Constantinople Part 6

The restored Empire of the Greeks was ruled for some years with wisdom and enthusiasm. Michael Palaeologus was of an ancient family already allied with the imperial house, and "in his person the splendour of birth was dignified by the merit of the soldier and statesman." He was admitted as the guardian, and then as the colleague, of the child-Emperor John. The gallant Varangians, the northern soldiers whose force had been replenished by fresh blood from year to year, and had never deserted the imperial house, had raised him to the throne, and he ruled with a severity and determination that bore down all opposition.

It was his first task to cleanse and restore the palace of Blachernae, left filthy and dilapidated by Baldwin II. Then he set about the restoration of the walls. His chief attention was paid to the sea walls, which he raised seven feet by means of wooden erections covered with hide; and later he began to make a double line of walls to protect the sea side of the city as the land side was protected. He took the harbour of the Kontoscalion (in front of what is now Koum Kapoussi) for a dockyard, had it dredged and deepened, protected by an iron mole and "surrounded with immense blocks, closed with iron gates." But he was determined to rule alone, and before the end of the year he had blinded his young colleague and banished him. He was excommunicated by the patriarch a.r.s.enius, and a schism was caused by his banishment of the prelate, which was not healed for nearly fifty years.

Fearing a renewed invasion by the Latins he did his utmost to make alliances to protect himself. He established the Genoese in a settled concession at Galata, hoping to make them a firm support against their rivals of Venice. But this act only made the commercial rivalries stronger, and planted a power which soon became hostile on the very sh.o.r.es of the capital and in command of the Golden Horn. "The Roman Empire," says Gibbon, "might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the Republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power." No less disastrous was the attempt of Michael to unite with the Roman Church. Urban IV. had taken up the cause of the young Baldwin and called on the powers to make Crusade. Michael endeavoured to meet him by diplomacy if not by submission. His envoys attended the council held at Lyons in 1274 by the Pope Gregory X. Veccus, who had long opposed the union of the churches, underwent a sharp imprisonment in the prison of Anemas, but being convinced of the error of his opinions was released to mount the patriarchal throne. But all these measures were in vain. On questions of faith it should not have been impossible for candid men, as the history of Veccus shows, to bring the churches into essential union, but the claim of the Popes to supremacy, which they emphasised by the mission of legates, was one which the Church of Constantinople has never admitted. Michael died in 1282. Already his attempt had failed, and he died excommunicated by pope and patriarch. The restorer of the Empire was unworthy to rank among its heroes, and the historian of the Greek people has described him in language of severity that is well deserved. "He was selfish, hypocritical, able and accomplished, an inborn liar, vain, meddling, ambitious, cruel and rapacious. He has gained renown as the restorer of the Eastern Empire; he ought to be execrated as the corrupter of the Greek race, for his reign affords a signal example of the extent to which a nation may be degraded by the misconduct of its sovereign when he is entrusted with despotic power."

Of his intrigues, the most important of which was his encouragement of the revolt of John of Procida against the French in Sicily, ever memorable as the Sicilian Vespers, it can only be said that they may have saved him from attack. Catalan mercenaries, who after the expulsion of the French from Sicily came into the service of the Empire, overwhelmed its fairest provinces with rapine and disaster. It is a history which makes Gibbon for once ascend the pulpit of the preacher of righteousness. "I shall not, I trust, be accused of superst.i.tion; but I must remark that, even in this world, the natural order of events will sometimes a.s.sume the strong appearances of moral retribution. The first Palaeologus had saved his Empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion and blood; and from these seeds of discord uprose a generation of iron men, who a.s.saulted and endangered the Empire of his son."

Andronicus II., indeed, had a long but disastrous reign. He continued his father's works at the harbour of the Kontoscalion. He repaired the sea walls, and in 1317, when his wife, Irene, died and left him some money, the impoverished Caesar was able to undertake a general repair of the whole of the fortifications. Otherwise he is known in the history of the city only for his disputes with the patriarch, his abject submissions, and his misfortunes. His son, Michael IX., was from 1295 to 1320 the a.s.sociate of his throne, and won universal praise. His grandson, Andronicus III., sank to the pleasures which had disgraced so many of his predecessors, but when his iniquities were too flagrant to be concealed, when his brother Manuel was murdered, it was believed, through his orders, and his father, Michael IX., died of grief, he took up arms against his grandfather, secured his own coronation, and then the absolute submission of the aged Emperor.

Andronicus lived in 1332 in the great palace, but in absolute penury.

He took monastic vows and died, no longer as Emperor, but as the poor monk Antony.

Andronicus the younger (III.), though he married princesses of Western houses, did not add to the dignity of the Eastern Empire. He died in 1341, and left behind him a child of eight, the son of his second wife, Agnes of Savoy. He was protected by John Cantacuzene, who had protected his father, and finally won him the crown, and who himself bore a character that was high among the best of the Byzantine statesmen and generals. But palace intrigues and attacks of interested politicians against him, at last obliged him, as he declares--for he is his own historian--to a.s.sume the Imperial t.i.tle. In the war that ensued it seems that while the people supported the Palaeologi, the officials supported the new claimant. It gave the opportunity to the Servian king, Stephen Dashan, to extend his territories and threaten to replace the Emperors as leaders of the Greek peoples. Strip by strip the territory of the Empire was shorn away, and Serbians, Turks, and Albanians left little to be conquered by Cantacuzene. At last, after previous failures, he advanced to the walls again in 1347 and was admitted secretly by his friends through the Golden Gate. For once, what was practically a change of dynasty was accomplished without bloodshed. John Cantacuzene became Emperor and gave his daughter in marriage to John Palaeologus. It is said by a contemporary that so poor were even the imperial houses that at the wedding feast the ill.u.s.trious personages had to be served in earthenware and pewter: strange change from the time when the very walls of the palace glittered with gold. In seven years the balance of power changed completely. War, first joint against the Serbians, then hostile against each other, was ended, it seemed, in favour of Cantacuzene by the a.s.sistance--a woeful precedent--of the Turks, now settled in Europe and the masters of Adrianople. But when the successful Emperor tried to a.s.sociate his son Matthew on the throne, the feeling of Constantinople turned strongly against him. In 1358, John Palaeologus whose seat of government had been fixed at Thessalonica, arrived, with but two galleys and two thousand men, on a dark night at the gate of the Hodegetria on the Sea of Marmora. Bringing their vessels quite close to the gate, they made every sign of distress, throwing out oil-jars and uttering cries for help. The stratagem succeeded; the guards opened the gate and came to their a.s.sistance. They were overpowered, and the troops rushed in and captured the adjoining tower. The city rose in favour of the young Palaeologus, and John Cantacuzene with great willingness, if he is to be believed in his own case, retired from the throne and entered a monastery, where he died in 1383.

Each change of Emperor marked the more clearly the coming end of the Empire. John VI. Palaeologus "carelessly watched the decline of the Empire for thirty-six years," from the day when he became sole ruler.

He saw the growth of the Turkish power, and he sought the aid of Urban V. for the final contest that he saw must come. In 1361 he was decisively defeated before Adrianople, and in later years he was little better than the va.s.sal of the Sultan. He himself went to Rome in 1369, and submitted to the Latin Church, on the points of the Procession of the Holy Spirit, the use of unleavened bread and the supremacy of the Roman See. So poor was he that he was arrested at Venice, on his return, for debt. The Caesar of the East had indeed sunk low.

He was compelled to aid Sultan Murad with troops, and during his absence in Asia, apparently in 1374, his eldest son, Andronicus, secured Constantinople, in alliance with the Turkish Sultan's son, also a rebel against his father. By the aid of Murad, Andronicus was seized. He was imprisoned in the tower of Anemas with his wife and his son John, then only five years old. He was to have been blinded, but perhaps in mercy the sight of one eye was not harmed. After two years he was released, and he at once made alliance with the Genoese and with the Sultan Bayezid, and marched to the capital. He caught his father and his brother Manuel, who were at the palace of the Pege, now the village of Balukli, and sent them with his younger brother Theodore to the prison in which he himself had been confined, "as Zeus," says the historian Ducas, with a cla.s.sic touch such as the Greeks always delighted to use, "cast his father Kronos and his brothers Pluto and Poseidon into Tartarus." Andronicus entered the city by the Selivri Kapoussi (gate of the Pege), and held the throne for two years and a half. Bayezid urged him to kill his father and brothers, but he would not; and within two years, in some way, as to which the historians--none of whom are strictly contemporary--differ, they escaped, and with the aid of Murad, or Bayezid (for again the dates are doubtful), attacked the city, entered by the gate of S.

Roma.n.u.s, and defeated Andronicus, who was allowed to retire to Selivria as ruler of the adjacent lands. In 1384 Manuel was recognised as heir to his father. These changes were all effected by the aid of the Turks, and of the cities of Genoa and Venice, who, it might seem, gave the city to whom they would; and when John VI. began to repair the walls which thirty-six years before he had himself despoiled, he was stopped by order of Bayezid and compelled to destroy what he had done.

In his time decay visibly laid its hand on the still splendid city.

Many of the streets, it is said, were almost in ruins, the palaces empty, and the costliest and most beautiful treasures of the ancient Byzantine art had been sold to the Genoese and the Venetians. But for the defeat of Bayezid by Timur, the prize would have fallen into the hands of the Turks half a century before it was theirs at last.

Manuel II. had an unquiet reign. Forced to yield on every side to the demands of the Sultan, blockaded in Constantinople, he was at last forced to admit his cousin John, the son of Andronicus, as joint Emperor, in 1399, a t.i.tle which he seems to have borne but a short time.

For a while it seemed that the distractions and defeats of the Turks might give opportunity for a revival of the Empire. In 1411 a Turkish attack on Constantinople was driven off; but the Greeks were incapable of using their own victories or the weakness of their enemies; and though Manuel made some reforms in the administration the members of his household thwarted him on every side. The years of peace were wasted, and in 1422 Murad II. appeared before the walls of the imperial city.

The defeat of the Turks--their last--was soon followed by the death of Manuel (1425). John VII. set himself to repair the walls, but he could not rebuild or repopulate the city. The decay, in spite of the outward splendour, the disgraceful subjection of the Emperor to the Turks, and the hatred of the Greeks for the Westerns, all struck the keen observer Bertrandon de la Brocquiere, a Burgundian knight, who visited the city in 1433. The despairing effort of the Emperor was to win the help of a new crusade by union with the Latin Church.

Those who have stood in admiration before the frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli in the Riccardi Palace at Florence will remember the solemn impressive figure of John Palaeologus, in his gorgeous robes, as he rides in the procession of the Magi, a stately personage contrasting markedly with the bourgeois Medici who follow him. Italians knew the Eastern Emperor, for in 1438 he stood with the patriarch before the Council of Ferrara, and in the next year, in Florence itself accepted, with his bishops (save the bishop of Ephesus), the doctrines of the Latins, and joined on July 6, 1439, in the proclamation beneath the dome of Brunelleschi, then only three years completed, of the unity of the Catholic Church of East and West.

When he returned to Constantinople the people refused to accept the union, and even the bishops who had signed the decrees of Florence now repudiated their act as a sin. No help came from the West; and John died in 1448, having preserved his throne even by temporising with the Turks.

Constantine Palaeologus was the eldest surviving son of the Emperor Manuel. He could only ascend the throne by the consent of the Sultan, and when that was obtained he was crowned in Sparta, where he had ruled. On the 12th of March 1449 he entered Constantinople. The city was receiving its new lord with exultation and joy, says his friend and chronicler Phrantzes. So long as Murad still reigned they were indeed safe, but when Mohammed II. became Sultan it was clear that there would be war.

Constantine turned--it was his only hope--to the West for aid. He sent an emba.s.sy to Rome begging for help, and showing willingness to renew the union of the Churches. The Pope, Nicholas V., sent back Cardinal Isidore, who had once been a Russian bishop, but, having accepted the decrees of Florence, had remained loyal to them, and was an exile from his country in consequence. He arrived at Constantinople in November 1452, bringing some money and a few troops. On December 12, 1452, the union was ratified in S. Sophia, and Cardinal Isidore said ma.s.s according to the Latin rite. From that day the people regarded the church as desecrated. In the church and monastery of the Pantokrator the monk Gennadios preached against the crime and folly of the union. Many of the great n.o.bles cried out against it; one even declared that the Sultan would be a far better lord than the Pope. As Constantine rode through the streets daily the mob mocked and reviled him; and some cried out "rather than that we should be Latins would we be Turks." The holy sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ they rejected, declaring that it was polluted. Even if an angel from heaven had descended and declared that he would save the city if only the people would unite with the Roman Church the people would have refused. So the chroniclers describe the disunion within. Without, the preparations were complete.

The conquerors of Constantinople had had a romantic history. A horde of barbarians, coming from the far East, and a branch of the race known to Chinese historians as the Hiung-no, they emerge into history in the sixth century, then a.s.suming the name of Turk, which they were to make famous. In the latter half of that century they became known to the rulers of Constantinople. In 568 emba.s.sies came to the Emperor from the Northern Turks. Eight years later an emba.s.sy was sent to the Southern Turks. At the very end of the century an emba.s.sy came to the Emperor Maurice in 598 from the Khan of the Turks, now claiming to be a great sovereign. But it was more than six centuries before the Empire came face to face with the actual tribe which should found the power that was to take its place. Pressed hard by the Seljuks, with territories limited to the Bithynian province, it was not till the beginning of the fourteenth century that Osman, the founder of the Osmanlis, came forward as a leader who should begin a line of mighty sovereigns.

Legends surround the life of Osman; his dream of a great tree which should overshadow the world, of Constantinople won by clashing swords, of the ring of universal Empire, his romantic love suit, belong perhaps to history, but only as it appears magnified by an imagination fired by the wonderful successes of later years. More certain are the capture of Nicaea and of Brusa, accomplished by his son,--the latter still the picture of a Turkish city, with its innumerable mosques, its trees and gardens, its population half-military, but now wholly languid and quiescent. The sword of Osman is still the sign of power among his descendants. It rests in the turbeh of Eyb, the companion of Mohammed himself, who fell not by the sword but by disease during the first Moslem attack on Constantinople in 672, and over whose grave Mohammed the Conqueror built a tomb, to the Moslems the most sacred of all in the city they had made their own. Osman was brought to Brusa only to be buried. His son Orchan carried fire and sword nearer and nearer to the goal. It was he who founded the terrible corps of the Janissaries, Christian child captives trained by the sternest methods to be the fiercest champions of Islam. In 1326 Orchan captured Nicomedia; in 1330 he defeated the imperial host led against him by the Emperor himself, and Nicaea fell into his hands. He showed the wisdom and restraint which, combined with the daring and ferocity of his men, served to strengthen the Turkish power step by step in the districts it won. Nicaea was not pillaged. Its citizens were allowed to live on in peace under Moslem laws, and Orchan himself by every act of charity and of devotion to his religion sought, and won, the respect of the people whom he had conquered. Then for twenty years he rested and prepared. Brusa was enriched with mosques and hospitals, tombs of soldiers and prophets, fountains, baths, colleges of students of the Koran. There rest to-day the first six Sultans, among "some five hundred tombs of famous men, pashas, scheiks, professors, orators, physicians, poets, musicians."

The years of waiting ended when in 1346 the power of Orchan was so great, and was recognised to be so dangerous, that John Cantacuzene, the Christian Caesar, did not hesitate to purchase his friendship by the gift of his daughter Theodora, in a marriage performed with all the pomp of a State ceremonial, but without even the form of a Christian blessing. The friendship thus bought was never yielded. The Osmanlis crossed to Europe in freebooting bands, and ravaged up to the very walls of Constantinople; and when the Genoese whom Cantacuzene had settled at Galata fought with him and destroyed his fleet, it was with the aid of Orchan that they fought against their benefactor. In 1356 Orchan's son, Suleiman, inspired like his grandfather by a dream or a vision which he took as a supernatural summons, crossed to Europe with but thirty-nine companions, and took the fort of Tzympe near Gallipoli. In three days there were three thousand Turks settled in Europe. It was the beginning of an Empire which lasts to this day. The occupation of Gallipoli followed, and when Orchan died in 1359, the Turks had settled down to wait, for a hundred years, till the Queen city herself should fall into their hands.

Before him his son Suleiman had pa.s.sed away; and his tomb at the northern entrance to the h.e.l.lespont seemed to mark the country for the possession of the Turks. "For a hundred years he was the only Ottoman prince who lay buried in European earth; and his tomb continually incited the races of Asia to perform their pilgrimage to it with the sword of conquest. Of all the hero-tombs," says Von Hammer, "which have hitherto been mentioned in connection with Ottoman history, there is none more renowned, or more visited, than that of the second Vizier of the Empire, the fortunate crosser of the h.e.l.lespont, who laid the foundation of the Ottoman power in Europe."

Already the military organisation was founded, and the system which had made in the brother of Orchan as Vizier the civil ruler of the people. Now the settlement in Europe was begun. Murad (or Amurath, as our forefathers called the name), the younger brother of Suleiman, succeeded his father. In less than thirty years he had transformed the face of Southern Europe, and made the Emperor of Rome but a dependent of his power. He landed and established his armies in Thrace. He defeated the Hungarians and Serbians and captured Nisch; he pressed southwards and Adrianople fell into his hands; and then when the circle of Turkish territory was drawn closely round Constantinople, he turned northwards and became the conqueror of the northern lands ruled by princes Christian yet still barbarian, who had long before this conquered them from the Empire. In 1389 Murad was slain, after a great victory, by Milosch Kobilovitsch, the hero of Serbian legend. Bayezid, his son, reigned in his stead; and he began the fatal custom which still further consolidated the monarchy. On the very day of his accession he had his brother murdered, and so wise was the precedent considered that by the time of Mohammed the Conqueror it became a law that every brother of the Sultan should be slain. He began, too, it is a.s.serted, the hideous vices which have stained the Empire of his successors, and which degraded the courts of the Sultan with the guilt of the rulers and the shame of their captives.

The battle of Kossova, the last fight of Murad, was followed before long by that of Nicopolis, in which the choicest chivalry of Europe went down before the fierce onslaught of the Turkish squadrons. The captives, all but twenty-four knights, who were spared, were butchered in cold blood in the presence of their comrades, before the tent of Bayezid.

Then Bayezid led his hosts to the conquest of Greece; and in 1397 Athens fell before his arms. The Caesars bowed before him, suffered a mosque to be built within the walls of Constantinople, and actually joined their arms to his for the capture of the one Greek city which remained free in the midst of the European conquests of the Turks.

When at last the insolent Sultan demanded that the crown of the Emperors should be yielded to him, and threatened to exterminate the inhabitants of the capital if he were not obeyed, it is said that the n.o.bles replied: "We know our weakness, but we trust in the G.o.d of justice, who protects the weak and lowly, and puts down the mighty from on high." It was an answer that befitted the ancient city.

Before the attack was made that seemed certain to prove fatal to the last stronghold, the capital of the Christian Empire, Bayezid was called away to meet the onslaught of the greatest of conquerors, Timur the Tartar. The great battle of Angora shattered the Turkish power, destroyed the Janissaries and left Bayezid himself a prisoner in the hands of Timur. Before a year was over, the proud Sultan died, and the power which he had made so great was utterly crushed beneath the feet of the Tartars.

Brusa itself was left in ruins, and not only the son of Bayezid, who was safe in Adrianople, made submission, but even the Emperor paid tribute to Timur. Then the conquering horde swept back again to the Far East, and the Turks set to work to rebuild again the power that had been shattered.

Domestic warfare succeeded the destruction at the hands of foreign foes, and Mohammed I., the youngest son of Bayezid, established his authority over his brothers as ruler of the Osmanlis by the aid of the Emperor Manuel Palaeologus. His brother Musa laid siege to Constantinople, and the troops of Mohammed actually joined with those of Manuel in the successful defence of the city. Mohammed was the ally, almost the subject, of the Emperor, and when he died he sought to commend his children to Manuel's care.

Mohammed died in 1421 at Adrianople. His son Murad II. had to fight for his throne against a pretender whom the Emperor had set free, and whom he overcame only by the help of the Genoese galleys which carried him from Asia to Europe. In 1422 he was ready to revenge himself on the Greeks. His army encamped before the walls of Constantinople, and his own tent was set up in the garden of the Church of the Blessed Virgin of the Fountain (Balukli). He brought his cannon to bear upon the walls that cross the valley of the Lycus, but without success. The walls of Theodosius were still too strong, and the fierce attack on the gate of S. Roma.n.u.s was a failure now, as it would not be thirty years later.

The city was stoutly defended. John Palaeologus, the Emperor's son, commanded a garrison inspired by the fullest religious enthusiasm: and when a vision of the Blessed Virgin, the Panhagia, was seen on the walls, both by a.s.sailants and defenders, the siege was given up; and the Sultan did not attempt to renew it. Still, a tribute was paid by the Emperor, and it must have been clear to the Osmanlis that the capture was but for a short time deferred. But Murad had to undergo defeats at the hands of the Hungarians, which he amply avenged: and his two abdications showed that he was weary of power, if not incapable of wielding it. The end of his reign saw him repeatedly over-matched by the Albanian hero, Scanderbeg, whom he himself had trained among the Janissaries. In 1451 he died; and then the greatest triumph of the Osmanlis was at hand.

The early history of Mohammed II. has been thus summed up, in the clear-cut eloquence of Dean Church.

"Three times did Mohammed the Conqueror ascend the Ottoman throne.

Twice he had resigned it, a sullen and reluctant boy of fourteen, whom it was necessary to inveigle out of the way, lest he should resist his father to the face, when, to save the State, he appeared to resume his abdicated power. The third time, seven years older, he sprang on the great prize with the eagerness and ferocity of a beast of prey. He never drew bridle from Magnesia, when he heard of his father's death, till on the second day he reached Gallipoli, on his way to Adrianople.

To smother his infant brother in the bath was his first act of power; and then he turned, with all the force of his relentless and insatiate nature to where the inheritor of what remained of the greatness of the Caesars--leisurely arranging marriages and emba.s.sies--still detained from the Moslems the first city of the East;--little knowing the savage eye that was fixed upon him, little suspecting the nearness of a doom which had so often threatened and had been so often averted."

It did not need the half-defiant att.i.tudes of Constantine XII. to arouse the young Sultan: as soon as he had concluded a truce with his northern foes he began to make those elaborate preparations which should ensure success in the great conquest. His first act was to secure the isolation of the capital. Already he held the pa.s.sage of the Dardanelles; now he would secure that of the Bosphorus. In 1393 Bayezid had built on the Asiatic sh.o.r.e, some five miles above Constantinople, the fortress which was the first distinct menace to the imperial city. Anadoli Hissar, the "Asiatic Castle," still stands overhanging the water's edge, a splendid mediaeval building of four square towers with one great central keep. In 1452 a corresponding tower was begun on the other side of the sea, at the point where the pa.s.sage is narrowest. The first stone was laid by Mohammed himself on March 26, 1452, and by the middle of August the castle was completed.

The design of this Roumeli Hissar represented the name of the Prophet and the Sultan, the consonants standing out as towers. Protests were unheeded and the two envoys sent by the Emperor to remonstrate were butchered at once. A Venetian galley was sunk as it pa.s.sed, to prove the range of the guns. Its crew were slain when they swam ash.o.r.e. A Hungarian engineer was employed to direct a cannon foundry, and a vast store of materials of war was acc.u.mulated for the siege. After another winter's preparation all was ready, and early in the spring of 1453 a vast Turkish host[26] was ranged from the Golden Horn to the Marmora.

The sea was covered by three hundred vessels and it seemed as if succour was cut off on every side.

On April 6, 1453, the siege began.

The last message of the Roman Emperor to the Turkish Sultan had been somewhat in these words: "As it is plain thou desirest war more than peace, as I cannot satisfy thee by my vows of sincerity or by my readiness to swear allegiance, so let it be according to thy will. I turn now and look above to G.o.d. If it be His will that the city should become thine, where is he who can oppose His will? If He should inspire thee with a wish for peace, I shall indeed be happy.

Nevertheless I release thee from all thy oaths and treaties to me, I close the gates of my city, I will defend my people to the last drop of my blood. And so, reign in happiness till the Righteous and Supreme Judge shall call us both before the seat of His judgment."

It was in this spirit that Constantinople stood to meet the foe.

Mohammed when he came in sight of the walls, spread his carpet on the ground and turning towards Mecca prayed for the success of his enterprise. Everywhere throughout the camp the Ulemas promised victory and the delights of Paradise.

On April 7, the Turkish lines were drawn opposite the walls. The tent of the Sultan himself was placed opposite the gate of S. Roma.n.u.s (Top Kapoussi). Thence to his right the Asiatic troops stretched down to the sea, to his left past the gate of Charisius (Edirne Kapoussi), the European levies extended northwards to the Golden Horn. Within four days sixty-nine cannon were set in position against the walls, and with them ancient engines, such as catapults and balistae, discharging stones. On the heights about Galata also a strong body of troops was placed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROUMELI HISSAR]

Within, measures had been taken to repair the walls, but it is said that the money had been embezzled by the two monks, skilled in engineering, to whom it had been given, and in some places the fortifications were not strong enough to support cannon. Constantine sought help from every side. On April 20, four ships laden with grain forced their way through the Turkish fleet, but they added few if any to the defenders. The Venetian aid that had been promised did not arrive even at Euboea till two days after the Turks had captured the city. Of troops within, Phrantzes, who himself had charge of the search, states that there were hardly seven thousand in all, of whom two thousand were foreigners. Others give higher numbers, but there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the Emperor's most trusted friend.

Strange it seems that outside, in the Sultan's army, some thirty thousand Christians were fighting for the infidels. Phrantzes says that when he heard that some of the Byzantine n.o.bles had left the city, the Emperor only heaved a deep sigh.

Of the arrangements for defence, the fullest accounts can be found in the writings of Phrantzes and Ducas, the letters of Archbishop Leonardo of Mitylene and of Cardinal Isidore, the report of the Florentine Tedardi, two poems, and a Slavonic MS. quoted by M.

Mijatovich.[27]

Here it is needless to tell how each wall was manned. It may suffice to say that during the few weeks that pa.s.sed, while the Christians still kept their foes at bay, there was no rest for the besieged.

Sometimes when the Emperor went on his rounds to inspect the defences he found the weary soldiers asleep at their posts. He seemed himself to be sleepless; every hour that he did not devote to the defences he seemed to spend at prayer.

He visited every post himself; he even crossed the Golden Horn in a small boat to be sure of the security of the great chain which stretched from the tower of Galata to what is now called Seraglio Point. Every hour he had to contend with new difficulties, with monks declaring that defence was hopeless because of the union with the Latins, with Italian mercenaries clamouring for pay. He was compelled to take the furniture of the churches when the treasures of the palace were quite exhausted, but he promised if G.o.d should free the city to restore to Him fourfold.

After nearly a week in which the heavy Turkish cannon thundered against the walls, the gunners learned at last from the Hungarian envoys to their camp how to direct their fire. At length, on April 18, at the hour of vespers, a great attack was made. The people rushed out from the churches, and the air was filled with the cries of the combatants, the ringing of the bells, the clash of arms. The attack was strongest against the weak walls by the Blachernae quarter, and by the gate of S. Roma.n.u.s. After hours of hard fighting it was repulsed, and Te Deum was sung in all the churches for the victory.

The victory of the 18th, followed by that of the 20th, when the ships broke up the whole Turkish fleet and rode triumphantly into the Golden Horn, inspirited the besieged. But on the 21st the cannonade brought down one of the towers that defended the gate of S. Roma.n.u.s. The Sultan was not on the spot, and the Turks were not ready to make a.s.sault, so the opportunity pa.s.sed. After these victories the Emperor hoped that it was possible to induce the Sultan to retire. He offered to surrender everything but the city, and there were some in the infidel camp who would have been ready to make terms, but Mohammed would offer only that the whole Peloponnesus should be Constantine's in undisturbed possession, if he would yield the city. The terms were rejected, and the Emperor prepared for the worst.