THE appointed day arrived. All the knights and their war-horses were aboard the transports, every man fully armed, with his helmet laced and his mount duly saddled and caparisoned. Men of the lower ranks, as people of less consequence in battle, were stationed on the great warships. Every galley had been armed and made ready.
The morning shortly after sunrise was fine and clear. On the other side of the straits the Emperor Alexius stood waiting for the attack, with his army drawn up in numerous divisions and furnished with all the equipment needed for battle. The trumpets sounded. Each transport was attached by a tow-rope to a galley, so as to reach the other side more easily. No one asked which ship should go first, but whichever could start soonest reached land before the rest. The knights disembarked from the transports; they leapt into the sea up to their waists, fully armed, with helmets laced and lances in hand. In like manner our good archers, sergeants, and crossbowmen, each in his company, landed as soon as their ship touched ground.
The Greeks seemed prepared to put up a fair show of resistance; but no sooner were the knights’ lances lowered than they all turned round and fled, abandoning the shore to our men. Never, I may say, was any port more proudly taken. The sailors now began to open the doors at the side of the transports and lead out the horses. The knights mounted quickly, while the divisions began to draw up in due order.
The Comte Baudouin de Flandre et de Hainaut, who commanded the advanced guard, rode forward at their head, with the other divisions following in their appointed order, till they all reached the place where the Emperor Alexius had been encamped. He, however, had retreated towards Constantinople, leaving his tents and pavilions standing. Our men gained a large amount of booty there.
Our barons decided to encamp alongside the harbour, in front of the tower of Galata, which was at one end of the chain that stretched from Constantinople across the harbour entrance. Now any ship that wished to enter the port could only do so by getting past that chain. Our barons realized clearly that if they did not take that tower and break that chain they would be in a terrible situation, and as good as dead. So they spent that night in front of the tower, in a ghetto known as Estanor, which was in fact a very fine and wealthy little town.
The army kept good guard that night. In the morning, about nine o’clock, the Greeks in the tower of Galata, supported by others who had come up in barges from Constantinople, launched an attack on us. Our troops ran to arms; Jacques d’Avesnes and his men, all of them on foot, were the first to tackle the enemy. He, I may say, met with fierce resistance and was wounded in the face by a lance. He was perilously near to being killed outright when one of his knights, named Nicolas de Jenlain, leapt on a horse and successfully rescued his lord from danger. This same knight acquitted himself so well in the encounter that he won great praise for his gallant conduct.
A call to arms was raised in camp; our men rallied round from all sides, and drove the enemy back so vigorously that many of these were killed or taken prisoner. Certain of the Greeks, instead of retreating towards the tower, ran to get into the barges by which they had arrived. Many of these were drowned, but some got safely away. As for those who went back towards the tower, our troops followed so hard on their heels that they could not close the gate. There was more heavy fighting at the entrance, but our men captured the position by force and made prisoners of all those inside the tower. Many Greeks were killed or taken in the course of that affair.
Thus the fortress of Galata was captured, and entry to the port of Constantinople won by force of arms. Our troops were greatly cheered by this success, and praised our Lord with thankful hearts. The people of the city, on the other hand, were greatly depressed. The next day our whole fleet of warships, galleys, and transports was brought into the harbour.
At this point the leaders of the army met in conference to consider what plan of action they should follow – whether to attack by sea or by land. The Venetians were strongly of the opinion that the scaling ladders should be set up on the ships and the whole of the assault be made from the sea. The French, for their part, protested that they could not give such a good account of themselves on the sea as the Venetians; but once on land, with their horses and their proper equipment, they could do much better service. So in the end it was decided that the Venetians would launch their attack from the sea while the barons and their army would tackle the enemy by land.
The troops remained in camp for the next four days. On the fifth the whole army got ready, and the divisions advanced on horseback, each in its appointed order, along the north-east side of the harbour, until they were in front of the palace of Blachernae. At the same time the ships sailed up the harbour to its farthest end, exactly opposite the place where the French troops were stationed. Here a river runs into the sea, and can only be crossed by means of a stone bridge. The Greeks had broken down this bridge; so the barons set the army to work the whole of that day and the following night repairing it. The next morning, as soon as the bridge was in fit condition, the divisions were armed. They rode forward in due order, one behind the other, to take up their position before the city. Not a soul came out to attack them, and that was indeed surprising, since for every man we had in the army there were at least two hundred in Constantinople.
The barons decided to encamp between the palace of Blachernae and the castle of Bohémond, which was, in fact, an abbey enclosed behind high walls. Here they pitched their tents and pavilions. It was a sight to fill the heart with pride and apprehension, for the city of Constantinople had a frontage stretching inland for a good six or seven miles, and the whole of our army was only large enough to lay siege to one of its gates. Meanwhile the Venetians, in their ships on the water, had raised their ladders, set up their petraries and mangonels, and put all in excellent order for the assault. The barons, for their part, now got their own petraries and mangonels ready, and prepared for the attack by land.
During all this time, I may say, our army was by no means left in peace and quiet. There was, in fact, not a single hour of the day or night that one of our divisions did not have to stand fully armed before the gate of Blachernae, to keep guard over the machines and repel sorties from the city. In spite of all such precautions the Greeks did not fail to make frequent sallies from the city by this gate or others, and gave our troops so little respite that the whole camp had to be called to arms about six or seven times a day. No one, moreover, was able to stir in search of food any farther than four bowshots from the camp; and we were extremely short of supplies, except for flour and bacon, and very little indeed of these. The troops had no fresh meat at all, except what they got from the horses that were killed. There was, in fact, only sufficient food in the whole of the camp to last for the next three weeks. Our army was thus in an extremely desperate situation, for never, in any city, have so many been besieged by so few.
At this point the barons worked out an excellent plan of defence. They fortified the camp by enclosing it within a stout palisade of good, thick wooden planks and crossbeams, so making themselves far stronger and safer than before. The Greeks, however, continued to make such frequent sallies that they gave the troops no rest. None the less, whenever the enemy came out, our men in camp repulsed them vigorously, and on each occasion the Greeks suffered heavy losses.
One day, when the Burgundians were on guard, a company of the best troops in the Greek army made a sudden sally from the city and attacked them. Our men, for their part, flew at the enemy and attacked them so fiercely that they drove them back. In their pursuit of the Greeks they followed so close to the gate that men on the walls threw great heavy stones down on top of them. In this affair one of the best Greeks in the city, named Constantine Lascaris, was captured, while still on horseback, by Gautier de Neuilly. During the fight Guillaume de Champlitte’s arm was broken by a stone. This was a great pity, for he was a very good and gallant knight.
I do not propose to tell you of all the blows given and received in this encounter, nor the number of dead and wounded. I will, however, mention that, before the fight was over, a knight in the service of the Comte Baudouin’s brother Henri came to join the fray. He had nothing to protect him but a padded jerkin, a steel cap, and a shield hung from his neck. None the less be acquitted himself so well that he won great honour.
There were very few days on which no sorties were made; but I cannot record them all. Sufficient to say that the Greeks continued to press our men so hard that they could neither sleep, nor eat, nor rest, except fully armed. I might perhaps mention one sortie from a gate along the walls, in which the enemy once more lost heavily. One of our knights named Guillaume du Gi was killed in this encounter. On the same occasion Mathieu de Wallincourt distinguished himself, but lost his horse, which was killed on the drawbridge before the gate. Many other knights also did gallant service here. At the gate on the other side of the palace of Blachernae and from which the Greeks sallied out most frequently, Pierre de Bracieux won himself greater honour than anyone else, chiefly because his quarters were nearest to it so that he could more often take a hand in the fight.
Our army was subjected to these perils and trials of strength for close on ten days, until, one Thursday morning, everything, scaling ladders and all, had been prepared for the main assault. The Venetians, meanwhile, had made their own preparations on the water. The order of assault had been so arranged as to leave three divisions on guard outside the camp, while the other four advanced to attack the city. The Marquis de Montferrat’s troops kept guard over the camp on the side towards the open country, supported by the Burgundian division and the men of Champagne under Mathieu de Montmorency. The Comte Baudouin de Flandre et de Hainaut led his division forward to the assault, in company with those in command of his brother Henri, the Comte Louis de Blois et de Chartrain and the Comte Hugues de Saint-Pol.
The French planted two scaling ladders against a barbican close to the sea. The wall here was strongly manned by Englishmen and Danes, and the struggle that ensued was stiff and hard and fierce. By dint of strenuous efforts two knights and two sergeants managed to scale the ladders and make themselves masters of the wall. A good fifteen of our men got up on top, and were quickly engaged in a hand-to-hand contest of battle-axes against swords. The Greeks inside the barbican plucked up courage and fought back so savagely that they drove our men out, while retaining two as prisoners. These captives were led before the Emperor Alexius, who was overjoyed to see them. Such was the outcome of the assault as far as the French were concerned. Many were wounded and many were left with broken limbs. The barons were greatly upset by such a state of affairs.
Meanwhile the Doge of Venice had not omitted to do his part, but had drawn up all his ships in battle formation, in a line extending some three cross-bow shots in length. Next the Venetians began to draw near to that part of the shore lying under the walls and towers. Then you could see their mangonels hurling stones from the decks of warships and transports, bolts from their crossbows flying across the water, archers loosing shower after shower of arrows, and the Greeks on their side fiercely defending the city from the top of its battlements, as the scaling ladders on the ships came so near that in many places swords and lances clashed one against the other. The din was so tremendous that it seemed as if both land and sea were crumbling in pieces. The galleys, however, did not dare to come to shore.
Let me tell you here of an outstanding deed of valour. The Doge of Venice, although an old man and completely blind, stood at the bow of his galley, with the banner of Saint Mark unfurled before him. He cried out to his men to put him on shore, or else he himself would deal with them as they deserved. They obeyed him promptly, for the galley touched ground and the men in it leapt ashore, bearing the banner of Saint Mark to land before the Doge.
As soon as the other Venetians saw this banner on land, and their lord’s galley touching ground before them, every man of them felt deeply ashamed, and all made for the shore. The men in the transports leapt out and waded, while those in the bigger ships got into boats, and every one of them, each vying with the other to get there quickest, hastened to reach land. Then began a grand and marvellous assault on the city. Geoffroy de Villehardouin, author of this chronicle, here affirms that more than forty people solemnly assured him that they had seen the banner of Saint Mark flying from the top of one of the towers, but not one of them knew who had planted it there.
Now let me tell you of an event so marvellous that it might be called a miracle. The people within the city fled, abandoning the walls to the Venetians. These all rushed in through the gates, each trying to outstrip the others and took possession of twenty-five towers, which they manned with their own people. The Doge called for a boat to take messengers as quickly as possible to tell the barons that twenty-five towers had been seized, and to assure them that these could never be retaken. The barons, for their part, were so overjoyed that they could not believe the news to be true. Meanwhile the Venetians had begun to send boats to the French camp loaded with some of the horses and palfreys they had taken as booty in Constantinople.
When the Emperor Alexius saw that the Venetians had thus effected an entry into the city, he started to send his troops against them in such large numbers that they found it impossible to stand up against the enemy. They therefore set fire to the buildings between themselves and the Greeks. As the wind at that time was blowing from the Venetian side, the fire gradually became so great that the Greeks could not see their opponents, so these were able to withdraw in safety to the towers they had seized and conquered.
At this point the Emperor Alexius brought all his forces out of the city by some gates about a league away from our camp. So many men came streaming out that you would have thought the whole world was there assembled. After marshalling his divisions on the plain, the Emperor rode with them towards the French camp. That day the Comte Baudouin’s brother, Henri de Flandre, was mounting guard over the machines, in company with Mathieu de Wallincourt, Baudouin de Beauvoir, and the men in their division. Over against them the Emperor Alexius had stationed a large contingent of his troops, with orders to issue by three gates and launch an attack on the camp from another side.
Our other six divisions now marched out of camp according to plan, and drew up in ranks in front of the palisade, the sergeants and squires on foot close behind their horses, the archers and crossbowmen in front. With them was also a company of knights on foot, for at least two hundred had lost their horses. They all stood quite still in front of the palisade, and very wisely too, for if they had advanced to attack the enemy on the plain, the Greeks were in such great numbers that they would, so to speak, have been drowned among them.
It looked as if the whole plain was covered with troops, advancing slowly and in good order. We were, it seemed, in a pretty desperate situation, since we had no more than six divisions, while the Greeks had close on sixty, and not one of them but was larger than any of ours. However, our troops were drawn up in such a way that they could not be attacked except from the front.
The Emperor Alexius now brought his men so far forward that either side could shoot at the other. On hearing of this the Doge of Venice sent orders to his men to come down from the towers they had taken, and declared he would live or die in the company of the pilgrims. So he came sailing towards the camp with as many men as he could bring with him, and was the first to set foot on shore.
For some considerable time the armies of the Crusaders and of the Greeks stood facing each other; for the Greeks did not dare to fling themselves on our ranks, and our men would not move away from their palisades. When the Emperor grasped the situation, he began to withdraw his troops, and as soon as he had rallied them he turned them round in the direction of the city. On seeing this the Crusaders’ army started to march slowly towards him. The Greeks began to move away and finally retreated to the palace of Philopatrion.
I can assure you that God never delivered any people from greater peril than that from which He saved our troops that day. There was not a man in the army, however bold and courageous, whose heart was not filled with joy. Thus the battle was halted that day, and by God’s will nothing further happened. The Emperor Alexius returned to the city, and our men went back to camp. Utterly weary and overwrought, they took off their armour and laid their weapons aside. They ate and drank little, since they were very short of supplies.
Let me now ask you to consider the miracles of our Lord – how wonderful they are whenever it pleases Him to perform them. That very night the Emperor Alexius collected as much of his money and his valuables as he could carry away, and taking with him those of his people who wished to go, fled and abandoned the city. The people of Constantinople were utterly astounded. They went to the prison in which the Emperor Isaac, whose eyes had been put out, was confined. They clothed him in his imperial robes, and carried him to the great palace of Blachernae, where they set him on a high throne, and swore allegiance to him as their lord. Then, with the Emperor Isaac’s agreement, messengers were sent to tell the Prince Alexius and the barons that the usurper had fled, and the people of Constantinople had re-established his brother as their rightful Emperor.
As soon as the young prince heard the news he sent for the Marquis de Montferrat, who immediately summoned all the barons throughout the camp. As soon as they had all assembled in the pavilion of the Emperor Isaac’s son, the prince told them the news. Their joy on hearing it was such as cannot well be described, for no greater joy was ever felt by anyone in this world. The whole company joined in the most devout and reverent praises of our Lord, for having within so short a time delivered them and exalted them so high from such a low estate. And therefore one may rightly say: ‘The man whom God desires to help no other man can harm.’