The next pope to catch the crusader bug was Innocent III, who took his seat in 1198 and immediately turned his eye toward rescuing the Holy Land from the Muslims, again. He knew he would need all the help he could get.
But things out east were a mess everywhere, not just in Muslim-occupied Jerusalem. The Byzantine Empire was headquartered in Constantinople, known to the Greeks as the new Rome. Despite being Christians, the Greeks had significant theological differences with the pope, which resulted in their 1054 mass excommunication, referred to as the Great Schism. Needless to say, that put a damper on the relationship between the Eastern Orthodox Greeks and the Roman Catholics. The Crusades didn’t resolve their differences, even though the Greeks provided some help with the first one.
The Greeks had been content to spend most of their time fighting among themselves since the emperor’s death in 1180. Various noble families fought to seize control of the prestigious and powerful emperor’s crown, considered to be one of the two most powerful of the Christian world. Out of the fighting emerged the Angelos family. Isaac II ruled as emperor from 1185 to 1195 when his older brother, Alexius, perhaps tired of Isaac’s fondness for jocular dwarves, gouged out Isaac’s eyes and threw him into prison. Alexius took the throne and held Isaac and his teenage son, Prince Alexius, in prison.
In 1201 the young Prince Alexius escaped, with the help of some Italian merchants, by hiding in a barrel. He headed to Germany to enlist the help of his brother-in-law, the king of Germany, to retake the contentious Greek throne. As momentum built for a new Crusade, Prince Alexius was touring Europe looking for anyone who would give him a ride back to his throne in Constantinople. Meanwhile, back in Rome, as the thirteenth century was just gearing up, Pope Innocent III was settling into office, looking to get the new century off to a good start with a nice religious war.
As unlikely as it seemed, their two quests would cross paths with devastating and unintended results.
WHAT HAPPENED: OPERATION “DEBT BOMB”
Enthusiasm for Pope Innocent’s Crusade lagged until November 1199 at a tournament of knights in the Champagne region of France: two young, popular, and very rich members of the French royal elite took up the cross and joined the Crusade. After Count Thibault of Champagne and his cousin Count Louis of Blois declared their intentions to march onto Jerusalem, others quickly joined up. Some were inspired by the desire to serve Jesus, some by their family’s heritage in leading former Crusades, while others undoubtedly knew that nobody gets the hot babes like a knight back from a Crusade. A third count, Count Baldwin of Flanders, who was Thibault’s brother-in-law, joined the mission early in 1200.
Baldwin’s family had fought in the three previous Crusades, so the twenty-eight-year-old count looked on crusading as a family rite of passage. The three young nobles took the reins to recruit and lead the new, improved Crusade. God was sure to be on their side since the plan featured as many as 35,000 crusaders, the same size army that had successfully conquered Jerusalem in the First Crusade. The pope admonished the army to conquer based solely on their faith in Christ and not have their pure feelings sullied by vanity, greed, or pride. As it turned out, however, most of the crusaders’ decisions for the next five years were guided by vanity, greed, or pride (and sometimes all three).
Throughout the spring of 1200 the three nobles carefully planned the expedition. They met with former crusaders-turned-crusading-consultants to learn the best routes to the Holy Land, rallied other French nobles to the cause, and discussed the critical question of how to pay the enormous costs of supporting thousands of soldiers for years on end.
They decided to sail. The first choice for a fleet was the merchant powerhouse Venice, one of the largest cities in Europe. Its ships were the top dogs of the Mediterranean due to the expertise gained from the large volume of trade with Muslims, which had been conducted with special permission from the pope. Since 1192 the Venetian Enrico Dandolo had held the leadership position of doge; ninety years old and blind, his dedication to the Church was surpassed only by his love of making money and stockpiling power for his beloved city. Dandolo was the man.
After negotiating with the doge, the crusaders reached a deal in April 1201. The doge agreed to build a navy, transport the army, and feed all of them for nine months. All this for the low, low price of 85,000 marks, about twice the annual income of the king of France. As a special deal, for this Crusade only, the crusaders could pay on the installment plan.
Eager to kill Muslims and recapture Jerusalem, the crusaders signed the deal and headed home to France, unaware that their poor skills in drafting the agreement had planted the seed for their venture’s doom. The price was based on transporting an army of 35,000 men plus 4,500 horses, an army bigger than all but that of the First Crusade. No provision was made, however, if fewer troops showed up for the sailing date. The full price would still have to be paid for the half-empty fleet. This meant a higher cost per crusader.
But such trivial details were not in the minds of the crusaders as they made their way home after making their down payment of 5,000 marks to the doge. The Venetians put aside all their business and turned the city into one vast workshop for making ships to meet the June 1202 sailing date.
The deal, like many blockbuster deals, contained a secret clause. The fleet would first sail not to the Holy Land but to Alexandria in Egypt. While this was a sound strategic move as the attack could knock out Egypt as an enemy, making the conquest and holding of Jerusalem easier, it was somewhat controversial. So controversial in fact that the doge kept this detail hidden from crusading troops. For him, this little secret clause was the key to the whole deal. He would get paid to sail to Alexandria, then use the crusaders to capture the city and turn it over to him, further expanding the Venetian trading power into a huge and megarich metropolis. The doge would get a double shot of victory: Jerusalem for the spirit, and Alexandria for the wallet. His grin probably lasted for days.
In May 1201, the first disaster hit the crusaders. Thibault died. Of the three leaders he had been the most dynamic and well liked. Recruitment dropped like a rock. To make up for the loss the crusaders picked up Boniface, the marquis of Montferrat, a city in Northern Italy, as their new leader. Boniface was fifty years old and hailed from a long line of crusaders. He accepted the offer with great enthusiasm.
In early 1202 the crusaders set out for Venice. Upon their arrival they were warmly welcomed by the Venetians, handed their bill, and shown their new home, Lido Beach, a barren sandbar miles from the city. The doge wanted them close, but not close enough to cause trouble. Now the second bit of bad news hit the crusaders. Thousands of crusaders were no-shows. The leaders waited and waited, but as the spring turned to summer on Lido Beach, like a third-rate resort, the crowds simply never materialized.