What If no Siege of Constantinople in 1204?
- Thread starter Tongera
- Start date
Once the crusaders show up at Constantinople, it's too late to avoid an attack on the city. The Romans aren't going to be willing to pay the crusader demands, and with Enrico Dandolo stirring things up, eventually the crusaders are going to try and take the City.
The best way to avoid the siege entirely is to not have the crusaders show up at all. One option is that the crusaders when buying shipping don't overestimate the number of crusaders, so they aren't in debt to the Venetians. Then there would be no reason for the crusade to proceed to the Holy Land without the detours to secure payment. However that still leaves the issue of the Venetians contracting to ferry soldiers to Egypt whilst also signing a non-aggression treaty with Egypt. Not sure how to get around that.
Another option is that the Fourth Crusade proceeds to Constantinople. With just a little less bad luck for the Romans and a leader who isn't a feckless imbecile, the crusaders get flattened.
Without a successful Fourth Crusade, the development of the post-1204 Empire depends largely on however succeeds the Angeloi, who are too stupid to last long. The Empire already had some serious issues with overmighty dynatoi and breakaway provinces (Trebizond broke away before Constantinople fell to the Latins) which need to be addressed if Roman recovery is to be viable.
A dynasty matching the OTL Laskarids in quality could be enough to save the Empire, provided the West stays off the Empire's back.
The best way to avoid the siege entirely is to not have the crusaders show up at all. One option is that the crusaders when buying shipping don't overestimate the number of crusaders, so they aren't in debt to the Venetians. Then there would be no reason for the crusade to proceed to the Holy Land without the detours to secure payment. However that still leaves the issue of the Venetians contracting to ferry soldiers to Egypt whilst also signing a non-aggression treaty with Egypt. Not sure how to get around that.
Another option is that the Fourth Crusade proceeds to Constantinople. With just a little less bad luck for the Romans and a leader who isn't a feckless imbecile, the crusaders get flattened.
Without a successful Fourth Crusade, the development of the post-1204 Empire depends largely on however succeeds the Angeloi, who are too stupid to last long. The Empire already had some serious issues with overmighty dynatoi and breakaway provinces (Trebizond broke away before Constantinople fell to the Latins) which need to be addressed if Roman recovery is to be viable.
A dynasty matching the OTL Laskarids in quality could be enough to save the Empire, provided the West stays off the Empire's back.
Why couldn't the crusaders cross the Dardanelles/Bosporus into Asia Minor, like in the previous crusades? That would mean the crusaders not dealing with the Venetians though.
Drop the crusaders off into Syria/Palestine in what is left of the Crusader States perhaps?
Could the Laskarids take power without the Fourth Crusade happening though?
Kosta
Banned
The Crusaders were still assholes when they passed through Roman territory even when they were on good-terms with the Empire. You might not have a Crusade called against Romania, but you'd have the exact same effects as if there was.
Because they were dealing with the Venetians - their goal was Egypt, which pretty much requires going by sea.
And the Laskarids could definitely do so - someone was gonna overthrow the Angeloi sooner or latter.
The Fourth Crusade was planned and organized with several lessons from the first three crusades in mind. 1) No kings-they tend to fight with each other, not the infidel 2) Don't take the land route-very good risk of dying. 3) The keys of Jerusalem are in Cairo-an authority no less than Richard the Lionheart said that Egypt was the weak spot of the Muslim Middle East, without it a restored Kingdom of Jerusalem cannot be secure.
I don't see any reason why the Laskarids can't come to power without a Fourth Crusade. They're powerful and well-connected, and Niketas Choniates liked them, which is unusual for him. Plus Alexios III is not exactly the hardest ruler to overthrow.
True, but I think there was some conscious push as well to avoid involving kings and their feuds. The First Crusade, the only clear success, was also the one with a leadership made up of nobles, but no kings. Plus no kings means the church can theoretically exercise more effective control over the crusade, and we are dealing with the medieval papacy at its apogee.
But I don't currently have any sources to back this argument up, and it is rather tangential to the OP, so I won't push this any further. But lessons 2 and 3 were consciously followed, and necessitated involving a major Christian sea power, and Venice was the best choice at the time.
#1 seems to be the situation not favoring inviting kings and the Papacy having little problem with that, just to state my opinion before moving on.
But the rest definitely. Genoa refused, if memory serves, and Pisa isn't as significant, so . . .
I don't think Venice being involved made the siege inevitable, but unless the crusaders could pay, Dandalo (may his soul be chased by jackels and his boots filled with scorpions) would pretty much take OTL's path. And even if they could, I suspect he'd find some way of taking advantage of the situation.
A question ought to be asked, and I don't know the answer, but if the Venetians had a non-aggression pact with Egypt, why did they agree to the terms in the first place? Preparing the ships was a major enterprise for Venice.
Unstable, ill lead, economically shaky (looking at the imperial treasury), and militarily not so successful.
Venetian involvement doesn't make the siege inevitable, but it does increase the probability; there is a lot of recent bad blood. However the crusaders aren't in debt to the Republic, that removes all of Dandolo's OTL leverage, meaning he'd have to try a completely different tack. What that would be I don't know.
As for Venice and Egypt, I'm not sure what game Dandolo was paying. The shipping contract may have come before the pact (it's been a couple of years since I've read up on this subject), but either way the Venetians are being two-faced.
Dandolo may have scheming that he signs the pact with Egypt to boost trade there, fulfill the shipping contract to make money off the crusade, and then whip up the common crusaders into demanding that they land in Syria to liberate Jerusalem directly. The rank and file were largely ignorant of the geopolitical factors that pushed for the attack on Egypt.
What might be interesting is the impact on the idea of Crusades as Holy Wars. Its been posited that the Crusades weren't so much Holy Wars in the beginning, but heavily armed pilgrimages. Everything going... awry in the 4th Crusade helped to shift the idea to a general Holy War against enemies of the Catholic Church, thus allowing for them to be directed at pretty much anyone.
Hey! Enrico was the most overachieving blind 90 year old, ever!
Definitely. But if we're going to call him "brilliant" or "a genius", I'm going to add that he used those gifts in ways I curse.
Like allying with Byzantium and fighting the Turks? That would be excellent use of his gifts!
Like allying with Byzantium and fighting the Turks? That would be excellent use of his gifts!
I'd settle for him just using them for Venice's benefit without fucking over the Roman Empire.
It would help if the Byzantines didn't enable him by being so weak and fractured.....
I know. I know. I'm blaming the victim.....
It would help if the Byzantines didn't enable him by being so weak and fractured.....
I know. I know. I'm blaming the victim.....
Shamelessly.
Still, speaking amorally, and of Venice's interests narrowly, Dandlo was a brilliant doge. No question about it.
And a very persuasive figure, it seems.
I suspect he's going to have a say - with what influence depending on circumstances - in any 4th crusade era timeline. No way around that.
And as such, Byzantium is going to have to pay - one way or another.
It all might have played out very differently if the Crusaders had paid the Venetians, after assembling in Venice. The other thing that could contribute to channeling the Crusade to its original goals is to butterfly an event that took place over 20 years earlier ---the Massacre of the Latins in Constantinople in 1182. Revenge was a factor as well as greed in the sack of Constantinople.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins