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The Fourth Crusade was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III with the objective of recapturing Jerusalem from the Islamic Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate. However, the crusade diverted to the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, where it helped restore Isaac II and his son Alexius IV to the throne in exchange for a promised payment and Byzantine naval support against Egypt. However, the Byzantines struggled to come up with the hefty sum, and Alexius IV was murdered by the usurper Alexius V, leading to the Crusaders' Sack of Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire then disintegrated as the Crusaders established the Latin Empire, the Kingdom of Thessalonica, the Principality of Achaea, the Duchy of Athens, and the Duchy of the Isles, and Byzantine noble families formed the Empire of Trebizond, the Empire of Nicaea, and the Despotate of Epirus. The Crusade is often regarded as a failure, as it failed in its objective to recapture Jerusalem and instead created a dangerous power vacuum in the Balkans and Anatolia. The Byzantine Empire never recovered from the Sack of Constantinople, and, while it was reconstituted in 1261, it remained a weak empire until its final demise in 1453.

History[]

Assembling the Crusade[]

Enrico Dandolo

Enrico Dandolo

In 1198, the Ayyubid Egyptian sultan al-Adil signed a truce with the Crusaders following the Crusade of 1197, allowing the Crusaders to keep Beirut in exchange for the Ayyubid annexation of Jaffa. al-Adil used this lull to confirm his control over Egypt in 1200 and Aleppo in 1202, surrounding the Crusader states. Meanwhile, Pope Innocent III began calling for a new crusade, although his pleas initially fell on deaf ears; the Holy Roman Empire was struggling against Papal power in the wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, while England and France were at war for control of Normandy. In 1201, however, the Republic of Venice agreed to provide a fleet to transport 33,500 crusaders, which would include 20,000 foot-soldiers, 9,000 squires, and 4,500 knights and horses. In October 1202, the army assembled in Venice, with the majority originating from the French regions of Blois, Champagne, Amiens, Saint-Pol, Ile-de-France, and Burgundy, and others originating from Flanders, Montferrat, and the Venetian sailors and soldiers led by the blind 90-year-old Doge Enrico Dandolo. The Crusade was supposed to attack the Ayyubid capital of Cairo, while Pope Innocent banned attacks on Christian states.

Zara[]

The Crusader army assembled was much smaller than anticipated: 5,000 knights, 8,000 infantry, 10,000 sailors and marines, 300 siege weapons, 60 war galleys, 100 horse transports, and 50 troop transports. The Venetians expected to be paid 85,000 silver marks, but the Crusaders were only able to pay 35,000 silver marks; the Doge threatened to keep them interned unless they reduced themselves to poverty by paying 14,000 more silver marks. The Crusaders instead proposed that they help the Venetians recapture the rebellious Adriatic port city of Zara (Zadar, Croatia), which had broken free of Venetian rule in 1181 and allied itself with Hungary. From 10 to 24 November 1204, the Crusaders besieged the city, extensively pillaging Zara on its capture and demolishing its fortifications. Pope Innocent responded by excommunicating the Crusaders, but the Crusader leadership kept this from their men, and, in February, Pope Innocent rescinded the excommunication of the non-Venetians, agreeing that they had been coerced.

Alexius[]

Alexius IV of Byzantium

Prince Alexius

While the Crusaders were wintering at Zara, they received an invitation from the deposed Byzantine prince Alexius to help restore his father Isaac II of Byzantium to the throne in exchange for 200,000 silver marks, 10,000 Byzantine troops for the Crusade, the maintenance of 500 Byzantine knights in the Holy Land, the service of the Byzantine navy for an invasion of Egypt, and the placement of the Eastern Orthodox Church under the authority of the Pope. This offer reached the Crusaders on 1 January 1203, and most of the Crusaders agreed, setting sail in late April 1203. Renaud of Montmirail led those who dissented to Syria rather than Constantinople.

The Crusade arrived at Constantinople on 23 June 1203, facing a city of 500,000 people with a garrison of 10,000 Byzantines, 5,000 Varangian Guard mercenaries, and 20 galleys. The Crusaders besieged the Tower of Galata, held by English, Danish, and Italian mercenaries, slaughtering them during their failed sortie. Alexius fled the city amid a great fire in the city, and the Imperial officials deposed their absentee emperor and restored Isaac II to the throne.

Tensions in Constantinople[]

Alexius V of Byzantium

Alexius V of Byzantium

On 1 August, Prince Alexius was elevated to co-emperor as Alexius IV. Alexius IV had trouble finding the money to pay the Crusaders, so he destroyed Roman and Byzantine religious icons to extract their gold, managing to raise 100,000 marks. At the same time, tensions rose between the Latin Christian crusaders and the Greek Christian locals, and, after a number of Latin residents were killed in a Greek riot, the Latins responded by instigating a fire which left 100,000 people homeless. In January 1204, Isaac II died of natural causes, and the Roman Senate attempted to nominate Nicolas Canabus to the throne, only for Nicolas to turn it down. Instead, the nobleman Alexius Doukas seized power and had Alexius IV murdered in February 1204, taking the throne as "Alexius V".

Sack of Constantinople[]

Sack of Constantinople

The Sack of Constantinople

When Alexius V refused to abide by Alexius IV's agreement with the Crusaders, the Crusaders again laid siege to Constantinople on 8 April 1204. While the Crusaders' first attack failed, the Latin Christian clergy appealed to the Crusaders' anti-Semitism by claiming "the Greeks were worse than the Jews" and invoking the authority of God and the Pope to take action. Alexius V fled during the night, and the Crusaders burned more of the city and left 15,000 more residents homeless. The city fell on 13 April, and the Crusaders sacked the city for three days, stealing or ruining several Greco-Roman works of art, killing many of the civilian population, defiling and looting the city's churches and monasteries, and acquiring 900,000 silver marks, 150,000 of which went to the Venetians, 50,000 to the Crusaders, 100,000 divided between the Venetians and the Crusaders, and 500,000 secretly kept by many Crusader knights.

Holy Land[]

While most of the main army remained in Constantinople, a substantial minority (led by 26 of the 92 pledged Crusade leaders) carried on to the Holy Land, including over half of the knights from Ile-de-France and a tenth of the Flemish knights. Other Crusaders sailed from Apulia to Acre to join the Fourth Crusade forces, but the force was ultimately so small that King Aimery of Cyprus refused to let them go to war with the Ayyubids. The Crusaders then split up between those wishing to serve the Principality of Antioch and those who wished to serve the County of Tripoli, and others fought for Armenian Cilicia against Antioch.

Aftermath[]

Latin Empire 1204

The partitioned Byzantine Empire

The Fourth Crusade led to the partition of the former Byzantine Empire between the Greek Empire of Nicaea, the Empire of Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus and the Latin Latin Empire, Kingdom of Thessalonica, Duchy of Athens, Principality of Achaea, and the Duchy of the Archipelago. The Byzantine rump states and the Latin Crusader states would fight against each other, amongst themselves, and against foreign threats such as the Second Bulgarian Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, creating a volatile power vacuum which destroyed the power of Greek Christendom. The Crusade finalized the Great Schism of 1054, with the Pope giving up on his attempts to reconcile with Eastern Orthodoxy. In 1261, the Empire of Nicaea ultimately succeeded in reconquering Constantinople and restoring the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty, but Byzantium never regained its former power.

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