May 29, 1453: Honoring The Fall of Constantinople

Published by The National Herald, May 27, 2005

Constantine XI Palaeologos (1404-1453), also called Dragases, the last Byzantine emperor, was born in Mystras, the son of Emperor Manuel II, in 1404. He was trained as a soldier, and in 1430 liberated the peninsula of the Morea in Greece, which had been under the Frankish principality of Achaia, a state established by the Crusaders.

In 1442, the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Murad II besieged Constantinople, which was defended by Emperor John VIII Palaeologos, while Constantine fought the Turks on the island of Limnos. There, Constantine lost his wife Katherine.

In 1444, Constantine and his brother Thomas led a small army and liberated Roumeli and Thessalia. The Greek populations loved and admired their leader. They called him "Drakos." Those were the last victories of Byzantine Empire.

The famed neo-platonic philosopher George Gemistos (Plethon), who had created the school of Philosophy in Athens, was John VIII’s friend. He was teaching Greek Philosophy in Mystras. He advised the Emperor to pursue an agrarian policy (i.e., the equitable redistribution of property owned by the Church and the wealthy among the poor farming class). When John traveled to Italy for the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1437-39), Plethon escorted him, along with other Byzantine intellectuals (e.g., Bessarion and George Scholarios). There, the Latins argued with the Greeks about doctrines of the Christian faith and ended up imposing a false union of the Churches, to which the Greeks agreed primarily because, after two long years of incessant debate, they were tired and hungry (as a result of being maltreated by their Latin hosts) and wanted to go home, and because they had hoped the "union" would spur the West to send much-needed military assistance against the ever-advancing Turkish hordes.

In 1446, Murad reconquered and devastated Greek lands. The Turks had begun their invasions of the Balkans nearly a century before, and now began to close in on Constantinople.

Constantine was crowned emperor on 6 January 6 1449, succeeding his brother, John VIII. The last Greek Christian Emperor entered the isolated imperial capital two months later, on March 12. A little less than three years later, on 12 December 1452, the "union" of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches was proclaimed in Constantinople in the presence of the papal nuncio and Patriarch Gregory.

For political reasons, Constantine had been a strong advocate of this union, but the people generally opposed it (swayed by the Orthodox positions spelled out by Mark of Ephesus, who solidly refuted the Latin arguments in Ferrara and Florence a few years earlier), and riots ensued. The popular insistence on Byzantine religious autonomy manifested the estrangement between Eastern and Western Roman Christendom and weakened Byzantine resistance to the Turks. The Catholics never sent army or navy, as they had promised. They allowed the most glorious Christian city and their Orthodox Christian brethren to be destroyed and pillaged by Moslem oppressors.

In 1452, Sultan Mehmed II, Murad's son, constructed Rumeli Hisar, a huge complex of strong fortifications at the narrowest point of the Bosporus strait, the purpose of which was to completely shut down, by its artillery, Euxeinos Pontos, the route to and from the Black Sea used by Western and Byzantine vessels. Indeed, near the end of 1452, a Venetian vessel attempted to pass without paying the required tolls. The new fortress’s guns sank it, and its crew of 30 men was taken prisoner. The officers and sailors were brought to the Sultan, who ordered they be immediately impaled.

Mehmed advanced on Constantinople in the beginning of 1453. Troops came from every region of the Empire, including thousands of irregulars from many nationalities who were attracted by the prospect of looting. The regular troops were well-equipped and well-trained. The elite corps of the Janissaries (composed of abducted Christian children forcibly converted to Islam, and subsequently trained as professional soldiers) constituted the spearhead of the Ottoman army.

The besieging army included a number of artillery pieces, which were made with the help of a Romanian named Ourvanos. The largest cannons were pointed toward the Military Gate of Saint Romanos, and were expected to cause heavy damage to the 1,000-year-old walls in that area. The Ottoman army, joined by crowds of fanatic Dervishes, gradually started moving towards Constantinople. The Sultan’s army soon occupied a few small towns, still in Greek hands near the capital. His army had 200,000 soldiers (29,000 of them of European origin).

Only 10,000 soldiers were defending Constantinople (3,000 of them European). Among the Europeans who had come to help was the brave Giovanni Giustiniani. He was from the Italian maritime republic of Genoa, where he recruited 400 men. He recruited another 300 from the island of Chios. Also welcome and valuable was the assistance of German engineer, Johannes Grant, who managed to destroy all the tunnels the Sultan attempted to build to enter to the City.

The defenders lacked in training and armament, but they possessed fierce fighting spirit. Indeed, most died in battle. The civilian population overwhelmingly supported the Emperor. The alternative was disastrous. All able-bodied people, both men and women, participated in the repairs of the walls; volunteers manned observation posts; food provisions were collected; gold and silver objects held in the churches were melted to make coins in order to pay foreign soldiers; the city’s harbor, the Golden Horn, was shut by a huge chain. With the exception of some 700 Italian residents of the City who fled on board seven ships on the night of February 26, all held their ground. The rest of the population, both Greek and foreigner, fought until the bitter end.

During the first week of April 1453, the Ottoman troops began taking their assigned positions in front of the City walls. The Sultan had his tent installed north of the civil Gate of St. Romanos, near the river Lycos, facing the 5th Military Gate (also known as Military Gate of St. Romanos). He ordered the big cannon to be installed in the same area. To protect the troops, a protective trench was opened in front of the Ottoman units, the earth removed from it was piled on the City side, and a palisade was erected on top of it. On April 12, the Ottoman fleet arrived from Gallipolis. Composed of approximately 200 ships of various sizes, it sealed the Byzantine capital from the sea. Mehmed’s admiral was the Bulgarian renegade, Suleiman Baltoghlu.

Inside the City’s walls, the Emperor distributed his troops as best as he could. With the available garrison, it was impossible to cover the entire walled circumference of the capital, which was about 14 miles long. But it was clear to all that the main attack would be delivered by the enemy along the main land walls, a stretch of walls about four miles long. With the exception of the Blachernae section of the walls on the northeastern end of the landside, the City was protected, on its landside, by a triple wall. On the seaside, including the Golden Horn port area, a single wall protected the City.

Given the availability of troops and the critical sections of the walls, Giustiniani, with most of his men, as well as the Emperor and his best troops, took position in the St. Romanos Military Gate, where heavy damage was expected to be inflicted by the cannon and the main Ottoman assault to be launched. The Venetian Bailo (the leader of the Venetian community at Constantinople) Girolamo Minotto and his countrymen were charged with the defense of the Blachernae sector, where the Imperial Palace was located. Minotto and his men faced the European troops of Karadja Pasha.

Across the Golden Horn, to the left of Pera, the troops of Zaganos Pasha stood ready to intervene. Along the southern section of the land walls, the defenders faced the Anatolian troops under the command of Ishak Pasha. The Grand Duke, Loucas Notaras, took position near the walls with a reserve unit at the Petra neighborhood in the northeastern section of the city. Another reserve unit was stationed near the church of the Holy Apostles, near the center of the city. Most units were positioned on and behind the land walls. The sea walls were thinly manned. To protect the entrance to the port, the Venetian commander of the small fleet of the defenders, Alviso Diedo, ordered ten ships to take position behind the chain.

According to Islamic tradition, the Sultan, before the beginning of hostilities, demanded the surrender of the city, promising to spare the lives of its inhabitants and respect their property. In a proud and dignified reply the Emperor rejected Mehmed’s demand.

Almost immediately, the Ottoman guns began firing. The continuous bombardment soon brought down a section of the walls near the Gate of Charisios, north of the Emperor’s position. When night fell, everyone who was available rushed to repair the damage. Meanwhile, Ottoman troops were trying to enter, particularly in areas in front of the weakened sections of the walls, which were now constantly bombarded. Other units began attempts to mine weak sections of the wall. In the port area, the first attempt by the Ottoman fleet to test the defenders’ reaction failed.

Ottoman guns did not stop pounding the walls until the end of the siege. Heavy damage was inflicted. The defenders did their best to limit the damage. They hanged bales of wool, sheets of leather. Nothing was helping. The section of the walls in the Lycos valley near the Emperor’s position was heavily damaged. The area in front of it was almost filled by the besiegers. Behind it, the defenders erected a stockade. Night after night, men and women came from the city to help repair the damaged sections.

The first major assault was launched on the night of April 18. Thousands of enemy soldiers attacked the stockade and attempted to burn it down. The Emperor and his Greek comrades fought valiantly. Well armed, protected by armor, fighting in a restricted area, they succeeded, after four hours of bloody struggle, in repulsing the attack.

On Friday morning, April 20, five large vessels loaded with provisions for the City appeared in the Sea of Marmara, near Constantinople. Four were Genoese and one, a big transport, was Greek. The Greek captain’s name was Flantanellas. Admiral Baltoghlu dispatched his fleet immediately to attack and capture the ships. The operation seemed easy, and soon, the smaller Ottoman vessels surrounded the ships. Everyone in the city, who was not busy with defense operations, rushed to the sea walls to watch the spectacle. The Sultan on horseback, his officers and a multitude of soldiers, rushed to the shore to watch the battle. Excited and unable to restrain himself, screaming orders at Baltoghlu, the young Sultan rode into the shallow water. Fighting, the big ships continued pushing the smaller ones, and helped by the wind they were now close to the southeastern corner of the city. Then the wind dropped, and the current began pushing them towards the coast, on which stood the Sultan and his troops. The fighting continued, with Christian sailors hurling stones, javelins and all sorts of projectiles on the enemy crews, including Greek Fire. Eventually, the four vessels came so close to each other that they became bound together, forming a floating castle. Around sunset, the wind rose and the big ships, pushing their way through the mass and wrecks, of the enemy vessels, hailed by thousands of people standing on the walls, entered the Golden Horn. The next morning, Baltoghlu was dismissed by the Sultan, who was so furious, he ordered that his admiral be beheaded. Hamza Bey, a favorite of Mehmed, replaced the unlucky Baltoghlu.

This event convinced the Sultan and his commanders that the city to tighten the noose, and that the naval arm of the besieged had to be neutralized. Mehmed’s ingenious plan consisted of bringing part of his fleet into the Golden Horn. Indeed, for some time, thousands of laborers had been building a road overland from the Bosporus, alongside the walls of Pera, to a place called the Valley of the Springs, on the shore of the Golden Horn. On April 22, to the horror of the besieged, teams of oxen and men pulled a long procession of ships, sitting on wooden platforms, over the road into the port area. About 70 boats entered the Golden Horn. The leaders of the defense immediately called for an emergency meeting. Various plans were discussed, and it was finally decided to attempt to burn the enemy boats, which were in the Golden Horn. After a succession of delays, the attempt was carried out on the night of April 28. Betrayed by Italians from Pera, it failed miserably. Hit by Ottoman guns, the Christian ships suffered heavy damage. About 40 sailors captured by the enemy were tortured to death.

Despite this failure, the situation in the Golden Horn became more or less stable. Superior naval training and better naval construction eventually prevented Hamza’s ships from inflicting serious damage on the allied units. The Sultan had a good idea of military success, however. Indeed, in 1204 the Crusaders had assaulted the city from the sea walls, and the Greeks had not forgotten it. They feared a repetition of that assault.

On the land side, the bombardment continued, more walls collapsed, and when night fell, everyone rushed to close the gap and reinforce the stockades by rebuilding here and there. Moreover, food supplies were low, and while the authorities did their best to distribute it equally, help was not forthcoming. Everyone was watching and waiting for the sails of the Western ships to appear coming out of the Dardanelles. In early May, a fast boat, a Byzantine "dromon," was sent out to seek the allied fleet in the Aegean and tell its commanders to hurry.

During the night of May 7, a new assault was launched against the damaged section, where Giustiniani stood. It was repulsed, and then on the night of May 12 another assault came. It, too, was repulsed. During that time, enemy mining and defense countermining continued. Sometimes, fighting went on underground. Sometimes, the tunnels collapsed and suffocated the miners. The German engineer, with barrels filled with water all around the walls, managed to discover the underground tunnels.

On May 23, the dromon, which had been sent out to locate the Christian fleet, returned to the city. Its crew brought bad news. The defenders were alone. No help was in sight. The men of the crew, obeying their duty, decided to return to the doomed city. Realizing that everything was lost, Constantine’s chief advisors begged him to leave the city. He could still get out and seek help. His father Manuel II had done the same in 1399, at the time of the blockade of the city by Sultan Bayezid. The Emperor refused to discuss the issue. He had already decided to stay in his capital, fight for it and perish.

Meanwhile, rumors were circulating in the Ottoman camp about the Venetians finally mobilizing their fleet, or about the Hungarians preparing to cross the Danube. The siege was going on with no end in sight. The Sultan’s Vizier, Halil Chandarli, who was also informant of the Emperor, had strong reservations about the siege from the beginning. He was worried about Western intervention, and he looked upon the whole operation with anxiety. During a meeting of the Sultan’s advisors, held on May 25, the Vizier told Mehmed to lift the siege. Pursuing it might bring unknown consequences to Ottoman interests. The Sultan, also depressed because of the prolongation of the operation, finally decided to launch one last grand-scale assault on the city. Younger commanders like Zaganos Pasha, a Christian converted to Islam, supported him. Halil was overruled, and all present decided to continue the siege.

While the artillery continued pounding the walls without interruption, preparations for the final assault, which was to take place on Tuesday, May 29, were accelerated. Material was thrown into the areas facing the collapsed ramparts. Scaling ladders were distributed. The magistrates of Pera were warned not to give any assistance to the besieged. The Sultan swore to distribute the treasures found in the city fairly. According to Moslem tradition, the troops were free to loot and sack the city for three days. Mehmed assured his troops that success was imminent; the defenders were exhausted; some sections of the walls had collapsed. It would be a general assault, throughout the line of the land walls, as well as in the port area. Then the troops were ordered to rest and recover their strength.

In the city, everyone realized that the great moment had come. On Monday, May 28, some last repairs were made on the walls, and the stockades in the collapsed sections were reinforced. In the city, while the bells of the churches rang mournfully, citizens and soldiers joined a long procession behind the holy relics brought out of the churches. Singing hymns in Greek, Italian or Catalan, Orthodox and Catholic, men, women and children, soldiers, civilians, clergy, monks and nuns, knowing that they were going to die shortly, made peace with themselves, and with God.

When the procession ended, the Emperor met with his commanders and all the notables of the city. In a philosophical speech he told his subjects that the end of their time had come. In essence, he told them, man had to be ready to face death when he had to fight for his faith, for his country, for his family or for his sovereign. All four reasons were now present. Furthermore, his subjects, who were the proud descendants of the ancient Greeks, had to emulate their great ancestors. They had to fight and sacrifice themselves without fear. They had lived in a great city, and they were now going to die defending it. As for himself, he was going to die fighting for his faith, for his city and for his people. He also thanked the Italian soldiers who had not abandoned the great city in its final moments. He still believed that the garrison could repulse the enemy. They all had to be brave warriors and do their duty. He thanked all present for their contribution to the defense of the city, and asked them to forgive him if he had ever treated them without kindness. Constantine asked Guistiniani to take his beloved Anna Notaras to his ship, so that she should not fall in the hands of the enemy. Everyone knew the fate of those left alive when the Turks entered the City.

Meanwhile, the great church of Hagia Sophia was filled to capacity. Thousands of people were moving towards the church. Inside, Orthodox and Catholic priests were holding liturgy, the last Christian service after almost 1,000 years. People were singing hymns; others were openly crying; others were asking each other for forgiveness. Those who were not serving on the ramparts also went to the church; among them was seen, for a brief moment, the Emperor himself. People confessed and took communion. Then those who were going to fight rode or walked back to the ramparts. They prayed and chanted for the last time the Akathist Hymn in front of the holy icon of the Odigitria, an icon of the Virgin Mary made by Saint Luke the Evangelist. The next day, most of them would be dead.

From the Great Church, the Emperor rode to the Imperial Palace at Blachernae. There he asked his household to forgive him. He bade the emotionally shattered men and women farewell, left his Palace and rode away, into the night, for a last inspection of the defense positions. Then he took his battle position.

The assault began after midnight, the 29th of May, 1453. Wave after wave of attackers charged. Battlecries, accompanied by the sound of drums, trumpets and fifes, filled the air. The bells of the city churches began ringing frantically. Orders, screams and the sound of trumpets shattered the night. First came the irregulars, an unreliable, multi-ethnic mob of Christians and Moslems, who were attracted by the opportunity of looting the glorious City, the great capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. They attacked throughout the line of fortifications, and they were massacred by tough professionals who were fighting under the orders of Giustiniani. The battle lasted two hours, and the irregulars withdrew in disorder, leaving behind an unknown number of dead and wounded.

Next came the Anatolian troops of Ishak Pasha. They tried to storm the stockades. They fought tenaciously, even desperately, trying to break through the compact ranks of the defenders. The narrow area in which the fighting went on helped the defenders. They could hack left and right with their maces and swords and shoot missiles onto the mass of attackers without having to aim. A group of attackers crashed through a gap, and for a moment it seemed that they could enter the city, but they were assaulted by the Emperor and his men, and were soon slain. This second attack also failed.

But now came the Janissaries (what an irony that they were born Greek Orthodox), disciplined, professional, ruthless warriors, superbly trained, ready to die for their "father," the Sultan. They fell upon the now exhausted defenders and pushed their way over bodies of dead and dying Moslem and Christian soldiers. With tremendous effort, the Greek and Italian fighters were hitting back and continued repulsing the enemy. Then a group of enemy soldiers unexpectedly entered the city from a small sally port called Kerkoporta, on the wall of Blachernae, where this wall joined the triple wall. Fighting broke near the small gate with the defenders trying to eliminate the intruders.

It was almost dawn, the first light before sunrise, when a shot fired and hit Giustiniani. The shot pierced his breastplate, and he fell on the ground, mortally wounded. Shaken by his wound and physically exhausted, his fighting spirit collapsed. Despite the pleas of the Emperor, who was fighting nearby, not to leave his post, the Genoese commander ordered his men to carry him off of the battlefield. A gate at the inner wall was opened for the group of Genoese soldiers, who were carrying their wounded commander to come into the city. The soldiers who were fighting near the area saw the gate open, their comrades carrying their leader crossing into the city, and they thought that the defense line had been broken. They all rushed through the Gate, leaving the Emperor and the Greek fighters alone between the two walls. This sudden movement did not escape the attention of the Ottoman commanders. Frantic orders were issued to the troops to concentrate their attack on the weakened position. Thousands rushed to the area. The stockade was broken. The Greeks were now squeezed by legions of Janissaries between the stockade and the wall. More Janissaries came in, and many reached the inner wall.

Meanwhile more were pouring in through the Kerkoporta, where the defenders had not been able to eliminate the first intruders. Soon, the first enemy flags were seen on the walls. The Emperor and his commanders were trying frantically to rally their troops and push back the enemy. It was too late. Waves of Janissaries, followed by other regular units of the Ottoman army, were crashing through the open gates, mixed with fleeing and slaughtered Christian soldiers. Then the Emperor, realizing that everything was lost, removed his Imperial insignia and, followed by his cousin Theophilos Palaeologus, the Lord Branas, the Castilian Don Francisco of Toledo, Kantakouzinos, Matthaios Sgouromalis and John Dalmatos, all seven holding their swords, charged into the sea of the enemy soldiers, hitting left and right in a final act of defiance. They were never seen again.

Now, thousands of Ottoman soldiers were pouring into the city. One after the other, the city gates were opened. The Ottoman flags began appearing on the walls, on the towers, and on the Palace at Blachernae. Civilians, in panic were rushing to the churches. Others locked themselves in their homes, some continued fighting in the streets. Frantic crowds of Greeks and foreigners were rushing towards the port area. The allied ships were still there and began collecting refugees. The Cretan soldiers and sailors, manning three towers near the entrance of the Golden Horn, were still fighting and had no intention of surrendering. In the end, the Ottoman commanders had to agree to a truce and let them sail away, carrying their arms.

Bands of Ottoman soldiers began plundering the City. Doors were broken, private homes were looted, and the occupants were massacred. Shops in the city markets were pillaged. Monasteries and convents were burglarized. Monks were killed, and nuns were raped (many, to avoid dishonor, killed themselves). Killing, raping, looting, burning and enslaving went on and on for three days. The enemy troops had to satiate their bloodlust. The great doors of Hagia Sophia were forced open, and crowds of angry soldiers came in and fell upon the unfortunate worshippers. Pillaging and killing in the holy place went on for hours. Similar was the fate of worshippers in most churches in the city. Everything of value which could be taken from the splendid buildings was taken by the new masters of the imperial capital. Icons were destroyed, and precious manuscripts were lost forever. Thousands of civilians were enslaved, as Ottoman soldiers fought over young boys and young women. Death and enslavement made no distinction between social classes. Nobles and peasants were treated with equal ruthlessness.

According to the historian Frantzis, the invaders split the heads of those women who resisted on the floor of the churches and they raped them while dead. The famous icon of Saint Luke was smashed. The sultan asked for the young sons of Duke Loukas Notaras. Their father refused, and Mehmed was ready to take their heads. Notaras asked him to kill him after his sons so that he was sure that they were dead and not disgraced by the perverted sultan. And this is what happened.

In some distant neighborhoods, especially near the sea walls in the Sea of Marmara, such as Psamathia, but also in the Golden Horn at the Phanar and Petrion, where local fishermen opened the Gates. While the enemy soldiers were pouring into the city from the land gates, local magistrates successfully negotiated their surrender to Hamza Bey’s officers. Their act spared their fellow citizens and their churches from desecration. Meanwhile, the crews of the Ottoman fleet abandoned their ships to rush into the city. They were concerned that the land forces were going to take everything. The collapse of discipline gave the Christian ships time to sail out of the Golden Horn. Venetian, Genoese and Greek ships, loaded with refugees, some of them having reached the ships swimming from the city, sailed away to freedom. On one of the Genoese vessels was Giustiniani. He was taken by boat to Chios, where he died from his injuries a few days later.

By the evening of the first day of looting, there was left nothing left to steal. The Sultan, with his top commanders and his guard of Janissaries, came into the city in the afternoon of the first day of occupation. Constantinople was finally his, and he intended to make it the capital of his mighty empire. He toured the ruined city. He visited Hagia Sophia, which he ordered to be turned into a mosque. He also ordered an end to the killing. What he saw was desolation, destruction and death in the streets; ruins and desecrated churches. It was too much. It is said that, as he rode through the streets of the former capital of the Byzantine Empire, the city of Constantine, moved to tears, he murmured: "What a city we have given over to plunder and destruction."

The sultan saw the symbol of the half moon in front of many houses. He asked why this symbol was everywhere, and they told him that this symbol was dated from the time of 340 BC, when King Philip of Macedon had failed to take Byzantium. The ancient Byzantines have preserved this symbol ever since that victory. The sultan liked it and added to it a star. So was formed the Turkish flag which terrorized the Christian states for several centuries afterwards.

And so it was that the physical remnants of a civilization which lasted 1,100 years were totally lost in just a few days. The barbarians did not respect anything - holy icons, books, paintings, mosaics; nothing. They demolished and vandalized churches, ancient monuments, palaces dated from 4th Century. Nevertheless, Byzantine ideals were not vanquished. The Turks did not manage to extinguish the Hellenic spirit. Many Greeks like Bessarion, Demetrios Kavakis, George Charitonimos and Ieronimos of Sparta fled to Europe, where they spread the ideas of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Archimedes, Homer, Euripides, Sophocles and Solon.

And the Turks can also be grateful to the "civilized" Europeans for helping them take and still hold onto this great City, which was founded and cultivated by the Greek nation.



Volume 7 Number 22 - Tuesday, May 31st, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY