The Siege of Constantinople — Part 3

The Turks were attacking, firing their cannons again and again, with so many of the guns and arrows without number and shouting from these pagans, that the very heir seemed to split apart. Nicolo Barbaro, Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453. On the windswept plains beneath the walls of Constantinople, 2 great armies, each champions of two of the world's great faith, stood ready to do battle, each led by two history's greatest soldiers, Sultan Mehmed, the second of the Ottoman Empire, Emperor Constantine the 11th of the Byzantines. History brought them to this one spot on the Bank of the Bosporus to decide the fate of the world's greatest city, the city of Constantinople.

From all corners of one of the world's greatest empires. Memet had summoned soldiers and sailors, carpenters and Masons, generals and engineers to complete the task set out by his father and dreamed of by armies of Islam since the days of Muhammad. Standing before him was the holiest of Holies, the impregnable fortress, the beating heart of Eastern Christianity, the great city that was the centre of the world. Many had tried to capture Constantinople, all had failed.

Either Memet which fulfill his destiny, seize the city and write his name in the history books, or he would be broken on its walls and surely see not just his own demise, but the end of his fragile empire. Welcome to ancient, to recent. My name is Joseph Parkinson and today we continue the story of the 1453 Siege of Constantinople. Episodes of Ancient Recent are out every Saturday and are available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

As Memo prepared his massive army for the assault on Constantinople, the defenders turned to what had protected their city for over 1000 years. It's legendary fortifications Constantinople was in natural fortress, surrounded on three sides by water and guarded on land by one of the most sophisticated defence systems the medieval world had ever seen. In total, the city's perimeter stretch roughly 12 miles. 8 miles ran along the sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn. The sea walls along the Marmara were built high above the shorelines, some sections rising 50 feet or more. Swift currents and sudden, violent storms made any naval attack extremely risky.

For centuries, no enemy had even seriously attempted a landing. These walls were reinforced with nearly 190 towers and guarded by the small but determined Imperial fleet. The Golden Horn, the city's sheltered harbour, was protected by something even more formidable. A massive iron chain, nearly 300 yards long, stretched across its entrance. One end was anchored to a strong tower in the city, the other to a tower in the Genoese Colony, a galata on the opposite shore. Supported by wooden floats, this giant boom could be raised or lowered in moments, turning the Golden Horn into a secure anchorage and blocking enemy ships from approaching the northern sea walls.

But the true masterpiece of Constantinople's defences lay on the landward side, the mighty Theodosian Walls, stretching about four miles across the rolling plains West of the city. These were no ordinary ramparts. Built in the early 5th century under Emperor Theodosius the Second, the original single wall was already formidable. Then, in 447-A devastating earthquake collapsed to large sections, including 57 towers, just as Attila the Han was advancing towards the city.

The Bison Times responded with astonishing speed. The entire population was mobilized. No expense was spared, no resource preserved. The walls must be restored or the city would face certain destruction. In just two months, the walls were rebuilt, an astonishing feat by any standards. But the walls were not rebuilt exactly as previously. The people not only repaired the damage, but dramatically strengthened the entire system of defenses.

A second outer wall was added and in front a deep, wide Moat dug. The result was a stage of the art, layered defence that remained virtually impregnable throughout the Middle Ages. A deep Moat roughly 60 feet wide. Beyond the Moat, an outer wall standing about 27 feet high studded with towers. Then a broad terrace 60 feet wide where troops could mass to meet any brave enough to scale the ramparts. And finally the majestic inner walls, rising 40 feet high and up to 15 feet thick in places crowned with battlements and bristling with even larger towers.

The two main walls were separated by a 60 foot wide terrace, creating a deadly no man's land. Attackers who somehow cross the Moat would be trapped between two walls, exposed to arrows, stones, and boiling liquid from above. The entire system was nearly 200 feet deep from the edge of the Moat to the back of the inner walls, and in some places the total height from the bottom of the Moat to the top of the inner towers exceeded 100 feet.

Towers were placed close together, allowing overlapping fields of fire so close, one crusader commented, that a child could toss an between two towers. Arrow slits, battlements, and multiple gates allow defenders to move reinforcements quickly wherever they were needed. In all, the Theodosian Walls featured around 192 towers across the layered system. No expense had been spared. Nothing was left to chance. As much as Constantinople may have been wracked by endless civil strife, with dynasty against dynasty and fashion against fashion, there was one thing that all could agree on the maintenance of the walls.

Every citizen was expected to contribute to the upkeep of the walls and preparation for siege. Siege was a reality of life for the city's inhabitants. As such, grain silos were kept full, weapons and supplies were always stockpiled. But as mighty as the walls may have been, it was not the sole source of competence for Bison Tines defenders. They believed that they had something far more formidable to rely on than mere bricks and mortar.

For their city was defended by God himself and under the special protection of the Virgin Mary. They believed the Virgin Mary herself watched over the city. Her holy robe was kept in the Church of Blackening. In times of danger, special processions were held to invoke her protection. No city in the world was better prepared, better defended, or more favored by God than the city of Constantine. After all, Constantinople had never fallen to an enemy army except once, when the Venetians and 4th Crusaders had taken it in 12 O 4.

Countless armies had thrown themselves against these walls over the centuries, only to bleed out on the plane or freeze in the winter cold. And yet, for all that confidence, no system of fortification is impervious. The walls had two crucial weaknesses. In the center of the land wars, the ground sloped down into the Valley of the Like river and rose again on the far side. Here the walls followed the dip of the land, meaning the towers could not command the high ground.

Besieging forces on the nearby hills would be able to look down and fire directly onto the defenders. Worse, the river made it impossible to dig a proper Moat in this section. The second weakness lay at the northern end, near the blackening quarter. For around 400 yards, the fortifications were a patchwork of older structures. In this area it was effectively only a single wall, and it was lower and less heavily defended.

Built this way to protect the sacred shrine of the Virgin of Blackening. Both of these vulnerable spots have been attacked many times before, and had always held. For more than 1000 years, these walls had proven that a relatively small force could hold off vastly larger armies. But now, in 1453, a new age had arrived. The age of gunpowder. While the ancient walls of Constantinople had stood proud for over 1000 years, a quiet revolution in warfare had been brewing across Eurasia, A revolution that would soon shake those very walls to their foundations. It all began in China centuries earlier. Around the 9th century, Taoist alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality accidentally discovered the explosive power of gunpowder, a simple but deadly mixture of saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur.

What started as fireworks and incendiary weapons slowly evolved into primitive bombs, rockets and fire lances. The knowledge spread westward along the Silk Road, carried by merchants, travellers and the devastating Mongol conquests of the 13th century. By the mid 1200s, gunpowder recipes appeared in the Islamic world. From there, gunpowder filtered into Europe and the rising Ottoman territories. Europe got its first taste in the late 13th century. By the early 14th century, crude cannons called bombards began appearing on European battlefields. These early guns were unreliable, slow to load, and often more dangerous to the men firing them than to the enemy. Such weapons usually had little more than a psychological effect in battles and were banned by the Catholic Church. But they represented the birth of a new age, and the Ottomans embraced gunpowder with remarkable speed and ambition. The Ottomans, unlike their Christian opponents, were eager to adopt new technology and willing to accept skilled Christians within their ranks without conversion to Islam. As early as the late 14th century, they were experimenting with artillery.

By the time of Sultan Murad, the second, Ottoman forces were deploying cannons in seizures across the Balkans. Sultan Murad had established dedicated artillery units and attracted skilled gun founders from across Europe and the East. The quick adoption of the latest gunpowder technology by the Ottomans was helped by the Venetians and Generalese, always eager to make a quick buck selling weapons to the Ottomans, even though such activity was technically punishable with excommunication. In 1422, Constantinople faced cannon for the first time. These primitive models hurled stone boars against the walls and towers, but the powder used was too weak to generate enough energy and the balls did little damage. 1 tower was hit 70 times without collapsing, but any relief the Byzantines derived from the shortcoming of gunpowder would not last long. In the 1420s there were further technological developments that transformed gunpowder from novelty to cutting edge military technology.

Early on armies had carried the formula for gunpowder into the field in separate elements and then mixed the components together. But from the 1420s onwards, it became possible to mix the elements before into a paste and dry into a cake. So powerful was the new formula that new barrels had to be produced for the cannons. Cast iron was no longer acceptable and more sturdy bronze would be required. The Ottomans were at the forefront of Ballistics, and the precise nature of the new weapon appealed to the meticulous character of Mehmed.

Yet more innovations were made to the cannon. Now cannons were built in separate parts, like IKEA furniture, thus making them easier to transport, and also meaning that in the event the cannon shattered, the broken part could simply be removed, replaced. The Ottomans paid handsomely for anyone, regardless of faith, who would advance their knowledge of gunpowder, attracting not just soldiers but engineers and scientists from Christian lands into the ranks of the Ottoman army.

One such man was a massive cannon maker known as Urban or Auburn, a Hungarian Christian engineer. In 1452, Urban first offered his services to Emperor Constantine. He boasted he could build a cannon powerful enough to smash any wall in the world, but the cash strapped by sometimes turned him down. They simply couldn't afford him, fearing that Urban would offer his skills to Mehmed. Constantine paid Urban a statement, hoping to keep him in the city walls and out of Ottoman hands.

But even then, the money paid to Urban was little and payment irregular. Eventually, Urban was broke, destitute, and wandering the streets of Constantinople. Urban knew full well of the riches on offering the service of the Sultan and decided to slip out of the city and make his way to Adreno to seek a meeting that would change the course of history. Arriving in Adreno, Urban was brought before Merit, who quizzed the master cannon maker about his skills. Was it possible?

Could it be done? Could a cannon be built that even the walls of the Eternal City could not withstand? Yes, it could be done, said Urban. Minute, hungry for glory and willing to spend lavishly, gave Urban everything he needed. Unlimited funds, metal labour and his personal backing. In 1452, Urban produced his first cannon for the Ottomans, placed at the Throat Cutter Fortress. It was his cannon, the Saint, the Venetian ships that tried to run the blockade.

Now Urban turned his mind to the production of something new, something never before seen. Not only a cannon, but a super weapon. In the foundries of Adrenal, Urban and his team cast something monstrous, the legendary Basilica or the great Turkish Bombard. This beast was 27 feet long with walls 8 inches thick. It could hurl a stone ball weighing 600 to 1500 lbs more than a mile. It was so enormous that it required 60 oxen and hundreds of men just to move it into position, and it was only the largest of roughly 70 cannons.

Member assemble for the siege, the greatest concentration of artillery the world had ever seen. By the eve of the 1453 siege, gunpowder technology had developed far beyond the crude experiments of a century earlier. The Ottomans had mastered large scale bronze cannon casting, perfected gunpowder recipes for maximum power, and created a professional artillery corps. While handguns were still rare and primitive, siege artillery had become a decisive battlefield force.

Men had understood what this meant. The age of the invincible Stonewall was ending. The age of gunpowder had arrived, and he intended to use it to write his name into history. Mehmed knew that time was not on his side. Word of his preparations had reached every palace in Europe, and though the Christians may dither, they will eventually rally their strength and set out to assist Constantinople. As such, Mehmed knew a knockout blow would have to be delivered against the city and a vast army would be required to deliver it.

Word of the coming siege sent shock waves of excitement through the Ottoman lands. Unlike the Christian levees pressed into service by their fever Lords, Memet's officials were overwhelmed with 10s of thousands of volunteers fired with enthusiasm. Contemporary Christian sources within the Ottoman Empire often contrasted the enthusiasm men showed from marching up to war, certain either of glory achieved through victory or eternal paradise in the next life, to the difficulty Christian states had with raising troops.

The motivation of such soldiers was a combination of religious zeal and plunder. It was customary to give the troops to the victorious Ottoman army. 3 days to Sacca city. 1 victorious campaign could be all that was needed to turn a peasant into a wealthy man. When we met the second marched on Constantinople in the spring of 1453. He brought with him one of the largest and most formidable armies the medieval world had ever seen.

Modern historians generally estimate the total Ottoman land force at between 60 and 80,000 men, though some contemporary Western chroniclers, gripped by fear, inflated the numbers to 100 or even 150,000. Whatever the exact figure, Mehmed's army vastly outnumbered the city's tiny Defence Force of roughly 7 to 10,000 trained fighters. And this was no ragtag hoard. By 1453, the Ottoman military had evolved into a sophisticated, multi layered force that combined elite professionals, provincial troops and irregular fighters. At the very heart of the army stood the Janissaries, the Sultan's elite infantry corps.

These were the famous new troops recruited as Christian boys from the Balkans, converted to Islam and rigorously trained from childhood. Highly disciplined, fanassically loyal to the Sultan and superbly equipped with bows, swords and early firearms. They numbered around 5 to 10,000. During the siege they formed Mehmed's personal shock troops and Imperial Guards. Supporting the Janissaries were the Capacola, the Sultan's household troops, including elite cavalry units like the safahi of the port, professional well armoured horsemen who served as the Sultan's personal bodyguard, and heavy cavalry.

The bulk of the army, however, came from the provinces. Thousands of feudal cavalry granted land in exchange for military service, rode in from Anatolia and the European territories. These were classic Ottoman horsemen, fast skill with bow and lands, excellent at riding in pursuit. But then there were the azobs, Light Infantry, often unmarried young men from Anatolia and the Balkans. They served as skirmishes and filled the front ranks, used as cannon fodder, absorbing the first shocks of battle. Their numbers were significant, possibly 15,000 or more, and they were used aggressively in wave attacks against the walls. Memet also brought large numbers of irregular troops and auxiliaries like cavalry, shock troops who lived for plunder, Balkan Christian vassal contingents and various mercenaries and volunteers drawn by promises of loot and glory, rattling up this massive host with 10s of thousands of support personnel, engineers, sappers for mining operations, labourers to haul the gigantic cannons and camp followers. The Ottoman Navy, though smaller and less successful during the siege, added another dimension with around 100 to 120 ships of various sizes under Admiral Baltoglu. What made Mehmed's army truly terrifying was not just it's size, but it's organization.

Unlike the feudal levies of medieval Europe, the Ottomans fielded a relatively centralized force with professional cause, clear command structures under experience, viziers and pashas, and most revolutionary of all, a powerful artillery train that included the monstrous bombards cast by Urban. This was an army built for conquest, disciplined elite to deliver the killing blow, provincial cavalry to encircle and harass, light, infantry to maintain constant pressure and siege specialist to break what stone could not.

On the 23rd of March, the trumpets bled, banners were raised and holy men prayed as the Ottoman troops set off from Adrianer towards the city of Constantinople. In Constantinople, the churches were packed. The relics made their way in winding processions through the streets as slowly priests and monks chanted. The smell of burning incense. The toll of bells celebrating Easter Sunday, the most holy day in the Christian calendar.

The defining moment in Christian history, the very day that Christ rose from the dead, conquering sin and saving humanity. The atmosphere was more tense than the celebratory news of the advancing Ottomans have been carried by riders and panicked refugees fleeing in advance of the Ottoman troops. The next morning, all along the wall lookout strained to see the coming of danger in the distance, on the hills outside the great city of Christ, first as tiny dots, hard to make out, then growing larger and larger, like drops of rain forming into a mighty stream.

The Ottoman riders appeared. The alarm was raised. Messengers rushed to tell Constantine they were here. Mehmed had at last arrived. Constantine sent an expedition out to meet the Ottoman advance guard, and the first bloody skirmishes began. But knowing that a huge Ottoman force was on its way, Constantine decided to pull his troops within the city walls, preserving what little strength he had. As the day went by, the Ottoman army of Mehmed formed upon the plains beyond the walls.

Ottoman sappers began their work immediately clearing the paths for the advancing troops, destroying anything that can hinder their way. Houses were pulled down, orchards cleared, walls tumbled. Nothing natural nor man made was to hinder the progress of the siege engines, cannon, cavalry and wagons. As the army of Memet formed, it did not immediately rush on the walls. This was no barbarian horde. This was the most sophisticated military machine the world had ever known and every move was carefully planned in pre planned stages.

Like a giant game of chess, each section of the Ottoman army advanced to take up positions in the line assigned in advance. As the army move forward, fortifications were quickly thrown up, ditches dug, the earth piled up to make ramparts with wooden screens placed to protect the men from arrows. The army took up its place some quarter of a mile from the outer wall as dark descended on the first day of the siege. The night was illuminated by thousands of campfires that dotted the extent of the great army, whose vastness stretched the length of the wall and as far across the plains as the eye could see. The two armies were so close that the sound of camp life could be heard from the towers above the brain of horses, scurrying of soldiers, unloading of carts and sharpening of weapons.

At dusk the call to prayer went up, heard from inside the city by frightened inhabitants, it's haunting sound competing with the tolling of church bells. What must have been especially galling for the defenders as they readied themselves to fight and prepare themselves to die in defence of Christ City against the Ottoman heathens, must have been the sight of so many Christian soldiers in the Ottoman ranks. Christians served and worshipped the freely as subjects of the Sultan and held ranks from the lowest soldier to the highest general. Many serve willingly, but summit must be set with levees who had been pressed into service and showed little enthusiasm for the fight.

As the vast army drew up outside the city, Emperor Constantine readied his men for war, though the walls were formidable and the city prepared walls had to be manned. And the state of the once mighty Byzantine army, the descendant of the Roman legions that had carved an empire from Basra to Hadrian's Wall, was sorry indeed. Though estimates for Mehmed's army vary, no such speculation for the Byzantine defenders is required.

Constantine could call upon 4773 Greeks, 3000 Venetians and a few 100 sundry others drawn from across Europe. There were Catalans and Cretians, Scots and Germans, even Turks, supporters of all Hand, the Pretender, who were certain to fight with great determination, knowing for sure what fate would await them should they fall into the hands of the Ottomans. Of these men, fewer trained soldiers, many carrying an assortment of weapons, some new, some old, some modern, others hardly more than kitchen implements. Constantine called his commanders together. He had a number of crucial decisions to make. He decides to place the bulk of his troops at the weakest points in the war, the points he was certain would be the subject of the greatest Ossoman pressure.

Constantine had the Great Chain attached to the adjacent tower in Galata, thus cutting off access to the Golden Horn, allowing him to strip the sea wall of his defenders who could be pressed into action manning the four miles of the Land War. Many in Galata, the Genoese colony, were worried that allowing the connection of the Great Chain would be seen by Mehmed, that they were violating their promise of neutrality and showing solidarity to their Christian brothers, something that was certain to bring Mehmed's fury upon them.

Constantine also collected a shock force of around 1000 men that would be held back from the wall to meet any breakthrough. But Constantine was faced with the dilemma. The fortifications of the city were designed as a system of defence in depth and to be held by a much larger force, but he simply could not command enough troops to man the defences properly. Furthermore, though the outer wall had been maintained, the inner wall had fallen into disrepair. Should Constantine abandoned the inner wall and concentrate all of his forces on the outer, or should he try and take advantage of the whole system of fortifications with its overlaying fields of fire designed to create killing fields to be swept with arrow and sling? Faced with the disrepair of the inner wall and the lack of numbers, Constantine decided he could not risk it. All of his men would be sent to the outer wall. It was here his troops would make their stand. Mehmed sent a small detachment to the gate. They had come, so it appeared, to talk a formality but a requirement of Quranic law that the enemy be given one last chance to surrender or face the consequences. Constantine sent them away.

There would be no surrender. On the morning of April 6th, the Thunder of the Ottoman guns began. Mehmed had positioned his artillery, including the monstrous basilica cannon cast by Urban, opposite the most vulnerable section of the Theodosian Wall. The great bombard roared, hurling stone boars weighing 500 to 600 kilograms, more than a mile. Smaller cannons fired almost continuously. The noise was apocalyptic. Eyewitnesses described the ground shaking, the air splitting, and thick clouds of smoke and dust rising over the ancient walls.

For two days the bombardment pounded the outer wall. On April the 7th, a section collapsed. Mehmed saw his opportunity and immediately launched the first major infantry assault. Wave after wave of Ottoman troops surged forward, first irregular azarbs and Light Infantry, then more discipline units. They rushed the breach, carrying ladders, shouting yagma yagma plunder, plunder as they charged. But the defenders were ready. Giovanni Giostani Longo, the skilled Genoese commander, had positioned his best troops, crossbowmen, hand Gunners and Byzantine soldiers at the crucial point. From the walls and towers they poured down arrows, bolts, stones and even primitive cannon fire loaded with grape shot. The killing ground between the outer and inner walls became an abattoir.

The Ottomans who reached the breach were met with fierce hand to hand fighting. After several hours of brutal combat, the attackers were repulsed with heavy losses. Behind the Ottoman line, sappers began digging mines, hoping to tunnel under the walls, pack them with explosives and blast great holes in the walls which could be brushed by waking troops. Ottoman troops began frantically filling in the Moat only 40 meters from the wall, under direct fire from above, with Ottoman bodies unshielded from the hail of stones, javelins and bolts soon piling up, and the ground becoming slippy with gore from beyond the wars.

The defenders soon set up on a tactic to unsefolate Ottomans by advancing forward to raid Ottoman positions, capturing troops to bring back within the city to extract information via torture. But this was soon stopped as abandoning the protection of the wars gave away the defenders advantage and meeting the Ottomans in open field was too costly. With the city besieged, Mehmed set about reducing the towns and fortresses that have been bypassed on the way. The unfortunate inhabitants were brought within sight of the defenders to be impaled, their bodies left to rot in the sun and be eaten by birds.

By the 12th of April, all of the Ottoman guns were in place and the first mass artillery barrage in history began pounding away at the walls of Constantinople with a force never before seen in all of history. Soon great cracks began to appear in the wall as ancient architecture met modern firepower. Mehmed knew time was against him. Help would be on the way for Constantinople soon enough. And so the cannons roared night and day, Wave after wave of troops were sent forward.

The pressure constantly kept up. The Ottoman gun crews worked at a frantic pace, hauling, stocking, aiming, firing and reloading. The cannons themselves could be as much a danger to their crews as to their opponents, the risk of overheating, cracks forming in the brass and rupturing, ever present. But on, Memet pressed when Urban warned the Sultan the great cannon was becoming a risk, great cracks forming in its barrel, and it had to be removed from the line and recast. Memet dismissed his concerns and ordered the guns to keep firing. The gun exploded, killing those around, including the master engineer himself.

The first hint that time was running out was the arrival of emissaries from John Huyandi, a leading military figure and Regent of the mighty Kingdom of Hungary. Mehmed had hoped to divide his Christian foes by signing a three-year peace treaty with John, but now Hungary had a new king. Vladislas and Huyandi had resigned as Regent. Who? Yandi returned the documents proclaiming truce to Mehmed, indicating that the Kingdom of Hungary no longer considered itself bound by its terms. The coming of a Christian army would trap Mehmed on the open plains and surely doom not just his army but his empire. Time was running out, but a bizarre twist of fate was soon to give Mehmed A crucial advantage. During the visit of the Hungarian delegation to Emma's camp, one of the ambassadors was an experienced artillery expert. He observed the Turkish Gunners firing, reloading and firing yet again.

The emissary could not help instruct the Ottoman Gunners that they were doing it or wrong. The Ottoman Gunners were striking a section of the wall and then aiming again for the exact same spot. The Hungarian emissary instructed them to make a triangle, two shots each two dozen or so feet apart but at the same height, and then aim a third shot in between them but lower. The Turkish soldiers decided to give it a go. On the strike of the third ball, a section of the wall collapsed. The example was soon taken up by other Ottoman batteries, and along the line, cracks in the wall began appearing rapidly. As the fortification shook.

The defenders said about frantic running repairs. When a section of war collapsed. Stakes would be driven into the ground, rubble piled up between them, and then barrels filled with earth placed on top, thus forming a makeshift replacement wall. As towers collapsed and sections of the wall began disintegrating, Mehmed decided on the 18th of April that now was the time to take the city. As darkness fell, the men made their last preparations.

Armor fitted, letters to loved ones drafted, men purified their minds and bodies, making their last peace with the Almighty. Awaiting them was either victory on earth or paradise in the next life. As the sunset, the banners rose, tortures in hand, trumpets blaring in, drums pounding forward came the vast army of Nemet. The defenders wash from the ramparts as far as the eye could see the banners and tortures, the Ottoman stretched into the distance, the cries of Allahu Akbar, clattering of swords and Shields, the trembling of the ground as on they came.

All of Asia had come to avenge Thermopolite. In the city, bells rang to arms to the walls. The moment had come. Let every man do his duty. Once more the Ottoman artillery opened up. The walls were engulfed in smoke and flame. The troops came on their destination, a breach in the wall. Ottoman Archers rained arrows on the ramparts, hoping to sweep the defenders from the fortifications and clear the way for the vanguard.

Scrambling forward came the Ottomans, ladders and Hawks, ropes and battering Rams, certain their momentum would carry them to victory. But in the dark, the Ottoman troops became confused. The breach they were heading forwards to narrow. Different units became entangled. Orders confused. Anarchy reigned in the darkness and smoke. The defenders rediscovered their confidence and began a deadly hail that punctured the armor and pierced the flash of the attackers. The Ottomans pressed on.

They advanced up a slope that was soon soaked in the blood and gore of their comrades. They pushed forward, but in the breach the Ottoman numbers counted for little as they met heavily armored Byzantine defenders determined to hold their ground. A crush ensued, caught between the advancing Ottoman troops behind them and the lenses the Byzantines in front of them. Unit after unit was cut to pieces. The attack went on for four hours. More troops were fed into what became a meat grinder. In frustration, Mehmed ordered the men back. His troops fell back across a field littered with their dead comrades, some calling out for help, others pleading for mercy, some for a cup of water, yet more for someone to end their suffering.

That night, under the cover of darkness, the defenders, including women, children and monks, worked frantically to repair the damage. They filled the gaps with rubble, earth barrels, and timber, restoring the walls as best they could. Mehmed paused briefly to reposition some of his heavier guns, but the daily bombardment soon resumed and continued almost without interruption. The great cannons hammered the same spot, especially in the center where the ground dipped towards the Lycus River.

His assault had failed, the walls held, and no help, for Constantinople was on its way. Time was now, Mehmed's most deadly foe. Thank you for listening to Ancient to Recent. My name is Joseph Parkinson and next week we will continue the story of the siege of Constantinople. Episodes of Ancient to Recent are out every Saturday and are available on YouTube, Spotify and our whole podcasts.