silver 2039
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
- Messages
- 16,208
OOC: Might I suggest a better name? How about Union of Federated Asian Repebulics? (UFAR)
NES2 VIb - Return of the Chaos.
- Thread starter das
- Start date
- Status
Oruc
Reactionary
Federated East Asian Republics (FEAR)
Disenfrancised
Beep Beep
That was an awesome constitution Symphony, I will now refer to the people of your republiuc as 'Geashels' 
. Also why are their seven stars on your flag?
. Also why are their seven stars on your flag?
Swissempire
Poet Jester
The consituition seems a bit................anachrostic, but it is very well put together.
Can I call your people Gearheads?
IC:
To: The Greater East Asian Republic
From:The Kingdom of Preahthaimranma
We extend recognition to your new nation, and in light of your acendance, and in the interest of peace, we wish to enter into an Alliance with you, The Asian Alliance, which all other Asians countries left after the conclusion of the war may join.
If you don't wish to sign that, we wish to sign an 10 year NAP with your new Nation, and would like a guarentee of our independent soverignity from you.
Can I call your people Gearheads?
IC:
To: The Greater East Asian Republic
From:The Kingdom of Preahthaimranma
We extend recognition to your new nation, and in light of your acendance, and in the interest of peace, we wish to enter into an Alliance with you, The Asian Alliance, which all other Asians countries left after the conclusion of the war may join.
If you don't wish to sign that, we wish to sign an 10 year NAP with your new Nation, and would like a guarentee of our independent soverignity from you.
Insane_Panda
Deity
We remind the Kingdom that it is still an Imperial dependency, and thusly is not alowed to make foriegn policy overtures on its own of such nature as alliance-building. We further remind the Kingdom that it already has an alliance with Japan through the Imperial Defensive Alliance system.
Symphony D.
Deity
OOC:
50 Ninja / Pirate points if you know what the flag is sort of inspired by / stolen from (and it's not the American one; these people stole from that too). There was a hint in the story sections.
Now if the one I've got is bad, that'd just be plain awful.Silver said:
Thought about it. Liked it, but decided it was too cheesy.emu said:
Ah, the, inspiration. It's mostly designed because it looks OK. The red stripe symbolizes Japan. The white stripes, the relenquishment of supreme control over the rest of the empire. The green, the outer territories that make up the Empire. The white field symbolizes overarching unity, and the seven black stars the fact that the nation can roughly be divided into seven directions (North, Northwest, Northeast, South, Southwest, Southeast, and Central), seven is a lucky number (yes, in Japan too), and black is a good neutral color that implies order. I also have yet to carve up the region into states, but there might be 70 of them for all I know, so then each star would correspond to 10 states. Or perhaps some multiple of 7. That part is potentially subject to historical revisionism.Dis said:
50 Ninja / Pirate points if you know what the flag is sort of inspired by / stolen from (and it's not the American one; these people stole from that too). There was a hint in the story sections.
It's derived from the 1946 Constitution. I am, at least, at a 1916 parallel. Close enough.Swiss said:
Swissempire
Poet Jester
I was referencing the part about no discrimination for Race, Sex, stuff like that
Symphony D.
Deity
OOC: My empire contains as many if not more nationalities than either the EUA or HRE, and possibly more than both combined (think about that for a moment). Out of necessity to ensure operation, I imagine it has adopted a fairly liberal stance on the matter (despite being Japanese; they're can be practical people when they put their minds to it), particularly after some of the not entirely coincidentally occuring events of the last war. Given this is a move to pacify even the beginnings of revolt (not that there really was any), they would be quite likely to expand it to the next level, if it was not already there. In short, my circumstances allow me to be socially liberal. My next moves will require it.
Oh, yeah, and check your PMs.
Oh, yeah, and check your PMs.
~Darkening~
Weep, Mother.
Just in case I'm not on when the line of death comes, my orders will be in late tofay. Not like they'd make a diffrence anyway, so it shouldn't make a diffrence- glory to Segu .
.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
The Farow said:Orders Sent
By the way I need to find some creative and inspirational ideas for the Frontiere nation I have because my orders are awfully short. I work out something this week.
I'll swap nations with you,
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
Orders sent. I hope to god this works, because I had to struggle with a nasty cold and have managed to put off homework (so I'll be up late doing that) just to write them.
Luckymoose, I would switch back to Britain as I was doing good with them until I left. I was being a good puppet and ally to the French 
. Now look at them shattered and weakened.
I would switch if you really want to because Britain is a prize and I suggest not letting them go.
I know you are probably joking but I am going to answer it with a serious answer.
. Now look at them shattered and weakened.I would switch if you really want to because Britain is a prize and I suggest not letting them go.
I know you are probably joking but I am going to answer it with a serious answer
.
Excerpt from A History of the Roman Empire, 27 BC - present, author P. Moulones:
In January 1453 Mohammed II summoned his ministers to Adrianople for a council of war. The Romans, he told them, were still dangerous. Weak though they were, they were also natural intriguers who could still do the Sublime Ottoman State great damage if they so chose. Too, there were possible allies who could yet come to their assistance; these more powerful states, such as Venice, Genoa, or the French, could shoulder the burden of the defense of Constantinople. His own Empire would never be safe as long as Constantinople was a Christian city; he must take it now, to allow further expansion of the state. Admittedly, the city was well defended, but it was by no means impregnable, and the previous attempts had failed because the attackers could never gain control of the Bosphorus. Now, for the first time in its history, the Ottoman Empire had naval superiority. If the New Rome could not be stormed, it would be starved.
The Sultan spoke no more than the truth; the records of Italian sailors at Galata in the weeks to come show that the Turk fleet, numbering six triremes, ten biremes, fifteen oared galleys, seventy-five longboats, twenty heavy sailing barges, and innumerable sloops and cutters, all protected by the daunting fortress of Rumeli Hisar, whose guns could reach across the Bosphorus and shatter ships that tried to run the blockade. Even many of the Sultan’s advisers, when they reached the coast and saw this great display and panoply, which assembled off the Hellespont in March 1453, were astonished; their reactions would have paled compared to that of the Romans in the city, as they watched the huge armada drop anchor underneath the Sea Walls.
Gathering in Thrace, the Ottoman army was no less a threat. As with his navy, Mohammed II had been giving it special attention over the previous winter since the construction of Rumeli Hisar, making sure of equipage and ammunition. He had mobilized every regiment, stopped all furlough, and recruited vast numbers of irregulars and mercenaries, making exception only for frontier troops and garrisons. Roman estimates were on the side of three hundred thousand; due to the Turk deception efforts, they were really seeing about eighty thousand regular soldiers and twenty thousand of the irregular bashi-bazouks. Twelve thousand janissaries rounded out the regular contingent. These troops had been subject to the odious practice of the Sultan, recruiting children as babies from Christian families, forcibly converting them to Islam, and then subjected for years to rigorous military and religious training. A few had become elite sappers or engineers. Legally, though, they were slaves: slaves who received a small salary and consequently would revolt many times over the next three centuries, culminating in the most famous one, that of 1741, when Osman IV’s reign was weakened so badly as to allow a few Greek freedom fighters to undo the damage done by his predecessor.
Mohammed was rightly proud of his army and navy; they were the best and greatest army for their time that any Muslim state would ever amass. His true pride and joy, though, was his artillery: the giant cannons, evolved from those that destroyed the Hexamilion by a German engineer, Urban (who had actually approached Constantine XI with this offer; due to budgetary constraints, the Emperor was forced to turn him down reluctantly), who boasted that it could penetrate even Babylon’s walls. His first gun was that which, as we have seen, was stationed in Rumeli Hisar; his next was twice that size, and was able to fire a cannonball weighing nearly a ton. Four hundred men and thirty oxen were needed to take it to the Land Walls and hold it steady in its passage.
Sultan Mohammed stayed in Adrianople until all of his men had come in from Anatolia and the provinces; on 23 March (two months and one week remaining) he left with the rear of the army for the march that saw them end up on 5 April in front of the Theodosian Walls. In accordance with Islamic law, the sultan sent a message under flag of truce to Emperor Constantine, offering to spare the city if the gates were opened now. The response from the Emperor of the Romans was predictable; Mohammed II’s artillery was already getting the range of the walls when the envoys returned with the basileus’ answer, or lack thereof. In the early morning of Friday, the sixth of April, his cannon opened fire.
Long before Mohammed had called his council, the Constantinopolitans had known that the siege was in the offing. The Emperor at their head, the people – men, women, and children – worked ceaselessly to improve the defenses of the city. They repaired and reinforced the walls, still damaged from Selim’s attack; moats were cleared out and stores of food, arrows, tools, heavy rocks, and Greek fire – still a deadly and potent weapon – were collected. The Sea Walls, too, were strengthened; the Fourth “Crusade” had seen penetration in the region of the Blachernae. As spring began to flower in the gardens and parks of the city, preparations were as complete as they would be. Easter was on the first of April; even though many Christians now avoided the Great Church, all of them, wherever they worshiped, could pray for deliverance in the knowledge that they themselves could do no more to prepare for the Sultan’s armies.
Constantine too had sent away to Europe for help and done his best. After the bombardment and destruction of Captain Rizzo’s ship, the Venetian Senate finally came to realize the seriousness of the situation and sent two transports with four hundred men each to Constantinople. By 20 March their ships were finally on the way, but Pope Nicholas, seeing the true danger far faster than the mercurial oligarchy, had outfitted three galleys at great personal expense and sent them away at top speed for the Bosphorus, which they soon reached. The Venetians in the city, who had given more than their share of trouble in the past two hundred years, responded to the Sultan’s approach with alacrity. Girolamo Minotto, head of the colony, had written to the Serenissima requesting aid as far back as January, and regularly assured an anxious Constantine of its imminent arrival. Meanwhile he forbade all Venetian traffic out of the Golden Horn: two merchant captains, on their way home from the Black Sea, had agreed to give what help they could. Nine merchant vessels came from the Serene Republic, and the naval surgeon Niccolo Barbaro listed sixty-seven nobles and even more commoners that had come to the Empire’s aid.
Genoa had decided to help, too. Many had come from Galata – far less safe than New Rome at this time – but there was also a group from the city itself, who had been appalled by the parsimony of the government in sending only one ship, and who were determined to fight for the Christian side. Giovanni Giustiniani Longo, their leader, was a highborn noble and one of the greatest Italian siege experts of the century. He came on the 29th of January with a private army of seven hundred, including a Scottish engineer, Johannes Grant. There was an elderly Spanish gentleman, Don Francisco de Toledo, who claimed descent from the Comneni (a truly illustrious and spirit-raising assertion if true) and a small party of Catalans, like those of Roger de Flor. The international support for the city was immense, but there was still a surprise in store for Constantine.
On the 26th of February seven Venetian ships fled the Golden Horn and slipped down south to Tenedos, carrying with them seven hundred Italians. The whole episode had basically offset Longo’s contribution of a month before; to Constantine, it was catastrophic. The faithlessness of the captains, who just a few days prior had sworn a solemn oath to stay in the city in its hour of need, was more wounding still. Now, a count of the defenders could be made: only about five thousand able Greeks were still in the city, and about two thousand foreigners to bolster the defenses, which stretched fourteen miles across and would need to hold off a hundred thousand Turks and their great cannon. George Sphrantzes, the chronicler, was entrusted with these figures, and under orders not to reveal them to anyone; only God could save Constantinople now. It remained to be seen whether or not He would. On the second of April a large column of dust appeared on the horizon. The Emperor ordered the gates closed and the bridges over the moats destroyed. Across the Golden Horn, the huge chain now stretched from Galata to a point just below the Acropolis. Now nothing could be done but prayer.
By the morning of Friday, 6 April most of the defenders were on the walls. The Emperor and Giustiniani were in command of the most vulnerable section, the mesoteichion, which crosses the valley of the Lycus a mile from the northern end and which was an obvious attack point for the enemy. The Sea Walls were not as well manned, but those who did served as lookouts for the Turk fleet. Suleyman Baltoglu, a renegade Slav and admiral of Mohammed II’s fleet, was maintaining a close patrol, sealing off the Golden Horn and was massing the fleet across from the Double Columns quay. On the ninth, Baltoglu led his fleet to try to ram the chain and break it up; that failed and the chain held.
One of the greatest bombardments in the history of warfare was taking place at the Land Walls, where the Sultan himself was directing the guns toward the Charisius Gate, trying to gain access to the Mese, along which he could march to St. Sophia. Again and again his soldiers tried to force an opening; again and again they retreated in the face of missiles and Greek fire. During the night, the defenders worked tirelessly to repair the wall, which stood fixed in front of the Sultan on the morning after. While he brought up more cannon, the forts of Studius and Therapia were swarmed and seized, and their defenders were brought to the Land Walls to demonstrate the folly of the enemy. Like his supreme enemy, Dracula of Transylvania, Mohammed had the Studians impaled within sight of the walls. Baltoglu was ordered to seize the Princes’ Islands in the Propontis, which he did with ease, burning down the single fort on Principo. On the eleventh of April his guns were back in place; they would not cease their bombardment for forty-eight days.
Constantly the guns pounded, and constantly the defenders repaired the walls in the face of Turk attack. A surprise blow on the night of 18 April was beaten off with great courage by the defenders, with the Turks losing two hundred men to not a single Christian. Baltoglu tried again to breach the chain, but the remaining Greek and Italian ships engaged his armada and forced the Turks to retreat. However, a naval engagement once again happened that would have a far greater effect on the siege. The Pope’s ships finally reached the Bosphorus in early morning of the twentieth of April, and Sultan Mohammed ordered Baltoglu to destroy the transports to teach a lesson to the defenders. Turk vessels bore down on the four ships (a Roman transport with a cargo of grain from Alfonso of Sicily was also arriving), but just in time a southerly breeze came, which allowed them to outstrip their assailants, who had no sail. A constant deluge of projectiles frustrated the Turk efforts to break through.
Then, the wind changed. The Turks soon had the Christian ships surrounded, and Baltoglu’s galley guns opened fire. Fortunately for the four ships, the guns were not elevated enough, and the balls fell short of the Christian craft. Desperate, the admiral ordered his flagship to ram the imperial transport, hitting it in the stern. The Genoese ships from the Pope were quickly surrounded; shot after shot rained down on the enemy, but nearly fifty Turkish vessels had them completely rounded. However, the superior height of the Christian ships saved the day again. The Turks were unable to board the Christian vessels, and soon their oars were entangled, making them easy prey. As the imperial transport began to be overwhelmed by boarders, the Genoese captains saw the predicament and lashed their four ships in a gigantic floating fortress, preventing the enemy ships from reaching the transport. Now one body, the ships fought gallantly, but Baltoglu had nearly limitless resources to throw at them. Just as the sun was setting and their courage waning, the wind finally picked up again. The Christian formation splintered all of the ships in its path; Baltoglu, wounded in the eye by a projectile, ordered a withdrawal. The ships moved away, and the four vessels, crews completely exhausted, slipped quietly into the Golden Horn. Baltoglu was bastinadoed and deprived of rank and his possessions, and was forced into obscurity by an infuriated – some say mentally unbalanced – Sultan.
The Romans and their Italian allies were luckier than perhaps they themselves knew. Mohammed was over at the Double Columns, far away from the siege on the 21st, when his cannon brought down the Bactatinian Tower and ruined much of the ramparts. If the besiegers had attacked instantly, the city might have fallen, but without Mohammed’s orders, they missed the opportunity. The following morning saw the tower and wall almost completely restored by the Greco-Italian engineers. It had the other effect of forcing the Sultan’s attention on the chain across the Golden Horn. Somehow it had to be brought down. He had had the idea since the beginning, when his engineers began to make a road behind Galata and across from the Propontis to the Bosphorus shore. By the twenty-second, his ships were hauled up from the shore, across the road, and lowered into the Horn. An attempt to destroy the enemy ships failed and ninety Christian sailors were lost; in retaliation, the 260 Turkish prisoners taken over the weeks by the Christian defenders were brought to the Land Walls and beheaded in front of their compatriots.
Still, the Emperor expected reinforcement from Venice, reassured by Minotto. He soon began to see the true significance of the Turkish accomplishment. The Genoese in Galata, although a few had come to assist their Christian allies, had largely stayed in the colony and watched as the siege continued; only a few under Longo were bravely manning the walls. Though Greek and Genoese had little love for each other, their common bond as Christians was also ignored in the time of greatest need. Even though the Churches had been reunited (only to separate further and further over the next centuries) in theory, the Genoese – and many Venetians, too – held trade as the paramount thing of importance, and wanted to end up on the winning side. By their own actions they may have switched the balance; no one will ever know.
Mohammed threw a pontoon bridge across the Horn, allowing supplies and reinforcements to cross to the besieging army faster than before and mounting some minor artillery pieces on the bridge to shoot at the Sea Walls. Indeed, by the beginning of May the basileus did not have much hope for survival. Food was short – fishing was impossible now in the Golden Horn – and more and more of the defenders were taking time away from the walls to find food in the city. Only one hope remained: the relief expedition from Venice. When a ship, flying Turkish colors and carrying twelve volunteers disguised as Turks, left the Golden Horn, escaping the besieging fleet, Constantine sent a message with it: to try to find the Venetian fleet. It returned on the 23rd, a Wednesday. The captain spoke with the Emperor and Minotto, and told them his story.
He had cruised for three weeks through the Aegean, and seen no trace of Venetian shipping or the promised expedition. When he called a conference of the sailors to vote on the course of action, one proposed a return to Venice, saying that the city was probably in Turkish hands already. To the captain’s relief, the others shouted him down: they must report to the Emperor, though they would probably never leave the city again alive. Constantine thanked each of them personally, his voice choked with tears.
Omens had begun to appear in the city. The first emperor of Eastern Rome had been a Constantine, born of Helena; so too would be the last. Shortly before the full moon of May 24 the portents took a sinister turn. On the 22nd there was a lunar eclipse, and two days later the holiest and most precious icon of the Virgin was being carried through the streets in a call for her intercession. During the procession, the icon slipped from the platform on which it was carried and fell onto the street. When the bearers bent to pick it up, it seemed heavier than usual, but it was replaced and they went on their way for a few hundred yards, but then a thunderstorm burst over the city, violent and more dramatic than any in memory. The storm’s force was so great that the procession was abandoned. The following day the people found their city wreathed in fog (unusual at best for a May morning); that night, the dome of the Great Church was infused with a supernatural red glow that crept slowly up from the base to the summit and then went out. The Turks at Galata and the Double Columns saw this last phenomenon; the Sultan himself was greatly disturbed (more so than usual, in any event), and was reassured by his astrologers, who told him that the building would soon be illuminated by the faith of Islam. For the Romans, the meaning seemed clear: the Spirit of God Himself had left the city.
George Sphrantzes attempted to persuade the Emperor to leave the city and head a Morean government until he could once again march to Constantinople and retake it, as Michael Palaeologus had done two centuries hence. It is a sign of how much the great man was exhausted that he fainted from it as Sphrantzes spoke to him; but when he recovered he was more determined than ever. It was simple: this was his city, and these were his people. This last [1] and most valiant of Roman Emperors refused to desert his people now, when they needed him most.
Mohammed II held another council of war on the twenty-sixth of May. The siege had been going long enough; it was time to end things. His grand vizier pressured him to withdraw before the army of the Hungarian John Hunyadi appeared in his rear – an army long rumored to be on the march. The Sultan would have none of it. The defenders, he said, were starving and demoralized. His generals agreed and overruled the vizier; a day would go to prepare and the day after to rest and pray. The attack was set for Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of May.
Both sides knew that the last battle was to come soon. Christians in the Muslim camps shot arrows to inform their comrades on the walls of the Sultan’s plan, but it was hardly necessary. The preparations continued for thirty-six hours: filling the ditches, drawing up the smaller siege guns and gathering ammunition for them and the catapults, positioning the siege gun, laying in arrow stores, food, bandages, water, and gunpowder. Drums and trumpets sounded to spur the men to greater effort, and huge flares were lit at night to give them light. At dawn on the 28th, work ceased, and the Turkish camp was quiet, unmoving. Mohammed went on a daylong inspection tour.
In the city, his assessment had proven correct. In the last weeks, Romans, Genoese, and Venetians had rubbed each other raw and to the breaking point. The three groups weren’t even on speaking terms but for their leadership. Even on the defense of the city, all orders were questioned, arguments ensued, and every motive was suspect. Then, on the last Monday of the Empire’s history, not to rise for centuries to come, the mood changed. As the hour approached and the assault came closer, the work on the walls continued amidst a new air of camaraderie. Quarrels and differences were forgotten. Elsewhere throughout the city, the people of Constantinople left their houses and gathered for an intercession. Bells rang out from the churches, the most sacred icons were carried out, and a long, spontaneous procession of Greeks and Italians, men and women of both churches, wound its way through the streets and along the whole length of the walls, pausing for prayer at places of particularly severe damage, or where the Sultan would fire the next day.
Basileus Constantine himself joined the procession; when it was finished, he summoned his commanders to address them for the last time. He spoke first to his Greek subjects, telling them that there were four great Causes for which a man should be ready to die: his faith, his country, his family and his sovereign. They must now be prepared to give their lives for all four. He himself would die for the other three causes, not save his own life. His people were the great and noble descendants of Greece and Rome, and doubtless they would prove themselves worthy of the praise of their forefathers, of Aeneas and Achilles, of Scipio and Alexander, of Caesar and Constantine. They would defend their city, no doubt, with great valor, protecting the place where the infidel Sultan wished to seat his false prophet on the throne of Jesus Christ. He turned to the Italians, thanking them for all that they had done and assuring them of his trust and love in the day ahead, in the near-certain doom they all faced. They were one people with the Romans, united in their worship of God. Only with His help would they be victorious. Finally, he walked slowly around the room, thanking each man personally and asking forgiveness for any slight or offense.
Dusk was falling, and from all over the city, spontaneously, the people were going to the Church of the Holy Wisdom. For the last five months the building had been avoided by the Romans, defiled as they believed by Latin usages that no pious Orthodox Christian would ever accept. Now, for the first – and last – time, liturgical differences were forgotten. The Great Church of St. Sophia was the spiritual center of the Roman Empire. Since the time of the sons of Constantine the Great, for more than a millennium, the church of the city had stood there; for the last nine hundred Justinian’s Great Church’s golden cross had stood, symbolizing Faith and Empire. Where else could they go?
The last service of Vespers to be held in St. Sophia for three centuries was the most inspiring, far outmatching the first or the restoration. The defenders could not desert their posts, but everyone else in the city that could move flooded into the Church to take the Eucharist and pray together for their deliverance. The Patriarchal Chair was still vacant, but Orthodox bishops, priests, monks, and nuns were there in their hundreds, crowding into the church whose threshold many had vowed not to cross ever again after the reunification. Cardinal Isidore of Kiev was held with a new respect as he dispensed the Sacrament and intoned the old Orthodox liturgies. The service was still in progress when the Emperor and his commanders arrived in the Church. He asked forgiveness of his sins from every Christian bishop present, Orthodox and Catholic alike, and then he took communion with the rest of his people. After all but the permanent candles had been put out, he returned alone and spent time in prayer, then returned to the Palace for a farewell to his household. With Sphrantzes, the Emperor rode the length of the Walls to make sure all had been readied, and then the two went to the top of a tower near Blachernae, there to watch and listen. Then Sphrantzes was dismissed; the two, Emperor and loyal secretary, never spoke again in this world.
In January 1453 Mohammed II summoned his ministers to Adrianople for a council of war. The Romans, he told them, were still dangerous. Weak though they were, they were also natural intriguers who could still do the Sublime Ottoman State great damage if they so chose. Too, there were possible allies who could yet come to their assistance; these more powerful states, such as Venice, Genoa, or the French, could shoulder the burden of the defense of Constantinople. His own Empire would never be safe as long as Constantinople was a Christian city; he must take it now, to allow further expansion of the state. Admittedly, the city was well defended, but it was by no means impregnable, and the previous attempts had failed because the attackers could never gain control of the Bosphorus. Now, for the first time in its history, the Ottoman Empire had naval superiority. If the New Rome could not be stormed, it would be starved.
The Sultan spoke no more than the truth; the records of Italian sailors at Galata in the weeks to come show that the Turk fleet, numbering six triremes, ten biremes, fifteen oared galleys, seventy-five longboats, twenty heavy sailing barges, and innumerable sloops and cutters, all protected by the daunting fortress of Rumeli Hisar, whose guns could reach across the Bosphorus and shatter ships that tried to run the blockade. Even many of the Sultan’s advisers, when they reached the coast and saw this great display and panoply, which assembled off the Hellespont in March 1453, were astonished; their reactions would have paled compared to that of the Romans in the city, as they watched the huge armada drop anchor underneath the Sea Walls.
Gathering in Thrace, the Ottoman army was no less a threat. As with his navy, Mohammed II had been giving it special attention over the previous winter since the construction of Rumeli Hisar, making sure of equipage and ammunition. He had mobilized every regiment, stopped all furlough, and recruited vast numbers of irregulars and mercenaries, making exception only for frontier troops and garrisons. Roman estimates were on the side of three hundred thousand; due to the Turk deception efforts, they were really seeing about eighty thousand regular soldiers and twenty thousand of the irregular bashi-bazouks. Twelve thousand janissaries rounded out the regular contingent. These troops had been subject to the odious practice of the Sultan, recruiting children as babies from Christian families, forcibly converting them to Islam, and then subjected for years to rigorous military and religious training. A few had become elite sappers or engineers. Legally, though, they were slaves: slaves who received a small salary and consequently would revolt many times over the next three centuries, culminating in the most famous one, that of 1741, when Osman IV’s reign was weakened so badly as to allow a few Greek freedom fighters to undo the damage done by his predecessor.
Mohammed was rightly proud of his army and navy; they were the best and greatest army for their time that any Muslim state would ever amass. His true pride and joy, though, was his artillery: the giant cannons, evolved from those that destroyed the Hexamilion by a German engineer, Urban (who had actually approached Constantine XI with this offer; due to budgetary constraints, the Emperor was forced to turn him down reluctantly), who boasted that it could penetrate even Babylon’s walls. His first gun was that which, as we have seen, was stationed in Rumeli Hisar; his next was twice that size, and was able to fire a cannonball weighing nearly a ton. Four hundred men and thirty oxen were needed to take it to the Land Walls and hold it steady in its passage.
Sultan Mohammed stayed in Adrianople until all of his men had come in from Anatolia and the provinces; on 23 March (two months and one week remaining) he left with the rear of the army for the march that saw them end up on 5 April in front of the Theodosian Walls. In accordance with Islamic law, the sultan sent a message under flag of truce to Emperor Constantine, offering to spare the city if the gates were opened now. The response from the Emperor of the Romans was predictable; Mohammed II’s artillery was already getting the range of the walls when the envoys returned with the basileus’ answer, or lack thereof. In the early morning of Friday, the sixth of April, his cannon opened fire.
Long before Mohammed had called his council, the Constantinopolitans had known that the siege was in the offing. The Emperor at their head, the people – men, women, and children – worked ceaselessly to improve the defenses of the city. They repaired and reinforced the walls, still damaged from Selim’s attack; moats were cleared out and stores of food, arrows, tools, heavy rocks, and Greek fire – still a deadly and potent weapon – were collected. The Sea Walls, too, were strengthened; the Fourth “Crusade” had seen penetration in the region of the Blachernae. As spring began to flower in the gardens and parks of the city, preparations were as complete as they would be. Easter was on the first of April; even though many Christians now avoided the Great Church, all of them, wherever they worshiped, could pray for deliverance in the knowledge that they themselves could do no more to prepare for the Sultan’s armies.
Constantine too had sent away to Europe for help and done his best. After the bombardment and destruction of Captain Rizzo’s ship, the Venetian Senate finally came to realize the seriousness of the situation and sent two transports with four hundred men each to Constantinople. By 20 March their ships were finally on the way, but Pope Nicholas, seeing the true danger far faster than the mercurial oligarchy, had outfitted three galleys at great personal expense and sent them away at top speed for the Bosphorus, which they soon reached. The Venetians in the city, who had given more than their share of trouble in the past two hundred years, responded to the Sultan’s approach with alacrity. Girolamo Minotto, head of the colony, had written to the Serenissima requesting aid as far back as January, and regularly assured an anxious Constantine of its imminent arrival. Meanwhile he forbade all Venetian traffic out of the Golden Horn: two merchant captains, on their way home from the Black Sea, had agreed to give what help they could. Nine merchant vessels came from the Serene Republic, and the naval surgeon Niccolo Barbaro listed sixty-seven nobles and even more commoners that had come to the Empire’s aid.
Genoa had decided to help, too. Many had come from Galata – far less safe than New Rome at this time – but there was also a group from the city itself, who had been appalled by the parsimony of the government in sending only one ship, and who were determined to fight for the Christian side. Giovanni Giustiniani Longo, their leader, was a highborn noble and one of the greatest Italian siege experts of the century. He came on the 29th of January with a private army of seven hundred, including a Scottish engineer, Johannes Grant. There was an elderly Spanish gentleman, Don Francisco de Toledo, who claimed descent from the Comneni (a truly illustrious and spirit-raising assertion if true) and a small party of Catalans, like those of Roger de Flor. The international support for the city was immense, but there was still a surprise in store for Constantine.
On the 26th of February seven Venetian ships fled the Golden Horn and slipped down south to Tenedos, carrying with them seven hundred Italians. The whole episode had basically offset Longo’s contribution of a month before; to Constantine, it was catastrophic. The faithlessness of the captains, who just a few days prior had sworn a solemn oath to stay in the city in its hour of need, was more wounding still. Now, a count of the defenders could be made: only about five thousand able Greeks were still in the city, and about two thousand foreigners to bolster the defenses, which stretched fourteen miles across and would need to hold off a hundred thousand Turks and their great cannon. George Sphrantzes, the chronicler, was entrusted with these figures, and under orders not to reveal them to anyone; only God could save Constantinople now. It remained to be seen whether or not He would. On the second of April a large column of dust appeared on the horizon. The Emperor ordered the gates closed and the bridges over the moats destroyed. Across the Golden Horn, the huge chain now stretched from Galata to a point just below the Acropolis. Now nothing could be done but prayer.
By the morning of Friday, 6 April most of the defenders were on the walls. The Emperor and Giustiniani were in command of the most vulnerable section, the mesoteichion, which crosses the valley of the Lycus a mile from the northern end and which was an obvious attack point for the enemy. The Sea Walls were not as well manned, but those who did served as lookouts for the Turk fleet. Suleyman Baltoglu, a renegade Slav and admiral of Mohammed II’s fleet, was maintaining a close patrol, sealing off the Golden Horn and was massing the fleet across from the Double Columns quay. On the ninth, Baltoglu led his fleet to try to ram the chain and break it up; that failed and the chain held.
One of the greatest bombardments in the history of warfare was taking place at the Land Walls, where the Sultan himself was directing the guns toward the Charisius Gate, trying to gain access to the Mese, along which he could march to St. Sophia. Again and again his soldiers tried to force an opening; again and again they retreated in the face of missiles and Greek fire. During the night, the defenders worked tirelessly to repair the wall, which stood fixed in front of the Sultan on the morning after. While he brought up more cannon, the forts of Studius and Therapia were swarmed and seized, and their defenders were brought to the Land Walls to demonstrate the folly of the enemy. Like his supreme enemy, Dracula of Transylvania, Mohammed had the Studians impaled within sight of the walls. Baltoglu was ordered to seize the Princes’ Islands in the Propontis, which he did with ease, burning down the single fort on Principo. On the eleventh of April his guns were back in place; they would not cease their bombardment for forty-eight days.
Constantly the guns pounded, and constantly the defenders repaired the walls in the face of Turk attack. A surprise blow on the night of 18 April was beaten off with great courage by the defenders, with the Turks losing two hundred men to not a single Christian. Baltoglu tried again to breach the chain, but the remaining Greek and Italian ships engaged his armada and forced the Turks to retreat. However, a naval engagement once again happened that would have a far greater effect on the siege. The Pope’s ships finally reached the Bosphorus in early morning of the twentieth of April, and Sultan Mohammed ordered Baltoglu to destroy the transports to teach a lesson to the defenders. Turk vessels bore down on the four ships (a Roman transport with a cargo of grain from Alfonso of Sicily was also arriving), but just in time a southerly breeze came, which allowed them to outstrip their assailants, who had no sail. A constant deluge of projectiles frustrated the Turk efforts to break through.
Then, the wind changed. The Turks soon had the Christian ships surrounded, and Baltoglu’s galley guns opened fire. Fortunately for the four ships, the guns were not elevated enough, and the balls fell short of the Christian craft. Desperate, the admiral ordered his flagship to ram the imperial transport, hitting it in the stern. The Genoese ships from the Pope were quickly surrounded; shot after shot rained down on the enemy, but nearly fifty Turkish vessels had them completely rounded. However, the superior height of the Christian ships saved the day again. The Turks were unable to board the Christian vessels, and soon their oars were entangled, making them easy prey. As the imperial transport began to be overwhelmed by boarders, the Genoese captains saw the predicament and lashed their four ships in a gigantic floating fortress, preventing the enemy ships from reaching the transport. Now one body, the ships fought gallantly, but Baltoglu had nearly limitless resources to throw at them. Just as the sun was setting and their courage waning, the wind finally picked up again. The Christian formation splintered all of the ships in its path; Baltoglu, wounded in the eye by a projectile, ordered a withdrawal. The ships moved away, and the four vessels, crews completely exhausted, slipped quietly into the Golden Horn. Baltoglu was bastinadoed and deprived of rank and his possessions, and was forced into obscurity by an infuriated – some say mentally unbalanced – Sultan.
The Romans and their Italian allies were luckier than perhaps they themselves knew. Mohammed was over at the Double Columns, far away from the siege on the 21st, when his cannon brought down the Bactatinian Tower and ruined much of the ramparts. If the besiegers had attacked instantly, the city might have fallen, but without Mohammed’s orders, they missed the opportunity. The following morning saw the tower and wall almost completely restored by the Greco-Italian engineers. It had the other effect of forcing the Sultan’s attention on the chain across the Golden Horn. Somehow it had to be brought down. He had had the idea since the beginning, when his engineers began to make a road behind Galata and across from the Propontis to the Bosphorus shore. By the twenty-second, his ships were hauled up from the shore, across the road, and lowered into the Horn. An attempt to destroy the enemy ships failed and ninety Christian sailors were lost; in retaliation, the 260 Turkish prisoners taken over the weeks by the Christian defenders were brought to the Land Walls and beheaded in front of their compatriots.
Still, the Emperor expected reinforcement from Venice, reassured by Minotto. He soon began to see the true significance of the Turkish accomplishment. The Genoese in Galata, although a few had come to assist their Christian allies, had largely stayed in the colony and watched as the siege continued; only a few under Longo were bravely manning the walls. Though Greek and Genoese had little love for each other, their common bond as Christians was also ignored in the time of greatest need. Even though the Churches had been reunited (only to separate further and further over the next centuries) in theory, the Genoese – and many Venetians, too – held trade as the paramount thing of importance, and wanted to end up on the winning side. By their own actions they may have switched the balance; no one will ever know.
Mohammed threw a pontoon bridge across the Horn, allowing supplies and reinforcements to cross to the besieging army faster than before and mounting some minor artillery pieces on the bridge to shoot at the Sea Walls. Indeed, by the beginning of May the basileus did not have much hope for survival. Food was short – fishing was impossible now in the Golden Horn – and more and more of the defenders were taking time away from the walls to find food in the city. Only one hope remained: the relief expedition from Venice. When a ship, flying Turkish colors and carrying twelve volunteers disguised as Turks, left the Golden Horn, escaping the besieging fleet, Constantine sent a message with it: to try to find the Venetian fleet. It returned on the 23rd, a Wednesday. The captain spoke with the Emperor and Minotto, and told them his story.
He had cruised for three weeks through the Aegean, and seen no trace of Venetian shipping or the promised expedition. When he called a conference of the sailors to vote on the course of action, one proposed a return to Venice, saying that the city was probably in Turkish hands already. To the captain’s relief, the others shouted him down: they must report to the Emperor, though they would probably never leave the city again alive. Constantine thanked each of them personally, his voice choked with tears.
Omens had begun to appear in the city. The first emperor of Eastern Rome had been a Constantine, born of Helena; so too would be the last. Shortly before the full moon of May 24 the portents took a sinister turn. On the 22nd there was a lunar eclipse, and two days later the holiest and most precious icon of the Virgin was being carried through the streets in a call for her intercession. During the procession, the icon slipped from the platform on which it was carried and fell onto the street. When the bearers bent to pick it up, it seemed heavier than usual, but it was replaced and they went on their way for a few hundred yards, but then a thunderstorm burst over the city, violent and more dramatic than any in memory. The storm’s force was so great that the procession was abandoned. The following day the people found their city wreathed in fog (unusual at best for a May morning); that night, the dome of the Great Church was infused with a supernatural red glow that crept slowly up from the base to the summit and then went out. The Turks at Galata and the Double Columns saw this last phenomenon; the Sultan himself was greatly disturbed (more so than usual, in any event), and was reassured by his astrologers, who told him that the building would soon be illuminated by the faith of Islam. For the Romans, the meaning seemed clear: the Spirit of God Himself had left the city.
George Sphrantzes attempted to persuade the Emperor to leave the city and head a Morean government until he could once again march to Constantinople and retake it, as Michael Palaeologus had done two centuries hence. It is a sign of how much the great man was exhausted that he fainted from it as Sphrantzes spoke to him; but when he recovered he was more determined than ever. It was simple: this was his city, and these were his people. This last [1] and most valiant of Roman Emperors refused to desert his people now, when they needed him most.
Mohammed II held another council of war on the twenty-sixth of May. The siege had been going long enough; it was time to end things. His grand vizier pressured him to withdraw before the army of the Hungarian John Hunyadi appeared in his rear – an army long rumored to be on the march. The Sultan would have none of it. The defenders, he said, were starving and demoralized. His generals agreed and overruled the vizier; a day would go to prepare and the day after to rest and pray. The attack was set for Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of May.
Both sides knew that the last battle was to come soon. Christians in the Muslim camps shot arrows to inform their comrades on the walls of the Sultan’s plan, but it was hardly necessary. The preparations continued for thirty-six hours: filling the ditches, drawing up the smaller siege guns and gathering ammunition for them and the catapults, positioning the siege gun, laying in arrow stores, food, bandages, water, and gunpowder. Drums and trumpets sounded to spur the men to greater effort, and huge flares were lit at night to give them light. At dawn on the 28th, work ceased, and the Turkish camp was quiet, unmoving. Mohammed went on a daylong inspection tour.
In the city, his assessment had proven correct. In the last weeks, Romans, Genoese, and Venetians had rubbed each other raw and to the breaking point. The three groups weren’t even on speaking terms but for their leadership. Even on the defense of the city, all orders were questioned, arguments ensued, and every motive was suspect. Then, on the last Monday of the Empire’s history, not to rise for centuries to come, the mood changed. As the hour approached and the assault came closer, the work on the walls continued amidst a new air of camaraderie. Quarrels and differences were forgotten. Elsewhere throughout the city, the people of Constantinople left their houses and gathered for an intercession. Bells rang out from the churches, the most sacred icons were carried out, and a long, spontaneous procession of Greeks and Italians, men and women of both churches, wound its way through the streets and along the whole length of the walls, pausing for prayer at places of particularly severe damage, or where the Sultan would fire the next day.
Basileus Constantine himself joined the procession; when it was finished, he summoned his commanders to address them for the last time. He spoke first to his Greek subjects, telling them that there were four great Causes for which a man should be ready to die: his faith, his country, his family and his sovereign. They must now be prepared to give their lives for all four. He himself would die for the other three causes, not save his own life. His people were the great and noble descendants of Greece and Rome, and doubtless they would prove themselves worthy of the praise of their forefathers, of Aeneas and Achilles, of Scipio and Alexander, of Caesar and Constantine. They would defend their city, no doubt, with great valor, protecting the place where the infidel Sultan wished to seat his false prophet on the throne of Jesus Christ. He turned to the Italians, thanking them for all that they had done and assuring them of his trust and love in the day ahead, in the near-certain doom they all faced. They were one people with the Romans, united in their worship of God. Only with His help would they be victorious. Finally, he walked slowly around the room, thanking each man personally and asking forgiveness for any slight or offense.
Dusk was falling, and from all over the city, spontaneously, the people were going to the Church of the Holy Wisdom. For the last five months the building had been avoided by the Romans, defiled as they believed by Latin usages that no pious Orthodox Christian would ever accept. Now, for the first – and last – time, liturgical differences were forgotten. The Great Church of St. Sophia was the spiritual center of the Roman Empire. Since the time of the sons of Constantine the Great, for more than a millennium, the church of the city had stood there; for the last nine hundred Justinian’s Great Church’s golden cross had stood, symbolizing Faith and Empire. Where else could they go?
The last service of Vespers to be held in St. Sophia for three centuries was the most inspiring, far outmatching the first or the restoration. The defenders could not desert their posts, but everyone else in the city that could move flooded into the Church to take the Eucharist and pray together for their deliverance. The Patriarchal Chair was still vacant, but Orthodox bishops, priests, monks, and nuns were there in their hundreds, crowding into the church whose threshold many had vowed not to cross ever again after the reunification. Cardinal Isidore of Kiev was held with a new respect as he dispensed the Sacrament and intoned the old Orthodox liturgies. The service was still in progress when the Emperor and his commanders arrived in the Church. He asked forgiveness of his sins from every Christian bishop present, Orthodox and Catholic alike, and then he took communion with the rest of his people. After all but the permanent candles had been put out, he returned alone and spent time in prayer, then returned to the Palace for a farewell to his household. With Sphrantzes, the Emperor rode the length of the Walls to make sure all had been readied, and then the two went to the top of a tower near Blachernae, there to watch and listen. Then Sphrantzes was dismissed; the two, Emperor and loyal secretary, never spoke again in this world.
Continued excerpt from A History of the Roman Empire[/i]
At half past one in the morning, Mohammed II gave the signal, and the silence of the night was shattered by trumpet blasts and drumbeats with the bloodcurdling Turkish war cries. Immediately, the bells of the churches of the city pealed in warning: the final battle was about to begin. The old and young flocked to the churches, and every able-bodied citizen moved to the walls. The feast day of St. Theodosia had begun, the last day of the Roman Empire for hundreds of years to come. The Sultan never underestimated anyone: he knew that he needed to wear down the defenders, allowing them no rest, no time to repair the walls. First came the bashi-bazouks, irregulars from every corner of the empire, largely untrained and armed with things from pitchforks to whips, they could be terrifying in their onslaught, but were expendable. These wasted themselves on the walls for two hours, hurling themselves into the Lycus valley, where Longo and his men valiantly defended the bastion. Not long before four, the Sultan called them back. They had done all that had been needed.
The next wave, hot on the heels of the withdrawing first, was made up of tens of thousands of Anatolian Turks. These were the best of the regulars, and one of the greatest armies in Europe or Asia. Each was determined to win eternal Paradise by being the first to enter New Rome. They came within an ace of the entry; crossing the ditch and nearing the walls, they were only thrown back by a counterattack led by Emperor Constantine himself, which enclosed them and sent them flying back across the ditch. Mohammed went into a rage, as per usual, but all was still according to plan. He would not have wanted the Anatolians to win; the laurels of battle were reserved for his crack regiments of janissaries. These now went into the fray.
The Christian defenders had no chance to regroup before the third wave commenced. A hail of missiles preceded the troops – stones, arrows, javelins, bullets – and the serried ranks of Ottoman Turk janissaries marched in perfect step dead ahead no matter what the defenders threw at them. Their music was a weapon in itself, deafening enough to be heard by the garrison of Rumeli Hisar on the opposite shore. They flung themselves against the walls in wave after wave, hacking away at the stockades, throwing up ladders, and, repulsed, retreating to allow the next wave its chance. For the defenders, there would be no rest: the fighting had been going for five hours at least, and was now hand-to-hand. The besiegers had been kept at bay for long enough; soon even the remarkably successful defenders would not last much longer.
Then, things began to go wrong. Longo was hit by a culverin shot – not a fatal blow, but a grave wound all the same. He was already exhausted and called for some bearers to take him to his ship, refusing the entreaties of Constantine to stay at his post. The Emperor’s attitude becomes clear when Longo’s stretcher left through the Anastasian Walls: before the gate could be closed, more than a hundred Genoese streamed through it. Seeing this, the Sultan launched another wave of janissaries, led by a huge ogre named Hassan. Soon, he was over the stockade; although quickly cut down, fifty appeared in the hole he left. Stuck between the two walls, many Romans were slaughtered where they stood. The janissaries had not won the race into the city, though: about fifty bashi-bazouks had found an open door, the Kerkoporta, through which a few Genoese brothers had sallied in previous days to raid the Turkish camp. It was they who were the first to enter the city.
Now the Turks were pouring through the breaches, with the waning moon high in the sky. Constantine, seeing that the situation at the Kerkoporta was lost, had returned to the post at the Lycus valley. There, with the Spaniard Don Francisco de Toledo – who had shown conspicuous gallantry throughout the siege despite his advanced age – and his cousin Theophilus Palaeologus and friend John Dalmata, he fought desperately for as long as possible to keep the gate through which Giustiniani had gone open. Finally, seeing all was lost, he flung off his imperial regalia and robes and, still with his friends, plunged into the fray where the fighting was thickest. He was never seen again.
The siege was over. The Romans were fleeing to their homes, and the Italians made for the ships in the harbor. The Golden Horn was denuded of Turkish ships, since most had gone aground to keep the army from getting all of the plunder. Packed to the gunwales with refugees, thirteen ships sailed out of the Horn and on to the open wine-dark sea. They were well advised to do so, because the alternative was horrible indeed. The Turkish armies abandoned themselves to rapine and pillaging, impaling women and children, razing churches, books ripped from bindings, icons destroyed, and the Blachernae Palace left an empty, smoking shell. At St. Savior in Chora the mosaics were miraculously saved, but the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, painted by St. Luke himself, was hacked into four pieces and destroyed. At the Church of Holy Wisdom, Matins was in progress when the conquerors swept through. Immediately the doors closed, but the Turks forced themselves in. The poor and unattractive were slaughtered on the spot, and the rest were led off to the Turkish camps. The priests officiating continued with Mass until they were slaughtered at the altar, but some believed that a few priests gathered up precious chalices and patens and disappeared into the south wall of the Church, there to remain until Constantinople becomes Christian again. Then they will resume the liturgy the conquerors so rudely interrupted. When the Russians liberated “Tsargrad” in 1742, the soldiers who first entered the church didn’t tell what they saw there, and took their secrets to the grave; but a few bits of fine jewelry and cups, such as those used in Eucharist, were discovered there after the fact, and they certainly, the citizens attested, were not there before.
Mohammed called the pillage to a halt on the same day it had begun; with such an orgy of destruction, it is easy to see his reasoning. He rode into the city in the late afternoon, accompanied by his chief ministers, imams, and a janissary bodyguard, slowly down the Mese to the Great Church. He stopped there to pick up a handful of earth that he sprinkled over his turban in a gesture of humility. He walked toward the altar upon entry and saw a soldier hacking away at the marble pavement and reproached him for improper looting. He had in any case decided that the Church of Holy Wisdom was to be converted to a mosque. At his command the imam mounted the pulpit and declared that there was no God but God and Muhammad was his Prophet. The Sultan touched his head to the ground in prayer. Leaving the Great Church, he crossed the square to the old, ruined Palace of the Emperors, founded by Constantine the Great a millennium and change hence, and as he wandered through its halls, his slippers brushed the dust from the floor mosaics, and he is said to have quoted a Persian poet:
At half past one in the morning, Mohammed II gave the signal, and the silence of the night was shattered by trumpet blasts and drumbeats with the bloodcurdling Turkish war cries. Immediately, the bells of the churches of the city pealed in warning: the final battle was about to begin. The old and young flocked to the churches, and every able-bodied citizen moved to the walls. The feast day of St. Theodosia had begun, the last day of the Roman Empire for hundreds of years to come. The Sultan never underestimated anyone: he knew that he needed to wear down the defenders, allowing them no rest, no time to repair the walls. First came the bashi-bazouks, irregulars from every corner of the empire, largely untrained and armed with things from pitchforks to whips, they could be terrifying in their onslaught, but were expendable. These wasted themselves on the walls for two hours, hurling themselves into the Lycus valley, where Longo and his men valiantly defended the bastion. Not long before four, the Sultan called them back. They had done all that had been needed.
The next wave, hot on the heels of the withdrawing first, was made up of tens of thousands of Anatolian Turks. These were the best of the regulars, and one of the greatest armies in Europe or Asia. Each was determined to win eternal Paradise by being the first to enter New Rome. They came within an ace of the entry; crossing the ditch and nearing the walls, they were only thrown back by a counterattack led by Emperor Constantine himself, which enclosed them and sent them flying back across the ditch. Mohammed went into a rage, as per usual, but all was still according to plan. He would not have wanted the Anatolians to win; the laurels of battle were reserved for his crack regiments of janissaries. These now went into the fray.
The Christian defenders had no chance to regroup before the third wave commenced. A hail of missiles preceded the troops – stones, arrows, javelins, bullets – and the serried ranks of Ottoman Turk janissaries marched in perfect step dead ahead no matter what the defenders threw at them. Their music was a weapon in itself, deafening enough to be heard by the garrison of Rumeli Hisar on the opposite shore. They flung themselves against the walls in wave after wave, hacking away at the stockades, throwing up ladders, and, repulsed, retreating to allow the next wave its chance. For the defenders, there would be no rest: the fighting had been going for five hours at least, and was now hand-to-hand. The besiegers had been kept at bay for long enough; soon even the remarkably successful defenders would not last much longer.
Then, things began to go wrong. Longo was hit by a culverin shot – not a fatal blow, but a grave wound all the same. He was already exhausted and called for some bearers to take him to his ship, refusing the entreaties of Constantine to stay at his post. The Emperor’s attitude becomes clear when Longo’s stretcher left through the Anastasian Walls: before the gate could be closed, more than a hundred Genoese streamed through it. Seeing this, the Sultan launched another wave of janissaries, led by a huge ogre named Hassan. Soon, he was over the stockade; although quickly cut down, fifty appeared in the hole he left. Stuck between the two walls, many Romans were slaughtered where they stood. The janissaries had not won the race into the city, though: about fifty bashi-bazouks had found an open door, the Kerkoporta, through which a few Genoese brothers had sallied in previous days to raid the Turkish camp. It was they who were the first to enter the city.
Now the Turks were pouring through the breaches, with the waning moon high in the sky. Constantine, seeing that the situation at the Kerkoporta was lost, had returned to the post at the Lycus valley. There, with the Spaniard Don Francisco de Toledo – who had shown conspicuous gallantry throughout the siege despite his advanced age – and his cousin Theophilus Palaeologus and friend John Dalmata, he fought desperately for as long as possible to keep the gate through which Giustiniani had gone open. Finally, seeing all was lost, he flung off his imperial regalia and robes and, still with his friends, plunged into the fray where the fighting was thickest. He was never seen again.
The siege was over. The Romans were fleeing to their homes, and the Italians made for the ships in the harbor. The Golden Horn was denuded of Turkish ships, since most had gone aground to keep the army from getting all of the plunder. Packed to the gunwales with refugees, thirteen ships sailed out of the Horn and on to the open wine-dark sea. They were well advised to do so, because the alternative was horrible indeed. The Turkish armies abandoned themselves to rapine and pillaging, impaling women and children, razing churches, books ripped from bindings, icons destroyed, and the Blachernae Palace left an empty, smoking shell. At St. Savior in Chora the mosaics were miraculously saved, but the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, painted by St. Luke himself, was hacked into four pieces and destroyed. At the Church of Holy Wisdom, Matins was in progress when the conquerors swept through. Immediately the doors closed, but the Turks forced themselves in. The poor and unattractive were slaughtered on the spot, and the rest were led off to the Turkish camps. The priests officiating continued with Mass until they were slaughtered at the altar, but some believed that a few priests gathered up precious chalices and patens and disappeared into the south wall of the Church, there to remain until Constantinople becomes Christian again. Then they will resume the liturgy the conquerors so rudely interrupted. When the Russians liberated “Tsargrad” in 1742, the soldiers who first entered the church didn’t tell what they saw there, and took their secrets to the grave; but a few bits of fine jewelry and cups, such as those used in Eucharist, were discovered there after the fact, and they certainly, the citizens attested, were not there before.
Mohammed called the pillage to a halt on the same day it had begun; with such an orgy of destruction, it is easy to see his reasoning. He rode into the city in the late afternoon, accompanied by his chief ministers, imams, and a janissary bodyguard, slowly down the Mese to the Great Church. He stopped there to pick up a handful of earth that he sprinkled over his turban in a gesture of humility. He walked toward the altar upon entry and saw a soldier hacking away at the marble pavement and reproached him for improper looting. He had in any case decided that the Church of Holy Wisdom was to be converted to a mosque. At his command the imam mounted the pulpit and declared that there was no God but God and Muhammad was his Prophet. The Sultan touched his head to the ground in prayer. Leaving the Great Church, he crossed the square to the old, ruined Palace of the Emperors, founded by Constantine the Great a millennium and change hence, and as he wandered through its halls, his slippers brushed the dust from the floor mosaics, and he is said to have quoted a Persian poet:
The spider weaves his curtains in the palace of the Caesars;
The owl calls the watches in the tower of Afrasiab.
The owl calls the watches in the tower of Afrasiab.
Insane_Panda
Deity
Bah. All of your histories shall be humbled soon enough!
Very good story, however
Very good story, however
Insane_Panda
Deity
Orders dispatched.
I have whipped myself back into form.
I have whipped myself back into form.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
Insane_Panda said:Orders dispatched.
I have whipped myself back into form.
And I am glad I am not at war with you anymore.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
The Farow said:Luckymoose, I would switch back to Britain as I was doing good with them until I left. I was being a good puppet and ally to the French
I would switch if you really want to because Britain is a prize and I suggest not letting them go.
I know you are probably joking but I am going to answer it with a serious answer
Accually I would love to be the Frontiers. No Army/Navy Restrictions. Plus It looks fun. And I want ot be in America.
As long as Dis will be nice to me.
- Status
