psychologist he is, he knows how to bring his 150,000 men to the highest pitch of their lust for battle, and he makes them a terrible promise, one that to his credit—or discredit—he will keep in every particular. His heralds proclaim that promise to the winds, with the sound of drums and fanfares: “Mahomet swears, by the name of Allah, by the name of Mohammed and the 4,000 prophets, he swears by the soul of his father Sultan Murad, by the heads of his children and by his sword, that after his troops have stormed the city they shall have the right to loot it as they like for three days. Everything to be found within its walls, household goods and possessions, ornaments and jewels, coins and treasure, the men, the women and the children shall belong to the victorious soldiers, and he himself willhave no part in it except for the honour of having conquered this last bulwark of the eastern part of the Roman Empire.”
The soldiers receive this dreadful proclamation with roars of jubilation. The loud noise of it swells like a storm, and the cry of
Allah il Allah
from thousands of voices reaches the frightened city.
Jagma, Jagma
—loot, loot! The word becomes a battle cry, with drums beating, cymbals and fanfares sounding , and by night the camp turns into a festive sea of light. Shuddering, the besieged see, from their walls, how myriads of lights and torches burn in the plain and on the hills as their enemies celebrate victory even before it is won with the sound of trumpets, pipes, drums and tambourines. It is like the cruelly loud ceremony of heathen priests before a sacrifice . But then, at midnight, all the lights are extinguished on orders from Mahomet, and the fervent roars from a thousand throats end abruptly. However, the sudden silence and the oppressive dark weigh down on the distraught listeners even more terribly than the frenetic jubilation of light and noise.
THE LAST MASS IN HAGIA SOPHIA
The besieged citizens do not need anyone to make an announcement, any defector from the enemy camp, to know what lies ahead. They know that orders have been given to storm Byzantium, and presentiments of the monstrous commitment of the Turks and their own monstrous danger loom over the entire city like a storm cloud. Although it is usually split into factions of religious strife, the population gatherstogether in these last hours—as always, only the utmost need creates such a spectacle of earthly unity. So that they will all be aware of what they have to defend—their faith, their great past history, their common culture—the Basileus gives orders for a moving ceremony. At his command, the people all assemble, Orthodox and Catholics, clergy and laymen, children and old men, forming a procession. No one is to stay at home, no one
can
stay at home, from the richest to the poorest they gather devoutly together in that procession to sing the
Kyrie eleison
as they pass through the inner city and then go along the outer walls. The sacred icons and relics are brought from the churches to be carried at the head of the procession, and one of those holy images is hung wherever a breach has been made in the walls, in the hope that it will repel the storming of the city better than earthly weapons. At the same time Emperor Constantine gathers all the senators, the noblemen and the commanders around him, to inspire them with courage in his last speech. He cannot, however, like Mahomet promise them unlimited plunder. But he describes the honour they can win for Christianity and the whole western world if they withstand this last decisive storm, and the danger if they are conquered by those who have come to burn and murder: Mahomet and Constantine both know that this day will determine the course of history for centuries.
Then the last scene begins, one of the most moving in Europe, an unforgettable ecstasy of downfall. Those doomed to death assemble in Hagia Sophia, still the most magnificent cathedral in the world at that time, a
The soldiers receive this dreadful proclamation with roars of jubilation. The loud noise of it swells like a storm, and the cry of
Allah il Allah
from thousands of voices reaches the frightened city.
Jagma, Jagma
—loot, loot! The word becomes a battle cry, with drums beating, cymbals and fanfares sounding , and by night the camp turns into a festive sea of light. Shuddering, the besieged see, from their walls, how myriads of lights and torches burn in the plain and on the hills as their enemies celebrate victory even before it is won with the sound of trumpets, pipes, drums and tambourines. It is like the cruelly loud ceremony of heathen priests before a sacrifice . But then, at midnight, all the lights are extinguished on orders from Mahomet, and the fervent roars from a thousand throats end abruptly. However, the sudden silence and the oppressive dark weigh down on the distraught listeners even more terribly than the frenetic jubilation of light and noise.
THE LAST MASS IN HAGIA SOPHIA
The besieged citizens do not need anyone to make an announcement, any defector from the enemy camp, to know what lies ahead. They know that orders have been given to storm Byzantium, and presentiments of the monstrous commitment of the Turks and their own monstrous danger loom over the entire city like a storm cloud. Although it is usually split into factions of religious strife, the population gatherstogether in these last hours—as always, only the utmost need creates such a spectacle of earthly unity. So that they will all be aware of what they have to defend—their faith, their great past history, their common culture—the Basileus gives orders for a moving ceremony. At his command, the people all assemble, Orthodox and Catholics, clergy and laymen, children and old men, forming a procession. No one is to stay at home, no one
can
stay at home, from the richest to the poorest they gather devoutly together in that procession to sing the
Kyrie eleison
as they pass through the inner city and then go along the outer walls. The sacred icons and relics are brought from the churches to be carried at the head of the procession, and one of those holy images is hung wherever a breach has been made in the walls, in the hope that it will repel the storming of the city better than earthly weapons. At the same time Emperor Constantine gathers all the senators, the noblemen and the commanders around him, to inspire them with courage in his last speech. He cannot, however, like Mahomet promise them unlimited plunder. But he describes the honour they can win for Christianity and the whole western world if they withstand this last decisive storm, and the danger if they are conquered by those who have come to burn and murder: Mahomet and Constantine both know that this day will determine the course of history for centuries.
Then the last scene begins, one of the most moving in Europe, an unforgettable ecstasy of downfall. Those doomed to death assemble in Hagia Sophia, still the most magnificent cathedral in the world at that time, a
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