The Walls of Constantinople:
2.1 Background/Purpose:
After the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, part of the former empire was salvaged and the capital moved to Constantinople, where the surviving tidbits of western civilization still survived. Eventually, the centrality of Constantinople in addition to carrying on the Roman Empire in the form of the Byzantine Empire made the city thrive, making it one of the most, if not the most, magnificent cities in the world at the time. Constantinople became a great hub of trading, because of its geographic location serving as a checkpoint from Europe to the Middle East and Asia or Africa, and because had large bodies of water on both sides of it which allowed ports for ship trading to develop.
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Constantinople also carried on the politics and society of the former fallen Roman Empire, and much of Western civilization as a result of it. Such ebullient wealth and abundant culture gave the city appeal from both civilian and conqueror alike. Because of such allures, the city had to be defended from the scourges of the world, and like many of the defenses that existed throughout history; walls were erected to defend the city. The walls consisted mainly of mortared rubble, reinforced with limestone blocks and layers of red brick. 14 miles of wall encircled the entire city of Constantinople, with over 400 towers and walls containing several strong points and fortresses reinforcing it. In the end, it became so intimidating that it deterred even Attila the Hun, who only cast the walls a mere glance, from even attempting to conquer Constantinople, though he was probably more wise than cowardly in his decision. 2.2 Advantages: It is important to analyze the many advantages the walls of Constantinople had, because, as we will see later, those advantages actually became a disadvantage that later contributed to its downfall. Constantinople’s prime geographic location played an important role to the walls’ success, especially since their engineers tailored the walls to the land, and not the land to the walls. Locational advantages included the water around the city, to both the north and the south. To the south, a steep, rugged shoreline made invasion from that direction difficult and slow, and the currents of the Sea of Marmara swept away invaders who dared to breach the shore before they even managed to get a good bearing to invade the walls. It made sense, then, to build the wall strongest to the west, where it would be against a land invasion. The walls were built using the terrain to their advantage, by integrating the man-made defenses with the natural obstacles of the frontier. The defense as a whole had a unique system. The towers and walls were built independent of each other, such that if one fell, it wouldn’t also bring about the downfall of the surrounding structures with it. There were essentially three different layers of defenses or walls that awaited enemies. The first of them was a moat 60 feet wide and 22 feet deep, which could be filled by a sophisticated aqueduct system in times of attack, and was also accompanied by a system of dams to keep the level of water even in the uneven ground of the moat. It stretched all the four miles from coast to coast, using the geographic advantage of Constantinople’s placement on a peninsula. The water itself wasn’t so much important in damaging enemy troops as it was in its crucial role in slowing down enemy advances and exposing their vulnerabilities, making them quite literally “sitting ducks” and easy targets. Keeping siege weaponry and machinery afloat across the water thus made crossing with them extremely difficult, if not impossible. Across the moat on the shore was a short wall to protect archers that would pick off enemies trying to advance. Squadrons of foot soldiers would carry portable primitive flamethrowers containing Greek fire, an ancient form of napalm that would ignite on contact and would continue burning, even in water. When burning enemies retreated back into the water of the moat where they thought they could extinguish the fire, they would still burn. If by some lucky chance enemies actually successfully traversed the moat, they were then met by a formidable 27 foot high outer wall. The five public gates (that also served as drawbridges) were set narrowly into the wall, and had towers on each side of the entrance. If an enemy succeeded in penetrating through the defenses, the distance between the wall’s strong points ensured that the attacker would be within range to be neutralized by all immediate points in the defense. Therefore, trying to penetrate the city’s defenses through the only gates would be attacking into the strength of the wall’s defenses; enemies would probably fare better, though not by much, by trying to attack elsewhere, even if it didn’t seem that way. All sorts of projectiles were thrown from this outer wall, including arrows and spears. Pots of Greek fire would fall on enemies at the base of the wall and trying to scale the wall, much like the concept of pouring boiling oil and hot tar down medieval walls of castles, only much more effective and deadly. They were also launched from catapults on the ramparts of this outer wall, falling on the enemies across the moat who had yet to advance and slowed them, if not completely temporarily halting them by blocking their path with fire. The last set of defenses was an inner wall 40 feet high and 15 feet thick. The outer wall was joined to the inner wall by a 60 foot terrace, so those defending from the inner wall had the advantage of elevation while they were defending. This outer wall was wide enough to have 4 people on horses ride side by side. This facilitated getting defenses to every part of the wall if needed, without disrupting those who were already at position, and at a faster rate than on foot. Otherwise, this set of defenses was not much different than that of the outer wall. The walls’ sophisticated network of defense led Constantinople to thrive for many centuries and endure many harsh attempts of invasion. Attila the Hun might have turned away in search of easier prey elsewhere, but it didn’t stop others from trying. The Byzantine Empire had long been at war with its neighbors, the Sassanid Empire and the Persians. The Avars who came were notable in that they noticed and exposed a flaw in the wall’s design at a weak point. Other groups who attempted to do the same included the Sacracens, Bulgarians, Russians, and the Arabs who attempted twice and came close to succeeding. During the initial Muslim expansion in 632 A.D., both the Byzantine and Sassanid Persian Empires were weakened from warring with each other for 25 years, so the Arabs tried to fill the power vacuum in the area. The Sassanid Empire was eventually destroyed, but Constantinople proved harder to bring down. On two separate occasions, once from 674-677, the other from 717-718, the Arabs tried to siege Constantinople by both land and sea, but Constantinople persevered, and the Arabs ended up starving themselves, some of them even resorting to cannibalism. Cold and disease from crude encampments outside the walls also contributed greatly. The greatness of the walls helped Constantinople fend off all of these attacks, and eventually lended the city a reputation of being indomitable. This reputation, along with Constantinople’s prime geographic location as a gateway between the West and the East and by being surrounded by two bodies of water on opposite, and thus a major popular trading hub and culturally rich and thriving city, made the challenge of taking over Constantinople all the more appealing to conquerors and leaders of other empires, a factor that contributed to its eventual downfall. 2.3 Flaws that contributed to its downfall: Eventually, this appeal led Constantinople to be finally taken over with the Fourth Crusade by the Ottoman Turks. Though the walls were normally able to withstand sieges for weeks on end, the Turks’ use of cannons, a relatively new siege invention specifically for tearing down defenses, chipped away at the walls until they were nothing but mere rubble (ironically enough, the debris did more to stop the enemy than the actual walls did). Nicolo Barbaro, a surgeon and eyewitness to the siege and fall of Constantinople, recounts in his diary: “On the eleventh of April the Sultan had his cannon placed near the walls, by the weakest part of the city, the sooner to gain his objective. These cannon were planted in four places… and another four at the gate of San Romano, the weakest part of the whole city. One of these four cannon which were at the gate of San Romano threw a ball weighing about twelve hundred pounds, more or less, and thirteen quarte [a unit measure of length] in circumference, which will show the terrible damage it inflicted where it landed. The second cannon threw a ball weighing eight hundred pounds, and nine quarte in circumference. These two cannon were the largest that the Turkish Khan had, the other cannon being of various sizes, from five hundred pounds to two hundred pounds, and smaller still…. On this day, the twenty-first of April, there was a continuous bombardment all day of the walls by San Romano, and a tower was razed to the ground by the bombardment, with several yards of wall.
This was the time when those in the city, and also those in the fleet, began to be afraid, since we feared that they intended to make a general attack on that very day; it was generally believed that Turkish turbans would soon be seen inside the city… Now that such a great part of the wall was destroyed by the bombardment, everyone considered himself lost, seeing that in a few days they had broken down such a fine stretch of wall; in fact, I tell you, that if on this day the Turks had been willing to make an attack on the walls with only ten thousand men, without any doubt they would have succeeded in getting into the city, and would have taken it, and we would have lost it very cheaply…and the Venetians set about making good and strong repairs where they were needed at the broken walls. These repairs were made with barrels filled with stones and earth, and behind them there was made a very wide ditch with a dam at the end of it, which was covered with strips of vine and other layers of branches drenched with water to make them solid, so that it was as strong as the wall had been. There was no need to be afraid of the Turks any longer in that place.
But still these evil Turks did not cease at any hour of the day or the night bombarding the gate called San Romano, where the repairs had been made, with all their force: their whole strength was concentrated on this gate, with shots from their great cannon, which had a circumference of fifteen palme, from their other cannon, and also from great numbers of guns, countless bows and many hand guns which continually fired at those who were making the
repairs…” Barbaro notes the sheer monstrous size of the largest cannons to portray their destructive nature, and acknowledges the presence of the many smaller ones as well. Barbaro also mentions that once the first few walls were destroyed, people were genuinely afraid, which shows how much trust the Byzantines put in their walls at that time, and reflects how great of a role their walls played in their defenses. The fact also reflects how reliable the walls have been in the past, and so there was generally no need for concern because they were had been so successful, unless they were destroyed like in this case. Most importantly, however, Barbaro notes that the Ottomans chose specifically to focus on the gates of San Romano, which he mentioned was the weakest point, which gives insight as to how effectively the Ottomans used tactics and strategy to get the most out of their most useful weapon. 2.4 Conclusion for this wall: The stone and brick walls were eventually unable to withstand the constant barrage of cannon-fire, a combination of the forces of gunpowder and metal. Though they served good use and were in commission a long time, Constantinople’s walls were eventually rendered obsolete with the invention of the cannon and its use by the Ottoman Turks.
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