The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the TurksPears, Edwin
History
The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks
Pears, Edwin
Byzantine Empire -- History -- 1081-1453; Istanbul (Turkey) -- History -- Siege, 1453
The success raised the hopes of the besieged, because they now firmly
believed that these ships were only the forerunners of many others
which were on their way to save the city. They had not yielded to Rome
for nothing, and aid would come, and the city would yet be saved. In
truth, a new crusade was not necessary to secure its deliverance. A
few more vessels sent by the Christian states, with an army one tenth
or even one twentieth of the number of the soldiers of the cross who
had passed by Constantinople under Godfrey, would have been enough to
prevent the conquest of the city by Mahomet. No further aid, however,
came. All the hopes based upon re-union proved illusory, and Hungarians
as well as Italians failed to render the assistance which might have
been of first importance to their own interests.[302]
[Sidenote: Attack contemporaneously made in Lycus valley.]
The fight with the four ships was on April 20. During that day the
great bombards had been hard at work along the landward walls, and
especially near the Romanus Gate. The sultan himself was absent on the
following day at the Double Columns, superintending one of the most
interesting operations connected with the siege, but the bombardment
went on as if he had been present. An important tower known as the
Bactatinian, near the Romanus Gate,[303] was destroyed on the 21st,
with a portion of the adjacent Outer Wall, and, says Barbaro, it was
only through the mercy of Jesus Christ that the Turks did not give
general battle, or they would have got into the city. He adds that
if they had attacked with even ten thousand men, no one could have
hindered their entry. The Moscovite, speaking of the same incident,
states that the Turks were so infuriated by a successful shot from
the small cannon of Justiniani that Mahomet gave the order for an
assault, raised the cry of ‘_Jagma, jagma!_’ ‘Pillage, pillage!’ but
they were repulsed. One of the balls, according to the same author,
knocked away five of the battlements and buried itself in the walls of
a church.[304] The defenders, among whom, notes Barbaro, were some ‘of
our Venetian gentlemen,’ set themselves at once to make stout repairs
where the wall had been broken down. Barrels full of stones, beams,
logs, anything that would help to make a barricade, were hastily got
together and worked with clay and earth, so as to form a substitute for
the Outer Wall. When completed, the new work formed a stockade, made
largely of wood and built up with earth and stones.[305] The ‘accursed
Turk,’ says Barbaro, did not cease day and night to fire his greatest
bombard against the walls near which the repairs were being made.
Arrows and stones innumerable were thrown, and there were discharges
also from firelocks or fusils[306] which threw leaden balls. He adds
that during these days the enemy were in such numbers that it was
hardly possible to see the ground or anything else except the white
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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