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The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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The Ottomans were already familiar with the use of cannon. Murad II had employed them when he besieged Constantinople in 1422; but Muhammed now resolved on forming a more powerful battering-train than had previously existed. Neither the Greeks nor the Turks possessed the art of casting large guns. Both were obliged to employ foreigners. An experienced artilleryman and founder, named Urban, by birth a Wallachian, carried into execution the sultan’s wishes. He had passed some time in the Greek service; but even the moderate pay he was allowed by the emperor having fallen in arrear, he resigned his place and transferred his services to the sultan, who knew better how to value warlike knowledge. He now gave Muhammed proof of his skill by casting the largest cannon which had ever been fabricated. He had already placed one of extraordinary size in the new castle of the Bosporus, which carried a ball across the straits. The gun destined for the siege of Constantinople far exceeded in size this monster, and the diameter of its mouth must have been nearly two feet and a half. Other cannon of great size, whose balls of stone weighed 150 pounds, were also cast, as well as many guns of smaller calibre. All these, together with a number of ballists and other ancient engines still employed in sieges, were mounted on carriages in order to transport them to Constantinople. The conveyance of this formidable train of artillery, and of the immense quantity of ammunition required for its service, was by no means a trifling operation.[90]
THE SIEGE BEGINS
[1453 A.D.]
The first division of the Ottoman army moved from Hadrianopolis in the month of February, 1453. In the meantime a numerous corps of pioneers worked constantly at the road, in order to prepare it for the passage of the long train of artillery and baggage wagons. Temporary bridges, capable of being taken to pieces, were erected by the engineers over every ravine and watercourse, and the materials for the siege advanced steadily, though slowly, to their destination. The extreme difficulty of moving the monster cannon with its immense balls retarded the sultan’s progress, and it was the beginning of April before the whole battering-train reached Constantinople, though the distance from Hadrianopolis is barely a hundred miles. The division of the army under Karadja Pasha had already reduced Mesembria, Anchialus, Bizya, and the castle of St. Stephanus. Selymbria alone defended itself, and the fortifications were so strong that Muhammed ordered it to be closely blockaded, and left its fate to be determined by that of the capital.
Muhammed II
(From a medallion in the Royal Muenz Cabinet, Berlin)
On the 6th of April, Sultan Muhammed II encamped on the slope of the hill facing the quarter of Blachernæ, a little beyond the ground occupied by the crusaders in 1203, and immediately ordered the construction of lines, extending from the head of the port to the shore of the Propontis. These lines were formed of a mound of earth, and they served both to restrain the sorties of the besieged, and to cover the troops from the fire of the enemy’s artillery and missiles. The batteries were then formed; the principal were erected against the gate Charsiasæ, in the quarter of Blachernæ, and against the gate of St. Romanus, near the centre of the city wall. It was toward this last gate that the fire of the monster gun was directed and the chief attack was made.
The land-forces of the Turks probably amounted to about seventy thousand men of all arms and qualities; but the real strength of the army lay in the corps of janizaries, then the best infantry in Europe, and their number did not exceed twelve thousand.[91] At the same time, twenty thousand cavalry, mounted on the finest horses of the Turkoman breed, and hardened by long service, were ready to fight either on horseback or on foot under the eye of their young sultan. The fleet which had been collected along the Asiatic coast, from the ports of the Black Sea to those of the Ægean, brought additional supplies of men, provisions, and military stores. It consisted of 320 vessels of various sizes and forms. The greater part were only half-decked coasters, and even the largest were far inferior in size to the galleys and galleasses of the Greeks and Italians. The fortifications of Constantinople towards the sea afford great facilities for attack. Even though they were partly ruined by time, and weakened by careless reparations, they still offered a formidable resistance to the imperfect science of the engineers in Muhammed’s army.c
Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, the two sides along the sea were made inaccessible to an enemy; the Propontis by nature, and the harbour by art. Between the two waters the basis of the triangle, the land side, was protected by a double wall, and a deep ditch of the depth of one hundred feet. Against this line of fortification, which Phrantzes, an eye-witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles, the Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after distributing the service and command of the most perilous stations, undertook the defence of the external wall. In the first days of the siege, the Greek soldiers descended into the ditch or sallied into the field; but they soon discovered that, in the proportion of their numbers, one Christian was of more value than twenty Turks; and, after these bold preludes, they were prudently content to maintain their rampart with their missile weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused of pusillanimity. The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but the last Constantine deserves the name of a hero; his noble band of volunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign auxiliaries supported the honour of the western chivalry.
Each day added to the science of the Christians; but their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful, either in size or number; and if they possessed some heavy cannon, they feared to plant them on the walls, lest the aged structure should be shaken and overthrown by the explosion.
The great cannon of Muhammed has been separately noticed; an important and visible object in the history of the times; but that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude; the long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed, that it was mounted with 130 guns, or that it discharged 130 bullets. Yet, in the power and activity of the sultan, we may discern the infancy of the new science. Under a master who counted the moments, the great cannon could be loaded and fired no more than seven times in one day. The heated metal unfortunately burst: several workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist was admired who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the accident, by pouring oil, after each explosion, into the mouth of the cannon.