555 years ago, on this very day of May 29th, the greatest and most beautiful “crown jewel” of the Antiquity and Medieval ages – Constantinople – finally fell to the Ottomans, led by the young, hawkish-face Turkish sultan Mehmed II. The city, founded and built by Constantine the Great at the height of his powers before 330 AD, have endured many sieges, large to small, in its 1123 years history but had been invaded and sacked only once, in the year 1204 by the Fourth Christian Crusade. The 1204 fateful siege and sack of Constantinople rendered the Byzantine Empire to a shadow of its formerly glorious self, resulting in an unstable Latin empire, yet the Byzantines restored it less than 60 years later, albeit in a much reduced state for the next 200 years.
However, the Ottomans took nearly 200 years to try to take the city of Constantine for Islam, with disastrous or unsatisfied results. Furthermore, the squabbling between small Byzantine vassal-states led to the inevitable decline and dissolution of the Byzantine Empire by 1453, with tributaries being customarily paid to the Ottoman Sultans at different times for protection and assurance of power balance in the region. Even Sultans had their own enemies other than the Greeks or the sea-powers of Venice and Genoa and had to rely on either of them for deceptive political manipulations and necessary elimination of rivals and despots. Still, the Ottomans wanted the city of Constantinople for the empire of Islam. Stubbornly, the rulers and defenders of the city say no way, it belongs to the Christ and God.
How did Constantinople kept well-defended and better protected through the centuries was due to the Theodosian Walls, constructed by the Emperor Theodosius II in early-5th century AD. Many invaders, such as the Avars, the Arabs, the Bulgars, tried and failed to breach the thick, 3-layered walls. Many died as result, many decided to give up and go away, rarely to return. Yet, it was only the advent of gunpowder and the implementation of cannon as a siege weapon made the days of fortified, walled cities be numbered. The Ottomans under Mehmed II employed a Hungarian gunsmith named Urban to develop this weapon, the giant Turkish Bombard, in spite of its difficult engineering and sheer heaviness (it took about 40 oxes and few hundreds of men to move just one through the land). They made several of them for the exact purpose of firing ball of fiery stones at the well-fortified walls of Constantinople.
Constantine XI, the last of the Byzantine emperors, at age of 48, tried to hire away Urban from Mehmed but he did not have enough money and resources to do what Mehmed wanted from Urban’s highly priced expertise and knowledge in building siege cannon. A fatal mistake and Constantine soon learned the price of not paying handsomely to Urban, for his siege cannons eventually bombarded the land walls of Constantinople, ceaselessly, on Mehmed’s order, since the siege began on April 2nd, 1453. But Constantine had good resources in his people of the city to help out by constantly rebuilding and repairing the damages within the walls and towers from the inside. Even women were employed to the tasks. This made Mehmed nonetheless impressed by the tenacity of the city’s defenders in repairing the damages while the city under relentless siege.
While his land forces were fighting before the walls, Mehmed attempted to take the city from the sea by assembling the largest armada of oared galleys and warships to seize the city’s ports. Even the Sultan tried to direct a chaotic naval engagement of the Turks against the allied Greek-Venetian-Genoan fleet, from the shore, shouting commands, encouragements and curses at his own fleet while on his horse veering into the water, but only helplessly watched the fiery destruction of his naval force. The sea assault had failed as well and Mehmed tore off his clothes and stormed off in fury, ordering the fleet to retreat.
Meanwhile, Constantine tried every conceivable way to send call of help, request for arms, supplies and ships from the Latins in Europe. Very few responded to Constantine’s pleas, the Pope in Rome offered tepid supports and no European monarch come forward to aid Constantine, not even the White Knight, John Hunyadi. He did his best to rally the people and the defenders of the city to hang on, in despite of the dwindling numbers due to death from the siege, the number of the wounded growing, and the people holing up in their walled homes or churches, praying hard as they could. Worse, Constantine also had to deal with the contentious feud between the Venetians and the Genoeses, trying to keep them from fighting and killing each other and not losing face with either of them, just as his city was still being bombarded ceaselessly and his own people facing the worst spiritual crisis of their lives. He did tried his damnedest to keep them all together for the Christ and the city. He prostrated himself before them, begging and appealing to them to put aside their differences and do away fears for the sake of the city and for God. Such an emotional act caused Constantine to faint and had to be taken away to be looked after.
The Venetians, the Genoeses, the Greeks, and a handful of European, English, Scotch, Italian and Bulgarian allies were moved by Constantine’s act and become resolved to put their differences aside and to defend the city to the bitter end. Much earlier, Mehmed wrote a letter and sent an envoy to the Emperor with the letter, asking for the unconditional, peaceful surrender of the city and assuring Constantine a safe, free passage for him and his family from the city. Constantine responded to Mehmed with a firm refusal. He and his people would defend Constantinople to the very end, with or without outside help.
The last couple weeks of May, things have been slowly turning to the Ottomans’ favor as one unexplained, ominous event virtually foreboded the victory for Mehmed: an unusual, frightful weather condition casting a wide “spell” of fear and doom over the Golden Horn, leaving the city’s defenders and the superstitious Turks uncertain whether it is a sign of doom or victory for either of them. A ray of lights danced around the dome of the Hagia Sophia, creating a fiery-like appearance of an apparition before disappearing into thin air.
Mehmed was told by his advisers this was a prophetic omen and, without hesitation, he seized the initiative by calling in his war council and modified his plans to make the final, all-out assault on one concentrated point on the night of May 28th: a shallow valley between the St. Romanus Gate and another smaller gate. From there, he ordered up the greatest amount of cannon bombarding upon that walled area. Rallying up his war-drummers and cymbal-players to play rousing music, he positioned his ill-equipped, expendable auxiliary troops in the frontal assault, to be followed by the main Anatolian irregular troops and backed by his elite crack troops, the Janissaries. He ordered the Janissaries to execute any soldier on the spot for deserting the frontal assault, even the wounded ones were not spared. The night before, Mehmed told his forces that they were to be martyrs for Allah and the fruits of reward and paradise await them.
Within Constantinople, Constantine and his defenders were doing everything they can do to rally and fight off the invaders inside the walls. The aggressive cannon bombardment have created few gaping holes in the landed walls, allowing the invaders to thrust inward but quickly repelled by the defenders. Bodies started piling up and streams of blood became a sea of blood on the ground. The irregular Ottoman troops were expendable but they still keep coming in greater numbers. However, a portion of Turkish troops, somehow, founded their way into the city elsewhere and started to hoisted up the flags bearing Allah’s name at few seized towers, which Mehmed saw them and rallied his remaining troops in the field to move forward hard. This demoralized the defenders but Constantine stayed and pressed them on, concentrating them before a wider gaping hole in the wall at the Fifth Military Gate. A shout from above decried that another gate door was breached and a stream of Turkish troops come running in (the gate door was somehow left unlocked, according to one claim). The defenders panicked and sought to flee but Constantine XI would have none of that. According to one notable claim, he took off his imperial regalia garments, rose up his sword to the air, bellowed his last words and charged toward the enemy at the gate, with his men following him, plunging into the fiercest fighting.
It was long after dawn in the morning of May 29th, the Turkish troops have already spread out Constantinople, allowing themselves to pillage, plunder and ransack anything they could get their hands on, as it was a customary Islamic law of conquest. Few remaining, stubborn defenders were put to the sword, some women were violated and raped and children were taken as slaves. The elder, the lame and the infirm were slaughtered. The churches were breached and taken, some were burned down, some were spared, either by luck or by desperate negotiation by churchmen. The survivors and defenders fled to the ports, trying to get abroad of the departing ships, already filled to the max. The Venetians and their hated rival, the Genoeses, were either granted passage under false pretense or somehow fought their way out of the Turkish blockade. It was chaos all over the city. Fires and smokes were everywhere.
Later in the day, Mehmed II made his triumphal entry at the Gate of Charisius, (depicted by artist Fausto Zonaro). The Turks have rounded up the survivors, the leading administrators, church leaders and Constantine’s family relatives for Mehmed but he wondered what happened to the Emperor Constantine XI? Alas, he was presented with a chopped off head of the supposed Emperor but Mehmed was unsure. At one account, the body of the Emperor was never founded, probably piled along with the rest of the dead and buried elsewhere but we may never know. Legend has it that an angel appeared to Constantine XI, turned him to a marble statue and took him deep underground to sleep, awaiting the day of return to glory.
Mehmed went up to the Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), the grandest and largest in the Christendom, where his troops breached its great doors and entered before a frightened congregation, he moved them out, then he knelt and bowed to the ground in an act of thanksgiving in the house of God, then looking up to the inside of the dome, where a great mosaic artwork of Jesus Christ peered down on Mehmed II, the sultan of the Ottomans, who took up another title: Caesar of the Romans. However, the Eastern Roman Empire finally ceased to be, after 1123 years, and Constantinople was, at last, his. He was only 21 years old.
News of the fall of Constantinople on May 29th 1453 shocked the Pope in Rome and horrified the Latin monarchs in Europe. Refugees from Constantinople settled all over Europe told a variety of stories of the siege and the fall. Moreover, the best and brightest Byzantine artists, architects, writers and learned scholars gradually settled in Venice, Genoa, Paris, Vienna, Milan and Rome, their experiences, skills and wealth of knowledge paved the way to the great era of the Renaissance. Mehmed II went on to build his empire of Islam, ruling it until his death on May 3rd, 1481.
UPDATE: the memorial statue of the last Roman Emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos Dragases in Mystras, Greece
