What if the fourth crusade never happened

The attack hung in the balance until Doge Dandolo ordered his own galley to advance and set him ashore. The courage of the old doge fired up the Venetians, and they pressed home the attack. The Venetian banner was hoisted atop a wall tower. Soon 25 towers—about a mile of wall—were taken. Behind the wall, however, the Varangian guardsmen held their ground.

Unable to advance, the Venetians set fire to nearby buildings. Driven by the wind, the fire then burned much of the city. The Venetians also captured a few horses on the waterfront, and with some irony, as one naval historian put it, sent them around to the French knights.

The French attack on the land wall did not go so well. Emperor Alexius III took to the field in a counterattack, leading an imperial force of nine battles, or massed formations, out the gates. The French met it with seven battles of their own. As often happened with feudal armies, the logic of command and control conflicted with the chivalric impulse to be first in the attack. Count Baldwin, in command of the leading battle, at first held his ground, but other crusaders went brashly forward—forcing Baldwin to follow, to save face—until they all found themselves dangerously exposed to the Byzantine army and out of sight of most of their own force.

Word of the French peril reached Doge Dandolo. Saying he would live or die with the crusaders, he ordered his men to abandon their hard-won towers and redeploy in support of their allies.

And at the sight of Venetian galleys moving up the harbor to set more troops ashore, the emperor retreated into the city.

He had achieved his tactical objective, holding off the French and forcing the Venetians to abandon their gains. But Alexius III also had lost his nerve. That night he fled the city with his mistress and a favorite daughter — leaving his empress behind. When the crusaders heard of this, they demanded that young Alexius be crowned alongside his father.

They still had a powerful army and fleet, they had nearly taken the city, and there was no real leadership among the defenders. The demand was granted, and young Alexius was escorted into the city in state, along with the doge and the leading French counts and barons. And next? It was too late in the season to go on, but the crusaders looked forward to receiving supplies and Byzantine reinforcements.

Come spring they could sail on to Egypt and restore the Holy Land to the Cross. Alas, young Alexius could not keep the grand promises he had made. The imperial treasury was empty. Moreover, while the Byzantines and the crusaders were now allies in theory, their relationship was actually poor and grew steadily worse. The Byzantines detested the crudity of the French and the highhandedness of the Venetians. In turn, the Westerners despised the Byzantines as effete cowards.

After repeated riots, one of which led to a second disastrous fire, individual crusaders no longer dared show themselves in the city.

Moreover, Byzantine hatred of the barbarians extended beyond the crusaders to embrace all the Western Europeans who lived in the city — even the Pisans who had fought recently and well on the Byzantine side.

Men, women and children were massacred. Young Alexius IV could not raise enough money to satisfy the crusaders, nor could he force them away.

He fell under the influence of a noble adviser, Alexius Ducas, popularly known as Mourtzouphlos, a name that referred to his prominent, bushy eyebrows. Eventually, Mourtzouphlos did a typically Byzantine thing — he lured the young emperor into a trap, kidnapped and imprisoned him, and took the throne for himself.

He slammed shut the gates of the city against the crusaders and put the defenses in order. Wooden superstructures were built atop the towers of the harbor wall, raising them two or three stories and reducing the effectiveness of the Venetian ships as floating siege towers. Gates in the wall were bricked up to eliminate weak spots in the defenses. Mourtzouphlos also took active outreach measures.

The crusader fleet was moored in the Golden Horn, directly across from the city. One December night when the wind blew from the south, he launched a fireship attack against the Venetian fleet. It was a textbook situation — in the confined anchorage, against a lee shore, the Venetians could not simply drop back and let the fireships burn out. But they were not rattled. They manned their galleys, drove off boatloads of archers covering the fire attack, grappled the fireships and towed them clear of the fleet.

According to Villehardouin, No men ever defended themselves more gallantly on the sea than the Venetians did that night. In January, Mourtzouphlos received word that a crusader foraging expedition was raiding the town of Philia, some miles northwest of Constantinople. He ambushed the returning crusaders, but the cornered and outnumbered French knights rallied to the counterattack.

They drove off the Byzantines and captured the imperial standard and the holy icon that traditionally accompanied Byzantine emperors into battle. Mourtzouphlos nonetheless returned to Constantinople and proclaimed a victory. Asked about the standard and icon, he claimed that they were put away in safekeeping. Word of this lie quickly reached the crusaders, who did the logical thing: they mounted standard and icon on a Venetian galley and paraded them back and forth under the harbor walls.

That affair was fatal to the unfortunate prisoner Alexius IV. After several efforts at poisoning failed, Mourtzouphlos had him strangled.

Old Isaac II died about the same time, probably without need of assistance. The crusaders saw they could not hope to have the cooperation of any Byzantine emperor. They resolved instead to conquer the city and take the entire Byzantine Empire for themselves. Six French and six Venetian nobles were to elect a new emperor, who would receive a quarter of the empire in his own name, the rest being divided between French feudal fiefs and Venetian holdings.

Doge Dandolo—who had gradually emerged as the real leader of the crusade—saw to it that the Venetians owed no feudal duties for their quarter and a half that is, three-eighths of the Empire. In the previous assault, the Venetians had succeeded against the harbor wall, so the French leaders were persuaded to join them in another amphibious attempt.

Knights and horses embarked in the horse transports; others boarded the assault ships. As armor protection against Byzantine mechanical artillery, the ships were protected by wooden mantlets, which were covered with vines, to soften impacts, and vinegar-soaked leather as protection against incendiary Greek fire. On the morning of April 9, , the fleet moved forward against the harbor wall to the sound of trumpets, drums and tabors, with flags and pennants flying.

Men on the bridges traded indecisive strokes with the ax-wielding Varangians in the towers. Other crusaders landed below the walls. Under cover of defensive shells called turtles, they attempted to break through the bricked-up gates. To no avail. After several hours and no success, the crusaders were forced back, and the fleet retired. They had lost about dead, while Byzantine losses were few.

According to Robert de Clari, a knight who wrote an eyewitness account, some defenders added insult to injury. They dropped their breechclouts and displayed bare buttocks to the retreating crusaders. Mourtzouphlos had personally directed the defense from high ground behind the harbor wall, near the monastery of Christ Pantopoptes, the All-Seeing. Now he proclaimed success to his people.

I will dishonor and hang them all. A weary and dispirited group of crusading leaders met that evening to plan their next move. Some of the French suggested an attack on the Sea of Marmara side of the city, where the defenses had not been reinforced. Doge Dandolo explained that this was not practical, as the currents and prevailing winds would interfere with an assault there. The final decision was for another attempt on the harbor wall, with one important innovation. The assault was planned for Monday, April On Sunday, all the crusaders, including the excommunicated Venetians, celebrated Mass.

To allow greater concentration on the task at hand, according to Robert de Clari, all the prostitutes accompanying the crusading army were bustled onto a ship and sent far away.

On Monday the fleet attacked, aided this time by a favoring wind. For hours the fighting was indecisive.

Then a gust of wind pushed two of the largest ships, Peregrino Pilgrim and Paradiso, hard up against the foreshore. An assault bridge made contact with the top level of a tower, and a Venetian scrambled onto it, only to be cut down. He must have been a man of exceptional skill and valor to be able to fight fully armored high above a swaying ship. Within minutes, five towers fell to the attackers. The action now turned to the base of the wall.

A group of men with picks broke through a bricked-up gate. A handful of knights climbed through after him. The emperor spurred forward to counterattack. The crusaders stood their ground, and he retreated. For him, and for Byzantium, it was a fatal loss of nerve.

Other gates were broken open, and war horses swarmed out of the transports and into the city. The crusader knights formed up for a mounted charge. The Byzantine defensive formation broke, and the emperor himself fled into one of his palaces.

Resistance ceased. For the next three days, this greatest of Christian cities suffered a thorough and ruthless sack. Priceless treasures of antiquity were smashed to pieces or melted down for their precious metals. The four great bronze horses that now grace the front of St.

The Byzantine Empire never recovered. The Latin Empire that the crusaders set up in its place was a shaky affair that never gained control of much former Byzantine territory. The next year he was taken prisoner in an ill-advised battle. Soon the Empire was reduced to little more than the city of Constantinople, and in it was retaken by a Byzantine emperor-in-exile, Michael Paleologus.

But the restored Byzantium never regained its former power and was finally and forever extinguished by the Turks in Twice the harbor wall of Constantinople fell to direct assault from the ships of the Venetian fleet. In most land sieges, deploying just one siege tower was a major effort. The Venetian fleet had deployed an entire line of them! During the later age of men-of-war armed with cannon, this newborn amphibious capability was lost.

Successful amphibious assaults were rare during the age of fighting sail. You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.

Thread starter Velkas Start date Feb 26, I'm wondering about the effects of not having the Fourth Crusade, particularly on the Byzantine Empire. So what if the Fourth Crusade never happens? It seems the Byzantine Empire has a much better chance of surviving.

I understand the Angeloi were terrible rulers—who can depose them and do a better job ruling? What would need to be done to ensure the survival of the Byzantine Empire? Last edited: Feb 26, Last edited: Feb 28, There are a couple good timelines - one old one by Ioannes and one new one by Basileus describing the Empire in a situation like you're thinking of I think the Fourth Crusade is diverted at the last minute rather than never going to Constantinople, but close enough.

As for Henry: Just keep him busy elsewhere, or make the Byzantines too strong to be worth the trouble. Henry is ambitious, but not delusional.

He's not going to try to conquer the Byzantines while occupied making sure the German princes remember that he is the Emperor at home. And realistically, he will be busy. Won't stop him from squeezing every bit he can from the Byzantines, but OTL, that involved threats, not armies. Telling on how weak Alexius III was. Basileus Giorgios. The Angeloi will be overthrown sooner or later, but the Empire is fragmenting even before , and the newfound tendency for generals to attempt to found their own independent state, as happened with Cyprus in the s and in Trebizond shortly before the Fourth Crusade will need to be squashed quickly.

Any new Emperor taking the throne around the year will have radical problems to deal with. But the odds had begun to slide against the Empire the moment Manuel I died without an adult heir Basileus Giorgios said:.

Click to expand Elfwine said:. Mathalamus said:. And to answer the obvious follow up for Velkas: No, Manuel dying with an adult heir does not make everything better.

Byzantium in the s is in a tricky, sticky situation of overextension abroad and overstrain within. Is it manageable?

Hell yes. But its going to take exceptional leadership to simply keep things together and avoid what BG just mentioned even if you push your POD all the way back to Myriokephalon.

The only good thing is, Hungary aside - the Empire's neighbors aren't really in a position to eat it alive, either. Nibble at it, yes. But if the Empire is well lead, it can survive this. Ioannes's it does get diverted at the last minute. So that's probably closer to what Velkas should look at, as the Byzantines don't have to spend fifty-seven years reconquering to get back to less-than-the position.