Exhausted and dying of thirst after a forced march across arid hills, the crusader army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was surrounded and annihilated by Saladin's forces near the twin hills known as the Horns of Hattin. King Guy of Lusignan was captured along with the relic believed to be the True Cross, and most of the Knights Templar and Hospitaller taken prisoner were executed. The defeat left Jerusalem defenseless; Saladin recaptured the Holy City that October.
Raymond of Tripoli had urged caution, but King Guy of Lusignan, pressured by rivals at court, marched his army from Acre to relieve the besieged town of Tiberias, leading roughly 20,000 men across a waterless plateau in high summer. Saladin's forces harassed the column mercilessly, cutting it off from any water source, and set fire to dry brush to blind and choke the crusaders with smoke.
By the next morning, the crusader army, dying of thirst, made a desperate last stand on the twin hills called the Horns of Hattin. The infantry, no longer under control of their commanders, tried to break for water and were slaughtered or scattered. Knights made repeated cavalry charges that nearly reached Saladin himself before being beaten back.
Among the prisoners, Saladin personally executed Raynald of Chatillon, whom he blamed for provocations against Muslim pilgrims and merchants, while sparing King Guy. Nearly all captured Templars and Hospitallers were beheaded the next day, as Saladin considered them irreconcilable enemies. With the kingdom's army gone, city after city fell within weeks, and Jerusalem itself surrendered on October 2, ending 88 years of crusader rule and triggering the call for the Third Crusade.