TOPOGRAPHY OF CONSTANTINOPLE; DISPOSITION OF MAHOMET’S FORCES
AND CANNON; ESTIMATE OF FIGHTING MEN UNDER EMPEROR; VENETIANS
AND GENOESE: DISPARITY IN NUMBERS: ARMS AND EQUIPMENT: ATTACKS
ON THERAPIA AND PRINKIPO.
[Sidenote: Topography of Constantinople.]
In order to understand these dispositions and the operations of the
siege which had now begun it is necessary to take account of the
topography of the city. Constantinople in modern times comprises not
only Stamboul but the large and even more populous district situated
on the northern shore of the Golden Horn. This district was known in
mediaeval times as Pera.[238] On the slope of Pera hill towards the
Horn the Genoese were in possession of a walled city called Galata.
Sometimes this city is described as Galata of Pera. In modern times,
however, Pera is the name of the city on the north of the Golden Horn,
exclusive of Galata. In 1453 what is now known as Stamboul was the
only portion of the present city to which the name Constantinople was
applied.[239]
The city about to be besieged is situated on a peninsula at the
south-west extremity of the Bosporus. It is, roughly speaking, an
isosceles triangle with its base to landward. One of the sides is
bounded by the Marmora and the other by the Golden Horn. It was
surrounded by walls, which, with a few short intervals, still remain.
On the two sides bounded by the sea they were built close to the
water’s edge. In the course of centuries the Golden Horn had silted
up a deposit of mud which even before 1453 formed a foreshore outside
the north walls of a sufficient extent to have allowed Cantacuzenus
to open a foss from Seraglio Point to Aivan Serai, formerly known as
Cynegion. The side of the triangle most open to attack was that which
faced the land and extended from the Horn to the Marmora. The walls on
this landward side, constructed mainly during the reign of Theodosius
the Second, had proved themselves during a period of a thousand years
sufficiently strong to have enabled the citizens successfully to resist
upwards of twenty sieges, and previous to the introduction of cannon
were justly regarded as invulnerable.[240]
The landward walls are four miles long. From the Marmora to a point
where the land has a steep slope for about half a mile down to the
Golden Horn, they are triple. The inner and loftiest is about forty
feet high and is strengthened by towers sixty feet high along its whole
length and distant from each other usually about one hundred and eighty
feet. Outside this wall is a second, about twenty-five feet high, with
towers similar to though smaller than those along the inner wall. This
wall alone is of a strength that in any other mediaeval city would have
been considered efficient.
Between these two walls was the Peribolos or enclosure, which, though
of varying width, is usually between fifty and sixty feet broad.
Outside the second was yet another wall, which was a continuation in
height of the scarp or inner wall of the ditch or foss and which may
conveniently be called a breastwork. This breastwork, like the other
two, was crenellated. Though, from the fact that it has been easier
of access than either of the others, the summit has mostly perished,
some portions of it are still complete. It is important, however, to
note that the third wall or breastwork is disregarded by contemporary
writers, and that they speak of the second as the Outer Wall. A second
enclosure, called by the Greeks the Parateichion to distinguish it from
the Peribolos, exists between the second and the third walls. The foss
or ditch, which has withstood four and a half centuries of exposure
since it last served as the first line of defence, is still in good
condition. It has a width of about sixty feet.
The landward wall contained a number of gates which are conveniently
described as Civil Gates and which during times of peace gave access
to the city over bridges which were destroyed when it was besieged.
The most important of these for our present purpose are the Chariseus,
the modern Adrianople Gate; Top Capou or Cannon Gate, known in earlier
times as the St. Romanus Gate, and the Pegè or Gate of the Springs, now
called Silivria Gate. Besides these there were Military Gates leading
from the city through the inner wall into the enclosures which were
known in earlier times by their numbers (counting from the Marmora end
of the walls) or from the division of the army stationed near them.
The most noteworthy of these were the Third or Triton and the Fifth or
Pempton. The latter is in the Lycus valley, about halfway between Top
Capou and the Gate of Adrianople, and was spoken of during the siege as
the St. Romanus Gate.[241]
As the most important military events in the history of the siege of
Constantinople took place in the valley of the Lycus, between the
Top Capou on the south and the Adrianople Gate on the north of the
valley, it is desirable that the configuration of the locality should
be noted carefully. Each of these gates is upon the summit of a hill,
the Adrianople Gate indeed being the highest point in the city and, as
such, having had near it, as is the almost invariable rule in lands
occupied by Greeks, a church dedicated to St. George, who took the
place of Apollo when the empire became Christian.[242] Between the
two gates exists a valley, about a hundred feet below their level,
which is drained by a small stream called the Lycus. The distance
between the two gates is seven eighths of a mile. The double walls
of Theodosius connect them, while in front of the Outer Wall was an
enclosure with the usual breastwork forming the side of the foss. The
Lycus enters below these walls through a well-constructed passage still
in existence, and flows through the city until it empties itself into
the Marmora at Vlanga Bostan. The tower beneath which it has been led
is halfway between the Adrianople Gate and Top Capou. About two hundred
yards to the north of this tower is the Fifth Military Gate or Pempton,
spoken of sometimes by the Byzantines as the Gate of St. Kyriakè, from
a church within the city which was close to it, called the Romanus
Gate by the writers on the siege, and on old Turkish maps described as
Hedjoum Capou or the Gate of the Assault.[243] The foss has a number of
dams at irregular distances down each side of the valley. In its lowest
part no dams were necessary.[244]
The walls between Top Capou and the Adrianople Gate were known as
the Mesoteichion, and the name seems to have been applied also to
the whole of the valley. The portion of the walls on either side of
the Adrianople Gate, or perhaps those only on the high ground to the
north of it, was known as the Myriandrion--a name which was applied
occasionally to the Gate itself. From a tower to which Leonard gives
the name Bactatinian, near where the Lycus entered the city, to Top
Capou, the walls were described as the Bachaturean.
[Illustration: APPROXIMATE RESTORATION OF THE LAND WALLS OF THEODOSIUS
THE SECOND BETWEEN THE GOLDEN AND SECOND MILITARY GATES.]
[Illustration: This photograph shows the present condition of a
portion of the Landward Walls. They remain for the most part in an
equally good state of preservation. The Inner and the Second, usually
called the Outer, Wall and the Foss (now without water) are clearly
shown. The Third Wall or Breastwork has lost its upper portion and its
crenelations, except in a few places. The photograph is reproduced from
one by M. Irenian, of Constantinople.]
Though the two magnificent Theodosian walls were as well constructed
as elsewhere, and to the eye of an ordinary observer the city was
as strongly protected in the Lycus valley as anywhere, yet this
place appears to have been considered by many of the enemies of the
city as its weakest point. Here, says Dethier, with whom Professor
Van Millingen agrees, was the Heel of Achilles.[245] Many previous
invaders, ending with Murad in 1422, had encamped in the Mesoteichion
as the most suitable position for an attack upon the city.[246]
The accompanying sketch of the walls will show their general plan.
Under normal conditions a large detachment of the defenders of such
high lines of walls ought to have been on the city side of the great
Inner Wall. So few, however, were the besieged, that all had to pass
into the enclosures to meet the enemy at the second or Outer Wall.
Partly because of the small number of men, but partly also because it
had been allowed to get out of repair,[247] the Inner Wall, which,
as the highest and strongest, ought to have been the most serious
obstacle, was hardly relied upon as a means of defence. Chalcondylas
says[248] that the emperor and the leading Greeks deliberated as to
where the enemy was to be resisted, and that they decided that they
should defend the Outer Wall, which was strengthened by the foss
in front of it, as had been done when Murad had attacked the city
thirty-one years before. Leonard expressly states that the imperial
troops were sufficient to guard only the Outer Wall, and the stockade
which, at a late period of the siege, replaced a portion of it. As
his own countrymen took part in this task, his testimony is entirely
credible.[249] He adds, however, that in his opinion this plan of
defence was a blunder; that he was always persuaded that the lofty
Inner Wall ought to have been kept ready as a refuge in case of
retreat; that those walls which, through neglect or hard weather, had
become broken or useless for operations against the enemy, might have
been repaired even within the time which elapsed between the proposal
for war and the commencement of the siege. Had they been repaired and
guarded, they would have provided a reserve of safety to the city. It
is when regretting that these repairs were not undertaken that, while
excusing the emperor, Leonard breaks out into indignation, justifiable
if his belief was well founded[250] against two persons in particular,
Jagarus and a monk named Neophytus who had embezzled the moneys which
had been bequeathed for the repair of the walls, and declares that
the city was lost through the rascality of public robbers. Through
their dishonesty, the besieged were driven to place all their hope in
the Outer Wall and the foss. The Jews, he adds, were more prudent who
when, at the siege of Jerusalem, they were defeated at the first wall,
retreated to the second, and then to the third, by which they prolonged
the siege of Vespasian and Titus for four years.
Probably the opinion of the soldiers on such a question was worth more
than that of the archbishop.[251]
Under these circumstances, the defenders of the city took up their
position in the Peribolos or enclosure. The broken Inner Wall was
behind them, the strong Outer Wall was in front. The Military Gates
from the city into the enclosure were few and far between, there being
only one usually in the long distance between the Civil Gates. The only
other entrances into the enclosures were at the ends terminating at the
Civil Gates.
[Sidenote: Disposition of Mahomet’s army.]
With this explanation we may now understand the disposition of his
troops and cannon made by Mahomet. He placed Zagan Pasha at the head
of an army which was charged to guard the whole of Pera, to watch the
Genoese in Galata and the whole of the northern shore of the Golden
Horn, together with a part of the southern shore as far as the Woodgate
or Xyloporta, which was at the extremity of the landward walls. He was
ordered to build a bridge over the upper portion of the Horn, so that
his troops might take part in the attack upon the city.
The attack upon the landward walls between the Woodgate and up the hill
in front of the palaces of Blachern and Porphyrogenitus, and as far as
the Chariseus or Adrianople Gate, was entrusted to Caraja Pasha, the
head of the European division. Certain of the guns were given to him
in order that he might attack the wall at one of its weakest parts,
probably where it runs at right angles to the end of the foss.
Isaac Pasha, the head of the Asiatic troops, and Mahmoud, both men who
had had great experience in war, commanded the Asiatic division, which
covered the ground between Top Capou and the Marmora.
The most important position, however, was that which existed between
the Adrianople Gate and Top Capou known as the Mesoteichion. This was
the place which Mahomet chose as the principal point of attack. There,
he considered, was the Achilles’ heel of the city. There, with Halil
Pasha under him, were his head-quarters. His lofty tent of red and
gold[252] was pitched about a quarter of a mile from the walls on a
small knoll, which is described as opposite the Adrianople Gate and
also as opposite that of Romanus. His tent was surrounded by those of
the invincible Janissaries who, with other chosen troops, constituted
his bodyguard and occupied the same valley.
The Turkish army extended in front of the entire length of the landward
walls. The Turks had dug a trench for their own defence in front of the
whole of their line, and had placed a wooden palisade upon the earth
thus dug out. This was quite near the edge of the foss itself and was
pierced at intervals, so that, while it protected the besiegers, it
also allowed them to keep up a constant fire on the besieged.[253]
On the Marmora the walls were to be watched by the fleet under Baltoglu
from the southern end of the landward walls, round the present Seraglio
Point as far as Neorion, which was near the end of the boom. The main
object of the fleet was, however, to force an entry into the harbour,
and for this purpose to capture or destroy the ships at the boom, an
object which Baltoglu attempted to attain from the very commencement of
the siege.[254]
The city was thus under attack on two sides, the third--namely, that
looking over the Golden Horn--protected by the boom, was for the
present inaccessible to the Turkish fleet.
The difficulty of determining the number and disposition of Mahomet’s
cannon opposite the landward walls arises from the fact that the
position of several of them was changed and that their numbers
possibly varied. Phrantzes mentions fourteen batteries along the
length of the wall, each containing four guns. Barbaro speaks of nine
batteries. Montaldo says that the Turks had in all two hundred guns or
‘torments.’[255] Each of the nine batteries was strengthened by the
addition of a heavy gun. Critobulus represents Mahomet as stating
after his guns had done their work that he had opened a way into the
city at three places, and this declaration affords a safe guide to
the general disposition of the cannon. These were, first, between
the present Tekfour Serai and the Adrianople Gate; second, opposite
or near the Pempton or Gate of the Assault (usually spoken of by
contemporaries as the Romanus Gate[256]) in the Lycus valley, and the
last near the Third Military Gate between the Pegè or Silivria Gate,
and the Rhegium Gate, now called Mevlevihana Capou. Here were the three
principal stations of Mahomet’s cannon. At these three places the
ruined condition of the wall bears testimony to the vigorous attack of
cannon. At them and nowhere else is it possible to pass over the foss,
the breastwork and Outer Wall, and to see that the Inner Wall has been
so broken down that a passage into the city was possible.[257]
Three cannon are especially remembered on account of their great size.
According to Leonard, the largest--that, namely, cast by Urban, which
threw a ball of twelve hundred pounds weight--was first placed at
Caligaria[258] which then, as now, was ‘protected neither by a foss nor
by a front wall.’ It was destroyed either by the besieged or through
an accident by which Urban was killed, after it had done considerable
damage to the walls.[259] It was, however, recast and transferred to
the Lycus valley, where it demolished the Bactatinean tower.[260] The
statement of Chalcondylas is that of these three large guns one was
stationed opposite the Imperial Palace, probably at Caligaria, the
second opposite the Romanus Gate, where the sultan had fixed his camp,
and the third between them.[261]
The largest and most powerful gun remained during the siege at the
Mesoteichion, in front of the imperial tent.[262]
These cannon are variously described as bombards, machines, skeves,
helepoles (or ‘takers of cities’), torments, heleboles, and teleboles.
They threw stone balls of great size. The balls had been brought from
the Black Sea. The largest, says Chalcondylas, was fired seven times
a day and once each night. Archbishop Leonard states that he measured
one which had been fired over the wall, and found it to be eleven spans
(or eighty-eight inches) in circumference. Nor is such measurement
exaggerated. Some of the stone balls have been preserved. They were
probably fired over the wall, did not break, and remain nearly in the
position where they fell. I have measured two of them, and they are
exactly eighty-eight inches in circumference.[263] Tetaldi states that
there were ten thousand culverins, and the same number is given by
Montaldo. The number is possibly exaggerated. Yet Leonard speaks of
‘innumerable machines’ being advanced towards the wall, and afterwards
of a great number of small guns being employed to batter the walls
along all their lines. None of the cannon, I think, were mounted on
wheels: the Great Cannon certainly was not, for Critobulus describes
how it was first carefully pointed towards the object intended to
be struck, and then embedded in its position with blocks of wood
preparatory to firing.
Contemporaneously with the disposal of the large cannon, orders were
given to fill up the ditch in front of them.
[Sidenote: Constantine’s army.]
When we turn from the preparations made by Mahomet to besiege the city
to those which the emperor and the citizens had made or were making,
the first point which strikes us is the enormous disparity in numbers
which the respective leaders had under them. To meet the mighty host
of trained warriors under Mahomet, the emperor had only about eight
thousand men. This is the estimate in which nearly all writers concur.
Phrantzes had exceptional means of forming a judgment on this point. He
states[264] that Constantine ordered a census to be made of all men,
including monks, capable of bearing arms, and that when the lists were
sent in he was charged with making the summary. This showed that there
were four thousand nine hundred and eighty-three available Greeks and
scarcely two thousand foreigners. The result was so appalling that he
was charged by the emperor not to let it be known. The estimate made
by Phrantzes, though almost incredible, is substantially confirmed by
other writers. Tetaldi says that there were between six thousand and
seven thousand combatants within the city ‘and not more.’[265] Leonard
makes the number a little higher and gives as an estimate six thousand
Greeks and three thousand foreigners. Dolfin, probably following
Leonard, arrives at a like conclusion. Ducas says that ‘there were not
more than eight thousand.’
The powerful contingent of three thousand Italians is worthy of
separate notice. Nearly all were of Venetian or Genoese origin. In them
the city had the aid of men belonging to the most virile communities
in the Mediterranean. The story of the trading establishments in the
Levant, the Archipelago, and the Black Sea belonging to the citizens
of Venice and Genoa is a brilliant record of daring, of adventure,
and of energy. The expansion of the two states began about the time
of the Latin conquest. Everywhere along these shores are the remains
of castles built by Genoese or Venetians during the two centuries
preceding the Moslem conquest. Dandolo had played the most important
part in the capture of the city in 1204, and the capture gave Venice
the sovereignty of the seas. The Genoese had aided the Greeks to
recapture the city. Each republic had gained territory in Eastern
lands. Each owned certain islands in the Aegean. The Genoese had
succeeded in forming a large and important colony in Galata, which
was now a fortified city. To check Turkish progress was almost as
important to the republics as to the Greeks. Venetians and Genoese
recognised that once Constantinople was in the hands of the sultan,
there would be an end of their development eastward of Cape Matapan.
They were, therefore, both fighting for their own interests. They had
much to lose and nothing to gain by the success of Mahomet. Nor were
the soldiers of the republics destitute of chivalrous spirit. The
rough sailor-surgeon, Barbaro, notes that other Venetians as well as
Trevisano were willing to fight for the honour of God and the benefit
of Christendom. Leonard and other writers testify to equally lofty
sentiment on the part of the Genoese Justiniani. In their character
and conduct, not less than in their mixed motives, derived from
self-interest and chivalry, these foreign adventurers remind English
readers of the Drakes, Frobishers, Raleighs, and other heroes of our
own Elizabethan period. Unhappily for the city and for civilisation,
Venice was unable to send more men before the final catastrophe. But
to the eternal glory of the Venetians within the city, whose names are
duly recorded by Barbaro ‘for a perpetual memorial,’ and of the Genoese
who aided them, the conduct of the combatants from both republics was
worthy of the compatriots of Marco Polo and of Columbus.
On the one side was an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men,
containing at least twelve thousand of the best trained troops in the
world; on the other, a miserable number of eight thousand fighting men
to defend a length of between twelve and thirteen miles of walls.
The emperor, with Justiniani, completed the arrangements for the
defence of the city. Justiniani with the seven hundred men he had
brought with him to Constantinople, consisting of his crew and four
hundred men in armour,[266] was at first placed in charge of the walls
between the Blachern Palace and the Adrianople Gate, but was soon
transferred with his men and some of the bravest Greeks to the Lycus
valley as the position of greatest importance, honour, and danger. The
emperor himself fixed his headquarters in the same position. In this
valley the choicest troops of the city and those of the sultan were
thus face to face. Between the Adrianople Gate and Tekfour Serai was a
contingent of Italians under three brothers, Paul, Antony, and Troilus
Bocchiardo. They were stationed, says Phrantzes, at the Myriandrion,
because there the city was in great jeopardy;[267] Leonard says, ‘in
loco arduo Myriandri;’ Dolfin, speaking of the same place under a
somewhat different name, says ‘in loco arduo Miliadro, dove pareva
la cita piu debole.’[268] This contingent had been provided by the
Bocchiardi at their own cost. The men were furnished with spingards
and balistas for hurling stones at the enemy. The Caligaria--that is,
the gate of that name, now called Egri Capou or Crooked Gate--and the
walls thence as far as Tekfour Serai were defended by Caristo, an old
Venetian, and by a German named John Grant, who had taken service with
the emperor. Over the imperial palace at Blachern waved the flag of the
Lion of St. Mark side by side with the banner of the emperor, to denote
that Minotto, the Venetian bailey, was in command in that district.
Archbishop Leonard and other Genoese, together with Hieronymus, were
with him to assist in defending the walls as far as the Xyloporta on
the edge of the Golden Horn.
On the emperor’s left the walls were guarded by Cataneo and Theophilus
Palaeologus at the Silivria Gate, while Contarini, the most renowned
member of the Venetian colony, and Andronicus Cantacuzenus defended the
walls around the Golden Gate and to the sea.[269] Under these leaders,
along the whole length of the landward wall, Genoese, Venetians, and
Greeks fought side by side.
Between a tower in the current off Seraglio Point and the Imperial
Gate--that is, at the Acropolis, and thus guarding the entrance to
the harbour[270]--Gabriel Trevisano, already mentioned as the Venetian
noble who was serving ‘per honor de Dio et per honor di tuta la
Christianitade’ was in command.[271] There, says Leonard, he did his
duty as a shepherd and not as a hireling.
Near him for the present were the captains and the crews of the two
Cretan ships who kept the Horaia Gate. Cardinal Isidore was at Seraglio
Point with a body of two hundred men guarding the walls commencing at
the Great Tower of St. Demetrius. James Contarini was stationed at
Psamatia and guarded the western portion of the Marmora walls. The
Caloyers or Greek monks were also in this part of the city, and near
them was a small band of Turkish mercenaries under the command of
Orchan.[272] The Grand Duke Notaras with a small reserve of men was
near the church of the Apostles, now occupied by the Mahmoudieh Mosque,
to render aid wherever it might be required.[273] Lastly, Diedo, who
had been made admiral of the fleet, was stationed near the end of the
boom.[274]
The cannon possessed by the besieged seem to have been few and of
little value. Leonard relates that they were short of powder and of
arms, and that it was impossible to use the cannon on account of
the damage they were found to do to their own walls. Zorzo Dolfin
confirms these statements and adds that the Venetians were short of
saltpetre.[275]
The emperor and Justiniani had collected arms and various kinds of
missiles, shot and arrows, and all sorts of machines.[276]
Each army was equipped in much the same manner. Modern, mediaeval
and ancient arms and equipment were employed side by side with each
other. We read of dolabras, of wooden turrets, and of the Turks raising
their shields above their heads and making a testudo.[277] Stone shot
are thrown by the great slings, or catapults, known as mangonels or
trebuchets, as well as by cannon. While each side relied largely on the
bow, each side also discharged missiles at the other from arquebuses
and culverins. Long-bows were so numerous in the Turkish army that the
discharge of arrows from them is described by more than one author as
darkening the sky. Cross-bows appear also in the description of the
siege under the names of balistae and spingards. ‘The archers,’ says
La Brocquière, ‘were the best troops the Turks possessed.’[278] The
ordinary soldier in the Turkish army was armed with a wooden shield
and a scimitar. A few, among both the besiegers and the besieged, were
armed with lances.
Uniformity in equipment or dress was not even attempted. Tetaldi says
that in the Turkish army less than a fourth were armed with hauberks
and wore jacques--that is, quilted tunics of cotton or leather, well
padded;[279] that some were well armed in French, some in Hungarian,
fashion, some in other modes; some had iron helmets, and others
long-bows or cross-bows.
The Janissaries were trained to act either as cavalry or infantry. They
carried bows and small wooden shields, and were further armed with a
long lance or with a scimitar. The Anatolian division was composed
mostly of cavalry. Leonard, however, points out that though the
cavalry were numerous they fought as infantry. Philelphus, who was a
contemporary envoy at the Porte, states that the Anatolian troops were
armed with scimitars, maces, and small shields.
The great superiority of the Turks as regards arms was in the cannon.
While, as we have seen, the besieged could not use such cannon as they
had for fear of destroying the walls from which they were fired, the
Turk was under no such disadvantage, and was entirely up to date with
the very latest improvements in heavy guns. The siege of Constantinople
in fact marks an era in the employment of large cannon and gave to
the world the first noteworthy intimation that the stone walls of the
Middle Ages constituted no longer a secure defence. Cannon had, indeed,
been known a century and a half earlier in Western Europe, and had
been employed both by and against the Turks on the Danube;[280] but
the astonishment which the introduction of large cannon caused at the
siege of Constantinople shows that while the invention itself was new
to the people of the East, its development was hardly less surprising
to those of the West. Critobulus remarks upon the siege that ‘it was
the cannon which did everything.’ So novel was the invention that
he gives a detailed account of the casting of one of the big guns,
and explains how the powder was made, how the gun was mounted and
loaded, and how it fired its stone ball. ‘When fire is applied to the
touch-hole, the powder lights quicker than thought. The discharge makes
the earth around it to tremble, and sends forth an incredible roar. The
stone ball passes out with irresistible force and energy, strikes the
wall at which it has been aimed, overthrows it, and is itself dashed
into a thousand pieces.’ No wall was so hard or had such power of
resistance that it could withstand the shock. Such is the incredible
and unthinkable nature of the machine to which, as the ancient tongue
had no name for it, he suggests that of helepolis or ‘Taker of Cities.’
In the early days of the siege, or possibly just before it began,
Mahomet attacked all the Greek villages which had escaped the
savagery of the troops in their march to the capital. Some kind of
fortification existed at Therapia on the Bosporus. This was attacked
by the Janissaries. Many of its defenders were slain, and the
remainder, consisting of forty men, seeing that resistance was useless,
surrendered. They were all impaled. Another fortification, known as
Studium, was similarly attacked. Its thirty-six survivors were taken
to a spot near the wall, so that they might be seen by the citizens,
and were there impaled. At the island of Prinkipo the round tower still
exists which had been a place of refuge for the protection of the
inmates of the adjacent monastery. The monastery itself had been used
as a place of retreat for the princely members of the imperial family,
and had thus given its name to the Princes Islands. Baltoglu was sent
with a portion of the fleet to attack it. Although he had cannon with
him, he was unable to destroy its solid Byzantine masonry, and the
thirty well-armed defenders refused to surrender. His crews thereupon
cut down the neighbouring brushwood, and with this, with straw, and
with sulphur, he smoked out the garrison. While some perished in the
flames, others broke through the burning materials and surrendered. The
admiral killed those who were armed, and sold into slavery the other
inhabitants of the island.[281]