Alternate History No 1204: the Rule of Nikolaos Kanabos

Eparkhos

Well-known member
I.​
Nikolaos I is unique among Byzantine usurpers in that he had no interest in either the throne or power, both of which were thrust upon him entirely against his will; perhaps that is why he was a good emperor.



By the dawn of the 13th century, the Byzantine Empire was in precipitous decline. The prosperity and expansion of the Komnenian dynasty had collapsed alongside the family, the entirely unqualified Angeloi dynasty rising to take their place. Isaakios II had (mis-)ruled for a decade before being overthrown, tortured and blinded by his own brother, Alexios III, who took the throne and proceeded to do much as his brother had. Over nearly twenty years of rule between the brothers Angeloi, the Byzantine Empire had gone from a superpower to a failed state, large swathes of the provinces falling to warlords, corruption becoming endemic and the treasury left barren through profligate spending on the emperor’s personal pleasure and massive bribes to foreign rulers and domestic generals to keep the emperor in power. By 1203 the northern Balkans, once part of the imperial heartland, had been lost completely to the increasingly hostile Bulgarians and large parts of mainland Greece, Macedonia, the Aegean Islands and Anatolia ignored the capital completely. Things would only get worse.

The son of Isaakios II, Alexios Angelos, had fled into exile to escape execution by his uncle. Seething at the loss of his birthright he toured the courts of Central Europe, demanding men and arms to restore him to the throne, and in 1202 he found them in the form of a crusading army in Dalmatia. He convinced the Crusaders to help him ‘restore the true faith’ in the Empire by installing him in Constantinople in exchange for vast amounts of money and support for a campaign in Egypt.

In July 1203, Alexios the Younger arrived outside Constantinople with this force at his back. Alexios III led a grand army out to challenge him, so large that some of the Crusaders began to reconsider their allegiance, only to lose his nerve and flee back to the capital. He then barricaded himself inside the palace while Alexios the Younger assaulted the walls, finally emptying the treasury and fleeing for his life to Adrianople in Thrace. Isaakios II was freed from prison and proclaimed emperor, joined soon there-after by the newly minted Alexios IV. It was then that Alexios the Younger realized the awful situation he’d gotten himself in.

Alexios had promised the Crusaders the equivalent of 200,000 marks; the state treasury currently consisted of dust and the few coins Alexios III had dropped on his way out. The Crusaders refused to leave until they were paid, camping outside the city walls while Alexios and Isaakios scrambled to put together the money to pay them. They came up with half the promised money through confiscations of Alexios III’s supporters and church property and gave it to the Crusaders, then demanded that they leave. The Crusaders refused to leave, at which point Alexios IV began insulting the large number of angry men with swords, swearing that they would get no more. In December the Constantinopolitan mob, furious at the Crusaders over religious disputes and a feeling of occupation, attacked a number of Crusaders at a market inside the city, quickly turning into an all out anti-Catholic riot. Alexios IV saw this as fortuitous and ordered the city gates closed, launching fireships at the Venetian-Crusader fleet and insisting that if they were just ignored for long enough the Crusaders would leave by themselves.

By January 1204, the people of Constantinople were increasingly angry at the co-emperors, seeing them both as ridiculously corrupt, incompetent traitors who were humiliating them and all of Orthodoxy by bowing to the Crusaders. The Angeloi did little to help themselves by placing extraordinary burdens of taxation and hunger on the people while living in lavish luxury themselves. On the 24th of January, the Senate--by this point a collection of a handful of ancient aristocrats with none of the power they had enjoyed millenia ago--convened to elect a new emperor. They were soon joined by large numbers of the urban poor and a number of minor church officials. By this time, so few men were loyal to the Angeloi that they were unable to disperse this meeting and could only barricade themselves even further within the palace. After three days of deliberation, sorting through various noblemen (all reluctant to accept, seeing acceptance as tantamount to suicide) this makeshift assembly found their man: Nikolaos Kanabos.

On the surface, Nikolaos appeared to be the perfect candidate. He was well-read and known for his wit and intelligence; he was a man of dignity and honor; he had fought and led men against the Bulgarians in Thrace[1]; moreover he looked the part, young and dashing with thick black hair, fair skin and piercing blue eyes. The chief problem with Nikolaos Kanabos taking the purple was that there were few things he would rather do less. He was a truly devout man and spending his entire life (save four years) under the corruption, decadence and degeneracy of the Angeloi had convinced him that power corrupted and taking the throne was a one-way journey to eternal hellfire[2]. He spent several hours arguing this point with the Senate, citing the moral sickness of the Angeloi, Doukai and proceeding dynasties and Christ’s temptation in the desert while he begged them to choose someone else; when the senators insisted on proclaiming him emperor, he fled with his wife[3] to the Hagia Sophia.

It was by sheer chance that Kanabos and Kanabene[4] found the nearest side door to the cathedral closed, sending him hurrying around to the nearest door. This was beside the offices of the Patriarchate on the Augustaion and his wife begged him to at least consult with the patriarch before he gave up hope. Nikolaos was admitted into the presence of the patriarch, Ioannes X, who pretended to listen while he spoke of his fears of divine judgement and temptation. Ioannes was distantly related to Alexios III through marriage and was thus angry at Isaakios II and Alexios IV for denying him his imperial patron; he saw in Kanabos a chance to regain a position of greater wealth and splendor. The patriarch thus told Nikolaos that God would not put an impossible task before him and that his fear of temptation and avarice would only make him a better emperor, subservient to the will of the divine and not his own. He also cited the many emperors, such as Constantine, Justinian and Irene of Athens who, though overcome by temptation, had sought forgiveness and been accepted into God’s presence. Nikolaos was convinced and departed the Hagia Sophia with the emperor’s blessing, determined to fulfill the task which God had set before him[5].

Large crowds had remained at the place of assembly, unsure of what to do when the emperor refused to rule. At Nikolaos’ approach they greeted him with roars of approval and chants of death to the Angeloi; a group of senators raised him on their shields, or the shields of their guards, and proclaimed him the rightful emperor. Nikolaos then spoke to the crowd, promising to lead them on the palace and depose the hated tyrants but begging them to be merciful, to not attack unless the guards of the palace refused to give way and not to kill if they could help it, for if nothing else they were Orthodox, while the true enemies were the heretics outside the walls. The mob then began to stream towards the palace while Nikolaos took command of the nobles there and their retainers, the men who were trained in fighting, and followed. Word soon reached the mob that Crusaders had come into the palace and the stream became a flood.

While Nikolaos had delayed Alexios had acted. Isaakios II was by far the wiser of the two and had tried to restrain his son’s worst excesses, but he had grown weaker and weaker and was now on his deathbed. Believing himself without any other option, Alexios had decided his only hope was to admit the Crusaders into the city in hopes that they would protect him against the mob and sent for Boniface of Montferrat, the leader of the Crusaders, who happened to be already in the palace, ordering him to bring his men into the city[6]. This was overheard by Alexios Doukas Mourtzouphlos, the chief official of the Angeloi, who was deeply ambitious and held a great personal hatred of the Catholics. He thus ordered that word of Alexios’ actions be spread among the mob so that they might turn against the Angeloi, then gathered his kinsmen and retainers and hurried to the barracks of the Varangian Guard. He told the Varangians that the Angeloi intended to replace them with the Crusaders and offered them rich bonuses if they acclaimed him emperor; they did so, and Alexios Doukas hurried to the palace with his host.

Alexios Doukas and the Varangians arrived at the emperor’s quarters just as the leading edge of the mob did; chaos ensued. Alexios Angelos had barricaded himself inside a wing of the palace with a body of guards and the few knights which Boniface had left to defend him until he returned; they did not speak Greek. The Varangians were whipped into a frenzy and roaring in their various tongues; the guards and Crusaders thought that they had come to kill them all and so fought desperately, all while a ragged mob armed with knives and clubs poured in through every door and window. By the time Nikolaos arrived with his force, Alexios Angelos had been killed and decapitated and Isaakios II was dead, but no-one was sure what was happening beyond that; Nikolaos declared Alexios Doukas was a traitor and regicide and ordered him seized; in the confusion and struggle he was instead killed, as were a great number of guards, Varangians and the noble allies of both Doukas and Kanabos. A cry went up that Alexios Doukas and the Angeloi were dead, and both factions’ men turned and fled; the palace was then overrun by a looting mob until nightfall, when they dispersed and the stragglers were driven off by Kanabos’ men. The crown of Isaakios II was found in a closet and secured, while Alexios IV’s was stolen and never found; the heads of both emperors were raised on pikes outside the palace to confirm their deaths, while their bodies were quickly given Christian burials.

Early the next day, the 28th of January, Nikolaos was formally crowned and proclaimed emperor after a mass in the Hagia Sophia. Apocryphal stories tell of the crown still being warm with Alexios’ blood when placed upon Nikolaos’ head, which is almost certainly false but likely true to the new emperor’s thoughts. After the coronation the urban mob assembled in the Augustaion, where Nikolaos gave a speech from the palace balcony. He painted the Crusaders as an army of demons brought upon Constantinople by the people’s sins, the decline of recent years as a product of decadence and perversion on part of emperors and the Byzantine Empire as a whole like Israel, turned from the ways of righteousness by stiff-neckedness and deceit. He swore that he would dedicate himself, the emperorship and the empire at large to the true faith, pledging to shed the wealth and wickedness of the Angeloi and calling upon the people of Constantinople to do the same, to turn once more to God in the assurance that, like Israel, they would be forgiven and delivered from destruction. This was cheered by the crowds, who once more acclaimed him emperor. The imperial larder was then passed out among the poor as charity, to be replaced in the palace by bread and water.

Despite himself, Nikolaos Kanabos had taken power and now ruled within Constantinople. However, the threat outside the city’s wall grew greater by the minute and threatened to destroy the Empire once and for all…


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[1] Choniates says (you’ll hear that a lot) that Kanabos was ‘experienced in generalship and war’ but doesn’t tell us how so; this is an assumption of mine and ultimately irrelevant

[2] This may or may not have been his justification for refusing power IOTL; I have no way of knowing, but I’m trying to piece together a character from circumstantial evidence and this seems to fit.

[3] Choniates says he was married but doesn’t describe his wife; I’m not sure what I’m going to do with her yet and so will keep references to a minimum until I do.

[4] Speculative feminization of ‘Kanabos’; the aforementioned wife.

[5] This is the point of divergence; IOTL, Kanabos buried himself deep within the Hagia Sophia and refused to come out until Alexios V had him dragged out and killed.

[6] The sources conflict over the exact sequence of events, some saying that Alexios IV told Alexios V to summon Baldwin, but Choniates (an eyewitness to most of this) says that Baldwin was already in the palace and only overheard by Alexios V. 1
 
II

Eparkhos

Well-known member
II.​
News of Nikolaos’ ascension was received poorly in the Crusader camp. While besieging the capital of another Christian state was…less than optimal, most of the Crusaders genuinely believed that the Byzantines owed them and they were simply waiting to receive what they deserved. They’d held up their end of the bargain, and if Alexios IV wanted to try and cheat them they would simply wait him out before continuing on to Egypt. Alexios’ death was thus seen as both murder and an act of treason on behalf of the perfidious Greeks, as well as an insult to those sworn to protect Alexios, which is to say the entirety of the Crusading force. If the treacherous Constantinopolitans were willing to murder their own emperor, what wouldn’t they do? They certainly weren’t going to see the payment they were owed, at any rate, and the quiet mutterings about the need to save the heretics from themselves quickly grew into open planning. Further worsening things were the death of Boniface of Montferrat, who had proceeded into the capital unaware of the fighting in the palace and had been quickly set upon by a roving mob and had been bludgeoned to death with a paving stone[1]. This further outraged the Crusaders, who saw it as a clear betrayal and plain murder of their (largely symbolic) leader. Any hope for reconciliation was lost in response to Nikolaos’ fiery rhetoric on the simple basis that the heretic was heretical and wouldn’t stop insulting them and their faith.

On the 30th of January, a formal council of war was convened by Enrico Dandolo, the commander of the Venetian fleet and de facto leader of the Crusader force; present also were Balduin of Flanders, the senior-most knight following Boniface's untimely demise, Louis de Blois, Hugh de Saint-Pol and Konrad, Abbot of Halberstadt. Here the Crusader lords decided that they must seize Constantinople, and the Byzantine Empire at large, to save the Orthodox from their heresy and to redouble Christian efforts against heretics and infidels. They also began carving up the Empire on paper, awarding themselves huge tracts of yet-to-be-conquered land. Meanwhile, a small group of knights led by Peter of Amiens went off by themselves on 29 January and attacked the Gate of Blachernae before being driven off; this marked the opening of the Siege of 1204.

Within Constantinople, meanwhile, Nikolaos was taking stock of his situation. It was grim--there were 4,000 horsemen, 8,000 footmen and 10,000 Venetians sailors and mercenaries camped outside the walls, with more than 50 galleys and a hundred and fifty transports, while Byzantine forces numbered only 10,000 soldiers, if that, and 20 galleys[2]. Worse still was the logistical situation, as the Crusaders were capable of a general blockade of the city while able to access supplies nearly at will, while the population and supplies within Constantinople would allow it to survive weeks, if that. Nonetheless, he was confident that God was on their side and with His support there was no way they could lose. Practically speaking, the Crusaders were also quite divided and would be spread thin enforcing an actual siege; though a pitched battle would mean certain defeat, death by ten thousand cuts might bring victory.

While waiting for an opportunity to present itself Nikolaos went to work preparing the city’s defenses. The gates of the city were closed and barricaded, official watches being set on all of them and on the walls. Inspired by their original construction, he recruited laborers from each district of the city and put them to work expanding and repairing the city walls, especially the sea walls, declaring that the most productive would be declared the most pious and be exempt from all taxes for the next generation; as the walls had begun to crumble through years of neglect, this greatly strengthened the city’s defensive position, especially along the Golden Horn. Nikolaos leaned on the patriarch to supply additional funds for the city’s defense, swearing that all that was given would be put to good use and would be repaid at the earliest opportunity; Ioannes was extremely reluctant, but was eventually convinced to part with much of the little church wealth that had survived the rule of the Angeloi. All manner of food was stockpiled and rationed, which caused a great deal of resentment but surprisingly little violence, mostly because those smart enough to stockpile food had also hidden it well enough to not have it confiscated. The urban mob, already resentful of foreigners and schismatics and thus the Crusaders in general, was whipped into a frenzy through (usually) exaggerated tales of the misdeeds of the Catholics, lurid descriptions of massacre, rape and theft during the Norman invasion of Greece in the 1180s and general descriptions of what would happen if the Crusaders took the city. The historian Blemmydes, a child during the siege, later described how some of the famous ‘Errors of the Latins’[3] were repeated so often he knew them by heart seventy years later. Any Catholic churches which had survived to this point were burned, as were the Italian quarters on the Golden Horn, and though Nikolaos generally tried to prevent mass violence there was still a great deal of rape and murder. The most ardent Constantinopolitans were organized into formal battalions and sent to defend the walls, with preference given to veterans and new volunteers hastily trained and told to listen to the old-timers; the population at large remained armed and was encouraged to defend their city and homes should the need arise.

The Latin population of Constantinople was left in a bad position by the siege; though there were a few dozen Crusaders who’d been trapped in the city when the siege began, most were Italians who’d spent large portions of their lives or even all of them in Constantinople. Though many wanted to simply kill them and be done with it, Nikolaos refused on the grounds that condemning them to hell would be both cruel and un-Christian. He had a far more productive use in mind. On the morning of the 5th of February, the Latins were herded into Blachernae, surrounded by armed men and given expensive wine, sweetmeats, pastries and other delicacies and then escorted out of the city. Going with them was a herald to the Crusaders, who told the assembled lords that the most merciful emperor had wished to demonstrate his piety and charity, though he apologized for the poor fare that was given to the Latins--the obvious implication being that the Byzantines had more food than they knew what to do with. The Crusading Lords muttered about Alexios’ betrayal and the Massacre of 1171, but the sight was still demoralizing to the common soldiers.

Of note were the emperor and empresses themselves. Nikolaos served as the model of both rulership and piety, frequently giving speeches and leading by example in everything. As a demonstration of piety and sorrow on the sins of the Empire (and also to ape the beloved Alexios I), he spent the first forty days of his reign in sackcloth and ashes, eating nothing as a display of just how repentant he was. Anyone else who could do so was encouraged to, stoking an atmosphere of mass devotion bordering on the psychotic and inspiring fierce devotion both to God and the emperor. Afterward he ate only bread and water, and even that rarely, appearing skeletally thin with dark eyes and practically daring someone to suggest that he wasn’t doing enough. He kept long hours on the walls, receiving information and petitions but never letting his eyes stray from the Crusader camp, as well as spending many hours in public prayer for salvation. The empress, similarly, spent long hours in prayer and almsgiving and ate little. Ioannes X, despite his more mercurial natural, also did as much as he could to inspire hope and loyalty through frequent gestures, such as parading the Theotoktos and other icons along the walls as a sign of divine favor and frequent masses for forgiveness and victory. These gestures inspired a fervent loyalty and fanatical will to defend the city from the heretics at whatever cost

.

Across the Golden Horn, meanwhile, the Crusaders remained in their camp. Occasional expeditions departed to raid the surrounding countryside and bring back provisions, but the bulk of the army stayed in camp for weeks on end, the galleys pulled up on shore, wondering what they were really accomplishing. The leaders of the army were constantly bickering about how to press the siege and producing very little as a result. Dandolo, de Blois and the Abbot Konrad all wished to take the city by storm, though de Blois insisted that the only way to do this was by land and that attacking the sea walls would only open them up to fireship attacks and Dandolo and Konrad insisted that an attack on the land walls would be suicide. Hugh de Saint-Pol, meanwhile, thought the best option was to blockade the city so that they would still have enough men to invade Egypt; Balduin of Flanders vacillated between the two camps. The knights in general were split between assault and blockade, some seeing it as a chance to avenge the insult to their honor and win glory, some seeing it as a needless risk and others seeing the whole siege as a distraction from the true target, Egypt. Ultimately, the question of attack would be settled for them.

On 10 March, Henri of Flanders departed the Crusader camp with two hundred men on a foraging expedition into Anatolia. This was spotted by the Byzantines and reported to Nikolaos, who quickly assembled two hundred picked men of his own and departed the city in a small collection of fishing boats. They landed at Henri’s point of departure and approached the camp in loose order, with the sun at their backs, and were mistaken for the foraging expedition long enough to close the distance to the camp of the Dutch crusaders. They set fire to the tents and attacked the surprised Crusaders, shouting nonsense and randomly striking before fleeing to the ships and escaping back to the city. A wave of French crusaders then flooded in to counter-attack, running into Dutch crusaders who barely knew what was happening, and though few men were directly killed, the furthered confusion allowed the fire to spread and engulf much of the camp. The Crusaders, once more in a rage, set out to attack Constantinople.

Assaults on the land walls were conducted from 10 to 18 March before foul weather forced them to end. An attempt was made to storm the double-walls, which predictably failed, after which efforts were focused on assaulting the city gates. The Adrianople and Saint Romanos Gates were subject to heavy fighting, battering rams being pulled forward under heavy fire and pounding through the gates in hours of fighting as the air around them was filled with a storm of arrows. The Adrianople Gate was broken through after two days of near-constant assaults, but behind it was only a massive barricade piled up to prevent any breakthroughs; fired upon from all sides and fighting a wall of grim-faced fanatics, the Crusaders wisely retreated and the damage was repaired. On the 17th, a small force under Geoffrey de Villehardouin surprised the defenders of the small Regia Gate and briefly seized it before being driven back by a much larger force; had this been supported, the Crusaders might have broken into the city proper.

The first week of fighting impressed the difficulty of their task on the leaders of the Crusade, and the spell of foul weather was used to intensively plan the next assault. A force was raised to undermine the walls near the Mesoteichon, where the Lykos River flowed under the walls and the foundations were presumably weaker. The main focus, however, would be on Blachernae, whose outward bulge provided an opportunity for encirclement. The main led by Balduin would attack the Blachernae Gate to pin down the Byzantines, while de Blois attacked the Regia Gate with a large force and an assault was made on the sea-walls; if everything went well, the Byzantines would be overwhelmed and cut off in Blachernae, allowing them to be surrounded and destroyed. After days of planning, the date of the attack was set for 29 March.

On 29 March, 10,000 Crusaders sallied out from their camp, all on foot, a great metallic river that gleamed in the sun. The Byzantines rushed to arms, sure that the final action was at hand, another 15,000 soldiers assembling on the walls and thousands more irregulars crowding behind them. The Crusading force stopped some distance away, catapults and ballistae assembled on the field before them, then split in half, one drawing towards Blachernae; there was a frantic rush as men raced toward the northern edge of the wall.

The assault on the Blachernae Gate was brutal, the Crusaders creeping forward under shields and armor as the air around them filled with arrows; even against the mass of wood and plate men began to fall at first, still or flailing as they were crushed under their comrades’ feet, inching ever closer towards the gate. A constant fire was kept up from the plain to keep the Byzantines off the walls, but still they crowded around them, hidden behind crenellation, firing constantly. A battering ram came up again and laid into the gate, shaking the earth with each drive of the ram, until at last the wood splintered and the knights swarmed around it and into the breach. Once more there was a barricade, piled high up to the rooftops, and with a certain knight Peter of hideous height leading the attack, and the crusaders were met by a wall of armored men and the deafening chant of prayers. Soon there were equally deafening screams.

To the south, meanwhile, another part of the Crusading host came up against the wall at the Regia Gate, de Blois and Villehardouin at the lead. The defenders here were fewer in number, but the approach of the shining host was seen and men surged up to defend the gate and the walls; with neither siege engines nor surprise, the Crusaders could only raise ladders, and though there was a great slaughter there they could not take the walls.

On the north, the Venetian fleet suddenly put out, siege towers raised upon its decks, and made for the sea-walls. These had been nearly abandoned and so a desperate fight broke out as the few defenders bought time with their lives; a certain Theodoulos slew twelve Latins before being mortally wounded. At last, the mob rushed toward the wall, hardly a fighting force, and as they piled up through stairs and onto the narrow wall the better soldiery of the Venetians showed itself and they were blunted. A great mass of Venetians came onto the walls, but just then a wind came up out of the south-east, blowing straight up the Golden Horn, pushing back the ships and sowing confusion. A minor commander realized what had happened and ordered the fishing boats of the Horn set ablaze and pushed out; the wind caught them and bore them into the Venetians, and the closeness of the ships caused the fire to spread without control. The garrison of the Drungaries’ Gate, realizing what was happening, quickly seized boats of their own, crossed the Horn and set fire to the Crusader camp.

A great curtain of black smoke rose up from these fires and the Crusaders, realizing what this meat, fell into confusion, broke and fled. The Byzantines pursued them, both on foot and on horseback, and ran or rode down great numbers of them, killing them without mercy. Some escaped to the remnants of the Venetian fleet and fled, a few, mostly nobles, were taken prisoner and the rest fled into the countryside and became brigands in all but name. The prisoners were brought before Nikolaos, who offered them the choice of death or conversion; those who converted were taken into the service of the emperor.

This victory was seen as a sign of divine favor and widely celebrated. Constantinople had been delivered, but what of the Empire?

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[1] A la Pyrrhus, of course. Note that this is less an organized battle and more of a chaotic free-for-all in tight streets.

[2] Slightly lower than IOTL thanks to the chaos surrounding the regime change.

[3] These existed IOTL and ranged from theological disputes to outright hearsay and urban legends; my favorite one is the allegation that Catholic priests slept with dogs and blamed the resulting emission on the actions of the animals, thus making it not a sin.
 

Eparkhos

Well-known member
Thoughts on either of those? I will say, I'm not too confident on the second one, it feels too wordy but also too rushed and not the most realistic. Still, I wrote it, so I figured I might as well post it. Should I rewrite it?
 

stevep

Well-known member
Thoughts on either of those? I will say, I'm not too confident on the second one, it feels too wordy but also too rushed and not the most realistic. Still, I wrote it, so I figured I might as well post it. Should I rewrite it?

Possibly a little rushed but the entire siege and battle was chaotic as it would be under those circumstances.

Of course while Nikolaos has broken the siege and secured the capital but the rest of the empire is in turmoil with quite possibly some usurpers as well as the generally run down status of the empire at this point so it would be a long and hard task getting that back into something like good order with all the opponents it faces.

Plus the strongly religious attitude that Nikolaos took, while it might fit his own beliefs and was necessary to secure the support of most of the population will cause a lot of resentment in the west and make it difficult for him to work with any non-Orthodox group or nation in the future. It could well remove a lot of the hostility the Pope had to the initial attack on Constantinople.

I doubt the 40 days without food should be taken literally, else he might well be dead. Unless you mean that was a partial fast, say during daylight hours with small meals during the night.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Possibly a little rushed but the entire siege and battle was chaotic as it would be under those circumstances.

Of course while Nikolaos has broken the siege and secured the capital but the rest of the empire is in turmoil with quite possibly some usurpers as well as the generally run down status of the empire at this point so it would be a long and hard task getting that back into something like good order with all the opponents it faces.

Plus the strongly religious attitude that Nikolaos took, while it might fit his own beliefs and was necessary to secure the support of most of the population will cause a lot of resentment in the west and make it difficult for him to work with any non-Orthodox group or nation in the future. It could well remove a lot of the hostility the Pope had to the initial attack on Constantinople.

I doubt the 40 days without food should be taken literally, else he might well be dead. Unless you mean that was a partial fast, say during daylight hours with small meals during the night.

Apparently one can sometimes survive without food for much longer than 40 days:

 

shangrila

Well-known member
You might still be alive after fasting 40 days, but you won't be functional. So yeah, that should be changed.

And the other major Greek Warlords, the Comneni and Georgians are probably already attacking Trebizond, but Laskaris and Doukas might be butterflied away. Depends on what happened to Alexios III.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Thoughts on either of those? I will say, I'm not too confident on the second one, it feels too wordy but also too rushed and not the most realistic. Still, I wrote it, so I figured I might as well post it. Should I rewrite it?
No,it is god as it is.Althought not very probable - after loosing money and army,Coinstantinopole could not hold.
 

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