At daybreak on May 29 the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land. For two hours the Greeks maintained the defence with advantage, and the voice of the emperor was heard encouraging the soldiers to achieve by a last effort the deliverance of their country. The new and fresh forces of the Turks supplied the places of their wearied associates. From all sides the attack was pressed.
The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps one hundred, times superior to that of the Christians, the double walls were reduced by the cannons to a heap of ruins, and at last one point was found which the besiegers could penetrate. Hasan, the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength, ascended the outward fortification. The walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks, and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes.
Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was long seen and finally lost. His mournful exclamation was heard, "Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels. The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the purple. Amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain.
After his death, resistance and order were no more. Two thousand Greeks were put to the sword, and more would have perished had not avarice soon prevailed over cruelty.
It was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes and the caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet II. Sixty thousand Greeks were driven through the streets like cattle and sold as slaves. The nuns were torn from the monasteries and compelled to enter the harems of their conquerors. The churches were plundered, and the gold and silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal ornaments of St. Sofia were most wickedly converted to the service of mankind.
The cathedral itself, despoiled of its images and ornaments, was converted into a mosque, and Mahomet II. performed the namaz of prayer and thanksgiving at the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been celebrated before the last of the Cæsars. The body of Constantine was discovered under a heap of slain, by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes, and after exposing the bloody trophy, Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honours of a decent funeral. Constantinople, desolated by bloodshed, was re-peopled and re-adorned by Mahomet. Its churches were shared between the two religions, and the Greeks were attracted back to their ancient capital by the assurance of their lives and the free exercise of their religion.
The grief and terror of Europe when the fall of Constantinople became known revived, or seemed to revive, the old enthusiasm of the crusades. Pius II. attempted to lead Christendom against the Turks, but on the very day on which he embarked his forces drew back, and he was compelled to abandon the attempt. The siege and sack of Otranto by the Turks put an end to all thoughts of a crusade, and the general consternation was only allayed by the death of Mahomet II. in the fifty-first year of his age.
His lofty genius aspired to the conquest of Italy; he was possessed of a strong city and a capacious harbour, and the same reign might have been decorated with the trophies of the New and the Ancient Rome.