On April 6, 1453, the Turkish army approached the walls of the Vasilidos of the Cities and took positions at a distance of no more than 1,200 meters from them. Before the start of the attacks, Sultan Muhammad II, as reported by the Turkophile Critobulus Imbrios, asked the emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos to hand over the city to him, but he received the first negative answer. After this he ordered the complete siege of the City. The Albanian expatriate Zaganos Pasha took command of the troops in Peran and even built a bridge joining the shores of the Bosphorus. The northern sector, from the shores of Keratio to the gate of Harisi, was taken over by Karatza Pasha.
In the center stood Mohammed, together with his 15,000 elite janissaries and tough guards, and on his right was Khalil Pasha. The front from the valley of the Lykos River to the Golden Gate was taken over by the commander of the Asian troops Isaac Pasha together with his European counterpart Mahmud. With this provision the Turks got even closer to the walls. Muhammad pitched his luxurious tent 350 meters from the moat. The Theodosian wall of the City had three fortified precincts. The second, the middle wall, was the enclosure manned by the defenders. The length of the land walls reached 6,808 meters.
Having completed the siege of the City, Muhammad ordered his artillery to open fire against the walls. For 12 consecutive days, the Turkish cannons did not stop bombarding the ancient walls of the City, causing them great damage. The Duke even mentions that a Hungarian taught the Turks the necessary shooting regulations. Thanks to his advice, the Turkish gunners succeeded in knocking down a tower and the wall next to it. In vain the besieged tried to minimize the destructive effects of the shots by hanging sacks filled with wool from the walls.
The results of the "Urbanos bombardment" shots were particularly devastating. . Fortunately that huge gun blew up, from an overcharge of gunpowder, after a few shots, killing all his servants. But he was repaired and then put in seven shots every day. Seeing the damage to the wall, Mohammed attempted, on April 18, a first attack against it. In the meantime the besieged had taken up positions on the walls and were waiting for him. The Venetians and the Cretans had taken over the guarding of the sea walls and the wall of Blacherna.
From there to Kerkoporta, the responsibility of the defense had been assumed by the bishop Leonardos, with 200 Italian mercenaries and some Genoese. The rest took up positions along the land wall, with the elite Greeks and Genoese at the gate of Agios Romanos. And the sea wall of Propontida was guarded by 50 archers. A reserve force had also been formed, under Loukas Notaras, with a strength of 500 or 700 men, whose mission was to hasten to reinforce the sector of the walls that was threatened each time.
The first big raid
On the night of April 18-19, Muhammad ordered his troops to attack. Their target was the so-called "crossing", that is, the previously repaired part of the wall, which had suffered serious damage from the bombardment. The breach had been reached near the gate of Agios Romanos, i.e. at the most sensitive point of the defensive precinct. Suddenly the night silence was broken by the sounds of hundreds of drums. Thousands of men rushed forth with horrible clamor against the least defenseless. But the latter immediately got up and prepared to face the raging verses.
And then a fierce battle began, hand to hand. The Turks, equipped with hooks, attempted to demolish the temporary fortifications of the Greeks in order to enter the city through the rift. Others placed ladders on the ruins of the wall and through them tried to break in. Immediately, Constantine and Justinian rushed to the scene of the attack with their elite fighters and reserve forces. Then the battle became general.
Justinian's heavily armored men engaged the Turks from the cluster. Thanks to their strong armor, they suffered nothing from the Turkish missiles. On the contrary, they themselves were lying in front of them a multitude of corpses of enemies. In fact, when the Greek reserve force arrived, they all counterattacked together and forced the Turks to flee shamefully, pursuing them outside the "crossroads". Soon it dawned. This battle, the first serious attempt by the Turks to invade, had lasted throughout the night and had ended in their complete defeat.
The Venetian Barmaro reports that the Turks left behind at least 200 dead. Obviously, their losses, including the wounded, would have been much greater. On the contrary, the amyndores did not suffer any loss! However, contrary to Barbaro's narrative, with which the narratives of the other chroniclers more or less agree, the Anonymous Muscovite, the author of the Slavonic Chronicle, gives a completely different account of the battle.
The Slavonic Chronicle
He writes:"At noon the Turks fired the second one through the cannon, but Justinian, who had similarly prepared this cannon, fired against the Turkish cannon, and saw after such success that the part containing the gunpowder exploded. Then Muhammad became enraged and shouted yagma-giagma, that is raid, raid. At the same time his army repeated this cry and rushed to the attack by land and by sea. All the besieged on the other side hastened to the walls so that only the patriarch, the bishops and the clergy remained in the city to join the churches.
"The emperor incessantly went through the whole City of mourning, exorcising the leaders and the people universally to endure bravely, not to lose their zeal and hopes, and ordered the bells to be rung throughout the City. On each side the dead fell from the walls like spikes, and the blood flowed like a river. And the dead of the Turks served them as bridges and ladders." The Slavonic Chronicle also states that in this first attack the dead of the Turks exceeded 35,000, a rather excessive number, while the Greeks and their allies reached approximately 2,000.
However the accuracy of the information is checked on the occasion of a serious error it mentions. During the period of the siege there was no patriarch on the Ecumenical throne of Constantinople. A few days later the Turks, after first occupying Prince Island and destroying everything living and inanimate they found, attacked the sea wall, knowing that the defenders, due to their small number, were unable to cover the entire defensive enclosure. And there, however, the Turks were repulsed with serious losses.