The Great Betrayal by Ernle Bradford

Author:Ernle Bradford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 1966-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

9

THE GREAT FIRE

The autumn and winter of 1203 were harsh and bitter for the citizens of Constantinople. It was not the first time in their history that they had had a foreign army encamped outside their walls, but it was the first time that the invaders had been encouraged to come inside them. Swaggering through the streets in their chain-mail, the knights and men-at-arms marvelled—and despised. Unable to speak Greek themselves, they felt that these foreigners should at least have been educated to speak French or Italian. Unable to understand a far older and more sophisticated civilisation, they were sure that these gowned and perfumed citizens were all effeminate. It is part of a soldier’s nature to despise civilians—but how much the more he despises the civilians of a foreign country.

During that autumn, part of the Crusading army accompanied the Emperor Alexius on an expedition through the neighbouring region of Thrace. “Alexius himself had said to the barons that he owned no more than Constantinople and that he would be very short of money if this was his only possession. His uncle was still the ruler of all the other cities and castles which ought to be his. He asked the barons, therefore, to help him establish control over the neighbouring country, saying that he would willingly give them some profit out of it…”

The idea of taking the young Emperor away from the city appealed to the Doge and to Boniface of Montferrat. It was sensible to ensure that the towns and garrisons of Thrace recognised their new emperor, for it was from them that much of the money would have to be raised to pay his debts. There was also the chance that they might run the ex-Emperor Alexius III to ground, for so long as he was at liberty there was always the danger of a counter-revolution being made against the present ruler from the provinces.[1] Rumour had it that Alexius III was in the great fortress city of Adrianople in northern Thrace. An additional reason, and indeed the most important one, for getting the young Alexius away from the city was that there was every likelihood that he would be seduced from his allegiance to the Crusaders and Venetians by patriotic elements in the court.

The two figures who emerge as active in their resistance to the invaders are Theodore Lascaris and Alexius Ducas. Both were sons-in-law of Alexius III and both, therefore, had no reason to like either Isaac or his son, the new Emperor Alexius IV. Theodore Lascaris had already shown his mettle during the first skirmishes outside the city and had attempted, though unsuccessfully, to put some spirit into his father-in-law. After the latter’s flight, however, he seems to have become temporarily discouraged and to have withdrawn from public affairs. His time would yet come.

Alexius Ducas, nicknamed Murtzuphlus because his eyebrows met in the middle, was the principal influence among the patriots and nationalists. Murtzuphlus was a pragmatic patriot who desired to see the foreigners

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