I already stated Salah ud-Dins army had little to no protection which made them vanurable to 2000 crossbow men ranked two/three rows deep: firing, ready, reloading. This gave huge advantage to Richard because direct fire could bring a charging cavalary unit down. Salah ud-Dins archery units fired but caused little damage ... cause richards units were heavily armored the arrows bounced off. It wasn't much of Richards skill that won him battles just better equiped army.

You're look too much into numbers and not quality aspect.

 

[Arsalan]

Richard the Lion-heart defeated Saladin in all battles they had fought.

True. He was one worth foe that Saladin met in his times! One who he was not able to defeat on the battle field and who would have caused many more problems had the weather and his health allowed. However, there is more to it than what meets the eye. Details below.

Richard fought an impossible war away from its home base. Just imagine if the roles were reversed, he would have made short work of Salladin.

Agreed. Richard had a disadvantage that he was fighting further away from his home country compared to Saladin. This was a huge disadvantage to him and still him defeating Saladin and his war proven army tells us a lot about how good Richard really was.

However people, we must realize a few things and consider a few more facts here. Saladin, though close to home had a menacing problem of revolt back at home. Every time he set his sights on to bigger objectives and left Egypt for it there was trouble in south by Sudan. The Fatimid Caliphate also kept on disrupting domestic affairs and while away he had to ensure home that thing back home were in control. A much more serious threat was from Assassins, the group of people feared by the world of that time. They attempted to kill him on at least two occasions as well.

More important than any of this is a simple fact. By the time Richard contested Saladin, his armies were coming of from nearly a decade of grueling war. So while we cannot and DO NOT take anything away from Richard, we would discredit Saladin either. BOTH WHERE GREAT MEN and personally i wont rate one OVER the other!


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As for the OP, i do not understand the post. The argument in that whole post seem to be that the historians of that time have spoken very highly of these two figures. However we cannot ignore the fact, AND IT HAVE BEEN MENTIONED IN THE OP AS WELL, that the historian from the OTHER SIDE, like Muslim guys for Richard and Christian writers for Saladin have written similar words of praise for the other. Mean this can all not be ruled out simply as self praise. The enemy also talked highly of these two people. So i should say that both actually were great personalities!

 

[My-Analogous]

No he wasn't, stop inventing fairy tales.Saladin had a clear advantage in absolute numbers, reinforcements, supplies and the advantages of home base.


Nope...wrong....see Battle of Jaffa,outnumbered 5 to 1. ...Richard wins,same at Arsuf. Crusaders were almost always vastly outnumbered by muslims and short on supplies and fresh reinforcements.

Your claim is one sided and very debatable, infect it didn't sound right what western claims because it is well know truth that since Romans it is always like that Attacking force must be atleast 2.5 times of defending forces and if your claim i consider true then Richard is the biggest fool because anyone can say that before war start that who will win. So your claim void

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Salah Ud din was a good man and warrior , appears to have lot of fan followers in his time

 

[Maarkhoor]

@Arsalan
We can rate both men by accessing their objects, Richard backed by whole Christian world want secure occupied land and on the other hand Salah hudin wants to liberate Jerusalem for all faith, eventually he succeeded.

 

[Malik Usman]

Richard the Lion-heart defeated Saladin in all battles they had fought.

And from where you read that.....????

 

[mkiyani]

saladin was turkish ???

we need A Saladin now..

 

[My-Analogous]

saladin was turkish ???

we need A Saladin now..

Salahuddin was Kurd.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Salah Ud Din great tectician and took over Jerusalem , but was merciful

 

[A.P. Richelieu]

Salah Ud Din great tectician and took over Jerusalem , but was merciful

He mercifully decapitated the Knights Hospitallers and Knights Templars after the Battle of Hattin.
Before that, he mercifully killed all men and beasts at Jacobs Ford.
The meaning of ”merciful” is different nowadays.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

I heared he was nice guy, He spared lives of whole city and let most people live
In that time it was general practice to kill all city opposing members so it was a fresh new trend

 

[denel]

Saladin .... any time. In fact, he even made a Time magazine full blown article. I recall reading that article back in early 1990s. I am sure volks can check on google and find that one; it was very well written.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993030,00.html

http://www.historyextra.com/article/premium/how-lead-saladin

The battle and tactics of Saladin were mandatory reading in our training.

 

[LeGenD]

And from where you read that.....????

1. The Battle of Arsuf

2. The Battle of Jaffa

 

[Śakra]

King Khan

1) KANK
2) K3G
3) KKHH
4) My name is Khan

Do I need to say more?