♪ ♪ - [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by The Meadows Foundation, of and for Texas, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by the financial support of viewers like you.

- [Stephen] These Muslim warriors are on the verge of a stunning victory in their jihad, their holy war against in the Christians in Palestine.

Hundreds of Christian troops lie dead or wounded after a last ditch attempt to defend the city of Jerusalem.

- Jerusalem's the kingdom.

We don't have any chance but to keep on fighting.

- [Stephen] The Muslim leader is now threatening the city's residents with a bloodbath.

- No terms I must have unconditional surrender.

- [Stephen] It's October the 2nd, 1187 and this is Timeline.

(exciting orchestral music) I'm Stephen Bell for Timeline.

As Christian resistance in Palestine crumbles, Christian soldiers literally have their backs to the sea today.

Muslim forces have overcome Christian troops, the Crusaders, in a bloody battle for the holy city of Jerusalem.

For almost 90 years now, Christians have occupied lands in Palestine heavily outnumbered by surrounding Muslim states.

Twelve years ago, the Muslim sultan, Salah ed-Din, launched the latest attempt to rid the holy land of Christians.

Neither side gained the upper hand until two months ago when the Crusaders suffered a crushing defeat at Hattin.

Survivors of that battle under Count Balian hoped to stop the Muslim onslaught with a last stand defense of Jerusalem.

But now the Christian city has fallen, surrender terms are being negotiated at this hour, and Jerusalem citizens fear the worst from Salah ed-Din and his forces.

Salim Karasi in the sultan's camp with this report.

- For almost 90 years, Jerusalem has been the capital of the Crusader kingdom of Palestine.

A kingdom carved out of the Muslim middle east by Christian soldiers from western Europe.

Today, bells of the city toll in mourning as Christian leaders negotiate terms for surrender with a man who has made himself the unquestioned leader of the western Muslim world.

For the past two months, the armies of knights, once thought to be invincible by their Muslim enemies, have been on the retreat.

- Christian armies.

If you people knew how few of us there really are, so long as the Muslims didn't join against us, we were fine.

But once they did... - Hattin.

The Christian defeat there two months ago marked a turning point of the campaign in Salah ed-Din's favor.

The holy war, the jihad rages across the holy land.

Atcre, Beirut, almost the entire coast has fallen to Salah ed-Din.

But Jerusalem has resisted until now.

For three weeks, a few hundred knights supported by refugees and townspeople withstood the full force of Salah ed-Din's army.

But the end had to come.

Now Count Balian, commander of Jerusalem's defenses, is meeting with Sultan Salah ed-Din to discuss surrender.

So far both sides are taking the stances you'd expect, but it's mostly for the benefit of their own people.

- No terms, I must have unconditional surrender.

I mean to treat Jerusalem as the Christians dealt with it 90 years ago.

And then, we will slaughter it.

The women, taken into slavery.

The Christians, drowned, Jerusalem in blood then, so shall I have.

- When such total defeat is inevitable, we will kill all prisoners, all animals, destroy our homes, tear down the sacred places of the city, Christian and Muslim.

And when Jerusalem is nothing more than a mound of rubble, we will come out praising God to meet our deaths.

- Salim, those statements don't appear to leave much room for compromise.

- Yes.

As I said, it's largely posturing.

You see, Salah ed-Din is in a difficult position.

If he leave Jerusalem a pile of rubble, he will lose his reputation for chivalry and justice.

But on the other hand, he will certainly find it easier to govern if his new subjects believed that they would be treated fairly.

So, in spite of what he said there, I think Salah ed-Din will agree to negotiate.

- Thanks, Salim.

And Salim will be keeping us updated on the situation in the Muslim camp.

Why are the leaders of these armies willing to shed so much blood for such a small scrap of land?

Well, Jerusalem is the city sacred to three great world religions.

Jews travel here to worship at the ruins of their ancient temple.

Christians believe Jesus of Nazareth was crucified here and later resurrected from the holy sepulcher.

And for Muslims, Jerusalem is the site of two of their holiest shrines from where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.

So it's not surprise the defenders of the faith, any faith, consider Jerusalem worthy of sacrifice.

Owen of Canarfon is standing by there now.

Owen, what is the situation with Jerusalem now?

- Not good, these people are very frightened.

These refugees tried to escape during the ceasefire but were all turned back by Salah ed-Din's troops.

And no one can forget the massacres that happened 90 years ago when the Crusaders first took this city.

- When that Muslim devil marches in here, he'll be after revenge and I don't see any of us staying alive.

- Of course, we are scared.

But how can a good Christian surrender Jerusalem?

God will send help.

He doesn't take kindly to Muslims attacking his holy city any more than we do.

- Any hope of victory has disappeared in the past few days and yet they fought on.

Even women, children, defending every foot of ground against the finest soldiers in Salah ed-Din's army.

If Christian honor was lost on the battlefield at Hattim, it's been won back here on the streets of Jerusalem.

And somehow in spite of all the carnage, life here goes on.

(bell tolls) (chorus sings) - Of course, we're losing, what'd you expect?

Jerusalem's the kingdom.

If it falls, how long do you think the other states will hold on?

We don't have any chance but to keep on fighting.

- Not all Christians share that view.

The Greek Orthodox congregation are praying for Salah ed-Din's victory, just one of the paradoxes of life here in Crusader Palestine.

- This is our land.

We didn't ask to be ruled by Normans and Germans.

Rattins, every one of them.

They treat us worse than they do their enemies.

The Sultan's no Christian, but at least he respects our faith.

- By last night, the whole city knew the end was near.

Count Balian summoned a general counsel.

- Earlier tonight, I suggested one last counterattack using every able-bodied soldier left in this city.

But the patriarch has persuaded me that our women and children would be at Salah ed-Din's mercy if we fail.

I bow to his decision.

Tomorrow, God willing, I will try and negotiate an honorable surrender.

(men murmur) - At sunrise, Count Balian rode through this gate holding a flag of truce.

And now, well, they can resist no more, death or slavery, whatever their fate, they just want to be done with it.

- The Christian surrender of Jerusalem is just the latest chapter in a drama that began almost a century ago.

When we come back, we'll look at this confrontation between Christianity and Islam and how it gave Christians a foothold in Palestine.

- [Announcer] From the beginning of time, life without fire has hardly been worth living.

But is this living?

(coughs) And so, matters have continued from age to age.

(coughs) Until now!

Thanks to the latest development in living design that takes the smoke where you want it, not where you don't: the chimney.

Shouldn't you include one in your next house?

- We're still waiting for word on those surrender negotiations taking place in Salah ed-Din's camp outside Jerusalem.

It's more than 90 years now since the fighting began since the first Crusaders left the towns and villages of western Europe to liberate Palestine from the Muslims.

Siboletto of Zimbabwe is in France now with a look at how the first Crusade began.

- Back in 1095, Pope Urban II came to this cathedral at Clermont, France for a counsel on church reform.

The people then were just as passionate about Jerusalem as they are now and the pope saw an opportunity to harness this emotion.

- My brothers in Christ, Jerusalem is sacred.

If the heart of our faith is under siege, then Christians everywhere are under siege.

I call on you in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord take up your swords, deliver Jerusalem from the devil's children!

Deliver the holy place from the Muslim turk!

- No one was more surprised than Pope Urban himself when his words launched this popular movement.

A Crusade to conquer Jerusalem for Christ.

The pope's words swept Europe and people everywhere, nobles and commoners alike, joined the cause.

And the man who emerged to lead this movement was Peter the Hermit, a wandering preacher whose words inspired people from all walks of life to leave their homes and follow the cross.

- Our lord, Jesus, was a laborer with his hands, like all of you.

- Mostly it was simple peasants who found in Peter's words a cause in which to believe and for which they would willingly die.

Few were properly equipped for war, many still carried the farm tools of their daily lives, but in village after village, town after town across northern Europe, their numbers grew until a mighty peoples army was ready to set out under Peter's command to liberate the holy land from the Muslim turk.

- My land is in chains.

I hear the cry of our lord in my heart, always.

Listen and you can hear him too.

- Pope Urban and his military leaders readied their own armies and like the followers of Peter the Hermit, many European knights took the cross out of deep religious conviction.

- Normans, Franks, Germans, English, we're all in this together.

You can't imagine the fever that's sweeping Christendom.

To go on Crusade, to liberate the land where our lord lived and died.

Now that's a cause to fight and die for.

- Oh, this zealous fight of peasants and common soldiers is used for whatever cause you're willing to die for.

But I've never yet been in a battle that was really about religion.

This is a God-given chance for us to establish ourselves in Palestine.

Get out the eastern trading routes.

- Roland Spake Oliver, your oliphants now sound, the child's the king... - For younger sons with no inheritance and knights without land, the Crusade offered the opportunity for fulfilling their two main needs: loot and some good fighting.

- It isn't cheap going to war.

I have to provide my own horse, armor, sword, and go riding off every time my liege lord wants some company for a little fighting.

- But at least we're fighting for something we believe in.

We're fighting God's holy war, I mean, his lands in chains and we're off to do something about it.

- You're only good to Jerusalem because the pope said he'd forgive your sins if you went there.

He's going off sins for the whole army.

- Look, I want to liberate the holy city.

Now, if I manage to liberate some land and source a little Saracen girl at the same time, why, it just goes to show that I'm fighting on the side of the angels.

- The past seems alive today with everyone claiming to have relatives who took part in that first Crusade.

One old man even told me he was born on the march and personally blessed by Peter the Hermit.

- But how many people do you think really went on that first Crusade?

- Ten to 20,000, possibly a bit more in the armies of the feudal lords.

It's more difficult to estimate how many marched with Peter the Hermit since so many died early on.

Perhaps another 100,000.

Though, some say twice that number.

- Siboletto, thank you.

There were not many soldiers among the men, women, and children of the People's Crusade.

Yet, they set out in winter without supplies to travel 2000 miles to Palestine, trusting God to get them there safely.

More than half died, but the survivors made their way to Constantinople, capital of the eastern Roman empire of Byzantium.

That was the staging ground from which the assault on Palestine would begin.

Louis de Jaen has the story.

- Forty-thousand or more of the People's Crusade eventually left here and crossed into Asia on boats provided by the emperor.

Sadly, their faith was no substitute for military skill.

The Muslim leader decided these ragged invaders needed a lesson.

He attacked and barely one in twenty survived.

Although Peter himself escaped, the People's Crusade was over.

Yet, that massacre ensured the ultimate victory for the Crusaders.

The Muslim leader was preoccupied with the constant feuding among his own people.

He ignored the western armies, assuming them to be as weak as the peasant rabble.

It was his first and worst mistake.

- Allah banishes us for our arrogance.

Nothing we do can harm those iron knights.

Arrows bounced off them, swords bent on their armor.

They are invincible.

- Antioch fell, and the other major cities.

The Turks realized their danger and fought back.

Wells were filled or poisoned, the countryside was stripped of anything that might support the army of God.

Desperation drove the Crusaders on.

There could be no retreat, and as month followed month, they pushed the closer to Jerusalem.

With every victory, the myth of their invincibility grew stronger among their Muslim enemies.

Yet, the Crusaders themselves were sick, exhausted, and starving.

- God leads us on to victory.

Anger of the body is nothing when the soul is filled.

- We need food, not prayers.

Heavenly grace, it's hard to ration and serve for dinner.

- We know the Christians are starving, but there are terrible rumors that, Allah, it's said that they ate human flesh, children were roasted on cooking fires.

How can Allah permit such men to be?

- Soldiers aren't saints and this has been a rough campaign.

There have been savage acts on both sides, but eating human flesh?

No Christian would commit such an act.

- True or not, the stories of atrocities help the Crusaders' cause.

The whole country is terrified of them.

Some of the knights are civilized enough, if anyone from the west can be called civilized.

But the common soldiers, they're just wild animals.

They don't understand we're Christian too.

- The Christian army finally reached Jerusalem's walls almost 40 years since Pope Urban first called for a holy war in Palestine.

The siege would continue for 40 days.

- That was Louis de Jaen in Constantinople.

88 years ago when that siege ended, Christian forces ran wild.

And today, residents in Jerusalem are terrified that Salah ed-Din will retaliate for the way the Crusaders acted.

They butchered Jerusalem's citizens, some of them Christians who were mistaken for Muslims or Jews.

But it was the Jews who suffered most, herded into their synagogue, which was then set on fire.

By the end of the night, the Jewish population of Jerusalem no longer existed.

As their men rampaged through the holy city, the five Christian leaders prayed at one of Christendom's most sacred shrines, the holy sepulcher.

They chose Godfrey de Bouillon as their ruler.

- I am honored, but in Jerusalem only Christ can be king.

I'll be his defender, defender of the holy sepulcher.

- Now, nine decades later, Jerusalem is back in Muslim hands and it's a Muslim leader, Salah ed-Din, who holds the holy sepulcher.

We're now getting late word of a breakthrough in the surrender negotiations.

Salim Karasi in the Muslim Camp.

Salim.

- In the last few moments, Count Balian has formally offered Jerusalem to Sultan Salah ed-Din.

We don't know the details of the deal yet, but... My lords!

What's going to happen to the people of Jerusalem?

- As of dusk tonight, all Christian resistance to the sultan's army will formally end.

The citizens of Jerusalem will be spared on payment of a ransom.

Ten denars for a man, five for a woman, one for a child.

The sultan has also graciously agreed to accept a ransom of 100,000 denars for 20,000 of the poor who would otherwise be taken into slavery.

- My troops will not occupy the city until the money has been collected.

There will be no looting.

No more killing.

The world will know we act with mercy and justice according to the laws of the prophet.

- Count Balian!

Count Balian, what about 100,000 denars?

- I promise before God we will raise the money for the poor.

- What will this surrender mean for the residents of Jerusalem and for the other Crusader states in Palestine?

We'll have that story when we come back.

- My love is like a blood red rose, softer than petals dipped in dew.

- [Announcer] It's the horticultural event of the season: the rose.

Until recently, unknown in Europe, but now available for your pleasure to grow your own garden.

From Frascati and Sons, Venetian traders for the holy land and beyond, battari, with demand like this!

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- [Announcer] Supplies won't last long.

- For the residents of Jerusalem, life now has a price.

Salah ed-Din is demanding a ransom for each of the city's residents and for the more than 30,000 people who live in Jerusalem, their only thoughts are on how to get that money.

Owen of Canarfon is in Jerusalem.

Owen.

- Well, Salah ed-Din has quickly sealed off the city and anyone trying to escape is arrested.

But those who can afford to pay a ransom are being allowed out.

Now, the ransom for peasants is 10 denars which, to them, is the equivalent of six months salary, an amount which most of them will find impossible to pay.

(yelling) - Obviously, Owen, some people don't have much faith in Count Balian's promise to raise the ransom.

- Yes, well, certainly that's the biggest concern.

The patriarch has said he has no intention of wasting his own money.

And even the Knights Templar, the sworn defenders of the pilgrim roots, even they aren't willing to help.

- Thanks, Owen.

Earlier today, Timeline crews were in Tyre, the most important coastal city still under Crusader control.

This is what they found.

Sailors charging refugees ten times the normal rate.

Now, most of these people have been fleeing from city to city, always just one step ahead of the Muslim advance.

Now, there's nowhere else to run.

- The whole thing is ridiculous.

Salah ed-Din does not want to interrupt the European trade.

It's too important, but the sailors are just plain greedy.

They are making quick profit from refugees while six months of trade rot here in the sun.

- I'm from the little town of Belim, north of Paris.

But I've made the pilgrimage.

I've seen where our lord Jesus lived and died.

No one can take that away from me.

- Reinforcements already are arriving, possibly in time to prevent Salah ed-Din's total victory over the Crusader states.

However, refugees want out at any cost and they fight to get on board ships which will now be returning to Europe.

- Salah ed-Din will find Tyre a tougher nut to crack than he thinks.

Once he loses momentum, we can have sufficient troops to mount a counterattack.

This isn't the end of Christian Palestine, you can count on that.

- The scene now is very different in Jerusalem, which has quieted down after one of the most tumultuous days in its history.

Salim Karasi is in the holy city with the Muslim leader, Salah ed-Din.

- I'm outside the mosque of Al-Aqsa, the holiest shrine of Islam within the walls of Jerusalem.

Salah ed-Din and his officers came here this evening to offer thanks for today's success.

The city is quiet now.

Many of those who could afford to leave have gone already.

A few moments ago, I asked General Salah ed-Din about his plans for the holy city.

- I have no quarrel with Christians.

Only with their leaders.

Any who wish may remain in the city paying only a small tax.

Let Christians and Muslims work together, side by side to restore the land sacred to us all.

- Certainly Salah ed-Din has shown himself capable of occasional cruelty during this war.

But in general, he has lived up to his reputation for chivalry.

No more so than today when he refused to take revenge on his defeated enemies.

This is Salim Karasi, reporting from Jerusalem.

- Joining us now from us home in Tyre is Archbishop William, a personal friend of Salah ed-Din and an expert in Muslim affairs.

Your Grace, what is your reaction to today's events?

- Today's a tragic day for Christian Palestine.

The irony is it may become a tragic day for Salah ed-Din too.

- And how is that?

- You've got to understand that in the beginning, the Muslims thought of the Crusades as a trivial border dispute.

A nuisance, really.

But now, there's no going back for either side.

More fighting, more killing, more armies from Europe and Egypt battling across land where our lord preached his message of love and peace to all.

It's been so unnecessary, this jihad.

- But surely a final confrontation was bound to happen in Palestine.

Wasn't it just a matter of time?

- Was it?

Those of us who have lived here evolved a way of living alongside the Muslims, even though at times they were our enemies.

But we were forced to rely on a constant supply of fresh reinforcements from Europe who didn't understand this.

The newcomers thought the way to salvation was through killing every Muslim they could get their hands on.

Even though we might just have spent six months negotiating a truce with them.

- We're running short of time, Your Grace, but perhaps you could sum up what you think is going to happen now.

- The pope will intervene.

He doesn't have any choice.

That means another Crusade.

Maybe a second 90 years of Christians and Muslims at each other's throats in Palestine.

Old hatreds passed on from generation to generation.

- Thank you.

That was Archbishop William of Tyre speaking to us from one of the last cities in Palestine still in Christian hands.

Recapping our top story now, Christian forces in Palestine have suffered a major defeat.

Muslim warriors captured the holy city of Jerusalem following a bloody battle.

The Muslim leader, Salah ed-Din, earlier promised mercy to Jerusalem's residents if a ransom is paid.

Now at the same time, Salah ed-Din's troops are rounding up those they believe to be potential troublemakers.

Today's Muslim victory spells the end of nearly a century of Christian control in Palestine.

The door to the east has now been slammed shut but already, there's talk of a new Crusade.

Public opinion in Europe will demand vengeance for today's defeat and for both sides, Palestine is too valuable a prize, Jerusalem too sacred a place.

It's likely to remain a battleground for a long time to come.

For Timeline, on October the 2nd, 1187, I'm Stephen Bell.

(exciting orchestral music) - [Narrator] Although, Christians mounted several more Crusades, Jerusalem would remain in Muslim hands for the next 730 years.

In 1917, the British captured the city from the Ottoman Empire.

And in 1948, Jerusalem became a divided city between Muslim and Jew until Israeli forces drove out the Jordanians during the Six Day War in 1967.

Today Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital.

But in any talk of middle east peace negotiations, Muslims raise the status of Jerusalem.

As it has for thousands of years, the city is likely to play a key role.

(chorus sings) - [Announcer] Major funding for this program has been provided by The Meadows Foundation, of and for Texas, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by the financial support of viewers like you.

♪ ♪