Kathleen Fitzgerald

January 6, 2006
Tutorial-Revision

Defeated & Outnumbered in Constantinople

Money does not make the man; nor does wealth ensure the safety of a city. As an

ancient Roman locus of power, and later, the Roman capital itself, the city of

Constantinople had always been a flourishing center of wealth and intellect. Jewels

shone from the Christian churches, and the city’s intellectual state was equally as

thriving, with philosophy and scholasticism eventually taking root.1 “Till the eleventh

century, Byzantium had been a splendid and dominant power,…and throughout the

twelfth century, Constantinople seemed to be so rich and splendid a city, the Imperial

court so magnificent, and the wharves and bazaars so full of merchandise,” that nothing

looked to permanently challenge its dominance.2 No wealth, however, could have

prevented Constantinople from the population losses it suffered between 1200 and 1453.

When Byzantium (the Empire which initially contained Constantinople) lost control of

Anatolia to the Turks in the late twelfth century, all of Byzantium suffered, as it was

forced “to abandon forever to the Turks the lands that had supplied most of their

soldiers.” 3 Soon overwhelmed by both the Turkish and the large Latin forces, Byzantium

lost control of Constantinople less than a century later, during the Fourth Crusade of

1204.4 But Constantinople’s population and army were still large enough to fight back

only 50 years later, battling alongside the Byzantine Imperial authorities to reclaim the

Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople (Cambridge: The University Press, 1969),
6.
2
Ibid, 2.
3
Ibid, 2-3.
4
Ibid, 3.

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city.5 Although the Byzantine Empire “needed more money and men than it possessed,”

Constantinople’s population was evidently not immediately decimated by the loss of

Anatolia and could still defeat fairly large armies.

Everything changed, however, with “the Black Death in 1347, [which], striking at

the height of the civil war, carried off at least a third of the Empire’s population.”6

Realizing Byzantium’s army now needed even “more men than it possessed,” the Turks

attacked the Empire, and continued to take land, until all that was left of the Empire was

an encircled Constantinople.7 As a result of the Fourth Crusade, the civil wars, and the

Black Plague, Constantinople no longer had the flourishing population it once possessed

during its heyday in the 1100’s. In the travel memoir of Stephen of Novgorod, a man

who made a religious pilgrimage to Constantinople in 1349, much is said about the size

of the churches and the compact nature of the dwellings, but nothing is said about people

moving along the busy streets. Novgorod describes a city, which was once densely

populated.8 Most churches and buildings are noted as “not far from” one another, and

Novgorod describes the city itself as a “great forest,” one that is “impossible to get

5
Ibid.
6
Ibid, 4.
7
Ibid.
8
George P. Majeska, “Wanderer of Stephen of Novgorod,” Russian Travelers to
Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Washington, District of
Columbia: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1984), 40. In his memoir,
recounting his religious pilgrimage to Constantinople probably during Holy Week in
1349, Stephen of Novgorod repeatedly discusses the jewels and ornate designs of the
city’s architecture. With observations like, “there are so many sights there that it is
impossible to describe it,” (p. 38) to his description of St. John’s church as “very large
and high, covered with a slanted roof. The icons in it are highly decorated with gold and
shine like the sun. The floor of the church is quite amazing, as if set with pearls; no
painter could paint like that.” (p. 40)
Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (Cambridge: The University Press,
1969), 5. Runciman describes in detail the thriving intellectual side of Constantinople
through the 1300’s.

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around without a good guide.”9 The only reason for building so compact a city is to fit a

large population within a smaller area. Omitting descriptions of a once bustling

Constantinople population was not by accident. Steven Runciman explains why:

Constantinople, by the close of the fourteenth century was a melancholy,

dying city. The population which, with that of the suburbs, had numbered
about a million in the twelfth century, had shrunk now to no more than a
hundred thousand and was still shrinking…Of the suburbs along the
Thracian shores of the Bosphorus and the Marmora, once studded with
splendid villas and rich monasteries, only a few hamlets were left,
clustering round some ancient church.10

There were many visitors to fourteenth century Constantinople, who noticed its

“sparse and poverty-stricken population.”11 As the city continued to change hands, its

rulers and remaining residents lived in a constant state of fear, trying to be ready for the

inevitable Turkish onslaught.12 This unstable, “dying city” would soon watch helplessly

as Mahomet Bey and his Turkish forces swiftly moved their encampment within 1 mile

of the city’s walls on the 5th of April 1453, threatening the lives of all who lived within

those walls.13

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Having built a castle six miles from Constantinople’s walls during March of 1452,

Mehmet the conquerer and his men, rumored to number somewhere between 160,000 and

400,000, waited exactly one year from that date and then swiftly moved towards
9
Majeska, 34, 36, 44.
10
Runciman, 9.
11
Ibid, 10.
12
Ibid, 21. This is the sentiment of Emperor John VIII in the 1440’s, but it is likely the
same pervasive feeling of anyone who dealt with that same perilous situation during that
time.
13
Nicolo Barbaro, trans. J.R. Jones, Diary of the Siege of Constantinople 1453 (New
York: Exposition Press, 1969), 27.
Leonard of Chios, trans. J.R. Melville Jones, The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven
Contemporary Accounts (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972), 15.

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Constantinople’s walls.14 Meanwhile, the people of Constantinople lived with an

unceasing trepidation of an immanent Turkish attack. Fear of the menacingly large

Turkish forces eventually caused a number of the Greek-allied foreign ships that had

been residing in Constantinople’s harbor to secretly flee. At midnight on the twenty-sixth

of February in the year 1453, Venetian boatman, Piero Davanzo, trod softly through the

moonlit harbor, on his way to Venice. Six ships of Candia followed suit, carrying clothes

and supplies—items which Constantinople desperately needed.15 The daily threat of

Turkish attack and the ensuing constant state of fear had caused these seven ships, and
14
Barbaro, 27.
Leonard of Chios, 15.
Michael Doukas, “Historia Turco-Byzantina,” trans. J.R. Melvilla Jones, The Siege of
Constantinople 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert,
1972), ch. 38.
Barbaro claims “Mahomet Bey came before Constantinople with about a hundred and
sixty thousand men; for Leonard of Chios, estimates were “more than three hundred
thousand fighting men spread around the city;” Doukas says “the Sultan’s forces were
increasing, with conscripted men and volunteers, to an extent impossible to estimate
accurately. Those who went to reconnoiter said that there were more than four hundred
thousand of them.” The likelihood that any of these estimates is completely accurate is
extremely small. Doukas seems reasonable in mentioning the sheer impossibility of
ascertaining an accurate number of Mahomet’s men. Because Doukas’ family had
“Turkish connections,” one must be cautious in legitimizing his estimate. Leonard of
Chios was obviously motivated by his desire to convey God’s displeasure with the
Greeks. The more outnumbered the Greeks were, the more Chios could claim God was
punishing them for splitting with the true Latin Church. Only Barbaro personally
witnessed the siege and attack and did not have an obvious agenda for writing his
account. Thus, it is probably more accurate to believe the 160,000 estimate. However,
the importance of the Turkish army figures is to convey how outnumbered the
Constantinople forces were. Every one of the sources emphasizes how the Turkish army
dwarfed the defending army, when it came to sheer size, if they mention the size of the
respective forces at all. And Leonard of Chios states on page 25 of his account that “the
Greeks numbered at the most six thousand fighting men. The rest, Genoese, Venetians,
and those who had come secretly to help from Pera, were hardly as many as three
thousand.” Thus, Leonard’s claim would give a ratio of 9,000 Constantinople soldiers:
300,000 Turkish soldiers. Thus, Leonard presented figures that showed Constantinople
only possessing 3% of the amount of soldiers that the Turks had. This figure is similar to
the 5% that Doukas estimates. So, obviously, in every source, the Greeks don’t even
have one tenth of the fighting power the Turks have.
15
Barbaro, 22.

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their seven hundred person cargo, to escape what they believed was a Greek version of

Troy.16 For a well-manned and well-supplied army, this loss might have merely seemed

troublesome; but for the thinning Constantinople defense, losing seven supply ships and

all the men onboard was statistically devastating.

The approaching Turkish soldiers seemed to dwarf the defense. After

interviewing eyewitnesses, contemporary source Michael Doukas reported “It may be

said without exaggeration that there was only one of them for every twenty Turks.”17

When the Greeks saw “the enormous Turkish army” approach, no one knew what to do.

After all, Doukas also described how the Greeks had spent an entire year just watching

“three hundred vessels of the Turkish fleet, and the five large ships of the convoy, [cover]

the sea completely, so that it might have been dry land.”18 Witnesses to the siege faulted

Constantinople’s military course, saying:

Our proper course would have been to have repelled them while they were
still at a distance, with missiles and with cannon fire, but a number of
them escaped our notice, and were allowed to approach to within a short
distance.19

Unfortunately, the Greeks’ inaction would eventually cause them to fight the Turks man-

on-man at the wall—a difficult task for a Greek army so vastly outnumbered.

Constantinople’s military strategy was a defensive one rather than offensive, since

they were so small compared to the behemoth Ottoman force. This strategy, however,

did not help prevent the Turkish army from marching inland and encamping near the

city’s walls on April 5, 1453. Within three days, the area surrounding Constantinople

16
Ibid.
17
Doukas, ch. 38.
18
Doukas, ch. 38.
19
Leonard of Chios, 15.

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had fallen entirely under the Sultan’s control.20 Accordingly, a few small scale

skirmishes quickly arose between the Turkish soldiers and their walled-in Constantinople

counterparts, but the spirited Greek fighters were able to repel the Turks every time.21

The Greeks were holding their own defensively for the time being, but the Sultan’s forces

continued to increase, as he gathered more conscripted men and volunteers.22

Constantinople, on the other hand, did not have the access to new troops, since the Turks

had essentially cut off their supply routes. (find source!!)

By April 11, 1453, the Turks had spent nearly a week encamped within one mile

of Constantinople’s walls, and still there had only been minor skirmishes. Having

believed his troops would quickly dominate the Greeks, Mehmet decided to strategically

expedite the process. He chose to move his larger cannon near the weakest part of the

outer wall, so that his forces might gain entrance and easily crush the outnumbered

Greeks.23 He knew that he could eventually break the wall, which he believed was the

only real source of protection for the smaller band of Greeks. Similarly, the fighters of

Constantinople also put their entire faith in the protective walls. The Emperor even

remarked that “whatever happened, the Turks would come to attack the wretched city of

20
Leonard of Chios, 15.
Christoforo Riccherio, “The capture of Constantinople in the year 1453 on the twenty-
ninght day of may,” transl. J. R. Melville Jones, The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven
Contemporary Accounts (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972), 118.
21
Leonard of Chios, 18. “When the Sultan saw how the defences which had been
demolished had now been built up again, he said,… ‘nothing will discourage them,
neither a hail of arrows, nor the cannon, the wooden towers and the continuous siege
without remission.’”
Doukas, ch. 38.
22
Doukas, ch. 38. “April was by now two thirds over, and there had been nothing more
than minor skirmishes. Meanwhile the Sultan’s forcers were increasing, with conscripted
men and volunteers, to an extent impossible to estimate accurately.”
23
Leonard of Chios, 16.
Riccherio, 119.

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Constantinople,…and since all the city walls were very strong and thick,…he [would]

therefore began to make arrangements to provide…fortifications.”24 Recognizing the

existence of a few weak areas of the wall, the Emperor immediately set about fortifying

those regions.25 The Turkish cannons, however, continued to send cannon balls flying

with such force that the outer walls could not be fortified enough, and collapse was

common.26 The Turks “battered the wall, and although it was extremely thick and strong,

it nevertheless gave way under the onslaught of this terrible machine.”27 The cannon

constantly attacked the walls, forcing the small band of Greeks to re-build constantly,

even when not engaged in direct battle. This process was exhausting for the

outnumbered Greeks.

As the cannonballs barraged the wall, Mehmet decided he wanted to completely

encircle Constantinople. Constantinople is triangular in shape, with two sides facing

water and one looking towards land.28 Already the Turks were encamped alongside the

land wall, and they had also used their control of Anatolia to station their naval ships

outside Constantinople’s second wall facing the Sea of Marmora. But the Golden Horn

Harbor side was still unoccupied by the Turks. The Turks realized they could threaten

the Greeks from within and from outside the Harbor—a double threat for such an

outnumbered Greek force.29 Mahmet knew if he could just keep killing more Greek

soldiers, Constantinople’s army would continue to shrink, thereby making it even easier
24
Barbaro, 23.
25
Ibid.
26
Leonard of Chios, 16. Although the Greeks prepared their own cannons, those cannons
could not be used as often as those of the Turks, since the Greeks were facing a shortage
of cannon powder, being cut off from supplies by the Turkish siege. Thus, the Turks had
the military advantage.
27
Ibid.
28
Riccherio, 120.
29
Barbaro, 37.

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to defeat them. Utilizing a giant roller and plank system, the Turks were able to

essentially ‘roll’ their ships across the nearby hills and into the Golden Horn Harbor on

April 23, 1453. They now challenged the Greeks from within their protective areas and

from without. The Greeks were losing their protection—something they obviously

greatly valued, based on the Emperor’s comments about the importance of the city’s

walls. [[[couldn’t find the quote about this directly reducing the Greek numbers. Ask

David.]]]]

With their fortifications now under continuous attack from all sides, the leaders of

triangular-shaped Constantinople realized their “situation was now becoming more

serious,” and decided to act.30 Because the Turkish force vastly outnumbered their own,

they knew a direct attack would not work. Instead, a secret, ship burning plan was

hatched. Thus, before the illuminating Mediterranean sun rose on the morning of April

28, commander Giovanni Giustiani led several biremes on a secret mission to set fire to

the Turkish fleet.31 Unfortunately for the Greeks, the commander of a Venetian-manned

trireme, a man named Giacomo Coco, was so eager for battle glory that he sailed past the

designated safety ship and jeopardized the entire operation.32 Sure enough, the Turks

immediately noticed Jacomo’s ship and fired a cannonball at it, destroying it and some of

the sailors onboard. The other Constantinople ships immediately retreated, leaving some

of those “sailors who had been thrown into the water…to swim to shore, and…[get]

captured by the enemy, whose wicked ruler [Mehmet] the next day ordered them to be

30
Leonard of Chios, 24.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid.

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beheaded.”33 Thus, even more soldiers were lost from the already small Constantinople

forces.

Fighting grew increasingly bitter after the Greeks retaliated by executing their

Turkish prisoners of war.34 But the loss of Jacomo’s shipmen and the imprisoned men

devastated the Greeks far more than the executions damaged the Turkish forces:

If a hundred [Turks] fell in a day,…their casualties, however large in

number, were at once replaced by many more...if one of
[Constantinople’s] men, on the other hand, was killed, [they] wept as if
[they] had lost a hundred, particularly if he had been of a stout heart.35

Unbeknownst to the Greeks, but the embittered Turks had grown more secretive with

their treachery and were at that very moment trying to dig their way into Constantinople.

It was not until Giovanni Giustiniani, the “leader of the defenders” of Constantinople

discovered the Turkish subterranean tunnels that the Greek force decided to keep a more

vigilant night watch of the treacherous and large Turkish army.36 The Turks likewise

reconfigured their strategy and increased their cannon barrage. Since the Sultan “thought

that the small numbers of the Christians would prevent them from defending the city

satisfactorily when they were overcome by weariness after continuous fighting,” he

ordered the great cannon moved and cannon firing increased. Realizing the Greeks were

relying completely on the walls to defend their numerically inferior ranks, Mehmet

instructed his soldiers to fire the “twelve hundred pound” cannonball “all day long.”37

33
Ibid.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid, 17.
37
Leonard of Chios, 16, 18.
Barbaro, 54.

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 Before May was through, the Turks’ aggressive vigor led them to use the

ramparts and ditches they had been building throughout the previous few weeks.

Covered with shields, the Turks leaned their ladders against the walls, climbed to

the top, and began to fight.38 But there were enough vigorous Greeks to fight

down the Turks, as quickly as the Turkish forces could climb the limited number

of ladders. Because of the spirited fighting, however, “many men on each side

met a miserable end.”39 But once again, such losses were more detrimental to the

Greeks than they were to the Turks:

Although the defenders gave a good account of themselves and killed a

great number of them, fresh troops came rushing onwards continually to
take the place of those who had died. It was Mehmet’s policy to keep on
sending fresh troops into the battle, his intention being to give the Greeks
no chance to rest; they would then be easily overcome, when they were
exhausted by continuous fighting.40

Even after periods of drastic fighting, those relatively few Greeks who remained,

could not relax; instead, they had to maintain readiness, because they knew they

could not allow the masses of Turks to overtake the walls. “Not knowing what

[the] enemy might do, [the Greeks] stood to [their] arms throughout the day and

the night…waiting hour after hour for them to come to attack.”41 This exhausting

schedule might have continued for the Greeks, had the Turks not decided to make

their next move.

On the twenty-eighth of May, the Turkish Sultan sounded the trumpet and

instructed his men to “be ready at their posts all day, because tomorrow [I intend]

38
Riccherio, 121.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
41
Barbaro, 31.

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to make a general attack on the wretched city.”42 The next morning before

daybreak, Mahomet Bey led his men to the walls of Constantinople to begin the

full-scale, direct assault.43 Behind the walls, the Greeks continued to fight

courageously. But because they possessed fewer men and weapons, it was only

natural their ranks were immensely effected by any men who were injured or

killed. With the Greek fighters outnumbered and exhausted from continuous

night watch and wall repairs, it was just a matter of time before high-ranking

Constantinople officers were injured. It just so happened that this injured official

was eventually none other than the leading commander, Giovanni Giustiani.

When this happened, Giustiani was rumored to have either clamored for the “key

of the gate,” so he and his followers could escape the outnumbered city, or he

merely left through the gate seeking medical attention and intending to return.44

In either case, both the Emperor and the soldiers saw “they were without a leader

[and] began to retreat from their positions.”45 When the Emperor fled, he even

falsely shouted, ‘The Turks have got into the city!,’ which only increased the

retreat.46 It was at this point the “fury of the Turkish attack increased.”47 Had the

dwindling number of Greek fighters not retreated, Mehmet’s will might not have

been enough to topple their positions atop the ramparts. After all, willful

Mehmet, who had always been “full of a wild enthusiasm,” had not been able to

42
Barbaro, 59.
43
Ibid, 62.
44
Leonard of Chios, 37.
Riccherio, 122.
Lomellino, 132.
45
Leonard of Chios, 36.
46
Barbaro, 65.
47
Ibid.

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overtake the equal “bravery of [Constantinople’s few] recruits” thus far.48 It was

only once that Greek minority, which had grown increasingly smaller over the

weeks of the siege’s battles, realized they could no longer defend the walls and

retreated that the Turks were able to enter the city. Encouraged by Giustiani’s

open gate, the Turks began to “scale the walls more eagerly than before,” and they

eventually overtook the walls from the retreating Greeks.49 Entering, the Turks

found “no resistance, and this was the end of it.”50 For all intensive purposes,

Constantinople fell once the Turks overran the wall of protection that the much

smaller number of Greeks had been relying on for protection against the masses

of Turks. This time, however, Constantinople’s population was so diminished by

the time this occurred, that they could not fight back the flood of Turks.51 Within

three days, the once-glorious city on the Golden Horn Harbor lay in ruins, having

been completely ransacked by the invading Turks.52

Bibliography
48
Ibid, 15, 18.
49
Riccherio, 122.
50
Lomellino, 132.
51
Recalling the initial ratio of Constantinople fighters to Turks—9,000:400,000—it is
likely that Constantinople had lost much of this already dwarfed number. With new
recruits supplying the Turks, their numbers would not have decreased by much. Thus, at
this point in the siege, the defenders of Constantinople were much smaller than their
initially dwarfed number and could only hold off the eager Turks for so long.
52
Barbaro, 66.
Lomellino, 132.
Leonard of Chios, 124.

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Barbaro, Nicolo. Diary of the Siege of Constantinople in 1453, trans. J.R. Jones.

New York: Exposition Press, 1969.

Doukas, Michael. The Siege of Constantinople, 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts,

trans. J.R. Jones. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972.

Leonard of Chios. The Siege of Constantinople, 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts,

trans. J.R. Jones. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972.

Lomellimo, Angelo Giovanni. “1453, the 23rd of June, at Pera,” in The Siege of

Constantinople 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts, trans. J.R. Jones.

Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972.

Majeska, George P., “Wanderer of Stephen of Novgorod,” Russian Travelers to

Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, Washington, District of

Columbia: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1984.

Riccherio, Cristoforo, “The capture of Constantinople in the year 1453 on the

Twenty-ninth day of May,” in The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven

Contemporary Accounts, trans. J.R. Jones. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972.

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