CHAPTER NINE

‘Never, in any city, have so many been besieged by so few’

The First Siege of Constantinople, July 1203

THERE REMAINED TWO ways in which conflict could be averted. First, the crusaders might be persuaded to leave; second, with or without Emperor Alexius III’s agreement, the Greeks could open their gates to the prince and allow him to reassume control of the city. The emperor was the first to move. On 1 July, a crusader raiding party had routed a large force of Greek knights about nine miles to the east of the invaders’ camp. They had captured many valuable war-horses and mules and the Byzantines had fled in terror at the enemy charge. The menace of the western forces was made plain, as was the damage to Greek morale. Perhaps it was time for the emperor to engage in diplomacy. The following day. Alexius III dispatched a Lombard, Nicolo Rosso, to hear at first hand why the crusaders had come to Byzantium and to ask them to justify their actions. Doubtless he was also told to gather as much information as possible about the crusader forces - a usual part of a diplomatic envoy’s function. Nicolo duly delivered the emperor’s message to the leader of the expedition, Marquis Boniface. Some feared the effect of this approach, and Hugh of Saint-Pol reflected the age-old suspicion of Greek duplicity: ‘we did not want the Greeks to solicit or soften us with their gifts’.¹ Once he was certain that Nicolo’s credentials were in order, Boniface invited him to address the nobles. The envoy posed the obvious question: why, as crusaders sworn to deliver the Holy Land and the Holy Sepulchre, were they threatening Constantinople? As Alexius must have known for months, they were short of food and money and, if this was all they needed, then Nicolo was pleased to assure them that the emperor would provide as much as possible if they would leave.

Beneath this veneer of diplomatic politesse, however, lay a threat: ‘If you refuse to leave, he [Emperor Alexius III] would be reluctant to do you harm, yet it is in his power to do so. For were you twenty times as many as you are, you would not, supposing he chose to harm you, be able to leave this country without losing many of your men and suffering defeat.’² These words indicate imperial confidence in the sheer weight of numbers in the Byzantine capital, although, as events of the previous day had shown, their military effectiveness was not entirely assured.

The crusaders chose Conon of Béthune to present their reply. Conon was a senior figure amongst the nobles present and he was known for his skill as a writer of chansons de geste and as an eloquent public speaker. Conon elegantly turned Nicolo’s question back against him: ‘My good sir, you have told us that your lord wonders very much why our lord and nobles have entered his dominions. Our answer is that we have not entered his dominions, since he has wrongfully taken possession of this land, in defiance of God, and of right of justice. It belongs to his nephew, seated here on a throne amongst us: Conon thus presented the crusaders’ justification for their actions - to redress the wrong committed by Emperor Alexius III against his brother, Isaac Angelos, and his nephew, Prince Alexius. Like the Byzantine envoy, Conon ended his speech with a threat: if the emperor were to agree to submit to the prince, they would give him sufficient money to live in luxury, ‘but unless you return to give us such a message, pray do not venture here again’.³The crusaders’ position was, on the surface, therefore, similarly uncompromising. In reality, however, they too wished to avert a war; aside from simple self-preservation, it would avoid the loss of valuable men and resources as they tried to keep alive their ultimate aim of a successful campaign in the Holy Land.

The doge conceived of one last strategem to avoid a fight: he planned to parade Prince Alexius to the people of Constantinople in the hope that popular acclaim would see the usurper dethroned and his nephew welcomed back into the city. The nobles approved the idea.⁴ A letter written by them in the late summer of 1203 and circulated widely in western Europe makes it clear that the crusaders firmly believed that there was a groundswell of popular support for the young prince amongst the people of Constantinople: ‘persuaded by believable rumours and arguments that the stronger city faction (and the bulk of the Empire) longed for the arrival at the royal [imperial] court of ... [Prince] Alexius ...’, they had proceeded to Byzantium.⁵ Such rumours were evidently a basic reason why the crusaders struck the deal with the prince in the first place. Already, however, there were disquieting signs that this support was, to say the least, hard to find. Hugh of Saint-Pol’s letter to the West mentioned that when the crusaders first arrived at Constantinople, they were ‘stunned [indeed] very much astonished that none of the friends or family of the young man who was with us, or any messengers of theirs, came to him who might tell him about the situation in the city’.⁶ Perhaps, they felt, the prince needed to make a more public display of his presence.

The doge and Marquis Boniface, together with Prince Alexius, boarded an armed galley with the other nobles following in nine further ships. Under the flag of truce, the young prince and his companions rowed close to the walls of Constantinople and the crusaders called out: ‘Here is your natural lord: They asserted that Emperor Alexius III had no right to the imperial throne because of his blinding of Isaac and his wrongful seizure of power. They urged the populace to do right and support the prince, although again they added a threat: ’if you hold back, we will do to you the very worst we can’.⁷ Robert of Clari claimed that no one knew who the prince was or, indeed, anything about him.⁸ Perhaps there was resentment at the crusaders’ coercive approach, or, as Villehardouin argued, fear of reprisals from Alexius III: ‘not a single man of that land or in the city dared show himself on the young prince’s side’.⁹

The overt links between Prince Alexius and an outside party comprising French crusaders and Venetians, neither of whom had a happy record of relations with Constantinople, was another likely explanation for the cool reception. Emperor Alexius III had exploited this with a propaganda offensive. The crusaders wrote that he had ‘infected both the aristocrats and the plebs with venomous harangues to the effect that ... they [the westerners] had come to destroy their ancient liberty, and they were hastening to return the place and its people to the [papacy] and to subjugate the empire ... Certainly this story moved and, in equal measure, mobilised everyone against us.’¹⁰ Furthermore, by this point Alexius III had ruled Byzantium for eight years. Prince Alexius, on the other hand, had no experience of government and had been away from the city for several years.

To the crusade leaders—and, indeed, to the prince himself - the complete absence of explicit support must have been devastating. One imagines the short voyage back across from Constantinople to the camp at Scutari as a sombre, silent affair. Without a shadow of doubt the crusaders now knew that they had placed far too much faith in the young man’s assurances and, more pertinently, that they needed to fight to secure the supplies that he had promised. Plainly, the hostility shown to Prince Alexius by the people of Corfu had been an accurate portent of the reception that awaited him at Constantinople.

On 4 July 1203, the expedition’s leaders attended mass, determined to fortify themselves and to secure spiritual guidance. There was little option but to go to war and the nobles began to draw up a battle plan. They broke the army into seven divisions, led by Count Baldwin of Flanders. He was given the prime role of taking forward the advanced guard, because he had the biggest contingent of experienced men (notwithstanding the loss of the Flemings who sailed to the Holy Land via Marseille) and the greatest number of archers and crossbowmen. The latter forces would be crucial in gaining a bridgehead when the crusading army came ashore, because their firepower could fend off the Greeks and allow time for the bulk of the attacking knights to disembark safely. The second division was led by Baldwin’s brother, Henry, and also consisted of Flemish nobles and their men. Hugh of Saint-Pol led the third group and with him was Peter of Amiens, in whose company fought the chronicler Robert of Clari. Count Louis of Blois led the fourth division; Matthew of Montmorency, Geoffrey of Villehardouin and the knights of Champagne formed the fifth; Odo of Champlitte commanded the Burgundians in the sixth; and, finally, there was the rearguard of Lombards, Tuscans, Germans and Provençals, all under the leadership of Boniface of Montferrat. The Venetians were to look after the fleet. These detailed arrangements make clear the importance of preserving different regional identities in forming an order of battle. For reasons of discipline and familiarity, it was essential to keep these groups intact if possible; sometimes this might cause rivalry between particular contingents, but in the heat of conflict every possible precaution to preserve cohesion had to be a priority.¹¹ The conflict was set for the following day; the crusaders were to sail across the Bosphorus and open their campaign to take Constantinople.

Villehardouin expressed the situation concisely: ‘the troops were to embark upon their ships and go forward to take the land by force and either live or die. It was, I assure you, one of the most formidable enterprises ever to be undertaken.’¹² For all the crusaders, whether a great noble or a lowly foot-soldier, the night Of 4 July was one of reflection and anticipation. Robert of Clari related how all the men were ‘very fearful of landing’.¹³ For some veterans of the Third Crusade, the prospect of a great battle would have been familiar, but for many others a military engagement on this scale would have been a new and terrifying ordeal. As a crusade, spiritual issues had to be addressed because no one knew whether they would live to see the following evening; it was essential for everyone to give a full confession of their sins and to make a testament. Bishops and clergy exhorted everyone to cleanse their souls before the battle; they preached to the troops and then moved through the camp, listening to the crusaders make their peace with the Lord, administering communion and asking for His protection.¹⁴ As Hugh of Saint-Pol wrote, ‘yet we trusted in God’s help and might’.¹⁵ This was also the time to make final organisational and logistical preparations. Weapons and equipment were polished, sharpened and fettled one last time; horses were girded for their knights; and ammunition was gathered.

The crusaders planned to take Constantinople in two stages. They shied away from a direct assault on the walls and instead proposed to take the suburb of Galata that lay over the Golden Horn to the north of the main city. A great chain hung across the water, protecting the Byzantine fleet in the Golden Horn and guarding that side of the metropolis. The crusaders’ first priority was to break the chain and to expose this flank of Constantinople. Because of their inferior numbers they had to exploit the one area in which they did hold a clear advantage - the sea. If they had access to the inlet it would allow them to use their land and sea forces together, which probably gave them their best chance of success.

The morning of 5 July dawned fine and clear. The crusaders prepared for the largest amphibious invasion yet attempted in medieval Europe. On board the horse-transports the crusader knights saddled their war-horses and dressed their steeds in brightly coloured caparisons. A hundred silver trumpets sounded the attack, the drums and tabors were beaten and with a tidal wave of noise the siege of Constantinople began. To try to ensure a safe passage each galley pulled a transport ship the short distance across the Bosphorus. This would guard against the vagaries of wind and current and, keeping the fleet together, would maximise the impact of the invasion force. Opposing them, Emperor Alexius had drawn up his army in full battle order.

Hugh of Saint-Pol wrote of more than 200 ships, transports and galleys in the crusader fleet.¹⁶ To land a force of this size in the face of sizable enemy forces was an incredibly bold move, requiring complex co-ordination, good fortune with the weather and the right balance of warriors. William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in 1066 was on a substantial scale, yet his landing at Pevensey was, fortunately for him, unopposed. Many sieges in the course of the crusades - such as the capture of Tyre in 1124—had involved combined attacks (rather than landings) by land and sea forces. The westerners sought to make use of this experience, although the forced landing planned for Constantinople was somewhat different from a conventional siege.

The crusaders were faced with a mass of armed Byzantines lining the shores of the Bosphorus. Robert of Clari reported that the doge himself took charge of this seaborne part of the operation and led the host across. Archers and crossbowmen were put at the front of the ships in the hope that they might drive the Greeks away.¹⁷ As the horse-transports reached the shore, the doors opened, a bridge was thrust out and, fully armed, knights already mounted on their chargers splashed ashore - a truly terrifying sight.¹⁸Archers, foot-soldiers and crossbowmen jumped down as soon as their vessels came to anchor. The first knights drew up in formation and lowered their lances to charge, but the Greeks, seeing that the crusaders’ most fearsome tactic was about to be unleashed upon them, simply turned and ran. As Hugh of Saint-Pol wrote: ‘all the Greeks, who had assembled for the purpose of preventing our crossing, by the grace of God, withdrew to such a distance, that we could barely reach them even with a shot arrow’.¹⁹

Familiar as modern readers are with stories of the intense fighting on some of the Normandy beaches during the Second World War, it seems surprising that the Byzantines did not make more of a stand against the crusaders’ landing. Logically, at the moment of arrival and disembarkation the attackers would be at their most vulnerable. While the crusaders’ archers and crossbowmen did much to disperse the Greeks, it still seems odd that they allowed the cavalry to form up relatively unhindered. Perhaps the daring and the novelty of the crusader tactics caught Alexius III by surprise (few would have encountered an amphibious landing before) or maybe his troops simply lacked the stomach for a fight—scarcely a good omen for the emperor.

More crusader troops poured from the ships and the men gathered into their pre-arranged regional contingents. Count Baldwin led the advance guard towards the abandoned imperial camp where they found rich pickings. Alexius III had retreated so quickly that he had left his tents and pavilions standing and the crusaders happily took possession of these and much other booty.

The next obstacle faced by the army was the Tower of Galata: a solid defensive complex that held one side of the great iron chain that stretched across the Golden Horn to the main city.²⁰ All medieval ports had such chains because they were the simplest and most effective method of controlling entry to and exit from a harbour. They were for defence, but also existed as a taxation point: in normal trading conditions a ship wishing to sail into or to leave a port had to pay a fee to have the chain raised or lowered. At Constantinople it was crucial that the crusaders should break through the chain and gain access to the Golden Horn. From the Venetians’ point of view, it would be much easier for their ships to assault the walls facing the Golden Horn, because the inlet offered calmer waters than those on the Bosphorus or the Sea of Marmara.

The crusaders had to confront more than the strength of the Tower of Galata and the iron chain. Lurking behind the metal barrier was a line of Greek ships: not just the galleys of the navy, but all of Constantinople’s merchant vessels - the barges and the ferries - as well.²¹ While these were not in themselves a dangerous threat, they formed yet another obstacle to the western fleet.

The army camped outside the Tower on the night of 5 July, but around nine o’clock the following morning the Greeks made a surprise attack. The emperor sent a contingent of soldiers across the Golden Horn by barge and, joining up with the garrison of the Tower, they poured out towards the crusader camp. So swift was their advance that the westerners did not even have time to mount their horses. Caught unawares, the knights had to start the fight on foot and the Flemish noble, Jacques of Avesnes, son of a famous warrior of the Third Crusade, led the resistance. The shock impact of the Byzantine raid cut into the crusader forces and Jacques himself took a searing lance-wound to the face. He seemed doomed—wounded and isolated from his colleagues. Spotting the danger, one of his knights, Nicholas of Jenlain, managed to commandeer a horse and charged towards his lord. The arrival of a mounted soldier, at speed and with all the impetus of a fully armed knight, was enough to burst through the Greeks who surrounded Jacques. Faced with such a formidable opponent, the Byzantines were forced to abandon their prize and Nicholas rescued his lord, to wide praise for his gallant conduct.²²

While this intense small-scale drama unfolded the crusaders were called to arms and they began a concerted counter-attack. The Greeks had stirred up a hornet’s nest and soon they were driven back in disarray. Some ran to take shelter in the Tower, others tried to escape back onto their barges. Many were caught as they attempted to board the vessels and others drowned as they struggled to save themselves, although a few did manage to break free and return to the safety of Constantinople itself The crusaders chased hard after those who fled towards the Tower, grimly closing down upon their enemy. The first Greeks began to pour back through the entrance gate, propelled by the sensation of having to run for their lives. They thought they had won at least a temporary respite, but this was not to be. The fastest of the pursuers had caught the slowest of the Greek soldiers and managed to stop them from closing the gate. Fierce fighting erupted as the crusaders scented the chance of a vital breakthrough. To capture the Tower by siege might take days, or even weeks: it would expose the attackers to the risk of raids from the main city and it would mean the consumption of valuable supplies. If, however, they forced the gate, then a clear advantage - if not total victory - would be within their grasp.

Soon the defenders of the Tower realised their position was hopeless and they surrendered - to the intense delight of the crusaders. Shortly afterwards the Eagle, one of the biggest ships in the fleet, crashed through the chain: the harbour and the Byzantine vessels lay at the Venetians’ mercy.²³ The attack galleys hunted down the sorry remnants of the Greek fleet, sinking some and capturing others, while a few Greeks chose to scuttle their ships rather than be taken. Breaking the chain was a tremendous blow to the Byzantines: tearing through this vital protective barrier meant the westerners could now push into the inner waters of the Golden Horn. This in turn allowed them to bring their fleet close up to the walls of the Queen of Cities, dramatically increasing their pressure on the Greeks. All of the crusaders took great heart from their success and thanked the Lord for His divine approval. Alberic of Trois-Fontaines reported that the chain was later sent to the port of Acre (in the kingdom of Jerusalem) as a symbol of this triumph.²⁴

The following day the full crusader fleet sailed around from its mooring on the Bosphorus and up into the safety of the Golden Horn. This prudent, practical move by the Venetians must have increased anxiety within Constantinople a further notch; the westerners were making too much progress for comfort. To see the enemy ships enter the city’s harbour and then to watch them pass by in their dozens must have brought home the grave and imminent danger. On the other hand, the walls of the New Rome had successfully withstood many invasions over the centuries - surely this latest threat would be resisted, too.

The army’s leadership had to decide on its next move. The Venetians wanted to mount the whole assault from scaling ladders on their ships; the French protested, feeling uncomfortable with this unfamiliar form of warfare. They preferred to deploy themselves on land where they believed that their fighting skills, practised on the tournament fields of Europe, could be of greatest use. Logic prevailed and both parties agreed to operate in tandem, each engaging the enemy in their customary manner: the French on land, the Venetians by sea.

Over the next four days the crusaders rested and set their weapons and equipment in good order. Then on 11 July, again in proper formation, they marched two miles along the shore to the Blachernae bridge over the Golden Horn.²⁵ The Greeks had destroyed the stone bridge after their earlier retreat to the city, but the crusaders set to rebuilding it as fast as they could. There was another bridge several miles up the Golden Horn, but the westerners did not wish to divide their forces or expend the energy in an unnecessary march. Again, it seems strange that the emperor had not demolished the bridge more thoroughly (the crusaders rebuilt it in a day) and that he did not harass the reconstruction work. He might also have opposed the crossing of the bridge: a contingent of the fearsome Varangian Guard would have been hard to dislodge from such a narrow place. Simply by keeping the crusaders away from the land walls of the city or, at least, by forcing them on a detour and thereby splitting the land and sea forces, he would have gained an advantage. As Hugh of Saint-Pol wrote: ‘separated significantly from our fleet, we would have, perhaps, run a great risk and incurred casualties’.²⁶ Given the attackers’ failing supplies, the longer the emperor drew out the siege, the better chance he would have, because with the small size of the western army a complete blockade of Constantinople was not possible. In the event, Alexius III took none of these courses; Robert of Clari noted minimal resistance before the crusaders drove the Greeks away and crossed the Golden Horn.²⁷

They took up a position outside the Blachernae palace in the northernmost corner of the city - posing a direct threat to the imperial residence. Although its walls lay close to the foot of a slope, the palace was well defended by impressively thick fortifications that rose about 50 feet high. The crusaders made their main camp on the hill across from the Blachernae palace. Here stood a building known to the crusaders as the castle of Bohemond (the Norman prince of that name had stayed there during the First Crusade), but which was in fact the abbey of Sts Cosmas and Damian. The Venetian fleet stationed itself opposite the waterbound side of the palace and so the crusader forces formed a hinge around the north-eastern edge of the city. From here, on top of the hill, the French had their first real view of the land defences of Constantinople: stretching up and down over the rolling hills to the west was the 3½-mile-long obstacle of the Theodosian walls. No comparable defensive structure existed in western Europe and, given the relatively small size of the crusader force, an attack on the whole length of the walls was utterly impractical. Nevertheless, Villehardouin felt a sense of satisfaction that the crusaders were prepared to bring the Greeks to battle - a challenge of this scale would be a true test of their bravery and daring. He was also level-headed enough to appreciate that the task would be by no means easy, writing: ‘It was a sight to fill the heart with pride and apprehension.’²⁸

The two parts of the crusader army readied themselves to begin the siege. Robert of Clari provides a wonderfully detailed description of the ‘marvellous engines’ constructed by the doge’s crews on top of their ships. The Venetians took the cross-spars (or yard-arms), the diagonal beams from which the sails were hung, and lashed enough of them high up on the masts to form a makeshift bridge. These bridges, measuring about no feet long, were then covered in planks to form a walkway wide enough for three or four knights. Handrails and coverings of hides and canvas were added to help protect the attackers against arrows and crossbow bolts. In effect, they had suspended huge leather and wooden tubes high above their ships, from which bodies of heavily armed knights might be disgorged onto the battlements of Constantinople.²⁹ The Venetians also set up mangonels and catapults on their transport ships. Thus the fleet bristled with menace and carried a lethal cargo of men and weapons, poised to unleash its firepower against the Greeks.

While the French forces also set up their engines of war and prepared to attack by land, they were relentlessly harried by the Byzantines. Six or seven times a day they sallied out of the various gates along the city walls of Constantinople and caused a call to arms around the camp. Thus the besiegers were themselves pinned down: the close attention of the Greeks meant that no one dared venture further than four bowshots from the camp in search of food. Supplies were running extremely low and, except for flour and bacon, there was nothing to eat apart from the flesh taken from horses killed in battle. Villehardouin stated that there was only enough food to last the crusader forces three weeks: ‘Our army was thus in an extremely desperate situation for never, in any city, have so many been besieged by so few.’³⁰ Given the westerners’ inability to blockade so huge a site as Constantinople, there was little likelihood of the Byzantines running short of food, in spite of their recent military setbacks. The crusaders understood that they had to bring the siege to a head immediately. There was no question of a long, drawn-out investment of the city - such as the siege of Lisbon in 1147, which had lasted 17 weeks, or that at Acre, which had run from August 1189 to July 1191.

In response to the Greek raids the crusaders fortified their camp. This was common practice amongst besieging armies and signalled (whether true or not) a determination to dig in. They excavated trenches and constructed a strong palisade of planks and crossbeams to increase security. Even so, the Byzantine forces continued their sallies. Villehardouin reports that the crusaders usually repulsed these vigorously and managed to inflict heavy losses on the enemy. The western contingents rotated guard duty to share the burden of this task. One day, on the Burgundian watch, there was a lightning thrust by the Varangian guard. The crusaders responded fiercely and their opponents fell back towards the gate, but this may have been a ruse because, when the pursuers followed too closely, they were suddenly subjected to a barrage of heavy missiles thrown from the walls. The Byzantines hurled great stones onto their attackers and one broke the arm of William of Champlitte. The engagement was not without some profit, however, because Walter of Neuilly managed to capture a member of one of the most important families of Constantinople, Constantine Lascaris. He was taken prisoner and held by the crusaders - such bargaining counters could always be useful in any future negotiations, as well as fetching a substantial ransom.

For to days there was a succession of sallies, counter-attacks, bombardments and cameos of individual bravery or tragedy. Men such as Peter of Bracieux and Matthew of Wallincourt won renown for themselves, while others such as William of Gi perished. Meanwhile the crusaders were carefully constructing scaling ladders to be used in a full assault on the city. Both sides fired wave upon wave of arrows and missiles at each other: on the one hand, falling amongst the westerners’ tents; on the other, sometimes passing through the palace windows or hitting its walls. Niketas Choniates described encounters between horsemen and knights in which the deeds of the Greeks ‘were not ignoble’, suggesting a stalemate at this point of the struggle.³¹

On Thursday 17 July the onslaught began. The crusaders feared an assault on their camp while their forces were occupied trying to take the walls of the city. They therefore divided their troops to leave three divisions, led by Boniface of Montferrat, to stand guard, while another four, headed as ever by Baldwin of Flanders, were to give battle. The Venetians were to begin an attack from the water, thereby subjecting the defenders of the Blachernae quarter to pressure from two sides simultaneously. The trumpets of war sounded and the French forces made a determined advance towards the walls. The carrying of scaling ladders made their intent plain to all inside, and Alexius III had taken care to deploy his crack troops, the Varangian guard, at this crucial location. A hail of enemy missiles greeted the crusaders’ approach, but a group of four men managed to duck and weave through the deadly storm to place two ladders against a barbican close to the sea. They struggled up the ladder and made enough of a bridgehead for another eleven men to join them. The Varangians wielded their heavy battle-axes and the crusaders defended themselves with their swords. In the cut and thrust of the fight the sheer power of the Byzantine army’s elite won the day and the crusaders were driven back down the ladders, except for two unfortunate individuals who were captured and paraded before a delighted Emperor Alexius. For the first time his soldiers had succeeded in resisting the enemy and many of the Frenchmen had been wounded or suffered broken limbs from missiles or by falling from the scaling ladders. Hugh of Saint-Pol mentioned that the crusaders had even managed to tunnel under the walls and collapse a tower, but such was the scale of the city’s fortifications and the ferocity of the defenders’ resistance that they could not exploit this breakthrough. Perhaps the emperor’s policy of relying on his city’s formidable walls and the savage determination of his personal bodyguard would be enough to save Constantinople. It seemed that the French forces might be contained, although the Venetian fleet posed another, and very different, threat.

Dandolo had drawn up his ships in a huge line facing the northern walls of the city. These particular defences were only a single layer thick and, at around 35 feet high, relied upon their proximity to the Golden Horn as much as on their own innate strength to repel the enemy. The Golden Horn is only about 250 yards wide at this point, which created a narrow, funnelled arena for this stage of the conflict. A triple barrage of weaponry flew from the Venetian vessels. From the castles at the top of each ship crossbowmen sent their stubby, lethal bolts fizzing across the water; archers shot their slender arrows soaring higher; while down on deck the crew released the mangonels that hurled stones towards the crowded walls of Constantinople. Once again there was stern resistance from the battlements, where a group of Pisans, determined to protect the commercial interests of their home city, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a few Varangians. In some areas the walls came almost to the sea and the Venetians’ ship-mounted scaling ladders lurched close enough to allow an exchange of blows with the enemy. Villehardouin wrote of the tremendous noise of this struggle: the creaking of the timber ships, the slap of oars as rowers held their boats steady, the shouts and screams of war and the sharp ring of metal on metal. In one area a group of heavily armed knights managed to land and bring a battering-ram to bear against the wall. The dull, rhythmic thud of the machine announced its presence and soon smashed through the stonework. Yet the Pisans, Varangians and Greeks resisted sternly and the attackers were forced out.³² Niketas Choniates lamented that ‘the horrendous battle that followed was fought with groanings on all sides’.³³

Standing at the prow of his vermilion galley, Doge Dandolo sensed that his men were making too little progress; he needed to inspire them. With the winged lion on the banner of St Mark flying in front of him, he threatened dire punishment for any shirkers and demanded that the sailors land him on the shore. The crew immediately obeyed and propelled the galley forwards with a series of vigorous pulls on the oars. The Venetians saw the doge’s ship move ahead and their banner land. As Dandolo had calculated, they were shamed by the old man’s bravery; they could not abandon their venerable leader and rushed to join him. As soon as the first vessels reached the shallows the men did not wait to touch the shoreline, but jumped down and waded to land. The bigger ships with their deeper draught could not risk disaster by getting so close, but their crews let down smaller boats and raced for the shore. Dandolo’s charismatic leadership paid off. At this sudden onslaught the Byzantine defenders lost heart and fled, leaving the Venetians free to stream in through the gates and take control of a section of wall containing 25 towers.³⁴ It seems that Alexius III had made a calamitous mistake. He had concentrated most of the Varangian guard opposite the French forces at the Blachernae palace, believing that this was where the main threat to his city lay. He had underestimated the ability of the Venetians to deliver a serious attack against the sea walls and to land their troops. While the defenders on the walls of the Golden Horn had been content to bombard the Venetians from the comparative safety of the battlements, the prospect of hand-to-hand fighting was enough to make most of them flee. Given the strength and determination of the Varangians up at Blachernae, had a larger contingent of the guard been deployed with the Pisans and the local forces along the Golden Horn, the Venetians would have encountered far more serious resistance.

Villehardouin described this success as ‘an event so marvellous it might be called a miracle’.³⁵ The doge understood the value of this news to the French forces and dispatched messengers to tell them of the breakthrough. He also showed an acute awareness of their needs when he immediately ferried as many as 200 captured horses or palfreys up to the main camp to replace those that had been lost in battle. Without war-horses the knights clearly lacked the speed, weight and manoeuvrability so crucial to their military role.³⁶

Alexius soon realised the gravity of the incursion and ordered a contingent of Varangians to try to force the Venetians out. The arrival of these men dramatically changed the balance of the struggle and the Venetians began to fall back. As they did so they tried to slow the Byzantines’ advance by setting fire to the buildings between the two forces. Whether by chance or calculation, the wind blew from behind the Venetians and into the faces of their adversaries. As the flames were fanned ever higher the Venetians disappeared behind a dense cloud of smoke that created an impenetrable protective screen. The breeze continued to take the fire towards the Greeks, allowing the attackers to consolidate their hold on the walls and towers. The blaze grew stronger still and swallowed homes and businesses inside the wall. The hill of Blachernae stopped the conflagration from heading north-west towards the palace, but the gentler slopes to the south were a less serious barrier and only the open cistern of Aetius halted the inferno. Historians have calculated that just over 120 acres of the city were destroyed by the blaze, leaving 20,000 Byzantines homeless and without their possessions. Niketas Choniates grimly recounted the damage: ‘It was a piteous spectacle to behold that day, one that required rivers of tears to counterbalance the fire’s extensive damage...’³⁷

At this moment it appears that Alexius III appreciated, as if for the first time, that if he was to win the battle and save his throne he had to seize the initiative. As Niketas wearily wrote: ‘he at last took up arms’. The emperor’s relative inactivity had started to provoke discontent amongst the citizenry; some accused him of cowardice, staying safely inside his palace, rather than taking on the enemy face-to-face. ‘It was as though he had not realised that forethought is superior to afterthought, that it is better to anticipate the enemy than to be anticipated by him’ was the Byzantine chronicler’s exasperated assessment of Alexius III’s performance.³⁸ There were, however, some grounds for optimism amongst the Greeks. Notwithstanding losses of life and property, they had successfully fended off one French assault and next they sought to drive them from the field of battle. It was hoped that such a victory would compel the Venetians to give up their slim hold on the sea walls, at which point the crusade might effectively disintegrate.

As if the city walls and the Blachernae palace did not provide a dramatic enough skyline, the billowing clouds of smoke from the burning metropolis behind added a distracting, doom-laden atmosphere to the situation. Against this sombre backdrop the emperor assembled a large body of men and marched them out of the St Romanus Gate about a mile south-west of the crusader camp.³⁹

As line after line of Greek troops strode out of the city, the sheer size of the Byzantine army daunted Villehardouin: ‘you would have thought that the whole world was there assembled’.⁴⁰ Niketas stated that ‘when the opponents’ land forces suddenly beheld this huge array they shuddered’.⁴¹ Robert of Clari believed that the Greeks had 17 divisions, compared with the seven mustered by the crusaders. Alexius III planned to trap his enemies in a pincer movement: as the main army drew up to face the westerners on the plain outside Constantinople, he had another contingent of men ready to surge out of the three gates nearest to the camp.

The crusaders acted quickly to deal with this terrible threat. They divided their forces, leaving Henry of Flanders’s division to guard the siege machines while the bulk of the men formed into six divisions in front of the palisade. The westerners took up their positions with care. To compensate for their lack of numbers they tried to present one formidable target to the vastly bigger Byzantine army. In the first line the archers and crossbowmen stood ready to unleash a lethal rain of metal against any who dared come close. Behind them were at least 200 knights who had to fight on foot because they had lost their horses. Even so, the training and armour of these troops would make them difficult adversaries. The remainder of the crusader army consisted of the mounted knights - numbered at only around 650 by Robert of Clari; or 500 knights, 500 other mounted men and 2,000 foot-soldiers, according to Hugh of Saint-Pol.⁴² Villehardouin believed that so great was the size of the Greek army that, had the crusaders advanced from this position, ‘they would, so to speak, have been drowned amongst them’.⁴³ The Byzantine force seemed to cover the plain. This terrifying sight, flanked to the crusaders’ left by the walls of Constantinople, once again crammed with enemy troops, made clear to the westerners the stark fact that they were a small, isolated army, thousands of miles from home and trying to conquer one of the greatest cities in the world. In fact, the crusaders were so desperate that they armed the stable-lads and cooks by covering them with horse-blankets and quilts to protect their bodies and giving them copper cooking pots for helmets. For weapons they carried kitchen implements. This motley collection of individuals was turned to face the walls of the city and Robert of Clari claimed that ‘when the emperor’s foot-soldiers saw our common people so hideously arrayed they had so great fear and so great terror of them that they never dared move or come towards them’.⁴⁴

Slowly the Greek army advanced towards the French knights, gradually increasing the pressure on them, inexorably closing the space between the forces. The crusaders were not daunted, and they too began to move forwards. Like boxers sizing each other up, the two sides shadowed and feinted, yet neither was willing to deliver the first blow. The leaders of the French army had laid down the strictest, most explicit instructions for the knights to maintain order and not to charge before any formal command. Countless times in the past, small groups of crusading knights, fired by the chance to perform heroic deeds, had hurtled into the enemy and fatally fragmented their own forces, often losing their lives as well. This was such a problem in western armies that the Rule of the Knights Hospitaller (the regulations governing the order) threatened the loss of his horse to any man who broke ranks before a general instruction to charge. The idea of maintaining good order sounds so simple, but in the heat of a battle, with communications almost impossible and adrenaline coursing through the warriors’ veins, it was incredibly difficult to achieve.

The crusaders decided to choose two of the bravest warriors from each contingent to take command of each section of the army. They were to order the men to ‘trot’ to move forwards and to ‘spur’ if they wanted to attack. Count Baldwin of Flanders led his men forwards at a trot, followed by the count of Saint-Pol and Peter of Amiens, and then Henry of Flanders in the third group. In contrast to their bizarrely clothed camp followers, the main body of knights was a splendid sight. Set in close formation with all their horses brightly covered in silk or cloth caparisons, their banners bearing the different coats of arms fluttering above them, their shields gleamed and their helmets and chain mail shone brightly. This undulating array of colour moved gently along, accompanied by the clicking of their horses’ hooves and the clinking of weapons and equipment. The foot-soldiers marched behind them, again keeping close order.

By this time, news of the impending battle had reached the doge over on the Golden Horn. Dandolo again showed how fiercely loyal he was to his crusading comrades and declared that he would live or die in the company of the pilgrims. Quickly he led as many of his men as possible towards the crusader camp at the Blachernae.

When Baldwin had moved two full bowshots from the camp, the senior warriors in his contingent advised him to halt. ‘Lord, you do not well to fight the emperor so far away from the camp, for if you fight him there and have need of help, those who are guarding the camp will not be able to help you.’⁴⁵ They recommended that he return to the palisades where the crusaders could engage in combat more effectively. Baldwin agreed and he, along with his brother Henry, began to turn back. The matter of preserving good, coherent order in a medieval army was not simply a question of discipline, however. One central concern to the whole knightly ethos was the issue of honour. When Hugh of Saint-Pol and Peter of Amiens saw Baldwin turn back, they were shocked and felt that he brought shame upon the crusading army for doing so. Disregarding the earlier instructions to hold together, they resolved to take over the vanguard themselves in order to preserve the honour of the French forces. Baldwin was appalled and sent urgent messages that they should drop back, but three times Hugh and Peter refused. On the contrary, they started to move towards the Greeks. The crusaders’ carefully constructed unity looked perilously compromised. Peter of Amiens, along with Eustace of Canteleux, one of the senior knights in the Saint-Pol contingent, gave the order: ‘Lords, ride forward now, in God’s name, all at the trot.’⁴⁶ Far from being cowed by the size of the imperial army, it seems that some of the crusaders were prepared to take an emphatically aggressive approach. The rest of the army saw what was happening and cried out for God to protect these brave men. Robert of Clari described the windows of the Blachernae palace and the walls of the city as being filled with ladies and maidens watching the battle, who said that ‘our men seemed like angels because they were so beautiful, so finely armed and with their horses so finely accoutred’.⁴⁷ Here, Robert appears to be drawing rather too heavily on the conventions of a tournament and one doubts that the crusaders were viewed by their adversaries as being remotely angelic.

The actions of Hugh and Peter threatened chaos in the crusader ranks. Those knights with Count Baldwin became agitated: they could not bear to abandon their colleagues, nor could they lightly pass up the chance of glory. So corrosive was this mood that they threatened revolt: ‘Lord, you are doing great shame not to advance, and know that if you do not now ride forward, we will no longer hold ourselves to you.’⁴⁸ When he heard this, Baldwin had little choice but to comply. He spurred his horse and, joined by Henry’s men, he caught up with the vanguard. Quickly the crusaders rearranged themselves into one long battle line, now within crossbow range of the emperor’s men but back in proper formation. Robert of Clari, our humble knight, is the source for this fascinating insight into the machinations of the crusading nobility. Intriguingly, when Hugh of Saint-Pol, one of the main protagonists of the entire episode, wrote a report of the battle in late July, his account was much simpler: ‘we advanced in an orderly and co-ordinated fashion against the battle-line opposing us’.⁴⁹ He made no mention of the awkward disagreements between himself and Count Baldwin and the fact that he had, in effect, challenged the count’s integrity and position as commander of the vanguard. In the afterglow of victory it seemed unnecessary to tarnish the day’s outcome by describing these difficult and divisive moments.

The crusaders’ indecision offered a fleeting opportunity for the Greeks to act. A more alert commander than Alexius III might have noticed this temporary weakness, assessed the situation and chosen to strike a swift, sharp blow against the isolated contingent under Hugh and Peter as they marched alone at the front of the army. But with the arrival of the other divisions, the moment—which may have been very brief - had passed.

Between the two armies lay a small rise and, towards the emperor’s side, the River Lycus. When the crusaders reached the top of the hill, both sides paused. The Byzantine troops were joined by those soldiers who had surrounded the camp and so they became an even stronger force. Once again the westerners conferred and this time Baldwin’s arguments were heeded. The Frenchmen were now out of sight of their reinforcements back at the camp and to engage with the Byzantine army would necessitate crossing the Lycus river. Even though this was only a small waterway, it would inevitably slow their advance and taking it might well lead to heavy losses. The crusaders resolved to halt and were probably on the point of retreating when they noticed activity in the enemy lines.

This, surely, was the moment for Alexius III to exploit his massive numerical superiority and order an overwhelming charge to drive the barbarians from his city. He held the banks of the Lycus and could cross it with ease. Like heavy, humid thunderclouds, the Greek forces stood poised to break over the crusaders. Yet the onslaught never came. Incredibly, the emperor gave no instruction to charge and, as time wore on, he gave the order to withdraw his troops, turning them around and heading back towards the city. Whatever tactical reasons lay behind this move, psychologically it appeared to all as a devastating admission of defeat.

Niketas believed that Emperor Alexius’s heart had never been in the fight and that he had always planned to flee. The Byzantine writer felt that had the imperial army moved with real conviction, victory would have been possible. He sensed that Alexius’s own unwillingness to engage in battle transmitted itself to his commanders and prevented the Greeks from striking the lethal blow.⁵⁰

The crusaders could hardly believe what they saw. A letter sent by the leading nobles back to the West conveyed their understanding of what had taken place: Astounded at our steadfastness (given our small number), he [the emperor] ignominiously turns his reins and retreats into the burning city.‘⁵¹ Hugh of Saint-Pol commented: ‘When they saw that we were brave and steadfast and that we moved forward one after the other in formation and that we could not be overrun or broken they rightly became terrified and confused. Retreating before us they dared not fight by day.’⁵² When the emperor did not dare to commit his troops to the fray, the westerners’ belief in the cowardice and effeminacy of the Greeks seemed justified. The crusaders must have experienced overwhelming relief and a feeling of renewed hope and resolve. To capitalise on the moment, Baldwin ordered the army to advance slowly after the Greeks, in order to emphasise further the Byzantines’ humiliating withdrawal from the field. Crucially, the westerners now retained their discipline. On the brink of victory it was all too easy to be carried away with success, to break ranks and charge after the enemy.

Villehardouin eloquently conveys the crusaders’ almost uncomprehending relief: ‘I can assure you that God never delivered any people from greater peril than that from which He saved our troops that day. There was not a man in the army, however bold and courageous, whose heart was not filled with joy.’ Even so, living through days anticipating battle and hours facing the Byzantine forces outside the walls took an intense physical and emotional toll. In addition, there was a marked lack of food. Thus, in spite of the day’s triumph, the crusaders were unable to drop their guard. The Byzantines were still, numerically at least, the superior force, and it was vital for the westerners to preserve their confidence and not to compromise their military strength.

Why had Emperor Alexius failed to attack, given the Greeks’ apparent superiority in numbers, at least? In part, it seems that the emperor was a man of little innate aggression or military experience. He had hoped that the Byzantines’ display of strength would be enough to break crusader morale, causing them to concede and retreat. Yet he had not grasped just how determined and desperate the westerners actually were. They had made great progress in their advance across the Bosphorus and then the Golden Horn; furthermore, the Venetians had taken a section of the walls. These were surely indications enough that the crusaders were a dangerous force. The presence of the westerners’ heavy cavalry also caused the Greeks serious concern. While some of the knights’ horses had been lost, enough remained to form a potent attacking unit. The lethal strength of the crusader cavalry charge was well known in Byzantium. Back in the 1140s Anna Comnena had memorably written that a western knight on horseback ‘would make a hole through the walls of Babylon’.⁵³ The plains outside Constantinople offered the ideal conditions for the Frankish charge - relatively flat land and a fixed target. The Greeks may have had some cavalry themselves, but their horsemen were almost certainly less well practised than the French knights, who had spent years honing their skills on the tournament fields of northern Europe.

Inside Constantinople there was disbelief and anger. It was the emperor’s responsibility to protect the city. He had so great an army and the crusaders were so few, yet he had not fought them. As Niketas commented: ‘he returned [to the city] in utter disgrace, having only made the enemy more haughty and insolent’.⁵⁴ The damage caused by the Venetians’ fire further weakened Alexius Ill’s standing in the eyes of his people. They clamoured for action. A group came to the emperor and told him that if he continued to act so feebly, then they would seek out his nephew amongst the crusaders and offer him the imperial throne. Reluctantly, Alexius III promised to fight the following day. In reality, however, he had already decided on a different course of action.

The emperor no longer had the stomach for battle. Niketas depicts a gentle, mild man, accessible to the people and deeply troubled by his blinding of Isaac Angelos. Today we might say that he was not tough enough for the job.⁵⁵ He was unwilling to risk his own life and he sensed that the people of Constantinople were not prepared to engage in a protracted campaign - which, given the westerners’ lack of supplies, may well have been the Greeks’ best chance of victory. The emperor was sufficiently versed in the politics of Constantinople to realise that he had lost the confidence of the people - and he was experienced enough to recall the grisly and excruciating fate of earlier rulers who had been removed by the mob. Equally, he could hardly expect much mercy from his brother or his nephew, were he turned over to them. Wisely, therefore, he decided to flee.

During the evening of 17 July he conferred with his daughter Irene and his most trusted advisers. Hurriedly they collected 1,000 pounds of gold and as many precious ornaments and objects as could be carried. Near midnight the emperor and his closest associates stole away from the city heading for Develton, a fortified town more than 90 miles away on the Black Sea. Niketas Choniates was both scathing and despairing of Alexius III’s motives and actions. He gives us a vivid and haunting image of the Byzantines’ view of their emperor: ‘it was as though he had laboured hard to make a miserable corpse of the city, to bring her utter ruin in defiance of her destiny, and he hastened along her destruction’.⁵⁶ Niketas scorned Alexius III’s lack of care for his precious city and decried his eagerness to save his own skin.

As dawn broke on the morning of 18 July, the news began to spread: Constantinople, the Queen of Cities, the New Rome, had been abandoned by its emperor - a devastating and unheard-of blow to the pride and self-esteem of the great metropolis. So deep was this wound that the Greeks could not face prolonging the struggle against the crusaders. Rather than using the moment to try to turn their fortunes around, they despaired. The westerners’ seemingly relentless progress and their refusal to back down outside the city walls, plus the Venetian foothold on the Golden Horn - made apparent to all by the continuing palls of smoke rising above it—made them fear the utter destruction of their city. In terror, they sought the one person who could save them. Imperial officials went to the rooms in the Blachernae palace where the blinded Isaac was held. In him they saw ‘their last hope’.⁵⁷ The minister of the imperial treasuries, a eunuch named Philoxenites, took charge. He assembled the Varangian guard and secured their support for the idea of making Isaac emperor again. Even though blinding was usually taken to bar a man from holding such an office, the situation demanded that precedent be set aside. Alexius III had abandoned his wife Euphrosyne (with whom he had had a stormy relationship), but she was now seized - in case she sought to create a rival faction—and her relatives imprisoned. The senior figures in the city went to Isaac and explained the situation to him. His reaction is unknown. Did he gloat at his brother’s humiliation? Was he intimidated at the prospect of becoming emperor again, handicapped as he was? Or was he delighted at the thought of exercising ultimate authority again? Servants brought him the imperial robes and insignia. He dressed and left the Blachernae palace as a free man. Poignantly, his blindness meant that Isaac had to be led up to the imperial throne, but he was, after all, proclaimed emperor.⁵⁸

He wished to make immediate contact with Prince Alexius in the crusader camp. The news of Alexius III’s escape and the recrowning of Isaac could not be concealed for long. The leading men of Byzantium needed to hold on to whatever initiative these developments afforded them. Messengers were sent to tell the prince that his father was emperor again and that the usurper had fled. As soon as the information reached the young Alexius he told Marquis Boniface, who in turn called together all the nobles.

The men assembled in the prince’s tent where he announced the wonderful news. A huge cheer burst from the pavilion. As Villehardouin wrote, ‘their joy on hearing it was such as cannot be described, for no greater joy was ever felt by anyone in this world’.⁵⁹The crusaders thanked God for delivering them from the depths of despair to such a great height. They had no doubt that divine favour had blessed their actions: ‘The man whom God desires to help no other man can harm.’ Their decision to go to Constantinople had been correct - God had approved of their actions - how else could they have succeeded?⁶⁰