The Turkish fleet under Hamoud had done its part elsewhere. During the night it had come in force to the boom and had taken up a position parallel to it. When, however, the admiral saw that there were against him ten great and other smaller ships, all ready for the defence, he carried out the orders which had been given on the previous evening, passed round Seraglio Point, and took up a position opposite the walls on the side of the Marmora, where the caloyers or monks were among the defenders. But all the efforts of the Turks in the fleet on the side of the Marmora failed to effect an entrance. Small as was the number of the men dispersed along the walls, they held their own and repulsed all attempts to scale them. It was only when they saw the Turks in their rear that they recognised that their struggle had been in vain. Then, indeed, some flung themselves in despair from the walls; others surrendered in hope of saving their lives. The walls were abandoned.[461] Once the Turks had succeeded in effecting their entry through the stockade in the Lycus valley, followed as such entry was by the marching in of the divisions through the ordinary gates, the defence of the city was hopeless.
Probably among the earliest from the fleet to effect an entry were men who appear to have landed at the Jews’ quarter, which was near the Horaia Gate on the side of the Golden Horn.[462]
The two brothers Paul and Troilus Bocchiardi in the highest part of the Myriandrion, near the Adrianople Gate, maintained their resistance for some time after they had observed that the Turks were pouring in on their left. Seeing that further resistance was useless, they determined to look after their own safety and to make for the ships. In doing so they were surrounded, but fought their way through the enemy and escaped to Galata.[463] Greeks and Latins alike, who were defending the walls on the Marmora and Golden Horn, judged that it was now impossible to hold them. From the latter position they could see that the Venetian and imperial flags which had waved over the towers from the Adrianople Gate down to the sea had been replaced by the Turkish ensigns. They were, indeed, soon attacked in the rear. The crews of the Turkish ships, likewise learning from the hoisting of the Turkish flags in lieu of those of St. Mark and the empire that their comrades were already within the city, made more strenuous efforts than before to scale the walls, and in doing so met with little resistance when the defenders saw the Turks on their rear.[464]
The church of St. Theodosia—now known as Gul Jami, or the Mosque of the Bose, still a prominent building a short distance to the west of the present inner bridge—was crowded with worshippers who had passed the night in prayers to the Saint for the safety of the city. The 29th of May was her feast, and a procession of worshippers was met and attacked by a band of Turks, who had made their way to the Plateia, probably the present Vefa. Those who took part in the procession, mostly women, were apparently among the first victims after the capture of the city.
The Greek and Italian ships had for some time, with the aid of the defenders, prevented the men from the Turkish vessels from scaling the walls. When, however, the Turkish sailors succeeded in making their entry into the city, the Christian ships began to take measures for their own safety. The neighbouring gates had been thrown open, and the Turkish sailors joined their countrymen in the plunder and slaughter. Their ships both in the Horn and on the side of the Marmora were, according to Barbaro, absolutely deserted by their crews in their eagerness after General panic throughout city. loot. The defenders fled to their homes, and Ducas regretfully observes that in so doing some were captured; others found neither wife, child, nor possessions, but were themselves made prisoners and marched off. The old men and women who could not walk with the other captives were killed and their babes thrown into the streets. From the moment it was known that the Turkish troops had entered there was a general and well-founded panic. The Moscovite says that there was fighting in the streets, that the people threw down upon the invaders tiles and any available missiles, and that the opposition was so severe that the pashas became afraid and persuaded the sultan to issue an amnesty. But the story is improbable. There were few men within the city capable of fighting except those who had been at the walls. When there became a ‘Sauve qui peut!’ these men hastened, as Ducas reports, to their homes. That many of the fugitives, even old men and women, knowing the fate before them and their children, may have fought in desperation, willing to die rather than be captured by an enemy who spared neither men in his cruelty nor women in his lust, is likely enough, but that there was anything like an organised resistance in the streets is incredible.[465]
General slaughter during half the day.
The Turks seem, indeed, to have anticipated greater resistance than they met with. They could not believe that the city was without more defenders than those who had been at the walls. This, indeed, is their sole excuse for beginning what several writers describe as a general slaughter. From the entry of the army and camp-followers until midday this slaughter went on. The Turks, says Critobulus,[466] had been taunted by the besieged with their powerlessness to capture the city and were enraged at the sufferings they had undergone. During the forenoon all whom they encountered were put to the sword, women and men, old and young, of every condition.[467] The Turks slew all throughout the city whom they met in their first onslaught.[468]
The statements made by the spectators of such scenes as they themselves witnessed are apt to be exaggerations, but a Turkish massacre without elements of the grossest brutality has never taken place. The declaration of Phrantzes that in some places the earth could no longer be seen on account of the multitude of dead bodies is sufficiently rhetorical to convey its own corrective.[469] So, too, is the account by Barbaro of the numbers of heads of dead Christians and Turks in the Golden Horn and the Marmora being so great as to remind him of melons floating in his own Venetian canals, and of the waters being coloured with blood.[470] That many nuns and other women preferred to throw themselves into the wells rather than fall into the hands of the Turks may be true. Their glorious successors in the Greek War of Independence, and many Armenian women during the massacres in 1895–6, chose a similar fate in preference to surrendering to Turkish captors.
Probably the truth is that an indiscriminate slaughter went on only till midday. For the love of slaughter was tempered by the desire for gain. The young of both sexes, and especially the strong and beautiful, could be held as slaves or sold or ransomed. The statement of Leonard is therefore probably correct, that all who resisted were killed, that the Turks slew the weak, the decrepit and sick persons generally, but that they spared the lives of others who surrendered.
The Turkish historian Sad-ud-din says, ‘Having received permission to loot, they thronged into the city with joyous heart, and there, seizing their possessions and families, they made the wretched misbelievers weep. They acted in accordance with the precept, “Slaughter their aged and capture their youth.”’[471]