Contemporaneously with the disposal of the large cannon, orders were given to fill up the ditch in front of them.
When we turn from the preparations made by Mahomet to besiege the city to those which the emperor and the Constantine’s army.citizens had made or were making, the first point which strikes us is the enormous disparity in numbers which the respective leaders had under them. To meet the mighty host of trained warriors under Mahomet, the emperor had only about eight thousand men. This is the estimate in which nearly all writers concur. Phrantzes had exceptional means of forming a judgment on this point. He states[264] that Constantine ordered a census to be made of all men, including monks, capable of bearing arms, and that when the lists were sent in he was charged with making the summary. This showed that there were four thousand nine hundred and eighty-three available Greeks and scarcely two thousand foreigners. The result was so appalling that he was charged by the emperor not to let it be known. The estimate made by Phrantzes, though almost incredible, is substantially confirmed by other writers. Tetaldi says that there were between six thousand and seven thousand combatants within the city ‘and not more.’[265] Leonard makes the number a little higher and gives as an estimate six thousand Greeks and three thousand foreigners. Dolfin, probably following Leonard, arrives at a like conclusion. Ducas says that ‘there were not more than eight thousand.’
The powerful contingent of three thousand Italians is worthy of separate notice. Nearly all were of Venetian or Genoese origin. In them the city had the aid of men belonging to the most virile communities in the Mediterranean. The story of the trading establishments in the Levant, the Archipelago, and the Black Sea belonging to the citizens of Venice and Genoa is a brilliant record of daring, of adventure, and of energy. The expansion of the two states began about the time of the Latin conquest. Everywhere along these shores are the remains of castles built by Genoese or Venetians during the two centuries preceding the Moslem conquest. Dandolo had played the most important part in the capture of the city in 1204, and the capture gave Venice the sovereignty of the seas. The Genoese had aided the Greeks to recapture the city. Each republic had gained territory in Eastern lands. Each owned certain islands in the Aegean. The Genoese had succeeded in forming a large and important colony in Galata, which was now a fortified city. To check Turkish progress was almost as important to the republics as to the Greeks. Venetians and Genoese recognised that once Constantinople was in the hands of the sultan, there would be an end of their development eastward of Cape Matapan. They were, therefore, both fighting for their own interests. They had much to lose and nothing to gain by the success of Mahomet. Nor were the soldiers of the republics destitute of chivalrous spirit. The rough sailor-surgeon, Barbaro, notes that other Venetians as well as Trevisano were willing to fight for the honour of God and the benefit of Christendom. Leonard and other writers testify to equally lofty sentiment on the part of the Genoese Justiniani. In their character and conduct, not less than in their mixed motives, derived from self-interest and chivalry, these foreign adventurers remind English readers of the Drakes, Frobishers, Raleighs, and other heroes of our own Elizabethan period. Unhappily for the city and for civilisation, Venice was unable to send more men before the final catastrophe. But to the eternal glory of the Venetians within the city, whose names are duly recorded by Barbaro ‘for a perpetual memorial,’ and of the Genoese who aided them, the conduct of the combatants from both republics was worthy of the compatriots of Marco Polo and of Columbus.
On the one side was an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, containing at least twelve thousand of the best trained troops in the world; on the other, a miserable number of eight thousand fighting men to defend a length of between twelve and thirteen miles of walls.
The emperor, with Justiniani, completed the arrangements for the defence of the city. Justiniani with the seven hundred men he had brought with him to Constantinople, consisting of his crew and four hundred men in armour,[266] was at first placed in charge of the walls between the Blachern Palace and the Adrianople Gate, but was soon transferred with his men and some of the bravest Greeks to the Lycus valley as the position of greatest importance, honour, and danger. The emperor himself fixed his headquarters in the same position. In this valley the choicest troops of the city and those of the sultan were thus face to face. Between the Adrianople Gate and Tekfour Serai was a contingent of Italians under three brothers, Paul, Antony, and Troilus Bocchiardo. They were stationed, says Phrantzes, at the Myriandrion, because there the city was in great jeopardy;[267] Leonard says, ‘in loco arduo Myriandri;’ Dolfin, speaking of the same place under a somewhat different name, says ‘in loco arduo Miliadro, dove pareva la cita piu debole.’[268] This contingent had been provided by the Bocchiardi at their own cost. The men were furnished with spingards and balistas for hurling stones at the enemy. The Caligaria—that is, the gate of that name, now called Egri Capou or Crooked Gate—and the walls thence as far as Tekfour Serai were defended by Caristo, an old Venetian, and by a German named John Grant, who had taken service with the emperor. Over the imperial palace at Blachern waved the flag of the Lion of St. Mark side by side with the banner of the emperor, to denote that Minotto, the Venetian bailey, was in command in that district. Archbishop Leonard and other Genoese, together with Hieronymus, were with him to assist in defending the walls as far as the Xyloporta on the edge of the Golden Horn.
On the emperor’s left the walls were guarded by Cataneo and Theophilus Palaeologus at the Silivria Gate, while Contarini, the most renowned member of the Venetian colony, and Andronicus Cantacuzenus defended the walls around the Golden Gate and to the sea.[269] Under these leaders, along the whole length of the landward wall, Genoese, Venetians, and Greeks fought side by side.
Between a tower in the current off Seraglio Point and the Imperial Gate—that is, at the Acropolis, and thus guarding the entrance to the harbour[270]—Gabriel Trevisano, already mentioned as the Venetian noble who was serving ‘per honor de Dio et per honor di tuta la Christianitade’ was in command.[271] There, says Leonard, he did his duty as a shepherd and not as a hireling.
Near him for the present were the captains and the crews of the two Cretan ships who kept the Horaia Gate. Cardinal Isidore was at Seraglio Point with a body of two hundred men guarding the walls commencing at the Great Tower of St. Demetrius. James Contarini was stationed at Psamatia and guarded the western portion of the Marmora walls. The Caloyers or Greek monks were also in this part of the city, and near them was a small band of Turkish mercenaries under the command of Orchan.[272] The Grand Duke Notaras with a small reserve of men was near the church of the Apostles, now occupied by the Mahmoudieh Mosque, to render aid wherever it might be required.[273] Lastly, Diedo, who had been made admiral of the fleet, was stationed near the end of the boom.[274]
The cannon possessed by the besieged seem to have been few and of little value. Leonard relates that they were short of powder and of arms, and that it was impossible to use the cannon on account of the damage they were found to do to their own walls. Zorzo Dolfin confirms these statements and adds that the Venetians were short of saltpetre.[275]