The Great Betrayal (6 page)

There can be little doubt that young Alexius had managed to convince the barons that he was assured of popular support in the city. Like many another exile and pretender, he was probably under the illusion that his name would evoke an immediate response in the people. He may well have believed that they would respond to his appeal, dethrone his uncle and open the gates to their liberators.

The council of the Doge and the barons certainly acted as if they thought that the sight of Alexius would be sufficient to induce a popular revolt in his favour. It is likely that the barons did indeed believe this, although it is hardly credible that the Doge (with his excellent espionage system in the City) could have been so duped. For the people of Constantinople, however much they may have disliked their slothful and sybaritic emperor, were certain to resent having another and unknown ruler forced upon them by an army of foreigners. Their reaction was perfectly understandable—if Alexius III was to be deposed, they themselves would have the rightful say as to who should be his successor.

The day after the despatch of their message to the Emperor, ten galleys embarked the Doge, the Pretender Alexius, and the senior knights, and rowed them over to Acropolis Point. According to Robert de Clari, the Doge had suggested that they should show Alexius to the people of the city—in the hope that this would evoke a wave of popular feeling for him, and that the Byzantines themselves would accomplish the object of the expedition. The galleys passed as close to the walls as they dared, while Alexius was ‘showed’ to his people. A herald cried out that this was their rightful ruler, and that it was their duty to rally to his side. “But if you do not acknowledge him,” the herald concluded, “we will reduce you to utter ruin!”

Ever eager to put a good face on the Crusaders’ actions and to justify them in the eyes of posterity, Villehardouin maintained that the Byzantines did not dare show themselves to be on the side of young Alexius ‘out of their fear and terror of the Emperor’. Robert de Clari’s account, however, is far more convincing. It reveals a reaction quite consistent with the nature of a proud people when faced with the demands of insolent foreigners.

“He is not our emperor!” they cried from the walls. “We have never heard of him!”

Alexius’s credentials were again recited to the crowd, and yet again they shouted back, “We have never heard of him!”

Whatever the Doge’s feelings may have been at this response, there is no doubt that the knights now realised—many of them for the first time—that they were faced with a siege. It would be a siege, moreover, of the largest city in Europe; a city that had never been taken by an enemy; and whose defences had always been regarded as impregnable. It says something for their resolution and courage that they appear to have accepted this challenge without hesitation. If there had been any left who disliked the idea of making war upon fellow-Christians, now would have been the time for them to declare themselves. It seems, however, as if there were no dissentients to the proposed assault on ‘the God-guarded City’.

“Next morning, after attending mass, the barons gathered on horseback for a council in the open fields…” After a lengthy ‘parliament’, the command of the various divisions of the army was settled. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was to lead the advance guard—largely because he had among his followers a great number of trained soldiers, archers and crossbowmen. The second division was led by his brother; the third by the Count of Saint Paul; the fourth by Count Louis de Blois; the fifth (which included the chronicler Villehardouin) by Matthew de Montmorency; the sixth was composed of knights and soldiers from Burgundy; and the rearguard was led by the Marquis of Montferrat.

Except for this rearguard, which was a mixture of Italians and Germans, almost the entire composition of the invading army was Norman-French or French tributaries. The French were more responsible than any others for the events that were to follow. Almost certainly they were the dupes of the Venetians, but it was they who provided the arms and the men without which the attack on Constantinople would have been impossible.

4

MACHINATIONS IN VENICE

The Crusaders who were now preparing to invest Constantinople had taken a long time to reach this corner of the earth, so remote from their original intention. If Innocent III was its moving spirit, the Fourth Crusade had been launched in France several years before and was a lay enterprise from its very beginning. In 1199 a group of French knights had discussed the possibility of a new Crusade at the castle of Count Tibald of Champagne. Inspired by an itinerant preacher, Fulk of Neuilly, they had decided to ‘take the Cross’, and had immediately sent a message to the Pope announcing their intention.

Innocent III had proclaimed his desire for a new Crusade to free the Holy Land immediately upon ascending the pontifical throne. It was with pleasure, then, that he heard this news from Champagne. Although, throughout the course of his long and successful pontificate, Innocent III made every effort to revive the ancient spirit of the Crusades (made it indeed his supreme goal), he failed utterly in this ambition. His great desire was to re-establish the papal control of the Crusades, and from the very inception of the Fourth it was clear that the French had taken matters into their own hands. Having chosen their own leader they then decided their route and their objective without even consulting the Pope.
^[1]

Negotiations and preparations for the Crusade went on throughout the year 1200, but in 1201 the chosen leader, Tibald of Champagne, unexpectedly died. This led to a further delay, which was only resolved when Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, was selected to take his place. This news cannot have been pleasing to the Pope, for the Lombard House of Montferrat was a close ally of the Hohenstaufen (those enemies of Papal power and, incidentally, of Byzantium). All the same, the choice cannot have been unforeseen by the Pope, for the Montferrats had notable connections with the Crusades and with the East.

In the summer of 1201 Boniface left his territories in northern Italy and visited France to confer with the French leaders, and to receive his formal appointment at their hands. Well aware that it was his Hohenstaufen connections which made him acceptable in French eyes, he wasted no time in demonstrating that these were still potent. After leaving France, he went north to Germany and spent several months with Philip of Swabia, who was anticipating that he would soon become Emperor of the West.

The dislike felt by Philip of Swabia for Byzantium and especially for its present ruler was no secret. It was inherited from his ancestors, and particularly from his brother, Henry VI, who, had been on the very point of launching an attack on Constantinople when he had died at Messina in 1197. Furthermore, Philip had strong personal reasons for wishing to see the present Emperor of Byzantium, Alexius III, removed from the throne. Philip was married to Irene Angelina, the daughter of the dethroned and blinded Isaac, and his marriage (unusual in those days for rulers) was a genuine love-match. The fate of his father-in-law, then, was very much a matter of personal concern to Philip. It was during those winter months which Boniface of Montferrat passed in close consultation with Philip of Swabia that something akin to a plot against the Byzantine Empire was hatched. From now on, one may begin to trace a sinister and deliberate misdirection of the Fourth Crusade.

But even if Boniface and Philip had agreed together that a subsidiary aim of the Crusade should be to dethrone Alexius III and restore the dynasty of Isaac Angelus, it would still have been extremely difficult—indeed almost impossible—to achieve, without some extraordinary justification. It was at this moment that the instrument for their design was most opportunely delivered to their hands. The young Alexius, Isaac Angelus’s son, escaped from Constantinople to Sicily and made his way from there to the Swabian court. This was natural enough since his sister was the beloved wife of Swabia’s ruler. Alexius, in fact, had got away from Constantinople during the summer, and it is just possible that Philip of Swabia knew that his arrival was imminent when he invited Boniface to visit him.

If Philip needed a plausible excuse for the proposed diversion of the Fourth Crusade, and if Boniface was equally ready to use his position as its leader to misdirect it, both of them now had their wants supplied. It is still doubtful whether an attack on Constantinople can, at this moment, have been any more than a desirable but somewhat speculative scheme. Boniface and Philip knew that most of the knights and men-at-arms who would embark on the Crusade would never consider any idea of turning aside to attack Christian territory. They had an instrument in Alexius—no more—and they now needed a really valid reason to use him.

In February 1201, prior to the death of Tibald of Champagne and the appointment of Boniface to succeed him, six ambassadors had arrived in Venice from France empowered to treat with the Doge on the subject of transport for the Crusade. Venice had not been their first port of call, for they had previously been to both Genoa and Pisa, only to be told that the Genoese were unwilling, and the Pisans unable, to provide them with transport. It was for this reason, as Robert de Clari tells us, that they finally made the journey to Venice (they had probably hoped for better terms from the Genoese and Pisans). The ambassadors put their proposition to the Doge and his council who, after a week of discussion, agreed to transport the Crusaders at a price of five marks per horse, and two marks per man. According to Villehardouin who, as one of the leaders, was in a good position to know the figures, the Crusaders numbered 4,000 knights, each with his horses, 9,000 squires and 20,000 foot soldiers.
^[2]
For the sum of 86,000 marks the Venetians agreed to carry the men and horses “to recapture Jerusalem,” and to victual them for a year. In addition, the Venetians said that they would “for the love of God” provide fifty armed galleys as escort, on condition that they should have half of any conquests that might be made. If the Crusade was to proceed, the ambassadors could do nothing but accept these terms. Nowhere else in Europe could they hope to find a maritime power capable of supplying them with the fleet that they needed.

Pope Innocent III was now acquainted with the terms of the contract. It was one to which he very reluctantly acceded. He had little reason to trust the Venetians, for he knew that they would transport anyone—Christian or Moslem—for a fee. As if well aware of the possibilities latent behind the present agreement, he inserted a clause to the effect that no Christian state must on any account be attacked and that, to ensure this, a papal legate must sail with the fleet. It is likely that he suspected Doge Dandolo of some design against Zara, but unlikely that he ever anticipated an attack on Constantinople. Subject to these conditions, then, it was understood by the Pope and by the Crusaders that the Venetian fleet would be transporting the army to Alexandria in Egypt.

There were very good reasons for attacking Egypt. Once the port of Alexandria had been taken, it would be comparatively easy to keep the army supplied and reinforced by the sea-route from Europe. The old Crusader route across the Dardanelles and down through Asia Minor to Syria had become increasingly dangerous owing to the mounting power of the Turks, who were in the process of absorbing all of Anatolia. In the Third Crusade, the magnificent German army under Frederick I, Emperor of the West, had been bled to death in battle after battle against the Turks. When it finally won through to Acre no more than 1,000 men remained.

Egypt at this moment was weakened by a recent civil war. The Nile had failed to inundate the land for five whole years, with the result that the Egyptians were starving, and their morale had collapsed. Egypt, nevertheless, was the mainstay of Arabic wealth and if it could be captured, a wedge would be driven between the Moslem world to the east and the western territories of North Africa. There was every good reason, then, why the Crusaders should decide on Egypt as the target for their expedition. Once they had established their base and headquarters in Egypt, they could keep a steady transfusion of men and
matériel
flowing in from their native countries. At the same time they themselves could live off the land of Egypt—for the Nile would not consistently fail and even if the Egyptians starved there would always be plenty of grain and other supplies sufficient for a relatively small Crusading army.

One thing the Crusaders did not know was that, while they were conducting negotiations with the Venetians for their transport, the Venetians were in Cairo, possibly concluding what amounted to a non-aggression pact with the Egyptians.
^[3]

In the spring of 1202, just over a year before the Crusade reached Byzantine territory and prepared to attack Constantinople, the Venetians were negotiating a trade agreement with al-Adil, Sultan of Egypt. The advantage of this agreement to Venice was immense, and it was largely upon it that so much of the city’s later fortune was founded. In return for a guarantee by the Venetians that they would prevent any Crusading army from attacking Egypt, the Sultan guaranteed them considerable trading concessions in Alexandria.

Egypt, with its outlet to the Red Sea and to the merchandise of India and the East, was in a position to control the flow to Europe not only of oriental luxuries but also of those spices upon which the preservation and enhancement of European food so largely depended during the winter months. It was unlikely, if they had concluded a trading agreement of such importance with the Sultan of Egypt, that the Venetians would willingly have countenanced any attack upon the Sultan’s domains. The chronicler Ernoul, or Arnold of Ibelino (who would have had no reason to invent such a story) states specifically that the Sultan “sent envoys to Venice and told the Venetians that, if they could prevent the Christians attacking his country, he would give them ample reward…” Ernoul further goes on to say that “He wished the Doge and the Venetians both health and friendship—and to prove it sent them a great variety of presents. He further guaranteed that, if they could prevent the Franks [the Crusaders] from attacking Egypt, he would pay them a considerable sum and would ensure that they had very advantageous trading concessions at the port of Alexandria.”
^[4]