Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/374

 334 DESTBUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIRE CHAPTEK XVI GENEEAL ASSAULT : COMMENCED BY BASHI-BAZOUKS J THEY AEE DEFEATED ; ANATOLIANS ATTACK — AEE ALSO DEIVEN BACK ; ATTACKS IN OTHEE PLACES FAIL ; JANISSAEIES ATTACK ; KEEKOPOETA INCIDENT J JUSTINIANI WOUNDED AND EETIEES J EMPEBOE'S ALAEM J STOCKADE CAPTUEED ; DEATH OF CONSTANTINE : HIS CHAEACTEE J CAPTUEE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. «enerai -^ HE g enera, l assault commenced between one and two hours assault after midnight on the morning of Tuesday May 29. 1 mences When the signal was given, the city was attacked simul- moining, taneously on all three sides. The orders given by Mahomet ^| 29 ' on the previous day had been strictly obeyed. The ships 1 The question when the general attack began is very much one of apprecia- tion. According to Ducas, Mahomet commenced on the Sunday evening to make a general attack and during the night the besieged were not permitted to sleep but were harassed all night and, though in a less active manner, until between four and five of the afternoon of Monday. Phrantzes declares the capture to have been made on the third day of the attack and would thus make it begin on Sunday, but his narrative shows that the general attack began after mid- night of the 28-9th. Barbaro's statement substantially agrees with that of Phrantzes and is that during the whole of the 27th the cannons were discharg- ing their stone balls : tuto el zomo non feze mai altro che bombardar in le puovere mure ; but on p. 51 he says that Mahomet came before the walls to begin the general attack at three hours before day on the 29th. Critobulus makes the general attack begin on the afternoon of the 28th, when the sultan raised his great standard (Crit. lii and lv.). Karl Muller, in his excellent notes to Critobulus, justly remarks that as Barbaro and Phrantzes were in the city their evidence ought to be preferred to that of Critobulus. They both represent the final assault as beginning very early in the morning of the 29th. The state- ments are reconcilable by supposing that the dispositions for a general attack began on the Sunday, but that the actual general assault did not take place until the Tuesday morning. Sad-ud-din says, on the authority of two Turkish contemporaries, that 1 the great victory was on Tuesday, the fifty-first day from the commencement of the war ' (p. 34).