Within four months, Alexios IV was deposed and strangled, and a new man took over as Alexios V. The new emperor told the crusaders that they were getting nothing, and should up and leave. A mob attacked the crusader camp, and showed what happens when essentially unarmed  civilians attack a proper military unit. After thrashing the mob, the crusaders attacked the city, sacked it, and took it over. Alexios V fled to take shelter with Alexios III (remember him?) and was first greeted warmly, but afterwards blinded (the law said that the emperor had to be perfect physically, so blinding a deposed emperor or a possible rival to the throne rendered him ineligible to be emperor), and then sent back to the crusaders, who killed him.

The crusaders first offered the throne to Dandolo, who turned it down, then put Baldwin of Flanders on the throne. Baldwin was extremely unpopular, if for no other reasons that he was Catholic, not Orthodox, and spoke no Greek.