In 1204, the crusaders captured the capture of Constantinople by the medieval world. The army of Western feudal lords went east, wanting to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims, and eventually captured the capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire. Knights with unprecedented greed and cruelty plundered the richest city and practically destroyed the former Greek state.
In search of Jerusalem
The capture of Constantinople, which was a milestone for contemporaries, in 1204 took place as part of the Fourth Crusade, which was organized by Pope Innocent III, and was headed by the feudal lord Boniface of Monferrat. The city was captured not at all by the Muslims with whom the Byzantine Empire had long been at enmity, but by Western knights. What made them attack the medieval Christian metropolis? At the end of the XI century, the crusaders first went east and conquered the holy city of Jerusalem from the Arabs. For several decades, Catholic kingdoms existed in Palestine, which somehow collaborated with the Byzantine Empire.
In 1187, this era remained in the past. Muslims conquered Jerusalem. In Western Europe, they organized the Third Crusade (1189-1192), but it ended in failure. The defeat did not break the Christians. Pope Innocent III set about organizing a new Fourth Campaign, with which the Crusaders captured Constantinople in 1204.
Initially, the knights were going to get into the Holy Land through the Mediterranean Sea. They hoped to be in Palestine with the help of the ships of Venice, for which a preliminary agreement was made with her. In the Italian city and capital of an independent trading republic, a 12,000-strong army arrived, consisting mainly of French soldiers. Venice then ruled the elderly and blind doge Enrico Dandolo. Despite his physical weakness, he possessed an intriguing mind and cold prudence. As a payment for ships and equipment, the Doge demanded an unbearable amount from the crusaders - 20 thousand tons of silver. The French did not have such a sum, and this meant that the campaign could end before it began. However, Dandolo was not about to drive the crusaders away. He offered an army-craving army an unprecedented deal.
New plan
There is no doubt that the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 would not have taken place had it not been for the rivalry of the Byzantine Empire and Venice. Two Mediterranean powers argued over maritime and political dominion in the region. The contradictions between the Italian and Greek merchants could not be resolved peacefully - only a large-scale war could cut this long-standing knot. Venice never had a large army, but it was ruled by cunning politicians who were able to take advantage of the crusaders' strange hands.
First, Enrico Dandolo invited the Western knights to attack the Hungarian Adriatic port of Zadar. In exchange for help, the Doge promised to transport the soldiers of the cross to Palestine. Upon learning of the bold agreement, Pope Innocent III forbade the campaign and threatened the disobedient with excommunication.
Suggestions did not help. Most of the princes agreed to the conditions of the republic, although there were those who refused to raise weapons against the Christians (for example, Count Simon de Montfort, who later led the crusade against the Albigensians). In 1202, after a bloody assault, an army of knights captured Zadar. It was a rehearsal, followed by a much more important capture of Constantinople. After the pogrom in Zadar, Innocent III briefly excommunicated the crusaders from the church, but soon for political reasons he changed his mind, leaving only the Venetians in anathema. The Christian army was again prepared to go east.
Old scores
Organizing the next campaign, Innocent III tried to obtain from the Byzantine emperor not only support for the campaign, but also a church union. The Roman Church has long tried to subjugate the Greek, but over and over again her efforts ended in nothing. So now in Byzantium they refused the union with the Latins. Of all the reasons why the Crusaders took Constantinople, the conflict between the pope and the emperor became one of the most crucial and decisive.
Affected and self-interest of the Western knights. The feudal lords, who went on a campaign, managed to rekindle their appetite by robberies in Zadar and now wanted to repeat the predatory pogrom already in the capital of Byzantium - one of the richest cities of the whole Middle Ages. Legends about his treasures, accumulated over centuries, incited the greed and greed of future looters. However, an attack on the empire required an ideological explanation that would set the actions of Europeans in the right light. It did not keep itself waiting. The crusaders explained the future capture of Constantinople by the fact that Byzantium not only did not help them in the fight against Muslims, but also concluded alliances harmful to the Catholic kingdoms in Palestine with the Seljuk Turks.
The main argument of the militarists was a reminder of the "massacre of the Latins." Under this name, contemporaries remembered the massacre of the Franks in Constantinople in 1182. The then emperor Alexei II Komnin was a very small child, instead of whom the regent mother Maria Antioch ruled. She was the sister of one of the Catholic princes of Palestine, which is why she patronized Western Europeans and oppressed the rights of the Greeks. The local population rebelled and staged a pogrom in foreign quarters. Several thousand Europeans died, and the most terrible anger of the mob fell upon the Pisans and Genoese. Many foreigners who survived the massacre were sold into slavery to Muslims. This episode of the Latin massacre in the West was also remembered twenty years later, and, of course, such recollections did not improve relations between the empire and the crusaders.
Claimant to the throne
No matter how strong the dislike of Catholics for Byzantium was, it was not enough to arrange the capture of Constantinople. For years and centuries, the empire was considered the last Christian stronghold in the east, guarding the peace of Europe before a variety of threats, including Seljuk Turks and Arabs. To attack Byzantium meant to go against their own faith, even though the Greek church was separated from the Roman.
The capture of Constantinople by the crusaders ultimately occurred due to a combination of several circumstances. In 1203, shortly after the plunder of Zadar, the western princes and counts finally found an excuse for attacking the empire. The reason for the invasion was the request for the help of Alexei Angel, the son of the deposed emperor Isaac II. His father languished in prison, and the heir wandered around Europe, trying to persuade the Catholics to return the rightful throne to him.
In 1203, Alexey met with the Western ambassadors on the island of Corfu and entered into an assistance agreement with them. In exchange for returning to power, the applicant promised a considerable reward to the knights. As it turned out later, it was this arrangement that became the stumbling block, due to which the capture of Constantinople, which stunned the whole then world, took place in 1204.
Inaccessible Stronghold
Isaac II Angel was overthrown in 1195 by his own brother Alexei III. It was this emperor who was in conflict with the pope over the issue of the reunification of churches and had many disputes with the Venetian merchants. His eight-year rule was marked by the gradual decline of Byzantium. The riches of the country were divided between influential aristocrats, and the common people were experiencing more and more discontent.
However, when in June 1203 a fleet of crusaders and Venetians approached Constantinople, the population nevertheless came to the defense of the authorities. Ordinary Greeks did not like the Franks, just as the Latins did not like the Greeks themselves. Thus, the war of the crusaders and the empire was heated not only from above, but also from below.
The siege of the Byzantine capital was an extremely risky venture. For several centuries, not a single army could capture it, whether it be Arabs, Turks, or Slavs. In Russian history, the episode is well known when Oleg captured Constantinople in 907. However, if you use strict wording, then there was no capture of Constantinople. The prince of Kiev besieged the treasured city, frightened the inhabitants with his huge squad and ships on wheels, after which the Greeks agreed with him on peace. However, the Russian army did not seize the city, did not rob it, but only achieved the payment of a significant indemnity. A symbol of that war was the episode when Oleg nailed a shield to the gates of the Byzantine capital.
Three centuries later, the crusaders appeared at the walls of Constantinople. Before attacking the city, the knights prepared a detailed plan of their actions. They got their main advantage before any war with the empire. In 1187, the Byzantines entered into an agreement with the Venetians to reduce their own fleet in the hope of helping Western allies in case of conflict with Muslims. For this reason, the Crusaders captured Constantinople. The date of signing the fleet agreement became fatal for the city. Before that siege, Constantinople was saved every time precisely thanks to its own ships, which were now sorely lacking.
The overthrow of Alexei III
Having met almost no resistance, the Venetian ships entered the Golden Horn Bay. An army of knights landed on the shore next to the Blachernae Palace in the northwestern part of the city. An assault on the fortress walls followed; strangers captured several key towers. On July 17, four weeks after the siege began, the army of Alexei III capitulated. The emperor fled and spent the rest of his days in exile.
Prisoner Isaac II was released and proclaimed new ruler. Soon, however, the crusaders themselves intervened in the political rearrangement. They were unhappy with the results of castling - the army never received the money promised to it. Under the pressure of the Western princes (including the leaders of the campaign of Louis de Blois and Boniface of Monferrat), the second Byzantine ruler became the son of the emperor Alexei, who received the throne name of Alexei IV. So in the country dual power was established for several months.
It is known that the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 put an end to the thousand-year history of Byzantium. The capture of the city in 1203 was not so catastrophic, but it was he who turned out to be a harbinger of the repeated assault on the city in 1204, after which the Greek empire for some time simply disappeared from the political map of Europe and Asia.
Riot in the city
Put on the throne by the crusaders, Alexei tried as hard as he could to gain the amount necessary for reckoning with foreigners. When the money in the treasury ran out, large-scale requisitions began with the ordinary population. The situation in the city was increasingly tense. The people were dissatisfied with the emperors and openly hated the Latins. The Crusaders, meanwhile, did not leave the outskirts of Constantinople for several months. Periodically, their troops visited the capital, where the looters openly robbed rich temples and shops. The greed of the Latins was fomented by unprecedented riches: expensive icons, utensils made of precious metals, precious stones.
At the beginning of the new 1204, a discontented crowd of commoners demanded the election of another emperor. Isaac II, frightened by the overthrow, decided to ask for the help of the Franks. The people learned about these plans after the plan of the ruler was issued by one of his close officials, Alexei Murzufl. The news of Isaac's betrayal led to an instant rebellion. On January 25, both co-rulers (father and son) were deposed. Alexei IV tried to bring a detachment of crusaders into his palace, but was captured and killed on the orders of the new emperor Alexei Murzufl - Alexei V. Isaac, according to the chronicles, died a few days later from grief about his dead son.
The fall of the capital
The coup in Constantinople forced the crusaders to reconsider their plans. Now the capital of Byzantium was controlled by forces that treated the Latins extremely negatively, which meant the termination of the payments promised by the previous dynasty. However, the knights were no longer up to long-standing agreements. For several months, Europeans managed to get acquainted with the city and its myriad wealth. Now they did not want farms, but real robberies.
In history, the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 knows much more than the fall of the Byzantine capital in 1204, and the catastrophe that struck the empire at the beginning of the 13th century was no less a disaster for its inhabitants. The denouement became inevitable when the ousted crusaders concluded an agreement with the Venetians on the division of Greek territories. The original purpose of the campaign, the fight against Muslims in Palestine, was safely forgotten.
In the spring of 1204, the Latins began to organize an assault from the side of the Golden Horn Bay. Catholic priests promised the Europeans absolution for participating in the attack, calling it a charitable deed. Before the fateful date of the capture of Constantinople came, the knights diligently covered the serf ditches around the defensive walls. On April 9, they broke into the city, but after a long battle returned to their camp.
The attack resumed after three days. On April 12, the crusaders vanguard climbed the fortress walls with assault stairs, and another detachment made a breach in the defensive fortifications. Even what happened two and a half centuries later, the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans did not end with such significant destruction of architecture as after the battles with the Latins. The reason for this was a huge fire, which began on the 12th and destroyed two-thirds of city buildings.
Empire Section
The resistance of the Greeks was broken. Alexei V fled, and a few months later the Latins found him and executed him. April 13 was the final capture of Constantinople. The year 1453 is considered the end of the Byzantine Empire, but it was in 1204 that the same fatal blow was dealt to it, which led to the subsequent expansion of the Ottomans.
About 20 thousand crusaders took part in the assault. This was a more than modest figure compared to the hordes of Avars, Slavs, Persians and Arabs that the empire had repelled from its main city for many centuries. However, this time the pendulum of history did not swing in favor of the Greeks. The long economic, political and social crisis of the state affected. That is why for the first time in history, the capital of Byzantium fell precisely in 1204.
The capture of Constantinople by the crusaders marked the beginning of a new era. The former Byzantine empire was abolished, and a new Latin one appeared in its place. Its first ruler was a member of the crusade Count of Flanders Baldwin I, whose election took place in the famous Hagia Sophia. The new state was different from the previous elite. Key places in the administrative machine were occupied by French feudal lords.
The Latin Empire received far from all the lands of Byzantium. In addition to the capital, Baldwin and his successors went to Thrace, most of Greece and the islands of the Aegean. The military leader of the Fourth Crusade, the Italian Boniface of Monferratos, received Macedonia, Thessaly, and his new kingdom vassal to the emperor became known as the kingdom of Thesallonica. Enterprising Venetians got the Ionian Islands, the Cyclades archipelago, Adrianople and even part of Constantinople. All their acquisitions were selected according to commercial interests. At the very beginning of the campaign, the Doge Enrico Dandolo was going to establish control over Mediterranean trade, in the end he managed to achieve his goal.
Effects
The middle landowners and knights who participated in the campaign received small counties and other land estates. In fact, having settled in Byzantium, Western Europeans planted feudal orders habitual for them. The local Greek population nevertheless remained the same. For several decades of the rule of the crusaders, it practically did not change its way of life, culture and religion. That is why the Latin states on the ruins of Byzantium lasted only a few generations.
The former Byzantine aristocracy, who did not want to cooperate with the new government, managed to establish itself in Asia Minor. Two large states appeared on the peninsula - the Trebizond and Nicene empires. The power in them belonged to the Greek dynasties, including the overthrown Komnins shortly before in Byzantium. In addition, a kingdom of Bulgaria was formed north of the Latin Empire . The Slavs who won independence became a serious headache for European feudal lords.
The power of the Latins in a foreign region for them has not become durable. Due to the many civil wars and the loss of interest of Europeans in the Crusades in 1261, another capture of Constantinople took place. Russian and Western sources of that time recorded how the Greeks managed to regain their city with virtually no resistance. The Byzantine Empire was restored. In Constantinople, the dynasty of Paleologists established itself. After almost two hundred years, in 1453 the city was captured by the Ottoman Turks, after which the empire finally sunk into the past.