"Ottoman Assaults April 2- April 19, 1453" The Conquest of Constantinople Part 3: Episode 25

[00:00:37] First Ottoman Assaults, April 2-19, 1453

[00:00:43] The Conquest of Constantinople, Part 3, Episode 25

[00:00:48] They found the Turks coming right up under the walls and seeking battle, particularly the Janissaries.

[00:00:56] And when one or two of them were killed, at once more Turks came and took away the dead ones,

[00:01:01] without caring how near they came to the city walls.

[00:01:04] Our men shot at them with guns and crossbows,

[00:01:07] aiming at the Turk who was carrying away his dead countrymen,

[00:01:10] and both of them would fall to the ground dead.

[00:01:12] And then there came other Turks and took them away, none fearing death,

[00:01:15] but being willing to let ten of themselves be killed,

[00:01:19] rather than suffer the shame of leaving a single Turkish corpse by the walls.

[00:01:24] What you just heard narrated by the ever master of audio creation, Sorenarnia,

[00:01:32] was a first-hand account of Mehmet's bloody assault against the central wall of Constantinople on April 18, 1453.

[00:01:42] Recorded for our sake by a Venetian official who was present during the siege,

[00:01:48] it illustrates for us a brutal fact about warfare.

[00:01:53] A commander, a politician, leader or whatever,

[00:01:57] can undergo all the planning, diplomatic maneuvering and strategizing all he wants to.

[00:02:04] They say that in warfare the amateur thinks in terms of tactics and the veteran in terms of logistics.

[00:02:11] And all of this is true.

[00:02:13] However, men-men was about to find out during the siege and fall and conquest of Constantinople

[00:02:20] that all the tactical maneuvering and diplomatic strategizing,

[00:02:25] well, it can simply all come down to a last-minute assault, a brutal frontal attack on a walled city.

[00:02:34] Sultan Mehmet II marched down from Edrine after having raised the three horse-tells,

[00:02:41] or four in his case as a traditional sign of his authority.

[00:02:47] Over the winter months the Ottomans had assembled one of the most impressive armies ever seen.

[00:02:53] In the conquest of Constantinople series part two,

[00:02:57] I went into detail on exactly what Mehmet's army looked like.

[00:03:02] It was professional, although that term may be a bit misleading when we hear it with our modern ears.

[00:03:10] It was led by some of the most highly experienced and talented commanders.

[00:03:15] The Muslim world had gathered into one place since the age of the great Caliphate a hundred years ago.

[00:03:23] It was motivated, motivated by religious zeal, fear of Mehmet, greed for gold and treasure, lust for women and slaves,

[00:03:34] and a driving economic labor, an engine that was demanding cheap mail Christian workers to work the fields in Rumelia and Anatolia.

[00:03:44] However, all of Mehmet's planning, as we shall see, didn't mean he wasn't immune from the necessity of ordering suicidal frontal assaults,

[00:03:55] attacks which were driven back with terrible losses for the Ottomans, as we have just heard illustrated for us by Sorenardia.

[00:04:06] On April the 2nd, the vanguard of the Ottoman military machine arrived outside the Theodosian walls of Constantinople.

[00:04:15] If you were a Byzantine soldier, let's say, picture yourself perched atop one of the many turrets looking out from the ramparts.

[00:04:24] You would have seen on April the 2nd the Ottoman army arrive by their tens of thousands.

[00:04:31] Slowly these tens of thousands would break down into groups of three to five hundred men, screened and protected by thousands of Sapa'hi Calvary,

[00:04:41] whom were arriving by the hour and riding everywhere unchecked outside the walls.

[00:04:47] These groups of men being screened by the Sapa'hi, sweated in the April sun, and they worked like absolute madmen.

[00:04:58] The steady tapping of tent poles being set up, strings lined up to triangulate precisely where the sultan's tent should go,

[00:05:07] scribes everywhere correcting lines, trenches being dug directly under the walls.

[00:05:13] It must have seemed like a crazy flurry of chaotic motion, yet underlying the movements was a kind of order.

[00:05:22] As the sun set that April the 2nd, you would have seen tents springing up by their tens of thousands and a large ditch dug in front of the tents.

[00:05:33] And behind the ditch the Ottomans had erected a five foot tall pre-built wooden rampart assembled for protection of the camp.

[00:05:42] All in all the Ottomans were just 250 or so meters away from the walls.

[00:05:48] By night you would have seen torches more and more being lit as additional enemy forces arrived.

[00:05:56] The smell of lamb, spices, strong tea could be picked up faintly by your nose as your own rumbling belly would drive hunger pangs,

[00:06:06] only to be offered up dried bread in old L.

[00:06:11] The next day April the 3rd, from your vantage behind the Theodosian walls, would have been awed by an absolute sea of tents.

[00:06:21] The fabric was thick wool and cotton, some white others blue, in an uncountable forest of banners, flags and crescents

[00:06:30] and horsetails flying all over the place in the breeze.

[00:06:35] As the day wore on, more and more Ottoman military units arrived to take up positions opposite the wall.

[00:06:43] Turkish war drums and Ottoman military bands, perhaps as many a thousand, played all day and throughout the night.

[00:06:51] Finally on April the 5th the trumpet sounded from the Ottoman camp in the early morning.

[00:06:58] Sultan Mehmed II had finally arrived along with his full contingent of Janissaries and vassal troops from various parts of his empire's fringes.

[00:07:10] Mehmed ordered his tent set up directly in front of the weaker central wall.

[00:07:16] In front of his tent he was laying down plans to put Orban's giant royal cannon so that he could personally oversee its operation.

[00:07:26] However the royal cannon and its smaller sister cannons wouldn't arrive until a few days later.

[00:07:35] Looking over your shoulder let's pretend is Emperor Constantine XI.

[00:07:40] He would have cut a tall and lean figure, his face would have been framed in reddish hair.

[00:07:47] He would have been middle aged by then, an already a proven natural leader of men.

[00:07:53] Had the Byzantines been cursed with any of the weak-willed and lousy emperors of the past hundred years,

[00:08:00] the city might very well have surrendered to the Turks without a fight.

[00:08:04] And considering the death, suffering, destruction, slavery,

[00:08:09] and utter disappearance of the last legacy of the Roman Empire forever,

[00:08:14] who's to say it wouldn't have been the better option?

[00:08:19] Constantine XI was a different beast from his predecessors.

[00:08:23] He had ignored offers of asylum from the many courts of Western Europe,

[00:08:28] and instead had spent every waking hour since the final ascension of Mehmed to the Sultanate,

[00:08:35] figuring out how best to defend his city.

[00:08:39] Just days prior he had ordered all the precious vessels containing gold and silver

[00:08:45] to be rounded up and melted into coin and used to pay the many mercenary soldiers serving on his walls.

[00:08:53] His men had broken into monasteries, churches, and private establishments.

[00:08:58] No property, either public or private, was immune.

[00:09:02] And in decades past such a move could have cost the Emperor not just as thrown but his life.

[00:09:08] But times were different as they say.

[00:09:12] From the Ottoman perspective and also shared by the wider Islamic world,

[00:09:17] Constantinople was seen as the apple of the West or the Red Apple.

[00:09:23] There was an old prophecy that a great Muslim leader with a good army

[00:09:28] and when the will of God was aligning just right

[00:09:32] could take the Christian city and usher in a golden age of Islam.

[00:09:38] Mehmed, having been educated and raised by the Warhawks and his family's court

[00:09:44] in reading the mystic points of Islamic Sufism, believed himself to be this great warrior of the faith from a young age.

[00:09:53] At his side and in his tent was the Sufi mystic and teacher, Akskath Sadin

[00:10:00] who would prove his weight in gold by helping to uphold the morale of the Ottoman army

[00:10:06] when it looked like the city wasn't going to fall.

[00:10:10] Mehmed and his Sufi mystic teacher both saw the coming siege as a fulfillment

[00:10:16] of the own conflict between Islam and the Roman Empire which had been raging for over 800 years.

[00:10:25] It was early morning April the 6th when Mehmed sent a message to the city of Constantinople asking them to surrender.

[00:10:34] If they would surrender then every life inside the city would be spared

[00:10:39] and according to Muslim law no one would be forced into slavery and the private property would be kept safe.

[00:10:46] It says a lot that the last Roman Emperor in full armor and with his troops

[00:10:52] returned Mehmed's final offer of peace with this.

[00:10:58] As to surrendering the city to you, it is not for me to decide or for anyone else of its citizens.

[00:11:07] For all of us have reached the mutual decision to die of our own free will without any regard for our lives.

[00:11:15] With this rejection Mehmed ordered a small-scale bombardment.

[00:11:31] The Turks did have smaller medium-sized cannons at their disposal

[00:11:36] and Mehmed wanted to get the ball rolling and not wait around on his hands for the smaller guns.

[00:11:42] Several dozen or so cannons fired all up and down the Turkish line to not much effect against the Theodosian walls.

[00:11:51] The defenders hunkered down behind the humongous ramparts and turrets

[00:11:57] while grape-shot, rocks, spears, and arrows bounced harmlessly off the fortifications.

[00:12:04] Next Mehmed ordered his generals to rouse the many volunteer soldiers who had come from all over the place hoping to score some loot.

[00:12:14] His generals made sure to send up the riff-raff, men nobody knew, the fortune seekers, criminals, and those who possessed no really useful skills.

[00:12:24] The cannon fodder, no pun intended.

[00:12:28] They were lined up in three ranks and with the Sapa'hi and Geneserys pressing them forward, they were ordered into a frontal attack.

[00:12:36] As soon as the defenders heard the trumpets blare and the trumps beat, they concentrated on the central wall

[00:12:43] and easily repelled the attackers with heavy losses.

[00:12:47] Mehmed had the men rounded up and thrown a second time at the wall.

[00:12:53] After he was satisfied that their numbers had been sufficiently worn down,

[00:12:57] he broke up these irregular into smaller units to be used as laborers since they weren't an effective fighting force anymore.

[00:13:06] Some of the sources say that Mehmed didn't really trust these guys

[00:13:11] and he had been looking for an excuse to just use them up so that their numbers wouldn't be as big.

[00:13:18] Satisfied he had at least made a symbolic gesture, Mehmed retired to his tent and eagerly awaited yet more troops

[00:13:28] and he was really hoping for his big surprise for the defenders of Constantinople to arrive soon.

[00:13:35] His big surprise appeared on April the 11th when a trundling train of men and beast could be seen in the distance

[00:13:44] from the Vantage of the Theodosian Walls.

[00:13:47] What was this spectacle they must have looked upon?

[00:13:51] Well, they would have seen sixty oxen and four hundred men all working in tandem to haul a gigantic cannon.

[00:14:00] The largest cannon the high medieval age had ever seen.

[00:14:04] An invention of the legendary Orban slowly coming into sight.

[00:14:10] This strange and surprisingly advanced invention of the age was an astounding cannon measuring in at twenty seven feet long

[00:14:20] and it boasted a thirty three inch barrel.

[00:14:24] It fired stone projectiles weighing in at over fifteen hundred pounds.

[00:14:29] However, it would take two to three hours to reload between firings

[00:14:34] and the barrel would need to be thoroughly cleaned out and oiled.

[00:14:38] After a few days of Mehmed's demands to fire higher volleys,

[00:14:43] its bronze casing would glow red hot and eventually explode.

[00:14:48] The royal cannon didn't come alone either.

[00:14:52] Along with it were ten little sister cannons all of which were basically clone copies

[00:14:58] of their bigger brother designed by Orban.

[00:15:01] Mehmed had the royal cannon placed directly in front of his massive tent

[00:15:07] where he could supervise the operation accordingly.

[00:15:10] Then the next day on April the 12th early in the morning

[00:15:14] the royal gun along with its ten smaller sister weapons

[00:15:18] opened fire on the central walls of Constantinople.

[00:15:23] The royal cannon took as I said hours to reload to make ready to fire again

[00:15:29] so the volley was slow incoming.

[00:15:31] However the massive fifteen hundred pound stone landed directly into the wall

[00:15:36] and lodged itself deep in the structure.

[00:15:40] The blast could be felt all the way up and down the golden horn

[00:15:44] and in the harbor the Christian ships hulls would reverberate

[00:15:48] with the concussion from the massive explosion.

[00:15:52] The damage however at the end of the day turned out to be minimal

[00:15:56] much to the Ottomans disappointment.

[00:15:58] The stone shot at the city simply embedded themselves into the ancient the Edocian walls

[00:16:04] and they missed the more important targets such as the turrets and the gate.

[00:16:09] And the other ten giant guns while certainly bad for morale of the defenders

[00:16:14] well they also did little to bring the walls come a tumbling down.

[00:16:18] While all of this was going on later on that same day

[00:16:22] the Ottoman navy began to converge on the golden horn

[00:16:26] and were lining up for a direct assault at the Christian naval vessels guarding the entrance.

[00:16:33] Watching all of this from the ramparts,

[00:16:35] Constantin and Gustiniani ordered their men to hunker down

[00:16:39] and weather the bombard as best they could.

[00:16:42] For the next seven days the Ottomans kept up a steady barrage with their cannons

[00:16:48] catapults and trebuchet systems.

[00:16:51] For the most part the projectiles landed in a depopulated city and did little damage inside.

[00:16:57] After the second day however the central the Edocian wall began to show some damage.

[00:17:04] Gustiniani and his men, the civilian labor battalions helping them

[00:17:09] began working round the clock to repair the walls.

[00:17:13] This was gruesome and dangerous work.

[00:17:15] Often Gustiniani himself would lead a small counter attack called a sali out of the castle walls

[00:17:22] where they would attempt to make a run for the Ottoman lines.

[00:17:26] These were always driven back but it kept the Ottomans on their toes

[00:17:30] and more importantly their attention away from their repair efforts going on

[00:17:35] upon the the Edocian walled system.

[00:17:37] On April the 18th the citizens awoke as the sun cracked the horizon to the east of the golden horn.

[00:17:46] The now normal spectacle of waking up to a massive bombardment was met with total silence

[00:17:53] and then the slow eerie beat of the Turkish war drums.

[00:17:58] And then the sounds of many many men by their tens of thousands

[00:18:03] lining up opposite the Edocian walls.

[00:18:07] In the camp of the Ottomans Mehmet had decided on a real frontal assault

[00:18:13] this time better organized carried out by Azab infantry

[00:18:17] and smaller contingents of his Janissaries.

[00:18:21] His Janissaries would work in conjunction with the naval assault against the mouth of the

[00:18:25] Golden Horns Harbor entrance.

[00:18:28] It was Mehmet's intention that if one assault failed and the other successful

[00:18:33] he could still have a chance at taking the city that day.

[00:18:37] From all accounts the Ottomans assembled some 15,000 Azab infantry

[00:18:42] supported by about 2,000 Janissaries.

[00:18:45] They were broken up in groups of 500 men in place into key positions

[00:18:50] meant to support the Azab assault.

[00:18:54] The Azabs were equipped with smaller blades and axes and were lightly armored.

[00:18:59] They also had special groups of men who are trained with ladders

[00:19:03] like you saw in Lord of the Rings with the orcs trying to go over the city walls.

[00:19:08] Realizing what the Ottomans were up to, Gustinianni moved his 700 men

[00:19:13] to the place where he estimated they were going to launch their main attack.

[00:19:18] The Ottomans attacked late that morning against the walled fortification.

[00:19:23] The going was slow and under the hot sun

[00:19:26] the Byzantine shot arrows, rocks, and boiling water down upon the attackers.

[00:19:31] A few Azab infantry did manage to get on top of the ramparts

[00:19:35] but just like in Lord of the Rings they were isolated, cut off, and annihilated.

[00:19:41] Mehmed watched all of this from his tent, angrily raging at his generals

[00:19:47] as the attack began to lose steam

[00:19:50] and his men were falling back with heavy losses and lots of injuries.

[00:19:55] However more bad news was arriving.

[00:19:58] The Ottoman fleet under the command of Admiral Batoglu

[00:20:03] set out with 50 or more ships all of various design and operational ability

[00:20:08] that is way too much detailed to get into with this podcast.

[00:20:13] This small armada attacked the Christian ships whom they outnumbered.

[00:20:18] The idea was to drive off or sink the Christian ships

[00:20:22] who were guarding the entrance to the harbor

[00:20:25] then get to work removing the Great Chain which shut the harbor off

[00:20:29] to the Turkish warships.

[00:20:31] If the Turks had managed to get into the harbor in the Golden Horn

[00:20:35] then they'd be on the unprotected side of the Constantinople Horn.

[00:20:40] From here they would be able to ferry in troops from Mehmed's army

[00:20:44] and then flank the defenders

[00:20:46] all of which would have been bad news for Constantine and his city.

[00:20:50] However although the Ottomans outnumbered the Christian vessels

[00:20:55] the enemy they face recruit by some of the absolute best seamen

[00:21:00] the entire world had seen up till that point.

[00:21:03] After all we must remember that the Catholic West

[00:21:07] was the culture which produced Christopher Columbus after all.

[00:21:11] The sailors on these Christian vessels were all professionals

[00:21:15] and well paid and led by the best sea captains in the Mediterranean.

[00:21:20] The human factor wasn't the only thing on their side either

[00:21:24] they also had superior vessels technically speaking.

[00:21:28] Their ships were higher than the Ottomans for starters.

[00:21:31] If we were to compare the two designs

[00:21:34] and I'm using an analogy here since I'm not really a navy guy

[00:21:38] the Ottomans were in small four-door sedans

[00:21:41] but there was lots of them.

[00:21:43] While the Christians were riding in a few dozen semi-trailers

[00:21:47] giant trucks that could simply plow over the smaller sedans.

[00:21:52] The superior height of the Christian vessels meant

[00:21:55] that when the Ottoman ships came in close

[00:21:58] the Christians could fire down upon them

[00:22:01] in a superior tactical position.

[00:22:04] Admiral Baltoglou was aware of these advantages

[00:22:07] however he gave the order for his flagship to rise the triple crescent

[00:22:13] the signal for a frontal assault.

[00:22:16] The Christian vessels put out their ores and their sails

[00:22:19] as the Ottomans were making straight at them.

[00:22:23] The Ottomans shot flaming arrows, metal bolts and small cannons

[00:22:28] however the heavily armored enemy shrugged off these assaults with little effort.

[00:22:33] Becoming desperate now and fully aware that Mehmed was watching from the coastline

[00:22:39] Baltoglou ordered his vessels to ram into the Christian hulks

[00:22:44] and then board them and use their superior numbers and marines

[00:22:48] to fight man-to-man and then take the ships that way.

[00:22:52] However, due to the Christian superior height

[00:22:56] they easily repulsed a majority of these efforts.

[00:23:00] After his two failed attempts on the 15 or 18 giant Christian vessels

[00:23:06] Baltoglou noticed that the Christian enemy was now headed straight for the Ottoman fleet.

[00:23:13] Mehmed was on the coastline cussing and raising up all kinds of hell

[00:23:18] but he could only rage impotently as the Christian bowels from their vessels

[00:23:24] plowed down the smaller Ottoman ships

[00:23:27] and their sailors were shot with arrows as they floundered in the ocean.

[00:23:31] What few boarding parties did manage to make it onto the decks of the enemy vessels

[00:23:36] the Christians cut them down mercilessly with axes and swords

[00:23:41] until they were all annihilated.

[00:23:44] The Christian ships then shot flaming arrows of their own

[00:23:47] which found their marks and many Ottoman ships were soon ablaze.

[00:23:52] We don't have exact numbers on the Ottoman naval losses for those days

[00:23:57] but it must have been heavy.

[00:24:00] The Ottomans pulled back and tightened their blockade of the city

[00:24:04] and Admiral Baltoglou ordered more ships to set sail from Gallipoli to reinforce his losses.

[00:24:11] The morning of April the 19th opened with two massive assaults and failures

[00:24:17] against the defenders of Constantinople.

[00:24:20] Mehmed was so furious he wanted to take the dead bodies of his fallen men

[00:24:25] from the assault the day earlier

[00:24:28] and hurl them over the walls and cause infectious diseases within the city.

[00:24:33] He was dissuaded from this course of action by his staff

[00:24:37] the reason being that it would only make occupying the city much more difficult.

[00:24:42] As for Baltoglou his time was almost at an end as far as Mehmed was concerned

[00:24:48] he wouldn't meet his end during the conquest of Constantinople

[00:24:52] and he would be lucky to escape with his life.

[00:24:57] We will get more into the fate of Baltoglou and the final series of assaults

[00:25:07] which brought the city of Constantinople down in later episodes.

[00:25:12] I'd like to take a moment and give a special shout out to Soren Arnia over at Knife.com

[00:25:19] for agreeing to narrate the primary source material you've just heard in this conquest series.

[00:25:25] You can find a link to his stuff in the show notes and I invite you to check his work out.

[00:25:31] Thanks and I can't wait to jump back into the conquest. Until we meet next time, thank you.