The Guns of Constantinople

Mehmed now addressed the challenge of transporting the gun the 140 miles to Constantinople. Two hundred men and 60 oxen were detailed for the task. The immense barrel was loaded onto several wagons chained together and yoked to the ox teams. The great gun rumbled toward the city at a speed of two and a half miles a day, while another team of engineers worked ahead, leveling roads and building wooden bridges over rivers and gullies. Orban’s foundry continued to turn out barrels of different sizes; none was as large as the first supergun, though some measured more than 14 feet.

It took six weeks for the guns to lurch and jolt their way to Constantinople. By the time they arrived, in early April, Mehmed’s army—a huge force of 80,000 men—was dug in along the length of the land walls. Sappers had cut down orchards and vineyards outside the Walls of Theodosius to provide a clear field of fire. Others dug a ditch the length of the walls and 250 yards from them, with an earth rampart to shield the guns. Within the city walls, a mere 8,000 men awaited the inevitable assault.

Mehmed grouped the cannons into 14 or 15 batteries along the walls at key vulnerable points. Orban’s supergun, which the Greeks called the Basilica cannon—“the royal gun”—was positioned in front of the sultan’s tent so he could critically appraise its performance. Each large cannon was supported by a cluster of smaller ones in a battery the Ottoman gunners named “the bear with its cubs.” They could fire stone balls ranging from 200 pounds up to a colossal 1,500 pounds, in the case of Orban’s monster gun. Though eyewitnesses spoke of “innumerable machines,” Mehmed probably had about 69 cannons, a huge artillery force by the standards of the day. They were augmented by more traditional technologies for hurling stones, such as the trebuchet. The latter had been effective in the Muslim capture of crusader castles 300 years earlier, but now it looked like a device from another age.

Installing and readying the cannons was a laborious process. Workers had to erect a massive block-and-tackle system to lower the barrels into position on a sloping wooden platform. Shielding the cannons from enemy fire were a wooden palisade and a hinged door that could be opened at the moment of firing.

The logistical support for this operation was immense. Ships transported loads of black stone balls mined and shaped on the north coast of the Black Sea. The cannons also required substantial quantities of saltpeter. Founders who worked with Orban at Edirne doubled as gun crews, positioning, loading and firing the cannons—even repairing them on site.

Preparing the big cannon to fire required time and attention to detail. Crews would load gunpowder, backed by a wooden or sheepskin wad pounded tight into the barrel. Next they manhandled a stone ball to the muzzle and eased it down the barrel. Each ball was designed to be a good fit, though an exact caliber match was often elusive. Crews set their aim by “certain techniques and calculations” about the target—i.e., trial and error—and adjusted the angle of fire by chocking the platform with wooden wedges. Great timber beams weighted down with stones acted as shock absorbers. Crews then poured priming powder into the touchhole.

On April 12, 1453, lighted tapers were put to the touchholes of the sultan’s guns along a four-mile sector of the front line, and the world’s first concerted artillery barrage exploded to life.

If there is any single moment in the history of warfare at which an authentic sense of awe at the exponential power of gunpowder could be palpably felt, it is here in the accounts of those firing these great guns in 1453. The taper ignited the powder:

And when it had caught fire, faster than you can say it, there was first a terrifying roar and a violent shaking of the ground beneath and for a great distance around, and a din such as has never been heard. Then, with a monstrous thundering and an awful explosion and a flame that illuminated everything round about and scorched it, the wooden wad was forced out by the hot blast of dry air and propelled the stone ball powerfully out. Projected with incredible force and power, the stone struck the wall, which it immediately shook and demolished, and it was itself shattered into many fragments, and the pieces were hurled everywhere, dealing death to those standing nearby.

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