CHAPTER NINE
‘Never, in any city, have so many been besieged by so few’
The First Siege of Constantinople, July 1203
T
HERE REMAINED TWO ways in which conflict could be averted. First, the crusaders might be persuaded to leave; second, with or without Emperor Alexius III’s agreement, the Greeks could open their gates to the prince and allow him to reassume control of the city. The emperor was the first to move. On 1 July, a crusader raiding party had routed a large force of Greek knights about nine miles to the east of the invaders’ camp. They had captured many valuable war-horses and mules and the Byzantines had fled in terror at the enemy charge. The menace of the western forces was made plain, as was the damage to Greek morale. Perhaps it was time for the emperor to engage in diplomacy. The following day. Alexius III dispatched a Lombard, Nicolo Rosso, to hear at first hand why the crusaders had come to Byzantium and to ask them to justify their actions. Doubtless he was also told to gather as much information as possible about the crusader forces - a usual part of a diplomatic envoy’s function. Nicolo duly delivered the emperor’s message to the leader of the expedition, Marquis Boniface. Some feared the effect of this approach, and Hugh of Saint-Pol reflected the age-old suspicion of Greek duplicity: ‘we did not want the Greeks to solicit or soften us with their gifts’.
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Once he was certain that Nicolo’s credentials were in order, Boniface invited him to address the nobles. The envoy posed the obvious question: why, as crusaders sworn to deliver the Holy Land and the Holy Sepulchre, were they threatening Constantinople? As Alexius must have known for months, they were short of food and money and, if this was all they needed, then Nicolo was pleased to assure them that the emperor would provide as much as possible if they would leave.
Beneath this veneer of diplomatic politesse, however, lay a threat: ‘If you refuse to leave, he [Emperor Alexius III] would be reluctant to do you harm, yet it is in his power to do so. For were you twenty times as many as you are, you would not, supposing he chose to harm you, be able to leave this country without losing many of your men and suffering defeat.’
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These words indicate imperial confidence in the sheer weight of numbers in the Byzantine capital, although, as events of the previous day had shown, their military effectiveness was not entirely assured.
The crusaders chose Conon of Béthune to present their reply. Conon was a senior figure amongst the nobles present and he was known for his skill as a writer of
chansons de geste
and as an eloquent public speaker. Conon elegantly turned Nicolo’s question back against him: ‘My good sir, you have told us that your lord wonders very much why our lord and nobles have entered his dominions. Our answer is that we have not entered his dominions, since he has wrongfully taken possession of this land, in defiance of God, and of right of justice. It belongs to his nephew, seated here on a throne amongst us: Conon thus presented the crusaders’ justification for their actions - to redress the wrong committed by Emperor Alexius III against his brother, Isaac Angelos, and his nephew, Prince Alexius. Like the Byzantine envoy, Conon ended his speech with a threat: if the emperor were to agree to submit to the prince, they would give him sufficient money to live in luxury, ‘but unless you return to give us such a message, pray do not venture here again’.
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The crusaders’ position was, on the surface, therefore, similarly uncompromising. In reality, however, they too wished to avert a war; aside from simple self-preservation, it would avoid the loss of valuable men and resources as they tried to keep alive their ultimate aim of a successful campaign in the Holy Land.
The doge conceived of one last strategem to avoid a fight: he planned to parade Prince Alexius to the people of Constantinople in the hope that popular acclaim would see the usurper dethroned and his nephew welcomed back into the city. The nobles approved the idea.
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A letter written by them in the late summer of 1203 and circulated widely in western Europe makes it clear that the crusaders firmly believed that there was a groundswell of popular support for the young prince amongst the people of Constantinople: ‘persuaded by believable rumours and arguments that the stronger city faction (and the bulk of the Empire) longed for the arrival at the royal [imperial] court of ... [Prince] Alexius ...’, they had proceeded to Byzantium.
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Such rumours were evidently a basic reason why the crusaders struck the deal with the prince in the first place. Already, however, there were disquieting signs that this support was, to say the least, hard to find. Hugh of Saint-Pol’s letter to the West mentioned that when the crusaders first arrived at Constantinople, they were ‘stunned [indeed] very much astonished that none of the friends or family of the young man who was with us, or any messengers of theirs, came to him who might tell him about the situation in the city’.
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Perhaps, they felt, the prince needed to make a more public display of his presence.
The doge and Marquis Boniface, together with Prince Alexius, boarded an armed galley with the other nobles following in nine further ships. Under the flag of truce, the young prince and his companions rowed close to the walls of Constantinople and the crusaders called out: ‘Here is your natural lord: They asserted that Emperor Alexius III had no right to the imperial throne because of his blinding of Isaac and his wrongful seizure of power. They urged the populace to do right and support the prince, although again they added a threat: ’if you hold back, we will do to you the very worst we can’.
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Robert of Clari claimed that no one knew who the prince was or, indeed, anything about him.
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Perhaps there was resentment at the crusaders’ coercive approach, or, as Villehardouin argued, fear of reprisals from Alexius III: ‘not a single man of that land or in the city dared show himself on the young prince’s side’.
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The overt links between Prince Alexius and an outside party comprising French crusaders and Venetians, neither of whom had a happy record of relations with Constantinople, was another likely explanation for the cool reception. Emperor Alexius III had exploited this with a propaganda offensive. The crusaders wrote that he had ‘infected both the aristocrats and the plebs with venomous harangues to the effect that ... they [the westerners] had come to destroy their ancient liberty, and they were hastening to return the place and its people to the [papacy] and to subjugate the empire ... Certainly this story moved and, in equal measure, mobilised everyone against us.’
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Furthermore, by this point Alexius III had ruled Byzantium for eight years. Prince Alexius, on the other hand, had no experience of government and had been away from the city for several years.
To the crusade leaders—and, indeed, to the prince himself - the complete absence of explicit support must have been devastating. One imagines the short voyage back across from Constantinople to the camp at Scutari as a sombre, silent affair. Without a shadow of doubt the crusaders now knew that they had placed far too much faith in the young man’s assurances and, more pertinently, that they needed to fight to secure the supplies that he had promised. Plainly, the hostility shown to Prince Alexius by the people of Corfu had been an accurate portent of the reception that awaited him at Constantinople.
On 4 July 1203, the expedition’s leaders attended mass, determined to fortify themselves and to secure spiritual guidance. There was little option but to go to war and the nobles began to draw up a battle plan. They broke the army into seven divisions, led by Count Baldwin of Flanders. He was given the prime role of taking forward the advanced guard, because he had the biggest contingent of experienced men (notwithstanding the loss of the Flemings who sailed to the Holy Land via Marseille) and the greatest number of archers and crossbowmen. The latter forces would be crucial in gaining a bridgehead when the crusading army came ashore, because their firepower could fend off the Greeks and allow time for the bulk of the attacking knights to disembark safely. The second division was led by Baldwin’s brother, Henry, and also consisted of Flemish nobles and their men. Hugh of Saint-Pol led the third group and with him was Peter of Amiens, in whose company fought the chronicler Robert of Clari. Count Louis of Blois led the fourth division; Matthew of Montmorency, Geoffrey of Villehardouin and the knights of Champagne formed the fifth; Odo of Champlitte commanded the Burgundians in the sixth; and, finally, there was the rearguard of Lombards, Tuscans, Germans and Provençals, all under the leadership of Boniface of Montferrat. The Venetians were to look after the fleet. These detailed arrangements make clear the importance of preserving different regional identities in forming an order of battle. For reasons of discipline and familiarity, it was essential to keep these groups intact if possible; sometimes this might cause rivalry between particular contingents, but in the heat of conflict every possible precaution to preserve cohesion had to be a priority.
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The conflict was set for the following day; the crusaders were to sail across the Bosphorus and open their campaign to take Constantinople.
Villehardouin expressed the situation concisely: ‘the troops were to embark upon their ships and go forward to take the land by force and either live or die. It was, I assure you, one of the most formidable enterprises ever to be undertaken.’
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For all the crusaders, whether a great noble or a lowly foot-soldier, the night Of 4 July was one of reflection and anticipation. Robert of Clari related how all the men were ‘very fearful of landing’.
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For some veterans of the Third Crusade, the prospect of a great battle would have been familiar, but for many others a military engagement on this scale would have been a new and terrifying ordeal. As a crusade, spiritual issues had to be addressed because no one knew whether they would live to see the following evening; it was essential for everyone to give a full confession of their sins and to make a testament. Bishops and clergy exhorted everyone to cleanse their souls before the battle; they preached to the troops and then moved through the camp, listening to the crusaders make their peace with the Lord, administering communion and asking for His protection.
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As Hugh of Saint-Pol wrote, ‘yet we trusted in God’s help and might’.
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This was also the time to make final organisational and logistical preparations. Weapons and equipment were polished, sharpened and fettled one last time; horses were girded for their knights; and ammunition was gathered.
The crusaders planned to take Constantinople in two stages. They shied away from a direct assault on the walls and instead proposed to take the suburb of Galata that lay over the Golden Horn to the north of the main city. A great chain hung across the water, protecting the Byzantine fleet in the Golden Horn and guarding that side of the metropolis. The crusaders’ first priority was to break the chain and to expose this flank of Constantinople. Because of their inferior numbers they had to exploit the one area in which they did hold a clear advantage - the sea. If they had access to the inlet it would allow them to use their land and sea forces together, which probably gave them their best chance of success.
The morning of 5 July dawned fine and clear. The crusaders prepared for the largest amphibious invasion yet attempted in medieval Europe. On board the horse-transports the crusader knights saddled their war-horses and dressed their steeds in brightly coloured caparisons. A hundred silver trumpets sounded the attack, the drums and tabors were beaten and with a tidal wave of noise the siege of Constantinople began. To try to ensure a safe passage each galley pulled a transport ship the short distance across the Bosphorus. This would guard against the vagaries of wind and current and, keeping the fleet together, would maximise the impact of the invasion force. Opposing them, Emperor Alexius had drawn up his army in full battle order.
Hugh of Saint-Pol wrote of more than 200 ships, transports and galleys in the crusader fleet.
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To land a force of this size in the face of sizable enemy forces was an incredibly bold move, requiring complex co-ordination, good fortune with the weather and the right balance of warriors. William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in 1066 was on a substantial scale, yet his landing at Pevensey was, fortunately for him, unopposed. Many sieges in the course of the crusades - such as the capture of Tyre in 1124—had involved combined attacks (rather than landings) by land and sea forces. The westerners sought to make use of this experience, although the forced landing planned for Constantinople was somewhat different from a conventional siege.
The crusaders were faced with a mass of armed Byzantines lining the shores of the Bosphorus. Robert of Clari reported that the doge himself took charge of this seaborne part of the operation and led the host across. Archers and crossbowmen were put at the front of the ships in the hope that they might drive the Greeks away.
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As the horse-transports reached the shore, the doors opened, a bridge was thrust out and, fully armed, knights already mounted on their chargers splashed ashore - a truly terrifying sight.
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Archers, foot-soldiers and crossbowmen jumped down as soon as their vessels came to anchor. The first knights drew up in formation and lowered their lances to charge, but the Greeks, seeing that the crusaders’ most fearsome tactic was about to be unleashed upon them, simply turned and ran. As Hugh of Saint-Pol wrote: ‘all the Greeks, who had assembled for the purpose of preventing our crossing, by the grace of God, withdrew to such a distance, that we could barely reach them even with a shot arrow’.
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