What makes you so smart, Mr know it all? Some of the stuff you wrote in your post is the silliest stuff I have read on this forum since it started.
You miss the point I was making about hitting the enemy hard when their is opportune time.
I don't claim to be an expert but I've spent enough time studying military theories to have a good enough opinion to stand on.
In the 1st Crusade, Jerusalem, was captured by the Crusaders establishing the Christian Levant. The 2nd Crusade, Saladin comes along and retakes Jerusalem. The 3rd Crusade resulted in the Ramla Agreement to keep the status quo as is in the region for some time -- Saladin kept Jerusalem, however, the main parts - Coastal Cities - where kept by the Crusaders and they also captured the City of Acre which gives direct landing platform (beachhead) into the area, among other territories that give inland access to Muslim lands. Richard leaves the region to consolidate power back home.
Now this is where the fun part starts and why I say Saladin and a lot of Muslim Military leaders are failures. So much resource was spend in recapturing and defending Jerusalem which is strategically useless, and makes it difficult to defend and easily susceptible to being cut off from outside supplies. This allowed Richard to cut of supplies from Egypt and Syria to Saladin forces who was forced to retreat into the walls of Jerusalem allowing the Crusades to establish firm control. Rather than focusing their military strategy to retake the coastal cities Antioch, Tyre, Acre and Jaffa to cut off Crusader forces they settle for Jerusalem while leaving the Key's in the hands of the Crusaders who had enough time in few years to regroup and resupply themselves with weapons and men into the region. Coming back to Saladin rather than building a Navy as the head of united Egypt & Syria he just sat around doing nothing to put it plainly, while Christian forces were re arming and using Cyprus to amass their army for the 4th Crusade. Read Page 12 on-wards: (
https://deremilitari.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/gillingham2.pdf)
Saladin and other military leaders failure in securing the home front leads to further losses of life, money and blood in the 5th, 6th and 7th Crusades. You have to look no further than Germany, WWII Normandy, once the beach head was established Allied Forces were dropping supplies and consolidating and started making advances, not going to go into deep history on this, but you get my point.
Saladin took Jaffa (from land route; but remember he fails to build a navy during the Ramla Agreement Period which could've helped him), Richard regroups and by sea launches a naval raid and was successful in retaking it, look at the map and see how vital this is -- he had Christian soldiers captured but the fool fails to kill'em off. Richard frees them, and has his army add more men and Saladin is forced to surrender.
In the 2nd and 3rd Crusade we lose more territory to them to hold one useless city.
Below is what Salandin Chronicler said after the 3rd Crusade and he couldn't think it through what to do next and what to plan next to fix his error:
I fear to make peace, not knowing what may become of me. Our enemy will grow strong, now that they have retained these lands. They will come forth to recover the rest of their lands and you will see every one of them ensconced on his hill-top,' meaning in his castle, 'having announced, "I shall stay put" and the Muslims will be ruined.' These were his words and it came about as he said.
Hi,
Salahuddin achieved his primary goal and since then we had Jerusalem till we lost it recently---.
My concern has always been---1965 war---1971 war---top generals are having whiskey drinking binge parties in the middle of the war and sexual orgies and nothing was done about it---.
We lost Jerusalem for few years during the 6th Crusade or so -- but Jerusalem shouldn't have been the focal point.
Our Generals never thought outside the box and I blame the failure of our education institutions to be quite honest where innovative ideas are suppressed and if a Junior Officer can offer a better plan he's shot down. The readings I've done so far of Officers in that era is they acted more Western as they were the last few classes thought by the British and they kept that going with the flow. Gen Zia came and put a stop to it hence you saw the success of the Afghan-USSR War, not some stinger missiles that turned the tide as Americans often tout to their useless population and the world. Wife swapping was very common in that era -- and sadly it continues even till this day underground. You have Generals who have never heard of Carl Von Clausewitz -- the whole lot is useless to be quite honest.