When all other devices fail, it often pays to fall back upon the simplest and most emotional of tricks to secure one’s object—such was the Doge’s experience.

Together with Boniface and the other leaders of the Crusade, he went on foot to the camp of the mutineers and fell at their feet. He begged them with tears not to break up so great and noble an army. “Do not leave us!” he and his companions cried, all weeping bitterly. “We will not rise from the ground until you tell us that you will not leave us!”

The thought of Enrico Dandolo and the Marquis of Montferrat, accompanied by Alexius, kneeling in that green glade in Corfu with the tears coursing down their cheeks is not without its humour. Even seven centuries later one seems to see those crocodile tears, and witness the consternation spread like panic over the simple faces of their audience.

Like so many who are strong in the arm, the Crusaders were not so well-endowed in the head. They could not bear to see these great and noble men kneeling in the grass at their feet. They agreed not to break up the army, to proceed with their leaders, and to secure from the Byzantines such food and provisions as might be needed. They made only one stipulation; that after Michaelmas Day (September 29th) they must be provided with ships and provisions to go on their way to Syria. This was willingly agreed to. By September, Dandolo and Boniface felt sure that their objective would have been attained—and even if it had not, they would by then be at Constantinople. The opposition (if there was any by that time) would be dependent on Venetian ships to get them south. There could be no chance of part of the army leaving at such a juncture, and fighting its way to Syria through a hostile Asia Minor dominated by the Turks.

Such was the dismal and bitter story that lay behind the diversion of the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople. Few episodes in history reveal more clearly the cynicism of the higher command or the stupidity of the masses. As it had begun, so it would continue. Those who realised that they had been tricked, would soon enough find some justification for their acts. Those who had tricked them were already conjuring up the explanations which they would ultimately be forced to make.

 

 

 

5

THE FLEET ENTERS THE GOLDEN HORN

 

On the morning of July 5th, 1203, the galleys of the Venetians preceded the main body of the fleet across the narrow passage from Chrysopolis on the Asiatic coast to the shore below the suburb of Galata, on the northern side of the Golden Horn. This stretch of coastline was neither walled, nor defended, and Galata, a Jewish and international settlement, was not unfriendly to a force of French, Venetians and other fellow-Catholics. The only real defence-point of the city that lay north of the Horn itself was a large tower, known as the castle of Galata.

Unmolested during its crossing of the Bosphorus, the fleet came safely to anchor within a few cables of the shore. The transports and landing-craft touched down on the beach itself, near the modern suburb of Tophane. South of here, along the banks of the Golden Horn, lay the Jewish quarter of the city. Unbelievable though it seemed that an invading fleet should be able to cross the Bosphorus unopposed, it could hardly be expected that—even in the days of the Emperor Alexius—the troops would be permitted to land without some show of resistance.

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.