The Grand Turk Read online

  Directly after his coronation Mehmet went to the harem of Edirne Sarayı, where he received the congratulations of all the women there, who also gave him their condolences on the death of his father. The highest-ranking of the deceased sultan’s wives at the time of his death was Halima Hatun, who fifteen months before had given birth to Murat’s last son, Küçük Ahmet. Succession had often been a matter of contention in the Ottoman dynasty, and had led to two civil wars. So Mehmet decided that in this case he would settle the matter at once by ordering the execution of Küçük Ahmet. While Mehmet was talking with Halima Hatun, one of his men was strangling her baby son in his bath. Mehmet justified the murder of his half-brother as being in accordance with the Ottoman code of fratricide, which on several occasions had been practised by his ancestors to prevent wars of succession. Mehmet later had the code enacted into law, as stated in his imperial edict: ‘And to whomsoever of my sons the Sultanate shall pass, it is fitting that for the order of the world that he shall kill his brothers. Most of the Ulema allow it. So let them act on this.’

  Mehmet then married off Halima Hatun to Ishak Pasha, the new beylerbey of Anatolia. Another of Murat’s high-born wives, Mara, the daughter of George Branković, was sent back to her home with rich presents, and afterwards maintained cordial relations with Mehmet. Mehmet took advantage of this to renew a peace treaty with Branković later in 1451.

  The treaty with Serbia was one of a number of diplomatic agreements that Mehmet made in the late summer of 1451, as news of his accession spread through Europe and prompted the Christian powers to send embassies to Edirne to see the young sultan.

  The first to arrive was an ambassador from Emperor Constantine XI, who negotiated a peace treaty with Mehmet. One of the terms in this treaty concerned Mehmet’s cousin Orhan, a grandson of Beyazit I. Orhan was a hostage in Constantinople, having been used by the Byzantines as a possible pretender to destabilise the Ottoman regime. Mehmet agreed to pay for his cousin’s upkeep by giving the emperor the revenues of villages in the Struma valley in Greece.

  Mehmet also exchanged emissaries with John IV Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor of Trebizond. The Greek chronicler George Sphrantzes, who was serving as ambassador from Constantine XI to Trebizond, tells of how he warned John IV about Mehmet. ‘This man, who just became sultan, is young and an enemy of the Christians since childhood, he threatens with proud spirit that he will put into operations certain plans against the Christians. If God should grant that the young sultan be overcome by his youth and evil nature and march against our City, I know not what will happen.’

  Sphrantzes also learned that Mehmet had sent Murat’s widow Mara back to her father George Branković, the Despot of Serbia. This led him to write to Constantine XI, suggesting that the emperor, who was a widower, marry Princess Mara. Sphrantzes, in discussing possible objections to the marriage, one of which was that Mara had been wed to Sultan Murat, remarked: ‘Your potential bride…was the wife of a very powerful monarch, and she, it is generally believed, did not sleep with him.’

  Constantine took the suggestion seriously and sent an envoy to Despot George Branković to propose marriage to the princess. According to Sphrantzes, Mara’s parents listened to the proposal ‘with delight and were ready to settle the final details’. But Mara herself rejected the proposal, for she ‘had made a vow to God that if He freed her from the house of her late husband she would not marry for the rest of her life, but would remain in His service, as far as possible. Thus the proposed match failed.’

  On 10 September Mehmet received an embassy from Venice and renewed a peace treaty with the Serene Republic that his father had signed five years earlier.

  Ten days later representatives of John Hunyadi arrived, and Mehmet signed an agreement for a three-year truce with Hungary. The next embassy to arrive was from the city state of Ragusa, which offered to increase the amount of tribute it paid to the sultan. This was followed by missions from the Grand Master of the Knights of St John at Rhodes, the Prince of Wallachia, and the Genoese lords of Chios and Lesbos, all of whom brought rich gifts for the sultan, receiving from him expressions of goodwill.

  Kritoboulos says that, after Mehmet had concluded his meetings with foreign emissaries and signed treaties with them, ‘he gave himself over to an examination of his whole realm’. This led him to ‘depose some of the governors and substitute others who he deemed to be superior to the former in strategy and justice’. He examined ‘the registers and battle order of the troops, cavalry and infantry, which were paid from the royal treasury. He also made the royal palace subject of considerable thought and increased the pay of its troops’, particularly that of the janissaries. ‘In addition to this, he collected a supply of arms and arrows and other things needful and useful in preparation for war. Then he examined his family treasury, looking especially closely into its overseers. He carefully questioned the officials in charge of the annual taxes and obliged them to render their accounts.’

  To Kritoboulos, Mehmet’s study of the empire’s finances indicated that ‘much of the public and royal revenue was being badly spent and wasted to no good purpose, about one-third of the yearly revenues which were recovered for the royal treasury. So he set the keeping of this in good order.’ At the conclusion of his account of Mehmet’s reorganisation of the government, Kritoboulos writes: ‘He greatly increased the annual revenue. He brought many of the tax officials to reason through fear, and for them substituted trustworthy and wise men to collect and safe-keep the funds. His father had dealt with such matters in a much more hit-or-miss manner, but he made short work of them.’

  The treaties signed by Mehmet secured his borders in Europe. This left him free to lead an expedition into Anatolia, where his vassal, the Karamanid emir Ibrahim, had rebelled and seized three Ottoman fortresses: Akşehir, Beyşehir and Seydişehir. According to the contemporary Turkish chronicler Tursun Beg, in the spring of 1451 Dayı Karaca Pasha, the beylerbey of Rumelia, the European part of the Ottoman realm, was left with his troops at Sofia to guard against the possibility of an attack from Hungary, while Mehmet himself set out against Ibrahim with the standing army and troops from Anatolia. When the Ottoman army reached central Anatolia, Ibrahim fled and sent his vezir Mewlan Weli to negotiate peace terms. According to Tursun Beg, Ibrahim ‘agreed to give up Akşehir, Beyşehir and Seydişehir, including the territories around them. In addition, he agreed to send every year a certain number of soldiers to serve in the Ottoman army.’

  While Mehmet was on his way back to Europe from this campaign he had to deal with another insurrection by the janissaries, whom he once again appeased by raising their pay, though much against his will. Mehmet vented his rage on the commander of the corps, Kazancı Doğan, having him savagely whipped and then dismissing him from his post. Mehmet then reorganised the janissaries in such a way as to take more direct control of the corps, which he was to use with great effectiveness in his subsequent campaigns.

  Around the same time the emperor Constantine sent envoys to renegotiate a point in the peace treaty he had signed with Mehmet, the one concerning the upkeep of the Turkish pretender Orhan. When the embassy reached Mehmet, probably in Bursa, he delegated Halil Pasha to deal with them. The envoys said that the payment for Orhan’s upkeep was not sufficient, and he implied that unless it was increased Constantine would allow the pretender to contest the throne with Mehmet. Halil was furious, according to Doukas, and he told the envoys, whom he called ‘stupid and foolish Romans’, that they were making a fatal mistake in threatening Mehmet, for he was a far more dangerous foe than his father, who had been ‘a sincere friend’ of the Byzantines.

  Mehmet informed the envoys that he would deal with the matter when he returned to Edirne. He then prepared to lead his army back to Europe across the Dardanelles. But when he learned that Italian warships were on patrol there he changed his route and had his troops ferried across the Bosphorus, embarking from Anadolu Hisarı, the fortress that Beyazit I had built in 1394 on the Asian shor
e at the narrowest stretch of the strait. As soon as Mehmet returned to Edirne he repudiated the treaty he had made with Constantine. His anger at Constantine’s threat to support the pretender Orhan was such that he immediately began preparations for a siege of Constantinople, which he had been prevented from doing when he first came to the throne. Kritoboulos writes: Mehmet ‘resolved to carry into execution immediately the plan which he had long since studied and elaborated in his mind and toward which he had bent every purpose from the start, and to wait no longer or delay. The plan was to make war against the Romans [Byzantines] and their Emperor Constantine and to besiege the city.’

  Thus determined, at the beginning of the second year of his reign Mehmet took the first step in the plan that he had made to attack and conquer Constantinople. According to Kritoboulos, Mehmet decided ‘to build a strong fortress on the Bosphorus on the European side, opposite to the Asiatic fortress on the other side, at the point where it is narrowest and swiftest, and so to control the strait’. Kritoboulos goes on to say that in the winter of 1451-2 Mehmet ‘ordered all the materials to be prepared for building, namely stone and timbers and iron and whatever else would be of use for this purpose. He set the best and most experienced officers over the work, instructing them to put everything speedily in the best order, so that when spring came he could undertake the task.’

  The site that Mehmet chose for the fortress was eight miles north of Constantinople. Originally known in Turkish as Boğaz Kesen, or ‘Cut Throat’, and later called Rumeli Hisarı, the ‘Castle of Europe’, it was built directly across the strait from the fortress built ın 1394 by Beyazit I, known as Anadolu Hisarı, the ‘Castle of Asia’. Constantine sent an embassy to Mehmet complaining that the sultan was violating their treaty by building a fortress on Byzantine territory. Mehmet replied, according to Doukas, ‘I take nothing from the City. Beyond the fosse she owns nothing. If I desire to build a fortress…the emperor has no right to stop me.’

  Early in the spring of 1452 Mehmet left Edirne for Gallipoli, where the Ottoman fleet was based. There, according to Kritoboulos, ‘he filled thirty triremes and armed them fully as for a naval fight… He prepared other ships to carry the equipment, and sent them up from Gallipoli to the Bosphorus.’ Mehmet then crossed the Dardanelles with his troops and led them along the Asian side of the strait to the Bosphorus. There he crossed over to the European side from Anadolu Hisarı, to the place that came to be known as Rumeli Hisarı, where he had decided to build his fortress.

  Construction of the fortress began on 15 April 1452. Kritoboulos writes of how Mehmet ‘marked out with stakes the location where he wished to build, planning the position and the size of the castle, the foundations, the distance between the main towers and the smaller turrets, also the bastions and breastworks and gates, and every other detail as he had carefully worked it out in his mind’.

  An army of workmen conveyed building material to the site, including architectural members from ruined Byzantine monuments in the vicinity. Doukas reports that ‘as they were removing several columns from the ruins of the Church of the Archangel Michael, some of the inhabitants of the City, angered by what was happening, tried to stop the Turks, but they were all captured and put to death by the sword’.

  Mehmet’s cavalrymen grazed their horses in the surrounding fields, and when the local Greek farmers tried to drive the animals away a fight broke out in which several men on both sides were killed. The following day Mehmet sent his commander Kaya Bey to punish the locals, forty of whom were killed, according to Doukas, who noted: ‘This was the beginning of the conflict that led to the destruction of the Romans.’

  When news of the massacre reached Constantine he closed the gates of Constantinople and imprisoned all the Turks who were then in the city. The prisoners included some eunuchs from Edirne Sarayı who happened to be visiting the city. The eunuchs appealed to Constantine, saying that if they did not return to Edirne they would be executed, and so three days later he relented and released them along with the other prisoners. He then sent an embassy in a last attempt to come to terms with Mehmet, who imprisoned the envoys and had them beheaded, thus making a virtual declaration of war.

  Mehmet had hired a Hungarian military engineer named Urban, who built for him a large cannon that he claimed could destroy the walls of Babylon. As soon as Rumeli Hisarı was finished, on 31 August 1452, the cannon was placed on one of its main towers. Mehmet then proclaimed that all ships passing on the Bosphorus had to stop for inspection by the commandant of Rumeli Hisarı, otherwise they would be fired upon. Early in November two Venetian ships, sailing from the Black Sea with supplies for Constantinople, took advantage of a favourable north wind to pass the fortress unscathed. But two weeks later another Venetian ship was sunk by the great cannon in Rumeli Hisarı. The captain, Antonio Rizzo, and his crew were captured and brought to Mehmet at Didymoteichon, south of Edirne. Mehmet had Rizzo impaled and his crew beheaded, leaving their bodies beside the road for travellers to see and carry the news to Constantinople.

  Meanwhile, Constantine had been making desperate attempts to obtain help from the West. Pope Nicholas V appointed Cardinal Isidore of Kiev as papal legate to Constantinople. Isidore arrived in Constantinople on 26 October 1452, accompanied by the archbishop Leonard of Chios, along with a contingent of 200 Neapolitan archers sent by the pope. Isidore pressed Constantine to agree to a formal declaration of Union, which was read out on 12 December of that year in Haghia Sophia, the Great Church, dedicated to the Divine Wisdom. But most of the populace refused to accept the Union, and thenceforth they stayed away from Haghia Sophia, where only priests who had accepted the delaration were allowed to serve. The Megadux (Grand Duke) Loukas Notaras is supposed to have said: ‘I would rather see the Sultan’s turban amongst us than the Cardinal’s tiara.’

  The opposition party was led by George Scholarios, a monk at the Pantocrator monastery in Constantinople. Scholarios retired to his cell after Constantine’s acceptance of the Pope’s demands, pinning to the door of his room a manifesto condemning the Union, quoted by Doukas: ‘Wretched Romans, how you have been deceived! Trusting in the might of the Franks you have removed yourself from the hope of God. Together with the City which will soon be destroyed, you have lost your piety… Woe unto you in the judgment.’

  As the year 1452 drew to a close Mehmet spent all his time drawing up his plans for the coming siege of the Byzantine capital. Doukas writes: ‘Night and day the ruler’s only care and concern, whether he was lying on his bed or standing on his feet, or within his courtyard or without, was what battle plan and stratagem to employ in order to capture Constantinople.’ One night he called in Halil Pasha, whom he knew opposed his plan of attacking the city, probably because he was being bribed by the Byzantines. Halil was so terrified by the nocturnal summons that he now readily agreed with Mehmet, who then bade the grand vezir goodnight, telling him: ‘Go in peace.’

  Late in January 1453 Mehmet assembled his vezirs to hear his plans for the conquest of Constantinople and to obtain their agreement. Kritoboulos records the lengthy speech that Mehmet is supposed to have made on this occasion, in which he gave ‘a recital of previous deeds of his forefathers’, ending with a stirring call to arms. ‘Let us not then delay any longer, but let us attack the City swiftly with all our powers and with this conviction: that we shall either capture it with one blow or shall never withdraw from it, even if we must die, until we become masters of it.’

  Kritoboulos writes that ‘practically all of those present applauded what was said by the Sultan, praising him for his good will and knowledge, bravery and valor, and agreeing with him, and still further inciting each other to war’. He goes on to say that there were a few vezirs who ‘wanted to advise against making war’, Halil undoubtedly being one of them. ‘However, seeing the insistence and zeal of the Sultan, they were afraid, as it seems to me, and unwillingly yielded and were carried along by the majority. So the war was sanctioned by all.’

  And so now,
two months before his twenty-first birthday, Mehmet could at last begin to see the fulfilment of his dream of conquering Constantinople.

  3

  The Conquest of Constantinople

  Constantinople was built on a more or less triangular peninsula that forms the south-easternmost extension of Europe. The peninsula is bounded on its south by the Sea of Marmara and on its north by the Golden Horn, a scimitar-shaped body of water that opens into the Bosphorus at the southern end of the strait. The city was protected on its landward side by its mighty defence walls, originally built in AD 447 by the emperor Theodosius II. These walls enclose seven hills, the first of which is the acropolis at the confluence of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, where the original Greek colony of Byzantium was founded c. 660 BC. The first six hills are connected by a ridge that rises above the south side of the Golden Horn, while the Seventh Hill rises to two peaks above the Marmara shore of the city. The Seventh Hill is separated from the first six by the deep valley of the Lycus, a stream that flows into the city midway along the land walls and eventually empties into the Marmara. Defence walls protected the city on its seaward sides as well, extending along the shores of the Golden Horn and the Marmara to join the ends of the land walls.

  The First Hill is crowned by Haghia Sophia, a magnificent domed basilica erected by the emperor Justinian in the years 532-7. On the Marmara slope of the First Hill was the Great Palace of Byzantine, first built by the emperor Constantine the Great when he established Constantinople as the capital of his empire in 330. Later emperors enlarged and embellished the Great Palace, particularly Justinian, but it was ruined during the Latin occupation of 1204-61. After the Greek recapture of Constantinople in 1261 the emperors of the Palaeologus dynasty resided in the Palace of Blachernae, built on the slope of the Sixth Hill leading down to the Golden Horn, with an annex known as the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus (Turkish Tekfursaray) standing further up the hill. Both palaces were built into the land walls, which would put the imperial household on the front line during the Ottoman siege of the city.