from the throne: his tender age was incapable of opposing his father's
restoration, but never could he forgive the viziers who had recommended
that salutary measure. His nuptials were celebrated with the daughter
of a Turkman emir; and, after a festival of two months, he departed
from Adrianople with his bride, to reside in the government of Magnesia.
Before the end of six weeks, he was recalled by a sudden message from
the divan, which announced the decease of Amurath, and the mutinous
spirit of the Janizaries. His speed and vigor commanded their obedience:
he passed the Hellespont with a chosen guard: and at the distance of a
mile from Adrianople, the viziers and emirs, the imams and cadhis, the
soldiers and the people, fell prostrate before the new sultan. They
affected to weep, they affected to rejoice: he ascended the throne at
the age of twenty-one years, and removed the cause of sedition by
the death, the inevitable death, of his infant brothers. [9] [901] The
ambassadors of Europe and Asia soon appeared to congratulate his
accession and solicit his friendship; and to all he spoke the language
of moderation and peace. The confidence of the Greek emperor was
revived by the solemn oaths and fair assurances with which he sealed
the ratification of the treaty: and a rich domain on the banks of the
Strymon was assigned for the annual payment of three hundred thousand
aspers, the pension of an Ottoman prince, who was detained at his
request in the Byzantine court. Yet the neighbors of Mahomet might
tremble at the severity with which a youthful monarch reformed the pomp
of his father's household: the expenses of luxury were applied to those
of ambition, and a useless train of seven thousand falconers was either
dismissed from his service, or enlisted in his troops. [902] In the first
summer of his reign, he visited with an army the Asiatic provinces;
but after humbling the pride, Mahomet accepted the submission, of the
Caramanian, that he might not be diverted by the smallest obstacle from
the execution of his great design. [10]
[Footnote 9: Calapin, one of these royal infants, was saved from
his cruel brother, and baptized at Rome under the name of Callistus
Othomannus. The emperor Frederic III. presented him with an estate
in Austria, where he ended his life; and Cuspinian, who in his youth
conversed with the aged prince at Vienna, applauds his piety and wisdom,
(de CÊsaribus, p. 672, 673.)]
[Footnote 901: Ahmed, the son of a Greek princess, was the object of his
especial jealousy. Von Hammer, p. 501.--M.]
[Footnote 902: The Janizaries obtained, for the first time, a gift on the
accession of a new sovereign, p. 504.--M.]
[Footnote 10: See the accession of Mahomet II. in Ducas, (c. 33,)
Phranza, (l. i. c. 33, l. iii. c. 2,) Chalcondyles, (l. vii. p. 199,)
and Cantemir, (p. 96.)]
The Mahometan, and more especially the Turkish casuists, have pronounced
that no promise can bind the faithful against the interest and duty of
their religion; and that the sultan may abrogate his own treaties and
those of his predecessors. The justice and magnanimity of Amurath had
scorned this immoral privilege; but his son, though the proudest of
men, could stoop from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulation
and deceit. Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart: he
incessantly sighed for the possession of Constantinople; and the Greeks,
by their own indiscretion, afforded the first pretence of the fatal
rupture. [11] Instead of laboring to be forgotten, their ambassadors
pursued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the increase, of their
annual stipend: the divan was importuned by their complaints, and the
vizier, a secret friend of the Christians, was constrained to deliver
the sense of his brethren. "Ye foolish and miserable Romans," said
Calil, "we know your devices, and ye are ignorant of your own danger!
The scrupulous Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a young
conqueror, whom no laws can bind, and no obstacles can resist: and if
you escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency, which yet
delays the chastisement of your sins. Why do ye seek to affright us by
vain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive Orchan, crown him sultan
of Romania; call the Hungarians from beyond the Danube; arm against us
the nations of the West; and be assured, that you will only provoke and
precipitate your ruin." But if the fears of the ambassadors were alarmed
by the stern language of the vizier, they were soothed by the courteous
audience and friendly speeches of the Ottoman prince; and Mahomet
assured them that on his return to Adrianople he would redress the
grievances, and consult the true interests, of the Greeks. No sooner had
he repassed the Hellespont, than he issued a mandate to suppress their
pension, and to expel their officers from the banks of the Strymon: in
this measure he betrayed a hostile mind; and the second order announced,
and in some degree commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the narrow
pass of the Bosphorus, an Asiatic fortress had formerly been raised by
his grandfather; in the opposite situation, on the European side, he
resolved to erect a more formidable castle; and a thousand masons were
commanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named Asomaton, about five
miles from the Greek metropolis. [12] Persuasion is the resource of
the feeble; and the feeble can seldom persuade: the ambassadors of the
emperor attempted, without success, to divert Mahomet from the execution
of his design. They represented, that his grandfather had solicited the
permission of Manuel to build a castle on his own territories; but that
this double fortification, which would command the strait, could only
tend to violate the alliance of the nations; to intercept the Latins who
traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps to annihilate the subsistence
of the city. "I form the enterprise," replied the perfidious sultan,
"against the city; but the empire of Constantinople is measured by her
walls. Have you forgot the distress to which my father was reduced when
you formed a league with the Hungarians; when they invaded our country
by land, and the Hellespont was occupied by the French galleys? Amurath
was compelled to force the passage of the Bosphorus; and your strength
was not equal to your malevolence. I was then a child at Adrianople;
the Moslems trembled; and, for a while, the _Gabours_ [13] insulted our
disgrace. But when my father had triumphed in the field of Warna, he
vowed to erect a fort on the western shore, and that vow it is my duty
to accomplish. Have ye the right, have ye the power, to control my
actions on my own ground? For that ground is my own: as far as the
shores of the Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and Europe is
deserted by the Romans. Return, and inform your king, that the present
Ottoman is far different from his predecessors; that _his_ resolutions
surpass _their_ wishes; and that _he_ performs more _than_ they could
resolve. Return in safety--but the next who delivers a similar message
may expect to be flayed alive." After this declaration, Constantine,
the first of the Greeks in spirit as in rank, [14] had determined to
unsheathe the sword, and to resist the approach and establishment of the
Turks on the Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil and
ecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous,
and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience and
long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt of an
aggressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own safety, and
the destruction of a fort which could not long be maintained in the
neighborhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear, the
fears of the wise, and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolled
away; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was postponed;
and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending danger, till the
arrival of the spring and the sultan decide the assurance of their ruin.
[Footnote 11: Before I enter on the siege of Constantinople, I shall
observe, that except the short hints of Cantemir and Leunclavius, I have
not been able to obtain any Turkish account of this conquest; such an
account as we possess of the siege of Rhodes by Soliman II., (MÈmoires
de l'AcadÈmie des Inscriptions, tom. xxvi. p. 723--769.) I must
therefore depend on the Greeks, whose prejudices, in some degree, are
subdued by their distress. Our standard texts ar those of Ducas,
(c. 34--42,) Phranza, (l. iii. c. 7--20,) Chalcondyles, (l. viii. p.
201--214,) and Leonardus Chiensis, (Historia C. P. a Turco expugnatÊ.
NorimberghÊ, 1544, in 4to., 20 leaves.) The last of these narratives is
the earliest in date, since it was composed in the Isle of Chios, the
16th of August, 1453, only seventy-nine days after the loss of the city,
and in the first confusion of ideas and passions. Some hints may
be added from an epistle of Cardinal Isidore (in Farragine Rerum
Turcicarum, ad calcem Chalcondyl. Clauseri, Basil, 1556) to Pope
Nicholas V., and a tract of Theodosius Zygomala, which he addressed in
the year 1581 to Martin Crucius, (Turco-GrÊcia, l. i. p. 74--98, Basil,
1584.) The various facts and materials are briefly, though critically,
reviewed by Spondanus, (A.D. 1453, No. 1--27.) The hearsay relations of
Monstrelet and the distant Latins I shall take leave to disregard. *
Note: M. Von Hammer has added little new information on the siege of
Constantinople, and, by his general agreement, has borne an honorable
testimony to the truth, and by his close imitation to the graphic spirit
and boldness, of Gibbon.--M.]
[Footnote 12: The situation of the fortress, and the topography of the
Bosphorus, are best learned from Peter Gyllius, (de Bosphoro Thracio, l.
ii. c. 13,) Leunclavius, (Pandect. p. 445,) and Tournefort, (Voyage dans
le Levant, tom. ii. lettre xv. p. 443, 444;) but I must regret the map
or plan which Tournefort sent to the French minister of the marine. The
reader may turn back to chap. xvii. of this History.]
[Footnote 13: The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the
infidels, is expressed Kabour by Ducas, and _Giaour_ by Leunclavius and
the moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloss. GrÊc tom.
i. p. 530) from Kabouron, in vulgar Greek, a tortoise, as denoting a
retrograde motion from the faith. But alas! _Gabour_ is no more
than _Gheber_, which was transferred from the Persian to the Turkish
language, from the worshippers of fire to those of the crucifix,
(D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 375.)]
[Footnote 14: Phranza does justice to his master's sense and courage.
Calliditatem hominis non ignorans Imperator prior arma movere
constituit, and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum profani
proceres, which he had heard, amentes spe van‚ pasci. Ducas was not a
privy-counsellor.]
Of a master who never forgives, the orders are seldom disobeyed. On the
twenty-sixth of March, the appointed spot of Asomaton was covered with
an active swarm of Turkish artificers; and the materials by sea and land
were diligently transported from Europe and Asia. [15] The lime had been
burnt in Cataphrygia; the timber was cut down in the woods of Heraclea
and Nicomedia; and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each
of the thousand masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of two
cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress [16] was built in a
triangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong and massy tower; one
on the declivity of the hill, two along the sea-shore: a thickness of
twenty-two feet was assigned for the walls, thirty for the towers; and
the whole building was covered with a solid platform of lead. Mahomet
himself pressed and directed the work with indefatigable ardor: his
three viziers claimed the honor of finishing their respective towers;
the zeal of the cadhis emulated that of the Janizaries; the meanest
labor was ennobled by the service of God and the sultan; and the
diligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot, whose
smile was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the messenger of
death. The Greek emperor beheld with terror the irresistible progress
of the work; and vainly strove, by flattery and gifts, to assuage
an implacable foe, who sought, and secretly fomented, the slightest
occasion of a quarrel. Such occasions must soon and inevitably be found.
The ruins of stately churches, and even the marble columns which had
been consecrated to Saint Michael the archangel, were employed without
scruple by the profane and rapacious Moslems; and some Christians, who
presumed to oppose the removal, received from their hands the crown
of martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to protect the
fields and harvests of his subjects: the guard was fixed; but their
first order was to allow free pasture to the mules and horses of the
camp, and to defend their brethren if they should be molested by the
natives. The retinue of an Ottoman chief had left their horses to pass
the night among the ripe corn; the damage was felt; the insult was
resented; and several of both nations were slain in a tumultuous
conflict. Mahomet listened with joy to the complaint; and a detachment
was commanded to exterminate the guilty village: the guilty had fled;
but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by the
soldiers. Till this provocation, Constantinople had been opened to the
visits of commerce and curiosity: on the first alarm, the gates were
shut; but the emperor, still anxious for peace, released on the third
day his Turkish captives; [17] and expressed, in a last message, the
firm resignation of a Christian and a soldier. "Since neither oaths, nor
treaty, nor submission, can secure peace, pursue," said he to Mahomet,
"your impious warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should please
him to mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he
delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to his holy
will. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce between us, it
is my duty to live and die in the defence of my people." The sultan's
answer was hostile and decisive: his fortifications were completed; and
before his departure for Adrianople, he stationed a vigilant Aga and
four hundred Janizaries, to levy a tribute on the ships of every nation
that should pass within the reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel,
refusing obedience to the new lords of the Bosphorus, was sunk with a
single bullet. [171] The master and thirty sailors escaped in the boat; but
they were dragged in chains to the _Porte_: the chief was impaled;
his companions were beheaded; and the historian Ducas [18] beheld,
at Demotica, their bodies exposed to the wild beasts. The siege of
Constantinople was deferred till the ensuing spring; but an Ottoman
army marched into the Morea to divert the force of the brothers of
Constantine. At this Êra of calamity, one of these princes, the despot
Thomas, was blessed or afflicted with the birth of a son; "the last
heir," says the plaintive Phranza, "of the last spark of the Roman
empire." [19]
[Footnote 15: Instead of this clear and consistent account, the Turkish
Annals (Cantemir, p. 97) revived the foolish tale of the ox's hide, and
Dido's stratagem in the foundation of Carthage. These annals (unless we
are swayed by an anti-Christian prejudice) are far less valuable than
the Greek historians.]
[Footnote 16: In the dimensions of this fortress, the old castle
of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcondyles, whose
description has been verified on the spot by his editor Leunclavius.]
[Footnote 17: Among these were some pages of Mahomet, so conscious of
his inexorable rigor, that they begged to lose their heads in the city
unless they could return before sunset.]
[Footnote 171: This was from a model cannon cast by Urban the Hungarian.
See p. 291. Von Hammer. p. 510.--M.]
[Footnote 18: Ducas, c. 35. Phranza, (l. iii. c. 3,) who had sailed in
his vessel, commemorates the Venetian pilot as a martyr.]
[Footnote 19: Auctum est PalÊologorum genus, et Imperii successor,
parvÊque Romanorum scintillÊ hÊres natus, Andreas, &c., (Phranza, l.
iii. c. 7.) The strong expression was inspired by his feelings.]
The Greeks and the Turks passed an anxious and sleepless winter: the
former were kept awake by their fears, the latter by their hopes; both
by the preparations of defence and attack; and the two emperors, who
had the most to lose or to gain, were the most deeply affected by the
national sentiment. In Mahomet, that sentiment was inflamed by the
ardor of his youth and temper: he amused his leisure with building at
Adrianople [20] the lofty palace of Jehan Numa, (the watchtower of the
world;) but his serious thoughts were irrevocably bent on the conquest
of the city of CÊsar. At the dead of night, about the second watch, he
started from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of his
prime vizier. The message, the hour, the prince, and his own situation,
alarmed the guilty conscience of Calil Basha; who had possessed the
confidence, and advised the restoration, of Amurath. On the accession of
the son, the vizier was confirmed in his office and the appearances of
favor; but the veteran statesman was not insensible that he trod on a
thin and slippery ice, which might break under his footsteps, and plunge
him in the abyss. His friendship for the Christians, which might be
innocent under the late reign, had stigmatized him with the name of
Gabour Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels; [21] and his avarice
entertained a venal and treasonable correspondence, which was detected
and punished after the conclusion of the war. On receiving the royal
mandate, he embraced, perhaps for the last time, his wife and children;
filled a cup with pieces of gold, hastened to the palace, adored the
sultan, and offered, according to the Oriental custom, the slight
tribute of his duty and gratitude. [22] "It is not my wish," said
Mahomet, "to resume my gifts, but rather to heap and multiply them
on thy head. In my turn, I ask a present far more valuable and
important;--Constantinople." As soon as the vizier had recovered from
his surprise, "The same God," said he, "who has already given thee so
large a portion of the Roman empire, will not deny the remnant, and the
capital. His providence, and thy power, assure thy success; and myself,
with the rest of thy faithful slaves, will sacrifice our lives and
fortunes."--"Lala," [23] (or preceptor,) continued the sultan, "do you
see this pillow? All the night, in my agitation, I have pulled it on one
side and the other; I have risen from my bed, again have I lain down;
yet sleep has not visited these weary eyes. Beware of the gold and
silver of the Romans: in arms we are superior; and with the aid of God,
and the prayers of the prophet, we shall speedily become masters of
Constantinople." To sound the disposition of his soldiers, he often
wandered through the streets alone, and in disguise; and it was fatal to
discover the sultan, when he wished to escape from the vulgar eye.
His hours were spent in delineating the plan of the hostile city; in
debating with his generals and engineers, on what spot he should erect
his batteries; on which side he should assault the walls; where
he should spring his mines; to what place he should apply his
scaling-ladders: and the exercises of the day repeated and proved the
lucubrations of the night.
[Footnote 20: Cantemir, p. 97, 98. The sultan was either doubtful of his
conquest, or ignorant of the superior merits of Constantinople. A city
or a kingdom may sometimes be ruined by the Imperial fortune of their
sovereign.]
[Footnote 21: SuntrojoV, by the president Cousin, is translated _pËre_
nourricier, most correctly indeed from the Latin version; but in his
haste he has overlooked the note by which Ishmael Boillaud (ad Ducam, c.
35) acknowledges and rectifies his own error.]
[Footnote 22: The Oriental custom of never appearing without gifts
before a sovereign or a superior is of high antiquity, and seems
analogous with the idea of sacrifice, still more ancient and universal.
See the examples of such Persian gifts, ∆lian, Hist. Var. l. i. c. 31,
32, 33.]
[Footnote 23: The _Lala_ of the Turks (Cantemir, p. 34) and the _Tata_
of the Greeks (Ducas, c. 35) are derived from the natural language of
children; and it may be observed, that all such primitive words which
denote their parents, are the simple repetition of one syllable,
composed of a labial or a dental consonant and an open vowel, (Des
Brosses, MÈchanisme des Langues, tom. i. p. 231--247.)]
Chapter LXVIII: Reign Of Mahomet The Second, Extinction Of Eastern Empire.--Part II.
Among the implements of destruction, he studied with peculiar care
the recent and tremendous discovery of the Latins; and his artillery
surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world. A founder of cannon, a
Dane [231] or Hungarian, who had been almost starved in the Greek service,
deserted to the Moslems, and was liberally entertained by the Turkish
sultan. Mahomet was satisfied with the answer to his first question,
which he eagerly pressed on the artist. "Am I able to cast a cannon
capable of throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the
walls of Constantinople? I am not ignorant of their strength; but were
they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine of
superior power: the position and management of that engine must be left
to your engineers." On this assurance, a foundry was established at
Adrianople: the metal was prepared; and at the end of three months,
Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of stupendous, and almost
incredible magnitude; a measure of twelve palms is assigned to the bore;
and the stone bullet weighed above six hundred pounds. [24] [241] A vacant
place before the new palace was chosen for the first experiment; but to
prevent the sudden and mischievous effects of astonishment and fear, a
proclamation was issued, that the cannon would be discharged the ensuing
day. The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred furlongs:
the ball, by the force of gunpowder, was driven above a mile; and on the
spot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom deep in the ground. For
the conveyance of this destructive engine, a frame or carriage of thirty
wagons was linked together and drawn along by a team of sixty oxen:
two hundred men on both sides were stationed, to poise and support the
rolling weight; two hundred and fifty workmen marched before to smooth
the way and repair the bridges; and near two months were employed in a
laborious journey of one hundred and fifty miles. A lively philosopher
[25] derides on this occasion the credulity of the Greeks, and observes,
with much reason, that we should always distrust the exaggerations of
a vanquished people. He calculates, that a ball, even o two hundred
pounds, would require a charge of one hundred and fifty pounds of
powder; and that the stroke would be feeble and impotent, since not
a fifteenth part of the mass could be inflamed at the same moment.
A stranger as I am to the art of destruction, I can discern that the
modern improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to the
weight of metal; the quickness of the fire to the sound, or even the
consequence, of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject the positive
and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor can it seem
improbable, that the first artists, in their rude and ambitious efforts,
should have transgressed the standard of moderation. A Turkish cannon,
more enormous than that of Mahomet, still guards the entrance of the
Dardanelles; and if the use be inconvenient, it has been found on a
late trial that the effect was far from contemptible. A stone bullet of
_eleven_ hundred pounds' weight was once discharged with three hundred
and thirty pounds of powder: at the distance of six hundred yards it
shivered into three rocky fragments; traversed the strait; and leaving
the waters in a foam, again rose and bounded against the opposite hill.
[26]
[Footnote 231: Gibbon has written Dane by mistake for Dace, or Dacian. Lax
ti kinoV?. Chalcondyles, Von Hammer, p. 510.--M.]
[Footnote 24: The Attic talent weighed about sixty minÊ, or avoirdupois
pounds (see Hooper on Ancient Weights, Measures, &c.;) but among the
modern Greeks, that classic appellation was extended to a weight of one
hundred, or one hundred and twenty-five pounds, (Ducange, talanton.)
Leonardus Chiensis measured the ball or stone of the _second_ cannon
Lapidem, qui palmis undecim ex meis ambibat in gyro.]
[Footnote 241: 1200, according to Leonardus Chiensis. Von Hammer states
that he had himself seen the great cannon of the Dardanelles, in which
a tailor who had run away from his creditors, had concealed himself
several days Von Hammer had measured balls twelve spans round. Note. p.
666.--M.]
[Footnote 25: See Voltaire, (Hist. GÈnÈrale, c. xci. p. 294, 295.) He
was ambitious of universal monarchy; and the poet frequently aspires to
the name and style of an astronomer, a chemist, &c.]
[Footnote 26: The Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 85--89,) who fortified
the Dardanelles against the Russians, describes in a lively, and even
comic, strain his own prowess, and the consternation of the Turks.
But that adventurous traveller does not possess the art of gaining our
confidence.]