In April, 1203, the expedition left Zara, bound on the great and perilous adventure of Constantinople. Only the Venetians knew how difficult, how hopeless, save for the disorganized state of the empire, was the task before them. The fleet consisted of 440 ships, including the transports for horses, men, and provisions. They carried 40,000 soldiers. With this army they proposed to attack a city occupying a position unique for strength, believed to possess a powerful fleet, and numbering perhaps a population of half a million. No city in the West numbered more than a tenth of that estimate.
The ignorant soldiers, sailing with a light heart to encounter these perils, met with neither bad weather nor hostile fleets, as the gallant company of galleys and transports passed down the Adriatic, across the Ægean, and up the Dardanelles. They even crossed the Sea of Marmora and passed under the very walls of the city without other peril than the discharge of darts and stones from the Greeks, who gazed at them, secure behind their walls, with more of curiosity than of terror. It was indeed only sixteen years since the unsuccessful attack of Alexis Ducas helped to make the people believe their city to be impregnable. With their line of towers and walls guarding, not only the tongue of land on which the city was built, but also the landward side, with the fortifications of Galata, the great chain barring the mouth of the Golden Horn, their Varangian guards, their innumerable soldiers, what had they to fear from this handful of Western barbarians? Nothing, had their fighting power been equal to their defensive bulwarks.
