During the 1440s, the Ottoman Sultans continued to push back their frontier in Europe. Murad II made his 12 year old son Mehmet king, but he had to be called back in 1444 to confront the Hungarian-Wallachian army at Varna (more about them later). In the Battle of Varna, Murad II won a decisive victory that included the death of the young King of Poland. But the most lasting effect on world history was that, in these battles against Hungary, the Turks observed their first gunpowder firearms in operation.
Gunpowder had been used for very simple cannons, if they can even be called that, as early as the mid 1300s. By the 1440s, soldiers could use the arquebus, a simple gun that we can recognize: wooden stock, long metal barrel. The matchlock trigger wasn’t added until about 1475, but the basic arquebus was an effective personal weapon even without it, as long as the soldier didn’t blow himself up with it.
The Janissary Corps (or Ocak, in Turkish) had been rebuilt after some years of Ottoman civil war. The devşirme resumed once the government was stable again in 1413, so by this time it even had men growing old in its service. Mehmet II had several Grand Viziers who had been devşirme children in the elite Palace school. Until the Turks saw guns in action, their best warriors were still using bows, but they became early adopters in spite of how messy the black powder could make the Janissary’s sharp red uniform.
When young Mehmet II resumed control, he felt a great religious duty to overthrow the Greek Christians of Constantinople. The city was still a very sad place, suffering from low population and depressed economy. It had been paying tribute, but Mehmet decided to make it his new capital. The last Emperor tried to make another tribute-peace deal, but Mehmet rejected it. And through his father’s attempts to conquer the city, he had learned what needed to be done.
Just north of the city, the Turks built a fortress on the European side of the Bosphorus Strait, which is effectively a river, with wooded hills on both sides, leading to the Black Sea. There was an ancient fortress on the Anatolian side, which they seized and rebuilt. Its new twin on the European side went up in record time, less than six months. They called it the Rumeli fortress, since Rum still signified Europe to them. The two fortresses, the Anadolu and the Rumeli, effectively cut the neck of the Strait. The official name of the new fortress, in fact, was the Throat-Cutter.
The fortresses were both armed with the largest cannons Mehmet II could buy. Any ship that did not stop when commanded was shot and sunk. A Venetian ship took the dare soon after the fortress was in operation, and yep, it was sunk. Surviving sailors were beheaded, and the captain’s body set up as a warning scarecrow. With the twin fortresses and cannons, the Turks controlled the Black Sea and could put Constantinople in an effective chokehold.
With the fortresses complete, Mehmet II’s siege of Constantinople began in 1452. The Byzantine Emperor had repaired his formidable walls as well as he could, and even in their decayed state they were able to turn back the Turkish army. Then a rogue Hungarian armorer showed up.
Orban first offered the Emperor that he could cast the largest cannon known to the world. He named his fee and explained how much metal it would require. But the city of Constantinople could no longer afford the best defenses. The Emperor turned him away, probably not realizing that Orban’s loyalties were not strong enough to send him back to serve his European homeland. Instead, Orban crossed over to the Turks.
The bombard technology of the time had been developed in Germany’s iron-working regions. It involved welding long iron bars to iron rings, with the goal of creating one solid round barrel of iron. When it didn’t work, the explosion inside burst the barrel, killing everyone nearby. They could also cast bronze, probably using lost-wax technique also used for bells. Bronze was not as strong, though.
We no longer have the bombard Orban made for Mehmet, but there are surviving bombards from the same period. They are quite different, as you’d expect in a time when each one was its own invention and no standard had emerged. They have names, like ships: Pumhart von Steyr is short and broad, Dulle Griet looks a bit like a spyglass, and the cast-bronze Faule Gret is even shorter and broader. But we do still have an Ottoman bombard made not long after Orban’s work, and based on it. The Dardanelles Gun looks like a very long set of barrels.
Orban’s bombard was manufactured at Edirne, the Ottoman capital on the European side, and transported by a massive oxen train to its position in the siege. It shot large stones at the ancient walls; it could shoot really large stones harder and faster, from out of reach of any defenders’ crossbow bolts. Once it began to bombard the walls, it was only a matter of time.