The Great Betrayal (9 page)

The Crusaders themselves were prepared for a fierce opposition and had boarded the ships, armed and ready. Their helmets were laced, their war-horses were saddled and caparisoned. In that period, the ‘destriers’, or war-horses of the knights, were covered with a lengthy trapping of taffeta, blazoned with the arms of the knight and reaching almost to the horse’s hooves. The knights themselves wore suits of chain-mail, a type of defensive armour which had been evolved during the Crusades, and which derived from the interlaced chain-mail that the early Crusaders had found in use among their Moslem foes. Articulated pieces of plate-mail covered their knees, while the rest of their legs were protected with chain-mail which laced at the back. The arms and upper part of the body were covered by a jacket of mail, also lacing at the back, and reaching half-way down the thighs. Incorporated in this jacket was a mailed cap which laced up either at the back, or on the left side of the head. Over the mail coat it was customary to wear a surcoat or jupon—a loose-flowing linen garment, usually white to deflect the heat of the sun. On it was displayed the owner’s blazon, or often in the case of Crusaders simply embroidered with the Cross. The object of the surcoat was to distinguish one individual from another in the heat of battle.

Suspended from a baldric (a sword-belt hung from one shoulder to the opposite hip) was the sheath and sword. The latter was of the straight-edged European type (as opposed to the curved scimitar of the East) and was usually sharpened on both sides of its length—double-edged—although some single-edged swords were still in use. This was basically a cutting sword, although the point could be used for thrusting, but a great many of the swords of this period were too heavy to be used in this manner. Some of them were of the two-handed type, requiring considerable physical strength to lift, and leaving the swordsman totally unprotected, except for his armour, once they were raised in the air. From the height of a horse, however, such heavy swords had their advantages, particularly when used against other knights on horseback, or against foot soldiers.

Beneath their chain-mail the Crusaders wore a padded garment, both to keep their skins from contact with the mail itself (which would be hot under an eastern sun) and to check the shock when they were struck by an opponent. “It is one of the mysteries in the history of armour,” wrote C. J. Ffoulkes, “how the Crusaders can have fought under the scorching sun of the East in thick quilted garments covered with excessively heavy chain-mail, for this equipment was so cumbersome to take on and off that it must have been worn frequently day and night, and the very nature of the fabric made it almost impossible to move the sword arm with more than a wide swinging cut…”
^[1]

Hot indeed it was, and there are several accounts of armoured men dropping dead from heart-attack or heat-exhaustion. Another drawback to chain-mail was that, in the action of raising a sword to cut at an opponent, the mail automatically collected into folds at the elbow joint. At the same time some effort was needed to raise the arm, because of the weight of the mail jerkin as it lifted from the waist upwards. Nevertheless, it had been found from the experience of several centuries that an armoured man possessed considerable advantage over an unarmoured opponent. One thing is certain, there was a distinct benefit to morale in belonging to an armoured body of troops, and the psychological effect of the sight of these steel-clad men glistening in the sun on their caparisoned horses could have a terrifying effect upon an unarmoured enemy. Apart from anything else, the armoured knight had his head protected, not only by his mail head-piece but usually by a helmet made of steel plate.

Since the eleventh century the Normans had made use of an efficient conical headpiece, with a nose-guard to protect the face against sword-cuts, while the design of the helmet was such that it presented a glancing surface to almost all angles of attack. At the time of the Fourth Crusade, however, the ‘barrel helm’ was fashionable. This was a headpiece which, except that it was comparatively easy to make, seems to have had little to recommend it. Completely enclosing the head, the barrel helm had a flat top (thus presenting the worst kind of surface to a blow). It was supported on the wearer’s head by a padded cap —with the result that, if the helm was struck a smart blow on the side, it was liable to swivel round. Once this had happened the wearer was unable to see through the eye-slits and was completely defenceless. But even the barrel helm was better than having no head armour at all. The Crusaders were not necessarily better soldiers than the Byzantine troops with whom they were soon to come in conflict—indeed, at the peak of its excellence, the Byzantine army had been the best in the world.

The Crusaders, however, had a higher morale and they had the best of modern European armour. Their opponents were only lightly armoured. Mobility had always been the secret of the success of the Byzantine infantry, while the weight behind their attacks had been provided by an armoured cavalry.

On the morning of July 5th, as the Crusaders neared the shore at Galata, “it was bright after the sun had risen, and the Emperor Alexius, with his army in great force drawn up in array, awaited them on the shore. The trumpets sounded. Each transport was attached to a galley by a tow-rope (to make the passage quicker). No one asked who should go first, for each made for the shore at its best possible speed. The knights leaped down from the transports, fully armed, with their helmets laced and their lances in hand. As soon as each vessel touched the ground, the well-trained sergeants, archers, and crossbowmen followed the knights…”

All Constantinople watched. “When the people of the city saw the great fleet and army, and heard the sound of the drums and trumpets, making a tremendous noise, all of them without exception armed themselves and stood on the roofs of their houses. It must have seemed to them as if the sea and the earth were shaking, and as if all the water was covered with ships. Meanwhile the emperor had come down with his armed forces to the shore to defend it…”

Now indeed was the moment when, if the Byzantines were to prevent the occupation of the northern shore of the Golden Horn, they must throw the enemy back into the sea. But the violence of the Crusaders’ landing appalled them. The speed with which the horses and men disembarked, and the spectacle of hundreds of ships discharging their troops with disciplined precision was too much for their debilitated morale. At the first shock of lances the Byzantines broke and fled. The field was left to the Crusaders, who were able to disembark the main body of the army at their leisure. These latter-day Byzantines had fallen into such a state of cowardice and indiscipline that they offered practically no resistance to the arrival of a hostile army at the gates of their city. Two centuries before, their ancestors under the great Emperor Basil the Bulgar-Slayer had been of different fibre. They had held all Asia Minor as far east as the Tigris; Southern Italy, most of Sicily, and North Africa as far west as Tripoli had been theirs, together with Egypt and all the Levant. But in the past hundred years a succession of weak emperors, corrupt administration, the eternal blood-drain caused by the Turkish onslaughts, and the decline of shipping and trade had sapped Byzantine strength and morale. As for the present Emperor, his people had as little faith in him as in his blinded predecessor. No doubt there were many among them who felt that, rather than oppose this large and disciplined army, they would do better to withdraw within the walls of their impregnable city. So many times had barbarians from all points of the compass come against it, and so many times had the aggressors withdraw, discouraged and defeated. Surely, they may have felt, the same would happen now with these rough Franks, Venetian pirates and Norman bandits.

“The sailors now started to open the sally-ports of the transports and let down the gangplanks for the horses. The knights mounted swiftly, while all the divisions started to draw up in their appointed order…” Despite all the dissensions in Venice, despite the bitter winter in Zara, and despite the recent differences in Corfu, the army was still a disciplined and efficient force. It is interesting evidence of the profession of men-at-arms at this period that a mixed army from several countries, led by barons and knights from France, Belgium, Germany and Italy, could still—even after a sea-passage—emerge as an organised unit ready for immediate battle. “And now Count Baldwin of Flanders, who commanded the vanguard, rode forward, followed by the other divisions in battle array, until they reached the place where the Emperor Alexius had been encamped.” The flight of the Greeks had been so precipitous that they had not even stopped to dismantle the Emperor’s pavilion, nor those of his senior officers. Overjoyed at the success of their landing, the Crusaders now found themselves in possession of easy loot—and all within an hour of the campaign beginning.

The slower ships in the fleet now followed the invasion forces. In the centre of the Bosphorus they felt the tug of the current running down from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmora. Then, as they neared the shore, they met the gentle counter-current flowing northwards. Dropping anchor, the large merchantmen and store-ships rode easily with their bows to the south. Sailors began ferrying ashore the wooden parts of siege-engines and catapults, and transferring stores and provisions from the large ships to the base camp. Meanwhile, the army was digging in against any surprise attack by the Byzantine cavalry.

The leaders had decided to encamp on the southern tip of land, facing across the Golden Horn towards the city. This position was near the tower or castle of Galata, that strong defence-point on which depended the security of the inner harbour of the Horn. The Doge, Baldwin of Flanders and the other barons were well aware that the success or failure of the expedition lay upon their ability to capture this tower. If they could take it, the whole of the northern shores facing Constantinople would be in their hands. Even more important was the fact that, once the tower was theirs, the Venetian fleet could sweep into the Horn, capture the merchant shipping lying there at anchor, and secure the army access to the walls of the city itself.

The tower of Galata was designed not only as a fortress to guard the northern entrance to the Horn but as the terminal point for the great chain upon which the safety of the harbour depended. Stretched between the tower and the city walls there ran an immense chain, operated by a windlass. When the chain was hauled up bar-taut, it hung a few feet above the surface of the sea—thus preventing any ship from entering the harbour. When shipping wished to enter, the chain was lowered away until vessels could pass over it without obstruction. The huge iron links, each the length of a forearm, had been made by the skilled ironworkers of the city. Technical skill indeed was needed to construct a chain with sufficient tensile strength to reach over 1,500 feet—the width of the harbour at this point—as well as to submit to the stresses and strains of being constantly raised and lowered.

The tower itself was “strong, easy to defend”, according to de Clari, “and very well garrisoned”. Intended as one of the strong-points of the city’s defences, it should indeed have been easy enough to hold—although it had never been designed with the idea in mind that it would have to resist a prolonged siege by an enemy whose fleet commanded the Bosphorus. The defences of the tower of Galata had been thought of as providing no more than a check-point, while the Byzantine fleet destroyed the fleet of the attacker. But in the reign of the Emperor Alexius the fleet was to all intents and purposes non-existent. The tower, therefore, stood on its own. No ships had opposed the Crusaders’ landing, and the tower must now submit to the full weight of a land-attack by a large army which could bring up siege engines and catapults against it.
^[2]

Even at this moment of national decadence, when the Byzantines had no regard for their emperor, and when they were passing through one of those phases of human existence when the battle for survival seems hardly worthwhile, they were not so lost to a sense of values as to disregard the tower of Galata. They knew as well as the Venetians that the safety of the harbour depended upon it and therefore, probably, of Constantinople itself. According to the Greek historian Nicetas it was the Emperor’s brother-in-law, Theodore Lascaris, who proposed aggressive action against the invaders of the ancient kingdom.
^[3]

During the first night that the Crusaders were encamped against the city near the Galata tower, the Greeks prepared to make a desperate effort to prevent its capture. They manned a number of small boats and sent word across to the garrison in the tower that they would join them in an attack on the Crusaders early the following morning. It was the usual cry of “Too little, and too late!” Once the enemy had been allowed to establish a safe beach-head on the foreshore, there was little or no chance of dislodging them without making a major assault on their position. A half-hearted attempt was doomed to failure.

Early next morning, July 6th, the Greek troops who had been ferried across from the city joined up with the garrison from the tower of Galata, and attacked the army of the Fourth Crusade. It was an example of the worst kind of tactical error. There was little or no element of surprise about it for very naturally, “the army had kept a vigilant watch all night”. To have any chance of success it should have been prosecuted with the utmost vigour, and with a great weight of arms. As it was, a comparatively small detachment of the Greek army, aided by some of the defenders of the tower, attempted to rout a vigilant army of Crusaders, numbering about 20,000 men.

The result was a foregone conclusion. The Crusaders rallied to the defence and, within a matter of minutes, the attackers were fleeing for their lives. “The alarm was given throughout the camp, and the men rallied round from all sides. They charged the Greeks so fiercely that not only were many of them killed, but many were over-run and taken prisoner…” It was at a time like this that the mounted knights proved their worth, just as much as in formal cavalry charges. An armed man on horseback, pursuing fleeing infantrymen, had every advantage—speed, security and above all self-confidence. An armoured, mounted man felt himself doubly secure, for he had his armoured advantage over his opponent, while at the same time his horse gave him a fleetness and mobility that no infantryman —except in hill country—could ever match.