Constantinople
- Ever since Constantine the Great moved his capital from Rome to the old Greek city of Byzantium and named it after himself, Constantinople had been coveted by enemies. Russians and Arabs, Magyars and Bulgars, Vikings and Seljuk Turks had all besieged it. It had resisted them all.
- On the north of the city a wall studded with towers ran along the shore of the Golden Horn , then around the point and down along the Sea of Marmara, south of the town .
- To the west of the city, on dry land, were Constantinople's famous double walls.
- Actually, there were three walls, because the inner face of the water ditch in front of the walls—a moat 60 feet wide and 15 feet deep—was built high enough above the surface of the ground to act as a breastwork . Behind the moat was a 25-foot wall with towers less than a bowshot apart . Twenty yards behind that wall was a 45-foot wall with 112 towers, each 60 feet high .
- The native Greeks (Greek Orthodox) hated the "Latins " (Roman Catholics) . The Latins returned the feeling. The town of Galata, across the Golden Horn , had been settled by Genoese, who declared their neutrality in the coming battle with the Turks .
- To gain help from the West, Emperor John VI , the predecessor of Constantine XI, agreed to accept the leadership of the Pope . This outraged his own people .
- When Constantine accepted Latin help, an Orthodox priest named Gennadius roused a mob , which rioted outside the Emperor's palace shouting "Death to the excommunicated! " (the Latins).
- Of 25,000 men of military age in the city, Constantine could find only 5,000 willing to fight the Turks . The Pope sent 20 0 men under a Cardinal Isidore, and a number of Latin (mostly Italian) volunteers and mercenaries joined the defenders.
- In response, the Orthodox priests announced that they would refuse absolution to anyone who had any dealings with the Latins . Altogether, Constantine could oppose Mohammed's 200,000 men with about 8,000 .
- Mohammed's army, however, looked more formidable than it was. Of the 200,000, according to a Florentine soldier named Tedaldi, only 140,000 were effective soldiers. The rest were "thieves, plunderers, hawkers, and others following the army for gain and booty. "
- But 12,000 of the soldiers were Janissaries, the best infantry of any European nation .The rest were Bashi-bazouks, Turkish feudal cavalry, and peasant militia from Anatolia.
- The most impressive part of the Turkish army was its artillery. Mohammed had more guns and bigger guns than any prince in Europe or Asia. He has been called
"the world's first great artilleryman. " - If cannons were Mohammed' s greatest asset, Constantine's greatest asset was two men, both foreigners and Latins : Giovanni Giustiani of Genoa, a famous commander who arrived with 700 soldiers in two large galleys, and Johann Grant, a German military engineer. Constantine appointed Giustiani commander-in-chief of his forces.
- Mohammed took a few Byzantine outposts , in one case, driving out the garrison with a gas attack, using burning sulfur. He then impaled the garrisons. Next, he
brought up his heavy guns . The guns moved at a snail's pace . To drag one of these guns took 50 yoke of oxen and 45 0 men . It took about two hours to load each gun ,
and the guns could fire only seven or eight shots a day. - Constantine and Giustiani had plenty of warning about where the attack would take place. That was a good thing , because Constantine had only one man for each 18-foot section of wall if he spread them evenly. As it was, in the sections of the wall not directly threatened , Giustiani reduced the defenders of the towers to squads of three or four men .
The assault
On April 12 , Mohammed began the world's first organized artillery bombard-
ment . There were a dozen great bombards , enormous cannons that fired stone balls
weighing more than 1,400 pound s and 56 smaller guns . Firing went on night and
day, but at first without noticeable effect. Then the Turkish gunners concentrated on
a single spot on the wall. Eventually, the outer wall crumbled , but the Turks found
that their enemies had built a new wall behind it.
On April 18 , the impatient Mohammed ordered a general attack. Giustiani had
no artillery like Mohammed's , but he defended the wall with small cannons, catapults,
muskets, crossbows, and "wall guns, " small, portable cannons that fired five lead balls
with each shot . He mowed the Turks down in heaps . Mohammed was so enraged by
the failure of his infantry, he thought about loading their bodies into the bombards
and shooting them over the walls of Constantinople .
At the same time the Turkish fleet tried to break the chain across the Golden
Horn , as the Venetians had done three centuries before. But the chain remained
unbroken . The Turkish navy was not the Venetian navy. It proved that two days
later.
Three Genoese warships loaded with soldiers and munitions approached the
harbor, escorting an East Roman grain ship. The Turkish admiral, a renegade Bul-
garian named Baltoglu, led 145 Turkish galleys out to capture the Christian ships.
The Genoese smashed through the Turkish fleet, ramming some galleys and snap-
ping banks of oars off others . The Constantinople garrison lowered the chain to let
the Christian ships in, then raised it again. Mohammed again flew into a rage and ordered Baltoglu to be impaled. His officers, fearing the precedent that executing a
commanding officer would set, talked him out of that . So Mohammed had four slaves
spread-eagle Baltoglu on the ground while he beat the unfortunate admiral with a
heavy stick.
The sultan sent an envoy to the Emperor with a proposal : that Constantine move
to the Pelopennesus in Greece and rule from there but let Mohammed have the city.
Constantine refused.
Because he could not break the chain across the Golden Horn , Mohammed
decided to go around it. He sent workers to level the mile of dry land between the
Bosphorus and a stream called The Springs. They built a wooden runway, greased it,
and dragged 70 ships over it . Next, he built a floating bridge over the Golden Horn .
Now he could concentrate his forces anywhere he wanted .
On May 7, Mohammed launched another assault on the walls. Giustiani and his
men beat it back with heavy losses. Mohammed tried again May 12 and suffered even
heavier losses. The sultan, however, was constantly getting reinforcements . The East
Romans were not .
The Turks on May 18 rolled a siege tower up to the moat . Gunners on its top
could shoot down on the walls to clear them of defenders. As the attackers attempted
to get the tower across the moat , Giustiani rolled barrels of gunpowder into the ditch
and blew it up .
"What I would not give to win that man over to my side, " Mohammed said. He
attempted to bribe the Genoese, but Giustiani would not be tempted .
Above-ground assaults having failed, Mohammed tried mining . Johann Grant
half-buried drums behind the walls. The vibrations of the drums showed him where
the enemy was digging . Then he dug counter mines . He blew up some Turkish tun-
nels and filled others with poisonous sulfur dioxide from fire pots . He flooded other
tunnels or sent infantry through his countermines to kill the Turkish diggers .
Mohammed was growing worried . He feared that if he didn't take Constanti-
nople soon, the Christian nations would unite and send relief. He ordered an assault
on all of the walls to begin May 29 . It would continue night and day until the city
was taken . The defenders had to extend themselves to the breaking point , but they
continued to beat off the waves of Turkish attackers.
At the north end of the land walls, where they joined the wall along the Golden
Horn , the Turks got a break. From ancient times there had been a tiny postern gate
in the ditch . Emperor Isaac Angelus had blocked it up during the crusader troubles in
1204, but it had recently been reopened—and forgotten . Some Janissaries found the
undefended gate and rushed in. Their greed almost destroyed this golden opportu-
nity. They were plundering the palaces when defenders led by the Bocchiardi broth-
ers, who were Latin volunteers, closed the postern passage and cut off their retreat .
Driven out of the palace, the Turks ran south , inside the inner wall.
Meanwhile, Giustiani was fatally wounded , causing some confusion among his
troops . Then , the Turkish fugitives hit them in the flank . The main Turkish army got
over the wall, Constantine led a countercharge and was killed, and Constantinople
became a Turkish city.
There was a massacre, of course, but Mohammed stopped it. He had no wish
to rule a desert . He gave the Christians in the city freedom to worship in their own
way and appointed the Latin-hating Gennadius patriarch . Constantinople has been a
Turkish city ever since.
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