The defenders threw the ladders down, discharged their arrows, fired their muskets and culverins,[409] and hurled down a prodigious quantity of stones. The assailants were so numerous and so crowded together that the missiles of the besieged told heavily against them. The bravest who succeeded in climbing within striking distance were struck down. The resistance was so stubborn that many began to give way. But they had not yet sufficiently served their purpose. Until their strength was exhausted, Mahomet would not consent that they should cease to exhaust that of the defenders. Those who attempted to withdraw found themselves between the devil and the deep sea. A body of Turkish chaouses had been told off with iron maces and loaded whips to drive back any endeavouring to retreat, and behind them again were stationed Janissaries ready with their scimitars to cut down any who should succeed in escaping through the line of chaouses. In this manner the fight was prolonged for between one and two hours.
They are beaten back.
But in spite of all that could be done, in spite of numbers and of courage, Mahomet’s first division was beaten back with many killed and wounded. Having served its purpose in exhausting the strength of the small body of the defenders, it was allowed to withdraw. Some of the besieged appear to have considered the attack rather as an attempt to surprise the city by a night alarm than as part of the expected general assault. They were indeed weary with hard fighting and hard work. For forty days they had hardly known a single hour of rest,[410] and they hoped for it, at least until the morning. They were soon undeceived.
Anatolian division next attack.
Amid the darkness of the early summer morning a division of Anatolian Turks could be distinguished pouring over the ridge on which stands Top Capou. It was the advance of disciplined men, distinguishable by their breastplates, and their arrival made the situation much more serious. Here, indeed, was the general assault which all expected at daylight. The bells throughout the city again sounded everywhere an alarm; all the inhabitants were at their posts. As the Anatolians came across the ditch up to the stockade the struggle began once more in deadly earnest. Trumpets, fifes, and drums sounded their loudest to encourage the assailants. Besiegers and besieged shouted and roared at each other. Prayers for help, imprecations, clang of bells within the city, roar of guns and small cannon within and without made up the pandemonium of a storming party. Ladders were once more placed against the walls and were hurled back; men scrambled on each other’s shoulders trying hard to reach the summit of the stockade. ‘Our men’ are continually throwing down stones and are resisting hand to hand all who attempt to scale or destroy it. ‘More Turks were killed,’ says Barbaro, ‘than you would have thought possible.’
Now the great cannon, which during the night had been advanced as near the wall as possible, is brought into play. An hour before daylight a well-directed shot from the monster was aimed at the stockade, struck it and brought a portion of it down. Under cover of the dust from the falling stones and barrels of earth, but especially of the dense black smoke of the powder, a band of Turks rushed forward and, before they could be prevented, three hundred had entered the enclosure. The Greeks and Italians resisted manfully, fought fiercely to expel them, killed many and drove the remainder out.[411] The besieged raised shouts of triumph. The emperor was with his soldiers, always showing himself in the thick of the fighting, urging men by voice and cheering them by his example. This second attack was more systematic, fiercer, more desperate than the first. The Turks had no need of men behind them to prevent their retreat or to urge them forward. Shouting their wild battle-cry of Allah! Allah! they rushed on in the darkness as men who, if they do not court death, at least do not fear it; as men who believe they are fighting for God, and that in case of death they will be at once transported to a combined heavenly and earthly paradise.
They, too, are driven back.
In spite of the discipline and daring of the Anatolian troops, of the stimulus derived from their fanatical creed and from the special promise of reward here and hereafter to those who should succeed in entering the Queen City or should perish in the attempt, the assault by them failed as completely as had that of the Bashi-bazouks. The stubborn bravery of a comparatively small number of Greeks and Italians behind the hastily formed stockade and the battered, thousand-year-old walls were so far more than a match for the invaders.
Assaults in other places also fail.
The success of the attackers was up to the present not more complete in other parts of the city. Zagan Pasha had made desperate attempts to scale the walls near the west end of the Horn under cover of showers of arrows and other missiles from the ships and from large pontoons drawn up as near as possible to the walls, but had been defeated by Trevisano. Caraja Pasha, north of the Adrianople Gate, had crossed the foss and made a vigorous attempt against the walls broken down by the cannon between that Gate and the Palace of Porphyrogenitus, now known as Tekfour Serai.[412] But that district, ‘the high part of the Myriandrion,’[413] was held by the three brothers Bocchiardi, who had borne the cost of their men at their own charge, and who covered themselves, says Leonard, with eternal glory, fighting like Horatius Cocles and his companions who kept the bridge of old. Their neighbours at Tekfour Serai and around the southern portion of Caligaria under the Venetian bailey Minotto,[414] had been equally successful. All the invaders’ attempts had been defeated. Critobulus is justified in commenting with pride on the defeat of this second attack. ‘The Romans, indeed, proved themselves very valiant; for nothing could shake them, neither hunger nor want of rest, nor weariness from continuous fighting, nor wounds, nor the thought of the slaughter of their families which menaced them. Nothing could alter their determination to be faithful to their trust.’