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Authors: Jonathan Phillips
Tags: #Religion, #History
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BOOK: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
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The Byzantines continued to employ these utilities left over from the late Roman age, most visibly the great aqueduct of Valens (364-78), half a mile of which still stands in the centre-north of the city. Several immense underground reservoirs survive today and the most accessible, known as the Basilica Cistern, dates from the reign of Justinian. It is located just outside the Hagia Sophia and demonstrates the phenomenal scale of just one civil engineering project. This huge cavern is 224 feet wide, 450 feet long and has 336 columns. It was capable of holding 2,800,000 cubic feet of water, brought from the Black Sea more than 12½ miles away.
The bulk of Constantinople’s population constituted what Niketas Choniates termed ‘the mob’, a seething mass of the underclass, entertained and placated by the Hippodrome games, but otherwise largely restless and self-serving in their support of the changing regimes of the 1180s.
43
The sheer size of the populace made it essential for the emperor to take note of their moods and wishes. Such was their number that Ralph of Coggeshall, a monk writing in Essex in the early thirteenth century, claimed: ‘People who know the ins and outs of this city say with confidence that it has more inhabitants than those who live in the area from the city of York all the way to the RiverThames [about 195 miles].’
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The sheer size of the populace made it essential for the emperor to take note of their moods and wishes. Such was their number that Ralph of Coggeshall, a monk writing in Essex in the early thirteenth century, claimed: ‘People who know the ins and outs of this city say with confidence that it has more inhabitants than those who live in the area from the city of York all the way to the RiverThames [about 195 miles].’
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As they stared across the Sea of Marmara, the crusaders must have fully realised the scale of the commitment that they had made to Prince Alexius. The vast and powerful Queen of Cities lay before them, solidly supported by centuries of imperial rule and secure in the knowledge of never having fallen to a conqueror. Some of the crusader army had been inside the city before and were aware of the spiritual and secular treasures within its walls, the opulence of its churches and palaces and the wealth of its rulers. Others would be told of this and might have had the great sights identified to them on the skyline. All must have fervently hoped that Prince Alexius would indeed be welcomed back to the city and that they could fulfil their side of the bargain with minimal force. In spite of the scale of the task they might face, there were some encouraging signs. Most pertinently, the violence, disorder and usurpations over the previous 20 years demonstrated a volatility that might work to the crusaders’ advantage.
These decades had, in part, sapped some of the military strength of Constantinople; the walls were not kept in perfect repair and the once formidable Byzantine navy had practically disappeared. In addition, Alexius III had declined to make adequate preparations for the crusaders’ attack. Niketas Choniates provides a splendidly caustic description of the emperor’s efforts to organise the defence of Constantinople. Apparently Alexius III had been aware of the crusaders’ movements for a long time; however:
his excessive slothfulness was equal to his stupidity in neglecting what was necessary for the common welfare. When it was proposed that he make provisions for an abundance of weapons, undertake the preparation of suitable war engines, and, above all, to begin the construction of warships, it was as though his advisers were talking to a corpse. He indulged in after-dinner repartee and in wilful neglect of the reports on the Latins [the crusaders]; he busied himself with building lavish bathhouses, levelling hills to plant vineyards ... wasting his time in these and other activities. Those who wanted to cut timber for ships were threatened with the gravest danger by the eunuchs who guarded the thickly wooded imperial mountains, that were reserved for the imperial hunts, as if they were sacred groves ...
45
Only when the emperor learned that his nephew and the crusaders had reached Durazzo on the Adriatic (May 1203) was he roused into action, although the measures he introduced hardly constituted a comprehensive and rigorous level of preparation: Accordingly he began to repair the rotting and worm-eaten small skiffs, barely twenty in number, and making the rounds of the city’s walls, he ordered the dwellings outside to be pulled down.’
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Perhaps Niketas is being a touch too harsh here, given that there was no certainty of an attack on Byzantium until the agreement between Prince Alexius and the crusaders was completed at Zara in late April. Certainly the emperor was aware of his challenger’s attempts to raise support in the West, but given the prince’s failures at Rome and Hagenau there was little indication that he would be any better received by Dandolo, Boniface and Baldwin. Given the usual tensions between crusading armies and the Greeks it might, however, have been prudent to make some preparations, but Alexius III had evidently chosen not to. In any case, Niketas’s real complaint here is of a more long-term nature and concerns the lamentable decline of the Byzantine navy. The emperor may also have placed some reliance upon a letter from the pope in late 1202. This had reassured the Greek ruler that Innocent had rejected any suggestion of turning the crusade towards Constantinople to help Prince Alexius.
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Back in the reign of Manuel Comnenus the Greeks had been able to send out mighty fleets to participate in, for example, invasions of Egypt with the rulers of Jerusalem. William of Tyre recorded that in 1169 Manuel dispatched 150 ‘ships of war equipped with beaks and double tiers of oars ... there were, in addition, sixty larger boats, well-armoured, which were built to carry horses ... also ten or twenty vessels of a huge size ... carrying arms and ... engines and machines of war’.
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Yet, such was the decline of the navy after Manuel’s death, the Greeks came to rely on hiring pirates to fight for them and by 1203, as Niketas revealed, only 20 half-rotten ships could be raised to resist the crusade. Prince Alexius would have known this and the Venetian merchants in Constantinople would have informed Dandolo of the situation over previous years. There is little doubt that the knowledge of Byzantine naval weakness must have contributed significantly to the crusaders’ assessment of whether they could offer military support to Prince Alexius if it was needed. The thought of having to face a fleet of the size that Manuel had sent to Egypt might well have deterred them from any such commitment. Fortunately for the crusaders, the prospect of a massive naval battle against more or less equal forces, or even the idea of being harassed by a remotely seaworthy squadron of ships, was something they would not have to contend with. In Dandolo and his Venetians, the westerners had the most astute and experienced fleet in the Mediterranean. If used properly, control of the seas could give the crusaders a vital initiative for the forthcoming assault.
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Yet, such was the decline of the navy after Manuel’s death, the Greeks came to rely on hiring pirates to fight for them and by 1203, as Niketas revealed, only 20 half-rotten ships could be raised to resist the crusade. Prince Alexius would have known this and the Venetian merchants in Constantinople would have informed Dandolo of the situation over previous years. There is little doubt that the knowledge of Byzantine naval weakness must have contributed significantly to the crusaders’ assessment of whether they could offer military support to Prince Alexius if it was needed. The thought of having to face a fleet of the size that Manuel had sent to Egypt might well have deterred them from any such commitment. Fortunately for the crusaders, the prospect of a massive naval battle against more or less equal forces, or even the idea of being harassed by a remotely seaworthy squadron of ships, was something they would not have to contend with. In Dandolo and his Venetians, the westerners had the most astute and experienced fleet in the Mediterranean. If used properly, control of the seas could give the crusaders a vital initiative for the forthcoming assault.
49
The Byzantine land forces were not so feeble, however. While they had declined in strength since Manuel’s death in 1180, they still constituted a formidable enemy.
50
Emperor Alexius’s army consisted of a mixture of native Byzantine troops, mercenaries (hired from Bulgaria, Asia Minor, western Europe and the Slavic lands) and, most dangerous of all, the legendary Varangian guard, an elite body of men sworn to remain loyal to the emperor. Over the centuries the Greeks had acquired a reputation for being unwarlike and effeminate. Benjamin of Tudela assessed their military capabilities thus: ‘They hire from amongst all nations warriors called barbarians to fight with ... the Turks, for the natives [the Greeks] are not warlike, but are as women who have no strength to fight.’
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If the employment of outsiders to form the central element in their army did nothing to dispel such an impression, the Greeks had at least been wise in the choice of warriors. The Varangians were heavily armed soldiers famous for using mighty single-edged battle-axes, which they carried on their shoulders. The size of this force numbered just over 5,000 men and it represented the core of the imperial army. It was formed mainly from Scandinavians lured to Constantinople by high levels of pay. Many of the English warriors defeated at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 or displaced in the subsequent Norman Conquest also travelled east to join the guard. Other recruits came from forces such as that which accompanied King Sigurd of Norway on his expedition to the Holy Land in 1110, and who stopped off en route home to join the guard or to temporarily serve the emperor.
52
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Emperor Alexius’s army consisted of a mixture of native Byzantine troops, mercenaries (hired from Bulgaria, Asia Minor, western Europe and the Slavic lands) and, most dangerous of all, the legendary Varangian guard, an elite body of men sworn to remain loyal to the emperor. Over the centuries the Greeks had acquired a reputation for being unwarlike and effeminate. Benjamin of Tudela assessed their military capabilities thus: ‘They hire from amongst all nations warriors called barbarians to fight with ... the Turks, for the natives [the Greeks] are not warlike, but are as women who have no strength to fight.’
51
If the employment of outsiders to form the central element in their army did nothing to dispel such an impression, the Greeks had at least been wise in the choice of warriors. The Varangians were heavily armed soldiers famous for using mighty single-edged battle-axes, which they carried on their shoulders. The size of this force numbered just over 5,000 men and it represented the core of the imperial army. It was formed mainly from Scandinavians lured to Constantinople by high levels of pay. Many of the English warriors defeated at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 or displaced in the subsequent Norman Conquest also travelled east to join the guard. Other recruits came from forces such as that which accompanied King Sigurd of Norway on his expedition to the Holy Land in 1110, and who stopped off en route home to join the guard or to temporarily serve the emperor.
52
Two other contingents who helped to defend Constantinople in 1203 were made up of Pisans and Genoese. These representatives of the merchant communities transferred their bitter commercial rivalry with the Venetians to the arena of the crusades and the Bosphorus. The crusade leaders later claimed that they faced a Byzantine force of 60,000 knights, plus infantrymen.
53
Modern historians estimate a figure of in excess of 30,000 for the imperial army; plus, of course, the citizenry of Constantinople who could support and fight alongside this force, if so motivated.
54
If either of these figures is at all accurate, then the Greeks had an overwhelming numerical advantage, as well as the benefit of the substantial defences of Constantinople itself.
53
Modern historians estimate a figure of in excess of 30,000 for the imperial army; plus, of course, the citizenry of Constantinople who could support and fight alongside this force, if so motivated.
54
If either of these figures is at all accurate, then the Greeks had an overwhelming numerical advantage, as well as the benefit of the substantial defences of Constantinople itself.
The doge and the nobles had now to decide on their next move. Dandolo, practical as ever, counselled caution. Based on his previous visits to Constantinople (1171 and 1183) and the detailed knowledge derived from the Venetian presence in the city over many decades, he emphasised the need for the crusaders to gather adequate supplies and proceed with due care. He argued: ‘You are now engaged on the greatest and most dangerous enterprise that any people up to this day have ever undertaken; it is therefore important for us to act wisely and prudently.’
55
Dandolo claimed that the crusaders’ lack of food and money could cause them to range too widely over the surrounding lands. They would scatter too much and lose some men: something that the army could ill afford, given the scale of the task they faced.
55
Dandolo claimed that the crusaders’ lack of food and money could cause them to range too widely over the surrounding lands. They would scatter too much and lose some men: something that the army could ill afford, given the scale of the task they faced.
Nearby lay the Isles of the Monks (today called the Princes’ Isles, located around 5½ miles south of the main city), known by the doge to produce corn and meat. He advised that the fleet should moor there, gather supplies and then make ready to assault the city. Dandolo put forward a thirteenth-century version of one of the most famous military aphorisms of all time: ‘for the man who has something to eat fights with a better chance of winning than the one with nothing in his stomach’.
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On 24 June, St John the Baptist’s Day, the men readied their ships. During the long voyage much of their equipment had been stowed away, or covered up, to protect it from the elements. Now, as they drew closer to Constantinople, banners and pennants were hoisted onto the ships’ castles and the knights’ shields were hung from the bulwarks. The fleet transformed itself into the same colourful spectacle that had left Venice almost nine months earlier. This time war was imminent: not against the infidel, but against the schismatic Greeks and their usurping emperor. The ships made their initial pass of the walls of Constantinople. First to appear were the transport ships, then the warships. As their vessels moved closer to the city, the scale of its defences and the density and majesty of its skyline, packed with palaces, churches and monuments, must have chilled the crusaders’ hearts. They glided past the sea walls, the great bulk of the Hippodrome, the glory of the Bucoleon palace. Then came the Hagia Sophia, squatting indestructibly on the hilltop nearest the easternmost point of the city. Some men were so excited at the chance to engage the enemy that they loosed off arrows and missiles at the Byzantine ships lying before the walls, although they inflicted little damage.
For their part, the Greeks packed the walls of the city, curious to see their enemy; they too must have been filled with trepidation. The last major crusading army to pass through the Byzantine Empire, that of Frederick Barbarossa in 1189-90, had brushed aside their challenge and marched through their lands. Warlike westerners had been viewed as a danger to Constantinople since the time of the First Crusade and many Greeks had long felt that the crusades were just a pretext for an attack on their City.
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Thus far, this had never actually happened, but with the presence of a claimant to the imperial title in the westerners’ midst, the danger in 1203 was perhaps greater than ever before. In military terms there was a difference, too. The force coming by sea presented a new challenge compared to the earlier, landbound armies. The combination of the presence of Prince Alexius and the crusader fleet created a unique threat.
57
Thus far, this had never actually happened, but with the presence of a claimant to the imperial title in the westerners’ midst, the danger in 1203 was perhaps greater than ever before. In military terms there was a difference, too. The force coming by sea presented a new challenge compared to the earlier, landbound armies. The combination of the presence of Prince Alexius and the crusader fleet created a unique threat.
A brisk following wind took the fleet past their planned stop on the Isles of the Monks and the sailors steered as best they could towards the mainland of Asia Minor, where they made harbour at the imperial palace of Chalcedon, opposite the main city, which lay almost two miles away across the Bosphorus. The nobles, naturally, took their quarters in the palace, ‘one of the most beautiful and enchanting that ever an eye could see’, according to Villehardouin.
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They also pitched their tents, and the knights and foot-soldiers set up camp while the horses were brought ashore and carefully reacquainted with
terra firma
after the weeks at sea. The crusaders were fortunate because the corn harvest had just been reaped and lay piled up, ready for them to gather as much as they wanted. This, surely, was an indication of Alexius III’s lack of serious preparations : to leave an enemy readily available food supplies within easy reach of a city they were about to besiege was woefully inept.
58
They also pitched their tents, and the knights and foot-soldiers set up camp while the horses were brought ashore and carefully reacquainted with
terra firma
after the weeks at sea. The crusaders were fortunate because the corn harvest had just been reaped and lay piled up, ready for them to gather as much as they wanted. This, surely, was an indication of Alexius III’s lack of serious preparations : to leave an enemy readily available food supplies within easy reach of a city they were about to besiege was woefully inept.
Two days later the crusaders transferred their entire force a further three miles up the eastern side of the Bosphorus to another imperial palace at Scutari. They continued to collect all the foodstuffs possible in preparation for the siege. Alexius III, meanwhile, had begun to react to the danger by moving his army out of Constantinople and establishing a position on the European shore, opposite the crusaders, in order to resist a landing. In late June 1203 the two armies faced each other across the Bosphorus, poised for war.
BOOK: The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
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