Christians from France, Belgium, Germany and Italy, “betrayed by what is false within”, destroyed for centuries any potential unity of Christendom and Europe.

This is a calamitous story, but it contains a moral for our own time: western civilisation and culture are more likely to collapse from internal dissension than from external pressure. The enemy is within. It is a hydra with many heads, but three predominate—Stupidity, Envy and Greed. The destruction of Constantinople and its Empire is an appalling example of what can result from political opportunism and narrow patriotism. It is not necessary to look very far in the western world at this moment to see similar dangers arising from similar misguided policies.

I have deliberately ended this book with the fall of the city, dealing only very briefly with the subsequent Latin Empire. The restoration of the Byzantine Emperors and the second fall of the city to the Ottoman Turks are subjects which have engaged many scholars and authorities. I am deeply indebted to Sir Edwin Pears’ work, The Fall of Constantinople (The Story of the Fourth Crusade), published in 1886—the only full work on this subject in the English language. I agree with most of his conclusions, although he was perhaps too inclined to see Pope Innocent III as entirely blameless. It must not be forgotten that the Pope’s first reaction on hearing of the city’s capture was to write an enthusiastic letter to the Emperor Baldwin, commending him and the Crusaders for what they had done. It was only when the Pope heard in detail of how Constantinople had been taken, and how its people, priests and churches had been treated, that he wrote his famous denunciation of the Crusaders and Venetians. In a brief appendix I refer to the sources used in this book, with my estimation of their reliability. The asterisks in the text refer to the Notes.

A short bibliography indicates some other books and sources which students may find useful. As always, I am deeply indebted to the London Library which, by allowing me to study in my own home, has made research possible for someone who does not have the resources of a university library at his disposal. My thanks go to Miss Jocelyn Porter for her assistance over contemporary pictures and illustrations and, as always, to my wife for her work on maps and charts, and for her endurance over manuscripts and proofs. Finally, I would like to thank Mr. S. N. Yamut for his kindness and hospitality during my stays in Istanbul and Bursa, and for the long hours he spent driving me through Asian and European Turkey, Bulgaria and Jugoslavia.

E. B.

 

 

 

And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,

And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!

And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, Alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! For in one hour is she made desolate.

 

Revelation: XVIII, 17-19

 

 

 

1

THE CRUSADERS SIGHT THE CITY

 

It was the morning of June 22nd, 1203. The sea was calm, the wind southerly, and the coastline of Asia shimmered under the June sun. A great fleet under way is one of the most moving sights in the world, and the fleet which was now gliding northwards under oar and sail through the mile-wide confines of the Dardanelles was larger than any that even these embattled waters had ever known. It consisted of over 450 warships, merchantmen and transports—not counting the innumerable small vessels that followed in its wake. “To the east the Straits seemed to blossom with the decorated warships, galleys and merchantmen. It was something so beautiful as to remember all one’s life…” So wrote the Comte de Villehardouin when, as an old man, he recorded the greatest experience of his youth—the advance of the fleet that bore the Fourth Crusade towards the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

The piping of a galley overseer’s whistle, as he issued his orders to the rowers, etched itself on the still air as sharply as a burin on fine silver. Every now and then, the dull boom of a gong revealed where one of the galleys was raising or lowering the stroke in order to maintain formation. Sails “seen like blown white flowers at sea” were broadcast over the blue acres of the Marmora and, like flowers, they opened and closed as the prevailing speed of the convoy dictated.

Fifty galleys formed the backbone of this armada. The officers’ quarters in their sterns were decorated with elaborate scroll-work and gilded carvings, while their bows swaggered with carved and painted figures above the lean underwater rams that had changed little since the fleets of classical Greece. Above the dark line of oar-ports (where the rowers toiled in their sweat and stench) the rubbing-strakes of the galleys were bright with gold. The bulwarks of plain wood that rose three or four feet above the level of the upper decks were in startling contrast to the rest of the vessels’ decoration. Spaced at irregular intervals along them hung the shields of the knights embarked aboard, the blazons and quarterings of the great families of northern Europe.

Behind the lean greyhound galleys—the finest warships of their period—came hundreds of transports and merchant ships, their square sails filling and emptying as they wallowed forward with the southerly swell under their blunt sterns.