DISSENSIONS IN CITY: BETWEEN GREEKS THEMSELVES; BETWEEN
GREEKS AND ITALIANS; BETWEEN GENOESE AND VENETIANS; CHARGE
OF TREACHERY AGAINST GENOESE EXAMINED; FAILURE OF SERBIA AND
HUNGARY TO RENDER AID; PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL ASSAULT;
DAMAGES DONE TO THE LANDWARD WALLS; CONSTRUCTION OF STOCKADE.
[Sidenote: Dissensions among the besieged.]
It is convenient to halt here in the narrative of the siege in
order to call attention to certain dissensions within the city.
These dissensions are made much of by the Latin writers and are
probably exaggerated. They arose in great measure from a traditional
ill-feeling, due to history, to difference of race and language,
diversity of interest, and to the hostility between the Eastern and
Western Churches. It is especially to the differences on the religious
question that the Western writers call attention. In reference to the
dissensions among the Greeks themselves, it must be remembered that
the majority of them, priests and laity, either openly repudiated
the arrangement made at Florence or conformed under something very
near compulsion. The Greeks, says Leonard, the Catholic archbishop,
celebrate the Union with their voice but deny it in fact.[351] He
points out that the emperor, for whose orthodoxy he has nothing but
praise, accepted it with heart and soul. But he was an exception.
The majority still followed the lead of Gennadius and the Grand Duke
Notaras. If it be true that the Grand Duke declared that he would
prefer to see the head-dress of the Turk rather than that of the
Latin priests, his prejudice furnishes evidence of the intensity of
his dislike for the Latins, and is confirmatory of other statements
made by Leonard. When the pope’s name was pronounced in the liturgy,
the congregation shouted their disapprobation. Most of the citizens
had shunned the Great Church since the reconciliation service of
December 12 as if it were a Jewish synagogue. Many who were present on
a feast day when Mass was celebrated left the church as soon as the
consecration commenced.
But in addition to the dissensions between the Greeks themselves was
the hostility of both the Latin and Greek parties towards the Italians.
Underlying the animosity arising from the difference on religious
questions was a traditional sentiment of hostility. They were rivals in
trade. Genoese and Venetians alike were interlopers, who were taking
the bread out of the mouths of the citizens. The old bitterness arising
from the occupation of the city by the Latins had never been forgotten.
The largest colony, the Genoese, had taken advantage of the weakness of
the empire they had helped to restore, in order to fortify and enlarge
their city of Galata. The Venetians, who had taken the leading part in
the conquest of 1204, had been allowed to settle within Constantinople,
not because they were liked but because they were the rivals and the
enemies of the Genoese. The exigencies of the situation which led to
their having to be tolerated rankled among the Greeks as sorely as did
the memory of the Latin occupation in which the Constantinopolitans
felt the bitterness of a conquered people towards masters who held what
to them was a hostile creed.
At the commencement of the siege, doubts had arisen among the citizens
regarding the loyalty of the Venetians. Five of their ships which had
been paid to remain for the defence of the city were discharging cargo,
and the rumour spread that such cargo was for the use of the Turks.
An imperial order stopped the discharge, and the Venetians saw in it
a violation of their privileges under the capitulations. The emperor,
however, convinced them that he had no such design, and they promised,
and faithfully kept their promise, to defend the city until the end of
the war.[352]
But although ultimately these various differences were sufficiently
overcome to prevent any considerable number of men withdrawing from
the defence of the city, discord always smouldered and occasionally
burst into flame. Leonard mentions an incident which illustrates the
bitterness of feeling which existed between the leaders respectively of
Latins and Greeks. In the very last days of the siege, when a general
attack was daily expected, Justiniani asked from Notaras the Grand
Duke, who was the noble highest in rank, that such cannon as the city
possessed should be given to him for use in the Lycus valley. The
demand was haughtily refused. ‘You traitor!’ said Justiniani; ‘why
should I not cut you down?’ The quarrel went no further, but Notaras
is said to have been less zealous in his work for the defence of the
city. The Greeks, according to Leonard, resented the insult and became
sullen at the treatment of the Grand Duke, because they believed that
the glory of saving the city would be gained by the Latins alone.[353]
On the day preceding the final assault the old jealousy again
showed itself. Barbaro relates that he and the other Venetians made
‘mantles’--some kind of wooden contrivance for giving cover to the
soldiers on the wall. They were made at the Plateia, possibly near the
end of the present Inner Bridge. The Venetian bailey gave orders to the
Greeks to carry them to the landward walls. The Greeks refused unless
they were paid. Ultimately the difficulty of payment was got over, but
when the mantles reached the wall it was already night; and thus, says
Barbaro, on account of the greediness of the Greeks we had to stand at
the defence without them.[354]
The dissensions were further increased by discord between the Italian
colonists themselves. We have already seen that the emperor had been
compelled to intervene to prevent dangerous recriminations between the
Venetians and the Genoese. The former affected to despise the Genoese,
while the latter, as the possessors of a walled city on the opposite
side of the Golden Horn and as the more numerous, considered themselves
the superiors of their rivals. The Venetians, on account of their
position within the city, were compelled in their own interest either
to help the Greeks or to get away. The Genoese claimed to be in an
independent position. Each accused the other of the wish to desert the
city.
[Sidenote: Charge of treachery against the Genoese.]
The most common charge, and one persisted in by the Venetians, was that
the Genoese were traitors to the city and to Christianity, and it is
difficult to say whether the charge is well founded or not. Barbaro,
himself a Venetian, seldom loses an opportunity of speaking ill of the
Genoese; but the coarseness and recklessness of his attacks lessen
their value. If the charges of treachery depended on his evidence
alone, they might be dismissed. But other evidence is at hand. We have
seen that the Genoese are alleged to have claimed that they could have
burnt the sultan’s ships when they made their passage overland and
would have done so if they had not been his friends. Leonard, who was a
Genoese, evidently believed that they were traitors to Christianity and
were playing a double game. ‘They ought to have prevented the building
of the fortress at Roumelia-Hissar. But,’ he concludes, ‘I will keep
silence, lest I should speak ill of my own people, whom foreigners may
justly condemn.’ They are nevertheless condemned by him because they
‘did not lend help to the Lord against the mighty.’
The evidence in their favour is, however, not weak. First and foremost,
John Justiniani was a Genoese. His loyalty and the bravery and labours
day and night of the Genoese soldiers were beyond cavil. Ducas himself
states that the Genoese sent men from Galata who fought valiantly under
Justiniani; that many of them acted as spies, sold provisions to the
Turks, and secretly during the night brought to the Greeks the news
they had gathered. The Podestà of Galata, writing shortly after the
capture of the city, declares that every available man had been sent
across the Horn to the defence of the walls. He protests that he had
done his best, because he knew that if Constantinople were lost, the
loss of Pera would follow.[355]
The truth appears to be that the sympathy of the Podestà and the
leading men was with their fellow Christians, but that the hostility of
the Greeks and trade rivalry caused many of the Genoese too often to
regard them as enemies. The Podestà is probably correctly expressing
his own opinion and that of the better Genoese in stating that he
foresaw that if Mahomet captured Constantinople, Galata would become an
easy prey. But the certainty of making a good profit by dealing with
the enemy was too great a temptation to be resisted by the ordinary
merchant. Under cover of night he passed safely across the harbour and
sold his goods to the citizens. He was equally ready during the day
to deal with the Turks. The statement of Pusculus that the Genoese
informed Mahomet by signal of the departure of the ships upon their
night attack to burn the Turkish vessels which had been transported
overland may be accepted as true, but the signal was probably the act
of a private individual, for which the colony ought not to be held
responsible. The boast reported by Ducas as having been made by the
notables to Mahomet that they could have prevented the transport of
the ships showed at least that they endeavoured to persuade him that
they were neutral. It is by no means certain that had the Genoese
desired to destroy the ships during the transit they could have made
the attempt with a reasonable hope of success. They were far too few
to meet the Turks outside the walls. However this may have been, they
remained faithful to the conditions of the treaty which had existed
before the time of Mahomet and which had been confirmed while he was
at Adrianople on the express condition that they should not give aid
to Constantinople. Even the complaint of Leonard that they could have
saved the city if they had endeavoured to prevent Mahomet from securing
a base of operations by building the fortifications at Hissar is a
complaint against the policy of neutrality. It would no doubt have
been not only more in accordance with the crusading spirit but possibly
wiser and better in the interest of Europe and of civilisation if the
Genoese, as Leonard suggests that they ought to have done, had violated
their treaty and had made common cause openly with the emperor from
the first; but to have done so would have been to risk the capture of
Galata. Their policy was not a lofty one. Looked at by the light of
subsequent events, it was not merely selfish but fatal; but it was no
more treacherous than the policy of neutrals generally is.
It is not improbable that the various dissensions between the citizens
and the foreigners and between the latter themselves tended to make
some of the Greeks lukewarm in their defence of the city. They were
not going to fight for papists and heretics, or even for an emperor
who had gone over to the papists. Leonard asserts that there were
many defections; that during the siege men who ought to have been at
the walls tried to desert the city, pretended that they could not
fight, that they wanted to attend to their fields and vineyards; that
others with whom he spoke urged that they must earn their bread, and
that, in answer to his urging them to fight not only because of their
duty to aid all Christians but because their own fate was at stake,
they replied, ‘What does the capture of the city matter to us if our
families die of starvation?’[356] His statement that many men left the
city is not sufficiently supported by other evidence to cause it to be
accepted without hesitation.
[Sidenote: Witnesses against Greeks are nearly all Latins.]
In reading the charges brought against the Greek citizens by
Leonard, it must be noted that he himself was a Genoese and a Latin
archbishop. Unfortunately, almost all our accounts of the siege come
either from Western writers or from Greek converts who are imbued
with the usual bitterness against the professors of the faith which
they have abandoned. Barbaro and Pusculus were Latins. Phrantzes and
Ducas belonged to the Catholic party. The reports of the Podestà of
Galata, of Cardinal Isidore, and other documents emanating from Latin
sources all help to give a version unfavourable to the Greeks. Indeed
Critobulus almost stands alone as the representative of the larger
party in the Orthodox Church. When, however, we get the account of an
independent Western soldier, as in the case of Tetaldi, the charges
against the Greek population disappear. In the whole of his clear and
concise narrative, as well as in his estimate of how Europe might
defeat the Turks, he has not a word to say against the conduct of the
besieged. While praising the courage of the Turks highly as that of
men who in the perils and hazards of war attach hardly any value to
their lives, he yet judges that the Greeks with European help could
defeat them.[357] These and other facts are at least sufficient to
cause us to regard with suspicion attacks upon the loyalty towards the
city and the emperor of the members of the Orthodox Church. Gibbon,
influenced by the writers of the Latin Church--the only ones available
to him--remarks ‘that the Greeks were animated only by the spirit
of religion, and that spirit was productive only of animosity and
discord.’ The observation or charge would hardly have been made if he
had remembered the _ex parte_ character of all the evidence before
him. While there is truth in the statement that the spirit of religion
produced animosity and discord, it is far from true either that it was
the only spirit which actuated the Greeks or that it was productive
only of animosity and discord. The Greeks were actuated by their own
worldly interest, by their desire to preserve their own lives and
property, their own city and their own government. Nor in admitting
that they were even deeply animated with the religious spirit, can it
successfully be maintained that this spirit only produced animosity. It
was the religious spirit which animated Greeks as well as Italians to
fight for the honour of God and the benefit of Christianity and thus
tended to suppress discord and animosity. Even theological differences
did not make the Greeks less eager to prevent a Moslem from taking
the place of a Christian emperor. The Greeks differed from and even
quarrelled with the Italians and their Romanised fellow citizens, but
they regarded Genoese and Italians not merely as fighting for the
interests of Venice and Genoa, but as helping them to keep their own,
and the evidence is certainly insufficient to show that such animosity
and discord as existed prevented Greeks and Italians alike from doing
their utmost to keep the common enemy of Christendom out of the city.
My reading of the contemporary narratives leads me to conclude that,
in spite of the isolated examples of dissensions mentioned by Leonard,
of deep differences of opinion on the great religious question, and of
constant jealousies between Greeks and Italians and between Venetians
and Genoese, the unity of sentiment among the besieged for the defence
of the city was well maintained. They might quarrel on minor questions,
but on the duty and the desirability of keeping Mahomet out they were
united. I doubt the statement as to many defections and, remembering
how many and grave the reasons for dissensions were, consider that if
they could be shown to have taken place in any considerable numbers it
would not be a matter for wonder.
[Sidenote: Preparations for a general assault.]
We have seen that during the seven weeks in which Mahomet’s army
had been encamped before the triple walls of the Queen City he had
attempted to capture it by attacks directed almost exclusively against
the landward walls. He was now preparing to make one directed upon all
parts of the city together. Hitherto, notwithstanding his balistas,
mangonels, and spingards, his turrets, his cannon and his mining
operations, he had failed. But his preparations had all rendered the
general assault which he contemplated more formidable in character and
easier of accomplishment. He had collected together all the various
appliances known to mediaeval engineers for attacking a walled city;
two thousand scaling-ladders were ready for the assault, hooks for
pulling down stones, destroying the walls, and forcing an entry.
But the amassing of all his paraphernalia, and even all his mining
operations, sink into insignificance as preparations for a general
attack when compared with the work done by his great cannon. Primitive
as they were in construction when measured with the guns of our own
days, the Turks had employed them effectively.
[Sidenote: Breaches made by Turks in three places.]
They had concentrated their fire mainly in three places. Five cannon
had discharged their balls against the walls between the Palace of
Porphyrogenitus and the Adrianople Gate; four, among which was the
largest, against those in the Lycus valley near the Romanus Gate, and
three against the walls near the Third Military Gate.
[Sidenote: Lycus valley chief point of attack.]
The evidence presented to-day by the ruined condition of the walls in
these places corroborates the statements made by contemporaries, that
these were the principal places bombarded. Mahomet was already able to
claim with some justice that he had opened three entrances for his army
into the city.[358] Several of the towers between the Adrianople Gate
and Caligaria had been destroyed. The Anatolian division had greatly
weakened those in the neighbourhood of the Third Military Gate. But
the most extensive destruction had been wrought by the Janissaries
with the aid of the great cannon of Urban. While in each of the three
places mentioned the Outer Wall is even now in an exceptionally
dilapidated condition, the ruins in the valley of the Lycus show that
this was the place where the cannon had been steadily pounding day
and night. Along almost the whole length of the foss, extending for
upwards of three miles, its side walls and a great portion of the
breastwork still remain, mostly, to all appearances, as solid as when
they were new. But in the lower part of the Lycus valley hardly more
than a trace of either is to be distinguished. The breastwork had been
entirely destroyed and had helped to raise the foss to the level of
the adjoining ground. A large portion of the Outer Wall and some of
its towers had been broken down. The ruins of the Bactatinean tower
had helped to fill the ditch; two towers of the great Inner Wall had
fallen. A breach of twelve hundred feet long according to Tetaldi had
been made opposite the place where Mahomet had his tent.[359] Here,
where the largest cannon was placed, the struggles had been keenest.
Here was the station of John Justiniani with his two thousand men,
among whom were his own four hundred Genoese cuirassiers with their
arms glittering in the sun to the delight, says Leonard, of their Greek
fellow fighters. While the cannon had greatly damaged the walls in the
other two places mentioned, here, says Critobulus, they had entirely
destroyed them. There was a wall no longer, nor did there in this part
exist any longer a ditch, for it had been filled up by the Turkish
troops.[360]
Hence it was that in this part Justiniani and those under him had been
constantly occupied in repairs. Day after day the diarists recount that
the principal occupation of the besieged was to repair during the night
the part of the walls destroyed during the day by the cannon. Without
experience of the power of great guns even in their then early stage
of development, the besieged tried to lessen the force of the balls by
suspending from the summit of the walls a sheathing of bales of wool.
This and other expedients had failed.
[Sidenote: Construction of stockade.]
As the best substitute for the broken-down Outer Wall Justiniani had
gradually, as it was destroyed, constructed a Stockade, called by the
Latin writers a Vallum and by the Greeks a _Stauroma_. On the ruined
wall a new one was thus built almost as rapidly as the old one was
destroyed. It was made with such materials as were at hand, of stones
from the broken wall, of baulks of timber, of trees and branches,
and even of crates filled with straw and vine cuttings, of ladders
and fascines, all cemented hastily together with earth and clay. The
whole was faced with hides and skins so as to prevent the materials
being burnt by ‘fire-bearing arrows.’ In employing earth and clay the
defenders intended that the stone cannon-balls should bury themselves
in the yielding mass and thus do less damage than when striking against
stone. Within the stockade was a second ditch from which probably the
clay had been removed to cement the materials of the stockade, while
above it were placed barrels or vats filled with earth so as to form a
crenellation and a defence to the fighters against the missiles of the
Turks.
The stockade was probably about four hundred yards long and occupied
only the lower part of the valley, shutting in the portion of the Inner
Enclosure and being thus a substitute for the Outer Wall. The usual
entrance to this enclosure or Peribolos was by the Military Gate of
St. Romanus--formerly known as the Pempton--which, indeed, had been
constructed solely for this purpose, and by two small gates or posterns
at its respective ends, one at the Adrianople Gate, the other at Top
Capou. Another postern had, however, says Critobulus, been opened by
Justiniani to give easier access to the stockade from the city.
The construction of the stockade had been commenced immediately after
the destruction of the tower near the Romanus Gate, on April 21.[361]
As the attention of the enemy had been principally directed to the
attack on the walls in this part of the city, so the stockade which
replaced the Outer Wall continued to the end to be the focus on which
was concentrated nearly the entire strength of his attack. No one could
say what would be Mahomet’s plan of battle, but no one doubted that
the stockade covering the St. Romanus Gate--or, as it is called in old
Turkish maps, the ‘Gate of the Assault’--would at least be one of the
chief places against which he would direct an assault. Behind it and
between it and the great Inner Wall was the flower of the defending
army. The emperor himself had his camp quite near, though within the
city, while Justiniani, standing for all time as the most conspicuous
figure on the Christian side, was in command within the stockade. His
energy and his courage had called forth the unqualified admiration of
friend and foe. The jealousy of the Venetians at his appointment had
long since been overcome. While Barbaro launches his recriminations
against the Genoese generally, and even sometimes against Justiniani
himself, even he is constrained to repeat that the presence of the
great Genoese captain was _per benefitio de la Christianitade et per
honor de lo mundo_. His example communicated itself to his troops,
and he thus became the hero of all who were fighting. All the city,
says the Florentine soldier Tetaldi, had great hopes in him and in his
valour. Mahomet himself was reported to have expressed admiration of
the courage and ability, the fertility of resource and the activity of
Justiniani, and to have regretted that he was not in the Turkish army.
In front of the stockade was the sultan, surrounded by his white-capped
Janissaries and the red-fezzed other members of his chosen bodyguard.
Everything indeed pointed to a great fight at the stockade, where the
great leaders and the flower of each army stood opposite each other.
About the beginning of the last week in May the Turks were alarmed by
the rumour of an approaching fleet and of an army of Hungarians under
John Hunyadi, both of which were reported to be on their way to the
relief of the city.[362] The alarm, however, proved to be false. As
Phrantzes laments, no Christian prince sent a man or a penny to the
aid of the city.[363] At first sight it is somewhat surprising that no
aid came either from the Serbians or Hungarians. During the early days
of the siege assistance had been hoped for from both of these peoples.
Phrantzes states that the despot of Serbia, George Brancovich, treated
the sultan in such a manner as to make Mahomet taunt the Christians
with his hostility to Constantine.[364] With the recollection of the
Turkish victories at Varna and at Cossovo-pol, and especially of the
fact that he had himself been attacked because he would not join in
violating the peace between Ladislaus and Murad, it is probable enough
that Brancovich was not unfriendly towards Mahomet. Indeed, at the
request of the young sultan, he had used his influence to bring about a
three years’ armistice between the Turks and the Hungarians. It is not,
therefore, surprising that no aid came from him.
More success might have been anticipated from negotiations with
Hungary. Here, however, the three years’ agreement (made eighteen
months before the siege) for an armistice stood in the way. The
Hungarians had received a terrible lesson--at Varna--on the breaking
of treaties, and they hesitated before violating the new arrangement.
Ducas and Phrantzes agree in stating that the agents of Hunyadi had
come to the city in the early days of the siege and had requested the
sultan, on behalf of their principal, to give back the copy of the
armistice signed by him in return for that signed by Mahomet. They gave
as a pretext that Hunyadi was no longer viceroy of the king of Hungary.
The design was too transparent to be accepted by the Turks.[365] The
idea was to suggest to the sultan that the Hungarians were coming
to the aid of the city; that they had compunctions about breaking
the treaty, but that, as it was not signed by the prince, they had a
valid excuse for so doing. To this extent what was done indicated a
spirit friendly to the besieged. The sultan and his council promised
to consider the proposition, and put the agents of Hunyadi off with a
civil and banal reply.[366]
Ducas tells a story regarding the visits of the agents of Hunyadi which
may be noticed, though he is careful to give it as hearsay. He says
that the officers in their suite showed the gunners how they might use
their great bombard more effectually to destroy the walls by directing
their fire in succession against two points instead of one, so as to
form a triangle, and that the device succeeded to such an extent that
the tower near the Romanus Gate and a part of the wall on each side of
it was so broken down that the besiegers and besieged could see each
other.[367]