In the year 395 the Roman world was divided into the empires of the East and the West, and Constantinople became the rival capital of that on the Tiber. Eighty-one years later (476) Odoacer, the barbarian, sacked Rome and brought to an end the Western Empire, from which time Constantinople claimed the sole heirship to the power of the Cæsars. In 800 Charlemagne reëstablished the imperial power in western Europe, but within fifty years it again fell to pieces in the hands of his less puissant sons. The Greek emperors and people assumed the title of Romans. Their capital was called New Rome.
There had occurred a similar breach between the Roman and Greek churches. A doctrinal divergence had assumed irreconcilable proportions in the sixth century. The controversy centred chiefly in the question of whether the Holy Spirit proceeded equally from the Father and the Son, or solely from the Father; the Roman Church maintaining the former dogma, as expressed by the addition of the word “Filioque” to the Nicene Creed, the Greek Church repudiating it. Many minor differences of doctrine and discipline were also generated. Ecclesiastical separation followed. After generations of wrangling, the Pope’s legates shook the dust from their feet and departed from Constantinople, leaving on the altar of St. Sophia a writ of excommunication and anathema. Thus the last tie between the two peoples was sundered.
From 867 to 1057 the Basilian dynasty steadily compacted the power, developed the governmental system, augmented the wealth, and extended the area of the Greek empire. From 1057, however, under the dynasty of the Comneni, Greek prestige has steadily declined. The strength of its dominion had been largely due to the preservation of a municipal and provincial spirit, a virtual independence of its various communities, each seeking its own welfare, while all maintained their loyalty to the central authority. Under the later Basilians ambitious emperors adopted the policy of absorbing all the local rights into their personal control. The Comneni continued this fatal policy, but their hands were not strong enough to retain what they had grasped. The occupants of the Greek throne were weak men. The names of Isaac, Michael, Nicephorus, and Alexius are those of pygmies compared with the German emperors and the popes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Indeed, in the East the art of statesmanship had been lost. The rulers of Constantinople were intriguers, not diplomats. With them dissimulation took the place of caution, trickery that of courage, and prosperity was measured only by the number and value of the royal perquisites. The Oriental practice of farming the revenue was the easiest method of obtaining income. He was regarded as the wisest administrator who squeezed the largest amount from the unwilling people. Officers were commissioned without salary or even provision for their expenses, it being expected that they would first of all feather their own nests. Even an emperor is accused of fitting out vessels for piracy upon his own seas.
The personal character of the later Greek monarchs was equally despicable with their system of government. Alexius Comnenus spent his time in play. Andronicus was chiefly renowned for the magnificence of his horse-shows, attendance at which was varied by drunken debauches and acts of cowardly cruelty. Isaac was noted for the wasteful extravagance of his table, the frequent changes of his apparel, and the peacock magnificence of his public appearances. It is said that madmen were held in honor as being under the special direction of Heaven, and it would seem from their conduct that the emperors were ambitious to secure this sole mark of the divine favor.
Such rulers, having lost the respect, could not hold the loyalty of their subjects. The people no longer responded to the calls of the throne for aid in the war-fields. Indeed, the independent peasant class, having been reduced to virtual slavery, were more ready to admit a change of rulers than to risk their lives for the support of such as they had. The emperors were thus compelled to surround themselves with mercenaries whom they hired in foreign countries. Slavonians, Italians, Warings (Saxons who were crowded out of England by the recent Norman conquest), filled the armies and oppressed the citizens. The Greek navy was composed chiefly of Venetian bottoms, and manned by water-dogs from every seaport in Europe. To these elements of decrepitude we must add the ceaseless strife for occupancy of the imperial throne. During the quarter-century ending with 1200 there were more claimants than there were years.
This internal weakness of the Byzantine or Greek empire left it largely the prey of enemies from without. Ever since their first irruption from their original home in central Asia the Turks had menaced the imperial provinces. They succeeded in wresting vast lands, and in either driving out their Christian inhabitants or making them tributary to the cause of Islam. Asia Minor was lost to the Greek, and the Moslem negotiated with his foe from the banks of the Bosporus. During the twelfth century scarcely a year passed which did not witness some battle between the Byzantines and the Turks. Defeated by the crusaders, these quick-moving hordes of the East found redress in ravaging some part of the empire. When victorious in Syria they echoed their joy in new battle-shouts in the direction of the Greek capital. Their swords dripped blood on the shores of the Marmora and the Black Sea almost as frequently as on the fields of Syria. In 1185 the emperor was compelled to purchase immunity from attack by paying tribute to the Sultan of Iconium, and even to call in the assistance of Saladin to secure him from the aggressions of other Moslem hordes.
The Huns also assailed the Byzantine power. In 1184 Maria, dowager empress at Constantinople, was put to death for having engaged these ruthless people, under their king, Bela, to invade the empire. Bulgarians, Patchinaks, Turkomans, Wallachs, and Servians raided in turn the Balkan peninsula.
The crusaders also, with their enormous armies and the pilgrim hordes that followed them, made the Greek lines their camping-ground, their forage-fields, and their battle-sites, until Constantinople dreaded these fellow-Christians as much as it feared the Infidels. Richard of England took Cyprus from the Greeks and ultimately gave it to the Templars. Henry VI. of Germany forced from the emperor five thousand pounds of gold, as the price of the immunity of his lands from the ravages of Western armies. The imperial treasury was so depleted that the churches of Constantinople were rifled to raise what was thus called the “German tax.”
Beyond the actual aggressions of the Latin Christians upon their Greek brethren there was developed a deeper menace in the hatred which had sprung up between the two peoples. Throughout Europe the eagerness to exterminate the Moslems was almost matched by a purpose to subjugate the Greek power. For this antipathy there were other and special occasions, some of which we will narrate.
The Normans, who, under Robert Guiscard, had in 1062 conquered Sicily, were the inveterate foes of Constantinople. Robert and his son, Bohemond, invaded Epirus and Thessaly. In 1107 Bohemond repeated the attempt to capture the western borders of the empire. In 1130 Roger of Sicily made alliance with the German emperor for the same purpose. William, son of Roger, in 1156 pillaged Corfu, Corinth, and some of the Ægean Islands, and sent a fleet to parade his insults in the Bosporus and Golden Horn, where his sailors shot gilded arrows against the very palace walls.
About 1180 the Emperor Andronicus cruelly massacred the Latins in Constantinople, dragging the sick from their beds in the hospital of St. John, and decapitating the papal envoy, Cardinal John, whose head was tied to a dog’s tail and dragged about the streets. William II. of Sicily appointed a certain Tancred, his agent, to avenge these atrocities. Tancred sacked Salonica and ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. In 1194 Henry, King of Sicily, claimed all these lands and held Irene, daughter of the Emperor Isaac, as hostage. Thus the Sicilians were always ready to leap at the throat of the Greek empire in sheer vengeance, if not with thirst for the blood of spoil.
Another menace to the Eastern Empire was from the Italians, who were represented by large colonies throughout the imperial territories, and even in the capital itself, where they enjoyed for a time exceptional privileges, such as being directly governed by their own ambassadors, having favored rates of tariff on their commerce, often amounting to free trade, and at times receiving high appointments in the service of the empire. Yet these prosperous conditions were frequently interrupted by quarrels with the Greeks, reaching on occasions to civil war within the walls of the capital. Pisan and Genoese pirates ravaged the Ægean, and even blockaded the Dardanelles against the passage of Greek ships. In 1198 these freebooters defeated the imperial navy.
Venice, however, was the most formidable of these rivals for power within the empire, as she had been at times the most favored nation. In 1171 the Venetians attacked Dalmatia and pillaged the Ægean, until they were forced by herculean efforts of the Greek government to sue for peace. Henry Dandolo conducted the mission for treaty, and during his stay in Constantinople became blind. It is asserted by the Venetians that his affliction was due to torture perpetrated upon him by command of the emperor. It was a common practice of the Greeks to destroy the sight of those they would render impotent to do them harm. This ancient punishment was called abacination; the process was that of forcing the victim to gaze into a basin of highly polished metal, which by its shape concentrated the rays of sunlight and constituted a burning-mirror. Whether this is the true explanation of his blindness or not, it is certain that Dandolo ever after displayed an absorbing passion to wreak vengeance upon the Greek power, and we shall find him foremost among its foes in the fatal expedition called the fourth crusade.
But, aside from these inducements, the wealth of the city offered to the covetous a prize second to none in the world. The situation of Constantinople on the narrow highway of the Bosporus or Strait of St. George, which connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean, made it mistress of the maritime commerce between Europe and Asia. Neighboring countries contributed by their very geographical relation to the power on the Bosporus. The Balkan peninsula, terminating in the classic land of Greece, and fringed with the islands of the Ægean and the Adriatic; the eastern provinces of Europe, drained by the Danube, whose mouth was hard by; Russia from the Siberian snows to the temperate climate of the Euxine; Asia Minor, the seat of ancient civilization in the middle Orient, even to the entrance of Persia; the Holy Land, and the fertile valley of the Nile—each of these, in extent and population enough for an empire, and all of them lying in easy accessibility, fitted Constantinople to be the natural capital of the greatest power in the world.
Its immediate site, too, was inviting. Enthroned upon magnificent hills, with the harbor of the Golden Horn as a safe refuge for its fleets, and a salubrious climate assured by the perpetual breeze from either of the great seas which lay at its feet, it was the especial abode of comfort and splendor. In its stately palaces, churches, and public squares was preserved the best art inherited from the ancient world, for which the temples of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the isles of the Mediterranean had been rifled. Its merchants lived with the splendor of princes, dwelling in palatial homes, adorning themselves with most costly robes and rarest gems, and clothing even their horses with gold. To outrank their subjects in splendor, princes lived in houses whose columns and walls were sheathed in golden plates. The palaces of Blachern and Bucolion were furnished with incredible treasures.
The Church of St. Sophia, says Benjamin of Tudela (1161), was richer than “all other places of worship in the world.” To its magnificence Ephesus had contributed eight pillars from the temple of Diana; Aurelian’s Roman temple of the sun, eight columns of porphyry; the temples of the Nile, twenty-four columns of polished granite. Its vestries contained “forty-two thousand robes embroidered with pearls and precious stones.” But St. Sophia was only one of many churches whose golden domes flashed over the Bosporus. Other structures vied with the temples. The hippodrome was nine hundred feet long, lined with tiers of white marble seats, from which the spectators, in the intervals of the races, admired the four horses in bronze which now surmount the entrance of St. Mark’s in Venice. Columns, statues, baths innumerable, feasted the eyes or invited the indulgence of the citizens.
Even more tempting to the covetous piety of the western Europeans were the stores of sacred relics possessed by the churches and monasteries. It was believed that more than half the objects of veneration associated with dead saints throughout the world were in case or crypt within Constantinople; and the common faith attributed to the army of saints thus honored, and whose ghosts were presumably guarding their bones, the preservation of the city during so many generations. Most of these relics had been purchased at or stolen from their original resting-places in different parts of the East; but many undoubtedly were manufactured to gratify the credulity of the foreigners who thronged the bazaars.
To the treasures of the capital itself must be added the wealth of the territory subject to it. Western Europe, as we have seen, had been impoverished by generations of feudal control; district had warred upon district until the spoil was insufficient to evoke further forays. In marked contrast, the Greek lands had been measurably protected by having a central government. The ground was well tilled; many handicrafts were developed. Instead of feudal towers, shadowing the lower classes with desolation, were well-filled granaries and storehouses of goods. Fair roads invited intercourse of adjacent communities; and at a time when robbers infested the suburbs of every town, and lay in wait in every forest of Europe, the shores of the Bosporus and the eastern end of the Marmora were enlivened with cosey cottages and pleasant villas. The Westerner cast envious glances about him whenever he passed the beautiful city on the strait, and the early crusaders paused to wonder if it would not pay them as well to extirpate the Greek heresies as to slaughter the Moslems. This inquiry was keener from the fact that on every side, as has been narrated, they saw evidences of weakness. While amazed at the prosperity, they thought of the opportunities offered to the sword.
The most envious eyes turned upon the Greek lands were those of the blind old Dandolo. This remarkable man had become doge of Venice in 1192, at the age of seventy-two (some say eighty-two), and was to close his octogenarian period with a series of exploits which might have been the envy of the most daring and ambitious youth. To understand the final diversion of the fourth crusade from its original religious purpose, we must not lose sight of Dandolo’s sleepless purpose. This was not recognized at the time, but is abundantly illustrated by the subsequent events of the crusade, and confirmed by documents which have but recently come to light.
In the year 1198 there came to the papal throne Innocent III., one of the most astute, tireless, and ambitious of the pontiffs, and, to those who accept the righteousness of the hierarchical supremacy over the world, one of the best. The failure of recent enterprises in Palestine afflicted Innocent’s soul. He announced to the titular Patriarch of Jerusalem his purpose of massing Europe in another endeavor. His summons sounded over Christendom: “Arise, ye faithful; arise, gird on the sword and buckler; arise and hasten to the help of Jesus Christ. He Himself will lead your banner to victory.” The Pope sent his prelates everywhere to bid princes cease their mutual quarrels and unite in the common cause. To all who obeyed he gave the usual promise, in the name of God, of remission of sins. He especially entreated sinners to mark with the badge of the cross their moral reformation, and the saintly disposed to thus add new adornment to their crown of glory. His own earnestness was illustrated by his melting the gold and silver dishes in his palace into marketable metal, and replacing them with vessels of clay or wood. Foreseeing a lack of money for the holy emprise, he bade Christian people borrow from the Jews, who should be compelled to lend without interest. If such help of the Lord did not procure any positive blessing to this accursed people, it would at least prevent the penalty of the total destruction of their business, which was threatened in case of their not complying. Even the hated Greeks were to be allowed some part in this holy warfare. In his appeals to the Emperor Alexius the Pope predicts, “The pagans will flee before you;” and promises, “You yourself will share with the others in the pontifical favors.” Lest the heretical emperor should not feel the need of such patronage, Innocent reminds him that God had said to the Roman pontiff what He had said of old to Jeremiah: “I have placed thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, to waste, and to destroy, to build, and to plant.” He further compares himself to the sun, and secular princes to the moon, which shines in borrowed light. The emperor in reply, with perhaps a premonition of what was about to transpire, reminded the Pope of the ravages which Western crusaders were accustomed to inflict upon his realm, and begged him to first rebuke the crimes which these zealots for God were disposed to perpetrate against their fellow-men.
At this time a French priest, Fulque, was filling the land with his fame for eloquence. Crowds thronged to his services in the churches and fields. He denounced sin with the power of an Elijah, and comforted the penitent with the sweetness of a St. John. He adapted himself marvellously to all men, leading the lordly profligate to repent at the incensed altar, and making the boorish peasants kiss the stick with which he beat them to be quiet as they crowded about him in the fields. Pope Innocent enlarged this zealot’s commission to be that of another Peter the Hermit, or Bernard, in preaching the crusade.
Among Fulque’s first converts was Count Theobald of Champagne, to whom over two thousand knights did homage as his vassals. He was chosen to command the French contingent. Louis of Chartres and Blois followed, and soon a host was enrolled representing the nobility and wealth of France. Among these was Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne, to whom we are largely indebted as the historian of the events we are about to narrate. Germany also answered the call. But for the death of Richard of England (April, 1199), this hero would doubtless have been chosen to lead the combined host with an English army. The Venetians do not seem to have volunteered any help; perhaps it was not anticipated. The Pope, in his call for the crusade, had expressly forbidden Venice to furnish the Saracens with iron, ropes, wood, arms, ships, or munitions of war; for in the previous holy adventures they had not regarded trade with the Infidels as infringing upon their Christian duty.
The military leaders already chosen were averse to another overland march to the East, since every interjacent country was marked with the disasters of previous armies; they therefore decided to go by sea. The commissioners having charge of the expedition therefore sent messengers to Venice, as the chief maritime power in the West, to negotiate with Dandolo for transportation of men and furnishing of provisions. After a week’s deliberation the Council of Venice made answer. Dandolo proposed, the people approving, that the republic should provide the required vessels and a definite amount of food, and also an independent fleet, which Dandolo said he would send “for the love of God.” He, however, required in payment for such equipment and service eighty-five thousand silver marks, and that half the cities and lands conquered should fall to the Venetian possession. This was eagerly agreed to by the commissioners.
A general assembly was convoked in St. Mark’s in Venice (April, 1201). Mass was celebrated to secure Heaven’s blessing upon the compact. Villehardouin thus addressed the people: “The lords and barons of France, the most high and the most powerful, have sent us to you to pray you in the name of God to take pity on Jerusalem, which the Turks hold in bondage. They cry to you for mercy and supplicate you to accompany them to avenge the disgrace of Jesus Christ. They have made choice of you because they know that no people that be upon the sea have such powers as your nation. They have commanded us to throw ourselves at your feet and not to rise until you shall have granted our prayer.” The commissioners fell upon their knees and raised their hands in supplication to the people. The crowd caught the enthusiasm and cried, “We grant your request.” Dandolo himself overflowed with pious, not to say politic, emotion. This spectacle of fraternal union in the cause of Christ drew from all eyes “tears of tenderness and joy.” The Pope, to whom the compact was submitted, ratified it with the strict condition that under no circumstances should an attack be made upon any Christian state.
It was deemed best to land the crusading armies at Alexandria in Egypt; the voyage thither would be unmolested. Besides, a series of events had taken place in Egypt which led many to see the hand of Providence pointing to that country. In 1200 the Nile had for some mysterious cause failed to give its annual inundation; harvests had failed; famine afflicted the inhabitants, who were reduced to feeding upon grass, the dung of animals, and even the carcasses of their fellow-victims. At Cairo women, in the insanity of starvation, had killed and eaten their own children. To famine succeeded plague; one hundred and eleven thousand died of it at Cairo. The unburied lay everywhere; a fisherman counted four hundred corpses that floated by him during a single day. The wrappings of dead bodies were as numerous on the waters of the Nile as lotus flowers in their season. In the language of an Arabian, “The most populous provinces were as a banqueting-hall for the birds of prey.” The Roman pontiff urged Europe to take the opportunity of these terrible visitations to break the treaties between Christians and Moslems and occupy the land of the Delta. To this advice the military leaders added the less inhuman consideration that Alexandria would afford a ready entrepôt for supplies from the West, and a convenient point from which to strike the enemy; at the same time it would enable the crusaders to sever the Eastern Infidels from their Saracen coreligionists along the North African coast. Egypt was thus chosen as the immediate destination of the crusade.
Shortly after the ratification of the Venetian compact with the crusaders, Theobald of Champagne, the chosen commander, died. Boniface of Montferrat was chosen in his stead. The first movement of Boniface is suggestive in view of the sequel. He spent several months at the court of Philip of Swabia, the rival of Otho for the German throne. Philip had married the daughter of Isaac Angelus, a deposed emperor of Constantinople, who had been blinded by his successor and was now a captive. A son of Isaac, “young Alexius,” as he was called, to distinguish him from the reigning monarch of the same name, a lad of twelve years, was led about by the Emperor Alexius to grace his triumph. Young Alexius eluded the vigilance of his keepers and, disguised as a common sailor, or, as some say, in a box as freight, made his way to Italy and eventually to the court of his brother-in-law, Philip of Swabia. Philip was undoubtedly pledged by his own interests, as well as by vengeance on behalf of his kinsman, to forward the project of young Alexius for the restoration of Isaac to the throne of Constantinople. Boniface, the commander of the crusaders, was a relative of Philip. He had also family alliances with the throne of Constantinople. One of his brothers, Conrad, had married Theodora, a sister of Isaac; another, Reynier, had married Maria, a daughter of the Emperor Manuel. As the heir of this latter brother, Boniface regarded himself as de jure King of Salonica. That he was not averse to the project of Philip and young Alexius is proved by the fact that on leaving Philip he went to Rome and endeavored to induce the Pope to declare himself in favor of young Alexius as a contestant for the throne of Constantinople against the reigning monarch. It is well to keep these facts in mind if one would understand the depth of the plot which subsequent events exposed.
The grand departure of the crusaders from Venice had been fixed for June, 1202. At that time but a part of the leaders appeared. Some had taken ship from Bari, Genoa, and even the ports on the Northern Ocean, as served their convenience or as they were able to make better terms than with the Venetians. Of four thousand expected knights, but one thousand had arrived; of one hundred thousand men, less than sixty thousand; of the eighty-five thousand marks pledged for passage, but thirty-four thousand were in hand. Dandolo protested against this as breach of faith with him, and pointed to his fleet, waiting, manned and provisioned, in the harbor. He demanded the immediate payment of the entire sum. In vain had the crusaders sent what they could to the ducal palace—money, vessels of silver and gold, jewels, and securities on their lands. The doge declared, according to Robert de Clari, who was in this army, “If you do not pay, understand well that you will not move from this spot, nor will you find any one who will furnish you with meat and drink.” The crusading army thus found itself a crowd of starving prisoners on a fever-fraught island near Venice. In the heat of the summer many sickened and died; others managed to escape. Those who remained communicated with friends in France and induced a few more knights and nobles to join them. But with this assistance, and though the richest of them had stripped themselves of possessions until nothing but horses and armor were left, the debt was unpaid.
Having gotten from them all that was possible, Dandolo assumed the rôle of friendship and proposed to forgive the remainder of their obligation upon condition of first receiving their help as soldiers in an expedition against Zara, which he had in contemplation. The city of Zara was Christian, the capital of Dalmatia, a province of Hungary, and just across the Adriatic from Venice. It was rapidly rising into the position of a competitor for the commerce of those waters, and thus excited the greed of the doge.
But a richer prize than Zara was before the ambition of the Venetian ruler. From the beginning of his negotiations with the crusaders he doubtless contemplated the diversion of these forces, though collected in the name of religion, to the conquest of the Greek empire. Documents that have recently come to light make it clear that Dandolo had no purpose of assisting in war against Egypt and Palestine, but, in collusion with Boniface and Philip of Swabia, planned and executed one of the most marvellous schemes of perfidy that history portrays.
As the basis of this severe judgment we must be content to give the dates of certain events.
February 1, 1201, commissioners of the crusaders arrive in Venice, asking Dandolo’s assistance with the fleet.
Autumn, 1201, Dandolo sends agents to Malek-Ahdel, of Egypt, proposing a settled peace with him.
May 13, 1202, Dandolo concludes secret treaty with Malek-Ahdel, in accordance with which the Venetians are to have favored quarters in Alexandria for trade, and all pilgrims to Jerusalem who come under Venetian patronage are to be forwarded with safety.
June 24, 1202, crusaders arrive in Venice, and Dandolo refuses to provide them ships.
July, 1202, treaty between Dandolo and Malek-Ahdel formally ratified.
With these layers of the foundation we may understand the superstructure of after events. The proposal to attack Zara thus appears as the first movement in realizing the plot to divert the Christian forces from Egypt. Vainly did the noblest of the crusaders protest against this sacrilegious use of arms which had been consecrated only to the service of the cross. In vain did Pope Innocent denounce it with his divine authority. Dandolo relentlessly pursued his advantage, and with such consummate tact that the cardinal legate of the Pope, Peter Capuano, expressed himself convinced that it would be less of a sin to take part in the capture of Zara, and then pursue the original object of the crusade, than to return home having done nothing. Dandolo completed the delusion he was practising upon the people by allowing himself to be led up the pulpit of St. Mark’s (August 25th), where he thus addressed the Venetians: “I am old and infirm; as you see, I have need of rest; yet I know of no one more capable of taking command of your undertaking than myself. If you desire it, I will myself take the cross and go with you and the pilgrims for life and death.” The assembly cried, “Come with us for God’s sake!” Dandolo was then led to the altar, and, while his agents were signing the compact with the Infidel, knelt amid the tears and huzzas of his people to have the cross fastened upon his ducal bonnet. The papal legate indeed protested against any one posing as the head of the armies summoned by the Pope who did not acknowledge the pontiff’s leadership through his representative, but Dandolo read him a lesson on the duty of ecclesiastics to content themselves with preaching the gospel and setting a godly example to the flock.
Villehardouin narrates at this point “a great wonder, an unhoped-for circumstance, the strangest that ever was heard of.” This event was the arrival in Venice of the ambassadors of young Alexius, asking in the name of justice and humanity the aid of the Venetians in the liberation of his father and the restoration of his own princely rights at Constantinople. It is evident that Villehardouin’s surprise was not shared by either Dandolo or Boniface of Montferrat.
October 8th the fleet sailed from the lagoons. It consisted of four hundred and eighty ships. It was a gala-day: palaces and storehouses were covered with brilliant banners and streamers; the guilds rivalled one another in the gorgeousness of their flags, floats, and various insignia. The ships were arrayed in responsive glory as one by one they glided out to sea. About the bulwarks of each vessel were hung the polished shields of the knights it carried. The doge’s galley was vermilion-hued, the color of royalty. The sound of silver trumpets echoed the lapping of the waves as the fleet moved out upon the Adriatic, while the ancient hymn, “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” was chanted by priests and monks from the crosstrees of the ships.
Pausing at Trieste, the fleet on November 11th entered and captured the harbor of Zara. The citizens at first proposed to surrender if their lives should be spared; but later, learning of the Pope’s mandate forbidding the crusaders to attack their fellow-Christians, and assuming that it would suffice for their protection, they withdrew the offer. Dandolo ordered an assault. Many of the crusaders refused to obey his order. At a council in the tent of the doge, the Abbot of Vaux exclaimed, “I forbid you, in the name of the Pope, to attack this city. It is a city of Christian men, and you are soldiers of the cross.” This bold speech nearly cost him his life. Dandolo braved the threat of excommunication and assailed the walls. In five days (November 24, 1202) Zara fell. The people were pillaged, many were banished, some beheaded, and others mercifully allowed to flee, leaving their houses and goods to the captors. Dandolo proposed to divide the city as common spoil and to enjoy its comforts for the winter. His purpose was too evident; it was to take time to effectually establish the Venetian control on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.
The crusaders were made aware that they had been used as cat’s-paws for the doge’s chestnuts. To disappointment succeeded remorse. They began to meditate upon the papal excommunication they had so foolishly provoked. The Venetians, meanwhile, managed to get the larger part of the spoil, and the soldiers were often suffering while their allies were feasting. This led to continual fighting in the streets, where more fell than had been slain during the siege. The more valiant longed for service against the Infidel, not against Christians; the commoner souls longed for home. Desertions took place in bands of hundreds and even thousands. The French leaders humbly petitioned the Pope’s forgiveness. It was granted on condition of their setting out for Syria, “without turning to the right or left.” The Holy Father pledged them his care if they immediately obeyed, and promised, “In order that you may not want for provisions, we will write to the Emperor of Constantinople to furnish them; if that be refused it will not be unjust if, after the example of many holy persons, you take provisions wherever you may find them.” This permission to pillage the Pope extenuates by adding, “Provided it be with the fear of God, without doing harm to any person, and with a resolution to make restitution.” At the same time he argues for the righteousness of taking other’s goods without their permission: “For it will be known that you are devoted to the cause of Christ, to whom all the world belongs.”
This papal intervention jeopardized the schemes of the Venetians; but, very opportunely for those opposed to the Pope’s counsel, there arrived at Zara ambassadors from Philip of Swabia, the brother-in-law of young Alexius. In their address they said: “We do not come for the purpose of turning you aside from your holy enterprise, but to offer you an easy and sure means of accomplishing your noble designs.... We propose to you to turn your victorious arms towards the capital of Greece, which groans under the rod of a usurper, and to assure yourselves forever of the conquest of Jerusalem by that of Constantinople.... We will not tell you how easy a matter it would be to wrest the empire from the hands of a tyrant hated by his subjects; nor will we spread before your eyes the riches of Byzantium and Greece.... If you overturn the power of the usurper in order that the legitimate sovereign may reign, the son of Isaac [young Alexius] promises, under the faith of oaths the most inviolable, to maintain during a year both your fleet and your army, and to pay you two hundred thousand silver marks towards the expenses of the holy war. He will accompany you in person in the conquest of Syria or Egypt, and will furnish ten thousand men, and maintain during his whole life five hundred knights in the Holy Land.” Then followed a clause which was supposed to catch the consciences of the most pious: “Alexius is willing to swear on the holy Gospels that he will put an end to the heresy which now defiles the Empire of the East, and will subject the Greek Church to the Church of Rome.”
The proposal did not carry to all conviction of its wisdom and justice. The Franks had reason to suspect the good faith of the Greeks. Blind Isaac, whom they were called upon to restore to his throne, had been himself a usurper, as unjust to his predecessor as his successor had been to him, and, moreover, had done everything in his power to defeat the previous crusades. But the Venetian influence prevailed.
The Venetians and crusaders left Zara in ruins, its palaces and walls razed to the ground. They sailed for Corfu. Dandolo and Boniface waited five days until they were joined by young Alexius. These chiefs paused at Durazzo, where the inhabitants were led to recognize Alexius as the lawful heir to the sovereignty, and on May 4, 1203, they joined the army before Corfu.
Here there was developed great dissatisfaction among the soldiers as the full meaning of the diversion of the crusade burst upon them. More than half the army rose in rebellion; they held their parliament of protest; the leaders were gathered in a secluded valley preparatory to desertion. It seemed for the moment that conscience and piety, fanned by resentment, would triumph over chicanery and deceit; but Dandolo and Boniface were equal to the situation. They threw themselves at the feet of the malcontents, shed abundance of tears, and so wrought upon the sympathies of the multitude that they effected a compromise, by which it was agreed that the army should hold together until Michaelmas and serve Alexius’s project, and after that should be carried to Syria.
Dandolo realized that there was no security for his schemes with such a host, except by their quick accomplishment. May 23d the harbor of Corfu witnessed a repetition of the gala-scene when the fleet left Venice. Far as the eye could reach the sea was colored with the sails of the invaders of a Christian empire in the name of Christ. The inhabitants of the islands touched by the voyagers, impressed with the martial might thus displayed, threw off their allegiance to the reigning Alexius and waved their banners for Alexius the Young. The natural beauties of the Ægean, the riches of the islands, the acquiescence of the people, and the abundant gifts from fields and vineyards that loaded the vessels filled all hearts with enthusiasm. By the shores of ancient Troy, up through the Dardanelles, where they lingered a week to ravage the harvest, and then over the wide Marmora they sped onward as if the very breezes articulated benedictions from Heaven. If conscience intruded, its mutterings were silenced with the thought, “After this, after Constantinople, when we shall have been sated with the spoil of the heretic, then for Jerusalem!” This mingled greed and piety burst into huzzas as they sailed by the beautiful villas which lined the western shores of the Marmora or watched the steadily enlarging roofs and gardens of Chalcedon and Scutari on the Asiatic side, until the domes and palaces of Constantinople, in multitude and massiveness beyond anything seen elsewhere in Europe, seemed to rise and welcome them.
But the mighty walls, which appeared to have been erected by Titans and rivalled the hills upon which the city sat, awakened a corresponding fear lest the glory they witnessed should prove beyond their possession. “Be sure,” says Villehardouin, “there was not a man who did not tremble, because never was so great an enterprise undertaken by so small a number of men.”
June 23d the fleet came to anchor off the Abbey of San Stefano, twelve miles below the city. Dandolo determined upon a reconnaissance in force which should also strike terror into the Greeks by its magnificent display. All the standards were spread to the breeze. The sides of the ships were sheathed in glowing shields. The warriors of the West stood on the deck, each one, says Nicetas, the Greek eye-witness, “as tall as his spear.” Thus they glided close under the walls of the city, upon which the inhabitants crowded to witness this picturesque prediction of their doom.
Having made a sufficiently valiant show, the fleet crossed the Bosporus and anchored in the harbor of Chalcedon. Here the army captured the harvests just gathered from the neighboring country, and pillaged Chalcedon, while the leaders occupied the palaces and gardens, upon which the emperor had just expended great wealth in making them the abode of his pleasure. The reigning Alexius deigned to send to his unwelcome guests a body of troopers, who were driven off with severe chastisement for their temerity. He then addressed them through Nicholas Roux, a Lombard retainer: “The emperor knows that you are the most puissant and noble of all those who do not wear the crown; but he is astonished at your invasion of a Christian state. It is said that you have come to deliver the Holy Land from the Infidel. The emperor applauds your zeal and begs to assist you. If you are needy he will provision your army if you will be gone. Do not think this generous offer prompted by any fear; with one word the emperor could gather about him innumerable hosts, disperse your fleet and armies, and forever close against you the routes to the East.”
Conan de Bethune made response for the Latins: “Go tell your master that the earth we tread upon does not belong to him, but is the heritage of the prince you see seated among us,” pointing to young Alexius. “A usurper is the enemy of all princes; a tyrant is the foe of mankind. Your master can escape the justice of God and men only by restoring his brother and nephew to the throne.”
Dandolo then tried the spirit of the people of Constantinople. A splendid galley bearing young Alexius moved close along the walls of the city. Boniface and the doge supported the prince on their arms, while a herald proclaimed, “Behold the heir of your throne!” This met with no response save the derisive shout, “Who is this Alexius?” But the defiance hurled by the Greeks from the safety of their walls was not the voice of universal courage. Nicetas tells us that “the Greek commanders were more timid than deer, and did not dare to resist men whom they called ‘exterminating angels, statues of bronze, which spread around terror and death.’”
The next day at Scutari the leaders, according to their custom, held council of war in the saddle in the presence of their waiting troops. An instant assault was determined upon. After due religious solemnities they embarked. The war-horses, heavily caparisoned for battle, with their knights in armor at their sides, were put upon huissiers, or flat-bottomed boats constructed with wide gangways across which a number could quickly dash from ship to shore. The rank and file were packed into larger vessels. The fighting galleys were trimmed for action, and each took in tow a huissier. Much depended upon the celerity of the crossing and the surprise of the Greeks, since the swift current of the Bosporus might quickly ingulf them in the terrible Greek fire if the combustible material should be spread upon the water. At sound of trumpet the Venetian rowers sprang to the oars; the narrow Bosporus suddenly foamed with the impact of hundreds of prows. No order was observed, except that the crossbowmen and archers led the van to drive the enemy from the landing-places. The ships struck the shore probably near the modern Tophana, north of the Golden Horn. The Greek soldiers could not withstand the showers of arrows that swept the open places, and precipitately fled. The knights leaped their horses into the water and prevented the enemy’s return to attack. Within an hour the open camp of the Greeks was in possession of the Latins. The harbor of the Golden Horn had been closed with a chain, behind which the Greek fleet lay in apparent immunity from attack by the Venetian galleys. The northern end of this chain was fastened within the strong tower of Galata. That fortress was quickly carried and the chain released, but not until the Venetian ship, the Eagle, with its tremendous ram armed with enormous shears of steel, had already severed it midway. The Latin galleys swept in, sinking or capturing the entire Greek fleet.
The marine defence of Constantinople, which might with ordinary foresight have been made resistless, was inconsiderable. The demoralization of the Greek service was pitiable. Admirals had sold the very sails for their own private gain. Useless masts had not been replaced, though the near forests abounded in timber; for the trees, as Nicetas tells us, were guarded by the eunuchs like groves of worship, but really as hunting-preserves for the pleasure of the court.
The victory of the Latin fleet left Galata their easy prey, and gave them a near basis from which to conduct operations against the city across the Golden Horn.