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
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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.