APPENDIX II
WHERE DID THE SEA-FIGHT OF APRIL 20, 1453, TAKE PLACE?
The late Dr. A. D. Mordtmann,[581] and Dr. Paspates,[582] followed by M. Mijatovich,[583] and M. E. A. Vlasto,[584] answer, that it was to the west of the Marmora end of the landward walls: that is, off Zeitin Bournou. In favour of this view they give the following reasons:
(1) Because during the fight the sultan rode into the water, and he could not have done so if the fight had been on the north shore of the Golden Horn, as the shore there is too steep. The answer to this is, that the Galata shore four centuries ago was like that of the Golden Horn outside the walls of Constantinople now, and consisted of a low flat of mud, now built upon. The present Grande Rue de Galata is really the ‘Strand’ of Galata, and is all land reclaimed from the sea. This is even now obvious; but Gyllius observed the growth of this flat land and gives a curious description of it.[585] This argument therefore fails.
(2) Because Barbaro mentions that the wind dropped when the ships were ‘per mezo la citade,’ which Dr. Mordtmann considered to mean halfway along the length of the city between the end of the landward walls and Seraglio Point, or, as he puts it definitely, at Vlanga Bostan. But ‘per mezo’ means here simply alongside or opposite or abreast of the city. It is used as meaning ‘through the midst’ in the same paragraph, when Barbaro states that he is going from the city on board certain galleys ‘per mezo la citade.’
It is undisputed that a southerly wind had been blowing four days: a strong wind which had brought the ships from Chios. There would therefore be a current running northwards. Consequently if the wind had suddenly dropped opposite Vlanga Bostan the ships would have drifted toward the Bosporus and not backwards to Zeitin Bournou.
(3) Because Pusculus says that the townsfolk crowded to the Hippodrome to see the fight, and they would not have done so (because buildings intercepted the view) if the fight had been at the mouth of the Golden Horn.
The Hippodrome is four miles as the crow flies from the sea opposite Zeitin Bournou, and the spectators would not have crowded to such a place when they could have seen so much better from a hill behind Psamatia and elsewhere. If, however, the fight, or any part of it, took place opposite Seraglio Point, spectators on the Sphendone of the Hippodrome would have had an excellent view of the ships as they approached and as they passed, and of an attack made in the Bosporus before the ships passed the Acropolis. I have tested this on several occasions.
(4) Because Phrantzes says the fight took place about a stone’s-throw from the land where the sultan was and that he and his friends watched it from the walls,[586] and that the only place where these two requirements can be satisfied is Zeitin Bournou.
The mouth of the Horn satisfies both requirements equally well. Dr. Paspates observes that ships coming to Constantinople with a south wind do not keep near the walls, but keep well out; and the remark is just. They take this course to avoid the eddy current, which if they kept near the walls would be against them. If the ships were about a stone’s-throw distant from the land, they would not only be out of their usual course but taking another where their progress would be hindered.
(5) Because Ducas (who was not a witness of what he relates) says that the Turkish fleet set out to wait for the fleet off the harbour of the Golden Gate.[587]
There probably never was a harbour of the Aurea Porta. Paspates says there was a scala near the Golden Gate, which, indeed is shown in Bondelmonte’s map, but the ships could not discharge at an open scala in the Marmora with a south wind blowing, even if there had been depth enough of water where it existed, which, at the present day at least, there is not.
The statement of Ducas is improbable, because, as the object of the ships was to get past the boom from St. Eugenius to Galata, the ships with the wind which was blowing would have simply passed the fleet or gone triumphantly through them, if they had been waiting off the Golden Gate, and have made for Seraglio Point and the harbour.
I suggest that the words of Ducas (Χρύση Πύλη) are either an error in the copying or are a mistake made by Ducas. They may be a transcriber’s mistake for Horaia Porta—that is, the gate near Seraglio Point, on the Golden Horn. Horaia Porta and Aurea Porta are almost undistinguishable in sound, the aspirate being unpronounced. The similarity in sound had led at an early period to confusion.[588]
It may nevertheless be true that the fleet set out to await the ships off the end of the landward walls. There is not, however, the slightest evidence that it ever got there. On the contrary, as we shall see, the evidence shows that it did not. Once it is established that it never got so far, the contention that the fight was off Zeitin Bournou falls.
These are all the arguments which, so far as I know, have been urged in favour of the Zeitin Bournou position. Some of them are destructive of the others, and, with the exception of the statement of Ducas as to the Turkish fleet setting off for the Harbour of the Golden Gate, are all deductions from the evidence of the authorities rather than direct evidence. Moreover, as will be seen, important statements of witnesses testifying to what they themselves saw are either entirely overlooked or set aside without any sufficient reason.
My contention in the text is that the fight commenced at the mouth of the Bosporus off Seraglio Point; that the wind suddenly dropped while the ships were under the walls of the Acropolis at that Point; that the ships drifted towards the Galata or Pera shore, and that the most serious part of the fight took place off such shore, where it was watched by the sultan and into the waters of which shore the sultan rode. The evidence in support of this view is the following:
(1) It is agreed on all sides that the Turkish fleet was stationed at the Double Columns (Diplokionion).
(2) Leonard the archbishop says that he was a spectator from the city, and that the sultan was on the slope of the Pera hill. Leonard is a witness deserving of confidence. He was present during the whole siege. He had much to do with the people of Galata, who were, like himself, of the Latin Church. In describing this particular incident, he speaks of himself as a spectator of the fight.[589] His letter is an official report addressed to the pope within three months after the event, and therefore while its details were fresh in his memory and not like the account of Ducas, who was not present at the siege and only wrote years afterwards. His testimony, if he is to be believed—and I know no reason why he should even be doubted—is decisive. ‘The King of the Trojans’ (as he calls the Turks throughout) looked on from Pera hill.[590]
Le Beau, who took the view which I adopt, relied no doubt upon Leonard’s narrative in describing the battle. Dr. Mordtmann remarks upon Le Beau’s statement that no one standing upon the hillside at Pera could see a fight at sea beyond Seraglio Point. The observation is correct, and my deduction is that, when the ships were first attacked, they were abreast of Seraglio Point and not beyond or behind it. Dr. Mordtmann’s is that the sultan could not have been at Pera, and this notwithstanding that the archbishop says that he was there and implies that he saw him there. The archbishop further mentioned that when the sultan ‘blasphemed,’ as he rode into the water and witnessed the loss his men were suffering, it was from a hill.[591] But the archbishop does not leave his readers in doubt as to what hill he means. A few sentences later in his narrative we are told that the sultan had concluded that he would be able from the eastern shore of the Galata hill either to sink the ships with his stone cannon-balls, or at least drive them back from the chain.[592] The rest of the passage shows unmistakably that the sultan, in Leonard’s belief, was on the shore outside the Galata walls: that is, exactly where a spectator might be supposed to be who, having come from Diplokionion, wanted to see the most of a fight in or near the mouth of the Horn. Unless, therefore, within a short period after the capture of the city, the archbishop had become hopelessly muddled as to what he himself saw, we must conclude that the fight did not take place off Zeitin Bournou but in or near the mouth of the Golden Horn.
Pusculus, another spectator, says the ships entered the Bosporus and that the wind dropped while they were under the walls of the Acropolis. The account given by this writer is clear and precise. He was in the city and relates what he witnessed, and although he wrote his poem some years afterwards, when safe in his native city of Brescia, he had the broad outlines of the siege well in his recollection. His narrative is the following, and is in complete accord with that of every other eye-witness. The ships are seen approaching on the Marmora; some of the townsfolk flock to the Hippodrome where (from the Sphendone) they have a view far and wide over the sea, and can observe them taking the usual course for ships coming from the Dardanelles to the capital with a southerly wind. The Turkish admiral with his fleet has gone to meet them, and orders them to lower their sails. The south wind still blows full astern, and with bellying sails they hold on their course. The wind continues until they are carried to a position where the Bosporus strains against the shore of either land.[593] That is, as I understand the phrase, until they are at least well past the present lighthouse. ‘There the wind fails them; the sails flap idly under the walls of the citadel.[594] Then, indeed, began the fight; the spirits of the Turks are aroused by the fall of the wind; Mahomet, watching from the shore not far off, arouses their rage.’ My only doubt as to this interpretation arises as to the question whether the writer did not mean that the wind dropped, not merely off Seraglio Point, but within the mouth of the Horn.
Ducas says the sultan, when the ships came in sight of the city, ‘hastened’ to his fleet, and gave orders to capture them or, failing that, to hinder them from getting inside the harbour. This hastening of the sultan meant a journey of between two and three miles from his camp in the Mesoteichion to Diplokionion. Once he was there, his natural course would be to follow on shore the movements of his fleet, until he reached the eastern walls of Galata, which is exactly the place where the archbishop stations him. If it should be objected that Mahomet’s hastening to his triremes implies that they were stationed near Zeitin Bournou, the answer is twofold: first, that there would be no haste necessary, and secondly, that even Ducas implies that the fleet was in the Bosporus, as indeed Barbaro and others say that it was.
The two statements of Phrantzes—first, that the fight was about a stone’s-throw from the land where the sultan was on horseback and rode into the sea to revile his men, and, second, that he (Phrantzes) and his friends watched the fight from the walls[595]—are both reconcilable with the contention that the fight was where I have placed it. I conclude that the balance of evidence is in favour of the opinion that the fight commenced in the open Bosporus off Seraglio Point, and, the wind continuing, the ships rounded the Point, and that then the wind dropped, the general attack took place, and the ships drifted to the Galata shore.
When the question is considered ‘What position accords with all the accounts of the eye-witnesses?’ there can be only one answer. The people watch from the Hippodrome, says Pusculus, and would have a good view until the ships had rounded the point. The vessels were aiming for Megademetrius, says Ducas: which was the usual landmark for vessels to steer for when coming to the Golden Horn from the Marmora with a south wind. ‘We being spectators’ from the walls and the sultan being on the Pera slope watching the fight, says Leonard; and the vessels being about a stone’s-throw from the shore, says Phrantzes. Pusculus answers the question ‘Where were Leonard and the other spectators?’ by telling us that the wind dropped under the walls of the citadel.
There is yet another test which may be applied and which ought almost of itself to settle the question. Upon considering the position without reference to authorities upon matters of detail and upon a priori grounds, an unbiassed local investigator would discard the Zeitin Bournou position and accept that of the Bosporus-Galata. Four large ships want to enter the Golden Horn, since there is no harbour on the Marmora side of the city sufficiently large into which they could enter. They are approaching with a southerly wind. The Turkish fleet consists of large and small sailing boats which are stationed nearly two miles from the Horn in the Bosporus. The object of the fleet is to capture or sink the ships, or at least to prevent them from entering the harbour. What, under these circumstances, would the commander of the fleet do? He would keep his boats well together near the mouth of the Horn and attempt to bar the passage. He would recognise that he had little chance of capturing comparatively large sailing vessels on open sea so long as they were coming on with a wind. So long as the ships were sailing, they would be attacked at a great disadvantage. Wait for them near the Horaia Porta, when they would have to stop, and they could then be fought at an advantage. If the wind suddenly dropped, the Turkish admiral would naturally give orders to attack. This is what, as I contend, actually happened. The fight would then be seen by Greeks from the walls and by Mahomet and his suite from the Galata or Pera shore. What would happen when the wind became calm, would be that the vessels would drift. I repeat what I have said in the text, that it may be taken as beyond doubt that after a strong southerly wind has been blowing in the Marmora for four or five days—and it was such a wind which had brought the ships from Chios—there would be in the Marmora and the Bosporus near Seraglio Point a strong current setting in the same direction, and the ships would drift toward the Galata shore. It would then be quite possible to have got within a stone’s-throw, as Phrantzes relates, and for their crews to have heard the reproaches of the sultan.