People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1894 — STORMING THE CITY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORMING THE CITY.

HOW THE TURKS OVERRAN THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The Emperor Constantine, With Barely 4,000 Men, Holdfig Out Two Months Against the Vast Army of Mohammed. His Gallant Deeds and Heroie Death. [Copyright, IS®, by American Press Association. Book rights reserved.]

OT Greek met Greek, but Turk met Greek in that desperate tug of war when the empire of the last Constantine and the holy city of Constantinople were overthrown by the Moslem hordes of Sultan Mohammed II Mohammed, the great conqueror. The empire was in its decline, but its

faithful adherents swore that its death should be as glorious as its life had been noble and grand. Byzantium (the ancient name for the realm) had stood as a light to the world throughout the dark ages when Rome was but a sty wherein wallowed barbarian ignorance and brutality. But the scepter had passed back to Rome, the seat of a revived Latin civilization. Only the Greek emperor and his venerated capital and court, with a small circle of half hearted and scniiloyal dependent states, remained to reflect the ancient splendor of the first Constantine and his brilliant successors.

Clinging by a desperate but gradually loosening hold to the eastern edge of Christendom, surrounded by vigorous and fanatical Moslem foes whose mosques cast shadows upon temples sacred to the Christian God, and actually owing its preservation to the cautionary policy of the sultan —such was the state of the empire in the middle of the century that* beheld the discovery of America and that nursed the reformation in northern and western Europe. Constantinople in 1453 was a city of 100,000 inhabitants. Its shape was that of a triangle, one side extending along the rockbound shore of the sea of Marmora, another along the gentle banks of the River Bosporus, and the third, six miles in extent, from water to water—that is, from river to sea—inland and facing the territory occupied by the Turk. On the land side no barrier to Moslem invasion existed outside the ancient city walls. The walls were in two lines, very massive and formidable to look at, but not very strong. In front of the outer wall was a ditch 100 feet deep. The contest did not begin until a long duel of eastern diplomacy had rasped the tempers of both sides to the fighting point. Mohammed, who was a young man of 23 years, told his grand vizier, when the latter urged peace, that the sultan turned on his bed all night long from one side to the other. His heart was filled with admiration for the world’s great conquerors, whose deeds he knew in detail, and his soul was fired by a fanatical notion that Allah had destined him for a great conquest. Having been warned oil from Constantinople, as he thought, by the weak yet valiant emperor, who was gliding into old age, ha couldn’t drive out the idea that the hour had come and the prophet demanded the overthrow of the power of the cross in the east. Constantine, aware of his plight, deserted as he was by the Christian kingdoms of the west, offered to give allegiance to the sultan and pay a large annual tribute if only the possession of the holy city should be allowed to remain with the Christians. When Mohammed answered no to that, Constantine met the crisis with true Roman firmness and dignity. Said he, “I release thee from all oaths and treaties with me, and closing the gates of my capital I will defend my people to the last drop of my blood.” No previous Ottoman army had ever taken the field with the numbers that gathered around Mohammed 11, when, on the 6th of April, 1453, he spread his carpet within sight of the towers and domes of Constantinople, muttered a prayer as he faced the holy Mecca and pronounced the signal to the “true bdlievers” that the siege of the city was begun. A force of 400,000 men, say many accounts, took part in the siege. Others make it 150,000t0 200,000 trained soldiers and an equal number of irregulars. To two facts all historians agree—namely, that when it came to actual fighting the assailants outnumbered the defenders at least twentyfold and perhaps fortyfold, and that the artillery of Mohammed was superior to any other in existence at that time and was the first to l»e used in battering walls. One gun had been specially prepared for the purpose and threw a stone projectile weighing 600 pounds. Several other enormous guns were in position, and altogether 69 cannon faced the land wall of the city. The vast Mohammedan camp, which contained many unwilling conscripts, among them Christian slaves and prisoners, was hedged about by a corps of Spahees and

Jan’-aries, specially trained from youth lip to be as fanatical and cruel as the sultan himself. Armed with lance and scimettr, their duty was to cut down in cold blood every man who shirked his duty or turned back from an assault. When Constantine counted the rolls prepared to show the number of Romans or Christian believers who could be put upon the walls to defend their homes, lie found but 5,000 warriors, The sad truth was kept a secret with himself and a trusted aid-de-camp, and the defenders placed in groups In the different towers under brave leaders. The emperor took the post of dangey and honor at the Roman gate, opposite the great guns of the -Turks, and where they had posted their choicest soldiers. i Tht TosUah cuwoMde opened with •

signal from the giant gun called the "Basilica.” The earth trembled, and the heavens seemed torn apart by tha concussion. Not alone women and children, but men rushed into the street, beating their breasts anderjing: “Lord of mercy! What is to happen now?” The smallest Turkish cannon balls weighed from 50 to 350 pounds more than the largest known to the Greeks. However, a week of bombardment passed without breaking the walls. At the end of that time, about 9 o'clock one evening, there was a sudden clash of cymbals, a crash of drums and blow of horns and trumpets along the Turkish camp, and dark masses of warriors leiqwd with frantic shouts toward the city gates. Along the battlements and on the lofty towers the reports of guns, the clang of arms and cries of fighting men made an answering din, which the screams of terrified women and children within the city swelled to a roar like thunder. The Turks reached the moat and even the glacis, but were beaten off at midnight after a most horrible slaughter that filled the ditch with helpless victims. Two days later the Greeks were encouraged by a second victory, with odds as great as those confronting them on the walls. Early ip the morning four Greek ships loaded with troops and corn from the Grecian isles sailed into the harbor and were quickly attacked by a Turkish fleet of 145 sail. The Greeks were the better seamen, and with their heavy ships ran down the Turks, riddling them with cannon shot and repelling boarders with showers of liquid fire. To inspire the faithful, the sultan urged his horse into the sea, and with frantic, cries and gestures prayer] and threatened, but to no avail. His fleet ran away in confusion, and the Greek ships anchored under the city walls. More than 12,000 Turks were slaughtered in that affair, and the sultan would have quit the siege but for the voice of his military commanders.' They were for war to the end. . Mohammed’s enterprise was backed by fanatical zeal, boundless riches and a despotism that knew no restraint. The failure in the assault and the naval fiasco taught kim that he must encompass thecity by sea and land. His ships were numerous, but were kept at a distance by a chain that the Greeks had stretched across the entrance to the inner harbor. With an energy worthy of Napoleon he set to work and built a greased shiproad six miles long through a valley leading from the Bosporus to the harbor, and in one night, during a bombardment on land, a fleet of 30 ships were rolled through. As an offset, some of the Greek captains volunteered to burn the Turkish fleet. A daring attempt was made in-the night, but a traitor warned the Turks, and the fireships were received with a volley of cannon shot that sunk the foremost of them, and the others hauled away. Other attempts to burn the ships failed, and the Turks at last anchored a floating battery so close as to bombard the city from the rear. Meanwhile three more desperate assaults were repulsed with the usual fearful slaughter of the fanatical Turks. In ea<A case the personal courage of the emperor saved the day. Only one command er on the walls could vie with Constantine in fighting ability and zeal. That was Jus-

tiniani, a Genoese captain, who led &00 of his countrymen. In the fourth assault the Turks made a breach, but the defenders under the eye of Constantine drove them out and followed beyond the walls. The emperor was so excited that he wanted to ride through and join the melee outside, but the imperial suite and guard kept him back. The Turks succeeded in battering down tli ! main tower at the Roman gate at the end of six weeks’cannonade. In front of another gate they rolled up an immense wooden tower, armored with layers of bulls’ hide. Secreted in the tower, the Turkish archers shot down the Greeks by hundreds. Constantine and Justininni grappled with these two evils in one night, and to the amazement of the sultan his wooden tower was burned to the ground with Greek fire thrown into it by men who elimbed the outside walls with the nimbleness of squirrels, and a new tower was run up at the Roman gate in place of the one thrown down. On the 28th of May, the eighth week of the siege, the fiery sultan gave t he order for a grand assault the following day, but not without summoning Constantine to surrender under pain of the usual pillage and massacre if the assault carried. Constantine’s advisers begged him to withdraw and save his life, but to the sultan he said, “We are prepared todiehere,” and to his friends, “I will die here with you.” The sultan promised a kingdom to the first of bls soldiers who should scale the walls and to the rest license to pillage for three days. The city’s “wealth, its silver, gold, silk and women will be yours,” he said; “only the buildings and walls will be reserved for the sultan.” The first assault of 50,000 men was repulsed in an hour, the baffled wretches turning from death in front to find it on lance and sword points of the Spabees and Janizaries in the rear. A second line of mercenaries next advanced, and a cannon ball tore out a piece of the outer wall at the Roman gate. The Turks rushed through the breach, but were repulsed, and then a second ball tore down a section alongside the first. Through that u column of Janizaries rushed and planted scaling ladders oti the inner wall. Constantine and Justinian! hurried to the breach, and the wave of Turks was once more rolled back. Constantine cheered on bis men, but unluckily J ustiuiani was struck by a bullet and turned to leave. Constantine begged him to stand, but for once the hero, was deaf to the appeal. The Janizaries saw the confusion.fo t,i.e Greek ranks and returned to, the. attack. A giant named .Hassan scaled the wall and died fighting manfully tor the promised reward. Then a cry svse that the Turks had entered the city by another gate, and the emperor, followed by a baud of noblemen, spurred ou into another street tQipeet them. One by one they fell, and the cmperof, left alone, fought on until he was cut down by some of toe mob. of invading I'hrks, who. little knew their swypl* drank the. blood of the last emperor of the Greeks, Sultan Mohummcd’* doughtiest foeman.

A RALLY TO THE BREACH.

MOHAMMED. THE GREAT CONQUEROR.