WI: Byzantines prevent the sack of Constantinople

What if, through bribes or military force, the Byzantines are able to stop the Fourth Crusade from tearing up Constantinople? How would that affect the relations between the East and West? How would it effect the Byzantines? Since the Sack of Constantinople and the resulting Latin Empire was near fatal to the Empire, how would it do without it?
 
Depends on whether the Emperor gets replaced really. The one they had was incompetent if I'm thinking of the right one so they would likely continue the slow decline they had been on for generations.

If he gets replaced, by Alexios Komnenos for example who was a capable ruler by all the accounts I've dug up even in spite of the scant resources at Trebizond's disposal. In fact the original intent behind taking over Trebizond and the Northern coast of Anatolia was as a springboard to take the throne in the age old Roman tradition of Civil wars. Alexios I think would have done a much better job with the wealth of a prosperous Constantinople behind him I think, so I think as long as Constantinople stands firm, the Byzantines would continue their annoying habit of refusing to die.

As I think about it, Constantinople is probably the reason the Empire lasted as long as it did. It was perfectly positioned and stupid rich so no matter how bad things got, and things got very bad for the Romans several times over the middle ages, with Constantinople they always had enough money and manpower to make a comeback. Once the Crusaders sacked it however, they just didn't have that anymore. So stopping that would likely mean that the empire continues on one way or another for several more centuries.

Assuming the Mongols don't get involved anyway. All bets are off when they show up.
 
They're already in a shitty position, as central authority has pretty much collapsed in most of the fringes of the Empire, with local magnates being independent in all but name . Plus the looming threat of the Bulgarians, who were consistently beating Byzantine armies up till that point. And of the Seljuk Turks, who kept periodically devastating one of the only remaining prosperous areas of the Empire, the Meander River valley. And the rebellion of Sgouros in Greece, or the Komnenos brothers making a bid for the throne by occupying Trebizond with the help of their aunt in Georgia.

Given how long the crisis lasted, the Empire would normally have been able to call upon vast armies from the provinces. Here, there were none left able to be called.
 
They're already in a shitty position, as central authority has pretty much collapsed in most of the fringes of the Empire, with local magnates being independent in all but name . Plus the looming threat of the Bulgarians, who were consistently beating Byzantine armies up till that point. And of the Seljuk Turks, who kept periodically devastating one of the only remaining prosperous areas of the Empire, the Meander River valley. And the rebellion of Sgouros in Greece, or the Komnenos brothers making a bid for the throne by occupying Trebizond with the help of their aunt in Georgia.

Given how long the crisis lasted, the Empire would normally have been able to call upon vast armies from the provinces. Here, there were none left able to be called.
I agree, but this is not the first time they ended up in such dire straights, as long as Constantinople holds and they get rid of the Angelos and put a solid leader in their place, the empire has what it needs to hold on. It wouldn't be easy, but Constantinople is the cornerstone for them.
 
I agree, but this is not the first time they ended up in such dire straights, as long as Constantinople holds and they get rid of the Angelos and put a solid leader in their place, the empire has what it needs to hold on. It wouldn't be easy, but Constantinople is the cornerstone for them.
OTL, they got incredibly lucky by killng the Sultan in the Battle of Antioch on the Meander. Butterfly that one reckless charge, and you could very well see Turkish dominance of western Asia Minor a century early. With the Venetians dominating the seas (unlike in 626 A.D., the closest comparable situation), mainland Greece not paying taxes anymore and the Bulgarians breathing down their neck and requiring them to keep the army near the capital at all times, I give them very slim chances of recovery.
 
Like said above, they are already in a bad position, but the central cornerstone of Constantinople held the empire throughout many rough times, though I foresee that the empire would have collapsed under its own rule. Admittedly I don't know much about these times, but looking at other cases throughout history that had the same problem collapsed anyway.
 
OTL, they got incredibly lucky by killng the Sultan in the Battle of Antioch on the Meander. Butterfly that one reckless charge, and you could very well see Turkish dominance of western Asia Minor a century early. With the Venetians dominating the seas (unlike in 626 A.D., the closest comparable situation), mainland Greece not paying taxes anymore and the Bulgarians breathing down their neck and requiring them to keep the army near the capital at all times, I give them very slim chances of recovery.
You know I wonder what the consequences of losing that siege would be for the Venetians. They only got away with diverting the Crusade from the Holy Land because they were successful. They even hid from the crusaders orders from the Pope telling them to return to their course for Palestine under threat of excommunication from the crusaders themselves while they were in Dalmatia. In other words the whole venture was a massive gamble and if Venice were to be excommunicated, all their neighbors would have been perfectly happy to take advantage of that. So that particular issue may solve itself if the politics play out right.

Further, the lack of a fleet would be relatively easy to to solve as Constantinople was easily wealthy enough to support one especially with the rest of Anatolia that was still in their hands. It was more negligence on the part of their leadership that they didn't have one already. They wouldn't be the dominant force at sea like they were a few centuries earlier, but they wouldn't need to be to keep Venice in check. Especially if they work with Genoa.

The really big issue that will make things difficult is their own nobility. The Komnenos dynasty's biggest flaw was that they allowed the Dynatoi to rapidly accelerate the decay in the Civil administration that helped make the empire so robust in the past. If the empire is going to survive it needs to find a way to reign those nobles in and restore their civil administration as much as possible.
 
You know I wonder what the consequences of losing that siege would be for the Venetians. They only got away with diverting the Crusade from the Holy Land because they were successful. They even hid from the crusaders orders from the Pope telling them to return to their course for Palestine under threat of excommunication from the crusaders themselves while they were in Dalmatia. In other words the whole venture was a massive gamble and if Venice were to be excommunicated, all their neighbors would have been perfectly happy to take advantage of that. So that particular issue may solve itself if the politics play out right.

Further, the lack of a fleet would be relatively easy to to solve as Constantinople was easily wealthy enough to support one especially with the rest of Anatolia that was still in their hands. It was more negligence on the part of their leadership that they didn't have one already. They wouldn't be the dominant force at sea like they were a few centuries earlier, but they wouldn't need to be to keep Venice in check. Especially if they work with Genoa.

The really big issue that will make things difficult is their own nobility. The Komnenos dynasty's biggest flaw was that they allowed the Dynatoi to rapidly accelerate the decay in the Civil administration that helped make the empire so robust in the past. If the empire is going to survive it needs to find a way to reign those nobles in and restore their civil administration as much as possible.
Could the nobles even be reigned in without years of civil war? Men are not one to give up power willingly.
 
Could the nobles even be reigned in without years of civil war? Men are not one to give up power willingly.
You say that as if "years of civil war" isn't the entirety of Byzantine history. It would apparently take more than that to dislodge the nobility. Or mayor be there just wasn't ever a "right" civil war to do it?
 
What if, through bribes or military force, the Byzantines are able to stop the Fourth Crusade from tearing up Constantinople? How would that affect the relations between the East and West? How would it effect the Byzantines? Since the Sack of Constantinople and the resulting Latin Empire was near fatal to the Empire, how would it do without it?

Well, the Empire's situation would still be pretty bad -- as the sack itself shows; had Byzantium been in a half-way healthy state, there's no way a mere 10-15,000 crusaders with no secure base of operations would have been able to take their capital. But, with Constantinople still intact and under Imperial control, their chances for recovery would be much better than IOTL (if still not entirely certain).

Catholic-Orthodox relations would probably be better, too: the attack would still rankle, but it's generally easier to forgive people for failed attempts to harm us than for successful ones.

Assuming the Mongols don't get involved anyway. All bets are off when they show up.

The Sultanate of Rum was, IIRC, quite beat up by the Mongols; if the Byzantines have recovered enough, they could take advantage of that to win back territory in the east.
 
The Sultanate of Rum was, IIRC, quite beat up by the Mongols; if the Byzantines have recovered enough, they could take advantage of that to win back territory in the east.
True, but there's also the possibility that they hit the Byzantine just as badly. It could go either way really.
Could the nobles even be reigned in without years of civil war? Men are not one to give up power willingly.

You say that as if "years of civil war" isn't the entirety of Byzantine history. It would apparently take more than that to dislodge the nobility. Or mayor be there just wasn't ever a "right" civil war to do it?
My understanding is that those who had the power to do it didn't want to, or simply didn't have the wherewithal, and that those that wanted to didn't have the ability.

The way I'd do it would be to try to as much as I can without starting a rebellion, and then once an opportunity arises to expand, keep the land that is taken for the state to use as a base to start restoring the theme system, parcelling out the land to individuals in return for military service and carefully managing the land to keep dynatoi from buying up huge portions of the land.

It would probably be the most difficult part of the whole process but if a good Emperor can get a strong army independent of the dynatoi and if all goes well, eventually becoming too strong for those families to resist when you restructure the whole country and administration that way. It would be a hell of a project though. And at least one civil war is a given. These are the Byzantines after all.
 
Civil Wars are as Roman as nubile slave boys. So how would the failure effect Venice? I know someone briefly touched on it and it intrigued me. With their hijacking a crusade to loot a bulwark of Christendom that probably wont go over to well with the Pope, much less the other nations.
 
Civil Wars are as Roman as nubile slave boys. So how would the failure effect Venice? I know someone briefly touched on it and it intrigued me. With their hijacking a crusade to loot a bulwark of Christendom that probably wont go over to well with the Pope, much less the other nations.
I imagine that it would end in a very serious war for the Venetians. Genoa would certainly take the chance to curb Venice's influence, certainly many of the nation's that contributed to the crusade would be furious at Venice, who has many enemies as it is. I don't know enough about the politics of the time in Italy but it seems that Venice would face excommunication and war at the least, and even if they survive that their merchants may have a great deal of trouble trading in western Europe.
 
By agreeing to supply and provide transport for the Crusaders, they can keep them from getting engaged in politics. Ultimately they got involved because the son of the deposed emperor promised them a lot of stuff.

If either Alexios IV or even Alexios III had given the Crusaders what they needed to get to the Holy Land, or even across the Bosporous, things might have been different. When you strand a lot of armed and greedy troops in a foreign land, bad things happen.
 

Kaze

Banned
Even if they did defeat and kill the Crusaders at the gates of Constantinople, there was the horrid fact that the empire was dying little by little. The Muslims were still going to march their way into Constantinople. If you want Byzantium to survive, the Crusaders deciding to march into the Turks and defeat them.
 
Best bet would be for Alexios IV to fail to persuade the Crusader Leaders to divert to Constantinople or for Pope Innocent III to definitively condemn the scheme, something he failed to do OTL, though it would have to be widespread to make sure that the Venetians don't hide it. That way the Crusaders continue on to Egypt and the Byzantines can sort out their problems in the normal way, a civil war that deposes the worthless Emperor Alexios III. Perhaps Theodore Laskaris or Alexios Komnenos of Trebizond? Both were capable rulers so really either would be good candidates for Emperor. And yes the Empire was in a bad place but it definitely wasn't in it's death throes or anything like that. Get a capable Emperor on the throne in 1204 with no Crusaders breathing down his neck and we could easily see another Imperial revival, not unlike the Komnenos restoration. Assuming that the Mongols still invade later in the century and ravage the Seljuk Turks then the Empire could begin to reconquer Anatolia again. Or it might not take as long without the Empire divided into multiple states all warring with each other.
 
Even if they did defeat and kill the Crusaders at the gates of Constantinople, there was the horrid fact that the empire was dying little by little. The Muslims were still going to march their way into Constantinople. If you want Byzantium to survive, the Crusaders deciding to march into the Turks and defeat them.
The Sultanate of Rum in the early 13th Century was in a pretty poor shape, and the Mongols would make that a lot worse. The biggest issues Byzantium had were not to the East. Their holdings in Anatolia were relatively secure during most of the 13th Century, and the rise of Osman in the 14th century rather than the fall of Rum into the Beyliks was what did in Byzantine Asia.

The Byzantines rather spend much of the 1180s and 1190s fighting off Norman invasion of Greece and having to deal with a resurgent Bulgaria. The Bulgarian rising perhaps could have been dealt with by not stupidly overtaxing them for frivilolous things like gaudy imperial weddings. The Normans in Greece devastated much of the prosperity built up during the reign of Manuel Komnenos and really, this was the big factor that led to the political instability that told true in 1203-1204.

The best place to start for this would be better relations between the Eastern and Western churches. The Massacre of the Latins after the deposition of Maria of Antioch, and the actions taken by Venice against Ancona, only strained things further. If the churches were to come to at least some kind of understanding, if not acceptance, a lot of bad blood could have been avoided.

The Turks were a major threat in the 11th century and would again be a massive threat in the 14th century, but the biggest issues for the Byzantines before 1204 were from Italy and Bulgaria.
 
Top