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| Siege Without
Reprieve |
First published in
Military History:
April 1992 |
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by Michael
Antonucci |
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In 1453,
Constantinople had withstood all pressure that a far stronger Turkish force
could bring to bear against the city walls – but double misfortune then
intervened. |
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It was called the bulwark
of Christendom, the gateway to the East, or simply, the City. It stood as a
reminder of the glory of the Roman Empire almost 1,000 years after the last
“Roman” emperor had been deposed. And to the Ottoman Turks of the 15th
century, it beckoned as a jewel of great value.
The capture of
Constantinople would be a victory over Christendom to resound throughout
Europe, even if the Byzantine Empire, as the Eastern Roman Empire had come
to be called, had experienced a checkered history. The Byzantines had
witnessed a great expansion under the Emperor Justinian, had endured the
plundering of Christians and Turks alike during the Crusades, and had seen
the meteoric rise of the Ottomans. By 1453, the empire of old was a mere
shell consisting of portions of the Peloponnesus, some islands in the
Aegean, and Constantinople. The Byzantine army, once a formidable force, now
relied on Italian mercenaries to fill its ranks. The empire’s trade likewise
had fallen into the hands of Venetian and Genoese merchants. Byzantine
diplomacy, remembered even today for its complexity, was unable to generate
reliable allies against the Turkish advance. |
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At the nadir of its long existence, the Byzantine Empire was fortunate to be
ruled by an able sovereign. Constantine XI Palaeologus was a simple, honest
and unselfish man. Most important, he was an experienced and capable
soldier. And indeed, he would need all his skills and courage for the
ordeals he now had to face.
The condition of the
Ottoman Empire was in direct contrast to that of the Byzantines. Since the
founding of the dynasty, the Ottomans had enjoyed an unbroken string of
gifted sultans. Spearheaded by the elite troops known as Janissaries, the
Turkish armies had steadily expanded the sultan’s possessions throughout the
Middle East and Asia Minor. The far-ranging Turkish navy patrolled the
eastern Mediterranean. |
Constantine XI
Palaeologus |
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The leader of this ascendant empire was Mehmet II. Headstrong and
single-minded, he vowed to capture Constantinople and raise his name to the
heights reached by Alexander the Great.
The sultan possessed what
was arguably the finest fighting force in the world, and he was opposed only
by the shadow of an empire. Still, he would take no chances. He would
assemble the full military power of his vast domain and apply it in one
small area – Constantinople.
In the spring of 1452,
Mehmet sent 1,000 masons to the narrowest part of the Bosphorus, five miles
north of Galata, to begin construction of a fortress. Constantine XI
immediately recognized the threat. A Turkish fort on the Bosphorus, the
strait running from the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea above, could prevent
supplies from reaching Constantinople.
Unable to challenge the
Turks militarily, Constantine XI sent envoys to the sultan to “tell” him
that the building of the fort was unacceptable. Mehmet dismissed them with a
warning, “Mark this also, I shall have every ambassador impaled who dares
henceforth come to me with such a message!”
By the end of August the
fort had been completed. The Turks named it Boghasi-Kesen, or “cutter of the
straits.”
Constantine, having seen
enough, began his preparations for war. He made one last desperate request
for aid from Europe. England and France were concluding the Hundred Years’
War and were unwilling to get involved. Frederick III of Germany made some
vague promises but sent no troops. The Serbs and Hungarians were hard
pressed to defend their own borders. The Venetians and Genoese would send
troops and supplies, and the pope agreed to help if the Byzantines would
accept Roman Catholicism. The emperor was not a religious scholar; he was a
soldier. He agreed to the union of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
churches. Cardinal Isidore was appointed as legate and sent to
Constantinople with 200 archers. His arrival met with a mixed response: most
citizens were happy to see the troops but not so pleased with the union of
the churches. The Byzantine grand admiral, Lukas Notaras, is alleged to have
said, “Better to see in Constantinople the turban of the Turk than the
helmet of a Latin.”
The Byzantine commanders
began gathering provisions and drilling their troops. The famous triple
walls of Theodosius II, which had withstood 20 sieges throughout the
centuries, were in a state of disrepair but were still formidable.
The weakest part of the
city’s defenses was near the palace of Blachernae, where there was only a
single wall. Venetian Captain Alviso Diedo and his men began digging a ditch
in front of this wall. Constantine, in the meantime, ordered a census of the
fighting men inside the city. When he heard the results – 5,000 Byzantines
and 2,000 foreigners – he kept the numbers a secret so that morale would not
plummet.
Mehmet was not idle after
the completion of his fort. He commissioned a Hungarian engineer named Urban
to build several cannons, including one monster called “the Basilica,” which
was almost 27 feet long and took 400 men and 60 oxen to move. The Turk
gathered 145 ships for his fleet – and he was able to muster 70,000 regular
troops for the siege, along with 20,000 Bashi-Bazouks, who were irregulars
fighting only for the booty they could gather. A startling footnote to this
number is that nearly 30,000 of the sultan’s troops were Europeans.
Europeans fighting for Islam outnumbered those fighting for Christianity by
four to one.
In January 1453, the
citizens of Constantinople were heartened by the arrival of 700 knights and
archers led by the Genoese soldier of fortune Giovanni Giustiniani, famous
for his skills in the defense of walled cities. Constantine XI gave him
command of the land walls and offered him the island of Lesbos in return for
driving off the Turks. With such a small force at his disposal, Giustiniani
decided to man only the outer wall. He began his deployments along the four
miles of land walls when spring arrived and the sultan’s vanguard began to
plunder the surrounding countryside.
It was clear where the
main thrusts would occur. The Blachernae quarter could expect strong
pressure. Stationed there were the Bocchiardi brothers and Girolamo Minotto
the Venetian. But assaulting armies in the past had concentrated in the
Lycus Valley, near the Military Gate of St. Romanus. This area of the walls
was know as the Mesoteichion, and it was here that Giustiniani set his own
soldiers, along with the best of the emperor’s men.
The sea walls were thinly
manned. The city’s harbor, the Golden Horn, had been closed by a great boom
and was defended by 26 galleys. Constantine XI felt that he could fight
holding actions along the sea walls until reserves could arrive. The
Venetian Diedo was given overall command of the ships in the Horn, while
Lukas Notaras, Venetian Captian Gabriele Trevisano and others defended the
sea walls. A relative of the emperor, Nicephorus Palaeologus, was centrally
located with a reserve of 200 men.
Mehmet arrived on the
plans before Constantinople on April 6, 1453, along with his division of
12,000 Janissaries. The sultan sent an army to the northern shore of the
Golden Horn to isolate the Genoese colony of Pera. Opposite the walls of
Blachernae, Mehmet II placed Karadja Pasha and his European troops. The
Anatolian recruits of Ishak Pasha and Mahmud Pasha were stationed south of
the Lycus Valley down to the Sea of Marmara. The Janissaries pitched camp in
the Mesoteichion. As Giustiniani had surmised, the main effort was to be
made there. Hordes of Bashi-Bazouks camped behind the main lines, to be
moved wherever they were needed.
The stage was set.
Outnumbered by more than ten to one, the Byzantines decided against any
attempts at sorties. Constantine XI ordered the gates shut and the bridges
across the moat destroyed. The latest siege of Constantinople had begun.
For a week the Turks
bombarded the walls with their 69 cannons, including the huge Basilica,
which was so unwieldy it could only be fired seven times a day. But its
half-ton projectiles were devastating to the centuries-old masonry of the
city. By April 18, the sultan decided he had made enough of a breach in the
Mesoteichion to order an assault. Two hours after sunset, heavy infantry
moved out from the Turkish lines, across the filled-in foss, and attacked
the walls. In the darkness, the fighting was confused; numerical superiority
meant nothing in the narrow breach. The body armor of the Christians was
stronger than that of the Turks, and Giustiniani was everywhere, exhorting
the men to greater efforts. After four hours of battle, the Turks withdrew.
They left 200 dead at the wall. Not a single Christian soldier had been
killed.
On the morning of April
20, lookouts on the sea walls spotted four ships sailing up the Sea of
Marmara toward the boom. The ships were three Genoese trading vessels,
carrying men and arms supplied by the pope, and an Imperial transport
hauling corn from Sicily. The sultan’s admiral, Baltoghlu, loaded up his
vessels with soldiers and set out with most of his fleet to intercept the
Christian galleys.
When they met, the
Genoese galleys had the advantage of height over the Turkish triremes, and
the well-trained Italian crews rained stones, arrows and Greek fire upon the
hapless Turks. A strong wind kept the Christians speeding toward the boom.
But just as the four ships approached the southeastern shore of the city,
the wind died. The Christian sails sagged and the ships drifted helplessly
as the sultan watched, urging his admiral to finish off the Christian relief
effort.
Baltoghlu tried several
different tactics. He first had his ships stand off at a distance and use
cannon fire and flaming arrows. But his cannon could not obtain sufficient
elevation, and the experienced Genoese and Byzantine sailors quickly snuffed
out the fires. Next, Baltoghlu tried to board. The Christian vessels were
surrounded by up to 40 Turkish ships, but the crewmen stood by with axes to
chop off the hands and heads of would-be boarders. Baltoghlu’s flagship then
rammed the Imperial transport. The Genoese captains somehow managed to
maneuver their ships close to the transport and lash all four ships
together.
The Christian sailors
fought on bravely, but they soon found themselves low on weapons, and the
Turks had inexhaustible manpower. Ultimately, the Turks must prevail. But as
dusk approached, the wind again filled the sails of the Christian fleet. The
breeze enabled them to break through the surrounding Turkish ships and head
toward the Golden Horn. In the gathering darkness, Baltoghlu could not
regroup his fleet. The Christian ships were escorted into the Golden Horn,
and the boom was again set into place. The Byzantines had won another
hard-fought battle. |
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Mehmet was furious. He had Baltoghlu flogged in front of his entire fleet.
He then ordered the admiral’s property confiscated and divided amongst the
Janissaries.
Mehmet II saw that as
long as the Golden Horn remained in Byzantine hands, supplies would continue
to reach the city. He proposed an innovative solution. He ordered a narrow
canal dug overland from the Turkish anchorage into the Golden Horn. He then
had his ships pulled by water buffalo and supported by troops. Anyone with a
view of the heights behind Pera would have been treated to the spectacle of
Turkish ships, with sails unfurled and lookouts on their towers, cruising
overland! |
Mehmet II |
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The astonished Byzantines awoke on the morning of April 22 to find 30
Turkish ships in the Golden Horn. Constantine called for a council. Venetian
Captain Giacomo Coco proposed a night attack on the ships in the harbor with
the aim of setting them ablaze. This plan was agreed upon and Coco arranged
the raid for that very night. However, the Genoese captains heard of the
plan and asked for a postponement so they could participate. It proved to be
a fatal delay.
An informer provided the
sultan with details of the operation. On the night of April 28, two ships
loaded with gunpowder and other combustibles were quietly towed across the
Horn by five Genoese and Venetian galleys. As they approached the Turkish
ships, a cannon roared and Coco’s vessel was hit and sunk. Trevisano’s
galley was also hit while the rest of the Christian ships retreated. Only
one Turkish ship was sunk.
The next morning the
sultan lined up the sailors he had captured from the ill-fated raid and had
them beheaded in sight of the walls. Constantine retaliated by decapitating
his 260 Turkish prisoners on the parapets of the land walls.
Tensions in the city
became more severe as the Genoese and Venetians blamed each other for the
failure of the raid.
Constantine held another
war council on May 3. The emperor’s councilors advised him to leave
Constantinople, muster an army, and lead it to the relief of the city.
Constantine knew resistance would cease if he fled. His reply was final: “I
am resolved to die here with you.”
By May 6 the Turkish
artillery barrage had caused another wide breach near the Gate of St.
Romanus. The Turks kept firing throughout the night simply to prevent the
citizens from rebuilding the wall. But Giustiniani outsmarted them again.
Making no attempt to repair the breach, Giustiniani had the Byzantines build
barricades and a new tower just inside the wall.
The next morning 25,000
Turks crashed upon the Mesoteichion in waves. The combat was ferocious, but
in the end Giustiniani’s new barricade held up. After three hours of
fighting the Turks retreated.
On May 12, a breach
opened in the wall near the palace of Blachernae, and the Turks quickly
attacked. The Byzantines had concentrated so much of their effort in the
Lycus Valley that they were very nearly taken by surprise. The troops of the
Bocchiardis and Minotto were forced from the breach. Nicephorus Palaeologus
then brought up his mobile reserve, and the Turks were driven back. But next
the sultan committed his own reserves, and the Turks began gaining ground.
The situation became so critical that Giustiniani led a detachment of men
from the Mesoteichion to reinforce Blachernae. Even so, bands of Turks broke
into the city, and now the Byzantines began a fighting retreat.
Messengers brought news
of the battle to Constantine. He immediately assembled the Imperial Guard
and rushed to the fighting. The sight of the emperor was enough to rally the
defenders. As the Byzantines surged forward in a savage counterattack, the
Turks were driven out of the city and into the moat, where they were
slaughtered. The Christians spent the rest of the day repairing the wall.
Mehmet also had turned to
an old besieger’s tactic. There were a number of silver miners in the
Turkish camp, and the sultan had them tunnel to destroy the walls from
below. Fortunately for the Christians, they had the services of Johannes
Grant, who throughout the siege discovered the location of these tunnels and
dug countermines. The Turkish mines were destroyed by explosives, Greek fire
and flooding. In one instance, Byzantine miners fought hand-to-hand with
their Turkish counterparts beneath the earth. In all, the Turks dug 14
mines. Grant found and destroyed each one.
The sultan now tried
going over the walls. On the morning of May 18, the defenders were shocked
to see a huge siege tower outside the Charisius Gate. Covered in animal
hides, the tower had windows for archers and a covered hallway back to the
Turkish lines. A Turkish barrage had brought down one of the Byzantine
towers at St. Romanus, and the siege tower could provide protection for the
soldiers filling the moat.
The Byzantines could ill
afford the casualties they were now suffering all along the Mesoteichion.
The siege tower had to be destroyed. That night a company of volunteers
crept outside the walls. Surprising the Turkish sentries, the Christian
commandos threw pots of Greek fire onto the tower. Within minutes the tower
was burning to the ground. It was the sultan’s turn to be amazed. As he
looked along the Mesoteichion the next morning, he saw the smoldering
remains of his great siege tower, a new wall and tower at St. Romanus, and
an emptied foss. He exclaimed, “If yesterday all the 37,000 prophets had
told me that such a feat was possible, I would not have believed it!”
Despite such momentary
triumphs, the situation in Constantinople was desperate. The walls had been
breached in several places, four towers had been destroyed, provisions were
scarce, the garrison was exhausted, and the people were demoralized, blaming
the union of the churches.
Doubts were growing in
the Turkish camp as well. One faction called for an end to the siege. Four
major assaults had failed and rumors of a relieving Christian fleet
persisted. Another group spoke of the disunity of the Byzantines and the
ability of the sultan’s men to defeat any Christian reinforcements. Mehmet
decided to try one final grand assault in the Lycus Valley.
Soon after the sultan had
made his decisions, a spy in the Turkish camp fired an arrow over the walls
with a message attached, detailing the meeting of the sultan’s council.
Constantine knew that if his bedraggled defenders could stave off this last
assault, they might survive.
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On May 28, everyone who
was not at the walls attended Mass at St. Sophia. By now, there were no
protests. Unity took precedence in the face of death.
All day long there was an
unusual silence. Even the bombardment had ceased. At about 2 a.m. on May 29,
trumpets blared and drums beat along the Turkish lines while the church
bells rang throughout the city, calling soldiers back to the walls. |
Constantinople, 1453 |
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The sultan opened his assault with his Bashi-Bazouks. They attacked along
the entire length of the walls but only pressed in the Mesoteichion. The
Bashi-Bazouks could be fearsome in their first charge, but they were
undisciplined and poorly armed. The Christian defenders killed hundreds with
missile weapons as they crowded around the breach.
After two hours of
fighting and frightful slaughter, the Bashi-Bazouks were permitted to
withdraw. They had served their purpose: the wearing down of the defenders.
The Byzantine forces
hoped for a respite, but as soon as the Bashi-Bazouks had vanished, the
Anatolian regulars began their attack. These Turkish troops were better
armed and more disciplined than the Bashi-Bazouks. But because of the narrow
front on which they fought, they did not fare much better. Giustiniani’s
armored troops fought the Anatolians to a standstill. The emperor himself
then led a counterattack and forced the Anatolians back across the foss.
The defenders at the
Mesoteichion had now fought non-stop for almost four hours. They were so
weary they could barely lift their swords to cut and parry. Yet, as they
tried to regain their breath they heard ominous sounds from outside.
The Janissaries were
marching.
This time there was no
mad dash. The Janissaries advanced on the double, in perfect order. They
surged through the breach and were met by Christians in fierce hand-to-had
combat. The Janissaries were elite troops, but the Christians fought with a
desperation that was startling. Even the fresh Janissaries were slowly
driven back.
At this crucial point,
two disasters befell the Christians. The first occurred during the fighting
at Blachernae. A small gate, known as the Kerkoporta, had been mistakenly
left open, and a band of Turkish troops had discovered it. They rushed
through it, overwhelmed the guards and found themselves with access to the
tower above. Some 50 Turks managed to slip into the city before the
Bocchiardis discovered them and sealed the Kerkoporta. The Turks, now cut
off, were no longer a threat, but some of them reached the top of the tower
and hoisted their battle standard. Rumors quickly spread that the Blachernae
quarter had fallen.
Perhaps the Byzantines
could have overcome the mishap, but now, too, at the height of the battle in
the Lycus, Giustiniani was severely wounded.
Bleeding profusely,
Giustiniani asked to be taken from the field. Constantine begged him not to
leave his post, but Giustiniani, who had proven his valor time and again
throughout the siege, simply could not go on. As his men carried him to a
Genoese ship, a messenger arrived with the false news of the fall of
Blachernae. Thinking the city was lost and seeing their leader carried away,
the Genoese began fleeing through the inner gate. Soon, the emperor and his
Byzantine troops stood alone at the breach.
Noticing the confusion of
the Christian forces, Mehmet sent in another company of Janissaries. They
stormed through the breach and forced their way up and over the stockade.
The Janissaries now held both sides of the stockade and were pushing the
badly outnumbered Byzantines back to the inner wall. The Janissaries then
formed a phalanx and cleared the area of Christians. A detachment opened the
Adrianople Gate, through which poured thousands of Turks.
The emperor tried to
rally his remaining forces, but there were too few left. As the Janissaries
closed in, Constantine tossed away his imperial insignia and shouted: “God
forbid that I should live an Emperor without an Empire! As my city falls, I
will fall with it!” He then charged into a mass of Janissaries. So died the
last emperor of Rome.
As with most medieval
battles, the real killing began after resistance had ended. The Turks swept
through the city, massacring civilians. The Turkish fleet left its position
to join the plundering. Thus, many refugees made it to the harbor and
escaped. Christian vessels loitered around the Golden Horn until noon,
picking up survivors. They then cut the boom and headed out to sea, having
saved hundreds of lives.
The killing frenzy soon
died down among the Turks. Live captives brought more money. The troops
forgot about killing in their rush to take slaves, riches and relics.
Mehmet II rode into the
city having accomplished his great dream: the conquest of Constantinople.
His men brought him the head of Constantine XI, and he had it displayed upon
a pillar to confirm the emperor’s death.
Giustiniani died of his
wound on the way to the island of Chios. It is a sad irony that as
Giustiniani’s ship approached Chios, anchored there was the relieving
Christian fleet. Thirty ships led by the famous Venetian Admiral Loredan
were awaiting favorable winds to sail through the Dardanelles to
Constantinople. When they heard the news of the fall of the city from
Giustiniani’s men, they returned to Italy.
Shock was the universal
response to the news of the ancient city’s fall. The European powers had
believed that Constantinople would always defy a besieging army. Still,
despite all the hand-wringing and accusations, very little was done.
Christendom needed to see the Turkish threat at the very gates before
acting. And Mehmet wasted no time providing them with motivation. In the
remaining 28 years of his life, he overran most of the Balkans and Greece.
His descendants besieged Malta and Vienna. Many generations paid for the
abandonment of Constantinople.
The Western
Roman Empire had died with a whimper. But the Eastern Roman Empire suffered
a defiant death that befitted the legacy of Rome and Greece, while for the
Ottoman Turks, the capture of Constantinople provided legitimacy and a
capital, still held, for their empire. |
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