ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how an understanding of the command structure of the “pilgrim” contingent helps to explain why it was able to survive partial disintegration and reach Constantinople. The size of the fleet and the small estimates of knights suggest that the impressions of the Muslims were exaggerated and that the force comprised between 8,000 and 10,000 men, about a quarter of the size of that projected for the Fourth Crusade, although very substantial for the period. So the plans for the Fourth Crusade constitute the most ambitious proposal for a trans-Mediterranean invasion conceived in the central Middle Ages. The Fourth Crusade was the first to reveal feature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a core of persistent crusaders who would turn up over and over again in different theaters of war. The Fourth Crusade was originally planned on a breathtaking scale. A huge army was to be transported across the Mediterranean and was to make a landing in Egypt.
