Le Beau, who took the view which I adopt, relied no doubt upon Leonard’s narrative in describing the battle. Dr. Mordtmann remarks upon Le Beau’s statement that no one standing upon the hillside at Pera could see a fight at sea beyond Seraglio Point. The observation is correct, and my deduction is that, when the ships were first attacked, they were abreast of Seraglio Point and not beyond or behind it. Dr. Mordtmann’s is that the sultan could not have been at Pera, and this notwithstanding that the archbishop says that he was there and implies that he saw him there. The archbishop further mentioned that when the sultan ‘blasphemed,’ as he rode into the water and witnessed the loss his men were suffering, it was from a hill.[591] But the archbishop does not leave his readers in doubt as to what hill he means. A few sentences later in his narrative we are told that the sultan had concluded that he would be able from the eastern shore of the Galata hill either to sink the ships with his stone cannon-balls, or at least drive them back from the chain.[592] The rest of the passage shows unmistakably that the sultan, in Leonard’s belief, was on the shore outside the Galata walls: that is, exactly where a spectator might be supposed to be who, having come from Diplokionion, wanted to see the most of a fight in or near the mouth of the Horn. Unless, therefore, within a short period after the capture of the city, the archbishop had become hopelessly muddled as to what he himself saw, we must conclude that the fight did not take place off Zeitin Bournou but in or near the mouth of the Golden Horn.
Pusculus, another spectator, says the ships entered the Bosporus and that the wind dropped while they were under the walls of the Acropolis. The account given by this writer is clear and precise. He was in the city and relates what he witnessed, and although he wrote his poem some years afterwards, when safe in his native city of Brescia, he had the broad outlines of the siege well in his recollection. His narrative is the following, and is in complete accord with that of every other eye-witness. The ships are seen approaching on the Marmora; some of the townsfolk flock to the Hippodrome where (from the Sphendone) they have a view far and wide over the sea, and can observe them taking the usual course for ships coming from the Dardanelles to the capital with a southerly wind. The Turkish admiral with his fleet has gone to meet them, and orders them to lower their sails. The south wind still blows full astern, and with bellying sails they hold on their course. The wind continues until they are carried to a position where the Bosporus strains against the shore of either land.[593] That is, as I understand the phrase, until they are at least well past the present lighthouse. ‘There the wind fails them; the sails flap idly under the walls of the citadel.[594] Then, indeed, began the fight; the spirits of the Turks are aroused by the fall of the wind; Mahomet, watching from the shore not far off, arouses their rage.’ My only doubt as to this interpretation arises as to the question whether the writer did not mean that the wind dropped, not merely off Seraglio Point, but within the mouth of the Horn.
Ducas says the sultan, when the ships came in sight of the city, ‘hastened’ to his fleet, and gave orders to capture them or, failing that, to hinder them from getting inside the harbour. This hastening of the sultan meant a journey of between two and three miles from his camp in the Mesoteichion to Diplokionion. Once he was there, his natural course would be to follow on shore the movements of his fleet, until he reached the eastern walls of Galata, which is exactly the place where the archbishop stations him. If it should be objected that Mahomet’s hastening to his triremes implies that they were stationed near Zeitin Bournou, the answer is twofold: first, that there would be no haste necessary, and secondly, that even Ducas implies that the fleet was in the Bosporus, as indeed Barbaro and others say that it was.
The two statements of Phrantzes—first, that the fight was about a stone’s-throw from the land where the sultan was on horseback and rode into the sea to revile his men, and, second, that he (Phrantzes) and his friends watched the fight from the walls[595]—are both reconcilable with the contention that the fight was where I have placed it. I conclude that the balance of evidence is in favour of the opinion that the fight commenced in the open Bosporus off Seraglio Point, and, the wind continuing, the ships rounded the Point, and that then the wind dropped, the general attack took place, and the ships drifted to the Galata shore.
When the question is considered ‘What position accords with all the accounts of the eye-witnesses?’ there can be only one answer. The people watch from the Hippodrome, says Pusculus, and would have a good view until the ships had rounded the point. The vessels were aiming for Megademetrius, says Ducas: which was the usual landmark for vessels to steer for when coming to the Golden Horn from the Marmora with a south wind. ‘We being spectators’ from the walls and the sultan being on the Pera slope watching the fight, says Leonard; and the vessels being about a stone’s-throw from the shore, says Phrantzes. Pusculus answers the question ‘Where were Leonard and the other spectators?’ by telling us that the wind dropped under the walls of the citadel.
There is yet another test which may be applied and which ought almost of itself to settle the question. Upon considering the position without reference to authorities upon matters of detail and upon a priori grounds, an unbiassed local investigator would discard the Zeitin Bournou position and accept that of the Bosporus-Galata. Four large ships want to enter the Golden Horn, since there is no harbour on the Marmora side of the city sufficiently large into which they could enter. They are approaching with a southerly wind. The Turkish fleet consists of large and small sailing boats which are stationed nearly two miles from the Horn in the Bosporus. The object of the fleet is to capture or sink the ships, or at least to prevent them from entering the harbour. What, under these circumstances, would the commander of the fleet do? He would keep his boats well together near the mouth of the Horn and attempt to bar the passage. He would recognise that he had little chance of capturing comparatively large sailing vessels on open sea so long as they were coming on with a wind. So long as the ships were sailing, they would be attacked at a great disadvantage. Wait for them near the Horaia Porta, when they would have to stop, and they could then be fought at an advantage. If the wind suddenly dropped, the Turkish admiral would naturally give orders to attack. This is what, as I contend, actually happened. The fight would then be seen by Greeks from the walls and by Mahomet and his suite from the Galata or Pera shore. What would happen when the wind became calm, would be that the vessels would drift. I repeat what I have said in the text, that it may be taken as beyond doubt that after a strong southerly wind has been blowing in the Marmora for four or five days—and it was such a wind which had brought the ships from Chios—there would be in the Marmora and the Bosporus near Seraglio Point a strong current setting in the same direction, and the ships would drift toward the Galata shore. It would then be quite possible to have got within a stone’s-throw, as Phrantzes relates, and for their crews to have heard the reproaches of the sultan.
APPENDIX III
NOTE ON TRANSPORT OF MAHOMET’S SHIP. WHAT WAS THE ROUTE ADOPTED?