Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453

by Roger Crowley

  14 ‘eager cries …’, Pertusi, La Caduta, vol. 1, p. 15

  15 ‘waiting hour after …’, Barbaro, Giornale, p. 22

  16 ‘wounding many …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 51

  17 ‘and inflicted …’, ibid., p. 51

  18 ‘in the East …’, Pertusi, La Caduta, vol. 1, p. lxxvi

  19 ‘either to take …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 53

  20 ‘many other weapons …’, ibid., p. 53

  21 ‘with ambition and …’ ibid., p. 53

  22 ‘with a great sounding …’, Barbaro, Giornale, p. 23

  23 ‘they fought from …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 53

  24 ‘shouted in a commanding voice’, ibid., p. 53

  25 ‘like dry land’, Doukas, Fragmenta, p. 269

  26 ‘they threw missiles …’, Leonard, p. 30

  27 ‘that the oars …’, Doukas, Fragmenta, p. 269

  28 ‘There was great …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 54

  29 ‘like demons’, Melville Jones, p. 21

  30 ‘defended itself brilliantly …’, Pertusi, La Caduta, vol. 1, p. 140

  31 ‘the water could hardly be seen’, Barbaro, p. 33

  32 ‘for they took it in turns …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 54

  33 ‘and tore his garments …’, Melville Jones, p. 22

  34 ‘at least twenty galleys’, Barbaro, Giornale, p. 24

  35 ‘stunned. In silence …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 55

  10 Spirals of Blood

  20–28 APRIL 1453

  Warfare is deception.

  A saying attributed to the Prophet

  The immediate consequences of the naval engagement in the Bosphorus were profound. A few short hours had tipped the psychological balance of the siege sharply and unexpectedly back to the defenders. The spring sea had provided a huge auditorium for the public humiliation of the Ottoman fleet, watched both by the Greek population thronging the walls and the right wing of the army with Mehmet on the shore opposite.

  It was obvious to both sides that the massive new fleet, which had so stunned the Christians when it first appeared in the Straits, could not match the experience of Western seamanship. It had been thwarted by superior skill and equipment, the innate limitations of war galleys – and not a little luck. Without secure control of the sea, the struggle to subdue the city would be hard fought, whatever the sultan’s guns might achieve at the land walls.

  Within the city, spirits were suddenly high again: ‘the ambitions of the sultan were thrown into confusion and his reputed power diminished, because so many of his triremes couldn’t by any means capture just one ship’. The ships not only brought much needed grain, arms and manpower, they had given the defenders precious hope. This small flotilla might be merely the precursor of a larger rescue fleet. And if four ships were able to defy the Ottoman navy, what might a dozen well-armed galleys of the Italian republics not do to decide the final outcome? ‘This unhoped-for result revived their hopes and brought encouragement, and filled them with very favourable hopes, not only about what had happened, but also about their expectations for the future.’ In the fevered religious atmosphere of the conflict, such events were never just the practical contest of men and materials or the play of winds, they were clear evidence of the hand of God. ‘They prayed to their prophet Muhammad in vain,’ wrote the surgeon Nicolo Barbaro, ‘while our Eternal God heard the prayers of us Christians, so that we were victorious in this battle.’

  Some time about now, it seems that Constantine, buoyed by this victory or the failure of the earlier Ottoman land attack, sensed that the moment was right to make a peace offer. He probably proposed a face-saving payment that would allow Mehmet to withdraw with honour, and he may have delivered it via Halil Pasha. Siege warfare involves a complex symbiosis between besieger and besieged and he was fully aware that outside the walls the Muslim camp was plunged into a corresponding mood of crisis. For the first time since the siege began, serious doubts were voiced. Constantinople remained obdurate – a ‘bone in the throat of Allah’ – like the crusader castles. The city was a psychological as much as a military problem for the warriors of the Faith. The technological and cultural self-confidence needed to defeat the infidel and to overturn the deep pattern of history was suddenly fragile again and the death of the Prophet’s standard-bearer Ayyub at the walls eight centuries before would have been keenly in mind. ‘This event’, wrote the Ottoman chronicler Tursun Bey, ‘caused despair and disorder in the ranks of the Muslims … the army was split into groups.’

  It was a defining moment for the self-belief of the cause. In practical terms, the possibility of a long-drawn-out siege, with all its problems for logistics and morale, the likelihood of disease – the scourge of medieval besieging armies – and the chance that men might slip away, must have loomed larger on the evening of 20 April. It spelled clear personal danger for Mehmet’s authority. An open revolt by the Janissaries became an idea on the fringe of possibility. Mehmet never commanded the love of his standing army as his father Murat had done. It had revolted against the petulant young sultan twice before and this was remembered, particularly by Halil Pasha, the chief vizier.

  These feelings were brought into sharp focus that evening when Mehmet received a letter from Sheikh Akshemsettin, his spiritual adviser and a leading religious figure in the Ottoman camp. It presented the mood of the army and brought a warning:

  This event … has caused us great pain and low morale. Not having taken this opportunity has meant that certain adverse developments have taken place: one … is that the infidels have rejoiced and held a tumultuous demonstration; a second is the assertion that your noble majesty has shown little good judgement and ability in having your orders carried out … severe punishments will be required … if this punishment is not carried out now … the troops will not give their full support when the trenches must be levelled and the order is given for the final attack.

  The sheikh also pointed out that the defeat threatened to undermine the religious faith of the men. ‘I have been accused of having failed in my prayers’, he went on, ‘and that my prophecies have been shown to be unfounded … you must take care of this so that in the end we shall not be obliged to withdraw in shame and disappointment.’

  Spurred by this, Mehmet set out early next morning, 21 April, with ‘about ten thousand horse’ and rode from his camp at Maltepe to the harbour at the Double Columns where the fleet was anchored. Baltaoglu was summoned ashore to answer for the naval debacle. The unfortunate admiral had been badly wounded in one eye from a stone hurled by one of his own men in the heat of battle; he must have presented a ghastly spectacle as he prostrated himself before his sultan. In the colourful words of a Christian chronicler, Mehmet ‘groaned from the depths of his heart and breathed smoke from his mouth in his rage’. Furiously he demanded to know why he had failed to take the ships when the sea was flat calm: ‘if you could not take them, how do you hope to take the fleet which is in the harbour at Constantinople?’ The admiral replied that he had done everything in his power to seize the Christian ships: ‘You know,’ he pleaded, ‘it was visible to all, that with the ram of my galley I never let go of the poop of the Emperor’s ship – I fought fiercely all the time – the events were plainly visible, that my men are dead and there are many dead on the other galleys too.’ Mehmet was so upset and angry that he ordered his admiral to be impaled. Appalled, the council and courtiers threw themselves before Mehmet to plead for his life, arguing that he had fought bravely to the end and that the loss of his eye was visible proof of his efforts. Mehmet relented. The death sentence was commuted. In front of his fleet and the watching circle of cavalry, Baltaoglu received a hundred lashes. He was stripped of his rank and property, which was distributed among the Janissaries. Mehmet understood the negative and positive propaganda value of such actions. Baltaoglu vanished into the obscurity of history and the poisoned chalice of naval command passed back to Hamza Bey, who had been admiral
under Mehmet’s father. The lessons of this episode would not have been wasted on either the watching soldiers and sailors or on the inner circle of viziers and advisers. It was a chance to observe the perils of the sultan’s displeasure at first hand.

  There is another version of this episode told by the Greek chronicler Doukas, whose tale of the siege is vivid but often implausible. In this account Mehmet had Baltaoglu stretched on the ground and delivered the hundred strokes himself ‘with a golden rod weighing five pounds, which the tyrant had ordered to be made so that he might thrash people’. Then one of the Janissaries, keen to gain further credit from the sultan, smashed him on the head with a stone and gouged out his eye. The story is colourful and almost certainly untrue but it reflected the popular Western view of Mehmet the Eastern tyrant, barbaric in his opulence, sadistic in his pleasures, unquestioningly served by a slave army.

  Having made an example of his admiral, Mehmet called an immediate meeting of his inner council to discuss Constantine’s peace offer of the preceding day. In the speed of events, initiatives were starting to overlap each other out of any sequence. Confronted by a significant setback and the first stirrings of dissent, the question was simply whether to continue with the siege or to seek favourable terms.

  There were two factions in the Ottoman high command that were engaged in their own long-running struggle for survival and power under the sultan’s volatile rule. On the one side was the chief vizier, Halil Pasha, an ethnic Turk of the old Ottoman ruling class who had been vizier under Murat, Mehmet’s father, and who had steered the young sultan through his turbulent early years. He had witnessed the crisis years of the 1440s and the Janissary revolt against Mehmet at Edirne and he was cautious about the chances of survival for Mehmet in the case of humiliation at the Greek walls. During the whole of the siege Halil’s strategy was undermined by the taunts of his opponents, who nicknamed him ‘the friend of the infidel’, the lover of Greek gold.

  In opposition were the new men of Ottoman power: a group of ambitious military leaders who were largely outsiders – converted renegades from the sultan’s ever-expanding empire. They had always repudiated any peace policy and encouraged Mehmet’s dreams of world conquest. They attached their fortunes to the capture of this city. Foremost amongst them was the second vizier Zaganos Pasha, a Greek convert, ‘the one who was most feared and had the most voice and authority’, and who was a leading military commander. This faction had a strong backing from religious leaders, proponents of holy war, such as the learned Islamic scholar, Ulema Ahmet Gurani, Mehmet’s formidable tutor, and Sheikh Akshemsettin, who represented the long-cherished Islamic fervour to take the Christian city.

  Halil argued that the opportunity should be taken to withdraw honourably from the siege on favourable terms: that the failed naval encounter revealed the difficulty of capturing the city and the possibility of a relieving Hungarian army or Italian fleet increased as the campaign dragged on. He voiced his conviction that the apple would one day fall into the sultan’s lap, ‘as the ripe fruit falls from the tree’, but that this golden fruit was not ripe yet. By imposing a punitive peace settlement, that day could be hastened. He proposed the demand of a massive 70,000 ducats as a yearly tribute from the emperor to lift the siege.

  The war party strenuously opposed this line. Zaganos replied that the campaign should be pursued with intensified vigour, that the arrival of the Genoese ships only underlined the need for a decisive blow. It was a key moment. The Ottoman command recognized that their fortunes had reached a critical point but the intensity of the debate also reflected awareness amongst the leading viziers that they were arguing for their influence with the sultan, and ultimately their own survival. Mehmet sat on his dais above the debate whilst the rivals jockeyed for position, but by temperament and inclination he was always of the war party. The council decided by a clear majority to continue the campaign. An answer was sent back to Constantine that peace could only result from an immediate surrender of the city. The sultan would cede the Peloponnese to Constantine and compensate his brothers who currently held it. It was an offer designed to be refused and it duly was. Constantine had his own awareness of the obligations of history and stood in the shoes of his father. When the Ottomans were at the gates in 1397 Manuel II had been heard to murmur: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, let it not come to pass that the great multitude of Christian people should hear it said that it was in the days of the Emperor Manuel that the City, with all its sacred and venerable monuments of the Faith, was delivered to the infidel.’ In this spirit, the emperor would fight to the last. The siege went on, while the war party, feeling the growing pressure of events, resolved to intensify the conflict.

  Three miles away the assault on the city continued regardless, propelled by an integrated plan of attack that was secret to all but Mehmet and his generals. A huge bombardment of the land walls, which had commenced the day before, continued without ceasing throughout the night and into the day of the military council. The Ottoman fire was concentrated on the wall near the St Romanus Gate in the Lycus valley, the section of the defences that both sides knew to be most vulnerable.

  Under incessant gunfire, a major tower, the Bactatinian, collapsed and several yards of outer wall fell with it. A sizeable breach had been effected and the defenders were suddenly exposed. ‘This was the start of fear of those in the city and in the fleet,’ recorded Nicolo Barbaro. ‘We did not doubt that they wanted to make an all-out attack right away; everyone generally believed that they would soon see Turkish turbans inside the city.’ What demoralized the defenders was again the speed with which the Ottoman guns could demolish apparently redoubtable defences when sufficient firepower was concentrated on a single spot. ‘For such a big stretch of the wall had been ruined by the bombardment that everyone thought himself lost, considering how in a few days they had destroyed so much of the wall.’ It seemed obvious to the defenders looking out from the gaping hole that a concerted attack at this point ‘with only ten thousand men’ would result in certain loss of the city. They waited for the inevitable assault but Mehmet and all the military command were at the Double Columns debating the future of the campaign and no order was given. In comparison to the fragmented volunteer nature of the Christian defence that relied heavily on individual initiative, it seemed that the Ottoman troops only responded to central directives. Nothing happened to press home the advantage of the guns and the defenders had time to regroup.

  Under cover of darkness Giustiniani and his men set about making running repairs to the damaged wall. ‘These repairs were made with barrels filled with stones and earth, and behind them there was made a very wide ditch with a dam at the end of it, which was covered with strips of vine and other layers of branches drenched with water to make them solid, so that it was as strong as the wall had been.’ This stockade of wood, earth and stones continued to be effective, smothering the force of the giant stone balls. Somehow these ad hoc repairs were undertaken in the face of continuous fire from ‘their huge cannon and from their other cannon, and from very many guns, countless bows and many hand guns’. Barbaro’s account of the day closes with a final haunting image of the enemy, swarming and alien, a glimpse of horror to the ship’s doctor: the ground in front of the wall ‘could not be seen, because it was covered by the Turks, particularly Janissaries, who are the bravest soldiers the Great Turk has, and also many of the Sultan’s slaves, who could be recognised by their white turbans, while the ordinary Turks wore red turbans’. Still no attack came. It was apparent that good luck – and ‘our merciful Lord Jesus Christ, who is full of compassion’ – had spared the city that day.

  Events on 21 April seem suddenly to speed up and overlap each other, as if both sides recognized a moment of significant intensity. For the defenders it was a process of continuous reaction; without the resources to make sorties, they could only watch from within the triangle of the ancient walls, trust in the firmness of their fortifications and wait, rushing to each particular crisis, plugging
gaps – and quarrelling. Blown back and forth by hope and despair, by rumours of attack and relieving armies, they worked ceaselessly to hold the line and they looked west for the smudge of approaching sails.

  Mehmet seems to be have been spurred into a frenzy of activity by the events of these days. The failure of his navy, the fear of relief, the pessimism of his troops: these were the problems which occupied him on the 21st. He moved restlessly around the perimeter of the city, from the red and gold tent to the Double Columns to his troops above Galata, analyzing the problem in three dimensions, viewing the ‘golden fruit’ from different angles, turning it over in his mind. His desire for Constantinople went back to his childhood. From his first distant views of the city as a boy to his nocturnal ramblings through the streets of Adrianople in the winter of 1452 the city was an obsession that had informed his intense preoccupation with Western treatises on siege warfare, the preliminary studies of the terrain, the detailed sketches of the walls. Mehmet was incessant in its pursuit: asking questions, garnering resources and technical skills, interrogating spies, storing information. The obsession was linked to secrecy, learned young in the dangerous world of the Ottoman court, which made him keep plans close to himself until they were ripe. On being asked once about a future campaign, Mehmet is reputed to have refused a direct answer and replied: ‘Be certain that if I knew that one of the hairs of my beard had learned my secret, I would pull it out and consign it to the flames.’ His next move was to be similarly guarded.

  The problem, he reasoned, was the chain that guarded the entrance to the Horn. It barred his navy from pressurizing the city from more than one side and allowed the defenders to concentrate their meagre forces on defending the land walls, diminishing his huge numerical advantage. Ottoman guns had destroyed Constantine’s defensive wall across the Isthmus at Corinth in a week, but here, although the great cannon had certainly blasted holes in Theodosius’s ancient structure, progress had been slower than he had hoped. Seen from the outside, the defensive system was too complex and many-layered and the ditch too deep for quick results. Furthermore Giustiniani had proved to be a strategist of genius. His marshalling of limited manpower and materials had been highly effective: earth had succeeded where stone had failed and the line had held – just.