The History of the Crusades (vol. 3 of 3)

by J. Fr. Michaud

When we study the whimsicalities of the human mind, that which most affects the enlightened observer is, to see there are men whose passion is words, whom self-love attaches to vain subtleties, and for whom the ruin of the world would be a less painful spectacle than the triumph of an opinion they have opposed. On the eve of the greatest perils, Constantinople was filled with people whom hatred for the Latins made forgetful of even the approach and menaces of the Turks. The grand duke Notares went so far as to say that he would like better to see in Byzantium the turban of Mahomet than the tiara of the pontiff of Rome.

It is not useless to remind our readers here, that in all these debates there was no question that affected the truths of Christianity,—nothing but some points of ecclesiastical discipline: celebrating the mass in the Latin tongue, consecrating unleavened bread, mixing some cold water in the chalice, communicating with Azymites—these were things that were to be hated, things that were to be feared much more than Islamism. Such were the motives for which the Greeks repulsed the Franks, their natural allies, loaded them with anathemas, and invoked the maledictions of Heaven upon their own city.

Amidst these deplorable disputes the voice of patriotism was never listened to, and indifference, selfishness, and cowardice were able to conceal themselves under the respectable appearance of religion and orthodoxy. A great part of the population of Constantinople had abandoned the city; among those that remained, the richest had buried their treasures, which they might have employed in the general defence, and which they soon lost, with their liberty and their lives. The imperial city only contained within its bosom four thousand nine hundred and seventy defenders, and the emperor was obliged to plunder the churches to support them. Thus, from eight to nine thousand combatants formed the entire garrison of Byzantium, and the last hope of the empire of the East.

Mahomet had completed his immense preparations. As the conquest of Byzantium and the pillage of Constantinople were the richest recompense that could be offered to the valour of the Ottomans, all the soldiers were, in some sort, associated with the ambition of their leader. The warlike ardour and fanaticism which had distinguished the companions of Omar and the first champions of Islamism were now revived. From all the regions which extend from the chain of Taurus to the banks of the Ebro and the Danube came crowds of warriors, attracted to the army by the hopes of booty or the desire of distinguishing themselves in a religious and national war. In order at once to give a clear idea of the decay and weakness of the Greeks, and of the strength and power of the Ottomans, it will suffice to say, that Constantinople and all that remained of the territory of the empire contained a smaller number of inhabitants of all kinds than Mahomet mustered soldiers beneath his banners.

The Ottoman army set out from Adrianople at the beginning of March; and on the sixth of April Mahomet pitched his tent before the gate of St. Romanus. The signal for battle was speedily given on both sides. In the early days of the siege, the Greeks and the Turks displayed all that the art of war had invented or perfected among the ancients and moderns. Among his formidable preparations, Mahomet had not neglected artillery, the use of which was then spread through the West. One of his cannons, founded under his own eyes at Adrianople, was of such gigantic proportions, that three hundred oxen dragged it along with difficulty, and it launched a ball of seven hundred quintals (seven hundred pounds weight) to a distance of more than six hundred toises (six hundred fathoms). Almost all the historians of the time speak of this terrible instrument of war, but say very little of the effect it produced in the field of battle. On examining with care the accounts of contemporaries, and particularly the descriptions they have left us of these enormous machines of bronze, which they had so much trouble to move, we feel persuaded that at the siege of Byzantium the Ottoman artillery inspired more fright and surprise than it did execution. The Turks showed very little skill or zeal in seconding the Frank engineers and artillerymen whom Mahomet had taken into his service; and it was a great blessing for Christendom that so powerful a discovery was not perfected at once in the hands of barbarians, whom Europe could not have resisted if they had joined this new force to the advantages they already possessed in war.

The Turks employed other arms and other means of attack with much more success; such as mines dug under the ramparts, rolling towers, which were brought close up to the walls, rams which battered the walls, balistæ, which launched beams and stones, arrows, javelins, and even the Greek fire, which still rivalled gunpowder, although the latter was destined soon to make it neglected and forgotten. All these means of destruction were employed at the same time, and assaults were renewed unceasingly. The besieged could not avail themselves of all their machines, from the want of hands to work them; and when we reflect on the smallness of the number of the defenders of Constantinople, we are astonished that they were able to resist, for more than fifty days, the innumerable host of the Ottomans. This generous soldiery occupied a line of more than a league in length, repelling, night and day, the assaults of the enemy, repairing the breaches in the walls, and making sorties; they appeared to be everywhere at the same time, and to be equal to everything, animated by the presence of their leaders, and particularly by the example of Constantine. Several times fortune favoured the efforts of this heroic troop, and tingled a few gleams of hope with the sentiment of sadness and terror which prevailed in Constantinople. The besieged preserved one advantage, the city was inaccessible towards the Propontis and on the side of the port. Mahomet had assembled a numerous fleet in the canal of the Black Sea; but it only served for the transmission of provisions and warlike stores. The Ottoman marine could not contend with the marine of the Greeks, particularly with that of the Franks; and the Turks themselves acknowledged that they must yield the empire of the seas to the Christian nations.

About the middle of the siege, five vessels from the coasts of Italy and Greece arrived in the canal. The whole Ottoman fleet was immediately in motion, and advanced to meet them; from their numbers they surrounded them, and attacked them several times, with the view of getting possession of them, or of turning them from their course. Mahomet encouraged the combatants with voice and gesture from the shore. When the Ottomans appeared to be failing in their attempt, he could not restrain his anger; urging his horse into the sea, he seemed to threaten the elements, and, like a barbarian king of antiquity, to accuse the waves of being obstacles to his conquests. On the other side, the Greeks, collected on the ramparts of the city, awaited the issue of the combat in great anxiety. At length, after an obstinate and bloody conflict, all the Turkish ships were dispersed or cast upon the shore; and the Christian fleet, laden with provisions and soldiers, sailed in triumph into the port of Constantinople.

The sultan burned to avenge this disgrace to his arms, and resolved to make a last effort to render himself master of the port of Constantinople. As the entrance of it was guarded by several large vessels, and closed by a chain of iron that could neither be broken nor passed, the Ottoman monarch employed an extraordinary method, which the besieged had not foreseen, and the success of which displayed the force of his will and the extent of his power. In a single night, between seventy and eighty vessels, which were at anchor in the canal of the Black Sea, were transported by land to the gulf of Ceras. The road was covered with planks, plastered with grease, along which a multitude of soldiers and workmen made the vessels slide. The Turkish fleet, commanded by pilots, with sails unfurled, as if upon a maritime expedition, advanced over a hilly country, and traversed a space of two miles by the light of torches and flambeaux, to the sound of clarions and trumpets, without the Genoese, who inhabited Galata, daring to offer any opposition to its passage. The Greeks, fully occupied in guarding their ramparts, had no suspicion of the designs of the enemy. They could not comprehend what could be the cause or the object of all the tumult that was heard during the whole night from the seashore, until the dawn of day showed them the Mussulman standards floating in their port.

We naturally here inquire what resistance was made by the vessels which guarded the iron chain, and by those which had entered the port, after having dispersed the Ottoman fleet. We may suppose that every warrior who had fought in the Christian ships was then employed in defending the ramparts of the city; or, it is probable, that the part of the gulf in which the Turkish ships descended, was not deep enough to be accessible to large vessels. However this may have been, the Mussulmans lost no time in taking advantage of their success. Scarcely were the Turkish boats launched, when a multitude of workmen were busily engaged in constructing floating batteries on the same spot where the Venetians made their last assault in the fifth crusade.