CHAPTER XI

TOPOGRAPHY OF CONSTANTINOPLE; DISPOSITION OF MAHOMET’S FORCES AND CANNON; ESTIMATE OF FIGHTING MEN UNDER EMPEROR; VENETIANS AND GENOESE: DISPARITY IN NUMBERS: ARMS AND EQUIPMENT: ATTACKS ON THERAPIA AND PRINKIPO.

[Sidenote: Topography of Constantinople.]

In order to understand these dispositions and the operations of the siege which had now begun it is necessary to take account of the topography of the city. Constantinople in modern times comprises not only Stamboul but the large and even more populous district situated on the northern shore of the Golden Horn. This district was known in mediaeval times as Pera.[238] On the slope of Pera hill towards the Horn the Genoese were in possession of a walled city called Galata. Sometimes this city is described as Galata of Pera. In modern times, however, Pera is the name of the city on the north of the Golden Horn, exclusive of Galata. In 1453 what is now known as Stamboul was the only portion of the present city to which the name Constantinople was applied.[239]

The city about to be besieged is situated on a peninsula at the south-west extremity of the Bosporus. It is, roughly speaking, an isosceles triangle with its base to landward. One of the sides is bounded by the Marmora and the other by the Golden Horn. It was surrounded by walls, which, with a few short intervals, still remain. On the two sides bounded by the sea they were built close to the water’s edge. In the course of centuries the Golden Horn had silted up a deposit of mud which even before 1453 formed a foreshore outside the north walls of a sufficient extent to have allowed Cantacuzenus to open a foss from Seraglio Point to Aivan Serai, formerly known as Cynegion. The side of the triangle most open to attack was that which faced the land and extended from the Horn to the Marmora. The walls on this landward side, constructed mainly during the reign of Theodosius the Second, had proved themselves during a period of a thousand years sufficiently strong to have enabled the citizens successfully to resist upwards of twenty sieges, and previous to the introduction of cannon were justly regarded as invulnerable.[240]

The landward walls are four miles long. From the Marmora to a point where the land has a steep slope for about half a mile down to the Golden Horn, they are triple. The inner and loftiest is about forty feet high and is strengthened by towers sixty feet high along its whole length and distant from each other usually about one hundred and eighty feet. Outside this wall is a second, about twenty-five feet high, with towers similar to though smaller than those along the inner wall. This wall alone is of a strength that in any other mediaeval city would have been considered efficient.

Between these two walls was the Peribolos or enclosure, which, though of varying width, is usually between fifty and sixty feet broad. Outside the second was yet another wall, which was a continuation in height of the scarp or inner wall of the ditch or foss and which may conveniently be called a breastwork. This breastwork, like the other two, was crenellated. Though, from the fact that it has been easier of access than either of the others, the summit has mostly perished, some portions of it are still complete. It is important, however, to note that the third wall or breastwork is disregarded by contemporary writers, and that they speak of the second as the Outer Wall. A second enclosure, called by the Greeks the Parateichion to distinguish it from the Peribolos, exists between the second and the third walls. The foss or ditch, which has withstood four and a half centuries of exposure since it last served as the first line of defence, is still in good condition. It has a width of about sixty feet.

The landward wall contained a number of gates which are conveniently described as Civil Gates and which during times of peace gave access to the city over bridges which were destroyed when it was besieged. The most important of these for our present purpose are the Chariseus, the modern Adrianople Gate; Top Capou or Cannon Gate, known in earlier times as the St. Romanus Gate, and the Pegè or Gate of the Springs, now called Silivria Gate. Besides these there were Military Gates leading from the city through the inner wall into the enclosures which were known in earlier times by their numbers (counting from the Marmora end of the walls) or from the division of the army stationed near them. The most noteworthy of these were the Third or Triton and the Fifth or Pempton. The latter is in the Lycus valley, about halfway between Top Capou and the Gate of Adrianople, and was spoken of during the siege as the St. Romanus Gate.[241]

As the most important military events in the history of the siege of Constantinople took place in the valley of the Lycus, between the Top Capou on the south and the Adrianople Gate on the north of the valley, it is desirable that the configuration of the locality should be noted carefully. Each of these gates is upon the summit of a hill, the Adrianople Gate indeed being the highest point in the city and, as such, having had near it, as is the almost invariable rule in lands occupied by Greeks, a church dedicated to St. George, who took the place of Apollo when the empire became Christian.[242] Between the two gates exists a valley, about a hundred feet below their level, which is drained by a small stream called the Lycus. The distance between the two gates is seven eighths of a mile. The double walls of Theodosius connect them, while in front of the Outer Wall was an enclosure with the usual breastwork forming the side of the foss. The Lycus enters below these walls through a well-constructed passage still in existence, and flows through the city until it empties itself into the Marmora at Vlanga Bostan. The tower beneath which it has been led is halfway between the Adrianople Gate and Top Capou. About two hundred yards to the north of this tower is the Fifth Military Gate or Pempton, spoken of sometimes by the Byzantines as the Gate of St. Kyriakè, from a church within the city which was close to it, called the Romanus Gate by the writers on the siege, and on old Turkish maps described as Hedjoum Capou or the Gate of the Assault.[243] The foss has a number of dams at irregular distances down each side of the valley. In its lowest part no dams were necessary.[244]

The walls between Top Capou and the Adrianople Gate were known as the Mesoteichion, and the name seems to have been applied also to the whole of the valley. The portion of the walls on either side of the Adrianople Gate, or perhaps those only on the high ground to the north of it, was known as the Myriandrion--a name which was applied occasionally to the Gate itself. From a tower to which Leonard gives the name Bactatinian, near where the Lycus entered the city, to Top Capou, the walls were described as the Bachaturean.

Though the two magnificent Theodosian walls were as well constructed as elsewhere, and to the eye of an ordinary observer the city was as strongly protected in the Lycus valley as anywhere, yet this place appears to have been considered by many of the enemies of the city as its weakest point. Here, says Dethier, with whom Professor Van Millingen agrees, was the Heel of Achilles.[245] Many previous invaders, ending with Murad in 1422, had encamped in the Mesoteichion as the most suitable position for an attack upon the city.[246]

The accompanying sketch of the walls will show their general plan.

Under normal conditions a large detachment of the defenders of such high lines of walls ought to have been on the city side of the great Inner Wall. So few, however, were the besieged, that all had to pass into the enclosures to meet the enemy at the second or Outer Wall. Partly because of the small number of men, but partly also because it had been allowed to get out of repair,[247] the Inner Wall, which, as the highest and strongest, ought to have been the most serious obstacle, was hardly relied upon as a means of defence. Chalcondylas says[248] that the emperor and the leading Greeks deliberated as to where the enemy was to be resisted, and that they decided that they should defend the Outer Wall, which was strengthened by the foss in front of it, as had been done when Murad had attacked the city thirty-one years before. Leonard expressly states that the imperial troops were sufficient to guard only the Outer Wall, and the stockade which, at a late period of the siege, replaced a portion of it. As his own countrymen took part in this task, his testimony is entirely credible.[249] He adds, however, that in his opinion this plan of defence was a blunder; that he was always persuaded that the lofty Inner Wall ought to have been kept ready as a refuge in case of retreat; that those walls which, through neglect or hard weather, had become broken or useless for operations against the enemy, might have been repaired even within the time which elapsed between the proposal for war and the commencement of the siege. Had they been repaired and guarded, they would have provided a reserve of safety to the city. It is when regretting that these repairs were not undertaken that, while excusing the emperor, Leonard breaks out into indignation, justifiable if his belief was well founded[250] against two persons in particular, Jagarus and a monk named Neophytus who had embezzled the moneys which had been bequeathed for the repair of the walls, and declares that the city was lost through the rascality of public robbers. Through their dishonesty, the besieged were driven to place all their hope in the Outer Wall and the foss. The Jews, he adds, were more prudent who when, at the siege of Jerusalem, they were defeated at the first wall, retreated to the second, and then to the third, by which they prolonged the siege of Vespasian and Titus for four years.

Probably the opinion of the soldiers on such a question was worth more than that of the archbishop.[251]

Under these circumstances, the defenders of the city took up their position in the Peribolos or enclosure. The broken Inner Wall was behind them, the strong Outer Wall was in front. The Military Gates from the city into the enclosure were few and far between, there being only one usually in the long distance between the Civil Gates. The only other entrances into the enclosures were at the ends terminating at the Civil Gates.

[Sidenote: Disposition of Mahomet’s army.]

With this explanation we may now understand the disposition of his troops and cannon made by Mahomet. He placed Zagan Pasha at the head of an army which was charged to guard the whole of Pera, to watch the Genoese in Galata and the whole of the northern shore of the Golden Horn, together with a part of the southern shore as far as the Woodgate or Xyloporta, which was at the extremity of the landward walls. He was ordered to build a bridge over the upper portion of the Horn, so that his troops might take part in the attack upon the city.

The attack upon the landward walls between the Woodgate and up the hill in front of the palaces of Blachern and Porphyrogenitus, and as far as the Chariseus or Adrianople Gate, was entrusted to Caraja Pasha, the head of the European division. Certain of the guns were given to him in order that he might attack the wall at one of its weakest parts, probably where it runs at right angles to the end of the foss.

Isaac Pasha, the head of the Asiatic troops, and Mahmoud, both men who had had great experience in war, commanded the Asiatic division, which covered the ground between Top Capou and the Marmora.

The most important position, however, was that which existed between the Adrianople Gate and Top Capou known as the Mesoteichion. This was the place which Mahomet chose as the principal point of attack. There, he considered, was the Achilles’ heel of the city. There, with Halil Pasha under him, were his head-quarters. His lofty tent of red and gold[252] was pitched about a quarter of a mile from the walls on a small knoll, which is described as opposite the Adrianople Gate and also as opposite that of Romanus. His tent was surrounded by those of the invincible Janissaries who, with other chosen troops, constituted his bodyguard and occupied the same valley.

The Turkish army extended in front of the entire length of the landward walls. The Turks had dug a trench for their own defence in front of the whole of their line, and had placed a wooden palisade upon the earth thus dug out. This was quite near the edge of the foss itself and was pierced at intervals, so that, while it protected the besiegers, it also allowed them to keep up a constant fire on the besieged.[253]

On the Marmora the walls were to be watched by the fleet under Baltoglu from the southern end of the landward walls, round the present Seraglio Point as far as Neorion, which was near the end of the boom. The main object of the fleet was, however, to force an entry into the harbour, and for this purpose to capture or destroy the ships at the boom, an object which Baltoglu attempted to attain from the very commencement of the siege.[254]

The city was thus under attack on two sides, the third--namely, that looking over the Golden Horn--protected by the boom, was for the present inaccessible to the Turkish fleet.

The difficulty of determining the number and disposition of Mahomet’s cannon opposite the landward walls arises from the fact that the position of several of them was changed and that their numbers possibly varied. Phrantzes mentions fourteen batteries along the length of the wall, each containing four guns. Barbaro speaks of nine batteries. Montaldo says that the Turks had in all two hundred guns or ‘torments.’[255] Each of the nine batteries was strengthened by the addition of a heavy gun. Critobulus represents Mahomet as stating after his guns had done their work that he had opened a way into the city at three places, and this declaration affords a safe guide to the general disposition of the cannon. These were, first, between the present Tekfour Serai and the Adrianople Gate; second, opposite or near the Pempton or Gate of the Assault (usually spoken of by contemporaries as the Romanus Gate[256]) in the Lycus valley, and the last near the Third Military Gate between the Pegè or Silivria Gate, and the Rhegium Gate, now called Mevlevihana Capou. Here were the three principal stations of Mahomet’s cannon. At these three places the ruined condition of the wall bears testimony to the vigorous attack of cannon. At them and nowhere else is it possible to pass over the foss, the breastwork and Outer Wall, and to see that the Inner Wall has been so broken down that a passage into the city was possible.[257]

Three cannon are especially remembered on account of their great size. According to Leonard, the largest--that, namely, cast by Urban, which threw a ball of twelve hundred pounds weight--was first placed at Caligaria[258] which then, as now, was ‘protected neither by a foss nor by a front wall.’ It was destroyed either by the besieged or through an accident by which Urban was killed, after it had done considerable damage to the walls.[259] It was, however, recast and transferred to the Lycus valley, where it demolished the Bactatinean tower.[260] The statement of Chalcondylas is that of these three large guns one was stationed opposite the Imperial Palace, probably at Caligaria, the second opposite the Romanus Gate, where the sultan had fixed his camp, and the third between them.[261]

The largest and most powerful gun remained during the siege at the Mesoteichion, in front of the imperial tent.[262]

These cannon are variously described as bombards, machines, skeves, helepoles (or ‘takers of cities’), torments, heleboles, and teleboles. They threw stone balls of great size. The balls had been brought from the Black Sea. The largest, says Chalcondylas, was fired seven times a day and once each night. Archbishop Leonard states that he measured one which had been fired over the wall, and found it to be eleven spans (or eighty-eight inches) in circumference. Nor is such measurement exaggerated. Some of the stone balls have been preserved. They were probably fired over the wall, did not break, and remain nearly in the position where they fell. I have measured two of them, and they are exactly eighty-eight inches in circumference.[263] Tetaldi states that there were ten thousand culverins, and the same number is given by Montaldo. The number is possibly exaggerated. Yet Leonard speaks of ‘innumerable machines’ being advanced towards the wall, and afterwards of a great number of small guns being employed to batter the walls along all their lines. None of the cannon, I think, were mounted on wheels: the Great Cannon certainly was not, for Critobulus describes how it was first carefully pointed towards the object intended to be struck, and then embedded in its position with blocks of wood preparatory to firing.

Contemporaneously with the disposal of the large cannon, orders were given to fill up the ditch in front of them.

[Sidenote: Constantine’s army.]

When we turn from the preparations made by Mahomet to besiege the city to those which the emperor and the citizens had made or were making, the first point which strikes us is the enormous disparity in numbers which the respective leaders had under them. To meet the mighty host of trained warriors under Mahomet, the emperor had only about eight thousand men. This is the estimate in which nearly all writers concur. Phrantzes had exceptional means of forming a judgment on this point. He states[264] that Constantine ordered a census to be made of all men, including monks, capable of bearing arms, and that when the lists were sent in he was charged with making the summary. This showed that there were four thousand nine hundred and eighty-three available Greeks and scarcely two thousand foreigners. The result was so appalling that he was charged by the emperor not to let it be known. The estimate made by Phrantzes, though almost incredible, is substantially confirmed by other writers. Tetaldi says that there were between six thousand and seven thousand combatants within the city ‘and not more.’[265] Leonard makes the number a little higher and gives as an estimate six thousand Greeks and three thousand foreigners. Dolfin, probably following Leonard, arrives at a like conclusion. Ducas says that ‘there were not more than eight thousand.’

The powerful contingent of three thousand Italians is worthy of separate notice. Nearly all were of Venetian or Genoese origin. In them the city had the aid of men belonging to the most virile communities in the Mediterranean. The story of the trading establishments in the Levant, the Archipelago, and the Black Sea belonging to the citizens of Venice and Genoa is a brilliant record of daring, of adventure, and of energy. The expansion of the two states began about the time of the Latin conquest. Everywhere along these shores are the remains of castles built by Genoese or Venetians during the two centuries preceding the Moslem conquest. Dandolo had played the most important part in the capture of the city in 1204, and the capture gave Venice the sovereignty of the seas. The Genoese had aided the Greeks to recapture the city. Each republic had gained territory in Eastern lands. Each owned certain islands in the Aegean. The Genoese had succeeded in forming a large and important colony in Galata, which was now a fortified city. To check Turkish progress was almost as important to the republics as to the Greeks. Venetians and Genoese recognised that once Constantinople was in the hands of the sultan, there would be an end of their development eastward of Cape Matapan. They were, therefore, both fighting for their own interests. They had much to lose and nothing to gain by the success of Mahomet. Nor were the soldiers of the republics destitute of chivalrous spirit. The rough sailor-surgeon, Barbaro, notes that other Venetians as well as Trevisano were willing to fight for the honour of God and the benefit of Christendom. Leonard and other writers testify to equally lofty sentiment on the part of the Genoese Justiniani. In their character and conduct, not less than in their mixed motives, derived from self-interest and chivalry, these foreign adventurers remind English readers of the Drakes, Frobishers, Raleighs, and other heroes of our own Elizabethan period. Unhappily for the city and for civilisation, Venice was unable to send more men before the final catastrophe. But to the eternal glory of the Venetians within the city, whose names are duly recorded by Barbaro ‘for a perpetual memorial,’ and of the Genoese who aided them, the conduct of the combatants from both republics was worthy of the compatriots of Marco Polo and of Columbus.

On the one side was an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, containing at least twelve thousand of the best trained troops in the world; on the other, a miserable number of eight thousand fighting men to defend a length of between twelve and thirteen miles of walls.

The emperor, with Justiniani, completed the arrangements for the defence of the city. Justiniani with the seven hundred men he had brought with him to Constantinople, consisting of his crew and four hundred men in armour,[266] was at first placed in charge of the walls between the Blachern Palace and the Adrianople Gate, but was soon transferred with his men and some of the bravest Greeks to the Lycus valley as the position of greatest importance, honour, and danger. The emperor himself fixed his headquarters in the same position. In this valley the choicest troops of the city and those of the sultan were thus face to face. Between the Adrianople Gate and Tekfour Serai was a contingent of Italians under three brothers, Paul, Antony, and Troilus Bocchiardo. They were stationed, says Phrantzes, at the Myriandrion, because there the city was in great jeopardy;[267] Leonard says, ‘in loco arduo Myriandri;’ Dolfin, speaking of the same place under a somewhat different name, says ‘in loco arduo Miliadro, dove pareva la cita piu debole.’[268] This contingent had been provided by the Bocchiardi at their own cost. The men were furnished with spingards and balistas for hurling stones at the enemy. The Caligaria--that is, the gate of that name, now called Egri Capou or Crooked Gate--and the walls thence as far as Tekfour Serai were defended by Caristo, an old Venetian, and by a German named John Grant, who had taken service with the emperor. Over the imperial palace at Blachern waved the flag of the Lion of St. Mark side by side with the banner of the emperor, to denote that Minotto, the Venetian bailey, was in command in that district. Archbishop Leonard and other Genoese, together with Hieronymus, were with him to assist in defending the walls as far as the Xyloporta on the edge of the Golden Horn.

On the emperor’s left the walls were guarded by Cataneo and Theophilus Palaeologus at the Silivria Gate, while Contarini, the most renowned member of the Venetian colony, and Andronicus Cantacuzenus defended the walls around the Golden Gate and to the sea.[269] Under these leaders, along the whole length of the landward wall, Genoese, Venetians, and Greeks fought side by side.

Between a tower in the current off Seraglio Point and the Imperial Gate--that is, at the Acropolis, and thus guarding the entrance to the harbour[270]--Gabriel Trevisano, already mentioned as the Venetian noble who was serving ‘per honor de Dio et per honor di tuta la Christianitade’ was in command.[271] There, says Leonard, he did his duty as a shepherd and not as a hireling.

Near him for the present were the captains and the crews of the two Cretan ships who kept the Horaia Gate. Cardinal Isidore was at Seraglio Point with a body of two hundred men guarding the walls commencing at the Great Tower of St. Demetrius. James Contarini was stationed at Psamatia and guarded the western portion of the Marmora walls. The Caloyers or Greek monks were also in this part of the city, and near them was a small band of Turkish mercenaries under the command of Orchan.[272] The Grand Duke Notaras with a small reserve of men was near the church of the Apostles, now occupied by the Mahmoudieh Mosque, to render aid wherever it might be required.[273] Lastly, Diedo, who had been made admiral of the fleet, was stationed near the end of the boom.[274]

The cannon possessed by the besieged seem to have been few and of little value. Leonard relates that they were short of powder and of arms, and that it was impossible to use the cannon on account of the damage they were found to do to their own walls. Zorzo Dolfin confirms these statements and adds that the Venetians were short of saltpetre.[275]

The emperor and Justiniani had collected arms and various kinds of missiles, shot and arrows, and all sorts of machines.[276]

Each army was equipped in much the same manner. Modern, mediaeval and ancient arms and equipment were employed side by side with each other. We read of dolabras, of wooden turrets, and of the Turks raising their shields above their heads and making a testudo.[277] Stone shot are thrown by the great slings, or catapults, known as mangonels or trebuchets, as well as by cannon. While each side relied largely on the bow, each side also discharged missiles at the other from arquebuses and culverins. Long-bows were so numerous in the Turkish army that the discharge of arrows from them is described by more than one author as darkening the sky. Cross-bows appear also in the description of the siege under the names of balistae and spingards. ‘The archers,’ says La Brocquière, ‘were the best troops the Turks possessed.’[278] The ordinary soldier in the Turkish army was armed with a wooden shield and a scimitar. A few, among both the besiegers and the besieged, were armed with lances.

Uniformity in equipment or dress was not even attempted. Tetaldi says that in the Turkish army less than a fourth were armed with hauberks and wore jacques--that is, quilted tunics of cotton or leather, well padded;[279] that some were well armed in French, some in Hungarian, fashion, some in other modes; some had iron helmets, and others long-bows or cross-bows.

The Janissaries were trained to act either as cavalry or infantry. They carried bows and small wooden shields, and were further armed with a long lance or with a scimitar. The Anatolian division was composed mostly of cavalry. Leonard, however, points out that though the cavalry were numerous they fought as infantry. Philelphus, who was a contemporary envoy at the Porte, states that the Anatolian troops were armed with scimitars, maces, and small shields.

The great superiority of the Turks as regards arms was in the cannon. While, as we have seen, the besieged could not use such cannon as they had for fear of destroying the walls from which they were fired, the Turk was under no such disadvantage, and was entirely up to date with the very latest improvements in heavy guns. The siege of Constantinople in fact marks an era in the employment of large cannon and gave to the world the first noteworthy intimation that the stone walls of the Middle Ages constituted no longer a secure defence. Cannon had, indeed, been known a century and a half earlier in Western Europe, and had been employed both by and against the Turks on the Danube;[280] but the astonishment which the introduction of large cannon caused at the siege of Constantinople shows that while the invention itself was new to the people of the East, its development was hardly less surprising to those of the West. Critobulus remarks upon the siege that ‘it was the cannon which did everything.’ So novel was the invention that he gives a detailed account of the casting of one of the big guns, and explains how the powder was made, how the gun was mounted and loaded, and how it fired its stone ball. ‘When fire is applied to the touch-hole, the powder lights quicker than thought. The discharge makes the earth around it to tremble, and sends forth an incredible roar. The stone ball passes out with irresistible force and energy, strikes the wall at which it has been aimed, overthrows it, and is itself dashed into a thousand pieces.’ No wall was so hard or had such power of resistance that it could withstand the shock. Such is the incredible and unthinkable nature of the machine to which, as the ancient tongue had no name for it, he suggests that of helepolis or ‘Taker of Cities.’

In the early days of the siege, or possibly just before it began, Mahomet attacked all the Greek villages which had escaped the savagery of the troops in their march to the capital. Some kind of fortification existed at Therapia on the Bosporus. This was attacked by the Janissaries. Many of its defenders were slain, and the remainder, consisting of forty men, seeing that resistance was useless, surrendered. They were all impaled. Another fortification, known as Studium, was similarly attacked. Its thirty-six survivors were taken to a spot near the wall, so that they might be seen by the citizens, and were there impaled. At the island of Prinkipo the round tower still exists which had been a place of refuge for the protection of the inmates of the adjacent monastery. The monastery itself had been used as a place of retreat for the princely members of the imperial family, and had thus given its name to the Princes Islands. Baltoglu was sent with a portion of the fleet to attack it. Although he had cannon with him, he was unable to destroy its solid Byzantine masonry, and the thirty well-armed defenders refused to surrender. His crews thereupon cut down the neighbouring brushwood, and with this, with straw, and with sulphur, he smoked out the garrison. While some perished in the flames, others broke through the burning materials and surrendered. The admiral killed those who were armed, and sold into slavery the other inhabitants of the island.[281]