For a moment the crusaders faltered. Then Aleaumes came forward and prepared to enter. Robert panicked—he was faced with the prospect of his brother committing himself to the most incredible danger and almost certain death. As a churchman, Aleaumes obviously had complete faith in divine protection - a faith that, in spite of canon law prohibiting clerics from using violence, he buttressed with a sword. Robert pleaded that he should not go forward, but Aleaumes shrugged him aside and crouched down to struggle through the hole. Robert’s description indicates that it must have been like squeezing through a small fireplace. As Aleaumes started to inch forwards, his brother grabbed his feet in desperation and tried to pull him back, but the cleric kicked him away. He squeezed on forwards, pushing past the grainy grasp of the dry stone. Once he was through, the Greeks started towards him and a rain of stones descended from the walls above, although none hit their target. Aleaumes drew his sword and rushed at the enemy, who were so shocked by his aggression that they turned and were said to have ‘fled before him like cattle’. The bravery and belief of a single man created the crucial breakthrough. Aleaumes called to his friends: ‘Lords, enter hardily! I see them drawing back dismayed and beginning to run away.’When Peter of Amiens and Robert heard this they followed quickly in, accompanied by the other knights and sergeants in their contingent. Now seventy crusaders were in the city: not a massive force, but sufficient to break the morale of those Greeks nearby.
The defenders started to flee, but Murtzuphlus himself was close enough to see the danger and spurred his charger towards the crusaders. Peter of Amiens rallied his men: ‘Now lords, now to acquit yourselves well! We shall have battle - here is the emperor coming. See to it that no one dares to give way, but think only to acquit yourselves Well.’
26
When he saw the determination of the westerners, Murtzuphlus hesitated, then halted and turned back to his tents. He had lacked the support to engage the enemy and, as word of their presence in the city spread, resistance began to haemorrhage. With the immediate danger gone, Peter ordered a group of men to break down the nearest gate from the inside and, using axes and swords, the crusaders fractured the great iron bolts and bars that held the entrance shut. They threw open the doors and the horse-transports glided up to the shore and disgorged their cargo.
Peter of Amiens’s prominence was acknowledged by Niketas Choniates who described the knight in typically florid language:
He was deemed the most capable of driving in rout all the battalions, for he was nearly nine fathoms tall [a classical allusion taken from the
Odyssey
] and wore on his head a helmet fashioned in the shape of a towered city. The noblemen about the emperor and the rest of the troops were unable to gaze upon the front of the helm of a single knight so terrible in form and spectacular in size and took to their customary flight as the efficacious medicine of salvation.
27
Regardless of Niketas’s style, we can appreciate that Peter’s martial qualities terrified the Byzantines and it was the breakthrough made by his men that really precipitated the Greek collapse. More transport ships drew up to land their horses, additional gates were broken down and the mounted knights poured into—and rapidly spread through—the city.
The horsemen headed for Murtzuphlus’s camp on the Pantepoptes monastery hill. The emperor’s own men were drawn up to face the crusader charge, but once they caught sight of the western warriors pounding towards them they panicked and scattered. Niketas Choniates was furious at their spinelessness: ‘Thus, by uniting and fusing into one craven soul, the cowardly thousands who had the advantage of a high hill, were chased by one man [Peter of Amiens] from the fortifications that they were meant to defend.’
28
Murtzuphlus had little option but to escape himself and he abandoned his tents and his treasure to head back into the heart of the capital and the castle of the Bucoleon palace. Meanwhile, Peter took control of the emperor’s former headquarters and immediately secured the treasures stored there. All around them the Greeks were fleeing. The sight of the crusaders streaming into the city, and the flight of their emperor, put the Byzantines into headlong retreat; as Robert of Clari observed concisely: ‘thus the city was taken’.
29
Many Greeks rushed to the Golden Gate on the far side of the city and, tearing down the stonework that blocked the exit, they ran out ’deservedly taking the road to perdition’, as Niketas Choniates angrily related.
30
As the crusaders swept into Constantinople, the next stage of the battle began. The frustration of the months spent waiting across the Golden Horn, coupled with the perceived treachery of the Byzantines, unleashed a terrible wave of violence. Villehardouin wrote: ‘There followed a scene of massacre and pillage: on every hand the Greeks were cut down ... So great was the number of killed and wounded no man could count them.’
31
Valuable horses, palfreys and mules were seized as booty and as replacements for the thousands of animals lost during the campaign to date. Baldwin of Flanders described the crusaders as being ‘occupied with killing’ and sending ‘many Greeks’ to their deaths.
32
The
Devastatio Constantivopolitana
wrote of ‘a tremendous slaughter of Greeks’.
33
These three eye-witnesses provide indubitable testimony of just how brutal this phase of the campaign was.
Gunther of Pairis imagined Christ leading the holy warriors to victory and his text lauded their achievement and portrayed it as a manifestation of divine will. He also added an unrealistic call for mercy, something that the other eye-witness sources suggest was not a priority at the time:
You [the crusaders] fight Christ’s battles. You execute Christ’s
vengeance,
By Christ’s judgement. His will precedes your onslaught.
Break in! Rout menaces; crush cowards; press on more bravely;
Shout in thundering voice; brandish iron, but spare the blood.
Instill terror, yet remember they are brothers
Whom you overwhelm, who by their guilt have merited it for
some time.
Christ wished to enrich you with the wrongdoers’ spoils,
Lest some other conquering people despoil them.
Behold, homes lie open, filled with enemy riches,
And an ancient hoard will have new masters.
34
Many Byzantine nobles fled to the safety of the Blachernae palace and then out and away though its gates. After their exertions throughout the day, the crusaders decided not to pursue them further. The leaders were worried that their men might become diffused across the sprawling metropolis and they feared either a Greek counter-attack or the use of fire to separate off one part of the army from the other. Given the massive size of Constantinople, they could not hope to take over the entire city in one afternoon and needed to consolidate their gains. The bulk of the western forces crossed the Golden Horn and camped outside the gates and battlements that faced the water. Baldwin of Flanders took over the magnificent imperial tent (a significant portent, given future events) and his brother Henry set up his troops in front of the Blachernae palace. Marquis Boniface and his men based themselves just to the south-east of Baldwin in one of the more densely populated regions of the city.
Only one leading crusader failed to take part in the siege. Count Louis of Blois had been afflicted with a debilitating fever since the winter and he was so weak that he could not fight. Determined not to miss the action, however, he had ordered himself to be carried onto one of the transport ships from where he could at least view the deeds of his friends and comrades.
35
Exhausted and elated, the crusaders settled down to try to rest and recover some strength. It must have been at the front of their minds that in July 1203 the Venetians had gained a foothold around the same district, only to be driven out by a fierce Byzantine counter-offensive. On that occasion, the crusader forces had been divided between a contingent outside the land walls and a group within the city; on 12 April 1204 they had a much firmer hold in Constantinople and their armies were all in the same general area.
The senior nobles resolved that early the following morning they would move the bulk of their troops to an open region further to the south-east and there they would face the Greeks. The crusaders knew that a slow campaign fighting their way through the streets of Constantinople would likely favour the inhabitants. They were therefore determined that if a battle was to be fought, they should fight it on their own terms. A large, relatively flat area would enable the westerners to use their heavy cavalry to best advantage and, given the Byzantines’ profound reluctance to engage with the knights in July 1203, this tactic offered the best hope of a swift resolution to the conflict. Well aware that Murtzuphlus might choose neither to fight nor surrender, the crusade leaders agreed that if the wind was behind them, they would deliberately start a fire and try to compel the Greeks to yield by that means. It was possible, of course, that the wind might change direction, in which case the crusaders could face the prospect of being driven out by fire themselves.
In fact, during the night a blaze did break out in the area near Boniface of Montferrat’s troops. Villehardouin relates that some unknown men were so worried by a Greek onslaught that they ignited buildings lying between the two sides. Gunther of Pairis names a German count, possibly Berthold of Katzenellenbogen, as the responsible party.
36
This latest conflagration, the third since the crusaders had arrived, spread from near the monastery of Evergetes down towards the Droungarios Gate on the edge of the Bosphorus. Once again the westerners brought destruction to the Queen of Cities, although this was only a prelude to the final act of horror with the sack itself. The new fire lasted all night and through the next day before dying down the following evening. Compared with its predecessors this fire caused the least damage.
37
For Murtzuphlus the day that had begun with such confidence had now ended in hopeless disaster. The abject collapse of his troops meant that his personal bravery and desperate attempts to motivate his people by threats, offers of reward and simple dedication to their cause were in vain. Like Alexius III, nine months earlier, he concluded that the lack of fortitude shown by his compatriots, together with the strength of his opponents, meant that he could not defeat them. Given his manifest antipathy towards the crusaders, his complicity in Alexius IV’s murder and the horrendous execution of the three Venetian knights on the city walls, Murtzuphlus had no wish to be caught. Concerned that he might be handed over to the westerners if the city hierarchy decided to surrender, he resolved to leave.
Near midnight he stole through Constantinople, keeping well clear of the western troops and making his way to the Bucoleon palace. He commandeered a small fishing boat and put on it Empress Euphrosyne, the wife of Alexius III, along with her daughters (one of whom, Eudocia, he was said to be infatuated with). Then, under the cover of night, Murtzuphlus slipped shamefully away across the Bosphorus.
Against this backdrop of high politics, the ordinary inhabitants had three stark choices: they could gather everything they could carry and flee into exile like their emperor; they could try to resist the crusaders at the risk of death and even greater destruction to their beloved city; or they could simply surrender. In the last two cases, there remained the need to safeguard their personal possessions and Niketas tells us that many resorted to burying their valuables.
38
As the news of Murtzuphlus’s flight spread, the remaining clergy, administrators and nobles gathered in the early hours of 13 April to consider their next move. So stubborn was their belief in the strength of their city and so great their fear and loathing of the westerners that they decided to choose a new emperor and to continue the struggle. Two men stepped forward to claim, as Niketas expressed it, ‘the captaincy of a tempest-tossed ship’. The candidates were both skilled warriors: Constantine Lascaris and Constantine Ducas. Both men were regarded as possessing equal abilities and so, given the impossibility of holding a full and formal debate on their merits, they drew lots for the prize.
Lascaris was the winner, although, because of the circumstances of his election, he refused to wear the imperial insignia. He urged the populace to resist the westerners and bluntly told the Varangian Guard that if the crusaders triumphed, they would no longer receive the substantial wages or generous treatment to which they were accustomed. The hierarchy of Constantinople was prepared to fight, but similar determination was lacking elsewhere. Nobody among the public at large responded to Lascaris’s exhortations, while the Varangians took advantage of the undeniable need for their services to negotiate a pay rise. When, early in the morning of 13 April, they saw the crusaders gathering themselves, even the inducement of increased remuneration was not enough to convince them to fight and many of the Guard quickly dispersed.
39
For all his resolve the previous night, like Alexius III and Murtzuphlus, Lascaris concluded that nothing could save Constantinople and he became the third emperor to flee within 10 months.
As they had planned, the western forces formed up into their divisions, expecting to fight. Yet no one was there to face them. At first the crusaders were unaware of Murtzuphlus’s escape, but very soon it became apparent that there was no opposition anywhere in the city. The news of the emperor’s flight quickly emerged and it became clear that Constantinople was at the mercy of the westerners. Those who had held out longest despaired at the fickleness of their leaders and decided that surrender was the only sensible course. Dressed in their ecclesiastical finery, and bearing beautiful crosses and precious icons of Christ, the religious hierarchy came to the crusaders in the belief that showing them sufficient honour would prevent their city from being savaged. They were accompanied by some of the Varangians who presumably hoped to transfer their allegiance yet again, or else, as foreigners, to be spared possible reprisals against the Orthodox population.