Against traditional siege engines and complemented by adequate land and sea forces, the walls of Constantinople had proven impregnable for centuries, but times had changed. Destitute and depopulated, the city had never recovered from its sack by the Latins in 1204. In spite of Emperor Constantine XI’s efforts to rally volunteers, few answered the call. To make matters worse, the defenders’ resolve was undermined by deep divisions caused by the emperor’s decision to reunify the Orthodox with the Catholic Church in a desperate attempt to give the Pope incentive to aid him against the Turks. The empire was at the end of its resources, its defenses left primarily to Italian mercenaries. Greeks commanded only two of the nine sectors of the defense. Gunpowder was in short supply and the walls had fallen into disrepair; the overseers had embezzled the funds for their maintenance. The fleet, long the critical arm of the Empire, now consisted of just three Venetian galleasses and 20 galleys.

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The 4,973 Greek soldiers and volunteers, and the 2,000 foreigners who had come to assist them, had to defend 14 miles of fortifications. With 500 men detailed to defend the Sea Walls, that would have left only one man every four feet at the Outer Land Walls alone. With many of the garrison manning the engines, towers, bastions and other points, the distribution of soldiers along the walls was undoubtedly much thinner. The demands on each man grew precipitously as the battle progressed and as casualties, sickness, and desertion reduced their numbers, and substantial breaches appeared in the walls. That such a scant force managed to defend one of the largest cities of the medieval world for seven weeks was a remarkable testament to both the fortifications and the men who defended them.

For weeks Turkish guns relentlessly battered the Land Walls, in the words of witness Nicol Barbaro, ‘firing their cannon again and again, with so many other guns and arrows without number…that the air seemed to split apart.’ The high masonry walls made an easy target for long-range enemy guns, and at the same time could not long withstand the recoil of the Byzantine cannons mounted upon them. Although Urban’s monster cannon exploded on its fourth round, killing its builder and many of the crew, the Turks discovered a more effective technique for employing their artillery. Following the advice of a Hungarian envoy, Turkish gunners concentrated their fire against points on the wall in a triangular pattern-two shots, one each to the base of the a 30-foot section, then a toppling shot to the top center. In that way, the Turks gradually breached sections of the Outer Walls, exposing the Inner Wall, which too began to crumble. The defenders fought off Turkish attempts to assault the inner defenses by day, and crept forward each night to fill in the widening holes with rubble and palisades.

If the ultimate outcome of the siege of Constantinople was ever in doubt, Mehmet’s solving the problem of the barrier chain made it inevitable. Unable to force a passage through the chain and past the Christian warships, the sultan resolved to bypass it by hauling his ships overland, behind Galata and into the Golden Horn. To his engineers, who had hauled Urban’s cannon across Thrace, that posed little problem. Using greased windlasses and buffalo teams, the first ships made the trip on the night of April 22. The next morning the defenders awoke to find a squadron of Turkish vessels in the Horn and themselves with another five miles of sea walls to defend. Before the Greeks and their allies could effectively counter this new threat, Mehmet had the Horn sealed to the west, in front of his ships, by building a floating bridge of giant oil casks and planks. The Christian ships were now bottled up in the Horn between two arms of the Moslem fleet. The final blow came on May 29, 1453. The Turks attacked three hours before dawn, concentrating their effort on the Mesoteichion and the western half of the Sea Walls along the Horn. After seven weeks of heroic resistance, the defenders had reached the limits of endurance. In any case, their numbers were no longer sufficient to defend the Land Walls, sections of which were reduced to rubble. A large breach was opened in the walls in the Lycus Valley and the Turks pressed the attack. Barbaro described the final moments: ‘One hour before daybreak the Sultan had his great cannon fired, and the shot landed in the repairs which we had made and knocked them down to the ground. Nothing could be seen for the smoke made by the cannon, and the Turks, under the cover of the smoke, and about 300 of them got inside the barbicans.’ While the defenders beat back that attack, the next succeeded in penetrating the Inner Wall. As Turkish soldiers appeared in the garrison’s rear, the defense swiftly collapsed. Word spread that the defenses had been breached and panic ensued. Those who did not take flight were overwhelmed at their posts. Constantine went to a hero’s death, struck down in the final melee near the great breach. A few managed to escape aboard the Christian ships; most of the rest, including 90 percent of the populace, were sold into slavery. After nearly 1,000 years, the Eastern Roman Empire ceased to exist.

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