The Byzantine Empire Part 16

Constantine XIII. and his second in command, the Genoese Giustiniani, did all that brave and skilful men might, in protracting the siege. They led sorties, organized attacks by water on the Turkish fleet, and endeavoured to drive off the siege artillery of the enemy by a counter fire of cannon.

But it was found that the old walls were too narrow to bear the guns, and where any were hoisted up and brought to bear, their recoil shook the fabric in such a dangerous way that the fire was soon obliged to cease.

At sea the Christians won one great success, when four galleys from the Aegean forced their way in through the whole Turkish fleet, and reached the Golden Horn in safety, after sinking many of their a.s.sailants. But the Turks had as great a numerical superiority on the water as on land, and the inevitable could only be delayed. Mohammed even succeeded in getting control of the harbour of the city, above its mouth, by dragging light galleys on rollers over the neck of land between the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, and launching them in the inland waters just above Galata.

Thus the inner, as well as the outer, sea-face of the city was beset by enemies.

The end came on May 29, 1453. The Sultan had opened several practicable breaches, of which the chief lay in the north-west angle of the city by the gate of St. Roma.n.u.s, where two whole towers and the curtain between them had been battered down and choked the ditch. The storm was obviously at hand, and the doomed Emperor was obliged to face his fate. Greek historians dwelt with loving sorrow on the last hours of the unfortunate prince. He left the breach at midnight, partook of the sacrament according to the Latin rite in St. Sophia, and s.n.a.t.c.hed a few hours of troubled sleep in his half-ruined palace. Next morning, with the dawn, he rose to ride back to the post of danger. His ministers and attendants crowded round his horse as he started on what all knew to be his last journey.

Looking steadfastly on them he prayed one and all to pardon him for any offence that he might wittingly or unwittingly have committed against any man. The crowd answered with sobs and wails, and with the sounds of woe ringing in his ears Constantine rode slowly off to meet his death.

The a.s.sault commenced at dawn; three main attacks and several secondary ones were directed against weak spots in the wall. But the chief stress was on the great breach by the gate of St. Roma.n.u.s. There the Emperor himself and Giustiniani at his side stood in the midst of the yawning gap with their best men around them, and opposed a barrier of steel to the oncoming a.s.sailants. Twelve thousand Janissaries, sabre in hand, formed successive columns of attack; as soon as one was beaten off another delivered its a.s.sault. They fell by hundreds before the swords of the mailed men in the breach, for their felt caps and unarmoured bodies were easy marks for the ponderous weapons of the fifteenth century. But the ranks of the defenders grew thin and weary; Giustiniani was wounded in the face by an arrow, and taken on board his galley to die. Constantine at last stood almost alone in the breach, and a forlorn hope of Janissaries headed by one Ha.s.san of Ulubad, whom Turkish chroniclers delight to honour, at last forced their way over the wall. The Emperor and his companions were trodden under foot, and the victorious army rushed into the desolate streets of Constantinople, seeking in vain for foes to fight.

The Greeks, half expecting that G.o.d would interfere to save the queen of Christian cities by a miracle, had crowded into the churches, and were pa.s.sing the fatal hour in frantic prayer! The shouts of the victorious enemy soon showed them how the day had gone, and the wors.h.i.+ppers were dragged out in crowds, to be claimed as slaves and divided among the conquerors.

Mohammed II. rode through the breach after his men, and descended into the city, scanning from within the streets that so many Eastern conquerors had in vain desired to see. He bade his men search for the Emperor, and the corpse of Constantine was found at last beneath a heap of slain, so gashed and mauled that it was only identified by the golden eagles on his mail shoes. The Turk struck off his head, and sent it round their chief cities as a token of triumph. Riding through the hippodrome towards St. Sophia, Mohammed noted the Delphic tripod with its three snakes,(33) standing where Constantine the Great had placed it eleven hundred years before.

Either because the menacing heads of the serpents provoked him, or merely because he wished to try the strength of his arm, the Sultan rose in his stirrups and smote away the jaws of the nearest snake with one blow of his mace. There was something typical in the deed though Mohammed knew it not.

He had defaced the monument of the first great victory of the West over the East. He, the successor in spirit not only of Xerxes but of Chosroes and Moslemah and many another Oriental potentate, who had failed where he succeeded, could not better signalize the end of Greek freedom than by dealing a scornful blow at that ancient memorial, erected in the first days of Grecian greatness, to celebrate the turning back of the Persians on the field of Plataea.

At last the Sultan came to St. Sophia, where the crowd of wailing captives was being divided among his soldiery. He rode in at the eastern door, and bade a mollah ascend the pulpit and repeat there the formula of the Moslem faith. So the cry that G.o.d was great and Mohammed his prophet rang through the dome where thirty generations of patriarchs had celebrated the Holy Mysteries, and all Europe and Asia knew the end was come of the longest tale of Empire that Christendom has yet seen.

Finish.