CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Break in! Rout menaces; crush cowards; press on more bravely!’
THE MURDER OF Alexius marked an irrevocable break between the Byzantines and the crusaders. Despite the problems between the young emperor and the westerners, while Alexius remained alive there was always a possibility that his need for support and his moral and contractual obligations towards the crusaders might prevent open war. The two sides had teetered on the brink of conflict since November 1203. Episodes such as the attack of the fire-ships constituted short and savage escalations of violence, but they had been followed by efforts to make peace. Now there was no further room for manoeuvre: Murtzuphlus was known to have killed the emperor and he refused to fulfil his victim’s promises to the crusaders. Both sides realised that war was a certainty and they began to prepare for battle.
The crusaders’ position had become desperate. They had tied themselves ineluctably to Alexius and his death left them completely exposed, thousands of miles from home and camped outside a hostile city. His failure to deliver the anticipated financial backing meant that the Venetians remained substantially underpaid for continuing to provide the fleet, and the crusaders themselves lacked the money to mount an effective campaign in the Holy Land. More pressing still was the shortage of food. Anonymous of Soissons wrote: ‘Perceiving that they were neither able to enter the sea without danger of immediate death nor delay longer on land because of their impending exhaustion of food and supplies, our men reached a decision.’1
A series of grim choices confronted the leaders. None of the alternatives open to them offered an easy way forward. Even if they did manage to scavenge enough food to start out for home, they would face enormous criticism for failing to help the Holy Land, particularly after their protestations justifying the diversion to Constantinople in the first instance. For men so steeped in notions of honour such a retreat would be intolerable. On the other hand, the often antagonistic relationship between Byzantium and the West, coupled with the treachery of Murtzuphlus and their hopeless situation on the shores of the Bosphorus, meant that the crusaders could more readily construct a case to explain an attack on the Greeks.
Through Lent 1204 the citizens of Constantinople and the western armies made ready to fight. Both sides looked to learn from their experiences in 1203 and sought to capitalise on any perceived advantages of their own and to exploit particular weaknesses of their enemy. The westerners’ greatest success had come through the Venetian troops scaling the walls on the Golden Horn. Once again, therefore, they chose to concentrate their efforts on that section of the city.
The Venetians prepared their petraries and mangonels; frames were checked, ropes readied and hundreds of missiles gathered and stored. Many of these machines were placed on board the ships where they would provide covering fire for the intrepid men perched on the great flying bridges, once again hoisted high upon the masts. The engineering on the Venetian ships was almost identical to that described by Hugh of Saint-Pol and Robert of Clari in July 1203, although this time the Venetians hung grapevines over and across the protective boards to absorb the impact of missiles and limit the damage to the men and the ships.2 They also covered the vessels with vinegar-soaked hides in an attempt to lessen the effect of incendiary devices.
The French soldiers readied their own missile-firing engines and organised mining equipment. Back in July 1203 they had achieved little against the high walls at the north-west of the city. Now they planned to work more closely with the Venetians and to devote their attention to the section of the Blachernae palace that lay in front of a narrow strip of land looking onto the Golden Horn. The French believed strongly in the idea of mining under, and battering through, the walls and they made machines known as ‘cats’, ‘carts’ and ‘sows’ to wheel up to the battlements and protect those working underneath.3 These squat constructions consisted of a shelter covered in hides and doused in vinegar. Under this canopy was slung a metal-tipped log that swung backwards and forwards in order to break into the city. The mobile shelter also provided cover for miners trying to hack through the walls with pickaxes and shovels.
The Greeks anticipated that the crusaders’ attack was most likely to come from along the Golden Horn. Here were the weakest sections of the wall because they were built primarily to line the harbour rather than as fortifications per se. In theory the chain across the Golden Horn should have prevented enemies from gaining access to the inlet and to this part of the defences. In other words, the designers of Constantinople’s walls had not foreseen the present situation. Now, in order to combat the Venetians’ mast-top ladders, the Byzantines had topped their fortifications with a nightmarish confection of wooden towers. Huge beams were used to form structures that raised the height of the walls between the stone towers and also sat on top of the existing turrets. As these strange, ramshackle constructions took shape, the profile of the walls must have changed dramatically. Normally the towers, gates and battlements had a regular, regimented outline, broken up only by the demands of topography or the intrusion of occasional modifications. Several sources attest to the fact that these creations were up to six or seven storeys high.4 Like the Venetian ships, they too were covered in hides soaked in vinegar to protect them from burning and to reduce the impact of the crusaders’ bombardment. The fortifications of Constantinople had assumed a ponderous top-heavy appearance because these vast constructions projected out from the stonework beneath them. This was deliberate because anyone working at the foot of the walls would have to contend with a constant threat from above. The overhang allowed the wooden towers to have openings in their underside to enable defenders to deposit stones, hot oil or tar onto the heads or machines of the attackers below. As well as fortifying the walls on the Golden Horn, Murtzuphlus did not neglect the landward side of Constantinople and ordered all the gates there to be bricked up for extra security.
The two sides could see and hear each other organising for war. On both shores of the Golden Horn the pounding of hammers rang out day and night as carpenters and engineers sought to assemble the war machines they hoped would carry them to victory.
As the crusaders made the practical preparations to enter Constantinople, they also turned their attention to the division of spoils in the event of successfully capturing the city. Anticipatory agreements of this sort were standard practice in medieval warfare because they helped to prevent bitter arguments in the often-confused aftermath of a siege. Many victorious campaigns had degenerated into vicious and divisive squabbles as to who had rights to the booty gained when a city fell. In 1153, for example, at Ascalon, the Knights Templar had attempted to prevent other crusader knights from entering a breach in the walls as a way of trying to stop anyone else taking plunder.5 Their selfishness was punished when their men became isolated and were killed. Given the protracted campaign of 1203—4, and the contrast between the poverty of the crusaders and the riches known to be inside Constantinople, it was even more essential to make some binding arrangements to constrain the lesser soldiers. An uncontrolled looting session might open a besieging army to a counter-attack, or could stir even greater resentment from a soon-to-be-subject population towards their new rulers.
Plunder was not the only issue under discussion, because the possible seizure of Constantinople presented the French and the Venetians with a larger and, in medieval terms, unprecedented issue. They were not, of course, just conquering a city or a castle, but stood to gain control over an entire empire. They would be required to choose a new emperor and to raise one of their number to an unsurpassed level of power. As an independent force, free from the control of, for example, the king of France, there was no question of taking the land on behalf of another. By the laws of conquest, Constantinople was theirs and its new ruler would come from within the ranks of the crusaders. The senior leadership such as Dandolo, Baldwin of Flanders and Boniface of Montferrat were certainly amongst the most influential men in Europe, but none was a crowned monarch, let alone one with the history and standing of the Byzantine emperor.
In March 1204 Dandolo, Boniface, Baldwin, Louis of Blois and Hugh of Saint-Pol drew up a formal covenant ‘to secure unity and lasting concord between us’. The full text of the arrangement still survives and Villehardouin and Robert of Clari provide an abbreviated summary of the document, known to historians as ‘The March Pact’.6
Together the crusaders pledged themselves to conquer the city and if, through divine assistance, they succeeded, all the booty was to be collected together in one place and then shared out equitably. Robert of Clari defined loot as gold, silver and new cloth to the value of five sous or more, recognising that the smallest of items were not worth worrying about. Food and tools were formally excluded from this part of the contract.7 The largest sum of money remaining from Alexius’s agreements was that owed to the Venetians. Some of this dated from the Treaty of Zara and some from the one-year extension of the Treaty of Venice—that is, payment for the upkeep of the fleet from March 1203 to March 1204. To settle this debt required the Venetians to take three-quarters of all the spoils of conquest against one-quarter for the crusaders until the sum of money required (200,000 silver marks) was covered. Once this amount was reached, all booty beyond that figure would be divided equally between the Venetians and the crusaders. The only goods excluded from these regulations were foodstuffs, which, logically, were fairly split between everyone in order to sustain the campaign.
The covenant then addressed the future of Constantinople itself. In the event of gaining full control of the city, six Frenchmen and six Venetians would be selected to choose the man whom they, having sworn true faith on the Bible, felt would make the most suitable ruler. This parity between French and Venetian electors reflected the shared labour between the two forces outside the city. The person elected emperor was to receive one-quarter of the conquered lands and would be given both the Blachernae and the Bucoleon palaces. The group who did not have their representative elected as emperor was entitled to choose one of their members to become patriarch and to hold the Hagia Sophia. Thus, in the case of a French emperor, there would be a Venetian patriarch; with a Venetian emperor there would be a French (or conceivably German or northern Italian) patriarch.
There remained the allocation of the lands, titles and possessions of the Byzantine Empire itself. Another committee, this time of 12 Venetians and 12 Frenchmen, would dispense the fiefs and offices and decide the levels of service owed to the emperor by particular fief-holders. The crusaders had a chance to divide out a whole political entity here: something akin to the situation faced by William the Conqueror when he took over the kingdom of England in 1066. Although it was William himself, rather than any group of Norman nobles, who made the decisions concerning rewards, he—like the crusaders and the Venetians—had also acquired a wealthy and well-established state. By contrast, 30 years after Duke William’s success, the First Crusaders took almost a decade to take over the complex and heterogeneous political entities that existed in the Levant and this, in turn, led to the creation of four distinct Crusader States.
The French and the Venetians were well aware that the fall of Constantinople was unlikely to signal the automatic submission of the entire Byzantine Empire. The citizens of Constantinople and its environs would probably be hostile to the westerners and, further afield, Alexius III remained at large to act as a possible focus for Greek opposition. The crusaders agreed, therefore, to stay in the area until March 1205 to consolidate their new acquisitions. This meant that the expedition to the Holy Land was, if not quite abandoned, deferred yet again. Everyone recognised that if they conquered Constantinople and left the same summer, then the chances of this new Latin Empire surviving were remote. Any who chose to remain after March 1205 would come under the jurisdiction of the new emperor and had to serve him as required.
Inevitably, and prudently, the Venetians acted to enshrine their commercial dominance within the document. It was agreed that the new emperor would not engage in business with any state at war with the Italians, thereby shutting out hostile economic rivals from this enormously wealthy trading region.
Finally, some attempt was made to regulate the behaviour of the crusaders when they entered the city. Robert of Clari relates that the crusader host was obliged to swear on relics that women should not be sexually assaulted and that they should not be forcibly despoiled of any fine garments. Furthermore, the crusaders were not to lay hands on a monk or a priest, except in self-defence, and they should not break into churches or monasteries.8 The release of pent-up sexual tensions was a horrifying, if familiar, component of medieval warfare, and similarly the seizure of church vestments was always another easy target for conquering forces. The penalty for breaking these regulations was death. Given the overt antipathy between the Byzantines and the crusaders, some effort to rein in the more predictable excesses of war was a prudent if, as we shall see, largely unsuccessful initiative. Just to remind everyone that the campaign was still being fought under the banner of a holy war, the crusading churchmen included a threat of excommunication to those who broke the terms of the agreement.
By early April the crusaders were poised for battle. The months sitting outside Constantinople had witnessed many changes in their position: first, as invited allies of the man who claimed to be the rightful emperor; then as the people who delivered him to the throne; next as disappointed and deserted outsiders, shunned by their former ally and reviled by his successor; and finally, as a small but determined besieging army with little food and few other choices but to take on the most mighty city in the Christian world.
On the evening of 8 April the fleet was loaded up and made ready to sail at dawn. Horses were embarked onto their special ships and everyone planned to set out at first light. A sense of anticipation gathered intensity. Prior to all medieval battles, particularly crusading conflicts, spiritual preparations were essential, too—prayer and confession being the necessary prerequisites to secure the heavenly rewards of a martyred crusader. The men were granted absolution and received the Body of Christ in the sacrament. The crusaders must have implored divine aid: how else might an army of around only 20,000 men take Constantinople?
All of these men, from the senior nobles to the most humble foot-soldiers, knew that the coming days were the most crucial of the whole campaign. The first siege of Constantinople had seen them take on incredible odds and succeed. By April 1204 the murder of Alexius meant that the crusaders had lost the man who legitimised their presence outside the city and who could give them huge material support. Now they confronted a far more hostile citizenry and their own position was ever more precarious. Alexius had provided foodstuffs for the westerners and, having survived through the winter with his help, they were now reduced to foraging ever further afield. The conquest of Constantinople would release food and money to offer the crusaders their only realistic way forward. They felt morally justified in their actions and, it cannot be denied, they had an impressively strong military record against the Greeks. Even so, the walls of Constantinople now loomed higher than ever before and this time the Byzantines had a cruel and determined ruler at their head.
What would the following day bring? Swift death from an unseen arrow? A slow, excruciating end with limbs crushed and shattered by boulders or a fall from a ladder? A shrieking immolation in burning tar? Or perhaps, with God’s favour, glory and riches. The men who had chosen to lead the assault across the flying bridges were the most vulnerable. Niketas reports the offer of huge rewards to those who would climb aloft and fight from the masts. To these men a desire for fame and fortune must have outweighed the terrible risk they were taking.9 Throughout the camp, as men talked over their lives, spoke of their loved ones and confided messages to friends to pass on should they not survive, they had to conquer their fears, prepare their weapons and pray for victory.
In the early morning of 9 April the crusader fleet approached the section of walls running from the monastery of Evergetes to the Blachernae palace. With characteristic pride Villehardouin recalled what a splendid sight this made as the alternating warships, galleys and transport ships stretched out over a mile long.10 Each of the familiar divisions formed up on groups of boats, their banners fluttering in the breeze. Filled with fighting men, laden with catapults, ladders and battering rams, the crusader ships moved up close to the battlements and began the assault.
The walls of the Blachernae palace did not come down to the shore and the crusaders disembarked from their ships and concentrated their attack on the narrow strip of land between the fortifications and the water. Both sides launched a deadly bombardment of rocks and missiles. The first men ashore unloaded the ladders and other fighting equipment under heavy enemy fire. As the crusaders heaved their wooden burden towards the walls, the first arrows thudded into shields and armour. They rarely pierced the chain mail and its protective padding right through to the flesh (or if they did, caused only a light wound), yet the arrows stayed fixed to their prey and the soldiers began to resemble giant porcupines covered with feathered quills. As they started to mount the walls, the two forces meshed together and the exchange of missiles was supplemented by the thrust of lances and the swing of axes and swords. Some of those on the scaling ladders were pushed away from the walls to fall backwards in a deadly, graceful arc; others were prised from their ladders and plummeted to the ground to die or to sustain crippling injuries; still more were killed by sword blows as they climbed. The cries of the injured and dying, of orders bellowed in Greek, Danish, Italian, German and French, the occasional blast from the imperial trumpeters, and the crashing and splintering of missiles exploding into fragments against the city walls comprised a truly hellish cacophony.
The crusaders repeatedly attempted to set up their battering rams at the foot of the walls. The feeling of claustrophobia in one of these machines must have been intense. As they moved up to the walls, defenders gathered above bearing huge vats of boiling oil or fat to pour down onto the attackers. The noise, smell and heat generated as this scorching rain cascaded down upon those inside can barely be conceived—sometimes the ‘cats’ caught fire and the occupants were terribly burned. Screaming, they would run from under the canopies looking for water or open ground to roll on—yet in their search for relief they exposed themselves to the arrows and missiles from the battlements. In addition to fire, the defenders might also drop huge boulders onto their enemies and many of the crusaders’ machines, as well as the men operating them, were crushed. The westerners tried to protect their troops by launching a bombardment of their own. The ships’ catapults concentrated on the defenders above a ‘cat’, while archers and knights with scaling ladders might also turn their attention on the same section of wall.
On this day, however, the Greeks resisted strongly. Murtzuphlus, fore-seeing the attack, had directed his men well and his visible leadership did much to encourage his troops. He set up his own vermilion tents on the hill of the monastery of the Pantepoptes behind the section of walls under fire. Thus he could see over his own fortifications and follow the movements of his enemy—a rare luxury for the medieval general lacking the high-technology surveillance equipment available today. Equally, however, the westerners could watch Murtzuphlus (‘the traitor’, as Robert of Clari called him), and his presence acted as a goad to their efforts.
The Byzantines had prepared carefully for the land assault and had gathered hundreds of huge boulders to use against the crusaders. The destruction wrought by the fires of 1203 had left large piles of debris lying around the city—ideal material for using in this way. The Greeks in the towers pushed and dropped these enormous projectiles onto the crusaders’ siege engines, shattering many of them. So great was the damage that the westerners were forced to abandon their machines and run for safety.11
But it was the weather conditions that proved the most serious hindrance to the crusaders. Soon after the attack began, the wind started to blow from the shore, which prevented most of the ships from drawing close enough to the walls to launch an assault that would give vital extra impetus to their comrades further along. Only five of Constantinople’s towers were actually engaged and none of these could be secured; by mid-afternoon it was evident to all that the attack had failed. The signal was given to withdraw. A huge cheer went up from the walls of Constantinople —the city had survived its first test in the new struggle. The defenders jeered at their opponents and Robert of Clari reports that many dropped their trousers and displayed their buttocks to the crusaders. Murtzuphlus was keen to capitalise on the moment of victory and ordered his trumpets to sound a triumphal blast. He lavished praise upon his men and chose to view the victory as proof of his own prowess and of his worth as their ruler. ‘See, lords, am I not a good emperor? Never did you have so good an emperor! Have I not done well? We need fear them no longer. I will have them all hanged and dishonoured.’12
The crusaders were deeply discouraged. Many good men had been killed and much of their equipment had been lost or destroyed; they interpreted the outcome as God’s judgement and felt that their sins had caused them to fail. Baldwin of Flanders was forced to acknowledge that his troops had ‘retreated in shame from our enemies, a portion of whom on that day proved superior in all matters. On that day so it seemed we were fatigued to the point of impotence.’13 The campaign was in serious trouble. The leadership assembled: they needed to make immediate and substantial progress or else they were doomed. Some argued for a change in approach and advocated pressing the siege in a different area, preferably along the walls facing the Bosphorus where the crusaders could again co-ordinate their land and sea forces. This was quickly rejected when the Venetians pointed out that the current there was far too swift and would carry their ships away.
The senior French nobles, together with Marquis Boniface and the doge, considered their position. They recalled their success along the Golden Horn in 1203 and reasoned that the treacherous winds were the main cause of their present difficulties. They resolved to make another attack against the same section of the city, but first they would pause to repair and modify their ships and wait for better wind and sea conditions.
While these were prudent practical measures, there was also a need to rebuild morale—a task that initially fell to the churchmen. Success would only follow if the main army believed that its work was still divinely endorsed. Many amongst the rank and file had had enough fighting, and so bad were the day’s casualties that large numbers of the lesser men were reluctant to press the siege any longer and wanted to leave. They pleaded to be allowed to sail on to the Holy Land where they might complete their vows and regain God’s approval. As Villehardouin reported: ‘certain people in the company would have been only too pleased if the current had borne them down the straits [and away from Constantinople] ... and they did not care where they went so long as they left that land behind’.14
The clergy discussed the situation amongst themselves and settled upon the message they wished to spread through the demoralised army. They had to convince the men that the events of 9 April were not God’s judgement on a sinful enterprise: the campaign, they argued, was righteous and with proper belief it would succeed. The concept of God testing the determination of the crusaders through temporary setbacks was a familiar means for the clergy to explain failure in the course of a campaign.15 Such an interpretation still permitted divine approval for the expedition, but was a way in which God could discern the true resolve of His army. It was announced that sermons would be preached on the morning of Sunday 11 April and each senior churchman accordingly gathered his flock together. The bishops of Soissons and Troyes from northern France, the bishop of Halberstadt from the German Empire, Abbot Simon of Loos from the Low Countries and Master John of Noyen from Flanders all addressed the troops; even the Venetians, who were technically still excommunicate, were included.
The clergy’s message was designed to reassure and encourage the crusaders. Their argument that the attack on Constantinople was spiritually just revolved around two themes. First, the Greeks were traitors and murderers since they had killed their rightful lord, Alexius IV To a society bound by obligations to the feudal lord and where the killing of an anointed ruler was a genuine rarity, this breach of normal boundaries was a matter of serious disquiet and it was easy to justify vengeance for such a crime. The churchmen used highly inflammatory language and claimed that the Greeks were ‘worse than the Jews’, and they invoked the authority of God and the pope to take action. To introduce the Jews as a point of comparison indicates how strongly the clergy wished to convince their audience of Murtzuphlus’s evil. As the killers of Christ, the Jews were the target of huge obloquy in western Europe and to connect Murtzuphlus to them was to tap into a powerful and violent set of feelings. All the men were commanded to confess again, to take communion and to have strength. The Greeks were the enemies of God and deserved to be destroyed.
The second element of the bishops’ justification emphasised the schism between the Greek Orthodox Church and Rome. The Greeks’ disobedience to the see of Rome and their contempt for the papacy and Catholics in general were worthy of punishment. It was asserted that the Greeks believed that ‘all those who followed [the law of Rome] were dogs’. The use of canine imagery was to employ the sort of language usually reserved for Muslims. The clergy were at pains to distinguish the Byzantines from other Christians and they described their opponents as ‘the enemies of God’. For this reason the westerners should have no fear of incurring divine disapproval when attacking the Greeks.
Finally, the churchmen ordered all the prostitutes to be cast out of the camp: a familiar move intended to ensure the apparent purity of the crusading army’s motives. The First Crusaders had done the same before the successful Battle of Antioch in June 1098 and prior to the final assault on Jerusalem in July 1099. Down to this time, however, the Fourth Crusade had not resorted to such painful self-sacrifice; now, however, the prostitutes were taken on board and sent away from the camp.
The clergy fulfilled their role perfectly: the crusaders were spiritually refortified and convinced that their fight was morally just. The bishops ordered everyone to confess and take communion and then to prepare for battle. Huge lines formed as the men poured out their sins to the priests and received consolation and forgiveness.
Alongside these vital psychological preparations, the weekend was also spent refettling the ships and equipment. The crusaders had seen that, even with a flying bridge, single vessels lacked the fighting power to take a tower alone. In order to overcome this they bound the boats together in pairs to double the strength that could be deployed against a particular point. This construction enabled the ladders from the two assault towers to extend out like arms on either side of the Byzantine fortifications. This lethal embrace was designed to allow the attackers a secure foothold on the walls and to permit a more concentrated weight of firepower and men to be directed on the enemy. On Saturday and Sunday the French and Venetians dedicated themselves to the creation of the new double-towered ships.
Inside Constantinople the Greeks were hugely cheered by their victory. They were far more confident than hitherto: having repulsed the crusaders once, they were less afraid of their enemy. Revelling in the events of 9 April, Murtzuphlus marched his men over the Golden Horn and symbolically pitched his scarlet tent opposite the crusaders before returning to the safety of his walls. Buoyed by the defeat of the westerners, more of the inhabitants of Constantinople were encouraged to participate in another triumph for the Queen of Cities.
On the morning of Monday 12 April the assault began again and the crusaders boarded their vessels and sailed across the Golden Horn towards the same northern corner of the city. The great transport ships and galleys drew as close to the walls as they could and dropped anchor. From there they could unleash their siege artillery. Catapults launched a hail of stones towards the towers and wooden structures opposite. Huge cauldrons bubbled with Greek fire, as it was called, a weapon first used in Byzantium during the seventh century. The Turks employed it against the early crusaders, but the westerners soon adopted it for their own armies. A contemporary Arab source records a recipe that combined naphtha, olive oil and lime, distilled several times. Other possible ingredients included tar, resin, sulphur and dolphin fat.16 Whatever combination the crusaders settled upon, the deadly cocktail was poured into ceramic vessels and fired against the Byzantine fortifications. Horsetails of smoke marked the trajectory of these lethal containers as they hurtled across the narrow gap between the ships and the walls, before shattering and exploding against their targets. The Greeks had prepared well, however, because the hides hanging over their battlements were so heavily soaked in anti-inflammatory liquids that the incendiaries could not take hold.
From the Byzantine side, more than 60 petraries cast rocks and stones down onto the crusaders’ ships, but the westerners were carefully protected too and the vine nets ensured that damage to the vessels was minimal. Robert of Clari claimed that stones ‘so large that a man could not lift them from the ground’ had little impact.17
As morning moved towards midday the battle intensified. Villehardouin commented that ‘the shouts that rose from the battle created such a din that it seemed as if the whole world were crumbling to pieces’. Yet in spite of the ferocity of the struggle there was stalemate; both sides had armoured themselves so effectively that neither the Greeks’ catapults nor the Franks’ tire-bombs could harm their targets.
Murtzuphlus again directed his people from the Pantepoptes hill, urging his men on and steering them to where he saw the crusaders’ onslaught was most fierce. Baldwin of Flanders wrote of ‘tremendous Greek resistance’ and how ‘the fortunes of war were uncertain for a short while’.18 By midday the westerners were beginning to tire and it appeared that the Greeks again held the upper hand. Niketas Choniates, who was present in the city, felt that at this point in the battle the Byzantines prevailed. The assault appeared to have stalled.19
Just as the fortunes of war seemed set against the crusaders, nature intervened to hand them the decisive stroke of good fortune they needed to take them to victory. The winds on the Monday morning had been light and provided little real impetus to their efforts. But, in the early afternoon, the breeze shifted to blow strongly from the north. The sharp snap of a sail swollen by the breeze signalled the change: this, at last, gave the assault a genuine punch that had thus far been lacking.
Robert of Clari wrote: ‘by a miracle of God, the ship of the bishop of Soissons struck against one of the towers, as the sea, which is never still there, carried it forward’. In other words, the wind drove one of the massive double-ships closer than before to the enemy fortifications. Appropriately enough the two vessels were called the Paradise and the Lady Pilgrim (the latter contained the bishop of Troyes) and they touched against the battlements near the Petrion Gate. As Baldwin of Flanders observed: ‘with an auspicious omen, they [the boats] carried pilgrims fighting for Paradise’.20 Murtzuphlus had arranged his defences so well that the makeshift extra storeys to his fortifications made them higher than almost every besieging ship. As a consequence, his men had an advantage over the vast majority of the western vessels: for the most part, the crusader troops could not set their ladders on top of the battlements and were thus unable to create a bridgehead. Only four or five of the mighty double-ships had the height needed to top the Greek turrets, but until this point they had been unable to get close enough to the walls to bring them into play.
Now, with conditions in their favour, the crusaders had to exploit their opportunity. In a display of precision seamanship the ladders of the Paradise and the Lady Pilgrim were steered either side of one part of the fortification and for the first time a crusader ship hugged one of Constantinople’s towers. At last the westerners had a chance to break into the city.
Three men stood at the front of the flying bridges preparing to set foot on enemy territory: surely they expected to die—or perhaps they had complete faith in God’s mercy. Death or glory would each provide untold riches, either the spiritual reward of a martyr in heaven, or everlasting fame as the hero who first entered Constantinople. There was also the prospect of immediate financial reward. Gunther of Pairis noted an offer of 100 silver marks to the first man onto the walls, with 50 for the second.21 Whatever combination of motives impelled these men to act, the conditions in which they worked were incredibly difficult. Dressed in full armour, balanced high on the ladders, at least 95 feet above the Lady Pilgrim’s deck, swaying backwards and forwards on the swell, they had to line themselves up with a gap in the battlements or the top of a tower. At this moment there was no way to secure the vessel to the fortifications; the knights had to judge the movement of the waves and then time their jump to perfection or plummet to their death below. As if this were not enough, they also had to face the heavily armed warriors who defended the city.
The first man across was an unnamed Venetian who grasped the tower and pulled himself over. Almost immediately, the defenders—identified as members of the Varangian Guard—rushed at him with axes and swords and cut him to pieces. The martyr’s companions were not deterred. On the next forward surge of the sea, one of the Frenchmen, Andrew of Dureboise, managed to scramble across, only to fall to his knees. Before he could rise, his enemies rushed at him and struck him many times, but Andrew was much better armoured than his Venetian companion and he was hardly hurt. The defenders paused and, to their horror, the crusader stood up and drew his sword. In terror, the garrison fled down to the next level of the tower. Andrew’s faith began to reap rewards. As Robert of Clari wrote: ‘by God’s mercy they did not wound him—as if God were protecting him, because He was not willing that they should hold out longer, or that this man should die’.22
Jean of Choisy was the next man to enter the tower and many others followed. Quickly the crusaders raised their flag to signify the breakthrough. They tied the boat to the tower and started to cross in larger numbers, but their momentum was soon to be slowed. The wind that had been so vital in pushing the vessels against the wall now created such a swell in the sea that the boats threatened to pull the tower down. The crusaders decided to release the ships—leaving their comrades isolated in the tower and with no immediate escape route.
In the short term, however, the flight of the Greeks and the Varangians obviated this. Baldwin of Flanders later wrote that ‘the banners of the bishops are the first to gain the walls and the first victory is granted by Heaven to ministers of the heavenly mysteries’.23Plainly, the crusaders gained considerable encouragement from this and took even greater heart from the fact that God had directed those particular ships to the battlements. But even though the crusaders could see the first of their flags on top of the walls, there was little the men in the tower could do to push further into the city.
From his hilltop view Murtzuphlus tried to rally his troops and direct them to the threatened tower, but the crusader assault was gathering an inexorable momentum. Further along the walls the sea had taken the ships of Peter of Bracieux up and against another tower and soon this also fell; the crusaders now held two locations. Their men could look down on a mass of enemy troops below them and to their sides - in other towers, and strung out along the walls nearby. For the westerners to make further progress they needed to get more men inside. Peter, the lord of Amiens, took the initiative. He realised the importance of creating a hole in the wall at sea level and, when he caught sight of a small bricked-up postern gate, resolved to breach it.
Peter went down from his ship with his contingent of ten knights and sixty sergeants and set to work. Robert of Clari had a special interest in describing this episode because its hero was his own brother, Aleaumes, a most warlike cleric who had already distinguished himself in the conflict at the Galata tower in July 1203.24 As some of the men crouched down to break through the wall, their colleagues hunched over them using shields for protection against the missiles that rained down upon them. When the Greeks saw the crusaders’ intentions they rushed to defend the gate and mounted a fearsome onslaught against the attackers. A deluge of crossbow bolts and stones thundered onto the crusaders’ screen of shields. The Byzantines brought up vats of boiling pitch and Greek fire and poured them down onto the westerners, but ‘by a miracle of God’ the crusaders seem not to have been seriously burned or crushed. The determination of these men was remarkable, but on such acts of courage entire wars can turn. Axes, swords, bars and picks were used to shatter the brickwork and finally they created a ragged hole through which to enter the city.
What awaited them on the other side? For once, a medieval chronicler’s sense of exaggeration seems warranted. Robert wrote: ‘they looked through the hole and saw so many people, both high and low, that it seemed as if half the world were there, and they did not dare risk entering in’.25 Whoever crawled through the gap first would be assured of a very warm welcome indeed.
For a moment the crusaders faltered. Then Aleaumes came forward and prepared to enter. Robert panicked—he was faced with the prospect of his brother committing himself to the most incredible danger and almost certain death. As a churchman, Aleaumes obviously had complete faith in divine protection - a faith that, in spite of canon law prohibiting clerics from using violence, he buttressed with a sword. Robert pleaded that he should not go forward, but Aleaumes shrugged him aside and crouched down to struggle through the hole. Robert’s description indicates that it must have been like squeezing through a small fireplace. As Aleaumes started to inch forwards, his brother grabbed his feet in desperation and tried to pull him back, but the cleric kicked him away. He squeezed on forwards, pushing past the grainy grasp of the dry stone. Once he was through, the Greeks started towards him and a rain of stones descended from the walls above, although none hit their target. Aleaumes drew his sword and rushed at the enemy, who were so shocked by his aggression that they turned and were said to have ‘fled before him like cattle’. The bravery and belief of a single man created the crucial breakthrough. Aleaumes called to his friends: ‘Lords, enter hardily! I see them drawing back dismayed and beginning to run away.’When Peter of Amiens and Robert heard this they followed quickly in, accompanied by the other knights and sergeants in their contingent. Now seventy crusaders were in the city: not a massive force, but sufficient to break the morale of those Greeks nearby.
The defenders started to flee, but Murtzuphlus himself was close enough to see the danger and spurred his charger towards the crusaders. Peter of Amiens rallied his men: ‘Now lords, now to acquit yourselves well! We shall have battle - here is the emperor coming. See to it that no one dares to give way, but think only to acquit yourselves Well.’26 When he saw the determination of the westerners, Murtzuphlus hesitated, then halted and turned back to his tents. He had lacked the support to engage the enemy and, as word of their presence in the city spread, resistance began to haemorrhage. With the immediate danger gone, Peter ordered a group of men to break down the nearest gate from the inside and, using axes and swords, the crusaders fractured the great iron bolts and bars that held the entrance shut. They threw open the doors and the horse-transports glided up to the shore and disgorged their cargo.
Peter of Amiens’s prominence was acknowledged by Niketas Choniates who described the knight in typically florid language:
He was deemed the most capable of driving in rout all the battalions, for he was nearly nine fathoms tall [a classical allusion taken from the Odyssey] and wore on his head a helmet fashioned in the shape of a towered city. The noblemen about the emperor and the rest of the troops were unable to gaze upon the front of the helm of a single knight so terrible in form and spectacular in size and took to their customary flight as the efficacious medicine of salvation.27
Regardless of Niketas’s style, we can appreciate that Peter’s martial qualities terrified the Byzantines and it was the breakthrough made by his men that really precipitated the Greek collapse. More transport ships drew up to land their horses, additional gates were broken down and the mounted knights poured into—and rapidly spread through—the city.
The horsemen headed for Murtzuphlus’s camp on the Pantepoptes monastery hill. The emperor’s own men were drawn up to face the crusader charge, but once they caught sight of the western warriors pounding towards them they panicked and scattered. Niketas Choniates was furious at their spinelessness: ‘Thus, by uniting and fusing into one craven soul, the cowardly thousands who had the advantage of a high hill, were chased by one man [Peter of Amiens] from the fortifications that they were meant to defend.’28Murtzuphlus had little option but to escape himself and he abandoned his tents and his treasure to head back into the heart of the capital and the castle of the Bucoleon palace. Meanwhile, Peter took control of the emperor’s former headquarters and immediately secured the treasures stored there. All around them the Greeks were fleeing. The sight of the crusaders streaming into the city, and the flight of their emperor, put the Byzantines into headlong retreat; as Robert of Clari observed concisely: ‘thus the city was taken’.29Many Greeks rushed to the Golden Gate on the far side of the city and, tearing down the stonework that blocked the exit, they ran out ’deservedly taking the road to perdition’, as Niketas Choniates angrily related.30
As the crusaders swept into Constantinople, the next stage of the battle began. The frustration of the months spent waiting across the Golden Horn, coupled with the perceived treachery of the Byzantines, unleashed a terrible wave of violence. Villehardouin wrote: ‘There followed a scene of massacre and pillage: on every hand the Greeks were cut down ... So great was the number of killed and wounded no man could count them.’31 Valuable horses, palfreys and mules were seized as booty and as replacements for the thousands of animals lost during the campaign to date. Baldwin of Flanders described the crusaders as being ‘occupied with killing’ and sending ‘many Greeks’ to their deaths.32 The Devastatio Constantivopolitana wrote of ‘a tremendous slaughter of Greeks’.33These three eye-witnesses provide indubitable testimony of just how brutal this phase of the campaign was.
Gunther of Pairis imagined Christ leading the holy warriors to victory and his text lauded their achievement and portrayed it as a manifestation of divine will. He also added an unrealistic call for mercy, something that the other eye-witness sources suggest was not a priority at the time:
You [the crusaders] fight Christ’s battles. You execute Christ’s
vengeance,
By Christ’s judgement. His will precedes your onslaught.
Break in! Rout menaces; crush cowards; press on more bravely;
Shout in thundering voice; brandish iron, but spare the blood.
Instill terror, yet remember they are brothers
Whom you overwhelm, who by their guilt have merited it for
some time.
Christ wished to enrich you with the wrongdoers’ spoils,
Lest some other conquering people despoil them.
Behold, homes lie open, filled with enemy riches,
And an ancient hoard will have new masters.34
Many Byzantine nobles fled to the safety of the Blachernae palace and then out and away though its gates. After their exertions throughout the day, the crusaders decided not to pursue them further. The leaders were worried that their men might become diffused across the sprawling metropolis and they feared either a Greek counter-attack or the use of fire to separate off one part of the army from the other. Given the massive size of Constantinople, they could not hope to take over the entire city in one afternoon and needed to consolidate their gains. The bulk of the western forces crossed the Golden Horn and camped outside the gates and battlements that faced the water. Baldwin of Flanders took over the magnificent imperial tent (a significant portent, given future events) and his brother Henry set up his troops in front of the Blachernae palace. Marquis Boniface and his men based themselves just to the south-east of Baldwin in one of the more densely populated regions of the city.
Only one leading crusader failed to take part in the siege. Count Louis of Blois had been afflicted with a debilitating fever since the winter and he was so weak that he could not fight. Determined not to miss the action, however, he had ordered himself to be carried onto one of the transport ships from where he could at least view the deeds of his friends and comrades.35
Exhausted and elated, the crusaders settled down to try to rest and recover some strength. It must have been at the front of their minds that in July 1203 the Venetians had gained a foothold around the same district, only to be driven out by a fierce Byzantine counter-offensive. On that occasion, the crusader forces had been divided between a contingent outside the land walls and a group within the city; on 12 April 1204 they had a much firmer hold in Constantinople and their armies were all in the same general area.
The senior nobles resolved that early the following morning they would move the bulk of their troops to an open region further to the south-east and there they would face the Greeks. The crusaders knew that a slow campaign fighting their way through the streets of Constantinople would likely favour the inhabitants. They were therefore determined that if a battle was to be fought, they should fight it on their own terms. A large, relatively flat area would enable the westerners to use their heavy cavalry to best advantage and, given the Byzantines’ profound reluctance to engage with the knights in July 1203, this tactic offered the best hope of a swift resolution to the conflict. Well aware that Murtzuphlus might choose neither to fight nor surrender, the crusade leaders agreed that if the wind was behind them, they would deliberately start a fire and try to compel the Greeks to yield by that means. It was possible, of course, that the wind might change direction, in which case the crusaders could face the prospect of being driven out by fire themselves.
In fact, during the night a blaze did break out in the area near Boniface of Montferrat’s troops. Villehardouin relates that some unknown men were so worried by a Greek onslaught that they ignited buildings lying between the two sides. Gunther of Pairis names a German count, possibly Berthold of Katzenellenbogen, as the responsible party.36 This latest conflagration, the third since the crusaders had arrived, spread from near the monastery of Evergetes down towards the Droungarios Gate on the edge of the Bosphorus. Once again the westerners brought destruction to the Queen of Cities, although this was only a prelude to the final act of horror with the sack itself. The new fire lasted all night and through the next day before dying down the following evening. Compared with its predecessors this fire caused the least damage.37
For Murtzuphlus the day that had begun with such confidence had now ended in hopeless disaster. The abject collapse of his troops meant that his personal bravery and desperate attempts to motivate his people by threats, offers of reward and simple dedication to their cause were in vain. Like Alexius III, nine months earlier, he concluded that the lack of fortitude shown by his compatriots, together with the strength of his opponents, meant that he could not defeat them. Given his manifest antipathy towards the crusaders, his complicity in Alexius IV’s murder and the horrendous execution of the three Venetian knights on the city walls, Murtzuphlus had no wish to be caught. Concerned that he might be handed over to the westerners if the city hierarchy decided to surrender, he resolved to leave.
Near midnight he stole through Constantinople, keeping well clear of the western troops and making his way to the Bucoleon palace. He commandeered a small fishing boat and put on it Empress Euphrosyne, the wife of Alexius III, along with her daughters (one of whom, Eudocia, he was said to be infatuated with). Then, under the cover of night, Murtzuphlus slipped shamefully away across the Bosphorus.
Against this backdrop of high politics, the ordinary inhabitants had three stark choices: they could gather everything they could carry and flee into exile like their emperor; they could try to resist the crusaders at the risk of death and even greater destruction to their beloved city; or they could simply surrender. In the last two cases, there remained the need to safeguard their personal possessions and Niketas tells us that many resorted to burying their valuables.38
As the news of Murtzuphlus’s flight spread, the remaining clergy, administrators and nobles gathered in the early hours of 13 April to consider their next move. So stubborn was their belief in the strength of their city and so great their fear and loathing of the westerners that they decided to choose a new emperor and to continue the struggle. Two men stepped forward to claim, as Niketas expressed it, ‘the captaincy of a tempest-tossed ship’. The candidates were both skilled warriors: Constantine Lascaris and Constantine Ducas. Both men were regarded as possessing equal abilities and so, given the impossibility of holding a full and formal debate on their merits, they drew lots for the prize.
Lascaris was the winner, although, because of the circumstances of his election, he refused to wear the imperial insignia. He urged the populace to resist the westerners and bluntly told the Varangian Guard that if the crusaders triumphed, they would no longer receive the substantial wages or generous treatment to which they were accustomed. The hierarchy of Constantinople was prepared to fight, but similar determination was lacking elsewhere. Nobody among the public at large responded to Lascaris’s exhortations, while the Varangians took advantage of the undeniable need for their services to negotiate a pay rise. When, early in the morning of 13 April, they saw the crusaders gathering themselves, even the inducement of increased remuneration was not enough to convince them to fight and many of the Guard quickly dispersed.39
For all his resolve the previous night, like Alexius III and Murtzuphlus, Lascaris concluded that nothing could save Constantinople and he became the third emperor to flee within 10 months.
As they had planned, the western forces formed up into their divisions, expecting to fight. Yet no one was there to face them. At first the crusaders were unaware of Murtzuphlus’s escape, but very soon it became apparent that there was no opposition anywhere in the city. The news of the emperor’s flight quickly emerged and it became clear that Constantinople was at the mercy of the westerners. Those who had held out longest despaired at the fickleness of their leaders and decided that surrender was the only sensible course. Dressed in their ecclesiastical finery, and bearing beautiful crosses and precious icons of Christ, the religious hierarchy came to the crusaders in the belief that showing them sufficient honour would prevent their city from being savaged. They were accompanied by some of the Varangians who presumably hoped to transfer their allegiance yet again, or else, as foreigners, to be spared possible reprisals against the Orthodox population.
Interestingly, the Greek churchmen focused their attention on Boniface of Montferrat. His family connections to the imperial line and his theoretical position as leader of the crusade gave rise to the expectation that he would be their new emperor.40
If the Greeks believed that this show of respect would soften the crusaders’ hearts they were to be grievously mistaken. Decades of mistrust towards the Byzantines, coupled with the escalating mutual antipathy of recent months, could not be washed away. Niketas wrote that the crusaders’ ‘disposition was not at all affected by what they saw, nor did their lips break into the slightest smile, nor did the unexpected spectacle transform their grim and frenzied glance and fury into a semblance of cheerful-ness’. 41 Once the surrender was formally accepted, the crusaders pushed the Greek clergy aside and started to seize all they could. The sack of Constantinople had begun.