The Immortal Emperor

by Donald M Nicol

  Reports from their own citizens in Constantinople had more effect on the government of Venice than all the ambassadors that the Emperor had sent. In February 1453 the Doge ordered that warships be prepared and soldiers be recruited to be ready to sail early in April. At the same time he wrote to the pope, to Alfonso of Aragon, to Ladislas of Hungary and to the western Emperor Frederick III, alerting them to the latest news from Constantinople. If no help was sent at once the city would fall into the hands of the infidel. The flurry of diplomatic activity in Venice was impressive, but it came too late. There were intolerable delays in equipping the Venetian armada. The pope, who had already sent three Genoese ships, undertook to provide five more, to be armed at Venice. These too were held up by haggling over the bill for their equipment and the payment of their crews. Meanwhile, the Emperor sent more messengers to Venice and to King Alfonso early in 1453, begging them to send not only arms, soldiers and ships but also food, for the people of Constantinople were beginning to suffer the effect of the Turkish blockade. Alfonso sent a food ship. The Emperor Frederick's only contribution, however, was a wonderfully fatuous letter that he wrote to the Sultan Mehmed threatening him with attack by all the rulers and forces of Christendom if he would not pull down the fortress of Rumeli Hisar and abandon his plans for the siege of Constantinople. His letter is eloquent of the empty posturings of so many armchair crusaders in the west."

  The Sultan began his preparations for the siege and capture of Constantinople in the winter of 145z. If his prestige were not to suffer, he had to be certain of success. He therefore planned the operation with great care and with no regard to cost. Throughout that long winter the Emperor Constantine exhorted his people, men and women alike, to work night and day repairing the walls and stacking weapons. He sent ships out to the islands to collect provisions. Memories of the bombardment of the Hexamilion wall were fresh in his mind. His own armoury might not be able to resist the new technology of warfare which the Sultan possessed. If he had such doubts he kept them to himself. Earlier in the year he had been approached by a Hungarian engineer called Urban who offered his services as a designer of heavy artillery. It was he who had constructed the great cannon on the ramparts of Rumeli Hisar. The salary that he demanded was far more than Constantine could afford. Urban went off to the Sultan's camp at Adrianople and sold his skills there for a much higher price. Within a few months it was known that a huge gun was being assembled at the Sultan's foundry. It was to be dragged all the way to the land walls of Constantinople along with a number of smaller cannons.18

  Constantine was anxious but not visibly dismayed. To admit anxiety would be to admit the possibility of defeat, and this he would never do. His courage was infectious and his officers took their cue from him. The Grand Duke Loukas Notaras was given command of the walls along the shore of the Golden Horn. Various sons of the families of Palaiologos and Cantacuzene, whose past disputes had contributed much to the empire's decline, took command of other strategic points in the city. There were many foreigners too who, at the eleventh hour, nobly came to the defence of the city whose wealth they had for so long exploited and undermined. The Venetians were there, most of them by chance more than by design. The Emperor had great faith in them. He asked them to show themselves on the battlements so that the enemy could see how many they were; and when they offered to stand guard at the four gates in the land walls, he entrusted them with the keys. There were men from Genoa as well, even though the Genoese merchants who lived in their fortified colony at Galata across the Golden Horn had hopes of saving themselves and their property by a show of neutrality. The most famous of the Genoese was Giovanni Giustiniani Longo who arrived at Constantinople as a volunteer in January 1453 bringing a company of 700 troops. He was an experienced professional soldier and renowned for his skill in siege warfare. The Emperor gladly appointed him to take general command of the defence of the walls on the landward side. 19

  During the spring of 1453 the Sultan moved his army and its guns down from Adrianople. On Easter Monday, z April, his advance guard pitched camp near the land walls of Constantinople. It was against that massive triple line of fortification that he meant to direct his fire. No enemy had ever succeeded in breaking into the city from that side. Three days later the Sultan arrived with the rest of his troops and encamped within firing range of the Gate of St Romanos midway along the length of the walls. The bombardment began almost at once. At the same time the Turkish fleet in the Bosporos tried to fight its way into the harbour of the Golden Horn. The Emperor had expected this, however, and had had a boom thrown across the entrance. Three days later, under cover of darkness, the boom was temporarily lifted to let in three of the Genoese ships commissioned by the pope and a large cargo vessel loaded with wheat supplied by Alfonso of Aragon. Mehmed knew that he must find a way of getting part of his fleet into the Golden Horn so that he could attack the sea walls. With audacious ingenuity his engineers contrived to build tracks up and over the hill behind Galata from the Bosporos. On the morning of z3 April the Emperor and his people were horrified to see that about seventy of the smaller Turkish ships had been lowered into the water well behind the protective boom. A Venetian attempt to set fire to them ended in disaster.'"

  It was now clear that the number of defenders would never be enough to man the walls along the shore as well as those on the landward side. Food supplies were running short and those who could not afford to pay inflated prices were going hungry. Constantine ordered his officials to collect money from private houses, churches and monasteries to buy food for distribution to the poor. He decreed that church plate should be appropriated and melted down, though he promised to repay its owners four-fold when the emergency was over. The Turks meanwhile kept up a steady bombardment of the outer walls and before long had opened up a breach which exposed a part of the inner defences. As the land walls tumbled before his eyes Constantine began to lose heart. He sent a message to the Sultan begging him to withdraw and make peace, offering him whatever amount of tribute he might ask. Mehmed was too close to victory to turn back. `Either I shall take this city', he replied, `or the city will take me, dead or alive. If you will admit defeat and withdraw in peace, I shall give you the Peloponnese and other provinces for your brothers and we shall be friends. If you persist in denying me peaceful entry into the city, I shall force my way in and I shall slay you and all your nobles; and I shall slaughter all the survivors and allow my troops to plunder at will. The city is all I want, even if it is empty.' Constantine did not trouble to reply. For him the idea of abandoning Constantinople was unthinkable.21

  Some days later a messenger came from the Sultan to advise the people of Constantinople to surrender and save themselves from certain slavery or death. They could stay where they were on payment of a yearly tribute of ioo,ooo gold coins; or, if they preferred, they could leave their city unharmed and with all their belongings. Constantine consulted his council. Some of his courtiers and clergy implored him to escape while he could. He risked death by staying. If he got away and the city was taken he would live to carry on the struggle and win it back. He could leave for the Morea or some other province and set up an empire in exile. These were not words that he wished to hear. He was so exhausted that he fainted. If the Queen of Cities fell to the Turks it would be by God's will. Constantine Palaiologos would not go down in history as the Emperor who ran away. He would stay and die with his people. The reply that he gave to the Sultan's messenger was the same. Mehmed could have anything he wanted except for the city of Constantinople. The Emperor would not evacuate it. He would sooner die. It was the last communication between a Byzantine Emperor and an Ottoman Sultan.22

  The only hope left was that the promised fleet from Venice would arrive in time. The hope was dashed when a Venetian ship that had slipped out to reconnoitre came back to report that no fleet was to be seen. Constantine broke down and wept. The whole of Christendom, it seemed, had deserted him in his fight against the enemies of the Cross. He committed
himself and his city to the mercy of Christ, His Mother, and the first Christian Emperor, the holy Constantine the Great.23 The news that they must fight alone unnerved some of his Italian allies. Violence broke out among the Genoese and Venetian defenders. Constantine had to intervene, to remind them that they had a more important conflict on their hands.29 Strange signs and portents added to the tension among the besieged. On 24 May, when the moon was full, there was an eclipse and three hours of darkness. Some recalled the prophecy that Constantinople would be taken when the moon was on the wane. The end seemed to be nigh. Constantine commanded that the most venerable icon of the Mother of God, protectress of the city, should be brought out and carried in procession round the streets. Suddenly the icon slipped off the frame on which it was being held aloft; and almost at once the streets were deluged with torrents of hail and rain. The procession was abandoned. The next day the city was shrouded in thick fog. At nightfall, when the fog lifted, the dome of the church of the Holy Wisdom was seen to be lit by a mysterious glow that crept slowly up from its base to the great gilded cross at the top. The Turks saw it too from their camp beyond the walls. It could only be an omen, of hope for the Turks and of despair for the Greeks.

  On Monday, z8 May, the Greeks knew that their moment of truth was upon them. There was a weird calm from the Turkish camp. The Sultan had ordered a day of rest before the final assault. Those in the city who could be spared from manning and patching up the battered walls took to the streets in prayer. Constantine ordered that icons and relics from churches and monasteries be carried round the walls while the church bells rang. The crowd of Greeks and Italians, Orthodox and Catholic, forgot their differences as they joined in hymns and prayers. Constantine led the procession on its solemn march.25 When it was over he assembled his ministers, officers and soldiers and addressed them. There are three accounts of what he said. The first and shortest of them is contained in a letter of Leonardo of Chios, the Latin Archbishop of Lesbos, addressed to Pope Nicholas V on i9 August 1453. Leonardo had been present during the last weeks of Byzantine Constantinople and he reported to the pope some six weeks after the capture of the city, while his memory was still fresh. The two other and longer versions of Constantine's speech are mainly elaborations and extensions of Leonardo's text. One purports to be from the pen of George Sphrantzes, who must certainly have heard the speech though he makes no mention of it in his memoirs. It is to be read only in the extended version of those memoirs compiled in the sixteenth century by Makarios Melissenos. The third version is given in the Greek Chronicle of the Turkish Sultans, also of the sixteenth century.26 The speech as related by Leonardo of Chios is thus the most reliable account, even though the rhetoric of it may be fanciful. It may therefore be worth giving it in full, since it was Constantine's last public speech and can serve, as Gibbon observed, as `the funeral oration of the Roman Empire'.27

  Gentlemen, illustrious captains of the army, and our most Christian comrades in arms: we now see the hour of battle approaching. I have therefore elected to assemble you here to make it clear that you must stand together with firmer resolution than ever. You have always fought with glory against the enemies of Christ. Now the defence of your fatherland and of the city known the world over, which the infidel and evil Turks have been besieging for two and fifty days, is committed to your lofty spirits. Be not afraid because its walls have been worn down by the enemy's battering. For your strength lies in the protection of God and you must show it with your arms quivering and your swords brandished against the enemy. I know that this undisciplined mob will, as is their custom, rush upon you with loud cries and ceaseless volleys of arrows. These will do you no bodily harm, for I see that you are well covered in armour. They will strike the walls, our breastplates and our shields. So do not imitate the Romans who, when the Carthaginians went into battle against them, allowed their cavalry to be terrified by the fearsome sight and sound of elephants. In this battle you must stand firm and have no fear, no thought of flight, but be inspired to resist with ever more herculean strength. Animals may run away from animals. But you are men, men of stout heart, and you will hold at bay these dumb brutes, thrusting your spears and swords into them, so that they will know that they are fighting not against their own kind but against the masters of animals.

  You are aware that the impious and infidel enemy has disturbed the peace unjustly. He has violated the oath and treaty that he made with us; he has slaughtered our farmers at harvest time; he has erected a fortress on the Propontis as it were to devour the Christians; he has encircled Galata under a pretence of peace. Now he threatens to capture the city of Constantine the Great, your fatherland, the place of ready refuge for all Christians, the guardian of all Greeks, and to profane its holy shrines of God by turning them into stables for his horses. Oh my lords, my brothers, my sons, the everlasting honour of Christians is in your hands. You men of Genoa, men of courage and famous for your infinite victories, you who have always protected this city, your mother, in many a conflict with the Turks, show now your prowess and your aggressive spirit toward them with manly vigour. You men of Venice, most valiant heroes, whose swords have many a time made Turkish blood to flow and who in our time have sent so many ships, so many infidel souls to the depths under the command of Loredano, the most excellent captain of our fleet, you who have adorned this city as if it were your own with fine, outstanding men, lift high your spirits now for battle. You, my comrades in arms, obey the commands of your leaders in the knowledge that this is the day of your glory - a day on which, if you shed but a drop of blood, you will win for yourselves crowns of martyrdom and eternal fame.

  Constantine's speech, in whatever form he delivered it, gave new heart to those who heard it. When the shades of evening began to fall people moved as if by instinct towards the church of the Holy Wisdom. The soldiers stayed at their posts on the walls. But others, Greeks and Latins alike, crowded into the great church to pray together for their deliverance. Common fear and common danger worked more of a wonder than all the councils of the church. Orthodox bishops, priests and monks who had loudly protested that they would never again set foot in their cathedral until it had been purged of the Roman pollution, now came to the altar to join their Catholic brethren in the holy liturgy. Among the celebrants was Cardinal Isidore, whom many of the faithful had branded as a traitor and a heretic. The Emperor Constantine came to pray and to ask forgiveness and remission of his sins from every bishop present before receiving communion at the altar. The priest who gave him the sacrament cannot have known that he was administering the last rites to the last Christian Emperor of the Romans. He then went back to his palace at Blachernai to ask forgiveness from his household and bid them farewell before riding into the night to make a final inspection of his soldiers at the wall.

  The attack began without warning in the early hours of Tuesday, 2.9 May. Wave upon wave of the Sultan's front-line troops charged up to the land walls. For nearly two hours they hammered at the weakest section, where the guns had already done their ruinous work. But Giustiniani and his men, helped by Constantine, held them back and they began to withdraw. Their place was at once taken by some of the more professional and better armed and disciplined of the Sultan's soldiers, supported by covering fire from the Turkish artillery. Still the defences held. At the same time the sea wall along the Golden Horn was under heavy attack, though there too the defenders held the initiative. The Sultan's strategy was to give the Christians no respite. Hardly had they recovered from the second assault on the land walls when the janissaries, his crack troops, advanced at the double, fresh and eager. Just before the break of day Giustiniani, who had been holding the line at the critical point for more than six hours, was badly wounded. The Emperor begged him to stay at his post but he was too weak to carry on. His bodyguard carried him down to the harbour and on to a Genoese ship.

  When they saw that their commander had left them, Giustini- ani's men lost heart. The defence wavered. The janissaries saw their chance. Con
stantine and his troops fought on with desperation but without much hope after their Genoese allies left them to it. The janissaries gained control of the outer wall and then scaled the inner wall as well. Meanwhile a band of about fifty Turks broke in through a little gate in the wall called Kerkoporta. They were the first of the Sultan's army to enter the city. They mounted the tower above the gate and raised the Ottoman flag. Their comrades understood the signal and echoed the shouts from within that the city had been taken. They stormed in through the breaches that the guns had made in the walls. The defenders began to panic when they saw themselves surrounded with no way of escape. The Emperor did all that he could to rally them. At the end the fighting had become hand to hand. It was fiercest at the gate called St Romanos where the inner wall had been breached; and it was probably there that Constantine Palaiologos was last seen alive. He had thrown away his regalia. He was killed fighting as a common soldier to stem the flood of infidels pouring into his Christian city.28 The most eloquent epitaph for him is that of the historian Kritoboulos:

  The Emperor Constantine ... died fighting. He was a wise and moderate man in his private life and diligent to the highest degree in prudence and virtue, sagacious as the most disciplined of men. In political affairs and in matters of government he yielded to no one of the Emperors before him in preeminence. Quick to perceive his duty, and quicker still to do it, he was eloquent in speech, clever in thought, and very accomplished in public speaking. He was exact in his judgements of the present, as someone said of Pericles, and usually correct in regard to the future - a splendid worker, who chose to do and to suffer everything for his fatherland and for his subjects.29