21 April – 18 May 1453
The ships cross the hill
Mehmed now has a road built from the Bosporus over the hill behind Galata to the Golden Horn. His men clear the trees and lay timbers greased with oil along the track. On the night of 21 to 22 April 1453, oxen and men draw 72 ships on rollers from the shore at Dolmabahçe up the valley and down into the Horn at Kasımpaşa, a distance of 2 to 4 km. Guns on the hills by Galata fire on the Christian ships in the Horn while the ships are hauled.
Mehmed watches his ships hauled over land to the Golden Horn, painted by Fausto Zonaro, court painter in Istanbul from 1896 to 1909Wikimedia Commons, Fausto Zonaro, Public domain (Kusatma Zonaro.jpg)
With Ottoman ships inside the chain, the defenders must man the walls along the Horn as well. On the night of 28 April the Venetian Giacomo Coco leads ships and fire ships against the Ottoman ships at Kasımpaşa. The Genoese of Galata have had the attack put off by a day and have warned the Ottomans, whose guns sink Coco’s galley, and the attack fails.
The Golden Horn and the old city seen from Galata, photographed by Abdullah Frères about 1880Wikimedia Commons, Abdullah Frères, Public domain (Aerial view of Istanbul from Galata showing the Golden Horn, Topkapı, and Ayasofya LCCN2003690004.jpg)
Mehmed has the sailors who swim ashore, about 40, impaled in sight of the walls, and the defenders kill their 260 Ottoman prisoners on the walls in reply. The guns on the hills by Galata go on firing on the ships and the Horn walls until 14 May, when Mehmed moves them to Blachernae.
Sources
- Nicolò Barbaro, Giornale dell’assedio di Costantinopoli (1453).
- Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina (about 1462).
- Michael Kritovoulos, History of Mehmed the Conqueror (about 1467).
- Tursun Beg, Tarih-i Ebü’l-Feth (about 1490).
- Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (1965).
- Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time (1978).
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