Venice the Crusades 1090 1125

In the early summer of 1123, disaster struck the newly established Crusader States of the Holy Land. The new King of Jerusalem, Baldwin II, currently acting as protector to the northern counties of Antioch and Edessa too, after both of their defeats in battle, was himself defeated and held prisoner With the loss of the king, increasingly daring bands of Turks began to push over the frontier to seize plunder and slaves, threatening to plunge the entire region into turmoil. To make matters even worse, along the coastline, the Fatimid Egyptians, no particular allies to the Turks, but a deadly adversary nonetheless to the Crusaders, still controlled the highly sought-after seaways along the Levantine shore. Over the preceding decades, a long and bitter war of attrition had been fought by the lords of Tripoli and Jerusalem in order to bring the Egyptian-held coastal cities of the Levant under their control. Though in truth, little headway had been made since the early days, cities such as Acre, Jaffa and Tripoli, already long having fallen under the sway of Jerusalem. Yet large and powerful maritime cities such as Ascalon and Tyre, ever resupplied from the sea, still remained in the hands of the Fatimids and the Turks, both offering fierce resistance towards any attempts at capturing them, and proving a constant thorn in the side of the Crusaders. Fleets operating out of both of these cities, and from the ports of Alexandria and Damietta in Egypt, dominated the seaways in those days, disrupting shipping and threatening to cut off the Crusaders from Europe altogether. In May 1123, a large Egyptian fleet seized the opportunity of Baldwin's capture to besiege the coastal city of Jaffa. After an inconclusive engagement, the Egyptian fleet ultimately pulled out towards the south, likely to resupply off Ascalon. Knowing that the Crusaders lacked any sort of naval power to speak of, and the Byzantines being preoccupied with events to the north in the interior of Asia Minor, the Fatimids could rest easy for the time being. With the ascendancy of the Artakid prince Balak in the east, and the capture of Baldwin II, Jerusalem looked set to fall. The Egyptians could take their time in reclaiming their cities, and pay their sailors by preying on any merchant vessels foolhardy enough to try their luck along the coast during that turbulent time. After a few days of patrols, a lookout on one of the outlying vessels of the fleet spotted exactly what they'd been looking for. A group of trading vessels hugging the deeper waters out on the horizon, seeking to slip by unseen. Upon hearing the good news, the admiral of the fleet gave the order to give chase. Ever since the Norman conquest of Sicily, the Egyptians had suffered a serious deficit of timber. Small trading fleets such as these came in handy. They could always use the ships, and of course there was the potential plunder and slaves to be found on board. Almost immediately, the large Egyptian war galleys gave chase, plying out into the deeper waters in search of an easy victory. Before any of the Fatimid rowers realised it however, large, billowing sails began to be spotted, emerging out of the horizon on all sides around them. It was a trap. The trading vessels were in fact, just the outliers of a much larger fleet, sailing just out of sight below the horizon. To the horror of the Fatimid sailors, they were surrounded. No sooner had the Egyptian ships engaged in pursuit, did they find themselves outnumbered and surrounded on all sides by skilled Christian mariners. The 12th century historian William of Tyre recounts what happened next. A fierce battle commenced. Both sides fought with great bitterness, and there were so many killed that those who were there most emphatically assure you, as unlikely as it may sound, that the victors waded in the enemy's blood, and the surrounding sea was dyed red from the blood that flowed down from the ships, up to a radius of 2,000 steps. But the shores, they say, were so thickly covered with the corpses that were ejected from the sea, that the air was tainted, and the surrounding region contracted a plague. Eventually, amidst the gruesome melee embroiling the opposing fleets, the lead ship of the newcomers spotted the displayed banners of the Fatimid Admiral. Making a beeline towards his vessel, they smashed headlong into it, piercing its sides and sending the unfortunate commander to the bottom of the ocean. If the contemporary sources are to be believed, not one Egyptian ship escaped the battle, with nine being captured and the rest sunk along with some 4,000 sailors. Ultimately, it was the newcomers, not the Fatimids, who would profit from shipping in the area, going on to capture 10 trading vessels over the next days. With the lack of timber in northern Africa, following the Norman conquest of Sicily, the Fatimid fleet was effectively done for. Decimating Egyptian sea power for decades to come, and effectively sealing the fates of Tyre and Ascalon for good. As the burning husks of the Fatimid war galleys still smoked upon the horizon, the screams of drowning mariners permeating through the air, Doge, Domenico, Mikael, gazed out from his flagship towards the friendly port of Acre. He could smell an opportunity when he saw one, and this would be massive. To the great fortune of the Franks of the Levant, the Venetians had arrived. Upon the initial calling of the First Crusade, back in the late 1090s, the city-state of Venice, a rising power on the world scene, had initially hung back, matching the Norman prince Roger of Sicily in remaining neutral, refusing to pledge his undying loyalty to the campaign, like the other foremost Italian maritime cities, Genoa and Pisa. Whereas they had leapt at the chance of furthering their own spheres of influence, and in engaging in the Crusader zeal, Venice recognised that war was bad for business. The Venetians wanted to keep their existing trade routes open, having already been trading with Egypt and the Islamic powers of the Levant since the beginning of the century. It was there, on the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean, that the riches of the Silk Roads flowed in from India and the Far East, trickling in from far away on the backs of camels, before being loaded up alongside timber from Northern Europe, metal from Anatolia, and ivory from the South. But Venice already had access to the area, the Fatimids of Egypt being good trading partners, and even the warlike Seljuk Turks increasingly realising the potential benefits of keeping the port cities of the Levant open to trade. The Venetian doge at the time, Vitaly Mikhail, ever the businessman, preferred to wait after the First Crusade was called, in order to judge for himself the scale of the enterprise, and its prospects for success, before committing the services of his republic. For him, the primary goal of Venice was to retain the city's advantage over the other Italian city-states, most notably the rising powers of Genoa and Pisa, both maritime powers with fierce mercantile ambitions of their own. On the face of it, purely from a geographical perspective, Venice was at the obvious advantage. The city on the lagoon lay on a far closer and easier route to both Constantinople and the Holy Land. She already had firm links in the Levant and Egypt, and in 1092, notably gained extensive trade rights all over the Byzantine Empire, granted by the Emperor Alexios Komnenos, in an attempt to revitalise the ailing Byzantine economy, decimated by decades of civil war and hemorrhaging territory to the Seljuk Turks. Not only were Venetian merchants to be made exempt from taxes, on both imports and exports, but they were also granted an entire district and anchorage in the imperial capital. Genoa and Pisa, meanwhile, engaged themselves in an intensive rivalry, spending much of their time and energy in fighting over control of Corsica and other commercial interests in the western Mediterranean. Rather than being filled with joy, like much of the rest of Europe at the calling of the First Crusade, many Venetians were instead filled with apprehension. All of their carefully laid plans were now threatened with destruction. Not only was war bad for business, but it also threatened to give an opportunity for expansion to the other maritime cities, should the endeavour succeed. As early as 1097, a Genoan fleet left port to ferry much-needed supplies to the Crusaders during the Siege of Antioch, and the Pisans weren't far behind them, arriving in the area shortly afterwards to disrupt the Venetian stranglehold on the region. Upon the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, and the successful conclusion of the First Crusade, the Venetians begrudgingly accepted which way the wind was blowing, and accordingly dispatched a fleet of some 200 ships under the Doge's son, Vitale Giovanni. One by one, they filed out of the Grand Lagoon into the Adriatic, calling in at their Dalmatian trading towns to pick up more soldiers and more sailors along the way, before finally rounding the Peloponnese and pulling into the Byzantine island of Rhodes for the winter. The Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos, himself ever the shrewd businessman, had long enjoyed a first calling on their maritime support against the Normans of southern Italy in the 1080s, and later offering them full tax-exempt trade rights throughout the empire. Now faced with the very same Normans having seized the former provincial capital of Antioch for their own, rather than returning it to him, he attempted to utilise the Venetians for his own Whilst the fleet lay anchored off the coast of Rhodes, Alexios seems to have sent word to the Doge, asking him to pull out of the region entirely, or come to his aid rather than support the Crusaders, always emphasising their treacherous actions whilst stressing his own long-standing agreement with Venice. Perhaps most offensive to Venice weren't the actions of the Crusaders, but those of their own commercial rivals. Ever a threat to their supremacy over the east-west trade routes of the Mediterranean, a Pisan fleet lay in blockade of the Byzantine city of Latakia, an important seaport to the provincial capital of Antioch. Having recently acquired Antioch for himself, the Norman warlord Bohemond of Taranto was currently besieging the city from its landward side. The Byzantine defenders of the city were eventually able to push the Pisans back, the fleet pulling out mostly intact to retreat back home. Unfortunately for them, a battle-ready and fully refreshed fleet was waiting for them out in the waters of the Mediterranean. Weary from months of battle, coming into anchor just off of Rhodes, they fell right into the For the first time in history, Venetian and Pisan fleets engaged in a fierce battle at sea. The Venetians had watched the rise of the upstart young power, and wished to clip their wings just to make sure they were very much the lesser partner in the Italian dealings in the Levant, and if at all possible, to force them to relinquish any kind of potential activity in the area. A brutal fight ensued, with mariners leaping from ship to ship to overwhelm enemy crews, just as much as man o' wars crashed into each other, bulkheads and masts hideously crunching in a battle for mastery over the waves. By day's end, it was the Venetians who had made their point, seeing 20 Pisan ships and around 4,000 sailors captured. They were released soon afterwards to limp back to Italy, though not before they were forced to relinquish all of their plunder and to vow never to return again to the Eastern Mediterranean. Of course, this assurance was soon forgotten, both the Pisans and Genoans soon obtaining trade rights in the newly forged Kingdom of Jerusalem. The battle off the Rhodian shore simply amounted to the first in a long series of confrontations between the Italian maritime powers over the coming centuries. Though Venice remained very much the apex power for the time being, she would be forced to return to the Holy Land again and again over the coming decades in order to retain her position. Six months after the fleet had first set out, Venice had still landed no major blows against the Muslim powers of the Middle East, nor even had any of its sailors set foot or made port in the Holy Land. As always, Venice had put its own interests first, delaying on roads for several weeks whilst her sailors plundered valuable Christian relics to bring back to St. Mark's to help the burgeoning pilgrim trade, yet another lucrative venture for the city. Surely the Byzantines wouldn't miss a few relics, especially considering the support that the Venetians had given them. Though this act can perhaps be seen as the first in a long line of questionable actions against the Byzantines, eventually culminating in the total sack of Constantinople in 1204, and the permanent shattering of Eastern Roman power that came as a result. Finally, in the summer of 1100, the Venetian fleet put into port at the recently conquered city of Jaffa. The desperate situation of the Crusaders is illustrated by the quite ludicrous trade rights and concessions that the Venetians managed to secure for themselves. It would be fair to say that if the Genoans and the Pisans had it good, the Venetians were offered a ridiculous price. In recognition for their assistance in the Levant, Vitali Giovanni asked for a church and a market in every Christian town, a third of every town they might capture in the future, and finally in return for an annual tribute, the entire city of Tripoli. Though these concessions never in fact materialised, due to the main Crusader commander, Godfrey of Bouillon's death, making the deal null and void shortly afterwards. Nevertheless, the power of Venice is still evident. Godfrey's death, and the ensuing political crisis in the newly forged Kingdom of Jerusalem, delayed the proposed attack on Acre, and a compromise was made in attacking Haifa, a predominantly Jewish settlement, understandably unwilling to submit due to the recent massacre of Jerusalem's entire Jewish population. Nonetheless, the Venetians besieged the city, their siege weapons ultimately proving too much for the defenders to handle. Zealous Crusaders rushed through the city's gates, and as feared, in a repeat of scenes that took place from the Rhine to the Jordan, they launched into a vicious pogrom against the Jewish inhabitants of the city, massacring thousands. So it was, that August, weighed down with plunder and holy relics, satisfied that their commercial interests were secure, the Venetian fleet set sail for home. They wouldn't return to the Holy Land for another decade, again motivated primarily not by Crusader zeal, but by the necessity of overcoming their competition, the other maritime powers of Pisa and Genoa, who in the meantime had both set up commercial activities, not only in the Holy Land, but also in the Byzantine Empire, though with less advantageous rights in both. There was also a very real military foe to contend with, much closer to home, in the form of the Kingdom of Hungary, under its king Koloman, a fellow Catholic state, but one with competing ambitions along the Adriatic. In the intervening years, a number of floods had decimated the city on the lagoon, levelling churches and seeing entire districts sink into the waters for a time. A new Doge had also been elected, Ordo Lafo Falieri, an energetic leader who recognised that something would have to give. A new expedition to bring much needed money into the city would do nicely. By 1110, a new Doge, Ordo Lafo, opted to lead the personally, sitting aboard the flagship of a hundred-strong fleet of vessels. As usual, the Venetians' timing was impeccable. At the same time as the Venetians approached, the new ruler of Jerusalem, King Baldwin I, was besieging the city of Sidon, along with an army of axe-wielding marauders led by King Sigurd of Norway, another set of newcomers and a throwback to the age of the Vikings, lured in by profit as much as by religious conviction. Yet the siege was dragging on for longer than anticipated, and it was only thanks to Venetian support that the city finally surrendered in December. Rather than being granted part of Sidon, the Doge seems to have bartered for control of an entire district of the main port city of Jerusalem, where spices and silks flowed in from the east, ivory from the south, and metals from the north. Baldwin agreed. The Doge even gained the right to use Venetian measures and weights wherever they operated, and to maintain their own magistrate for legal issues. Though Genoa and Pisa had been similarly favoured, Venice had at least ensured a profitable arrangement for the future. On the return journey, they again plundered more Christian relics from Byzantine as well as Turkish-held lands along the coasts of Asia Minor, in order to help with the burgeoning commercial activity of the pilgrimage trail. In the years following Ordolafo's expedition to the Holy Land, even though some 300 ships had already been deployed to the east, it was realised that bigger and better fleets would be required to maintain their position against their commercial rivals. Never able to differentiate between commerce and defence, the shipwrights of Venice engaged in an epic building project, assembling a truly colossal fleet. By 1119, this new fleet would be in dire need again by the Crusader Kingdoms. In that year, the entire Antiochian army had been annihilated at the Field of Blood. Though the situation was restored to a tentative balance by the actions of the new King of Jerusalem, Baldwin II, a resurgence of Egyptian sea power now threatened the long-term survival of the kingdom, as well as the ever-powerful Turkic powers of Syria. Urgent calls for aid arrived at the lagoon almost immediately, though as usual they also arrived at the rival powers of Genoa and Pisa, though they were tied up in fighting over Corsica. Again, due to good timing, it was Venice's time to shine. Along with a new expedition came a new doge, Domenico Michiel. His flagship sailed out once more in August 1122, with 71 mighty man-o-wars and many smaller vessels. Though at first its sails were not directed to the Egyptians, but to fellow Christians, they went to the Byzantine island of Corfu to seize relics and to teach the Byzantines a lesson. The death of Alexios Komnenos four years earlier had led his son John to the throne, accompanied by a stark shift in policy against the rising power of Venice. Whereas Alexios favoured Venice, John hadn't lived through the dark days of the 1070s and 1080s, and he decided to revoke the trade rights of the young upstarts. In response, Venice simply mercilessly raided the Byzantine islands, easy pickings in the wake of Alexios Komnenos' death in 1118, using the opportunity to teach their partner a lesson. Eventually, John backed down and restated the ludicrous tax exemptions granted when the empire stood on the very verge of oblivion, though the relationship between the two powers became increasingly strained. Ultimately however, reports trickling in of a new disaster in the Holy Land took the attentions of the fleet. Baldwin II, the King of Jerusalem, as well as Jocelyn of Courtenay, Count of Edessa, had been taken prisoner by the Arcticid warlord Balak, leaving the region divided and with no effective leadership. Reluctantly, though sensing a potential profit when he saw one, the Doge gave the order to set sail for the Levant. They took their time however, leisurely sacking the Aegean islands of Chios, Lesbos, Rhodes and Cyprus along the way, in order to milk the Byzantines for all they had, before finally dropping anchor at Acre in 1123, and decimating the Egyptian fleet operating along the coast. In the aftermath of the defeat of the Egyptian fleet, the Doge returned in triumph to Acre. He was about to do some hard bargaining. Negotiations dragged on for months, with the Christians desperate to capture Tyre, the main trading emporium of the Levantine shore, still in Muslim hands, and Ascalon, the main Fatimid military base. But, the Venetians, only willing to commit to the operation in return for huge sums of money and commercial concessions. Finally, in the first weeks of 1124, an agreement was made, with even better terms than had been extorted in 1100. In every single Christian town and city of the kingdom, they were to be granted a church, a bakery and bathhouses, together with exemption from all tolls and custom charges. Their right to use their own weights and measures was confirmed, and finally, they were offered a whole third of the cities of Tyre and Ascalon upon their capture, should they take part, in addition to their already existing district in the city of Acre. Finally, the Venetian fleet sailed north to Tyre, whilst the Crusader army marched overland. Tyre was an ancient seaport, built upon an exceptional natural harbour, added to by successive generations down through the millennia. The city had once been home to a Venetian population. It was expertly made, and deemed to be near invulnerable to attack from both sea and land. On the 15th of February 1124, the Venetians, led by the Doge, and the Franks, led by Pons, Count of Tripoli, and William de Bury, the still-imprisoned King's Constable, began the siege. At the time, Tyre was part of the territory of Teghetkin, the Atabeg of Damascus, and it possessed a capable garrison and determined population, already weathering several sieges over the preceding two decades. First off, the Crusaders built large siege towers and machines that could hurl immense pieces of rock over large distances to shatter the walls. The defenders of Tyre also built engines of their own, hurling boulders back at the approaching siege towers. As the conflict dragged on, just like it happened when Alexander the Great besieged the city close to 1500 years before, the citizens began to run short of food, and sent urgent calls for aid. To make matters worse for the defenders, word arrived from the east that Balak, likely the foremost leader amongst the Turks of the region at the time, died whilst besieging the city of Hierapolis. Baldwin still toiled in captivity, though the removal of Balak came as a great relief to the beleaguered residents of the Crusader states. Teghetkin meanwhile, cautiously advanced towards Tyre from Damascus. Upon hearing of the death of Balak however, and faced with the forces of Count Pons of Tripoli and Constable William riding out to confront him, he turned around and fled without fighting. In June 1124, recognising his now potentially volatile situation, Teghetkin sent envoys to negotiate peace. After a series of lengthy and difficult negotiations, it was agreed that the terms of the surrender would include letting those who wanted to leave the city be able to do so, taking their family and property with them, whilst those who wanted to stay would keep their houses and possessions. This was an unpopular move with some of the Crusaders, ever eager to plunder the city after a fierce siege. But the terms were adhered to nonetheless. Times had changed in the 25 years since Europeans arrived in the region, and bloodthirsty massacres were no longer the norm. Diplomacy being increasingly seen as a much better long-term survival strategy for the Crusader states. After holding out for more than two decades, Tyre finally surrendered on the 29th of June 1124. Though Baldwin remained in captivity throughout all of these events, following the death of Balak and the subsequent breakup of Artukid power, he was released in return for a ransom. Upon his arrival back in the kingdom, he found much of the crisis to have passed. Somehow, against all the odds, he'd not only held on to his kingdom, but now had a new city to add to it, one of the primary trading ports on the Mediterranean. In return for their service in capturing the city, Baldwin maintained his part in the deal, brokered during his captivity, by granting the Venetians extensive commercial privileges, a stake in the city, and guarantees of property rights for the heirs of Venetians who were shipwrecked or who had died in Tyre, thus ensuring that Venice would maintain a naval presence in the Latin East. On the return voyage, the main Venetian fleet again passed through the Aegean Sea. Again they pillaged Greek islands, forcing the Byzantines to abandon their dispute and reconfirm the original commercial privileges granted to Venice. Venice's overseas colonial enterprise had well and truly begun. It was an empire that would continue to thrive well into the 18th century, until it was finally extinguished by Napoleon.