removed. It was for them to complete the work of their fathers. They
had now against them a single city, one which could not resist their
attacks; a city whose population was greatly reduced and whose former
wealth had been diminished by Turkish sieges, and by the continued
incursions made by his ancestors upon its territories; a city which
was now only one in name, for in reality its buildings were useless
and its walls abandoned and for the great part in ruins. Even from
its weakness, however, they knew that from its favourable position,
commanding both land and sea, it had greatly hindered their progress
and could still hinder it, opposing their plans and being always
ready to attack them. Openly or secretly it had done all it could
against them. It was the city which had brought about the attack by
Timerlane and the suffering which followed. It had instigated Hunyadi
to cross the Danube, and on every occasion and in every possible
manner had been their great enemy. The time had now come when, in
his opinion, it should be captured or wiped off the face of the
earth. One of two things: he would either have it within his Empire
or he would lose both. With Constantinople in his possession, the
territories already gained could be safely held and more would be
obtained; without it, no territory that they possessed was safe.[15]
In the ensuing winter (1452) Mahomet made every preparation at
Adrianople for a campaign in the next year. Having no means of casting
cannons, which at that time were coming into use in European armies,
he tempted a Wallachian, who was experienced in such work, and who
was in the service of the Greeks, to come over to his side for higher
pay, and devised with him a cannon of enormous size, firing stone
balls of 2½ feet in diameter, and many other smaller, but still
large, guns throwing balls of 150 lb. weight, for use against the walls
of Constantinople. He also constructed a large fleet of war vessels
propelled by oars, biremes and triremes, to be used in the siege of the
city. He was most active and eager, working day and night in concerting
plans with his generals for his great purpose. Early in the following
year (1453) he collected in front of the walls of Constantinople
an army, estimated at a hundred and fifty thousand men, including
twelve thousand Janissaries, and a vast number of irregulars and camp
followers eager for the sack of the great city.
Constantine, on his part, was equally engaged in making preparations
for the defence of his capital. He collected supplies of every kind.
He did his best to repair and strengthen the walls of the city, which
had been neglected and badly repaired by fraudulent Greek contractors.
He invited the aid of the Christian princes of Western Europe for the
coming struggle. In this view, and in the hope of getting full support
from the Pope, he agreed to a scheme of union between the Greek and
Latin Churches, in which everything was conceded to the latter. A great
service was held at St. Sophia to ratify this union. Cardinal Isidore,
the legate of the Pope, a Greek by birth, presided. It was attended by
the Emperor and all his Court, clergy, and the officers of State. This
gave great offence to the main body of the Greek clergy, and to the
great majority of the people of Constantinople. There was implacable
hatred between the members of the two Churches, and not even the grave
peril of the State could induce them to compose their differences. St.
Sophia was deserted by its congregation. It was thought to be polluted
by the service.[16] The Grand Duke Notaras, the second person in the
State after the Emperor, in command of all the forces, was specially
offended. He even went the length of saying in public that he would
rather see the turban of the Turks at Constantinople than the hat of a
cardinal. It resulted that the Greeks were divided into two parties.
Priests refused to give the sacrament to dying men not of their
party. The Churches refused to contribute out of their vast wealth to
necessities of the State. Constantine was seriously embarrassed and
weakened by the division among his people. Of a total population of the
city, reduced as it was, as compared with the past, and estimated at a
hundred thousand, not more than six thousand took up arms in support of
Constantine against the Turks.
The appeals to the Western Powers resulted in a certain, but very
insufficient, number of volunteers from Southern Europe giving their
services to support the Greek cause in its final struggle with the
Moslems. Seven hundred Genoese came under the command of Giustiniani,
an able soldier of fortune, who proved to be the main support of
Constantine. Others had come with Cardinal Isidore, at the instance of
the Pope, and with some small amount of money from the same quarter.
There were Catalans and Aragonese from Spain, but the number of these
recruits from Western Europe did not exceed three thousand. The total
force under the command of Constantine for the defence of the city
amounted to no more than eight thousand. It is strange that there were
no volunteers from France and Germany, or from Hungary and Poland,
from whence so many crusaders had volunteered in previous years to
drive the Turks out of Europe. Nor was there any valid assistance in
men and money from the numerous Greeks in the Levant. The unfortunate
Constantine was not only very deficient in men, but his resources in
money were very low. He had, however, in his service twenty powerful
galleys well manned, and three galleys had come from Venice.
It would seem that the cause of Constantine did not much interest
Europe, and did not even meet with an effective support among the
Greeks themselves.
The city of Constantinople, as it then existed, was situate between
the Golden Horn, its great harbour, and the sea of Marmora. Its land
frontage, distant about nine miles from the entrance to the harbour,
was four miles in length. It was protected by a triple line of
walls, the two inner of which were very massive, flanked by towers
at distances of 170 feet. There was a space of 60 feet between these
walls. The third and outer wall was a crenelated breastwork on the
other side of a fosse, of a width of 60 feet. This powerful line of
defence had been devised by the Emperor Theodosius II about a thousand
years ago and had protected the city in twenty sieges. Before the
invention of cannon it was practically impregnable.[17] There were also
fortifications extending for about nine miles on the side of the Golden
Horn. The eight thousand men were too few even for effective defence
of the four miles of walls, which were to be attacked directly by the
Ottoman army, to say nothing of the fortifications along the side of
the Golden Horn. The defence, however, with these limited means, was a
spirited one. It showed that if the Greek Emperor had been adequately
supported by the Western Powers Mahomet might not have been able to
capture the city.
The siege was commenced by Mahomet on April 6, 1453. Much time had been
occupied in conveying the cannon from Adrianople. There were two very
interesting incidents in the siege which are worth recording. The one
was the breaking of the close blockade of the port by four powerful
and well-manned Genoese galleys, bringing provisions and stores to the
beleaguered city from Chios. They sailed across the Marmora and up the
Bosphorus with a strong breeze in their favour. The Sultan sent against
them a hundred and forty of his fleet of smaller vessels propelled
by oars. They found great difficulty in stemming the heavy sea. The
four larger Genoese vessels came down on the smaller craft, crashing
against them and shivering their oars. Their crews hurled big stones
on the Turkish galleys and emitted against others the inextinguishable
fire of which the Greeks had the secret. The Turkish boats could make
no headway against the superior weight of the bigger vessels. A large
number of them were sunk with serious loss of life. When near to the
entrance of the harbour the wind died off and the Genoese vessels were
in imminent peril, surrounded as they were by the numerous Turkish
craft. But at the last moment an evening breeze sprang up. The Genoese
vessels were able to force their way through. The chain which prevented
ingress to the harbour was lowered, and the relieving vessels were
admitted.
The Sultan had watched the naval battle from the shore. He spurred his
horse some distance into the shallow sea in the hope of animating his
sailors to greater efforts. He was bitterly disappointed at this first
engagement of his new fleet. The next morning he sent for the admiral,
Balta Oghlou, a sturdy Bulgarian by birth, and bitterly reproached him
for his failure. He directed the admiral to be laid on the ground
and held there by four strong men, while he was bastinadoed. Some
historians state that the Sultan himself belaboured the unfortunate
admiral with his mace.
The other incident, growing out of the naval defeat, was that Mahomet,
on finding that his small craft, propelled only by oars, were of little
effect against the powerful vessels at the disposal of the Greeks,
determined to transfer a large number of them from the Bosphorus to the
upper part of the harbour, where the bigger vessels could not engage
them, owing to the shallow depth of water, and where they would be of
use against the inner defence of the city. For this purpose Mahomet
directed the construction of a broad plank road from Tophane, on the
Bosphorus, across the hill intervening between it and the head of the
Golden Horn. This road was well greased with tallow, and the vessels
were dragged up it with windlasses and oxen. The descent on the other
side of the hill was easy enough. The scheme was not quite a novelty,
as an operation of the same kind, though on a smaller scale, had been
attempted elsewhere. It was carried out with striking success; and in
one night eighty of the Turkish galleys were transferred in this way
to the upper harbour. Mahomet also constructed a pontoon bridge across
the harbour, on which batteries were erected. The two schemes together
enabled him to attack the Greek defences along the line of the harbour,
and compelled Constantine to withdraw many men from the defence of the
landward walls, where the main attack was made.
The young Sultan took a most active part in the siege work. He traced
the lines of fourteen batteries from which the walls were bombarded.
The first great cannon was a failure. It burst at the first shot and
blew to pieces the Wallachian who had cast it. It was recast, however,
and two others of the same size were also cast. About two hundred
smaller guns were used. They threw stone balls[18] against the walls
and towers of the city, and ultimately succeeded in effecting a breach.
There can be no doubt that the capture of the city was mainly due
to the provision of these great guns, which were far above anything
previously used against fortresses. The Greeks also used cannons in
defence, but the parapets of the walls were not wide enough to allow of
the recoil of the guns, and where it was possible to use them the walls
suffered from the concussion. Gunpowder was also deficient.
After seven weeks of siege the bombardment effected breaches in the
walls at three points such as to give Mahomet every hope of success in
a final assault. The principal breach was at St. Romanus, where the
outer of the two main walls was practically levelled for a length of
four hundred yards, and four of the flanking towers were destroyed. The
broad ditch was filled in part by the débris of the wall and in part by
fascines. The Sultan decided that the assault should take place on May
29th. This became known to the Greeks in the city, and both sides made
every preparation for a supreme effort.
On the 28th, Mahomet ordered a proclamation to be made to his troops,
to the effect that when the city was captured it would be given up
to them to sack at their will for three days. The Sultan, it said,
had sworn by the everlasting God, by the four thousand prophets, by
Mahomet, and by his own soul that the whole population of the city,
men, women, and children, should be given over to them. This was
received by the troops with tumultuous expressions of delight.
On the same day the Sultan reviewed his army in three divisions, each
of fifty thousand men, and afterwards received in his tent all the
leaders, military and naval. He made a speech to them in which he
announced his intention to make a final assault on the city on the next
day, explained to them the method of attack, and gave his final orders.
He enlarged on his promise to give to the troops the plunder of the
city.
In the city [he said] there was an infinite amount and variety of
wealth of all kinds—treasure in the palaces and private houses,
churches abounding in furniture of silver, gold, and precious stones.
All were to be theirs. There were men of high rank and in great
numbers who could be captured and sold as slaves; there were great
numbers of ladies of noble families, young and beautiful, and a host
of other women who could either be sold or taken into their harems.
There were boys of good family. There were houses and beautiful
gardens. “I give you to-day a grand and populous city, the capital
of the ancient Romans, the very summit of splendour and of glory,
which has become, so to say, the centre of the world. I give it over
to you to pillage, to seize its incalculable treasure of men, women,
and boys, and everything that adorns it. You will henceforward live
in great happiness and leave great wealth to your children. The
great gain to all the sons of Othman would be the conquest of a city
whose fame was great throughout the world. The greater its renown,
the greater would be the glory of taking it by assault. A great city
which had always been their enemy, which had always looked upon
them with a hostile eye, which in every way had sought to destroy
the Turkish power, would come into their possession. The door would
be open to them by its capture to conquer the whole of the Greek
Empire.”[19]
We have quoted this speech of Mahomet as further proof that plunder and
the capture of men, women, and boys for sale or for their harems, and
not religious fanaticism, was the main incentive to Moslem conquest.
The night before the assault was spent by the Turks in rejoicing. Their
camp was illuminated. Very different was the action of the Greeks
on this last day of their Empire. There was a religious procession
through the city, in which every one whose presence was not required in
defence of the walls took part and joined in prayer, imploring God not
to allow them to fall into the hands of the enemy. Eikons and relics
were paraded. At the close of the procession the Emperor Constantine
addressed a gathering of nobles and military leaders. He called
attention to the impending assault. He said:—
It had always been held the duty of a citizen to be ready to die
either for his faith, his country, his sovereign, or his wife and
children. All these incentives to heroic sacrifice were now combined.
The city was the refuge for all Christians, the pride and joy of
every Greek, and of all who lived in Eastern lands. It was the Queen
of Cities, the city which, in happy times, had subdued nearly all the
lands under the sun. The enemy coveted it as his chief prize. He had
provoked the war. He had violated all his engagements in order to
obtain it. He wished to put the citizens under his yoke, to take them
as slaves, to convert the holy churches, where the divine Trinity
was adored and the most holy Godhead worshipped, into shrines for
his blasphemy, and to put the false prophet in the place of Christ.
As brothers and fellow-soldiers it was their duty to fight bravely
in the defence of all that was dear to them, to remember that they
were the descendants of the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome, and
so conduct themselves that their memory should be as fragrant in the
future as that of their ancestors.... For himself, he was determined
to die in its defence.... He and they should put their trust in God,
and not, as did their enemy, in the multitude of his hordes.
In the evening a solemn service was held at St. Sophia, memorable
as the last Christian service before its conversion into a Turkish
mosque. The Emperor and his followers partook of the Sacrament and bade
farewell to the Greek Patriarch. It was a memorable scene—a requiem
service for the Empire which was about to expire. Later the Emperor
paid a last visit to his palace and bade farewell there to its staff.
It was a most touching occasion. One who was present there wrote of
it: “If a man had been made of wood or stone, he must have wept at the
scene.” It is very certain that the Emperor had no hope of saving the
city from capture by its mortal foes.
Very early in the morning of the next fateful day, the 29th May, 1453,
the final assault was delivered by the Turkish army. The scheme of the
Sultan was to attack the walls of the city at many points, from both
land and sea, but to make the main assault on the part of the wall
which had been so much injured by the cannon in the Lycus Valley, near
the gate of St. Romanus, and then, by successive waves of his vastly
greater army, to overwhelm the defenders, using first his inferior
troops, and reserving his best for the last attack, when the enemy
would be wearied by long fighting. The first assault was made by an
immense horde of irregulars, armed with bows and arrows, and with
slings throwing stones and iron balls. Gunpowder, though already used
for cannon, was not yet applied to muskets. The men advanced with
scaling-ladders for the assault, and a cloud of arrows darkened the
sky. No more than two thousand Greeks could be spared to defend this
part of the long line of fortifications. They were collected in the
_peribolus_ between the two walls. The gates in the inner wall were
closed, so that these men had no opportunity of shirking the defence
and retreating into the city. They had to fight for their very lives
between the two walls.
The Sultan directed the great cannon to be brought to the edge of
the fosse, and a shot from it broke down the stockade which had been
erected in place of the outer wall. Under cover of the dust the Turks
made the assault. They were bravely met by the defenders, and were
driven back with heavy loss. A second assault was then made by the
Anatolian infantry, a very superior force to the irregulars. But they
were no more successful. The Sultan, thinking that the Greeks must be
exhausted by these two assaults, then personally led a third great
body of men to a third assault. It consisted of his Janissaries. He
led them to the edge of the fosse, and thence directed their attack.
The cannon was used again against the stockade, and again under cover
of the dust caused by it the Janissaries made their assault. Some of
them succeeded in getting over the stockade, and a hand-to-hand fight
occurred between them and the Greeks. The defenders seemed to have
the best of it. But at this crisis a grave misfortune occurred to the
Greeks. Giustiniani, who commanded them, was severely wounded. Blood
flowed freely from his wounds. He decided to leave the field of battle
and return to his ship in the harbour, for medical relief. The Emperor
Constantine, who was near by, in vain implored him to remain, pointing
out to him the damaging effect his departure would have on the soldiers
who remained. Others thought that the wounds were not very serious
and that the general was not justified in leaving the field. But he
insisted on doing so, and demanded the key of the gate in the inner
wall. With him departed some of his Genoese soldiers. This defection
caused dismay and depression among the troops. Their resistance to the
Turks slackened.
Some Greek historians accuse Giustiniani of cowardice in deserting the
battle at so critical a moment, and Gibbon lends the weight of his
great authority to this. The reputation, however, of the famous Italian
soldier has been vindicated by later historians, such as Mr. Finlay and
Sir Edwin Pears. They have shown that Giustiniani died of his wounds
within a few days of the capture of Constantinople, the best proof
of their serious and fatal character. All the same, he may not have
sufficiently appreciated the effect of his withdrawal on the soldiers.
It might have been better to have died there rather than on board his
ship. However that might have been, all are agreed that the departure
of the general was the turning-point of the day, and that it had the
worst effect on the soldiers engaged in the defence.
The Emperor did his utmost to retrieve the position. He took upon
himself the charge vacated by Giustiniani, and led the defence.
Mahomet, on his part, had observed from the other side of the fosse
the slackening of the defence. He called out to the Janissaries: “We
have the city! It is ours! The wall is undefended!” He urged them to a
final effort. They rushed the stockade and effected an entry into the
_peribolus_. Soon great swarms of others followed, and overwhelmed the
defenders with their vast numbers. The Emperor, despairing of success,
threw aside his imperial mantle. He called out, “The city is taken and
I am still alive!” Drawing his sword, he threw himself into the mêlée.
He died fighting gloriously for his city and his Empire. His body was
never found, though search was made for it by order of the Sultan.
The Greek and Italian soldiers in the _peribolus_ were now completely
outnumbered. There was no exit through the inner wall by which they
could escape. They were in a trap between the two walls. They were
massacred to a man. The Janissaries, having effected this, found no
difficulty in making their way through the inner wall, which, as we
have explained, was not defended owing to the want of men.
All attacks on other parts of the city were failures. This one alone
succeeded. Victory here was due in part to the good generalship
of Mahomet and to his indomitable persistency, and in part to the
ill-fortune of the Greeks in the withdrawal of Giustiniani at the
critical moment of the defence. The defenders of the city had nobly
performed their duty. Their numbers were quite insufficient. They had
received no adequate support from Western Europe, or even from the
neighbouring Christian States. It is quite certain that a few thousand
more soldiers would have saved the city. Thirty galleys sent by the
Pope with reinforcements were on their way when the city fell. They had
been detained at Scio by adverse wind. “Auxilium deus ipse negavit,”
says the Greek historian.
When the Turks entered the city they began to massacre all the persons
they met in the streets, without distinction of age or sex. But there
was practically no resistance. There were no armed men left in the
city. The population was cowed and panic-stricken, as well they might
be in face of the overwhelming misfortune which now came upon them.
After a short period of massacre the Turks turned their attention to
the more practical business of looting and taking captives for sale.
They effected this in a deliberate and systematic way. One great
band of soldiers devoted themselves to plundering the palaces of the
wealthy, another to the churches, and a third to the shops and smaller
houses. Everything of value was gathered together for subsequent
division among the soldiers. Of the inmates of the palaces and houses
the older people were put to death; the stronger and younger of both
sexes were carried off in bands as prisoners, bound together with
ropes, with a view to ultimate sale as slaves.
The Turkish historian, Seadeddin, in words which seem to smack of
pleasure at the scene, says:—
Having received permission to loot, the soldiers thronged into the
city with joyous hearts, and there, seizing the possessors and their
families, they made the wretched unbelievers weep. They acted in
accordance with the precept, “Slaughter their aged and capture their
youth.”[20]