Ottoman Holy War & Conquest: The Battle for Contantinople, 1453
"There were so many events in this war that the pen can't describe them all, the tongue can't list them all."
-Neshri, fifteenth century Ottoman chronicler[30]
It is clear from Wittek's thesis that the battle for Constantinople was a religious one, just as it is clear from Lindner's thesis that religious zeal had nothing to do with it. According to Princeton University Ataturk Professor, Heath Lowry, "the desire to see Islam spread among the conquered Christian peoples was a secondary factor."[31] He argues that once the Empire extended beyond Egypt, and included, Syria, Palestine, and parts of Iraq, (early-mid sixteenth century) the Ottomans began to perceive themselves as the inheritors of the great past Islamic dynasties. "This meant conveniently rewriting early Ottoman history. No longer was the state portrayed as what it had had been: a state with only a nominal regard for the niceties of Orthodox Islam. It was now projected as having always been a gazi state driven by the ideal of spreading Islam by sword into the reaches of Christian Europe...[they] were repackaged as devout Muslims who were driven by zeal to spread Islam in the lands of the unbelievers."[32] This revisionist interpretation is not supported by the surviving firsthand accounts. The battle waged for Constantinople was a religious one on both sides. It was Islam versus Christianity and the chroniclers on both sides viewed it those terms. It also was a war of conquest - but conquest for sake of increasing the domain of Islam. Lewis explains: "In medieval Muslim writings, the Byzantine Empire is the "House of War" par excellence, against which the final and greatest jihad must be waged. These were no simple heathens to be instructed and absorbed, but the supreme rivals, and they are treated with suspicion - and respect - appropriate to that status."[33] It was by the might of God that the final victory - conquest or defense - would rest.
The terms used by one side to describe the other are equally steeped in religion. The diary of Nicolo Barbaro is perhaps the most detailed and accurate eyewitness account of the siege and fall of Constantinople. Nicolo was a surgeon by profession, and a member of one of the patrician families of Venice. His account often focuses on the activities of his fellow Venetians, sometimes to the detriment of the Greeks and Genoese who were also defending the city. The Ottoman Turks were, "that enemy of the Christian faith"; "the faithless Turks"; "cursed pagans"; "Turkish dogs"; "wicked pagans" and; "cursed Turks, full of every wickedness."[34] Indeed, according to most Christian accounts, the Turks were seen as an apocalyptical people signifying the last judgment, a scourge sent by God as punishment for Christian sin.[35]
Likewise, according to Barbaro and in keeping with Christian thought in the city, all events were ordained by or the result of God's desires. At the beginning of the siege, the Ottoman "prayers to their Mahomet were not enough to give them victory, and our Eternal God heard the prayers of us Christians." Constantinople's counterattacks were waged "in the name of our Master Jesus Christ." The reason the city survived the Ottoman offensive in early May was because, "Lord Jesus Christ did not wish that the city should be lost so cheaply that night." On 28 May, the night before Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, "each side had prayed for victory, they to their god and we to ours, our God in Heaven determined with His Mother which of us should be successful in this battle which was to be so fierce, and was to be concluded on the following day." The next day, "our Lord God decided, to the sorrow of the Greeks, that He was willing for the city to fall on this day into the hands of Mahomet Bey the Turk son of Murat...since God had so determined, nothing further could be done, except that all we Christians who found ourselves at this time in the wretched city should place ourselves in the hands of our merciful Lord Jesus Christ and of His Mother, Madonna Saint Mary."[36]
Nestor-Iskander, a young Orthodox Russian also shared a first-hand account from the siege. He was captured by an Ottoman detachment near Moldavia on the fringes of southern Russia and forcibly converted to Islam. When his troop reached the siege, he evidentially escaped into the city and wrote a lively account of the events that ensued. In the beginning of May, while the battle raged, "One could see throughout the entire city all the people and the women who came in miraculous procession to the churches of God with tears, praising and giving thanks to God and to the most pure Mother of God."[37] On 24 May he observed, "all of the people assembled in the holy churches of God, weeping, sobbing, raising their arms to heaven and petitioning the grace of God."[38] Likewise, "In the Ottoman camp the hours of the day were marked out by the call to prayer; dervishes went among the troops enjoining the faithful to hold fast and remember the prophecies of the Hadith."[39]
While it is clear that at a young age, Mehmed II was attracted to the conquest of Constantinople, the desire was as much imperial as it was religious. He studied the exploits of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar; Western history was a keen interest. Nevertheless, at the age of eleven he wrote in a poem, "my earnest desire is to crush the infidels."[40] Four essential points were developed during the turmoil of his early life and became the cornerstones of his policy:
- to rid himself Halil Pasha
- to reorganize the janissaries, eliminating divisive elements, making them more dependant on him
- to conquer Constantinople
- to make holy war the guiding principle of the Empire[41]
Mehmed's actions during the forty-two day siege at the Christian capital serve to illustrate the centrality of ghazi tradition. Both the Ottomans and Christians suffered from sagging morale by the later half of May. Mehmed told his troops, "These tribulations are for God's sake. The sword of Islam is in our hands. If we had not chosen to endure these tribulations, we would not be worthy to be called gazis. We would be ashamed to stand in God's presence on the Day of Judgment."[42]
By 25 May, over a month since the siege began, Mehmed still hoped for Constantinople's voluntary surrender. It would preserve the city that he intended for his capital, whereas if it were taken by force he would need to allow his troops three days of pillage, consistent with the laws of Islam. To that end, Mehmed sent an emissary to the city, Ismail, a renegade Greek nobleman to persuade Emperor Constantine to surrender peacefully: "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."[43] An ambassador was sent to Mehmed's tent, where he was offered two choices for surrender: the city could either offer a large 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."[44] Paying the tribute was beyond the capacity of the poverty-stricken city and abandoning the holy city was inconceivable to Constantine. The emperor's response was that he would surrender all he had with the exception of the city. Mehmed retorted that the only choices left were surrender of the city; death by the sword; or conversion to Islam.[45]
The final attack was set for Tuesday, 29 May - the day before was to be a day of atonement when the men were to fast during daylight hours and carryout the ritual ablutions at night. In his speech to his army on 27 May, Mehmed stressed the appeal to holy war - the long-held Islamic desire for Constantinople, the words of the Prophet, and the attractions of Martyrdom.[46] The Catholic Archbishop, Leonard of Chios, recalled Mehmed swearing by God, "by the four thousand prophets, by Muhammad, by the soul of his father and his children and by the sword he strapped on, that he would give them everything to sack, all of the people, men and women, and everything in the city, both treasure and property, and that he would not break his promise."[47]
There are several accounts of the day before Constantinople fell. According to Barbaro:
Turks went sounding trumpets 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 two for a ducat, and we shall have such riches that we shall be all of gold, and from the beards of the Greeks we shall make leashes to tie up our dogs, and their wives and their sons shall be slaves; so be of good cheer, children of Mahomet, and be ready to die with a stout heart for love of our Mahomet." And in this way the pagans went about their camp giving encouragement.
After this, they had an order cried throughout their camp, that every Turk under pain of death should stand, and move, and do everything as ordered by his officers. As evening came on all the Turks went in good order to their posts with their weapons, and great mountains of arrows; and by the time the evening had come, they had all reached their positions, all of a good heart and eager to join battle, and all praying to their Mahomet to help them to victory.[48] Leonard of Chios also recorded the Ottoman drums and the chants of the faithful, "Illala, Illala, Mahomet Russolalla"[49] - "To Allah, To Allah, Muhammad is Allah's servant." According to Sa'd-ud-Din, the Ottoman troops, "from dusk till dawn, intent on battle...united the greatest of meritorious works...passing the night in prayer."[50] The dervishes and wandering holy men came from towns and villages in upland Anatolia and moved around the camp, reminding their listeners of hadith:
The Prophet said to his disciples: "Have you heard of a city with land on one side, and sea on the other two sides?" They replied: "Yes, O Messenger of God." He spoke: "The last hour will not dawn before it is taken by 70,000 sons of Isaac. When they reach it, they will not do battle with arms and catapults but with the words 'There is no God but Allah, and Allah is great.' Then the first sea wall will collapse, and the second time the second sea wall, and the third time the wall on the land side will collapse, and, rejoicing, they will enter in.[51] In the early morning hours of 29 May 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman army. The vivid accounts of the frenzied orgies of plundering were largely written by Christians, and more coyly by Ottoman chroniclers. However, there can be no doubt that the morning saw scenes of wild terror. According to Kritovoulos, a Greek judge and chronicler from the island of Imbros, the Ottoman soldiers who pressed into the city and met the civilians "attacked them with a great anger and fury." They killed "to create universal terror."[52] Barbaro recorded, "everyone they found they dispatched at the point of the scimitar, women and men, old and young, of any condition."[53] According to the Byzantine chronicler, Chalcocondylas "the whole city was filled with men killing or being killed, fleeing or pursuing."[54]
In the speed with which the Ottoman army breached the walls and spread through the city, much of the population was caught by surprise. Near the Golden Horn, at the church of Theodosia, it was the saint's feast day and the congregation had kept their all-night vigil. By morning, men and women were winding their way toward the church when they were intercepted by Ottoman soldiers. The whole congregation was taken prisoner, the church was stripped, and Theodosia's bones were thrown to the dogs.[55] Even the Christian troops who attacked with the Ottomans set about "plundering, destroying, robbing, murdering, insulting, seizing and enslaving men, women, children, old and young, priests and monks - people of every age and rank."[56] Fights, sometimes to the death, also broke out among the pillagers over the most beautiful girls.[57] Again, Barbaro provided the most vivid account:
The blood flowed in the city like rainwater in the gutters after a sudden storm, and the corpses of Turks and Christians were thrown into the Dardanelles, where they floated out to sea like melons along a canal...
They [the Turks] were all running furiously like dogs into the city to seek out gold, jewels and other treasure, and to take merchants prisoner. They sought out the monasteries, and all the nuns were led to the fleet and ravished and abused by the Turks, and then sold at auction for slaves throughout Turkey, and all the young women also were ravished and then sold for whatever they would fetch, although some of them preferred to cast themselves into the wells and drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks, as did a number of married women also. The Turks loaded all their ships with prisoners and with an enormous quantity of booty. The churches and monasteries were sought out by the Ottomans above all else. The churches of St. George, St. John the Baptist, the Chora Monastery, were fast plundered and desecrated. Crosses were smashed from the roofs of the churches; the tombs of saints were cracked open and searched for treasures; their contents were torn to pieces and thrown into the street. In a few hours, a thousand years of Christian Constantinople largely disappeared. "Although he [Mehmed] had promised his army three days of looting, it had effectively been picked clean in one. In order to prevent even greater destruction he broke his promise and ordered an end to the looting by nightfall on the first day."[58]
Many of the citizens rushed to the Church of St. Sophia, barred the nine massive doors, and prayed for a miracle. If there is a single moment when one could say that the Byzantine Empire died, it was when the door to the church cracked open after repeated blows from Ottoman axes. The church built by Justinian in 537 had stood for nearly a thousand years. Every emperor, with the ominous exception of the last, had been crowned there. The dome, which collapsed three times from earthquakes, was always rebuilt. The Russian population had been converted to Christianity inside the Church of Holy Wisdom. A millennia of history came to an end that day. Within an hour, the congregation was bound up and the Turks set about sacking and pillaging the church. Mehmed had remained outside the city during the morning, comfortable with the fact that as commander, he was entitled to one-fifth of all the booty, according to custom. Once inside the church, he called for an Imam to ascend the pulpit and recite the idhan - the Muslim call to prayer - and he himself climbed to the altar.[59] The work of converting St. Sophia into a mosque began immediately. A wooden minaret was rapidly constructed and the figurative mosaics were whitewashed.[60] On 2 June, Friday prayers were heard for the first time in what was now the Aya Sofya mosque "and the Islamic invocation was read in the name of Sultan Mehmed Khan Gazi."[61] According to an Ottoman chronicler, "the sweet five-times-repeated chant of the Muslim faith was heard in the city," and in a moment of piety, Mehmed coined the city's new name: Islambol - a pun on its Turkish name meaning "full of Islam."[62]
Reconstructing the city became a major preoccupation Mehmed's reign. In time, he transformed Istanbul from a fossil into the flourishing capital of the great Islamic Empire. In order to secure the city's future economy, he set about repopulating the city. He released the fifth of the population who were considered his booty and restored them to their homes, and then announced throughout the realm that those who choose to move to Istanbul would receive free homes.[63] Many came, but the order failed to attract enough individuals with the necessary urban skills. He thus turned to sürgün - forced deportations. Streams of settlers thus began to arrive in the city including the entire population of Aegean islands of Thasos and Samothracem the Anatolian towns of Amasra, and the two Focas, thousands of families of Christian peasants from the Balkans and Greek fishermen from the Black Sea.[64] Lewis explains that after the conquest, "we find orders transferring Jews from all over the place to the newly conquered city of Constantinople...Ottoman Istanbul very rapidly acquired - mostly through forced deportation - a sizable Jewish community...obviously a valuable, revenue-producing asset."[65]
With the conquest of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II, thereafter called Fatih - the Conqueror - had sealed the union of his empire on two continents. By October, his ambassador reached Cairo where he scolded the Mamluk sultan on behalf of Mehmed: "It is your responsibility to keep the pilgrimage routes open for the Muslims; we have the duty of providing gazis."[66] Mehmed's message to the sultan was that he was the "Sovereign of two seas and two lands," and there must "be only one empire, one faith and one sovereignty in the world."[67] Mehmet was laying claim to be the defender of the Faith and to its ultimate prize: protectorate of the holy places of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.
[30] Pertusi, Agostino. La Caduta Di Constantinopli. Vol. 2. Milan, 1976. p. 261.
[31] Lowry, Heath W. "Ottoman Renaissance: The Conqueror's Dream." Cornucopia: The Connoisseur's Guide to Istanbul 2004: 26-29. p. 28.
[32] Lowry. "Ottoman Renaissance: The Conqueror's Dream." p. 29.
[33] Lewis. "Europe and Islam: Muslim Perceptions and Experience." p. 123.
[34] Barbaro, Niccolo, and J. R. Jones. Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453. Trans. J.R. Jones. New York: Exposition Press, 1969. Available at: http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/constantinople3.htm Accessed: 8 May 2007.
[35] Crowley. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople. p. 174.
[36] Barbaro, and Jones. Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453.
[37] Nestor-Iskander. The Tale of Constantinople. Trans. Walter K. Hanak and Marios Philippides, 1998. p. 47.
[38] Ibid. p. 69.
[39] Crowley. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople. p. 163.
[40] Gibb, Elias John Wilkinson. A History of Ottoman Poetry. Ed. Edward Granville Browne. Vol. 2. 6 vols. London: Luzac, 1904.
[41] Itzkowitz. Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition. p. 25. Halil Pasha and Zaganos Pasha were Mehmed's advisors who often held opposing viewpoints. Halil came from the ulema and represented High Islam. He constantly cautioned against Ottoman aggression and wanted to pursue a policy of peace. Zaganos was a slave who had tutored Mehmed and advocated a policy of expansion consistent with ghazi tradition. Mehmed had made up his mind early in life and the day after he captured Constantinople, he arrested Halil Pasha and subsequently had him executed.
[42] Inalcik, Halil, Colin Imber, and Norman Itzkowitz. The Ottoman Empire. The Classical Age 1300-1600. Trans. Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. (History of Civilisation.). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973. p. 56. The siege of Constantinople began on 6 April 1453.
[43] Jones, J. R. Melville. The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts. Trans. from Latin by J. R. Melville Jones. Amsterdam,: Hakkert, 1973. pp. 47-48.
[44] Ibid. p. 48.
[45] Crowley. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople. p. 182.
[46] Ibid. p. 189.
[47] De Capta a Mehemethe Ii Constantinopoli. Ed. Leonard of Chios. Paris, 1823. p. 54. Leonard of Chios arrived in the capital in autumn 1452 with a body of archers recruited and paid for by the papacy.
[48] Barbaro, and Jones. Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453.
[49] Leonard of Chios: De Capta a Mehemethe Ii Constantinopoli. p. 54. Mehmed is the Turkish rendering of the name, Muhammad.
[50] Sa'd-ud-din, Khoja. The Capture of Constantinople from the Taj-Ut-Tevarikh. Trans. E. J. W. Gibb. Glasgow, 1879. p. 27.
[51] Babinger, Franz, and William C. Hickman. Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978. p. 85. It is interesting to note that the phrase, "70,000 sons of Isaac" used to describe Muslims, occurred in a hadith before Islam had concluded that Isma'il was the chosen son of the sacrifice and the one whom Arab's would claim their decent from in later traditions. See: Brodsky, Matthew RJ. "Ibrahim, Isma'il, Ishaq: The Sacrifice." The Importance of Jerusalem in Early Islam. Graduate Seminar Paper: Tel Aviv University, 2005. 25-36.
[52] Kritovoulos. Critobuli Imbriotaw Historiae: History of Mehmed the Conqueror. Trans. Charles T. Riggs. Ed. Diether Reinsch. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1970. p. 71. Although Greek, Kritovoulos' account was unique in that it was a remarkably pro-Ottoman version.
[53] Barbaro, and Jones. Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453. p. 55.
[54] Jones. The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts. p. 51.
[55] Crowley. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople. p. 219.
[56] Kritovoulos. Critobuli Imbriotaw Historiae: History of Mehmed the Conqueror. p. 71.
[57] Ibid. p. 72.
[58] Crowley. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople. pp. 220-232. Crowley's account that Mehmed called for an end to the pillaging after the first day differs from Lewis' account: "After the capture of Constantinople, Mehmet had to keep promise to his victorious troops to give them free rein for three days in the conquered city, but both Greek and Western writers attest that on the fourth day he took measures to safeguard manuscripts, buildings and relics." See: Lewis, Bernard. "Europe and the Turks: The Civilization of the Ottoman Empire." History Today London (October 1953): 673-80. Others agree that Mehmed, "cut short the three days of looting he had promised his troops," See: Lowry. "Ottoman Renaissance: The Conqueror's Dream." p. 26.
[59] Crowley. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople. p. 237.
[60] Emerson, William, and Robert L. van Nice. "Hagia Sophia and the First Minaret Erected after the Conquest of Constantinople." American Journal of Archaeology 54.1 (1950): 28-40. p. 39.
[61] Lewis, Bernard. Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire. The Centers of Civilization Series, 9. 1st ed. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963. p. 8.
[62] Sa'd-ud-din. The Capture of Constantinople from the Taj-Ut-Tevarikh. p. 33.
[63] Inalcik, Halil. "Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481) and His Time." Speculum 35.3 (1960): 408-27. p. 413.
[64] Lowry. "Ottoman Renaissance: The Conqueror's Dream." p. 26.
[65] Lewis, Bernard. "Lecture by Professor Bernard Lewis." The Ottoman Empire and the Jews. Tel Aviv University: Mortimer and Raymond Sackler Institute of Advanced Studies and The Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 23 January 2006. 1-22. p. 6.
[66] Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy. Collected Studies. Vol. CS87. London: Variorum Reprints, 1978. p. 56.
[67] Schwoebel, Robert. The Shadow of the Crescent: The Renaissance Image of the Turk, 1453-1517. Nieuwkoop: B. de Graap, 1967. p. 43.