"This if the only Crusade for which apologies need to be made"
The fourth Crusade was a poorly managed affair from the start, if memory serves me. After many false starts and lengthy delays in Europe they finally managed to reach Constantiople where they found the great city an incredibly rich and hollow shell. It proved far to tempting to the mercenaries and adventurers that had stuck w/ the enterprise long after any serious chance of regaining lands lost to the Turks had gone up in smoke.
The advanced corruption and decay of that old city was the greatest reason for its sacking, although the thought of Christian attacking Christian is still unpleasant.
It proved far to tempting to the mercenaries and adventurers...
Too tempting? The barbarity with which the 4th "crusade" undertook to destroy the Byzantine capital defies logic and belief.
It cannot rightfully be called a crusade as it simply destroyed a Christian city instead of trying to regain lost lands from Mohamedanism.
From "The Byzantine Empire" by Edward A. Foord
"The soldiery burned libraries in their campfires, and though nominal Christians, they held ribald orgies in Aghia Sophia, while prostitutes performed filthy actions and dances on the very altar."
"Italians and French alike showed that in 1204 they were barbarians-and barbarians of a very low type."
"Two-thirds of the splendid city of Constantine were heaps of ashes; all that remained was ruined, stripped bare of everything, naked and desolate, three-fourths of the people had fled or perished.....
A very low type indeed.