Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 Page 12

  The operation of a medieval foundry was fraught with danger. A visit by the later Ottoman traveller, Evliya Chelebi, to a gun factory catches the note of fear and risk surrounding the process:

  On the day when cannon are to be cast, the masters, foremen and founders, together with the Grand Master of the Artillery, the Chief Overseer, Imam, Muezzin and timekeeper, all assemble and to the cries of ‘Allah! Allah!’, the wood is thrown into the furnaces. After these have been heated for twenty-four hours, the founders and stokers strip naked, wearing nothing but their slippers, an odd kind of cap which leaves nothing but their eyes visible, and thick sleeves to protect the arms; for, after the fire has been alight in the furnaces twenty-four hours, no person can approach on account of the heat, save he be attired in the above manner. Whoever wishes to see a good picture of the fires of Hell should witness this sight.

  When the furnace was judged to have reached the correct temperature the foundry workers started to throw copper into the crucible along with scrap bronze probably salvaged, by a bitter irony for Christians, from church bells. The work was incredibly dangerous – the difficulty of hurling the metal piece by piece into the bubbling cauldron and of skimming dross off the surface with metal ladles, the noxious fumes given off by the tin alloys, the risk that if the scrap metal were wet, the water would vaporize, rupturing the furnace and wiping out all close by – these hazards hedged the operation about with superstitious dread. According to Evliya, when the time came to throw in the tin:

  the Vezirs, the Mufti and Sheikhs are summoned; only forty persons, besides the personnel of the foundry, are admitted all told. The rest of the attendants are shut out, because the metal, when in fusion, will not suffer to be looked at by evil eyes. The masters then desire the Vezirs and sheikhs who are seated on sofas at a great distance to repeat unceasingly the words ‘There is no power and strength save in Allah!’ Thereupon the master-workmen with wooden shovels throw several hundredweight of tin into the sea of molten brass, and the head-founder says to the Grand Vizier, Vezirs and Sheikhs: ‘Throw some gold and silver coins into the brazen sea as alms, in the name of the True Faith!’ Poles as long as the yard of ships are used for mixing the gold and silver with the metal and are replaced as fast as consumed.

  For three days and nights the lit charcoal was superheated by the action of bellows continuously operated by teams of foundry workers until the keen eye of the master founder judged the metal to be the right tone of molten red. It was another critical moment, the culmination of weeks of work, involving fine judgement: ‘The time limit having expired … the head-founder and master-workmen, attired in their clumsy felt dresses, open the mouth of the furnace with iron hooks exclaiming “Allah! Allah!” The metal, as it begins to flow, casts a glare on the men’s faces at a hundred paces’ distance.’ The molten metal flowed down the clay channel like a slow river of red-hot lava and into the mouth of the gun mould. Sweating workers prodded the viscous mass with immensely long wooden poles to tease out air bubbles that might otherwise rupture the gunmetal under fire. ‘The bronze flowed out through the channel into the mould until it was completely full and the mould totally covered, and it overflowed it by a cubit above. And in this way the cannon was finished.’ The wet sand packed round the mould would hopefully slow the rate of cooling and prevent the bronze cracking in the process. Once the metal was cold, the barrel was laboriously excavated from the ground like an immense grub in its cocoon of clay and hauled out by teams of oxen. It was a powerful alchemy.

  Fifteenth-century cast cannon

  What finally emerged from Orban’s foundry after the moulds had been knocked out and the metal scraped and polished was ‘a horrifying and extraordinary monster’. The primitive tube shone dully in the winter light. It was twenty-seven feet long. The barrel itself, walled with eight inches of solid bronze to take the force of the blast, had a diameter of thirty inches, big enough for a man to enter on his hands and knees and designed to accommodate a monstrous stone shot eight feet in circumference weighing something over half a ton. In January 1453 Mehmet ordered a test firing of the great gun outside his new royal palace at Edirne. The mighty bombard was hauled into position near the gate and the city was warned that the following day ‘the explosion and roar would be like thunder, lest anyone should be struck dumb by the unexpected shock or pregnant women might miscarry’. In the morning the cannon was primed with powder. A team of workmen lugged a giant stone ball into the mouth of the barrel and rolled it back down to sit snugly in front of the gunpowder chamber. A lighted taper was put to the touch hole. With a shattering roar and a cloud of smoke that hazed the sky, the mighty bullet was propelled across the open countryside for a mile before burying itself six feet down in the soft earth. The explosion could be heard ten miles off: ‘so powerful is this gunpowder’, recorded Doukas, who probably witnessed this test firing personally. Mehmet himself ensured that ominous reports of the gun filtered back to Constantinople: it was to be a psychological weapon as well as a practical one. Back in Edirne Orban’s foundry continued to turn out more guns of different sizes; none were quite as large as the first supergun, but a number measured more than fourteen feet.

  During early February, consideration turned to the great practical difficulties of transporting Orban’s gun the 140 miles from Edirne to Constantinople. A large detachment of men and animals was detailed for the task. Laboriously the immense tube was loaded onto a number of wagons chained together and yoked to a team of sixty oxen. Two hundred men were deployed to support the barrel as it creaked and lurched over the rolling Thracian countryside while another team of carpenters and labourers worked ahead, levelling the track and building wooden bridges over rivers and gullies. The great gun rumbled towards the city walls at a speed of two and a half miles a day.

  Source Notes

  6 The Wall and the Gun

  1 ‘From the flaming …’, quoted Hogg, p. 16

  2 ‘an expert in …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 40

  3 ‘dredged the fosse …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 37

  4 ‘a seven-year-old boy …’, Gunther of Pairis, p. 99

  5 ‘one of the wisest …’, quoted Tsangadas, p. 9

  6 ‘the scourge of God’, quoted Van Millingen, Byzantine Constantinople, p. 49

  7 ‘in less than two months …’, quoted ibid., p. 47

  8 ‘This God-protected gate …’, quoted ibid., p. 107

  9 ‘a good and high wall’, quoted Mijatovich, p. 50

  10 ‘struck terror …’, quoted Hogg, p. 16

  11 ‘made such a noise …’, quoted Cipolla, p. 36

  12 ‘the devilish instrument of war’, quoted DeVries, p. 125

  13 ‘If you want …’, Doukas, Fragmenta, pp. 247–8

  14 ‘like a scabbard’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 44

  15 ‘iron and timbers …’, ibid., p. 44

  16 ‘so deep that …’, ibid., p. 44

  17 ‘On the day …’, Chelebi, In the Days, p. 90

  18 ‘the Vezirs …’, ibid., p. 90

  19 ‘The time limit having expired …’, ibid., p. 91

  20 ‘The bronze flowed out …’, Kritovoulos, Critobuli, p. 44

  21 ‘a horrifying and extraordinary monster’, Doukas, Fragmenta, p. 248

  22 ‘the explosion and …’, ibid., p. 249

  23 ‘so powerful is …’, ibid., p. 249

  7 Numerous as the Stars

  MARCH–APRIL 1453

  When it marched, the air seemed like a forest because of its lances and when it

  stopped, the earth could not be seen for tents.

  Mehmet’s chronicler, Tursun Bey, on the Ottoman army

  Mehmet needed both artillery and numerical superiority to fulfil his plans. By bringing sudden and overwhelming force to bear on Constantinople, he intended to deliver a knockout blow before Christendom had time to respond. The Ottomans always knew that speed was the key to storming fortresses. It was a principle clearly understood by foreign observers such as M
ichael the Janissary, a prisoner of war who fought for the Ottomans at this time: ‘The Turkish Emperor storms and captures cities and also fortresses at great expense in order not to remain there long with the army.’ Success depended on the ability to mobilize men and equipment quickly and on an impressive scale.

  Accordingly, Mehmet issued the traditional call to arms at the start of the year. By ancient tribal ritual, the sultan set up his horsetail banner in the palace courtyard to announce the campaign. This triggered the dispatch of ‘heralds to all the provinces, ordering everyone to come for the campaign against the City’. The command structure of the two Ottoman armies – the European and the Anatolian – ensured a prompt response. An elaborate set of contractual obligations and levies enlisted men from across the empire. The provincial cavalry, the sipahis, who provided the bulk of the troops, were bound by their ties as landholders from the sultan to come, each man with his own helmet, chain mail and horse armour, together with the number of retainers relative to the size of his holding. Alongside these, a seasonal Muslim infantry force, the azaps, were levied ‘from among craftsmen and peasants’ and paid for by the citizens on a pro-rata basis. These troops were the cannon fodder of the campaign: ‘When it comes to an engagement,’ one cynical Italian commented, ‘they are sent ahead like pigs, without any mercy, and they die in great numbers.’ Mehmet also requisitioned Christian auxiliaries from the Balkans, largely Slavs and Vlachs, obligated under the laws of vassalage, and he prepared his elite professional household regiments: the infantry – the famous Janissaries – the cavalry regiments and all the other attendant corps of gunners, armourers, bodyguards and military police. These crack troops, paid regularly every three months and armed at the sultan’s expense, were all Christians largely from the Balkans, taken as children and converted to Islam. They owed their total loyalty to the sultan. Although few in number – probably no more than 5,000 infantry – they comprised the durable core of the Ottoman army.

  Horsetail banner: symbol of Ottoman authority

  The mobilization for the season’s campaign was extraordinarily efficient. Within the Muslim heartlands it was not a press gang. Men came at the call to arms with a willingness that amazed European eyewitnesses such as George of Hungary, another prisoner in the empire at this time:

  When recruiting for the army is begun, they gather with such readiness and speed you might think they are invited to a wedding not a war. They gather within a month in the order they are summoned, the infantrymen separately from the cavalrymen, all of them with their appointed chiefs, in the same order which they use for encampments and when preparing for battle… with such enthusiasm that men put themselves forward in the place of their neighbours, and those left at home feel an injustice has been done to them. They claim they will be happier if they die on the battlefield among the spears and arrows of the enemy than at home … Those who die in war like this are not mourned but are hailed as saints and victors, to be set as an example and given high respect.

  ‘Everyone who heard that the attack was to be against the City came running’, added Doukas, ‘both boys too young to march and old men bent double with age.’ They were fired by the prospect of booty and personal advancement and holy war, themes that were woven together in the Koran: by Islamic holy law, a city taken by force could be legitimately subjected to three days of plunder. Enthusiasm was made all the keener by knowledge of the objective: the Red Apple of Constantinople was popularly, but perhaps mistakenly, held to possess fabulous hoards of gold and gems. Many came who had not been summoned: volunteers and freelance raiders, hangers-on, dervishes and holy men inspired by the old prophecies who stirred the populace with words of the Prophet and the glories of martyrdom. Anatolia was on fire with excitement and remembered that ‘the promise of the Prophet foretold that that vast city … would become the abode of the people of the Faith’. Men flocked from the four corners of Anatolia – ‘from Tokat, Sivas, Kemach, Erzurum, Ganga, Bayburt and Trabzon’ – to the collecting points at Bursa; in Europe they came to Edirne. A huge force was gathering: ‘cavalry and foot soldiers, heavy infantry and archers and slingers and lancers’. At the same time, the Ottoman logistical machine swung into action, collecting, repairing and manufacturing armour, siege equipment, cannons, tents, ships, tools, weapons and food. Camel trains criss-crossed the long plateau. Ships were patched up at Gallipoli. Troops were ferried across the Bosphorus at the Throat Cutter. Intelligence was gathered from Venetian spies. No army in the world could match the Ottomans in the organization of a military campaign.

  In February, troops of the European army under its leader, Karaja Bey, started to clear the hinterland of the city. Constantinople still had some fortified outposts on the Black Sea, the north shore of the Marmara and the Bosphorus. Greeks from the surrounding countryside retreated into the strongholds. Each was systematically encircled. Those that surrendered were allowed to go unharmed; others, such as those at a tower near Epibatos on the Marmara, resisted. It was stormed and the garrison slaughtered. Some could not be quickly taken; they were bypassed but kept under guard. News of these events filtered back to Constantinople and intensified the woe of the population, now riven by religious feuding. The city itself was already under careful observation by three regiments from Anatolia lest Constantine should sally out and disrupt preparations. Meanwhile the sapper corps was at work strengthening bridges and levelling roads for the convoys of guns and heavy equipment that started to roll across the Thracian landscape in February. By March a detachment of ships from Gallipoli sailed up past the city and proceeded to ferry the bulk of the Anatolian forces into Europe. A great force was starting to converge.

  Finally on 23 March Mehmet set out from Edirne in great pomp ‘with all his army, cavalry and infantry, travelling across the landscape, devastating and disturbing everything, creating fear and agony and the utmost horror wherever he went’. It was a Friday, the most holy day of the Muslim week, and carefully chosen to emphasize the sacred dimension of the campaign. He was accompanied by a notable religious presence: ‘the ulema, the sheikhs and the descendants of the Prophet … repeating prayers … moved forward with the army, and rode by the rein of the Sultan’. The cavalcade also probably included a state functionary called Tursun Bey, who was to write a rare firsthand Ottoman account of the siege. At the start of April, this formidable force converged on the city. The first of April was Easter Sunday, the most holy day in the Orthodox calendar, and it was celebrated throughout the city with a mixture of piety and apprehension. At midnight candlelight and incense proclaimed the mystery of the risen Christ in the city’s churches. The haunting and simple line of the Easter litany rose and fell over the dark city in mysterious quartertones. Bells were rung. Only St Sophia itself remained silent and unvisited by the Orthodox population. In the preceding weeks people had ‘begged God not to let the City be attacked during Holy Week’ and sought spiritual strength from their icons. The most revered of these, the Hodegetria, the miracle-working image of the Mother of God, was carried to the imperial palace at Blachernae for Easter week according to custom and tradition.

  The next day Ottoman outriders were sighted beyond the walls. Constantine dispatched a sortie to confront them and in the ensuing skirmish some of the raiders were killed. As the day wore on however, ever increasing numbers of Ottoman troops appeared over the horizon and Constantine took the decision to withdraw his men into the city. All the bridges over the fosse were systematically destroyed and the gates closed. The city was sealed against whatever was to come. The sultan’s army began to form up in a sequence of well-rehearsed manoeuvres that combined caution with deep planning. On 2 April, the main force came to a halt five miles out. It was organized into constituent units and each regiment was assigned its position. Over the next few days it moved forward in a series of staged advances that reminded watchers of the remorseless advance of ‘a river that transforms itself into a huge sea’ – a recurrent image in the chroniclers’ accounts of the incredible power an
d ceaseless motion of the army.

  A Janissary

  The preparatory work progressed with great speed. Sappers began cutting down the orchards and vineyards outside the walls to create a clean field of fire for the guns. A ditch was dug the length of the land wall and 250 yards from it, with an earth rampart in front as a protection for the guns. Latticework wooden screens were placed on top as a further shield. Behind this protective line, Mehmet moved the main army into its final position about a quarter of a mile from the land walls: ‘According to custom, the day that camp was to be made near Istanbul the army was ordered by regiment into rows. He ranged at the centre of the army around his person the white-capped Janissary archers, the Turkish and European crossbowmen, and the musketeers and cannonneers. The red-capped azaps were placed on his right and left, joined at the rear by the cavalry. Thus organised, the army marched in formation on Istanbul.’ Each regiment had its allotted place: the Anatolian troops on the right, in the position of honour, under their Turkish commander Ishak Pasha, assisted by Mahmut Pasha, another Christian renegade; the Christian, Balkan troops on the left under Karaja Pasha. A further large detachment under the Greek convert Zaganos Pasha were sent to build a roadway over the marshy ground at the top of the Horn and to cover the hills down to the Bosphorus, watching the activities of the Genoese settlement at Galata in the process. On the evening of 6 April, another Friday, Mehmet arrived to take up his carefully chosen position on the prominent hillock of Maltepe at the centre of his troops and opposite the portion of the walls that he considered to be the most vulnerable to attack. It was from here that his father Murat had conducted the siege of 1422.