• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Latin Emperors - 1204-1261

In the fatal year 1204 the perils with which the eastward expansion of western Christendom (the Crusades, and the commercial predominance and ambitions of Venice) had long menaced the Empire, culminated in its conquest and partition. It was due to a series of accidents that the cloud burst at this moment, but the conditions of such a catastrophe had long been present. Isaac Angelus was dethroned by his brother Alexius III, and his son escaped (1201) to the west, where arrangements were being made for a new crusade, which Venice undertook to transport to the Holy Land. The prince persuaded Philip of Swabia (who had married bis sister) and Boniface of Montferrat to divert the expedition to Byzantium, in order to restore his father and himself to the throne, promising to furnish help to the Crusade and to reconcile the Greek Church with Rome; Venice agreed to the plan; but Pope Innocent III., the enemy of Philip, forbade it.

Isaac and his son, Alexius IV, were restored without difficulty in 1203, and the crusading forces were prepared to proceed to Palestine, if Alexius had performed his promises. But the manner of this restoration, under Latin auspices, was intensely unpopular; he was not unwilling, but he was unable, to fulfil his pledges; and a few months later he was overthrown in favor of one who, if an upstart, was a patriot, Alexius V. Then the Crusaders, who were waiting encamped outside the city, resolved to carry out the design which the Normans had repeatedly attempted, and put an end to the Greek Empire.

The leaders of the Fourth Crusade must be acquitted of having formed this plan deliberately before they started; it was not conceived before 1204. They first arranged how they would divide the Empire amongst themselves (March); then they captured the city, which had to endure the worst barbarities of war. In partitioning the Empire, which was now to become the spoil of the conquerors, the guiding mind was the Venetian leader, the blind doge, Henry Dandolo. He looked to the interests of Venice from the narrowest point of view, and in founding the new Latin Empire, which was to replace the Greek, it was his aim that it should be feeble, so as to present no obstacles to Venetian policy.

The Latin Empire of Romania was a feudal state like the kingdom of Jerusalem; the emperor was suzerain of all the princes who established themselves on Greek territory; under his own immediate rule were Constantinople, southern Thrace, the Bithynian coast, and some islands in the Aegean. But he was hampered from the beginning by dependence on Venice, want of financial resources, and want of a fleet; the feudal princes, occupied with their separate interests, gave him little support in his conflict with Greeks and Bulgarians; at the end of ten years the worthless fabric began rapidly to decline, and the efforts of the popes, for whom it was the means of realizing Roman supremacy in the East, were unavailing to save it from the extinction to which it was doomed in its cradle.

The original Act of Partition of1204 , which gave of the Byzantine territory to the Latin emperor Baldwin one-quarter of the former Byzantine territory and the Venetians and the French three-eighths each, could hardly be carried out strictly, as the territory was still to be won. This land had to be conquered and in this process the neat demarcations of the partition became overridden. Boniface of Montferrat, the unsuccessful candidate for the imperial throne, gained lands around Thessalonika not registered in the partition and proceeded to direct the distribution of territory in Thrace and Boeotia which formed part of the French crusaders' condominium. The Venetians for their part received more territory than they could readily occupy.