Why did Constantine XI refuse 2 surrender?

Hello eagle

If you think that Constantine XI had any weight whatsoever in the Balkans to "rally" the greeks and the Balkan nations then you are dreaming. He was nothing but a fuedal lord of a big city. Nothing more nothing less. He had much more value to the west for other reasons but he had no widespread support whatsoever just like his counterpart the caliph of Cairo.

Al-Jassas

Originally posted by Al Jassas Hello eagle If you think that Constantine XI had any weight whatsoever in the Balkans to "rally" the greeks and the Balkan nations then you are dreaming. He was nothing but a fuedal lord of a big city. Nothing more nothing less. He had much more value to the west for other reasons but he had no widespread support whatsoever just like his counterpart the caliph of Cairo. Al-Jassas

Al buddy I know the history quite well and you are very correct, but….
…I know that but to many people of Greek heritage he is seen as a hero. I realize the Christian west not only had their own issues but really they did not take it serious enough. For many, the conquest of the city was a shock. Part of the problem was the western Christian nations were too busy fighting each other to really get involved and the Russians had their own problems. It was a lost cause and it probably would have been better if he had surrendered but the fact he stood up against such odds makes him a hero to us, sort of a Custer's last stand. You are not Greek so I cannot expect you to understand.

Al Jassas:
I am afraid that the average illiterate 15th century European peasant had more sense in him than overdreaming 19th-20th-21st centuries romanticists.
eaglecap:

True about the peasants but they were not the ones in power.

Al Jassas:
There was simply no benefit whatsoever for Christian countries to support a crusade to "get back" Constantinople or support a town in the middle of the biggest Islamic empire that has been actually a privilaged county of that empire. Plus the main Christian countries were by then at peace and more that capable to go to crusade and win it (since they had much more citizens than the Turks.

eaglehat:
at peace right- England and France were at odds, the Italian kingdoms like Pisa, Genoa, and Venice were not on the best terms, the list can go on. The Austrian Empire was probably the biggest hope for Constantinople. Plus the western powers had lost heart after the battle of Varna. I think the only benefit they would have is if they could control the city like after 1204, so it that I can agree.

Al Jassas:
The first crusades nearly distroyed the social and economic fabric of europe (strengthening the church beyond control and drained their economies). Nobility would have never accepted another crusades and peasants would have never enthusiastically embraced it and the powerful merchant class would have never allowed it to go forward.

eaglebandana:
It would take some time to research this one but from what I recall I do not agree and you really are over simplifying it. I wondered what revision text book you got this from? I know there was some resistance to the Crusades but yet there was more than one crusade, the worse being 1204. I cannot answer this one now but maybe Byzantine Emperor can since that is his field of study.

Al Jassas:
In addition to that everything indicated that the mass of christians in those conquered lands wanted Ottoman rule, more christian citizens (free citizens) and nobility joined the Ottoman armies than crusader or christian armies even if they were lead by local christian leaders (Battle of Kosovo is a prime example). If they like them why should they fight them?

eaglederby:
I suggest you read "The Decline of Hellenism in Asia Minor" by Spero Vyronis unless that is banned in your country.

Yes, free if they converted to Islam but for non converts it meant dhimmi status or second class citizenship. I know Mehmet used Christians in the siege of Constantinople but many were conscripted or forced to fight.
Here you can see the benefit Christians had of joining the Mehmet in the siege of the city.

...the Sultan had no regard for the lives of Christians, he easily sacrificed them without conscience.
I cut and pasted this from the below paragraph so you would not miss it.

The Sultan had already laid out his plans for the battle which counted on the defenders being exhausted from the constant bombardment and skirmishes. Mehmet’s plans were to send three waves of soldiers, one after another, to exhaust the defender; who had gone with little food or sleep.
According to historian Steven Runciman,
       
“The Troops would attack in relays. When one division was exhausted,
a second one would replace it. They would simply hurl wave after wave
of fresh troops at the walls until the weary defenders cracked. It would take
as long as it took and there would be no let up: “They would attack the
City from all points simultaneously in a coordinated onslaught, so that it was
impossible for the defenders to move troops to relieve particular pressure
Points.” …..

………Exhausted and hungry the defenders and their allies awaited the final assault believing that God would save the city in end. They had hopes that after the Turks broke through the walls an Angel of the Lord would appear by the column of Constantine and destroy the Turkish army, allowing the Greeks to chase them back to the borders of Persia.
The attack began with the first wave of troops, the Christian contingent, who had the task of carrying the ladders to the wall and at once these men were killed. The defenders threw big stones at them and few escaped, anyone who approached the wall was killed. When the Turkish guards, who stood behind them, saw them retreating they cut them to pieces with their scimitars and forced them to turn back to the wall, only to be killed by the defenders. The second group then began its vigorous attack. Mehmet’s first wave had worked and it further tired the defenders and the fact is that the Sultan had no regard for the lives of Christians, he easily sacrificed them without conscience.
The fact that the defenders fight so hard against such odds shows to me that they did not want to be under the yoke of Ottoman rule.

Sources used:

Nicolle, David. Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300-1774, Osprey Publishing LTD, Oxford: 2003, 30
Runciman, Steven.The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge University Press 1975, 133
. Nicolo barbaros- http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/constantinople3.htm
Roger Crowley 1453; The Holy War for Constantinople and The Clash of Islam, West Hyperion NY 2005, 63

gezgin I tend to agree with Byzantine Emperor but can you link a source on this one. I am open!!

Edited by eaglecap - 07-Apr-2009 at 23:31

Originally posted by Seko Eaglehat, I wish you would be less sensationalist and get to the point without the added assumptions, unless doing so is banned in your country. Plus, sacrificing lives is a duty and command from the Sultan, King or anyone in else power. Surely not only an Ottoman monopoly. Plus, battle orders were laid out beforehand and Bashibozouks came in all shapes and sizes. It's not an anti-christian conspiracy as you wish to portray it.   Lastly, gezgin will not be participating anymore!

I agree in part and it was not anti Christian but more a tactical move on Sultans part but he had less regard for them, although, he wanted the city so bad he readily sacrificed both Muslims and Christians alike to seize it. If you see my sources I don't think it is an assumption but it is only a matter of the historians opinions based on sources from that period. I researched this well and it can be supported by numerous historians but you can say they are biased also.

Mehmet, after the siege, gave the Christians a lot of allowance he did not have to such as allowing them to keep some of the churches. I think, like Alexander the Great, he had a good side and a dark side- or any conqueror in history. In many ways I admire him but the point is the Greeks and their allies did take a stand against great odds. They had false hopes in their religion believing God would send an angel to save them but also the Emperor refused to be the one who would go down in history as the one who surrendered Constantinople.

There are not as many Turkish sources from that period but I have read a couple.

Originally posted by Seko The storming of the city began on May 29th. It was the final day of fighting too. According to Babinger, Mehmed The Conquerer and His Time, the Sultan sent out his poorest troops, who were driven into battle with rawhide whips and iron rods. Whole bands of these Turks climbed the walls and were cut down by the enemy. Thus, prior to mass engagement it was the poor Turkish troops that participated in the first attacks of the city. According to the Venician, Nicolo Barbaros the Sultan did send in a Christian contingent first, as fodder. He reserved his Janissaries for last, as you already mentioned. However, the fight was not haphhazzard as imagined for every precaution secured and thread made was taken seriously the night before.   Excerpt from Barbaro, On the twenty-eighth of May the Turkish Sultan had instructions given to the sound of the trumpet throughout his camp, that under pain of death, all his pashas and their lieutenants, and all the rest of his captains and men of any other condition who had the Turks as their rulers, should be ready at their posts all day, because tomorrow he intended to make a general attack on the wretched city. When these orders had been passed through the camp, they all went quickly to their posts with as much speed as possible, but all the rest of the day from dawn until nightfall the Turks did nothing except bring very long ladders to the walls, in order to make use of them on the next day, which was to be the climax of the attack. There were about two thousand of these ladders, and after these they brought up a great number of hurdles to protect the men who were to raise the ladders up to the walls.

Thank you Seko and I have read Barbaro three times but the first source you show I do not recognize. I will try and order it online and read it. Of course after I am done with the Iliad which I am reading now. Mehmet was a great military leader and he learned well from his hero Alexander the Great. I know hindsight is 20/20 but for the defender's sake Constantine XI should have surrendered but for history's sake he did the right thing and many people see him as a heroic figure. All civilizations eventually fall and it was the twilight of a great empire. Vanity, vanity all is vanity - Seko can you tell me where this come from?

The last Empire or so the Greek's thought:
How lonely is the city (constantinople) that was full of people. How like a widow is she. Who was great among the nations?   The Princess among Provinces has become a Slave!” Lamentations 1: 1          

Sooner or later all nations fall and so will ours someday but we must have our heroes.

thanks for the sources

However, the fight was not haphhazzard as imagined for every precaution secured and thread made was taken seriously the night before.
If this is what you mean- ?
Both sides were very well prepared but the Sultan might have undderestimated the Rum's tennacity to keep their city- really a lost cause.

The Greeks

Long before the attack the Byzantines had made preparations for the assault. Throughout the previous winter the Emperor had organized the citizens to prepare the city defenses by; repairing and reinforcing the walls, clearing out the moats, and setting aside stores of food. They also increased their stocks of weapons such as; arrows, tools, heavy rocks, Greek fires and everything else they would need to deter the enemy.
According to Greek historian and eyewitness Doukas, “The city defenders were deployed in the following manner; the Emperor and Giovanni were stationed at the fallen walls, outside the stockade in the enclosure, with about 3,000 Latins and Romans.” Giovanni Giustiniani Longo was the commander of the Genoese and a member of a leading Genoese family; he was an expert in siege warfare.   Doukas also states that the Grand Duke was posted at the Imperial Gate with 500 troops and at the sea walls along the battlements, from Xyloporta Gate to the Horaia Gate, more than 500 crossbowman and archers were arrayed.
The men who constituted the majority of the city’s defense were inexperienced Greek civilians. Historian Ian Heath says, “these are described by Leonard of Chios as welding their arms ‘according to the light nature rather than with any skill’, and we know the town- dwelling Byzantine civilians were largely ignorant of warfare and invariably reluctant to fight; the fact that several thousand rallied to Constantinople’s defense in 1453 is actually exceptional.”   The Byzantines were mostly armed with swords, spears, shields and smaller numbers were armed with bows, crossbows and slings.
The majority of the western mercenaries were volunteers, mostly Venetian and Genoese, who assisted in the city’s defense and they were equipped with the following; handguns, crossbows, spears, and javelins. The majority of them were seamen so they were lightly armored, about 400 of the mercenaries were under the command of Giustiniani.   Historians estimate that there was somewhere between 4-5,000 defenders, including the allies.


The Turks

According to the Turkish sources the estimated number of Turkish regular troops was about eighty thousand, which included twenty thousand irregular troops or Bashi bazouks. Included amongst the Ottoman’s regular troops there were twelve thousand of the Sultan’s elite force known as the Janissaries. The latter were forcefully taken from their Christian families, who converted to Islam, and often trained as the Sultan’s elite military force. They were slaves and had no personal rights, but they were paid a salary and they were anything but submissive. a
The Sultan would add a recent tecnology to his arsenal that would alter the course of history and seal the city’s fate. Even though the walls of Constantinople stood unchallenged for centuries siege warfare would change with the use of the cannon. In 1452 an Hungarian weapons mercenary named Urban II offered to build an enormous cannon for Mehmet, “…Urban presented himself before the Sultan offered to construct for him a cannon to blast the walls of Babylon itself.”18b Within a few months the largest cannon in the history of man was being created in the Sultan’s foundries. Urban’s cannon could hurl 1,340 pound stone balls about one mile, and in addition he designed a second cannon which could hurl an 800-pound balls the same distance. This technology had changed the art of siege warfare for over a hundred years, and the Sultan’s new cannons would smash the very walls of Constantinople, thus, allowing the Turks to be the first to enter through the land walls. Urban II had first approached the Emperor, in the summer of 1452, about building this cannon for him but Urban was turned down because the Empire lacked the funds for such a project.

Ian Heath. Byzantine Armies; AD 1118-1461, Osprey Publishing LTD,, Oxford:1995, 47
Runciman, Steven.The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge University Press 1975, pg 79
a-b Norwich Julius John. Byzantium; The Decline and Fall, Alfred A. Koupf, New York: 1996, 418


Edited by eaglecap - 08-Apr-2009 at 01:47

Constantinople prior to May 29th 1453 and Istanbul afterwards, although, I agree with your statement.

 

 

Hello eagle