This discourse made a strong impression upon a great number of the knights and barons, but it did not command the suffrages of the whole assembly. The doge and the lords dismissed the ambassadors, telling them they would deliberate upon the proposals of Alexius. Warm debates then ensued in the council; those that had been averse to the siege of Zara, among whom the abbot of Vaux de Cernai was still conspicuous, opposed the expedition to Constantinople with great vehemence; they were indignant that the interests of God should be placed in the balance against those of Alexius; they added that this Isaac, whose cause they were called upon to defend, was himself an usurper, elevated by a revolution to the throne of the Comnenas; that he had been, during the third crusade, the most cruel enemy of the Christians, the most faithful ally of the Turks; as for the rest, the nations of Greece, accustomed to the change of masters, supported the usurpation of Alexius without murmuring, and the Latins had not quitted their homes to avenge the injuries of a people that really did not call upon them for aid.
The same orators further said, that Philip of Swabia exhorted the Crusaders to assist Alexius, but was content himself with making speeches and sending ambassadors; they warned the Christians not to trust to the promises of a young prince, who engaged to furnish armies, and had not a single soldier; who offered treasures, and possessed nothing; who, besides, had been brought up amongst the Greeks, and would, most likely, some day turn his arms against his benefactors. “If you are so sensible to misfortune,” added they, “and impatient to defend the cause of justice and humanity, listen to the groans of our brethren in Palestine, who are menaced by the Saracens, and who have no earthly hope but in your courage.” They moreover told the Crusaders, that if they wished for easy victories and brilliant conquests, they had but to turn their eyes towards Egypt, the population of which was at that moment devoured by a horrible famine, and which the seven plagues of Scripture yielded up to the arms of the Christians almost without defence.
The Venetians, who had cause of complaint against the emperor of Constantinople, were not at all affected by these arguments, and appeared much more inclined to make war upon the Greeks than the infidels; they were anxious to destroy the warehouses of their rivals the Pisans, now established in Greece, and to see their ships crossing the straits of the Bosphorus in triumph. Their doge nourished a keen resentment on account of some personal offence; and to inflame the minds of his compatriots, he magnified all the wrongs inflicted by the Greeks on his own country and the Christians of the West.
If ancient chronicles may be believed, Dandolo was impelled by another motive, which he did not avow before the Crusaders. The sultan of Damascus, made aware of a Christian army being assembled at Venice, and terrified at the crusade that was preparing, had sent a considerable treasure to the republic, to engage it to divert the Crusaders from an expedition into the East. Whether we yield faith to this account, or whether we consider it as a fable invented by hatred and party spirit, such assertions, collected by contemporaries, at least prove that violent suspicions were then entertained against the Venetians by the dissatisfied Crusaders, and particularly by the Christians of Syria, justly irritated at not being assisted by the soldiers of the cross.[82] Nevertheless, we feel bound to add that the majority of the French Crusaders stood in no need of being stimulated by the example or speeches of the doge, to undertake a war against the Greek empire. Even those who opposed the new expedition the most strongly, as well as all the other Crusaders, entertained an inveterate hatred and a sovereign contempt for the Greeks; and the discussions had only the more inflamed the general mind against a nation considered inimical to the Christians.
Several ecclesiastics, having at their head the abbot of Looz, a personage remarkable for his piety and the purity of his manners, did not accord in opinion with the abbot of Vaux de Cernai, and maintained that there was much danger in leading an army into a country devastated by famine; that Greece presented much greater advantages to the Crusaders than Egypt, and that there could be no doubt that the conquest of Constantinople was the most certain means of securing to the Christians the possession of Jerusalem. These ecclesiastics were particularly fascinated by the hope of one day seeing the Greek Church united to that of Rome, and they constantly announced in their discourses the approaching period of concord and peace among all Christian people.
Many knights contemplated with satisfaction the prospect of the union of the two churches, likely to be brought about by their arms; but they yielded further to motives not less powerful over their minds; they had sworn to defend innocence and the rights of the oppressed, and they believed they performed their duty in embracing the cause of Alexius. Some of them, without doubt, who had heard of the vast wealth of Byzantium, might believe that they should not return from such a brilliant undertaking empty handed; but such was the spirit of the lords and knights, that by far the greater number were attracted by the mere prospect of the perils, and still more by the wonders of the enterprise. After a long deliberation, it was decided in the council of the Crusaders that the proposals of Alexius should be accepted, and that the Christian army should embark for Constantinople at the commencement of spring.
Before the siege of Zara, the report of the armament of the Crusaders, and of an expedition against Greece had reached the court of Byzantium. The usurper of the throne of Isaac immediately sought for means to avert the storm about to fall upon his states, and hastened to send ambassadors to the pope, whom he considered the arbiter of peace and war in the West. These ambassadors were ordered to declare to the sovereign pontiff that the prince who reigned at Constantinople was the only legitimate emperor; that the son of Isaac had no right to the empire; that an expedition against Greece would be an unjust enterprise, dangerous, and adverse to the great designs of the crusade. The pope, in his reply, did not at all seek to calm the fears of the usurper, but told his envoys that young Alexius had numerous partisans among the Crusaders, because he had made a promise to succour the Holy Land in person, and to put an end to the rebellion of the Greek Church. The pope did not approve of the expedition against Constantinople; but, by speaking in the way he did, he thought that the sovereign who then reigned over Greece might be induced to make the same promises as the fugitive prince, and would be more able to fulfil them; he conceived a hope that they might treat advantageously, without having recourse to the sword, and that the debates concerning the empire of the East would be referred to his supreme tribunal. But the elder Alexius, whether he was persuaded that he had sufficiently interested the pope in his cause, or whether he deemed it most prudent not to appear alarmed, or, in short, whether the prospect of a distant danger could not remove his habitual indolence, sent no more ambassadors, and made not the least exertion to prepare against the invasion of the warriors of the West.
In another direction, the king of Jerusalem and the Christians of Palestine never ceased to give vent to their complaints, and to implore the assistance that the head of the Church had promised them. The pope, much affected by their prayers, and always zealous for the crusade he had preached, renewed his efforts to direct the arms of the Crusaders against the Saracens. He sent the cardinals, Peter of Capua, and Siffred, into Palestine, as legates of the Holy See, to revive the courage of the Christians, and announce to them the approaching departure of the army of Crusaders; but when he learnt that the leaders had determined upon attacking the empire of Constantinople, he poured upon them the most bitter reprimands, and reproached them with looking behind them, as Lot’s wife had done. “Let none among you,” said he, “flatter himself that he may be allowed to invade or plunder the lands of the Greeks, under the pretence that the empire is not sufficiently submissive, or that the emperor has usurped the throne of his brother; whatever crime he may have committed, it is not for you to constitute yourself the judge of it: you did not assume the cross to avenge the injuries of princes, but that of God.”
Innocent finished his letter without bestowing his benediction upon the Crusaders; and, to frighten them from their new enterprise, threatened them with the maledictions of Heaven. The barons and knights received the remonstrances of the sovereign pontiff with respect; but did not at all waver in the resolution they had formed.
Then the opponents of the expedition to Constantinople renewed their complaints, and employed no sort of moderation in their discourses. The abbot of Vaux de Cernai, the abbot Martin Litz, one of the preachers of the crusade, the count de Montfort, and a great number of knights employed every effort to shake the determination of the army; and when they found they could not succeed, resolved to leave them, some to return to their homes, and others to take the route to Palestine. Those who abandoned their colours, and those who remained in the camp, mutually accused each other with betraying the cause of Christ.[83] Five hundred soldiers having thrown themselves on board a vessel, were shipwrecked and all swallowed up by the waves; many others, in crossing Illyria, were massacred by the savage inhabitants of that country. These perished cursing the ambition and errors which had turned the Christian army aside from the true object of the crusade; whilst those who remained faithful to their standards, deplored the tragical death of their companions, saying among themselves: “The mercy of the Lord has remained with us; evil be to them who stray from the way of the Lord.”