Thread by @HKSandham

"On the 5th of the month of April, 1 hour after daybreak, Mahomet Bey came before Constantinople with about 160,000 men, & encamped about 2.5 miles from the walls of the city." - 1st entry of Niccolo Barbaro's eye witness diary of the siege of Constantinople.

"On the 6th of this month, the Turkish Emperor moved with half his force to within a mile of the walls of the city.

On the 6th of April also the Most Serene Emperor left his palace and took his stand on the walls on the landward side at a gate called Cressu." It's fucking on...

"Again on the 6th of this month Jeruolemo Minoto, our Venetian Bailo, also left his palace and went to the palace of the Most Serene Emperor, because it was near the land walls." [Typical! Emperor's not even dead & the Venetians are making themselves comfortable in his palace 😜]

Here's a what-if scenario for you: if the siege had failed, there are >2,000 armoured Latins inside the walls & in command of the key points of the city, does Giustiniani just hand it all back to Constantine or do we get 1204 repeated with a Genoese flavour?

Or in other words, why did Giustiniani & his mercenary company rock up in Jan1453?
a) To defend non-Catholics out of the kindness of their hearts
b) Hoping for a fat fee off a bankrupt treasury
c) With an eye to increasing Genoese control across the Horn from Pera

"On the 9th day of April, seeing that nevertheless the faithless Turks would come with their fleet and army, to gain their accursed intention of completely destroying the wretched city of Constantinople, preparations began to be made for this on the harbour side"

"we put along the boom which ran across the harbour 9 of the biggest ships which were there and these ships along the length of the boom stretched from Constantinople as far as Pera; they were well armed and in good order, all ready to join battle, and one as good as another."

"The ships & their masters were as follows: Zorzi Doria (Genoa) 2.5k botte
Zuan Zustiganan (Genoa), 1.2k botte
1 of Ancona, 1k botte
1 of Emp of Constantinople, 1k botte
Zuan Venier (Candia) 800 botte
Filamati (Candia) 800 botte
Guro (Candia) 700 botte
Gataloxa (Genoa) 800 botte"

"Zuan Zustignan" is the Venetian form of General Giovanni Giustiniani

Of these ships, the Doria, Zustignan, Venier, Filamati & Gataloxa vessels appear to have got away as the city fell. The galley from Ancona, the emperor's ship & the galley under Guro were captured.

Meanwhile, back with Barbaro's 1453 diary: "From the 12th day of April until the 18th day of the same month there was little movement by sea or by land, except the usual bombardment by day & by night & some skirmishing which the Turks engaged in regularly with those on the walls"

"On the 18th day [of April], a great multitude of Turks came to the walls...at about the 2nd hour of the night & the skirmish lasted until about the 6th hour of the night...there were killed of them at least 200 or more, & by the grace of God none of our men were killed"

20th April: Genoese reinforcements arrive by sea & run straight into trouble: "These 4 ships came sailing along with a fresh southerly wind, & were already coming close to the anxious city, but as it pleased God, when they were very near Constantinople, suddenly the wind dropped"

"As they lay becalmed, the fleet of Mahomet Bey the Turk, that enemy of the Christian faith, was stirred into great activity, & from where it was anchored by the Columns it came with shouts & sounding of castanets towards the 4 ships, rowing at full speed"

"of these 4 ships, 1 had 5 galleys around it, another had 30 fuste, & another had 40 parandarie, so that the Dardanelles were covered with armed boats, & the water could hardly be seen for the vessels of these evil dogs."

"The battle lasted between 2 & 3hrs, & neither side was victorious, but our 4 Christian ships won greater honour, because they had had on top of them a 145 Turkish ships, and had survived their attack."

Key being high-sided Genoese ships vs low lying Turk galleys & heavy armoured crews. Essentially a floating siege. Also few galleys at a time could pull alongside & try to board so full numerical advantage is never employed at once. Turk admiral was whipped for this failure.

This is probably the high water mark of the siege for the defenders. Morale reasonably high but Mehmed has a trick or two up his sleeve to be produced in the coming days...

"On the 22nd of April the Sultan took thought, & saw that he could do no damage on the landward side, although he had tried with all his force, & so the evil pagan considered, & made a plan to send part of his fleet, which was at the Columns, inside the harbour of Constantinople"

"no one would ever have thought it possible that dogs such as these should drag these fuste over the hill, bringing across as many as seventy-two into the harbour of Constantinople and settling them in the harbour in the basin of Pera,"

"When those in our fleet saw the fuste, you may he sure that they were greatly afraid, because they feared that 1 night they would come to attack our fleet...because our ships were inside the boom, & the Turkish fleet was both inside and outside the boom"

"On the 23rd of April, action began to be taken quickly over the question of the Turkish fleet which had been moved over the hills into the harbour of Constantinople; & so on this day we [Venetians] held a council of the 12 in the Church of Santa Maria in Constantinople"

"Jacomo Coco, who was master of the galley of Trebizond, gave his opinion also, and everyone agreed to try to burn the Turkish fleet, and this attempt led to the terrible events which followed, as you shall hear."

24th April: Coco ready to implement his plan with 2 high-sided merchant ships, packed with sacks of wool on their sides to protect them, 2 large galleys & 2 light fustae manned by 72 oarsmen each, filled with Greek fire to burn the enemy fleet.

But according to (biased Venetian) Barbaro, the Turks were tipped off & "this treachery was committed by the accused Genoese of Pera, rebels against the Christian faith." In any event, the plan was delayed 4 days.

28th April. Much delayed & anticipated by the Turks, Coco made his raid on the ship's in the Horn. His fusta was sunk and the raid failed to dislodge the Turkish position.

Most of the crew drowned but 40 swam ashore & were taken captive. The next morning they appeared before the wall, impaled in a line of gruesome scarecrows. The defenders retaliated by executing every Turkish prisoner in the city in full view of the enemy camp.

3rd May "a bregantino was equipped with 12 men, to go out through the Dardanelles...& there see if they could see any sign of our fleet; &...tell its captain Jacomo Loredan to come quickly to Constantinople, because the city was still being held strongly by the Christians."

"all the men on board were dressed as Turks, and they raised as ensign the flag of the Turkish Sultan, and in the name of God they went sailing on freely without any difficulty, and went as far as the archipelago, and could see nothing of our fleet"

"When they reached the city, they made their report to the Emperor, saying that they had not found the Venetian fleet. At this point the Most Serene Emperor began to weep bitterly for grief, because the Venetians had not sent help;"

"On the 7th May, at the 4th hour of the night, there came under the walls of the city about 30k Turks in very good order bringing a number of rams with the intention of treacherously entering the city, because we did not expect an attack to take place."

"But the Eternal Lord gave help & strength to our men, & they bravely drove them back...because they realized that they had not been able to do anything, they made another plan...& threw🔥at the gate of the palace...as soon as it caught🔥our men ran there & beat them back"

"On the 12th May at midnight there came to the walls of the palace 50k Turks well ordered& these Turkish dogs surrounded the whole palace with fierce cries according to their custom &with sounds of castanets &tambourines &on this night they made a strong attack against the walls"

"So that the majority of those in the city thought that night that the city was lost. But our merciful Lord Jesus Christ did not wish that the city should be lost so cheaply that night, and also God wished the prophecy to be fulfilled" ~ prophecy? Do tell Nicolo...

"The 1st Emperor to hold Constantinople prophesied that Constantinople should never be lost, until the moon rose darkened when it was at the full, that is, lacking the half of it; so the present time was not that at which the city was to be lost" [he means a lunar eclipse].

"16th of May, there took place on land the following events. The Turks had dug a mine, to get into the city under the walls, & the mine was discovered on this day. The Turks had begun to dig it half a mile from the city walls, and it passed under the foundations;"

"but our men in the city heard them working at night, with the digging of this mine, which had already passed under the foundations of the walls. As soon as this noise was heard, the Megas doux at once informed the Most Serene Emperor of it," - Sounds like a job for a Scotsman!

Notaras has men"dig a mine inside the city, to find the Turkish 1 & 1 tunnel met the other in such a way that ours found theirs & our men were prepared for this & quickly threw fire into theirs & burned all the props supporting it, so that the earth collapsed on top of the Turks"

"This mine was at a place called Calegaria, and the Turks put it there because there were no barbicans. It caused great fear in the city, because it was thought that the Turks might make an attack any night by way of their mines, although on this occasion they were discomfited."

The war below ground will progress for the next 9 days, with some 6 tunnels located & destroyed. Credit for this is given by 2 witnesses to John / Johannes Grant, a mercenary with the Genoese who was German or Scottish. (This mysterious guy needs a thread, & book, all his own).

"17th of May, an hour before sunset, 5 fuste approached the harbour boom, to see in what condition our fleet was, & how they were ordered, & to see if we were afraid of them; & when our men saw these 5 fuste approaching the boom, at once those on the ships began to fire"

Throughout the siege, the defenders come off better in every skirmish on the water. Ottoman sea prowess, which will come, is still a generation away. Kemal Reis, who will win their 1st notable sea battle (Zonchio, 1499) is at this time a 2yr old living down the coast at Gallipoli

"18th of May at night the Turks built a very fine tower in the following way. All through the night a great number of them were working away, and in the one night they made a tower built on the lip of the ditch and reaching higher than the walls of the barbicans,"

"This tower was made in such a way that no one would have believed that it could be done...In fact, I tell you, that if all the Christians in Constantinople had wished to build anything on such a scale, they could not have done it in a month, but these did it in a single night."

"This notable tower was 10 paces distant from the main walls of the city, & on the walls there gathered a great number of armed men, all amazed at this tower, & although I said that it was built in a single night, in fact it was built in less than four hours."

"At once the Emperor came with his nobles to see this wonderful thing, and when they saw it they were like men struck dead for fear, & as a result they were continually afraid that this tower might cause the city to be lost, because it overtopped the barbicans."

"20th of May there were hardly any attacks or skirmishings by sea or on land, except for the usual cannon fire which continually brought stretches of the walls down to the ground, while we Christians quickly repaired the damage with barrels & withes & earth to make them as strong

"21st of May, 2hrs before daybreak, the whole of the Turkish fleet which was anchored at the Columns got under way, & came rowing vigorously as far as the harbour boom, sounding their castanets and tambourines with great energy to frighten us."

"It seemed as if they would attack...but just as their vessels were coming near the boom, the whole city began to sound an alarm...When the Turkish fleet saw that ours was so well ordered, and heard the alarm signal sounded throughout the whole city, they had second thoughts"

22nd May. One week to go. 😰 by this stage both sides must have been worn down to the nub. No exaggeration to say things in the Turk camp were far from harmonious with several generals advising to quit the siege. The final assault was in part a last throw of the dice.

"22nd May, at the hour of Compline, we found a tunnel at the Calegaria which the Turks had dug under the foundations of the walls & into the city, near the 1 which had been discovered on the previous day & dug in the same way, & our men threw fire into it and burned it bravely"

"these tunnels were dug into the earth & the men made their way with the earth being supported above with stout props of good wood until they reached the foundations of the city & then they were dug under the foundations & came up again inside the city"

"at the 1st hr of the night, there appeared a wonderful sign in the sky, which was to tell Constantine the worthy Emp of Constantinople that his proud empire was about to come to an end, as it did. The sign was of this form and condition: at the 1st hr after sunset the moon rose"

"being at this time at the full, so that it should have risen in the form of a complete circle; but it rose as if it were no more than a three-day moon, with only a little of it showing, although the air was clear and unclouded, pure as crystal."

"the Emp of Constantinople was greatly afraid of it & so were all his nobles, because the Greeks had a prophecy which said that Constantinople would never fall until the full moon should give a sign & this was the reason for the fear which the Greeks felt."

"23rd day of May at daybreak a tunnel was discovered at the Calegaria, near the place where the others had been found, & for your information, this Calegaria is near the Emperor’s palace. When we found this tunnel, we threw fire into it straight away & it all caught fire quickly"

"it collapsed at once, suffocating a # of 🇹🇷 who were in it. 2 of them were brought out from the tunnel alive...These 2 men were tortured by the 🇬🇷 & made known the whereabouts of the other tunnels & after they had given this information, their heads were cut off"

Barbaro doesn't know it but supposedly the miners were Serbs, not Turks.

"Also on this same day, 1 hr before daybreak, a bregantino which was to all appearances Turkish, came sailing up the Dardanelles, & it was the 1 which had been sent to the archipelago to meet our fleet." (with bad news that none is coming)

"25th of May at the hr of Vespers, another tunnel was discovered in the same area of the Calegaria near the 1st tunnels. It was a strong 1 & might have been very dangerous indeed, because they had put props underneath a piece of the wall & when they set fire to their tunnel -

"it would have collapsed, and after this the Turks would quite certainly have been able to get into the city and take it without difficulty. This was the last tunnel which they dug, and the last to be discovered, & it was the most dangerous of any of the tunnels which were found"

"On this same day the Turks bombarded the walls of the city heavily & knocked down a great deal of them & we quickly made them good with repairs of barrels & earth; also they fired innumerable arrows."

"28th of May the 🇹🇷 Sultan had instructions given to the sound of🎺throughout his camp, that under pain of ☠️all his pashas & [men] who had the 🇹🇷as their rulers, should be ready at their posts all day, coz tomorrow he intended to make a general attack on the wretched city"

"Turks went sounding 🎺 through their camp, and castanets and tambourines, to encourage the people there, saying: 'Children of Mahomet, be of good cheer. Tomorrow we shall have so many Christians in our hands, that we shall sell them into slavery at 2 for a ducat,'"

"we shall have such riches that we shall be all of gold, & from the beards of the Greeks we shall make leashes to tie up our dogs & their wives and their sons shall be slaves; so be of good cheer, children of Mahomet & be ready to die with a stout heart for love of our Mahomet"

"On this day we ✝️ made 7 cartloads of mantelets to put on the battlements on the landward side. When these...had been made, they were brought to the piazza & the Bailo ordered the Greeks to carry them at once to the walls. But the Greeks refused to do so unless they were paid"

"we Venetians were willing to pay those who carried them & the Greeks did not want to pay. When at last the mantelets were taken to the walls, it was dark & they couldn't be put on the battlements for the attack & we did not have the use of them coz of the greed of the Greeks"

"All this day the tocsin was sounded in the city, to make all take up their posts & women & children too, carried stones to the walls, to put them on the battlements so that they could be hurled down upon the Turks & all went weeping through the city from the great fear of them"

"29th May...nothing happened..."

Just kidding.

"On the 29th of May, 1453, 3hrs before daybreak, Mahomet Bey son of Murat the Turk came himself to the walls of Constantinople to begin the general assault which gained him the city."

"The Sultan divided his troops into 3 groups of 50,000 men each: 1 group was of Christians who were kept in his camp against their will, the 2nd group was of men of a low condition, peasants and the like, and the 3rd group was of janissaries in their white turbans."

Remember, this is Barbaro's diary & he's on a boat 3 miles away. The attack waves were in fact Azaps (irregular Turkish soldiers), Anatolian heavy infantry & then Janissary.

"The first group...tried to raise the ladders up & at once we threw them to the ground with the men who were raising them & they were all killed at once & we threw big stones down on them from the battlements, so that few escaped alive"

"the 2nd group came on like lions unchained against the walls on the side of San Romano...this 2nd group was made up of brave men, who came to the walls & wearied those in the city greatly by their attack."

Barbaro now goes full Venetian & claims the Genoese commander Giustiniani abandoned his post (#Fakenews). "Zuan Zustignan, that Genoese of Genoa, decided to abandon his post, and fled to his ship" He also cannot bring himself to commend the Genoese defenders & calls then Venetian

In fact Giustiniani was mortally injured (witness accounts vary on the exact circumstances). In so finely balanced a fight, his removal may well have been the tipping point as his Genoese troops fell back with him, causing a stampede among the defenders for the inner posterns.

Back to Barbaro:"at sunrise the Turks entered the city near San Romano, where the walls had been razed to the ground by their cannon. But before they entered, there was such a fierce struggle between the 🇹🇷 & the✝️in the city who opposed them & so many of them died,"

"Then the 2nd wave followed the 1st & went rushing about the city, & anyone they found they put to the⚔️women & men, old& young, of any condition. This butchery lasted from sunrise, when the Turks entered the city, until noon & anyone they found was put to the⚔️in their rage"

"They sought out the monasteries & all the nuns were led to the fleet & ravished & abused...& all the young women also were ravished & then sold for whatever they would fetch, some preferred to cast themselves into the wells & drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks"

"Their practice was, that when they went into a house, at once they raised up a flag with their emblem on it & when other Turks saw this flag flying, they left this house alone & went in search of another house without a flag & so they put their flags everywhere,"

"The blood flowed in the city like rainwater in the gutters after a sudden storm & the corpses of🇹🇷&✝️were thrown into the Dardanelles, where they floated out to sea like melons along a canal."

"No one could hear any news of the Emperor, what he had been doing, or whether he was dead or alive, but some said that his body had been seen among the corpses, and it was said that he had hanged himself at the moment when the Turks broke in at the San Romano gate."

Again, some of Barbaro's Venetian prejudice showing through perhaps. More positive accounts of Constantine XI say he went down fighting shortly after Giustiniani's departure & the collapse of the front line.

"Now that Constantinople had fallen, and since there was nothing further to be hoped for, our own people prepared to save themselves and our fleet, all the galleys and ships, and get them out of the harbour, breaking the boom across the entrance."

"When we reached the boom, we could not get past it, because it stretched all the way between the 2 cities of Constantinople & Pera. But 2 brave men leaped down on to 1 of the wooden sections of the boom & with a couple of axes cut through it & we quickly...sailed."

The shock of the city's fall moved then across Europe. Crusades to recapture it were proposed and in 1464 came very close to being launched but the western ✝️ powers (esp. France, England) were too preoccupied internally & not immediately threatened enough by the Turks to care.

But others did care (at least about the threat of Mehmed). In 1463, Venice began a war which lasted 16yrs & involved (sporadically) alliances with the Pope, Hungary, Burgundy and even other Muslim powers. Much of the impetus for this war effort was driven by Byzantine exiles.

Footnote. The fall of Constantinople was not the complete end of the Byzantine empire. Mystra in the Morea did not fall until 1460 and the very last Byzantine castle (Salmeniko) was only surrendered in July 1461.