The Walls of Constantinople

by B. Granville Baker

The travellers have witnessed the growth of the city which Byzas founded, and seen how, according to the utterance of the oracle, it prospered. They have watched the city expand under the fostering care of the earlier Emperors, and have noted how the security its walls afforded led to a mode of life which unfitted the populace for their own defence. But for the stoutness of these walls the city might have fallen long before the advent of Mahomed the Conqueror, and Europe therefore is deeply indebted to these, the monuments of the Theodosian dynasty.

But the day was drawing near when even this massive chain of masonry should prove of no avail to check the onrush of a vigorous enemy; the encircling walls and sentinel towers had almost accomplished their task of ten centuries, and behind them a nervous, faint-hearted populace awaited the end of all things. What rumours spread throughout the city of that fiendish invention of the Latins—the black powder. Reports came in of how that foreign inventor, who had deserted to the Turks on account of ill-usage by the Greeks, had built a foundry under Mahomed’s eye at Adrianople and cast a cannon of vast destructive power, a cannon with a bore of twelve palms’ breadth, which could contain a charge that drove a stone ball of six hundred pounds weight a distance of a mile, to bury it in the ground to the depth of a furlong. Then frenzy seized the city, and Constantine, the last Emperor of that name, endeavoured to renew communion between the Greek Church and the See of Rome. So Cardinal Isidore of Russia entered the city as the legate of Pope Nicholas V, and with him came a retinue of priests and soldiers. The union of the Churches was solemnized at St. Sophia, and immediately gave rise to more disorder in the streets. This was the state of Constantine’s Imperial City when Mahomed II encamped outside the walls and planted his victorious standard before the Gate of St. Romanus.

Though the walls of the city were stout and true, the power of the defenders was not equal to that of the hosts arrayed against them. The store of gunpowder, which by this time had found its way into use in the Greek army, was not adequate for a protracted siege, and though the Emperor Constantine comported himself as a hero should, the spirit of his people had long been divorced from military valour.

The formidable array of Mahomed’s army stretched all along the land-walls, from the Sea of Marmora to the Golden Horn, and, as we have related, the upper reaches of that harbour were held by the galleys he had transported overland. In the first days of the siege the Greek garrison made frequent sorties to destroy the earthworks behind which the aggressors planned their mines, and made much progress in the art of countermining. But the serious losses such operations entailed, and the dwindling store of powder, put an end to these enterprises.

So from April till May of 1453 the siege of Constantinople continued. The Emperor and his brave ally Giustiniani, commander of a Genoese contingent, held the foe at bay, and encouraged the defenders by their example. Engines of war, ancient and modern, the newly-invented cannon, and the towers of offence well known as far back as the early wars of Rome, took their places side by side for the first and last time in the annals of military history.

Let us look down upon the valley of the Lycus, a scene of desolation to-day, and fill in the gaps that Turkish arms have made. Let us people the reconstructed bulwarks with defenders, while in the valley below and on all the ground before the walls swarm the hosts of Mahomed. Here round the Imperial standard of the Sultan are camped his best troops, those formidable Janissaries who are kept in leash until the last decisive charge. Meanwhile, the lighter irregular forces skirmish about the moat and ramparts. Down in the valley and opposite the fifth military gate the famous gun is placed—a mighty engine of war for those early days of artillery; it fired seven times a day, and for its conveyance a carriage of thirty waggons, drawn by a team of sixty oxen, was required. Other lighter artillery was placed here, all thundering at the tower that flanks the military gate to northward. Above the roar of cannon and the din of battle we may hear the sound of falling masonry, and when the smoke fades away the ruins of that tower strew the terrace. All the small towers of the outer wall and their connecting curtains have been laid low, the débris fills the moat, and every sign points out that the time for the final assault has arrived.

It is daybreak on May 29, 1453, and we resume our place, looking down into the valley of the Lycus. The hostile leaders had spent the preceding night each in a characteristic manner. Mohamed had assembled his chiefs and issued final orders; he dispatched crowds of dervishes to visit the tents of his troops to inflame their fanaticism and promise them great rewards—double pay, captives and spoil, gold and beauty, while to the first man who should ascend the walls the Sultan pledged the government of the fairest province of his dominions.

The Emperor Constantine likewise assembled his nobles and the bravest of his allies; he adjured them to make the most strenuous efforts in the defence, and to encourage the troops to do their utmost. He had no rewards to offer, but the example of their Prince infused the courage of despair into the leaders of his despondent troops. A pathetic scene this, as described by the historian Phranza, who assisted at it. When the Emperor had delivered his last speech he and his followers embraced and wept. Then each went his way, the leaders to hold watch at their posts, the Emperor to a solemn mass at St. Sophia, where for the last time in the history of that sacred shrine the mysteries of the Christian faith were adored by any Christian worshipper.

Constantine then returned to the palace and asked forgiveness of any of his servants whom he might have wronged. He then rode round the ramparts to inspect his troops and utter a last word of hope and encouragement.

Without the customary signal of the morning gun the assailants rose with the sun and dashed in successive waves against the walls of Theodosius. Time after time they were repulsed. The Sultan on horseback, his iron mace in his hand, watched the tide that hurled itself against the walls and towers of Constantinople, to surge back, and again to be reinforced by others who met the same fate. Around the Sultan ten thousand of his chosen troops impatiently awaited the signal for attack.