CHAPTER XI
TOPOGRAPHY OF CONSTANTINOPLE; DISPOSITION OF MAHOMET’S FORCES AND CANNON; ESTIMATE OF FIGHTING MEN UNDER EMPEROR; VENETIANS AND GENOESE: DISPARITY IN NUMBERS: ARMS AND EQUIPMENT: ATTACKS ON THERAPIA AND PRINKIPO.
Topography of Constantinople.
In order to understand these dispositions and the operations of the siege which had now begun it is necessary to take account of the topography of the city. Constantinople in modern times comprises not only Stamboul but the large and even more populous district situated on the northern shore of the Golden Horn. This district was known in mediaeval times as Pera.[238] On the slope of Pera hill towards the Horn the Genoese were in possession of a walled city called Galata. Sometimes this city is described as Galata of Pera. In modern times, however, Pera is the name of the city on the north of the Golden Horn, exclusive of Galata. In 1453 what is now known as Stamboul was the only portion of the present city to which the name Constantinople was applied.[239]
The city about to be besieged is situated on a peninsula at the south-west extremity of the Bosporus. It is, roughly speaking, an isosceles triangle with its base to landward. One of the sides is bounded by the Marmora and the other by the Golden Horn. It was surrounded by walls, which, with a few short intervals, still remain. On the two sides bounded by the sea they were built close to the water’s edge. In the course of centuries the Golden Horn had silted up a deposit of mud which even before 1453 formed a foreshore outside the north walls of a sufficient extent to have allowed Cantacuzenus to open a foss from Seraglio Point to Aivan Serai, formerly known as Cynegion. The side of the triangle most open to attack was that which faced the land and extended from the Horn to the Marmora. The walls on this landward side, constructed mainly during the reign of Theodosius the Second, had proved themselves during a period of a thousand years sufficiently strong to have enabled the citizens successfully to resist upwards of twenty sieges, and previous to the introduction of cannon were justly regarded as invulnerable.[240]
The landward walls are four miles long. From the Marmora to a point where the land has a steep slope for about half a mile down to the Golden Horn, they are triple. The inner and loftiest is about forty feet high and is strengthened by towers sixty feet high along its whole length and distant from each other usually about one hundred and eighty feet. Outside this wall is a second, about twenty-five feet high, with towers similar to though smaller than those along the inner wall. This wall alone is of a strength that in any other mediaeval city would have been considered efficient.
Between these two walls was the Peribolos or enclosure, which, though of varying width, is usually between fifty and sixty feet broad. Outside the second was yet another wall, which was a continuation in height of the scarp or inner wall of the ditch or foss and which may conveniently be called a breastwork. This breastwork, like the other two, was crenellated. Though, from the fact that it has been easier of access than either of the others, the summit has mostly perished, some portions of it are still complete. It is important, however, to note that the third wall or breastwork is disregarded by contemporary writers, and that they speak of the second as the Outer Wall. A second enclosure, called by the Greeks the Parateichion to distinguish it from the Peribolos, exists between the second and the third walls. The foss or ditch, which has withstood four and a half centuries of exposure since it last served as the first line of defence, is still in good condition. It has a width of about sixty feet.
The landward wall contained a number of gates which are conveniently described as Civil Gates and which during times of peace gave access to the city over bridges which were destroyed when it was besieged. The most important of these for our present purpose are the Chariseus, the modern Adrianople Gate; Top Capou or Cannon Gate, known in earlier times as the St. Romanus Gate, and the Pegè or Gate of the Springs, now called Silivria Gate. Besides these there were Military Gates leading from the city through the inner wall into the enclosures which were known in earlier times by their numbers (counting from the Marmora end of the walls) or from the division of the army stationed near them. The most noteworthy of these were the Third or Triton and the Fifth or Pempton. The latter is in the Lycus valley, about halfway between Top Capou and the Gate of Adrianople, and was spoken of during the siege as the St. Romanus Gate.[241]
As the most important military events in the history of the siege of Constantinople took place in the valley of the Lycus, between the Top Capou on the south and the Adrianople Gate on the north of the valley, it is desirable that the configuration of the locality should be noted carefully. Each of these gates is upon the summit of a hill, the Adrianople Gate indeed being the highest point in the city and, as such, having had near it, as is the almost invariable rule in lands occupied by Greeks, a church dedicated to St. George, who took the place of Apollo when the empire became Christian.[242] Between the two gates exists a valley, about a hundred feet below their level, which is drained by a small stream called the Lycus. The distance between the two gates is seven eighths of a mile. The double walls of Theodosius connect them, while in front of the Outer Wall was an enclosure with the usual breastwork forming the side of the foss. The Lycus enters below these walls through a well-constructed passage still in existence, and flows through the city until it empties itself into the Marmora at Vlanga Bostan. The tower beneath which it has been led is halfway between the Adrianople Gate and Top Capou. About two hundred yards to the north of this tower is the Fifth Military Gate or Pempton, spoken of sometimes by the Byzantines as the Gate of St. Kyriakè, from a church within the city which was close to it, called the Romanus Gate by the writers on the siege, and on old Turkish maps described as Hedjoum Capou or the Gate of the Assault.[243] The foss has a number of dams at irregular distances down each side of the valley. In its lowest part no dams were necessary.[244]
The walls between Top Capou and the Adrianople Gate were known as the Mesoteichion, and the name seems to have been applied also to the whole of the valley. The portion of the walls on either side of the Adrianople Gate, or perhaps those only on the high ground to the north of it, was known as the Myriandrion—a name which was applied occasionally to the Gate itself. From a tower to which Leonard gives the name Bactatinian, near where the Lycus entered the city, to Top Capou, the walls were described as the Bachaturean.
Approximate Restoration of the Land Walls of Theodosius the Second between the Golden and Second Military Gates.
Scale of Metres.
This photograph shows the present condition of a portion of the Landward Walls. They remain for the most part in an equally good state of preservation. The Inner and the Second, usually called the Outer, Wall and the Foss (now without water) are clearly shown. The Third Wall or Breastwork has lost its upper portion and its crenelations, except in a few places. The photograph is reproduced from one by M. Irenian, of Constantinople.
Though the two magnificent Theodosian walls were as well constructed as elsewhere, and to the eye of an ordinary observer the city was as strongly protected in the Lycus valley as anywhere, yet this place appears to have been considered by many of the enemies of the city as its weakest point. Here, says Dethier, with whom Professor Van Millingen agrees, was the Heel of Achilles.[245] Many previous invaders, ending with Murad in 1422, had encamped in the Mesoteichion as the most suitable position for an attack upon the city.[246]
The accompanying sketch of the walls will show their general plan.
Under normal conditions a large detachment of the defenders of such high lines of walls ought to have been on the city side of the great Inner Wall. So few, however, were the besieged, that all had to pass into the enclosures to meet the enemy at the second or Outer Wall. Partly because of the small number of men, but partly also because it had been allowed to get out of repair,[247] the Inner Wall, which, as the highest and strongest, ought to have been the most serious obstacle, was hardly relied upon as a means of defence. Chalcondylas says[248] that the emperor and the leading Greeks deliberated as to where the enemy was to be resisted, and that they decided that they should defend the Outer Wall, which was strengthened by the foss in front of it, as had been done when Murad had attacked the city thirty-one years before. Leonard expressly states that the imperial troops were sufficient to guard only the Outer Wall, and the stockade which, at a late period of the siege, replaced a portion of it. As his own countrymen took part in this task, his testimony is entirely credible.[249] He adds, however, that in his opinion this plan of defence was a blunder; that he was always persuaded that the lofty Inner Wall ought to have been kept ready as a refuge in case of retreat; that those walls which, through neglect or hard weather, had become broken or useless for operations against the enemy, might have been repaired even within the time which elapsed between the proposal for war and the commencement of the siege. Had they been repaired and guarded, they would have provided a reserve of safety to the city. It is when regretting that these repairs were not undertaken that, while excusing the emperor, Leonard breaks out into indignation, justifiable if his belief was well founded[250] against two persons in particular, Jagarus and a monk named Neophytus who had embezzled the moneys which had been bequeathed for the repair of the walls, and declares that the city was lost through the rascality of public robbers. Through their dishonesty, the besieged were driven to place all their hope in the Outer Wall and the foss. The Jews, he adds, were more prudent who when, at the siege of Jerusalem, they were defeated at the first wall, retreated to the second, and then to the third, by which they prolonged the siege of Vespasian and Titus for four years.
Probably the opinion of the soldiers on such a question was worth more than that of the archbishop.[251]
Under these circumstances, the defenders of the city took up their position in the Peribolos or enclosure. The broken Inner Wall was behind them, the strong Outer Wall was in front. The Military Gates from the city into the enclosure were few and far between, there being only one usually in the long distance between the Civil Gates. The only other entrances into the enclosures were at the ends terminating at the Civil Gates.
Disposition of Mahomet’s army.
With this explanation we may now understand the disposition of his troops and cannon made by Mahomet. He placed Zagan Pasha at the head of an army which was charged to guard the whole of Pera, to watch the Genoese in Galata and the whole of the northern shore of the Golden Horn, together with a part of the southern shore as far as the Woodgate or Xyloporta, which was at the extremity of the landward walls. He was ordered to build a bridge over the upper portion of the Horn, so that his troops might take part in the attack upon the city.
The attack upon the landward walls between the Woodgate and up the hill in front of the palaces of Blachern and Porphyrogenitus, and as far as the Chariseus or Adrianople Gate, was entrusted to Caraja Pasha, the head of the European division. Certain of the guns were given to him in order that he might attack the wall at one of its weakest parts, probably where it runs at right angles to the end of the foss.
Isaac Pasha, the head of the Asiatic troops, and Mahmoud, both men who had had great experience in war, commanded the Asiatic division, which covered the ground between Top Capou and the Marmora.
The most important position, however, was that which existed between the Adrianople Gate and Top Capou known as the Mesoteichion. This was the place which Mahomet chose as the principal point of attack. There, he considered, was the Achilles’ heel of the city. There, with Halil Pasha under him, were his head-quarters. His lofty tent of red and gold[252] was pitched about a quarter of a mile from the walls on a small knoll, which is described as opposite the Adrianople Gate and also as opposite that of Romanus. His tent was surrounded by those of the invincible Janissaries who, with other chosen troops, constituted his bodyguard and occupied the same valley.
The Turkish army extended in front of the entire length of the landward walls. The Turks had dug a trench for their own defence in front of the whole of their line, and had placed a wooden palisade upon the earth thus dug out. This was quite near the edge of the foss itself and was pierced at intervals, so that, while it protected the besiegers, it also allowed them to keep up a constant fire on the besieged.[253]
On the Marmora the walls were to be watched by the fleet under Baltoglu from the southern end of the landward walls, round the present Seraglio Point as far as Neorion, which was near the end of the boom. The main object of the fleet was, however, to force an entry into the harbour, and for this purpose to capture or destroy the ships at the boom, an object which Baltoglu attempted to attain from the very commencement of the siege.[254]
The city was thus under attack on two sides, the third—namely, that looking over the Golden Horn—protected by the boom, was for the present inaccessible to the Turkish fleet.
The difficulty of determining the number and disposition of Mahomet’s cannon opposite the landward walls arises from the fact that the position of several of them was changed and that their numbers possibly varied. Phrantzes mentions fourteen batteries along the length of the wall, each containing four guns. Barbaro speaks of nine batteries. Montaldo says that the Turks had in all two hundred guns or ‘torments.’[255] Each of the nine batteries was strengthened by the addition of a heavy gun. Critobulus represents Mahomet as stating after his guns had done their work that he had opened a way into the city at three places, and this declaration affords a safe guide to the general disposition of the cannon. These were, first, between the present Tekfour Serai and the Adrianople Gate; second, opposite or near the Pempton or Gate of the Assault (usually spoken of by contemporaries as the Romanus Gate[256]) in the Lycus valley, and the last near the Third Military Gate between the Pegè or Silivria Gate, and the Rhegium Gate, now called Mevlevihana Capou. Here were the three principal stations of Mahomet’s cannon. At these three places the ruined condition of the wall bears testimony to the vigorous attack of cannon. At them and nowhere else is it possible to pass over the foss, the breastwork and Outer Wall, and to see that the Inner Wall has been so broken down that a passage into the city was possible.[257]
Three cannon are especially remembered on account of their great size. According to Leonard, the largest—that, namely, cast by Urban, which threw a ball of twelve hundred pounds weight—was first placed at Caligaria[258] which then, as now, was ‘protected neither by a foss nor by a front wall.’ It was destroyed either by the besieged or through an accident by which Urban was killed, after it had done considerable damage to the walls.[259] It was, however, recast and transferred to the Lycus valley, where it demolished the Bactatinean tower.[260] The statement of Chalcondylas is that of these three large guns one was stationed opposite the Imperial Palace, probably at Caligaria, the second opposite the Romanus Gate, where the sultan had fixed his camp, and the third between them.[261]
The largest and most powerful gun remained during the siege at the Mesoteichion, in front of the imperial tent.[262]
These cannon are variously described as bombards, machines, skeves, helepoles (or ‘takers of cities’), torments, heleboles, and teleboles. They threw stone balls of great size. The balls had been brought from the Black Sea. The largest, says Chalcondylas, was fired seven times a day and once each night. Archbishop Leonard states that he measured one which had been fired over the wall, and found it to be eleven spans (or eighty-eight inches) in circumference. Nor is such measurement exaggerated. Some of the stone balls have been preserved. They were probably fired over the wall, did not break, and remain nearly in the position where they fell. I have measured two of them, and they are exactly eighty-eight inches in circumference.[263] Tetaldi states that there were ten thousand culverins, and the same number is given by Montaldo. The number is possibly exaggerated. Yet Leonard speaks of ‘innumerable machines’ being advanced towards the wall, and afterwards of a great number of small guns being employed to batter the walls along all their lines. None of the cannon, I think, were mounted on wheels: the Great Cannon certainly was not, for Critobulus describes how it was first carefully pointed towards the object intended to be struck, and then embedded in its position with blocks of wood preparatory to firing.
Contemporaneously with the disposal of the large cannon, orders were given to fill up the ditch in front of them.
When we turn from the preparations made by Mahomet to besiege the city to those which the emperor and the Constantine’s army.citizens had made or were making, the first point which strikes us is the enormous disparity in numbers which the respective leaders had under them. To meet the mighty host of trained warriors under Mahomet, the emperor had only about eight thousand men. This is the estimate in which nearly all writers concur. Phrantzes had exceptional means of forming a judgment on this point. He states[264] that Constantine ordered a census to be made of all men, including monks, capable of bearing arms, and that when the lists were sent in he was charged with making the summary. This showed that there were four thousand nine hundred and eighty-three available Greeks and scarcely two thousand foreigners. The result was so appalling that he was charged by the emperor not to let it be known. The estimate made by Phrantzes, though almost incredible, is substantially confirmed by other writers. Tetaldi says that there were between six thousand and seven thousand combatants within the city ‘and not more.’[265] Leonard makes the number a little higher and gives as an estimate six thousand Greeks and three thousand foreigners. Dolfin, probably following Leonard, arrives at a like conclusion. Ducas says that ‘there were not more than eight thousand.’
The powerful contingent of three thousand Italians is worthy of separate notice. Nearly all were of Venetian or Genoese origin. In them the city had the aid of men belonging to the most virile communities in the Mediterranean. The story of the trading establishments in the Levant, the Archipelago, and the Black Sea belonging to the citizens of Venice and Genoa is a brilliant record of daring, of adventure, and of energy. The expansion of the two states began about the time of the Latin conquest. Everywhere along these shores are the remains of castles built by Genoese or Venetians during the two centuries preceding the Moslem conquest. Dandolo had played the most important part in the capture of the city in 1204, and the capture gave Venice the sovereignty of the seas. The Genoese had aided the Greeks to recapture the city. Each republic had gained territory in Eastern lands. Each owned certain islands in the Aegean. The Genoese had succeeded in forming a large and important colony in Galata, which was now a fortified city. To check Turkish progress was almost as important to the republics as to the Greeks. Venetians and Genoese recognised that once Constantinople was in the hands of the sultan, there would be an end of their development eastward of Cape Matapan. They were, therefore, both fighting for their own interests. They had much to lose and nothing to gain by the success of Mahomet. Nor were the soldiers of the republics destitute of chivalrous spirit. The rough sailor-surgeon, Barbaro, notes that other Venetians as well as Trevisano were willing to fight for the honour of God and the benefit of Christendom. Leonard and other writers testify to equally lofty sentiment on the part of the Genoese Justiniani. In their character and conduct, not less than in their mixed motives, derived from self-interest and chivalry, these foreign adventurers remind English readers of the Drakes, Frobishers, Raleighs, and other heroes of our own Elizabethan period. Unhappily for the city and for civilisation, Venice was unable to send more men before the final catastrophe. But to the eternal glory of the Venetians within the city, whose names are duly recorded by Barbaro ‘for a perpetual memorial,’ and of the Genoese who aided them, the conduct of the combatants from both republics was worthy of the compatriots of Marco Polo and of Columbus.
On the one side was an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, containing at least twelve thousand of the best trained troops in the world; on the other, a miserable number of eight thousand fighting men to defend a length of between twelve and thirteen miles of walls.
The emperor, with Justiniani, completed the arrangements for the defence of the city. Justiniani with the seven hundred men he had brought with him to Constantinople, consisting of his crew and four hundred men in armour,[266] was at first placed in charge of the walls between the Blachern Palace and the Adrianople Gate, but was soon transferred with his men and some of the bravest Greeks to the Lycus valley as the position of greatest importance, honour, and danger. The emperor himself fixed his headquarters in the same position. In this valley the choicest troops of the city and those of the sultan were thus face to face. Between the Adrianople Gate and Tekfour Serai was a contingent of Italians under three brothers, Paul, Antony, and Troilus Bocchiardo. They were stationed, says Phrantzes, at the Myriandrion, because there the city was in great jeopardy;[267] Leonard says, ‘in loco arduo Myriandri;’ Dolfin, speaking of the same place under a somewhat different name, says ‘in loco arduo Miliadro, dove pareva la cita piu debole.’[268] This contingent had been provided by the Bocchiardi at their own cost. The men were furnished with spingards and balistas for hurling stones at the enemy. The Caligaria—that is, the gate of that name, now called Egri Capou or Crooked Gate—and the walls thence as far as Tekfour Serai were defended by Caristo, an old Venetian, and by a German named John Grant, who had taken service with the emperor. Over the imperial palace at Blachern waved the flag of the Lion of St. Mark side by side with the banner of the emperor, to denote that Minotto, the Venetian bailey, was in command in that district. Archbishop Leonard and other Genoese, together with Hieronymus, were with him to assist in defending the walls as far as the Xyloporta on the edge of the Golden Horn.
On the emperor’s left the walls were guarded by Cataneo and Theophilus Palaeologus at the Silivria Gate, while Contarini, the most renowned member of the Venetian colony, and Andronicus Cantacuzenus defended the walls around the Golden Gate and to the sea.[269] Under these leaders, along the whole length of the landward wall, Genoese, Venetians, and Greeks fought side by side.
Between a tower in the current off Seraglio Point and the Imperial Gate—that is, at the Acropolis, and thus guarding the entrance to the harbour[270]—Gabriel Trevisano, already mentioned as the Venetian noble who was serving ‘per honor de Dio et per honor di tuta la Christianitade’ was in command.[271] There, says Leonard, he did his duty as a shepherd and not as a hireling.
Near him for the present were the captains and the crews of the two Cretan ships who kept the Horaia Gate. Cardinal Isidore was at Seraglio Point with a body of two hundred men guarding the walls commencing at the Great Tower of St. Demetrius. James Contarini was stationed at Psamatia and guarded the western portion of the Marmora walls. The Caloyers or Greek monks were also in this part of the city, and near them was a small band of Turkish mercenaries under the command of Orchan.[272] The Grand Duke Notaras with a small reserve of men was near the church of the Apostles, now occupied by the Mahmoudieh Mosque, to render aid wherever it might be required.[273] Lastly, Diedo, who had been made admiral of the fleet, was stationed near the end of the boom.[274]
The cannon possessed by the besieged seem to have been few and of little value. Leonard relates that they were short of powder and of arms, and that it was impossible to use the cannon on account of the damage they were found to do to their own walls. Zorzo Dolfin confirms these statements and adds that the Venetians were short of saltpetre.[275]
The emperor and Justiniani had collected arms and various kinds of missiles, shot and arrows, and all sorts of machines.[276]
Each army was equipped in much the same manner. Modern, mediaeval and ancient arms and equipment were employed side by side with each other. We read of dolabras, of wooden turrets, and of the Turks raising their shields above their heads and making a testudo.[277] Stone shot are thrown by the great slings, or catapults, known as mangonels or trebuchets, as well as by cannon. While each side relied largely on the bow, each side also discharged missiles at the other from arquebuses and culverins. Long-bows were so numerous in the Turkish army that the discharge of arrows from them is described by more than one author as darkening the sky. Cross-bows appear also in the description of the siege under the names of balistae and spingards. ‘The archers,’ says La Brocquière, ‘were the best troops the Turks possessed.’[278] The ordinary soldier in the Turkish army was armed with a wooden shield and a scimitar. A few, among both the besiegers and the besieged, were armed with lances.
Uniformity in equipment or dress was not even attempted. Tetaldi says that in the Turkish army less than a fourth were armed with hauberks and wore jacques—that is, quilted tunics of cotton or leather, well padded;[279] that some were well armed in French, some in Hungarian, fashion, some in other modes; some had iron helmets, and others long-bows or cross-bows.
The Janissaries were trained to act either as cavalry or infantry. They carried bows and small wooden shields, and were further armed with a long lance or with a scimitar. The Anatolian division was composed mostly of cavalry. Leonard, however, points out that though the cavalry were numerous they fought as infantry. Philelphus, who was a contemporary envoy at the Porte, states that the Anatolian troops were armed with scimitars, maces, and small shields.
The great superiority of the Turks as regards arms was in the cannon. While, as we have seen, the besieged could not use such cannon as they had for fear of destroying the walls from which they were fired, the Turk was under no such disadvantage, and was entirely up to date with the very latest improvements in heavy guns. The siege of Constantinople in fact marks an era in the employment of large cannon and gave to the world the first noteworthy intimation that the stone walls of the Middle Ages constituted no longer a secure defence. Cannon had, indeed, been known a century and a half earlier in Western Europe, and had been employed both by and against the Turks on the Danube;[280] but the astonishment which the introduction of large cannon caused at the siege of Constantinople shows that while the invention itself was new to the people of the East, its development was hardly less surprising to those of the West. Critobulus remarks upon the siege that ‘it was the cannon which did everything.’ So novel was the invention that he gives a detailed account of the casting of one of the big guns, and explains how the powder was made, how the gun was mounted and loaded, and how it fired its stone ball. ‘When fire is applied to the touch-hole, the powder lights quicker than thought. The discharge makes the earth around it to tremble, and sends forth an incredible roar. The stone ball passes out with irresistible force and energy, strikes the wall at which it has been aimed, overthrows it, and is itself dashed into a thousand pieces.’ No wall was so hard or had such power of resistance that it could withstand the shock. Such is the incredible and unthinkable nature of the machine to which, as the ancient tongue had no name for it, he suggests that of helepolis or ‘Taker of Cities.’
In the early days of the siege, or possibly just before it began, Mahomet attacked all the Greek villages which had escaped the savagery of the troops in their march to the capital. Some kind of fortification existed at Therapia on the Bosporus. This was attacked by the Janissaries. Many of its defenders were slain, and the remainder, consisting of forty men, seeing that resistance was useless, surrendered. They were all impaled. Another fortification, known as Studium, was similarly attacked. Its thirty-six survivors were taken to a spot near the wall, so that they might be seen by the citizens, and were there impaled. At the island of Prinkipo the round tower still exists which had been a place of refuge for the protection of the inmates of the adjacent monastery. The monastery itself had been used as a place of retreat for the princely members of the imperial family, and had thus given its name to the Princes Islands. Baltoglu was sent with a portion of the fleet to attack it. Although he had cannon with him, he was unable to destroy its solid Byzantine masonry, and the thirty well-armed defenders refused to surrender. His crews thereupon cut down the neighbouring brushwood, and with this, with straw, and with sulphur, he smoked out the garrison. While some perished in the flames, others broke through the burning materials and surrendered. The admiral killed those who were armed, and sold into slavery the other inhabitants of the island.[281]
CHAPTER XII
THE SIEGE
INVESTMENT BY TURKS; FIRST ASSAULT FAILS; ATTEMPT TO FORCE BOOM; ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE SHIPS BRINGING AID; GALLANT FIGHT AND DEFEAT OF TURKISH FLEET; TURKISH ADMIRAL DEGRADED; TRANSPORT OF TURKISH SHIPS ACROSS PERA INTO THE GOLDEN HORN.
We have now arrived at the last act of the tragedy of Constantinople. The Queen City is cut off from the outside world. Its small fleet dare not attempt to pass outside the boom which excludes the Turkish fleet. An overwhelming force of ships had been collected to keep out supplies of men or provisions. Before its landward walls is an army of one hundred and fifty thousand fighting men and a crowd perhaps equally numerous awaiting their chance of plundering the remnant of that wealth which had once been contained in the great storehouse of the Western world.
Mahomet’s army before the walls on April 7, 1453.
On April 7 Mahomet’s army had taken up its position along the whole four miles length of the landward walls from the Marmora to the Golden Horn, and with the aid of the fleet prevented all access to or egress from the city. But the men in it had made up their minds to hold it or to die. They began on the first day of the siege to make the best show they could. At the emperor’s request, but also at their own desire, the crews of the galleys under Trevisano and of two others, numbering in all a thousand men, landed and marched along the whole length of the landward walls in presence of the enemy with the object of proving to the Turks that they would have to fight Venetians as well as Greeks.
On the 9th the ships in the harbour were drawn up in battle array, ten being at the boom and seventeen in reserve further within the harbour.
The Turkish army on the 11th placed its guns in position before the walls.
Cannonading commences April 12.
On the 12th the batteries began playing against the walls and, with ceaseless monotony, day and night the discharge of these new machines was heard throughout the city during the next six days. Their immediate effect soon showed that the walls, solid as they had proved themselves in a score of former sieges, were not sufficiently strong to resist the new invention. The huge balls, fired from a short distance amid a cloud of the blackest smoke, making a terrible roar and breaking into a thousand pieces as they struck the walls, so damaged them that they required daily and constant repair. The narratives of those present agree in representing the defenders from the very commencement of the bombardment as being constantly engaged in repairing the injury done by these ‘takers of cities.’ Large and unwieldy as they were, unmounted and half buried amid the stones and beams by which they were kept in position, they were yet engines of destruction such as the world had never seen. Planted on the very edge of the foss and requiring such management and care that the largest could only be fired seven times a day, they gave proof within a week of their employment that they could destroy slowly but surely the walls which had stood since the reign of the younger Theodosius. The defenders in vain suspended bales of wool and tried other means of lessening the damage. All they could accomplish was to repair and strengthen the damaged portions as rapidly as possible.
Damage done by cannon by April 18.
Already by April 18 a part of the Outer Wall and even two great towers of the Inner had been broken down in the Lycus valley.[282] Justiniani had been compelled to take in hand the construction of a stockade for their defence ‘where the attack was the fiercest and the damage to the walls the greatest.’ The walls of the foss, including the breastwork, had been broken down, the foss itself in this place partly filled. The wonderful success already achieved by his great guns led Mahomet to believe that he could already capture the city. Accordingly, at two hours after sunset on April 18 he gave orders for the first time to attempt the city by assault.
Attempt to capture city by assault on April 18 fails.
Infantry, cuirassiers, archers, and lancers joined in this night attack. They crossed the foss and vigorously attempted to break through or destroy the Outer Wall. They had observed that in the repairs the besieged had been driven to employ beams, smaller timber, crates of vine cuttings, and other inflammable materials. These they attempted to set on fire; but the attempt failed. The defenders extinguished the fires before they could get well hold. The Turks with hooks at the end of lances or poles then tried to pull down the barrels of earth which had been placed so as to form a crenellation and in this way to expose the defenders to the attacks of the archers and slingers. Others endeavoured to scale the hastily repaired and partially destroyed wall. During four hours Justiniani led his Italians and Greeks in the defence of the damaged part, and after a hard conflict the Turks were driven across the foss with a loss in killed and wounded estimated by Barbaro at two hundred.
The attack was local and not general, though Barbaro remarks that the emperor began to be in doubt whether general battle would not be given on this night, and ‘we Christians were not yet ready for it.’ The failure of this the first attack stimulated Greeks and Italians to press on the repairs to the Outer Wall. Every day, however, there were new assaults made at one place or another, but especially in the Lycus valley.
Attempt to force boom.
A few days after the return of Baltoglu with the fleet from Prinkipo, and probably contemporaneously with the attack in the Lycus valley on the 18th, the admiral was ordered to force a passage into the Golden Horn.
His fleet, counting vessels of all kinds, probably now numbered not less than three hundred and fifty ships. By their aid Mahomet hoped to gain possession of the harbour by destroying or forcing the boom. Accordingly, Baltoglu sailed down from the Double Columns, towards the ships stationed for its defence, and endeavoured to force an entry. The Turkish crews came on with the battle-cry of ‘Allah, Allah!’ and when within gun- and arrow-shot of their enemies closed bravely for the attack. The cuirassiers tried to burn the vessels at the boom with torches; others discharged arrows bearing burning cotton, while others again endeavoured to cut the cables of some of the ships so that they might be free to destroy the boom. In other parts they sought to grapple with the defending vessels and if possible to capture them. Both sides fought fiercely, but the Greeks and Italians, under the leadership of the Grand Duke Notaras, had provided against all the Turkish means of attack. The defending ships were higher out of the water than those of the Turks, and this gave them an advantage in throwing stones and discharging darts and javelins. Stones tied to ropes had been taken aloft on the yards and bowsprits, and the dropping of these into vessels alongside caused great damage. Barrels and other vessels full of water were at hand to extinguish fire. After a short but fierce fight the assailants judged that for the present at least the attempt to capture the boom and thus obtain an entrance into the harbour was hopeless, and amid taunts and shouts of joy from the Christians withdrew to the Double Columns.
On April 20 we come to an incident at once interesting and suggestive.
Attempt to capture ships bringing aid.
In the midst of a story which is necessarily depressing from the consciousness that it is that of a lost cause, one incident is related by all Christian contemporary writers, whether eye-witnesses or not, with satisfaction or delight. This is the incident of a naval battle under the walls of the city itself. Spectators and writers dependent on the testimony of others who had seen the fight differ among themselves as to details but agree as to the main facts.
Three large Genoese ships on their way to Constantinople had been delayed at Chios[283] by northerly winds during the month of March and part of April. Accounts differ as to the object of their voyage. One would like to believe the statement of Critobulus that they were sent by the pope to bring provisions and help to the city and as an earnest of the aid he was about to furnish, and that thirty triremes and other great vessels were in preparation.[284] But Barbaro, who, as a Venetian, seldom loses an opportunity of depreciating the Genoese, says that they had been induced to sail for the city by the imperial order allowing all Genoese ships bringing provisions to enter their goods duty free. The statement of Leonard, archbishop of Chios, that they had on board soldiers, arms, and coin for Constantinople would appear to confirm that of Critobulus.
The arrival of a fleet from Italy was expected and anxiously looked for by all the inhabitants from the emperor downwards. They had accepted, though they heartily disliked, the Union, and they consoled themselves with the belief that in return the pope and other Western rulers would at once send a fleet with soldiers and munitions of war. It was generally believed in the city that the ships were sent by the pope. Even where it was doubted, all agreed that the arrival of additional fighting men for the defence of the walls was of supreme importance. Nor were the Turks less interested. They, too, expected and feared the arrival of ships from the West, and, in addition to their objection to Italian ships, they had already learned the value of Genoese and Venetian soldiers for the defence.
Ships arrive at mouth of Bosporus.
When, about April 15, a south wind blew, the Genoese weighed their anchors and made sail for the Dardanelles. On their way they fell in with an imperial transport under Flatanelas which had come from Sicily laden with corn.[285] On the second day the wind became stronger and carried the four ships through the straits and into the Marmora. At about ten o’clock on the morning of April 20, their crews saw in the distance the dome of Hagia Sophia.
When the Genoese ships were first seen, most of the vessels of the Turkish fleet were anchored in the bay of Dolmabagshe at the Double Columns. But the Turkish ships on the look-out at the entrance of the Bosporus appear to have observed the approaching vessels as soon as the watchmen in the city itself. They would also be seen by a portion of the Turkish army encamped outside the landward walls.
Upon the report of their coming the sultan himself galloped at once to his fleet, about two miles distant from his camp, and gave orders to the renegade Baltoglu to proceed with his vessels to meet the ships, to capture them if possible, but at any cost to prevent them passing the boom and entering the harbour of the Golden Horn. If he could not do that, he was told not to come back alive.[286]
Turkish fleet resists.
The four ships desired to pass the boom; the object of the Turkish fleet was to prevent them. Taking the lowest estimate of the number of the Turkish vessels sent against them, it was apparently hopeless that four ships dependent on the wind should be able to hold their own against a fleet of not less than a hundred and forty-five vessels so completely under control as that of Baltoglu, which contained triremes, biremes, and galleys. These Turkish ships, triremes, galleys, and even transports, were crowded with the best-equipped men of the army, including a body of archers and men heavily clad with helmets and breastplates: in short, with as many of the sultan’s best men as could be placed on board. Shields and bucklers were arranged around the larger galleys so as to form a breastwork of armour against arrows and javelins; while on some of the boats the rude culverins of the period were ranged so as to bring them to bear against the four ships.
Then, after these hasty preparations, the Turkish fleet proceeded in battle array down the Bosporus to Seraglio Point and the Marmora. Captains and crews went out with confidence of an easy victory. The fight was to be against only four ships, and, with such overpowering superiority in numbers of skilled fighters, who could doubt of success? The admiral, says Critobulus, believed that he had the Genoese already in his hand. Barbaro notes the shouts of delight with which the enemy came forward to the attack, the noise of their many oars, and the sound of their trumpets. ‘They came on,’ he says, ‘like men who intended to win.’[287]
The archbishop, another spectator, notes also that the Turkish fleet advanced with every sign of joy, with the beating of drums, and the clanging of trumpets. Phrantzes, a third eye-witness, was specially impressed with the confidence with which the Turkish flotilla approached. They went on to meet the Genoese ships, he says, with drums and horns, believing that they could intercept them without difficulty. The wind being against them, sails were dispensed with, but as their progress was independent of wind the whole fleet advanced steadily to capture the foe.
Meantime the four ships kept on a direct course, steering for and striving to pass the tower of ‘Megademetrius’ at the Acropolis and to enter the Golden Horn.[288] As they sail along with a stiff south breeze behind them and keeping, as vessels usually keep on making for the Golden Horn with a southerly wind, well out from the land until they reach the Point, their progress is easily seen by the citizens. Many of them crowd the walls or climb the roofs of houses near the seashore, while others hasten to the Sphendone of the Hippodrome,[289] where they have a wide view of the Marmora and the entrance of the Bosporus.
Meantime the strong southerly wind has brought the four ships abreast of the city. Their short but sturdy hulls with high bows and loftier poops are driven steadily through the water by the big swelling mainsails of the period. As they approach the Straits, when they are well in view from the Sphendone, they are met by the Turkish admiral who from the poop of his trireme commands them peremptorily to lower their sails. On their Fight commences. refusal he gives orders for attack. The leading boats pull for the ships, but both the advantages of wind and a considerable sea were with the larger vessels, while their greater height from the water made boarding under the circumstances extremely difficult. The Italians with axes and boathooks make short work of any who attempt it. The skirmish became a running fight in which the attackers shot their arrows and fire-bearing darts and threw their lances with little effect.
The south wind continuing to blow, the ships held on their course until they entered the Bosporus and came near Wind drops.Seraglio Point. Then, all of a sudden, the wind fell,[290] and in a few minutes the sails flap idly under the very walls of the Acropolis.[291]
The sudden fall of the wind had shifted the advantage of the position from the ships to the Turkish fleet. Then, indeed, says Pusculus, the real fight commenced. The Turkish admiral had apparently now complete justification for the belief that he would have an easy capture. The four ships were powerless to move, while Baltoglu could choose his own mode of attack by his hundred and fifty fighting vessels. When, while the ships were under the walls of the Acropolis, the wind fell, they would nevertheless drift over towards the Galata shore of the Bosporus by the current which after a south wind invariably sets in that direction. Probably they would be influenced also by the last puffs which usually follow the sudden dropping of the south wind near Constantinople. The remainder of the combat is therefore to be fought at the mouth of the Golden Horn, between Seraglio Point and the shore east of Galata near Tophana, and just outside the walls of that city.
Thousands of spectators had gathered to witness this second portion of the fight. The walls at Seraglio Point were crowded with soldiers and citizens fearing for the result but unable to render assistance. Nor could any aid be given by the crews of the ships of the imperial fleet which were near at hand on guard at the boom, though of course on the harbour side. At one time, says Phrantzes, the ships were within a stone’s-throw of the land. On the opposite shore of the Golden Horn outside the walls of Galata, to which attackers and attacked were slowly drifting as they fought, the sultan and his suite watched the fight with interest not less keen than that of the Christians on the walls of Constantinople, but with the same confidence of success as was felt by the admiral.
Attack at mouth of Golden Horn.
A general attack was preceded by the order of Baltoglu to surround the becalmed ships. After the fleet had been disposed so as to act simultaneously, the order was given to begin the fight but, apparently, not to close in on the ships. Stone cannon-balls were discharged by the Turks and lances with lighted material were thrown so as to set fire to the sails or cordage. But the crews of the vessels attacked knew their business thoroughly. They easily extinguished the fire. From their turrets on the masts and their poops and lofty bows they threw their lances, shot their arrows, and hurled stones on the Turks unceasingly, and Baltoglu soon found that this method of attack was useless. Thereupon he shouted the order at the top of his voice for all the vessels to advance and board. The admiral himself selected for his special task the imperial transport as the largest of the four ships. He ran his trireme’s bow against her poop and tried to board her. For between two and three hours—that is, so long as the fight endured—he stuck to her like the stubborn Bulgarian he was, and never let go. The crews of the other Turkish vessels hooked on to the anchors, seized on everything by which they could hold, and attempted on all sides to reach the decks of the ships. While some tried to climb on board, others endeavoured to cut the ropes with their axes, and set the ships on fire. Showers of arrows and javelins were directed against the Christian crews. The Genoese fighters were in armour and were proof against the small missiles. Everything had been anticipated by them. Their tuns of water extinguished the burning brands, and their heavy stones and even small barrels of water dropped from above sank or disabled the boats of their assailants. The axe-men on board ‘our ships’ chopped off the hands or broke the heads of all men who succeeded in getting near the deck. Meanwhile, as amid shouts and yells and blasphemies one boat’s crew after another was defeated, others pressed near to replace them, and the Genoese had to recommence their struggle against fresh and vigorous men.
While the fight was going on, the vessels were always drifting across to the Galata shore.[292] Five triremes attacked one of the Genoese ships; thirty large caiques or fustae tackled a second, and the remaining Genoese was surrounded by forty transports or parandaria filled with well-armed soldiers. The fight continued with great fury. The sea seemed covered with struggling ships. An enormous number of darts, arrows, and other missiles were thrown. The quantity of the latter, says Ducas, with pardonable exaggeration, was so great that after a while the oars could not be properly worked. The sea, says Barbaro, could hardly be seen, on account of the great number of the Turkish boats.
All this time the imperial ship commanded by Flatanelas, with the Turkish admiral’s ship always holding on to her, was defending herself bravely. Though Baltoglu would not let go, the other attacking vessels which passed under her bow were driven off with earthen pots full of Greek fire and with stones.[293] The slaughter around her was great. For a time, indeed, the aim of the admiral and the energy of the attack seem to have been concentrated on the capture of the imperial ship. Chalcondylas declares that she would have been taken had it not been for the help which the Genoese were able to give her; and Leonard also says that she was protected by ‘ours’—that is, by the Genoese ships. Probably it was in consequence of the risk which the imperial ship had run of being captured that presently the whole four lashed themselves together, so that, in the words of Pusculus, they appeared to move like four towers.[294] Each of the four ships, however, remained during the protracted battle a centre of attack in which the triremes took the most important positions, grappling them and being themselves supported by the smaller boats.
The fight was seen and every incident noted by the friends alike of attackers and attacked from the opposite sides of the Golden Horn. ‘We, watching from the walls what passed, raised our prayers to God that He would have mercy upon us.’[295] Flatanelas, the captain of the imperial ship, was observed on his deck fighting like a lion and urging his men to follow his example. It was followed both by his officers and by those on board the Genoese ships. Nothing whatever occurred to show that they lost courage for an instant. The attack on the ships was apparently no nearer success than when it began. The spectators on both sides had seen ships and fleet drifting towards the Galata shore, and the citizens were aware that Mahomet with his staff was watching the fierce struggle. This shore contains a wide strip of level ground which has been silted up during the last few centuries and is now built upon, but which, like the corresponding low-lying ground outside the walls of Constantinople on the opposite side of the Golden Horn, either did not exist four centuries ago or was in part covered with shallow water.[296] Into the shallow water the sultan urged his horse in his excitement until his long robe trailed in it. He went out as far as was possible towards his vessels, in order to make himself seen and heard. When he saw his large fleet and thousands of chosen men unable to capture the four ships and again and again repulsed, his anger knew no bounds. Roused to fury, he shouted and gnashed his teeth. He hurled curses at the admiral and his crews at the top of his voice. He declared they were women, were fools and cowards, and no doubt let loose a number not only of curses and blasphemies, as the archbishop says, but of those opprobrious expressions in which the Turkish language is exceptionally rich. The sultan’s followers were not less disappointed and indignant than Mahomet. They, too, cursed those in the fleet, and many of them followed him into the water and rode towards the ships.[297]
Turkish ships defeated and retreat.
Urged by the presence and reproaches of their great leader, the Turkish captains made one more desperate effort. For very shame, says Phrantzes, they turned their bows against our ships and fought fiercely. Pusculus says that Mahomet, watching from the shore, inflamed their fury. But all was in vain. The Genoese and the imperial ship held their own, repelled every attempt to board them, and did such slaughter among the Turks that it was with difficulty the latter could withdraw some of their galleys.
The later portion of the fight had lasted upwards of two hours; the sun was already setting, and the four ships had been powerless to move on account of the calm. But the fight was unequal, and they must have been destroyed, says Critobulus, plausibly enough, if the battle had continued under such conditions. In this extremity suddenly there came a strong puff of wind. The sails filled, and the ships once more had the advantage of being able to move. They crashed triumphantly through the oars of the galleys and the boats, shook off their assailants, and cleared themselves a path. If at that time the whole fleet of the barbarians, says Ducas, had barred the way, the Genoese ships were capable of driving through and defeating it. Thus, at the moment when the fight was the most critical, they were able to sail away and take refuge under the walls of the city. The wind had saved them. Deus afflavit, et dissipati sunt.
The battle was lost, but the sultan once again shouted out orders to the admiral. Ducas suggests that Baltoglu pretended not to hear, because Mahomet, being ignorant of ships and sailing, gave absurd orders. There was, however, no longer any hope of success, and night coming on, the command was again given, and this time heard by Baltoglu, to withdraw to the Double Columns.
Genoese ships brought inside harbour.
Barbaro, who was in the city, describes how he himself took part in bringing the four gallant vessels inside the boom. When it became dark, he accompanied Gabriel Trevisano with the latter’s two galleys, and Zacharia Grione with his one, and with them went outside the boom. Fearing that they would be attacked, they did their utmost to make it appear that their fleet was large. They had three trumpets for each of the two galleys, and with these they made as much noise as if they had at least twenty galleys.
In the darkness of the night the Turks thought their fleet was about to be attacked, and remained at anchor on the defensive. The four ships were safely towed within the boom and into the port of Constantinople, to the indescribable delight of Greeks and Italians alike.
The Turks were possibly hindered in the fight by their numerical superiority. The oars of their galleys were broken; one boat got into the way of others, while in the confusion every bolt or arrow shot from the ships told upon the crowded masses of men in the enemy’s vessels below them. Many in the triremes were suffocated or trampled under foot. Every attempt to board either of the ships had failed. The losses suffered by the Turks were undoubtedly severe, though exaggerated by the victors. A few of their boats were captured or destroyed. The archbishop declares that he learned from the spies that nearly ten thousand had been killed; Phrantzes, that he heard from the Turks themselves that more than twelve thousand of these ‘Sons of Hagar’ perished in the sea alone. The version of Critobulus is the most likely to be correct. He gives the killed as upwards of a hundred, and the wounded as above three hundred.[298] The losses on board the four ships were not altogether slight. Phrantzes declares that no Christians were killed in the battle, though two or three who were wounded ‘departed after some days to the Lord;’ while Critobulus gives a much more probable story of twenty-two killed, and half the crews wounded.
All writers agree that the fight was manfully sustained on both sides. The ships lay on the water without a breath of wind, though there was probably a slight swell. It was a small but brilliant sea fight of the old type between skilled sailors and skilled soldiers, in which the latter were unable to gain any advantage over their opponents fighting on their own element, and had to withdraw humbled and defeated.
The disappointment and rage of the sultan were great and not unnatural.
Turkish admiral degraded.
The unfortunate admiral was brought next day before him and reproached as a traitor. Mahomet asked him how he could expect to capture the fleet in the harbour since he could not even take four ships, upbraided him for his inactivity and cowardice, and declared that he was ready himself to behead him.[299] The admiral pleaded that from the beginning to the end of the fight his own ship had never quitted its hold upon the poop of the largest vessel, and that he and his crew had fought on uninterruptedly until recalled. The Turkish officers also spoke on his behalf, testified to his courage and tenacity, and called attention to the severe wound on his eye accidentally inflicted by one of his men. The sultan, after some hesitation, consented to spare his life, but ordered him to be bastinadoed.[300] As a further punishment, he was deprived of all his honours, and whatever he possessed was given to the Janissaries.[301]
The success raised the hopes of the besieged, because they now firmly believed that these ships were only the forerunners of many others which were on their way to save the city. They had not yielded to Rome for nothing, and aid would come, and the city would yet be saved. In truth, a new crusade was not necessary to secure its deliverance. A few more vessels sent by the Christian states, with an army one tenth or even one twentieth of the number of the soldiers of the cross who had passed by Constantinople under Godfrey, would have been enough to prevent the conquest of the city by Mahomet. No further aid, however, came. All the hopes based upon re-union proved illusory, and Hungarians as well as Italians failed to render the assistance which might have been of first importance to their own interests.[302]
Attack contemporaneously made in Lycus valley.
The fight with the four ships was on April 20. During that day the great bombards had been hard at work along the landward walls, and especially near the Romanus Gate. The sultan himself was absent on the following day at the Double Columns, superintending one of the most interesting operations connected with the siege, but the bombardment went on as if he had been present. An important tower known as the Bactatinian, near the Romanus Gate,[303] was destroyed on the 21st, with a portion of the adjacent Outer Wall, and, says Barbaro, it was only through the mercy of Jesus Christ that the Turks did not give general battle, or they would have got into the city. He adds that if they had attacked with even ten thousand men, no one could have hindered their entry. The Moscovite, speaking of the same incident, states that the Turks were so infuriated by a successful shot from the small cannon of Justiniani that Mahomet gave the order for an assault, raised the cry of ‘Jagma, jagma!’ ‘Pillage, pillage!’ but they were repulsed. One of the balls, according to the same author, knocked away five of the battlements and buried itself in the walls of a church.[304] The defenders, among whom, notes Barbaro, were some ‘of our Venetian gentlemen,’ set themselves at once to make stout repairs where the wall had been broken down. Barrels full of stones, beams, logs, anything that would help to make a barricade, were hastily got together and worked with clay and earth, so as to form a substitute for the Outer Wall. When completed, the new work formed a stockade, made largely of wood and built up with earth and stones.[305] The ‘accursed Turk,’ says Barbaro, did not cease day and night to fire his greatest bombard against the walls near which the repairs were being made. Arrows and stones innumerable were thrown, and there were discharges also from firelocks or fusils[306] which threw leaden balls. He adds that during these days the enemy were in such numbers that it was hardly possible to see the ground or anything else except the white head dress of the Janissaries, and the red fezes of the rest of the Turks.[307]
Meantime the sultan was bent upon carrying into execution a plan for obtaining access to the harbour.
All accounts agree that the defeat of the Turkish fleet on April 20 had roused Mahomet to fury. More than one contemporary states that it was the immediate cause of Mahomet’s decision to attempt to gain possession of the Transport of Turkish ships overland. Golden Horn by the transport of his ships over land across the peninsula of Galata. The statement may well be doubted, but the failure to capture the four ships probably hastened the execution of a project already formed, and, like all his plans, carefully concealed until the moment for action.
Reasons for such project.
The reasons which urged Mahomet to try to gain entrance to the Golden Horn were principally three: to weaken the defence at the landward walls, to exercise control over the Genoese of Galata, and to facilitate the communications with his base at Roumelia-Hissar. So long as he was excluded, the enemy had only two sides of the triangular-shaped city to defend; whereas if the Turkish ships could range up alongside the walls on the side of the Horn the army within the city, already wretchedly inadequate for the defence on the landward and Marmora sides, would have to be weakened by the withdrawal of men necessary to guard the newly attacked position.
The possession of the Horn would enable Mahomet to exercise a dominant influence over Galata. This was a matter of great importance, because at any time the hostility of the Genoese might have enormously increased the difficulties of the siege and probably have compelled him to raise it. There were, indeed, already signs that Genoese sentiment was unfriendly to him.
The position of the Genoese in Galata was a singular one. The city was entirely theirs and under their government. It was surrounded by strong walls which were built on the slope of the steep hill and with those on the side of the Golden Horn formed a large but irregular triangle. The highest position in the city was crowned by the noble tower still existing, and then known as the Tower of Christ. Constantinople and Galata were each interested in keeping the splendid natural harbour closed. Behind Galata—that is, immediately behind the walls of the city—the heights and all the back country were held by the Turks.
Like most neutrals, the people of Galata were accused by each of the combatants of giving aid to the other side. The archbishop, himself a Genoese by origin, is loud in his complaints against his countrymen for having preferred their interests to their duty as Christians. But it is abundantly clear that the Genoese continued to trade with their neighbours across the Golden Horn. Whether the balance of services rendered to the combatants was in favour of the Greeks or of Mahomet may be doubtful, but there was no doubt in Mahomet’s mind, or probably in that of any one else, that the sympathy of the Genoese, as shown by their conduct, was with their fellow Christians. The Genoese ships with which the fight had just taken place were safe once they had passed the boom and had come under the protection of the Genoese on one side and the Greeks on the other. The Golden Horn was thus a refuge for all ships hostile to the Turks.
It was necessary to give the Podestà and the Council of Galata a lesson. But Mahomet had tried and failed to force the boom. Nor could he obtain possession of the end which was within boundaries of Galata.[308] To have made the attempt would have been to make war on the Genoese. But their walls were strong, their defenders brave, and the first rumour of an attack upon the city would be the signal for the despatch of the whole Genoese fleet and of all the forces that the suzerain lord of Galata, the duke of Milan, could muster for their aid. Moreover, within the harbour there were between twenty and thirty large fighting ships, and the sea fight had now shown clearly how very much his difficulties would be increased if he forced the Genoese into open hostilities against him.
The third reason why Mahomet wanted command of the harbour was to secure his own communications. His important division of troops under Zagan Pasha occupied the northern shore of the Golden Horn beyond Galata, together with the heights above the city. While it was necessary to hold this position so as to keep in touch with his fleet at the Double Columns and his fortresses at Roumelia-Hissar, the only means of communication between the main body of his troops encamped before the walls and those under Zagan was the distant and dangerous ford over the upper portion of the Golden Horn at Kiat-Hana, then called Cydaris. Once Mahomet obtained possession of the harbour he could without interruption build a bridge over the upper end of the Golden Horn by which communications between the two divisions of his army would be greatly facilitated.
To accomplish these three objects Mahomet judged that his wisest course was to let the Genoese severely alone and to attempt to obtain possession of the harbour by a method which should not force the neutrals to become open enemies. He resolved to accomplish the difficult feat of transporting a fleet overland from the Bosporus to the Horn. This feat may have been suggested to him by a Venetian who, fourteen years earlier, had seen one of a similar kind performed, in which his fellow citizens had transported a number of ships from the Adige to Lake Garda.[309]
The sultan’s entire command of the country behind Galata would enable him to make his preparations possibly without even the knowledge of the Genoese. The ridge of hills now occupied by Pera was covered partly with vineyards and partly with bushes. The western slope, from the ridge along which runs the Grande Rue de Péra, down to the ‘Valley of the Springs,’ now known as Cassim Pasha, was used as a Genoese graveyard, and is still covered by the cypress trees that mark the Turkish cemetery which took its place. There existed a path from a place on the Bosporus near the present Tophana to The Springs at right angles to the road on the ridge of Pera Hill, the two roads forming a cross and thus giving to Pera its modern Greek name of Stavrodromion. This path followed the natural valley, now forming the street by the side of which is erected the church which is a memorial to British soldiers and sailors who perished in the Crimean war, and then crossing the ridge on a flat tableland over a few hundred yards descended in almost a straight line by another valley which is also preserved by a street to The Springs and the waters of the Golden Horn. It was probably along this route that the sultan had determined to haul his ships.
Project not formed hastily.
It is impossible to believe that Mahomet had arrived hastily at his decision to accomplish this serious engineering feat. In accordance with his usual habit, he would guard his design with the utmost secrecy. At the same time, he would push on his preparations with his customary energy. The timber needed for making a species of tramway, for rollers and for ship cradles, had been carefully and secretly amassed and everything was ready for execution when the leader gave the word. The plan and execution was a great surprise, not only to the Greeks, but even to the people of Galata. That the plan and preparations were conceived and completed in a single day or night is incredible.[310]
Mahomet diverts attention from project.
If this conjecture is correct, Zagan, who was in command of the Turks behind Galata and at the head of the Golden Horn, would have been able to prevent the preparations from becoming known. Possibly it was in order to conceal the final arrangements that the sultan, a few days previously, had brought his guns or bombards to bear on the ships which were moored to the boom, while Baltoglu, as we have seen, was attacking them from the sea. These guns were stationed on the hill of St. Theodore, northward of the eastern wall of Galata.[311] At daylight on April 21, one of them opened fire. The discharge of cannon was continued and would divert attention from what was going on behind the Galata walls. The first shot caused great alarm. The ball, followed by dense black smoke, went over the houses of the Genoese and made them fear that the city itself was about to be attacked. The second shot rose to a great distance, fell upon one of the ships at the boom, smashed a hole in it and sank it, killing some of the crew. The effect upon the crews of the other ships was for the moment to cause consternation. They, however, soon placed themselves out of range. The Turks continued to fire, though the balls fell short, and, according to Leonard, this fire was continued during the day. A hundred cannon-balls were discharged; many houses in Galata were struck and a woman was killed. The Genoese were thus decoyed into paying no attention to what was going on behind their city. During all the same day, Barbaro records that the bombardment against the San Romano walls was exceptionally heavy, and even during the night, according to Michael the Janissary, all the batteries directed against the Constantinople landward walls were kept hard at work. This, too, was probably intended to divert attention from the preparations for the immediate transport of the fleet.
These measures for diverting attention account for the passage of the ships not being generally known, if, indeed, it was known at all by any of the enemy, until it was accomplished.[312] For this reason no attempt was made to destroy them either before they were placed on land or as they reached the water. At the same time, Mahomet, who seldom neglected a precaution, had made preparations to repel any attempt made to oppose the transit.[313]
In the evening of the 21st or on the morning of the 22nd everything appears to have been prepared for the remarkable overland voyage of the sultan’s fleet. Between seventy and eighty vessels had been selected from those anchored in the Bosporus.[314]
A road had been carefully levelled, probably following the route already indicated, from a spot near the present Tophana to the valley of The Springs. Stout planks or logs had been laid upon it. A great number of rollers had been prepared of six pikes, or about thirteen or fourteen feet, long.[315] Logs and rollers were thoroughly greased and made ready for their burdens. The ships’ cradles, to the side of which poles were fixed so as to enable the ships to be securely fastened, were lowered into the water to receive the vessels which were then floated upon them, and by means of long cables were pulled ashore and started on their voyage.
A preliminary trial was made with a small fusta, and this having been successfully handled, the Turks began to transport Transport of eighty ships overland. others. Some were hauled by mere hand power, others required the assistance of pulleys, while buffaloes served to haul the remainder. The multitude of men at the sultan’s disposal enabled the ships to start on their voyage in rapid succession.
The strangeness and the oddity of the spectacle, the paradox of ships journeying over land, seems to have impressed the Turks, who always have a keen relish for fun, as much as did the ingenuity of the plan. The whole business had indeed its ludicrous aspect. The men took their accustomed places in the vessel. The sails were unfurled as if the ships were putting out to sea. The oarsmen got out their oars and pulled as if they were on the water. The leaders ran backwards and forwards on the central gangway or histodokè where the mast when not hoisted usually rested, to see that they all kept stroke together. The helmsmen were at their posts, while fifes and drums sounded as if the boats were in the water. The display thus made, accompanied as it was by cheering and music, may probably be attributed rather to the desire of keeping every one in good humour than to the belief that such a disposal of the men could facilitate the transport of the vessels.[316]
The vessels followed each other up the hill in rapid succession, and amid shouting and singing and martial music were hauled up the steep ridge to the level portion which is now the Grande Rue de Pera, a height of two hundred and fifty feet from the level of the Bosporus. A short haul of about a furlong upon level ground enabled them to begin the descent to the Golden Horn, and so rapidly was this performed that before the last ship had reached the ridge the first was afloat in the harbour. The distance is described by Critobulus as not less than eight stadia. Taking the stadium as a furlong or slightly less, this is a correct estimate of the distance over which these ships travelled, if the ships started, as I have suggested, from the present Tophana. Nor is there reason to doubt the statement that the traject was made, as many contemporaries assert, in one night.[317]