He would, he said, as the Law commanded,
spare the citizens, harming neither their families nor their belongings,
if they voluntarily surrendered to him. Otherwise they would be shown no
mercy.... As soon as this was over and the guns were in position, the Turks
opened the fighting with a heavy bombardment of the walls. By dusk on the
first day, 6 April, a portion of the wall near the Christian Gate had been
severely damaged ...
Meanwhile Baltoghlu was sent to occupy the Princes' Islands, in the Sea
of Marmora. Only on the largest of the islands, (page
96) Prinkipo, was there any attempt at resistance.... those that escaped
through the flames were taken and put to death. Baltoghlu then rounded up
the civilian inhabitants of the island and sold them all into slavery ...
(page 97)
During the first days of May Urban's
great cannon had been out of order. By 6 May it was repaired; and the bombardment
of the land-walls showed renewed vigour ... (page 116)
No Christian power was coming to
join in the battle for Christendom. The city could now only put its faith,
he said, in Christ and His Mother, and Saint Constantine its founder.
Even this faith was to be tested.
There were signs that Heaven itself was turning against the city. During
these days everyone remembered again the prophecies that the Empire would
perish. (page 120) The first Christian Emperor had been Constantine, son
of Helena; the last would be similarly named. Men remembered, too, a prophecy
that the city would never fall while the moon was waxing in the heavens.
This had cheered the defenders when they faced the assault during the previous
week. But on 24 May the moon would be at the full; and under the waning
moon peril would come. On the night of the full moon there was an eclipse
and three hours of darkness. It was probably on the following day, ... a
last appeal was made to the Mother of God. Her holiest icon was carried
on the shoulders of the faithful round the streets of the city, and everyone
who could be spared from the walls joined in the procession. As it moved
slowly and solemnly the icon suddenly slipped off the platform on
which it was borne. When the men rushed to raise it it seemed as though
it were made of lead; only the greatest effort could replace it. Then, as
the procession wound on, a thunder-storm burst on the city. It was almost
impossible to stand up against the hail, and the rain came down in such
torrents that whole streets were flooded and children nearly swept away.
The procession had to be abandoned. Next day, as if such omens had not been
enough, the whole city was blotted out by a thick fog, a phenomenon unknown
in those lands in the month of May. The Divine Presence was veiling itself
in cloud, to conceal its departure from the city. That night, when the fog
had lifted, it was noticed that a strange light played about the dome of
the great Church of the Holy Wisdom. It was seen from the Turkish camp as
well as by the citizens; the Turks, too, were disquieted. The Sultan himself
had to be reassured by his wise men who interpreted the sign as showing
that the light of the True Faith would soon illumine the sacred building.
For the Greeks and their Italian allies there was no such comforting interpretation.
(page 121)
The evidence presented
above indicates that God was not pleased with Orthodox Catholic faith, which
was not much different from the Roman Catholic, especially the worship of
Mary.
... To this the Sultan retorted that
the only choice left to the Greeks lay between the surrender of the city,
death by the sword, or conversion to Islam. (page 124)
Muslims have the
nerve to claim that Islam was not spread by the sword, as if we cannot read
the facts of history!
... On that same day of 27 May the
Sultan rode through his whole army to announce that the great assault would
take place very soon. His heralds followed him, pausing here and there to
proclaim that, as the customs of Islam ordered, the soldiers of the Faith
would be allowed three days in which they might freely sack the city. ...
This night they worked (page 126) in high excitement, shouting and singing,
while fifes and trumpets, pipes and lutes encouraged them on. (page 127)
... In contrast to the silence in
the (page 129) Turkish camp, in the city the bells of the churches rang
and their wooden gongs sounded as icons and relics were brought out upon
the shoulders of the faithful and carried round through the streets and
along the length of the walls, pausing to bless with their holy presence
the spots where the damage was greatest and the danger most pressing; and
the throng that followed behind them, Greeks and Italians, Orthodox and
Catholic, sang hymns and repeated the Kyrie Eleison. ... Constantine told
his hearers that the great assault was about to begin. ... He spoke of the
perfidy of the infidel Sultan who had provoked the war in order to destroy
the True Faith and to put his false prophet in the seat of Christ. He urged
them to remember that they were the descendants of the heroes of ancient
Greece and Rome and to be worthy of their ancestors. (page 130)
... The sudden noise was horrifying.
All along the line of the walls the Turks rushed in to the attack, screaming
their battle-cries, while drums and trumpets and fifes urged them on. ...
Old folk and children came out of their houses and crowded into the churches,
trusting that the saints and angels would protect them. (page 133)
... Others went back to the great
cathedral, remembering an old prophesy [prophecy] that said that though
the infidel might penetrate through the city right into the holy building,
there the Angel of the Lord would appear and drive them back with his bright
sword to perdition. All through the dark hours before dawn the congregations
waited and prayed. ...
It was his irregulars, the Bashi-bazouks,
whom he first sent forward. There were many thousands of them, adventurers
from every country and race, many of them Turks but many more from Christian
countries, Slavs, Hungarians, Germans, Italians and even Greeks, all of
them ready enough to fight against their fellow-Christians in view of the
pay that the Sultan gave them and the booty that the promised. (page 134)
What can be said here, except
that these men were not even close to being genuine Christians, they were
only Christian in the sense that they were not pagan or Islamic, and were
born in a country that Orthodox Christianity as its religion.
... Within a few minutes the Anatolians
had rushed in to the assault. Unlike the irregulars they were well armed
and well disciplined, and all of them devout Muslims eager for the glory
of being the first to enter the Christian city. With the wild music of their
trumpeters and pipers to encourage them they hurled themselves at the stockade
... (page 135)
... The martial music that urged
them on was so loud that the sound could be heard between the roar of the
guns from right across the Bosphorus.... The Christians were exhausted....
Behind them in the city the church bells were clanging again, and a great
murmur of prayer rose to heaven. (page 137)
... the Catalans stationed below
the old Imperial Palace resisted until they were all captured or slain....
When he saw that the city had fallen Alviso Diedo, as commander of the fleet,
sailed over in a small boat to Pera ... (page 141)
... Signaling to the ships in the
harbour to follow him Diedo sailed through the gap. Seven Genoese ships
from Pera sailed close behind him, and soon afterwards they were joined
by most of the Venetian warships, by four or five of the Emperor's galleys
and by one or two Genoese warships. They had all waited as long as they
dared to pick up refugees who swam out to them; and after they had passed
through the boom the whole flotilla remained for an hour or so at the entrance
to the Bosphorus to see if any more ships would escape. (page 142)
... Turkish soldiers who claimed
to have killed Constantine brought a head to the Sultan which captured courtiers
who were present recognized their master's. Mehmet set it for a while on
a column in the Augustean Forum, then stuffed it and sent it to be exhibited
round the leading courts of the Islamic world. (page 143)
... the Turks decapitated most of
the corpses.... He was now not only Sultan but heir and possessor of the
ancient Roman Empire. (page 144)
Since the days of the Caliph Omar
and the first great conquests for the Faith, Islamic tradition has prescribed
the proper treatment to be given to conquered peoples. If a city or a district
surrenders of its own will to the conqueror it is not to be pillaged, though
it might have to pay an indemnity; and its Christian and Jewish inhabitants
may retain their places of worship, ... But when a city is taken by storm
its inhabitants have no rights. The conquering army is allowed three days
of unrestricted pillage; ...
Unrestricted pillage
means that the soldiers raped and looted anyone they wanted, of any age
or sex, and all who resisted were murdered.
Sultan Mehmet had promised to his
soldiers the three days of pillage to which they were entitled. They poured
into the city.... They slew everyone that they met in the streets, men,
women and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down
the steep streets from the heights of Petra towards the Golden Horn.
But soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that
captives and precious objects would bring them greater profit. (page 145)
... Soon some of them came upon a
pathetic procession of women moving towards the church of Saint Theodosia,
to pray for her protection on this her feast-day. The women were rounded
up and distributed among the captors; who then went on to sack the rose-hung
church and take the worshippers there. (page 146)
The above passage
infers that the women were all raped. If you do not believe it, keep reading;
the author gets more clear.
Then the sailors from both fleets
and the first batches of soldiers from the land-walls converged on the greatest
church of all Byzantium, the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom.... They prayed
in vain. It was not long before the doors were battered down. The worshippers
were trapped. A few of the ancient and infirm were killed on the spot; but
most of them were tied or chained together. Veils and scarves were torn
off the women to serve as ropes. Many of the lovelier maidens and youths
and many of the richer-clad nobles were almost torn to death as their captors
quarrelled over them. Soon a long procession of ill-assorted little
groups of men and women bound tightly together was being dragged to the
soldiers' bivouacs, there to be fought over once again. The priests went
on chanting at the altar till they too were taken....
The pillage continued all day long.
Monasteries and convents were entered and their inmates rounded up. Some
of the younger nuns preferred martyrdom to dishonour and flung themselves
to death down well-shafts ... (page 147)
... The inhabitants were carried
off along with their possessions. Anyone who collapsed from frailty was
slaughtered, together with a number of infants who were held to be of no
value; but in general lives were now spared. There were still great
libraries in the city, some secular and many more attached to monasteries.
Most of the books were burnt; ... Many jewelled crucifixes were borne away
with Turkish turbans rakishly surmounting them....
By evening there was little left
to plunder; and no one protested when the Sultan proclaimed that the looting
now should cease. The soldiers had enough to occupy them during the next
two days sharing out the loot and counting the captives. It was rumoured
that there were about fifty thousand of them, of which only five hundred
were soldiers. The rest of the Christian army had perished, apart from the
few men who had escaped by sea. The dead, including the civilian victims
of the massacre, were said to number four thousand. (page 148)
He freed at once most of the noble
families; but he retained the fairest of their young sons and daughters
for his own seraglio. Many other youths were offered liberty and
commissions in his army on condition that they renounce their religion.
A few of them apostasized; but the greater part preferred to accept the
penalties of loyalty to Christ. Among the Greek captives he discovered
Lucas Notaras the Megadux and some nine others of the Emperor's ministers.
He himself redeemed them from their captors and received them graciously,
releasing the Megadux and two or three others. (page 149)
A "seraglio"
is a harem, which apparently also contained males for the Sultan's pleasure.
... The fate of the Greek captives
was diverse. After three days, when the official period for plunder was
ended, the Sultan issued a proclamation, telling those of the Greeks who
had avoided (page 150) capture or who had been ransomed to go to their homes
where their lives and their possessions would now be undisturbed. But there
were not very many of them; nor were many of their houses habitable. Mehmet
was said himself to have sent four hundred Greek children as a gift to each
of the three leading Moslem potentates of the time, the Sultan of Egypt,
the King of Tunis and the King of Grenada. Many Greek families were never
to be reunited. Matthew Camariotes, in his lament on the city, tells of
the desperate search that he and his friends made to find their relatives.
He himself lost sons and brothers. Some he knew later to have been killed;
others merely vanished; and he had the shame of discovering that his
nephew had survived by renouncing his faith.
The kindness that Mehmet had shown
to the Emperor's surviving ministers was of short duration.... Five days
after the fall of the city he gave a banquet. In the course of it, when
he was well flushed with wine, someone whispered to him that Notaras's fourteen-year
old son was a boy of exceptional beauty. The Sultan at once sent a eunuch
to the house of the Megadux to demand that the boy be sent to him for his
pleasure. Notaras, whose elder sons had been killed fighting, refused
to sacrifice the boy to such a fate. Police were then sent to bring Notaras
with his son and his young son-in-law, the son the Grand Domestic Andronicus
Cantacuzenus, into the Sultan's presence. When Notaras still defied the
Sultan, orders were given for him and the two boys to be decapitated on
the spot. Notaras merely asked that they should be slain before him, lest
the sight of his death should make them waver. When they had both perished
he bared his neck to the executioner. The following day nine other Greek
notables were arrested and sent to the scaffold. (page 151)
... Phrantzes ... was a slave
for eighteen months in the household of the Sultan's Master of the Horse
before he could redeem himself and his wife; but his two children, both
of them god-children of the Emperor Constantine, were taken into the Sultan's
seraglio. The girl, Thamar, died there while still a child; the boy was
slain by the Sultan for refusing to yield to his lusts. (page 152)
... Throughout the island [of Crete]
there was consternation. "There has never been and there never will
be a more dreadful happening," wrote a scribe at the monastery of Agarathos.
(page 160)
... Bessarion himself wrote to the Venetians, half scolding them and half
beseeching them that they should cease from their wars in Italy and concentrate
their strength on a campaign against Anti-Christ. (page 164)
... Though princes hastened to collect reports on the fall of the city
and writers wrote horrified laments, though the French composer Guillaume
Dufay set a dirge to music that was sung throughout French lands, no one
was ready to take action. (page 166)
... The Duchy of Athens was overrun in 1456. Its Florentine Duke, Franco,
whose youthful beauty the Sultan had admired, was allowed to remain for
four more years as lord of Thebes. Then he was put to death and his lands
absorbed and his sons enlisted among the Janissaries. (page 171)
... Early in May 1460, Mehmet appeared at Corinth at the head of a great
army.... Deserted by their rulers the Peloponnesians submitted, though a
few fortresses, inspired by a proud and hopeless heroism, resisted and were
reduced one by one. Whether they were taken by storm or starved into surrender,
their populations were massacred. (page 172)
... On 15 August 1461 the last capital of the Greeks was entered by the
Turkish Sultan. (page 175)... Every remaining male citizen and many of the
women and children were enslaved and divided between the Sultan and his
ministers. Other women were shipped to Contantinople; and eight hundred
boys were picked for the Janissary corps. (page 176)
... Nevertheless the date of 29 May 1453 marks a turning-point in history.
It marks the end of an old story, the story of Byzantine civilization. For
eleven hundred years there had stood on the Bosphorus a city where the intellect
was admired and the learning and letters of the Classical past were studied
and preserved. Without the help of Byzantine commentators and scribes there
is little that we would know today about the literature of ancient Greece.
It was, too, a city whose rulers down the centuries had inspired and encouraged
a school of art unparalled in human history, an art that arose from an every
varying blend of the cool cerebral Greek sense of the fitness of things
and a deep religious sense that saw in works of art the incarnation of the
Divine and the sanctification of matter. It was, too, a great cosmopolitan
city, where along with merchandise ideas were freely exchanged and whose
citizens saw themselves not as a racial unit but as the heirs of Greece
and Rome, hallowed by the Christian Faith. All this was now ended. (page
189)
... In the villages men knew better. There they remembered the threnes
that had been composed when news came that the city had fallen, punished
by God for its luxury, its pride and its apostasy, but fighting a heroic
battle to the end. (page 191)
Nothing to buy, no credit card needed.
|