We see auguries in the replies and salutations of men. We note the cries of domestic birds, the flight of crows and we draw omens from them. We take note of dreams and believe that they foretell the future … it is these sins and others like them that make us worthy of the punishments with which God visits us.
Joseph Bryennios, fourteenth-century Byzantine writer
Prophecy, apocalypse, sin: as the siege entered the final weeks of May, deepening religious dread gripped the people of the city. A belief in portents had always been a feature of the life of Byzantium. Constantinople itself had been founded as the result of a mystical sign – the vision of a cross that had appeared to Constantine the Great before the crucial battle at the Milvian Bridge 1240 years earlier – and omens were eagerly sought and interpreted. With the inexorable decline of the empire, these became increasingly linked to a profound pessimism. There was a widely held belief that the Byzantine Empire was to be the last empire on earth, whose final century had started around 1394. People remembered the ancient prophetic books from the time of the earlier Arab sieges; their gnomic, oracular verses were widely recited: “misfortune to you, city of seven hills, when the twentieth letter is proclaimed on your ramparts. Then the fall will be near and the destruction of your sovereigns.” The Turks, in their turn, were seen as an apocalyptic people signifying the last judgment, a scourge sent by God as a punishment for Christian sin.
Monograms inscribed on the walls
In this climate people unceasingly scrutinized signs that might foretell the end of empire – or of the world itself: epidemics, natural phenomena, angelic apparitions. The city itself, old beyond the comprehension of its inhabitants, had become enshrouded in legend, ancient prophecy, and supernatural meanings. Its 1,000-year-old monuments, whose original purpose had been lost, were said to be magical cryptograms in which the future might be read: the sculpted frieze on the base of the statue in the Forum of the Bull contained an encoded prophecy of the city’s end, and the great equestrian statue of Justinian pointing east no longer expressed confident dominion over the Persians. It foretold the direction from which the final destroyers of the city would come.
Against this background, presentiments of the last judgment gained an incremental force as the siege wore on. The unseasonable weather and the terror of unceasing artillery bombardment convinced the Orthodox faithful that the end was drawing nigh in explosions and black smoke. The Antichrist, in the shape of Mehmet, was at the gate. Prophetic dreams and portents were widely circulated: how a child had seen the angel who guarded the city walls abandon his post; how oysters had been gathered that dripped blood; how a great serpent was drawing near, devastating the land; how the earth tremors and hailstorms that struck the city made it clear “that universal ruin was approaching.” Everything pointed to a belief that time was nearly completed. In the monastery of St. George there was an oracular document, divided into squares, showing the succession of emperors, one emperor to each square: “in time the squares were all filled, and they say that only one last square was still empty” – the square to be occupied by Constantine XI. Byzantine notions that time was circular and symmetrical were further confirmed by a second imperial prophecy: that the city would be both founded and lost by an emperor Constantine whose mother was called Helen. Both Constantine I and Constantine XI had mothers of that name.
In this fevered climate, the morale of the civilian population seemed to be disintegrating. Continuous services of intercession were held throughout the city. Day and night an endless cycle of prayer arose from the churches, with the exception of St. Sophia, which remained empty and unvisited. Nestor-Iskander witnessed “all of the people assembled in the holy churches of God, weeping, sobbing, raising their arms to heaven, and petitioning the grace of God.” To the Orthodox, prayer was a work as essential to the survival of the city as the nightly toil of carrying stones and branches to repair the stockade. It supported the force field of divine protection that ringed the city. The more hopeful remembered a set of counterprophecies: that the city was personally shielded by Mary, Mother of God, and could never be taken because it contained the relics of the True Cross; and that even if the enemy succeeded in entering the city, they could only proceed as far as the column of Constantine the Great before an angel would descend from heaven with a sword and put them to flight.
Despite this, apocalyptic anxiety had been fueled by the disheartening news from the Venetian brig on May 23 and it reached a crescendo on the night of the full moon. This was probably the next day, May 24, though dates are uncertain. The moon held a haunting place in the city’s psyche. Rising over the copper dome of St. Sophia, shimmering on the calm waters of the Horn and over the Bosphorus, it had been the symbol of Byzantium since ancient times. Like a gold coin dug from the Asian hills night after night, its ebb and flow expressed the antiquity of the city and the endlessly repeated cycles of time through which it had lived – fluctuating, timeless, and ominous. Earth’s final millennium was considered to be ruled by the moon, when “life will be short, fortune unstable.” By late May particular fear focused on a certain belief that the city could never be taken on a waxing moon; after the 24th the moon would start to wane again and the future would be uncertain. The prospect of this date filled the populace with dread. The whole prophetic history of the city seemed to be drawing to a point.
It was with apprehension that the people waited for twilight on May 24. After another day of heavy bombardment, that evening suddenly gave way to silence. By all accounts it was a beautiful spring night, a time when Constantinople was at its most magical, the last light still glimmering in the west, the distant sound of water lapping the sea walls. “The air was clear and unclouded,” remembered Barbaro, “pure as crystal.” However, as the moon rose at the first hour after sunset the watchers were met by an extraordinary sight. Where there should have been a complete circle of gold, they could see a moon “only three days old, with little of it visible.” For four hours it remained sickly and minimal, then agonizingly, it “grew little by little to its full circle, and at the sixth hour of the night, it formed the complete circle.” The partial eclipse struck the defenders with the force of prophecy. Was not the crescent moon the symbol of the Ottomans, visible on standards fluttering over Mehmet’s camp? According to Barbara, “the Emperor was greatly afraid of this sign, and all of his lords … but the Turks held a great celebration in their camp at the sign, because it seemed now that victory was theirs.” For Constantine, struggling to maintain the morale of the populace, it was a heavy blow.
Seal showing the Hodegetria
The next day a decision was taken, perhaps at the instigation of Constantine, to lift the spirits of the people by making another direct appeal to the Virgin. Huge belief was placed in the supernatural powers of the Mother of God. Her most holy icon, the Hodegetria, “the one who shows the way,” was a talisman credited with miraculous powers. It was believed to have been painted by St. Luke the Evangelist, and had an ancient and honorable role in successful defenses of the city. It had been processed along the ramparts during the Avar siege of 626. Again in 718 the Hodegetria was credited with saving Constantinople from the Arabs. Accordingly a huge crowd gathered on the morning of May 25 at the icon’s shrine, the church of St. Saviour in Chora near the city walls, to seek protection from the Virgin. The Hodegetria, mounted on a wooden pallet, was lifted onto the shoulders of a team of men drawn from the confraternity of the icon, and a penitent procession set off down the steep, narrow streets in traditional order: in front a cross-bearer; behind, the black robed priests swinging their censers, then the laity, men, women, and children probably walking barefoot. Cantors led the people in holy song. The haunting quartertones of the hymns, the lamentations of the people, the clouds of incense, and the traditional prayers to the protecting Virgin – all rose in the morning air. Over and over the citizens repeated their powerful cry for psychic protection: “Do thou save thy city, as thou knowest and willest. We put thee forward as our arms, our rampart, our shield, our general: do thou fight for thy people.” The exact route for these processions was said to be dictated by a force emanating from the icon itself, like the tug of a divining rod.
In this charged atmosphere of fear and devotion, what followed was utterly devastating. The icon suddenly and inexplicably slipped from the hands of the bearers “without any reason or visible force and fell on the ground.” Horror-stricken, people rushed forward with wild shouts to restore the Virgin to her stand, but the icon seemed to have become fastened to the ground as if weighted with lead. It was impossible to lift. For a considerable time, the priests and bearers struggled, with shouts and prayers, to wrestle the miraculous image from the mud. Eventually it was raised again, but everyone was struck with fear at this ill-omened event. And worse was soon to follow. The shakily reformed procession had hardly gone farther when it was hit by a violent storm. Thunder and lightning cracked and spat across the noon sky; torrential rain and stinging hail lashed the bedraggled procession so violently that people “were unable either to stand up against it or move forward.” The icon came to an unsteady halt. Torrents of floodwater surged down the narrow street with ominous force, threatening to sweep children away in their path: “many following were in danger of being carried away and drowned by the force and terrible power of the water if some of the men had not quickly grabbed them and with difficulty hauled them out of the rushing torrent.” The procession had to be abandoned. The crowd dispersed, taking with them a clear interpretation of their plight. The Virgin had refused their prayers; the storm “certainly foretold the imminent destruction of everything and that, like the torrential, violent water, it would carry off and destroy everything.”
The God-protected city
The next morning they awoke to discover the city blanketed in thick fog. There was evidently no wind; the air was still, and the fog clung to the city all day. Everything was muffled, silent, invisible. The eerie atmosphere tightened the mood of hysteria. It was as if the weather itself were undermining the will of the defenders. There could only be one possible interpretation for such unseasonable fog. It indicated the “departure of God and his leaving the city, forsaking and turning away from it completely. For God hides himself in cloud and so appears and again disappears.” Toward evening the atmosphere seemed to grow even thicker and a “great darkness began to gather over the city.” And something even stranger was witnessed. Initially the sentries on the walls observed Constantinople to be illuminated by lights as if the enemy were burning the city. Alarmed, people ran to see what was happening and cried aloud when they looked up at the dome of St. Sophia. A strange light was flickering on the roof. The excitable Nestor-Iskander described what he saw: “at the top of the window, a large flame of fire issuing forth; it encircled the entire neck of the church for a long time. The flame gathered into one; its flame altered, and there was an indescribable light. At once it took to the sky. Those who had seen it were benumbed; they began to wail and cry out in Greek: ‘Lord have mercy! The light itself has gone up to heaven.’” It seemed clear to the faithful that God had abandoned Constantinople. In the Ottoman camp the unnaturally heavy atmosphere and the unearthly light had a similar effect on the troops. There was uncertainty and panic at these apparitions. Within his tent, Mehmet had been unable to sleep. When he saw the glow over the city he was initially troubled and sent for his mullahs to interpret the portents. They came and duly proclaimed the omens favorable to the Muslim cause: “This is a great sign: The city is doomed.”
The following day, probably May 26, a deputation of priests and ministers went to Constantine to express their forebodings. The mysterious light was duly described, and they tried to persuade the emperor to seek a safer place from which to mount effective resistance to Mehmet: “Emperor: weigh all of what has been said about this city. God granted the light in the time of Emperor Justinian for the preservation of the great holy church and this city. But in this night, it departed for heaven. This signifies that God’s grace and generosity have gone from us: God wishes to hand over our city to the enemy … we beseech you: Leave the city so that we will not all perish!” From a mixture of emotion and sheer exhaustion, Constantine collapsed to the ground in a dead faint and remained unconscious for a long time. When he came around, his response was unchanged: to leave the city would be to invite immortal ridicule on his name. He would remain and die with his subjects if need be. He furthermore ordered them not to spread words of discomfort among the people: “do not allow them to fall into despair and weaken their effort in battle.”
Others responded differently. On the night of May 26, a Venetian sea captain, one Nicholas Giustiniani – unrelated to Giovanni Giustiniani, the hero of the siege – slipped the chain and sailed off under the wing of night. A few smaller boats put out from the small harbors along the Marmara sea walls, dodged the naval blockade, and made for the ports of the Greek-speaking Aegean. Some of the richer citizens sought refuge on the Italian ships within the Horn, judging them to offer the best chance of escape in the event of a final catastrophe. Others began to look for safe bolt-holes within the city. Few had any illusions about what defeat might bring.
Within the mystical framework of the medieval world, the astrological portents and unseasonable weather that destroyed the city’s morale were clear signs of the will of God. In fact the most likely explanation for these terrifying phenomena lay faraway in the Pacific Ocean and rivaled even the most lurid vision of Armageddon. Sometime around the start of 1453 the volcanic island of Kuwae, 1,200 miles east of Australia, literally blew itself up. Eight cubic miles of molten rock were blasted into the stratosphere with a force two million times that of the Hiroshima bomb. It was the Krakatoa of the Middle Ages, an event that dimmed the world’s weather. Volcanic dust was propelled across the earth on global winds, lowering temperatures and blighting harvests from China to Sweden. South of the Yangtze River, an area with a climate as mild as Florida, it snowed continuously for forty days. Contemporary tree-ring records from England show years of stunted growth. The sulfur-rich particles from Kuwae could well have been responsible for the unseasonably cool and unstable mixture of rain, hail, fog, and snow that blighted the city throughout the spring. Suspended in the atmosphere they would also have created lurid sunsets and strange optical effects. It could have been volcanic particles, alone or in conjunction with the effect of St. Elmo’s fire – the glow from the discharges of atmospheric electricity – that bathed the copper dome of the cathedral in ominous ribbons of fire on May 26, and conjured for the defenders these visions of oblivion. (Lurid light effects after the Krakatoa eruption in 1883 similarly alarmed people in New York, but living in a more scientific age, they tended to assume huge fires were raging and sent for the fire brigade.)
The febrile atmosphere of foreboding was not confined to the city. By the last week of May the Ottoman camp was also suffering a severe crisis of morale. A muffled discontent fluttered among the Islamic banners. It was now the fifth month of the Arabian lunar year; for seven weeks they had assaulted the city by land and sea. They had endured wretched spring weather and had suffered terrible casualties at the walls. Unknown numbers of trampled dead had been carried away from the choked ditches; day after day the smoke of funeral pyres rose over the plain. And yet as they looked up from the sea of ordered tents, the walls still stood; and where they had been demolished by the great guns, the long earth rampart surmounted by barrels had risen in their place as the taunt of a stubborn enemy. The double-headed eagle of the emperor still fluttered over the ramparts while the lion of St. Mark over the imperial palace served as the reminder of the presence of Western aid, and the fear that reinforcements might be on their way. No armored host could sustain a lengthy siege as effectively as the Ottomans. They understood the essential rules of camp life better than any Western army – the rapid burning of corpses, the protection of water sources, and the sanitary disposal of excrement were essential disciplines in Ottoman warfare – but gradually the mathematics of the siege were stacking against them. It has been estimated that in the Middle Ages a besieging army of 25,000 men, a third the size of that at Constantinople, must transport 9,000 gallons of water and 30 tons of fodder a day to provision itself. In a 60-day siege such an army would need to remove one million gallons of human and animal urine and 4,000 tons of solid biological waste. Soon the summer heat would add to the Muslims’ material discomforts and the threat of disease. The clock was ticking on Ottoman resolve.
In reality, after seven weeks of warfare, an immense weariness was affecting both sides. There was recognition that a final outcome could not long be postponed. Nerves were strained to the breaking point. In this climate the struggle for Constantinople had become a personal contest between Mehmet and Constantine for the morale of their men. While Constantine watched confidence disintegrate inside the city, an identical affliction mysteriously struck the rank and file of the Ottoman army. The exact sequence and dating of events remains uncertain. The arrival of the Venetian brigantine on May 23, bringing news that that there was no relieving fleet, was perhaps perceived by the Ottomans as the outrider of that fleet. The next day word spread quickly among the tents that a powerful fleet was approaching the Dardanelles while a Hungarian crusader army under John Hunyadi, “the redoubtable white knight,” had already crossed the Danube and was marching on Edirne. The most likely explanation is that Constantine had allowed this message to seep out in a last attempt to undermine Ottoman morale. It was immediately successful. Uncertainty and alarm rippled across the plain. The men remembered, in the words of the chronicler, that “many kings and sultans had aspired … and had assembled and equipped large armies, but no one had reached the foot of the fortress. They had withdrawn in pain, wounded and disillusioned.” A mood of despondency gripped the camp, and if Leonard of Chios is to be believed, “the Turks began to shout against their Sultan.” For the second time doubt and a sense of danger gripped the Ottoman high command and the old divisions over the conduct of the siege started to resurface.
For Mehmet it was the moment of crisis. Failure to take the city might prove fatal to his reputation, but time and the patience of his army were running out. He needed to regain the confidence of his men and to act decisively. The night of the eclipse provided a lucky moment to bolster flagging morale. The religious zeal of the mullahs and dervishes who had come to the siege ensured that a favorable interpretation of the lunar eclipse was spread throughout the camp, but the decision to continue with the siege remained uncertain. With a characteristic mixture of shrewdness and cunning, he decided to make one more attempt to persuade Constantine to surrender peacefully.
Probably around May 25 he sent an emissary to the city, Ismail, a renegade Greek nobleman, to confront the Byzantines with their probable fate. He appealed to the hopelessness of their situation: “Men of Greece, your fate is indeed balanced on a razor’s edge. Why then do you not send an ambassador to discuss peace with the Sultan? If you will entrust this matter to me, I shall arrange for him to offer you terms. Otherwise, your city will be enslaved, your wives and your children will be sent into slavery, and you yourselves will utterly perish.” Cautiously they decided to investigate the proposition but resolved to hedge their bets by sending a man “not of high rank,” rather than risk the life of one of the leaders of the city. This unfortunate individual was brought to the red and gold tent to prostrate himself before the sultan. Mehmet tersely offered two choices: the city could either offer a huge annual tribute of 100,000 bezants, or the whole population could abandon the city, “taking their possessions with them, and go wherever each one of them wished.” The offer was relayed to the emperor and his council. Paying the tribute was clearly beyond the means of the poverty-stricken city, and the notion of sailing away and abandoning Constantinople remained inconceivable to Constantine. His reply was to the effect that he would surrender all that he had, with the exception of the city. Mehmet retorted that the only choices left were surrender of the city, death by the sword, or conversion to Islam. Perhaps underlying this, there was a feeling in the city that Mehmet’s offer had not been sincere, that he had sent Ismail “as a means of testing the state of mind of the Greeks … to find out what the Greeks thought of their situation, and how secure their position was.” For Mehmet, however, voluntary surrender was still the preferred option. It would preserve the fabric of a city that he intended for his capital; under the laws of Islam, he would be compelled to allow his troops three days of pillage if it had to be taken by force.
No one knows how close the city came to a voluntary surrender. It has been suggested that the Genoese, whose colony at Galata was also indirectly threatened, exerted pressure on the emperor to refuse the surrender offer, but it seems unlikely that Constantine, whose approach remained remarkably consistent, ever seriously considered handing over Constantinople. For both sides it was probably too late for negotiated surrender. There was too much bitterness. For fifty days they had taunted and slaughtered one another across the walls and executed prisoners in full view of their compatriots. It was a case of either lifting the siege or conquering the city. Doukas probably caught the true tenor of Constantine’s reply: “impose as large an annual tribute as you can, then agree to a peace treaty and withdraw, for you don’t know if you will gain victory or be deceived. It is not in my power, nor in that of any citizen, to hand over the city to you. It is our universal resolve to die rather than have our lives spared.”
If Constantine had released the rumor of approaching Western armies into the Ottoman camp, it was a double-edged weapon. Outside the walls there was uncertainty about what to do, but the threat of relief accelerated decisive action. The categoric reply from Constantine refocused debate in the Ottoman camp. Probably on the next day, May 26, Mehmet called a council of war to resolve the matter one way or the other – either to lift the siege or proceed to an all-out assault. The argument that followed was a reprise of the earlier crisis meeting after the naval defeat on April 21. Once again the old Turkish vizier, Halil Pasha, rose to speak. He was cautious, fearful of the consequences of the young sultan’s rashness, and the risk of provoking Christendom into a united response. He had witnessed the vicissitudes of fortune under Mehmet’s father and knew the dangers of an uneasy army. He spoke with passion for peace: “your power, which is already very great, you can increase more by peace than by war. For the outcome of war is uncertain – more often you see adversity rather than prosperity accompany it.” He raised the specter of an advancing Hungarian army and an Italian fleet and urged Mehmet to demand heavy penalties from the Greeks and lift the siege. Again Zaganos Pasha, the Greek convert, argued for war, pointing out the huge discrepancy in forces, the daily erosion of the defenders’ strength, and their near total exhaustion. He scorned the notion that help would come from the West and showed a good knowledge of the realities of Italian politics: “The Genoese are split into factions, the Venetians are under attack from the Duke of Milan – neither would give any help at all.” He appealed to Mehmet’s desire for glory and demanded “the chance of making one short sharp general assault, and if we fail, we shall afterwards do whatever you think best.” Zaganos was again supported by other generals, such as Turahan Bey, the commander of the European army, and by a strong religious faction, led by Sheik Akshemsettin and Ulema Ahmet Gurani.
The debate was heated. It was the decisive moment in a power struggle between two factions at the Ottoman court that had been raging for ten years. The outcome was to be hugely influential for the future of the Ottoman state, but both sides also knew that they were arguing for their lives – a failed policy would lead inexorably to the hangman’s noose or the strangler’s bowstring. In the event Mehmet was persuaded by the appeal to military glory to blot out the possibility of failure or military revolt; it is possible that he dispatched Zaganos to tour the camp and report back on the mood of the army before finally deciding. If so, the answer was naturally unequivocal – Zaganos dutifully “discovered” that the army was full of enthusiasm for the final attack. Mehmet decided that the moment for hesitation was past: “decide the day of battle, Zaganos. Prepare the army, surround Galata so that it can’t help the enemy and make all these preparations quickly.”
The word was spread throughout the camp that an attack was to be prepared within the next few days. Mehmet knew that he needed to seize the moment to raise the faltering morale of his troops in readiness for the final assault – and to dumbfound the enemy. As night fell on May 26 heralds walked among the tents crying out the sultan’s orders. In front of each tent torches and fires were to be lit. “And all the tents in the camp lit two fires, and the fires were so big, that from their great light it seemed to be day time.” From the battlements the defenders gazed out in wonder and confusion as the ring of fire gradually spread in a widening circle to embrace the whole horizon – from the camp in front of them to the hills around Galata and across the water to the Asian shore. It was so bright that tents could be counted individually. “This strange spectacle was indeed incredible,” recorded Doukas. “The surface of the sea flashed like lightning.” “It seemed that the sea and land were on fire,” Tetaldi remembered. Accompanying the brilliant illumination of the night sky came the slowly rising crescendo of drums and cymbals and the repeated accelerating shouts of the faithful, “Illala, Illala, Mahomet Russolalla” – “God is, and will always be, and Muhammad is his servant” – so loudly that it seemed “the sky itself would burst open.” Within the Ottoman camp there were extraordinary scenes of enthusiasm and joy at the full-hearted commitment to a final attack. Initially some on the walls optimistically mistook the illuminations for a fire rampaging through the enemy tents. They scrambled up to watch the spectacle – then understood the true significance of the glittering horizon, the wild shouting. The ring of fire had its desired effect within the city, draining the defenders of courage to the extent that “they appeared to be half-dead, unable to breathe either in or out.” Amazement at the display of religious fervor gave way to panic. Fervent pleas were addressed to the Virgin and repeated prayers for deliverance: “Spare us, O Lord.” If they needed any confirmation of what the shouting and the flames meant, it soon came. Under cover of darkness, Christian conscripts in the sultan’s army shot stealthy arrows over the battlements with letters attached that outlined the coming attack.
By the light of the fires ominous preparations were under way. The landscape was alive with figures advancing brushwood and other materials ready to fill up the ditch. The guns had been directing a withering bombardment at Giustiniani’s stockade in the Lycus valley all that day. It was probably the day of the great fog, when the nerves of the defenders were already shredded by the terrible omens. There was a nonstop hail of stone shot. Gaping holes started to appear in the defenses. “I cannot describe all that the cannon did to the wall on this day,” reported Barbaro, “we had great suffering and great fear.” Night fell and the exhausted defenders under the direction of Giustiniani prepared yet again to plug the gaps, but in the brilliant light of the flames, the walls were clearly illuminated and the firing continued far into the night. And then, with a startling suddenness, toward midnight the fires were extinguished, the cries of exaltation suddenly died, the bombardment stopped, and an unnerving silence fell upon the May night that appalled the watchers on the ramparts as much as the wild celebrations. Giustiniani and the citizens labored on through what was left of the short period of darkness to make good the rampart.
At about this time the gradual destruction of the wall forced the defenders to make one other small alteration to their defensive arrangements. They had been in the habit of undertaking surprise sallies from the gates in the outer fortifications to disrupt the activities of the enemy. As the wall was destroyed and was replaced with the stockade, it became harder to make inconspicuous raids from their own lines. Some old men knew of a blocked-up sally port concealed below the royal palace at the point where the sharp angle was created by the meeting of the Theodosian wall with the more irregular wall of Komnenos. This ancient doorway was known variously as the Circus Gate or the Wooden Gate, and was so named because it had once led to a wooden circus outside the city. The small doorway was screened by solid walls but would allow men to sally out and disrupt the enemy within the terrace outside. Constantine gave orders for the door to be unblocked so that disruptive raiding could continue. It seemed that no one remembered another ancient prophecy. At the time of the first Arab siege of 669, a strange prophetic book had appeared, the so-called Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. Among its many predictions were these lines: “Misfortune to you Byzantium, because Ismail [Arabia] will take you. And each horse of Ismail will cross over, and the first among them will set up his tent in front of you, Byzantium, and will begin the battle and break the gate of the Wooden Circus and enter as far as the Ox.”