Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

The great gun roared, spitting flame, smoke, and a stone ball that made the thousand-year-old Theodosian wall shudder. For ten centuries, those walls had thrown back endless arrays of would-be conquerors, but the age of brick and mortar had passed, and the ancient defenses were subjected to a bombardment unprecedented in the history of siege warfare. The main cannon needed time to cool between each firing and could only be discharged seven times a day, but the sultan had other guns that could take up the slack. Stone balls mercilessly slammed into the walls, shattering the brick and occasionally bringing down whole sections. By the end of the first day, a large part of the outer wall was reduced to rubble, and the sultan ordered an assault. Constantine threw himself into the breach, somehow repulsing the successive attacks, and when night fell Giustiniani devised a way to repair the walls. Driving wooden stakes into the collapsed rubble to provide a loose form, he heaped the broken brick and stone into a makeshift wall. The next day, when the firing resumed, the rubble absorbed the cannonballs better than the solid walls and remained more or less intact. Taking heart, the defenders fell into a steady rhythm. By day, they would do their best to stay out of the way of the stone balls raining death all around them; by night, when the guns were at last silenced, they rushed out to repair the damage.

After forty-eight days of continuous bombardment on the vulnerable spot where the walls descended into the little Lycus River valley, a second attempt to take the city by storm proved just as unsuccessful. Once again the emperor led a heroic defense, and the frustrated sultan vented his anger by impaling his Byzantine prisoners in sight of the walls. Changing tactics, Mehmed decided to attack the imperial harbor where the seawalls were more vulnerable, and ordered his ships to ram the great chain, but it easily held. This was humiliating for the Ottomans, but the situation was made worse when three Genovese ships carrying a much-needed shipment of food to the beleaguered capital managed to smash their way through the Ottoman navy and slip into the harbor—despite Mehmed’s furious order to sink them at all costs.

This public flouting of his authority threw the sultan into his usual rage. He had lost prestige and allowed his enemies to take heart; their cheers at the Genovese display could be plainly heard in the Turkish camp. This obviously couldn’t be allowed to continue, so Mehmed prepared an ambitious response.

The entrance to the imperial harbor was protected by a great chain stretching from Constantinople to a tower in the Genovese colony on the opposite shore. Repeated attempts to force the chain had failed, but there were other options for someone of the sultan’s limitless resources. In a stunning display of Turkish planning and organization, Mehmed transported seventy ships overland on greased logs, bypassed the Genovese colony, and dropped his fleet silently into the imperial harbor.

The fall of the harbor came as a physical blow to Constantine. Not only were the waters no longer safe for fishing, depriving the starving city of its one reliable source of food, but now there were another three and a half miles of walls for his stretched forces to defend. Both sides knew the end was surely at hand, and when Mehmed viciously beheaded more Byzantine prisoners in sight of the walls, the emotionally spent defenders responded by throwing their Turkish prisoners from the ramparts. It was war to the death. If the sultan showed no mercy, then he wouldn’t be given any in return.

The one hope sustaining the defenders was that the promised Venetian fleet would arrive and save them, but as May dragged on, morale and hope began to fade. In desperation, Constantine had sent a ship to search for any sign of an approaching fleet, but after three weeks it returned and sadly reported that there was no sign of any help. Byzantium had been abandoned to its fate. The imperial ministers begged Constantine to flee and to set up a government in exile until the city could be retaken. The crusader empire had eventually collapsed, and the Ottomans would as well; the important thing was to keep the emperor alive. Exhausted but firm, Constantine refused. These were his people, and he would be with them to the end.

In the Turkish camp, Mehmed was preparing his troops for the final assault. The walls that his guns had been pounding were now heaps of rubble, and further bombardment could hardly achieve much more. His attempts at storming the city had resulted in horrendous casualties, and every day that he failed to take the city eroded his prestige. The time had come for a last push. Not bothering to keep the news from his weary opponents, he announced that on Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of May, the final attack would begin.