The world's leading conquerors

by Wilson Lloyd Bevan

Outside the city the prospects for successful resistance were quite as bad. When a delegation came from the East to beg their help, they were referred by the Signoria to the Holy Father, as the head of the crusading program. Yet they began to suspect something was wrong when one of their ships, coming out of the Bosphorus, was fired on by the Turks, and the crew was taken and massacred. There were a few Venetian merchants’ galleys in the harbor whose crews, at the Emperor’s request, took part in the work of defending the fortifications. The Genoese, fearful of the fate of their colony at Pera, sent an armed force of 1000 men to help defend the city.

While keeping up a constant blockade, Mohammed was preparing his plans. His success, he saw, depended on siege guns, for he fully appreciated the tremendous revolution in warfare due to the use of gunpowder. From the many renegades in his camp he had heard of the remarkable effects produced by bronze cannon in battles and sieges. His adviser in preparing his siege guns was Urban, probably a Roumanian renegade, who showed great skill in perfecting the technique of projectiles at this early stage of their use. To the inventive faculty of this Christian fugitive in the Osmanli camp, the taking of the great Christian capital in the Orient was largely due. The weight of the new guns is shown by the fact that it took sixty oxen to draw the first one, which was manufactured by the end of February. Fifty similar ones were ordered to be constructed.

Troops from Asia and Slavic contingents from Europe kept gathering round the city during the winter and early spring; there was besides an Ottoman flotilla of 300 vessels. By the beginning of April, 1453, the Sultan, with his court, came to the encampment of the besieging army, and took up a position two miles and a half away from the city walls. To each portion of the fortifications a certain contingent was assigned, specific directions to proceed with the attack being given, according to the character of the ground and the defenses.

In the Sultan’s army there were probably as many men under arms as were usually taken in the Turkish military expeditions, between forty and sixty thousand, but the number is not given in the sources. The Emperor Constantine had not more than 7000 men; besides, as we have seen, the population were ill disposed to him, because of his concessions to the Latin Church, and more than once the hostile cry was heard within the walls, “better under the Turks than under the Latins.” One of Constantine’s chief officials, Lukas Notoras, had already exchanged his Christian headgear for a Turkish turban.

The Latin element in the town took the chief part in the defense; not only were one-third of the soldiers from the West, but the galleys in the harbor, the weapons used, the stores for the siege, all were from the Occident. Only one of the towers on the city walls was in charge of a Greek, and the keys of the four chief city gates were kept by the Venetians. Catalans and Genoese were also given responsible positions; even in the personal entourage of the Emperor, only a few Greek names are noted.

When the siege opened, the character of Mohammed’s strategy was soon plain. He had no intention of making a general assault of the ordinary type; instead, his cannon were directed against weak spots in the wall, and the work of destruction began. An unsuccessful attempt, however, was made to surprise the garrison on the 17th of April, and the Sultan was greatly disappointed when his fleet came out worsted from a fight with the imperial ships, which issued from the harbor to protect the entrance of three or four Genoese vessels that were bringing in stores.

While the walls on the land side were being bombarded, the part of the city touching the sea was threatened. Urban, imitating the Venetians, who had transported war galleys across the land to Lake Garda, brought some of the Turkish ships from Galata-Pera to the Golden Horn. All attempts to destroy this hostile flotilla failed; by its presence it divided the Christian forces, and kept the small army of Constantine from concentrating in any strength at a threatened point. When May came, the besieged population began to suffer from scarcity of food. The only hope of relief was to be looked for from Venice; for the other powers in the West had received Constantine’s appeals with only verbal promises, or with indifference. Yet even the Venetians proceeded with great deliberation. The twelve galleys that had been ordered to be sent to help Constantinople in February were only ready by May 7th, and the Admiral, Loredano, was given instructions to handle the Turks unaggressively. He was told not to engage in a battle with them unless forced to do so.

Slowly the various details of the siege operations were perfected by the Turks; parts of the moats before the walls were filled up; a bridge was built from Pera to Constantinople, that gave an admirable basis for cannonading the city at close quarters. On the 28th the inhabitants noted such great activity in the Ottoman camp that it was evident the final attack was close at hand. Mohammed rode from point to point giving final directions, and word was proclaimed by heralds that every member of the besieging army should be prepared. The movement in the Turkish camp began three hours before daybreak. The Christian allies and the rank and file of the Moslem soldiers were directed to place ladders at a point in the wall near the Romanos gate that had already especially suffered from artillery fire. The loss of life among the assailants, at this point, was very great, but as the élite of the army did not suffer, the Ottoman leaders were indifferent as to the cost of getting the ladders near the walls and defenses.

The next step was to bring up the Janitschars, who, under the personal direction of the Sultan and the two chief generals of his army, commenced operations near the Romanos and two other gates. Compact in their firm discipline, and protected by artillery fire, with the smoke of their guns concealing from the defenders their rapid motion, they pressed ahead. On the Greek side the Emperor kept out of the tumultuous fighting, leaving the work of active defense to the Italian Giustiniano, who made a heroic resistance in the interior defenses of the city, until, struck in the breast by a bullet, he was carried away to a ship mortally wounded. After this fatality general confusion followed; there was no one to take the commander’s place. No words of command were now heard; the Turks, who had been held back from the high walls, filled up the space between the outer lines of temporary palisades and the permanent fortifications that were being dismantled by the cannonading.

At the place where Giustiniano had been shot some ladders were set up, and at the same time a small gate, used by the Genoese soldiers to pass out of the city to protect the outer ring of the defensive works, was occupied. By this way a considerable number of the Janitschars penetrated into the interior of the city. But their entrance was not noticed by the defenders on the walls, who, in the conflict, had no time to leave their posts. The sailors of the fleet now landed, ready to take their part of the spoil. The squadrons of Janitschars rode without resistance through the narrow streets flanked with wooden houses, searching for the first of the booty. Every corner was searched for wealthy citizens, who would be likely to pay large ransoms, and for valuable slaves. Adult men, actually with weapons in their hands, were killed, and, of course, no Franks were spared, nor any of the imperial troops. Small children, too, old men, and invalids, who came in the way of the Ottoman soldiers, were mercilessly slaughtered; they had no marketable value. Whole groups of citizens were dragged off, and then a systematic plundering of churches and private houses began; carpets, stuffs, precious stones and metals, books, whose binding attracted notice, all were carried off. (May 29, 1453.)