On 22 April 1453 the defenders of Constantinople looked down at their harbour and saw Ottoman ships inside it. The chain was intact. So how did they get in?
Overland. On that, every source agrees.
Rewind. On 2 April the defenders had stretched a chain across the Golden Horn, ten ships guarding it. (It has its own story.) On 20 April the Ottoman fleet attacked and failed.
Mehmed answered the next night.
Nicolò Barbaro, an Italian eyewitness, describes a path cleared and levelled from the shore up the hill beyond Pera, laid with greased timbers. Smaller ships first, then 15 to 20 bigger ones. Doukas and Kritovoulos add the detail you'd want in the film: the ships went over with their sails set.
How many? Barbaro says 72. Doukas about 80. Kritovoulos 67. The popular version says 50 to 60.
Which way? Also argued. The popular route climbs from Tophane through Asmalımescit and Tepebaşı to Kasımpaşa: two to three kilometres. The historian Feridun Emecen thinks one night was impossible, and prefers a flatter line from the Beşiktaş side, with the ships prepared long before.
Here's the twist. The ships didn't win the battle. They weren't warships. They served as a portable dock, a bridge and a gun platform, and forced the defenders to guard the harbour walls too. And they demoralised the Byzantines.
So "one night" is probably how it looked from the walls. The plan probably took far longer.
Walk the popular route in daylight on a weekday: from Tophane up the Kumbaracıbaşı slope through Asmalımescit to Tepebaşı, then down to the Kasımpaşa waterfront, where the defenders found a fleet inside their harbour. Say it as you climb: nobody knows if this is the real way.
