The imperial proteges of the Crusaders

But the conditions on which help had been rendered to Isaac Angelus were too hard to be fulfilled; and insistence upon them provoked the national feeling against the foreign intruders. The imperial proteges of the Crusaders were murdered, or died from fear, and the smouldering embers of the strife burst once more into flames. The army of the Crusade was therefore taken on board the fleet, and proceeded to make a joint attack upon the portion of the harbour walls which Dandolo had once before captured. Victory wavered from side to side.

At length, on Easter Monday 1204, Venetian ships approached so near to the walls in the Phanar quarter that bridges attached to the masts settled upon the parapet of the fortifications. Brave knights rushed across, cut down the defenders, clambered down into the city, and threw open the nearest gates. The blind Doge, ninety years old, leaped upon the beach, with the banner of S. Mark in his hands, and summoned his men to follow. The Emperor Murtzuphlus, who watched these operations from the terrace of the Church of Pantepoptes, fled, and for the first time in its history, Constantinople became the prize of a foreign foe.

The transportation of a fleet over the hill that rises some two hundred and fifty feet between the Bosporus and the Golden Horn was a skilful piece of strategy, and formed one of the most striking incidents in the siege of 1453. By compelling attention to the safety of the walls along the harbour, it extended the line of attack, and weakened the defence of the landward walls. To effect the passage, a road was made through the ravines leading from Beshiktash on the straits to Cassim Pasha on the Golden Horn.

On that road well greased logs were laid, like the sleepers on a railway, and then some seventy or eighty galleys, of fifteen, twenty, or twenty-two pairs of oars, were placed in ships1 cradles and dragged by men, oxen, and buffaloes, in the course of a single night, up one slope and down the other, from sea to sea. The incongruous form of navigation put everybody concerned in making the voyage into good humour. Drums beat, fifes sounded, and to add to the zest of the enterprise, the sails were unfurled, the oars were pulled, the rudders set, as if the vessels were proceeding over their native element.

Golden Horn afforded no amusement to the besieged

But the apparition of the enemy’s ships in the Golden Horn afforded no amusement to the besieged. It increased immensely their anxiety and the difficulties of their task. A brave attempt to bum the Turkish vessels failed, and though the flotilla actually did little in the way of direct attack, it remained a standing menace to the northern side of the city until the close of the siege, a thundercloud keeping men in constant dread of the bolts that might dart from its black bosom. Very appropriately, the Turkish Admiralty stands on the shore of the bay in which an Ottoman fleet first rode the waters of the Golden Horn.