men of all arms and qualities; but the real strength of the army lay in
the corps of janizaries, then the best infantry in Europe, and their
number did not exceed twelve thousand. At the same time, twenty thousand
cavalry, mounted on the finest horses of the Turkoman breed, and hardened
by long service, were ready to fight either on horseback or on foot,
under the eye of their young Sultan. The fleet which had been collected
along the Asiatic coast, from the ports of the Black Sea to those of
the Aegean, brought additional supplies of men, provisions, and military
stores. It consisted of three hundred twenty vessels of various sizes
and forms. The greater part were only half-decked coasters, and even the
largest were far inferior in size to the galleys and galeases of the
Greeks and Italians.
The fortifications of Constantinople toward the land side vary so little
from a straight line that they afford great facilities for attack. The
defences had been originally constructed on a magnificent scale and with
great skill, according to the ancient art of war. Even though they were
partly ruined by time and weakened by careless reparations, they still
offered a formidable obstacle to the imperfect science of the engineers
in Mahomet's army. Two lines of wall, each flanked with its own towers,
rose one above the other, overlooking a broad and deep ditch. The
interval between these walls enabled the defenders to form in perfect
security, and facilitated their operations in clearing the ditch and
retarding the preparation for assault. The actual appearance of the low
walls of Constantinople, with the ditch more than half filled up, gives
only an incorrect picture of their former state.
Mahomet had made his preparations for the siege with so much skill that
his preliminary works advanced with unexpected rapidity. The numerical
superiority of his army, and the precautions he had adopted for
strengthening his lines, rendered the sorties of the garrison useless.
The ultimate success of the defence depended on the arrival of assistance
from abroad; but the numbers of the Ottoman fleet seemed to render even
this hope almost desperate. An incident occurred that showed the
immense advantage conferred by skill, when united with courage, over an
apparently irresistible superiority of force in naval warfare. Four large
ships, laden with grain and stores, one of which bore the Greek and the
other the Genoese flag, had remained for some time wind-bound at Chios,
and were anxiously expected at Constantinople. At daybreak these ships
were perceived by the Turkish watchmen steering for Constantinople, with
a strong breeze in their favor. The war-galleys of the Sultan immediately
got under way to capture them. The Sultan himself rode down to the point
of Tophane to witness a triumph which he considered certain and which he
thought would reduce his enemy to despair. The Greeks crowded the walls
of the city, offering up prayers for their friends and trembling for
their safety in the desperate struggle that awaited them. The Christians
had several advantages which their nautical experience enabled them to
turn to good account. The good size of their ships, the strength of their
construction, their weight, and their high bulwarks were all powerful
means of defence when aided by a stiff breeze blowing directly in the
teeth of their opponents. The Turks were compelled to row their galleys
against this wind and the heavy sea it raised. In vain they attacked the
Christians with reckless valor, fighting under the eye of their fiery
sovereign. The skill of their enemy rendered all their attacks abortive.
In vain one squadron attempted to impede the progress of the Christians,
while another endeavored to run alongside and carry them by boarding.
Every Turkish galley that opposed their progress was crushed under the
weight of their heavy hulls, while those that endeavored to board had
their oars shivered in the shock, and drifted helpless far astern. The
few that succeeded for a moment in retaining their place alongside were
either sunk by immense angular blocks of stone that were dropped on their
frail timbers, or were filled with flames and smoke by the Greek fire
that was poured upon them. The rapidity with which the best galleys were
sunk or disabled appalled the bravest; and at last the Turks shrank from
close combat on an element where they saw that valor without experience
was of no avail. The Christian ships, in the mean time, held steadily on
their course, under all the canvas their masts could carry, until they
rounded the point of St. Demetrius and entered the port, where the chain
was joyfully lowered to admit them.
The young Sultan, on seeing the defeat of his galleys, lost all command
over his temper. He could hardly be restrained from urging his horse into
the sea, and in his frantic passion heaped every term of abuse and
insult on his naval officers. He even talked of ordering his admiral,
Baltaoghlu, to be impaled on the spot; but the janizaries present
compelled even Mahomet to restrain his vengeance. This check revealed to
Mahomet the extent of the danger to which his naval force was exposed
should either the Genoese or Venetians send a powerful fleet to the
assistance of the emperor Constantine.
This naval discomfiture was also attended by some disasters on shore. The
monster cannon burst before it had produced any serious impression on the
walls. Its loss, however, was soon replaced; but the Ottoman army was
repulsed in a general attack. An immense tower of timber, mounted on many
wheels, and constructed on the model used in sieges from the time of the
ancient Greeks and Romans, was dragged up to the edge of the ditch. Under
its cover, workmen were incessantly employed throwing materials into the
ditch to enable the tower itself to approach the walls, while the fire of
several guns and the operations of a corps of miners ruined the opposite
tower of the city. The progress of the besiegers induced them to risk an
assault, in which they were repulsed, after a hard-fought struggle: and
during the following night John Justiniani made a great sortie, during
which his workmen cleared the ditch, and his soldiers filled the tower
with combustible materials and burned it to the ground. Its exterior,
having been protected by a triple covering of buffalo-hides, was found to
be impervious even to Greek fire.
In order to counteract the effect of these defeats, which had depressed
the courage of the Ottomans and raised the spirits of the Greeks, the
Sultan resolved to adopt measures for placing his fleet in security, and
facilitating the communication between the army before Constantinople and
the naval camp on the Bosporus. The Venetians had recently transported
a number of their galleys from the river Adige overland to the lake
of Garda. This exploit, which had been loudly celebrated at the time,
suggested to the Sultan the idea of transporting a number of vessels from
the Bosporus into the port of Constantinople, where the smooth water and
the command of the shore would secure to his ships the mastery of the
upper half of that extensive harbor. The distance over which it was
necessary to transport the galleys was only five miles, but a steep
hill presented a formidable obstacle to the undertaking. Mahomet,
nevertheless, having witnessed the transport of his monster cannon
over rivers and hills, was persuaded that his engineers would find no
difficulty in moving his ships overland. A road was accordingly made, and
laid with strong planks and wooden rails, which were plastered over with
tallow. It extended from the station occupied by the fleet at Dolma
Baktshe to the summit of the ridge near the Cemetery of Pera. On this
inclined plane, with the assistance of windlasses and numerous yokes of
oxen, the vessels were hauled up one after the other to the summit of the
hill, from whence they descended with difficulty to the point beyond
the present arsenal, where they were launched into the port under the
protection of batteries prepared for their defence. Historians, wishing
to give a dramatic character to their pages, have attributed marvellous
difficulties to this daring exploit. It was a well-conceived and
well-executed undertaking, for a division of the Ottoman fleet was
conveyed into the port in a single night, where the Greeks, at the
dawn of day, were amazed at beholding the hostile ships safe under the
protection of inexpugnable batteries.
To establish an easy and rapid communication between the naval camp
on the Bosporus and the army before Constantinople, Mahomet ordered a
floating bridge to be constructed across the port, from the point near
the old foundry, on the side of Galata, to that near the angle of the
city walls, near Haivan Serai, the ancient amphitheatre. The roadway of
this bridge was supported on the enormous jars used for storing oil and
wine, numbers of which were easily collected in the suburbs of Galata.
These jars, when bound together with their mouth inverted in the water,
formed admirable pontoons. Artillery was mounted on this bridge and the
galleys were brought up to the city walls, which were now assailed from
a quarter hitherto safe from attack. The Genoese under Justiniani on one
occasion, and the Venetians on another, were defeated in their attempts
to burn the Turkish fleet and destroy the bridge. The fire of the
artillery rendered the attacks of the Italians abortive, and their
failure afforded a decisive proof that the defence of the city was
becoming desperate. To avoid the admission of their inferiority in
force, the defeated parties threw the blame on one another, and their
dissensions became so violent that the Emperor could hardly appease the
quarrel.
During all the labors of the besiegers in other quarters, the approaches
were pushed vigorously forward against the land wall. Though the activity
in other and more novel operations might attract greater attention, the
industry of those engaged in filling up the ditch, and the fire of the
breaching batteries, never relaxed. Though all attempts to cross the
ditch at the gate of St. Romanus were long baffled by the Greeks, and
the mining operations at Blachern were discovered and defeated by Johann
Grant, still the superior number and indefatigable perseverance of the
Ottomans at last filled up the ditch, and the fire of their guns ruined
the walls. A visible change in the state of the fortifications encouraged
the assailants, and showed the besieged that the enemy was gradually
gaining a decided advantage. At the commencement of the siege, the
Ottoman engineers had displayed so little knowledge of the mode of using
artillery to effect a breach that a Hungarian envoy from John Hunyady,[1]
who visited Mahomet's camp, ridiculed the idea of their producing any
effect on the walls of Constantinople. This stranger was said to have
taught the Turks to fire in volleys, and to cut the wall in rectangular
sections, in order to produce a practicable breach.
The batteries at length effected a practicable breach at the gate of St.
Romanus. Before issuing his final orders for the assault, Mahomet
II summoned the Emperor to surrender the city, and offered him a
considerable appanage as a vassal of the Porte elsewhere. Constantine
rejected the insulting offer, and the Sultan prepared to take
Constantinople by storm. Four days were employed in the Ottoman camp
making all the arrangements necessary for a simultaneous attack by land
and sea along the whole line of the fortifications, from the modern
quarter of Phanar to the Golden Gate. The Greeks and Latins within the
walls were not less active in their exertions to meet the crisis. The
Latins were sustained by their habits of military discipline, and their
experiences of the chances of war; the Greeks placed great confidence in
some popular prophecies which foretold the ultimate defeat of the Turks.
They felt a pious conviction that the imperial and orthodox city would
never fall into the hands of infidels. But the emperor Constantine was
deceived by no vain hopes. He knew that human prudence and valor could do
no more than had been done to retard the progress of the besiegers.
Time had been gained, but the Greeks showed no disposition to fight for a
heretical emperor, and no succors arrived from the Pope and the western
princes. Constantine could now only hope to prolong the defence for a
few hours, and, when the city fell, to bring his own life to a glorious
termination by dying on the breach.
On the night before the assault, the Emperor rode round to all the posts
occupied by the garrison, and encouraged the troops to expect victory by
his cheerful demeanor. He then visited the Church of St. Sophia, already
deserted by the orthodox, where with his attendants he partook of the
holy sacrament according to the Latin form. He returned for a short time
to the imperial palace, and, on quitting it to take his station at the
great breach, he was so overcome by the certainty that he should
never again behold those present that he turned to the members of his
household, many of whom had been the companions of his youth, and
solemnly asked them to pardon every offence he had ever given them. Tears
burst from all present as Constantine mounted his horse and rode slowly
forward to meet his fate.
The contrast between the city of the Christians and the camp of the
Mahometans was not encouraging. Within the walls an emperor in the
decline of life commanded a small and disunited force, with twenty
leaders under his orders, each at the head of an almost independent band
of Greek, Genoese, Venetian, or Catalan soldiers. So slight was the tie
which bound these various chiefs together that, even when they were
preparing for the final assault, the Emperor was obliged to use all his
authority and personal influence to prevent Justiniani and the grand duke
Notaras from coming to blows. Justiniani demanded to be supplied with
some additional guns for the defence of the great breach, but Notaras,
who had the official control over the artillery, peremptorily refused the
demand.
In the Turkish camp, on the other hand, perfect unity prevailed, and a
young, ardent, and able sovereign concentrated in his hands the most
despotic authority over a numerous and well-disciplined army. To excite
the energy of that army to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, the Sultan
proclaimed to his troops that he granted them the whole plunder of
Constantinople, reserving to himself only the public buildings. The day
of the battle was regarded as a religious festival in the Ottoman camp,
and on the previous night lamps were hung out before every tent, and
fires were kindled on every eminence in or near the lines. Thousands of
lanterns were suspended from the flagstaffs of the batteries and from the
masts and yards of the ships, and were reflected in the waters of
the Propontis, the Golden Horn, and the Bosporus. The whole Ottoman
encampment was resplendent with the blaze of this illumination. Yet a
deep silence prevailed during the whole night, except when the musical
cadence of the solemn chant of the call to prayers showed the Greeks the
immense numbers and the strict discipline of the host.
Before the dawn of day, on the morning of May 29, 1453, the signal was
given for the attack. Column after column marched forward, and took up
its ground before the portion of the wall it was ordered to assail. The
galleys, fitted with towers and scaling-platforms, advanced against the
fortifications of the port protected by the guns on the bridge. But the
principal attack was directed against the breach at the gate of St.
Romanus, where two flanking towers had fallen into the ditch and opened
a passage into the interior of the city. The gate of Charsias and the
quarter of Blachern were also assailed by chosen regiments of janizaries
in overwhelming numbers. The attack was made with daring courage, but for
more than two hours every point was successfully defended. In the port,
the Italian and Greek ships opposed the Turkish galleys so effectually
that the final result appeared to favor the besieged. But on the land
side, one column of troops followed the other in an incessant stream. The
moment a division fell back from the assault, new battalions occupied its
place. The valor of the besieged was for some time successful, but they
were at last fatigued by their exertions, and their scanty numbers were
weakened by wounds and death. Unfortunately, Justiniani, the protostrator
or marshal of the army, and the ablest officer in the place, received a
wound which induced him to retire on board his ship to have it dressed.
Until that moment he and the Emperor had defended the great breach with
advantage; but after his retreat Sagan Pacha, observing that the energy
of the defenders was relaxed, excited the bravest of the janizaries to
mount to the assault. A chosen company led by Hasan of Ulubad, a man of
gigantic frame, first crossed the ruins of the wall, and their leader
gained the summit of the dilapidated tower which flanked the breach.
The defenders, headed by the emperor Constantine, made a desperate
resistance. Hasan and many of his followers were slain, but the
janizaries had secured the vantage-ground, and, fresh troops pouring in
to their aid, they surrounded the defenders of the breach. The Emperor
fell amid a heap of slain, and a column of janizaries rushed into
Constantinople over his lifeless body.
About the same time another corps of the Ottomans forced an entrance into
the city at the gate of the Circus, which had been left almost without
defence, for the besieged were not sufficiently numerous to guard the
whole line of the fortifications, and their best troops were drawn to the
points where the attacks were fiercest. The corps that forced the gate of
the Circus took the defenders of the gate of Charsias in the rear, and
overpowered all resistance in the quarter of Blachern.
Several gates were now thrown open, and the army entered Constantinople
at several points. The cry that the enemy had stormed the walls preceded
their march. Senators, priests, monks, and nuns, men, women, and
children, all rushed to seek safety in St. Sophia's. A prediction current
among the Greeks flattered them with the vain hope that an angel would
descend from heaven and destroy the Mahometans, in order to reveal the
extent of God's love for the orthodox. St. Sophia's, which for some time
they had forsaken as a spot profaned by the Emperor's attempt at a union
of the Christian world, was again revered as the sanctuary of orthodoxy,
and was crowded with the flower of the Greek nation, confident of
a miraculous interposition in favor of their national pride and
ecclesiastical prejudices.
The besiegers, when they first entered the city, fearing lest they might
encounter serious resistance in the narrow streets, put every soul they
encountered to the sword. But as soon as they were fully aware of the
small number of the garrison, and the impossibility of any further
opposition, they began to make prisoners. At length they reached St.
Sophia's, and, rushing into that magnificent temple, which could with
ease contain twenty thousand persons, they performed deeds of plunder and
violence not unlike the scenes which the crusaders had enacted in the
same spot in 1204. The men, women, and children who had sought safety
in the building were divided among the soldiers as slaves, without any
reference to their rank or respect for their ties of blood, and hurried
off to the camp, or placed under the guard of comrades, who formed a
joint alliance for the security of their plunder. The ecclesiastical
ornaments and church plate were poor indeed when compared with the
immense riches of the Byzantine cathedral in the time of the crusaders;
but whatever was movable was immediately divided among the soldiers with
such celerity that the mighty temple soon presented few traces of having
been a Christian church.
While one division of the victorious army was engaged in plundering the
southern side of the city, from the gate of St. Romanus to the Church
of St. Sophia, another, turning to the port, made itself master of the
warehouses that were filled with merchandise, and surrounded the Greek
troops under the grand duke Notaras. The Greeks were easily subdued,
and Notaras surrendered himself a prisoner. About midday the Turks were
in possession of the whole city, and Mahomet II entered his new capital
at the gate of St. Romanus, riding triumphantly past the body of the
emperor Constantine, which lay concealed among the slain in the breach
he had defended. The Sultan rode straight to the Church of St. Sophia,
where he gave the necessary orders for the preservation of all the
public buildings. Even during the license of the sack, the severe
education and grave character of the Ottomans exerted a powerful
influence on their conduct, and on this occasion there was no example
of the wanton destruction and wilful conflagrations that had signalized
the Latin conquest. To convince the Greeks that their orthodox empire
was extinct, Mahomet ordered a mollah to ascend the bema and address
a sermon to the Mussulmans, announcing that St. Sophia was now a mosque
set apart for the prayers of the true believers. To put an end to all
doubts concerning the death of the Emperor, he ordered Constantine's
head to be brought and exposed to the people of the capital, from
whence it was afterward sent as a trophy to be seen by the Greeks of
the principal cities in the Ottoman empire.
[Footnote 1: The great Hungarian leader, who long fought against the
Turks, and signally defeated them at Belgrad in 1456.--ED.]
WARS OF THE ROSES
DEATH OF RICHARD III AT BOSWORTH
A.D. 1455-1485
DAVID HUME
Historians themselves declare that no part of English history since the
Norman Conquest is so obscure and uncertain as that of the Wars of the
Roses. "All we can distinguish with certainty through the deep cloud
which covers that period is a scene of horror and bloodshed, savage
manners, arbitrary executions and treacheries, dishonorable conduct in
all parties." These brutal aspects of that horrid drama of history,
running through more than the course of a full generation, are depicted
for the mimic stage by Shakespeare, in _Henry VI and Richard III_, with
a vividness that brings before us the ghastly realities of the historic
theatre itself, and with such realization of the rude forces at work
as calls for all the poet's refining art to make their representation
tolerable to modern spectators.
But the historians, while consciously failing to discover the hidden
motives of intrigue and treachery which throughout actuated the parties
to this fearful struggle of Englishmen with Englishmen, have nevertheless
recorded for us its main outlines and leading episodes with sufficient
clearness. We are enabled to see England as she was in that great
transition of her "making"--in the throes of civil strife, again to be
endured two centuries later--through which she must pass before she could
become a "land of settled government."
During the weak reign of Henry VI, France was delivered from English
rule, mainly through the heroism of Jeanne d'Arc. In 1450 the commons
rose against King Henry and the house of Lancaster, to which he belonged,
and declared in favor of the house of York--these houses having already
come into serious rivalry for the supreme power. The disasters in France
strengthened the Yorkists, and brought their representative, Richard,
Duke of York, to the front, with armed forces to support his claims.
In 1452 he marched upon London, demanding the removal of the Duke of
Somerset, Henry's chief minister, but a conflict was temporarily averted.
When, in 1454, King Henry became insane, the Duke of York was made
protector by parliament. He might now have seized the crown, but his
forbearance was taken advantage of by the rival party, and "proved the
source of all those furious wars which ensued"--the Wars of the Roses,
beginning with the first battle of St. Albans, in 1455, and ending with
the death of Richard III at Bosworth Field, in 1485.