CHAPTER XVII
ATTACKS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE CITY: BY ZAGAN AND CARAJA; BY FLEET; THE BROTHERS BOCCHIARDI HOLD THEIR OWN; PANIC WHEN ENTRY OF TURKS BECAME KNOWN; INCIDENT OF SAINT THEODOSIA’S CHURCH; MASSACRE AND SUBSEQUENT PILLAGE; CROWD IN SAINT SOPHIA CAPTURED; HORRORS OF SACK; NUMBERS KILLED OR CAPTURED; ENDEAVOURS TO ESCAPE FROM CITY; PANIC IN GALATA; MAHOMET’S ENTRY; SAINT SOPHIA BECOMES A MOSQUE; FATE OF LEADING PRISONERS: ATTEMPTS TO REPEOPLE CAPITAL.
Entry of Turkish army.
The author of the Turkish Taj-ut-Tavarikh or ‘Crown of History,’ written by Khodja Sad-ud-din, states that after the sultan’s troops had forced a way into the city—not, as he is careful to explain, through any of the gates, but across the broken wall between Top Capou and the Adrianople Gate—they went round and opened the neighbouring gates from the inside, and that the first so opened was the Adrianople Gate. Then the army entered through these gates in regular order, division by division.[458]
While the principal assault was that made under the sultan’s own eyes in the Lycus valley, the city had been elsewhere simultaneously attacked. Though all other attacks sink into insignificance beside this, yet they are deserving of notice. The most important were those made by Zagan Pasha from one or more large and specially constructed pontoons which had been brought as close as possible to the walls at the western end of the Golden Horn and by Caraja Pasha between the Adrianople Gate and Tekfour Serai.
Attacks by Zagan and Caraja fail.
Zagan had brought all his division across the bridge near Aivan Serai, and his soldiers, during the early morning, had made a continuous series of attempts to scale the walls from the narrow strip of land between them and the water, while his archers and fusiliers attempted to cover the attacking parties from the pontoons. His efforts were aided by the crews on board the seventy ships which had been transported across Pera Hill and which were now stationed at intervals extending from the pontoons to the Phanar. They were stoutly and successfully opposed by Gabriel Trevisano, who had charge of the walls upon the Horn as far as the Phanar.[459]
Caraja’s vigorous assault, as has been already mentioned, was at one of the three places where Mahomet boasted that his cannon had made a way into the city. It was probably a part of his division which had followed the discoverers of the open Kerkoporta into the city. Zagan and Caraja were, however, defeated.[460]
By fleet also.