The siege of Trebizond was the successful siege of the city of Trebizond, capital of the Empire of Trebizond, by the Ottomans under Sultan Mehmed II, which ended on 15 August 1461. The siege culminated a lengthy campaign on the Ottoman side, which involved coordinated but independent manoeuvres by a large army and navy. The Trapezuntine defenders had relied on a network of alliances, which would provide them with support and a workforce when the Ottomans began their siege. Still, it failed when Emperor David Megas Komnenos most needed it.
The Ottoman land campaign, which was the more challenging part, involved intimidating the ruler of Sinope into surrendering his realm, a march lasting more than a month through uninhabited mountainous wilderness, several minor battles with different opponents and finally the siege of Trebizond. The combined Ottoman forces blockaded the fortified city by land and sea until Emperor David agreed to surrender his capital city on terms. In return for his tiny realm, he would be given properties elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, where he, his family, and his courtiers would live until their execution some two years later. For the rest of the inhabitants of Trebizond, The Sultan divided them into three groups. One group was forced to leave Trebizond and resettle in Constantinople. Another group became slaves either of the Sultan or of his dignitaries. The last group was left to live in the countryside surrounding Trebizond but not within its walls. Some 800 male children became recruits for his Janissaries, the elite Ottoman military unit, which required them to convert to Islam.William Miller, Trebizond: The last Greek Empire of the Byzantine Era: 1204–1461, 1926 (Chicago: Argonaut, 1969), p. 106
With the last members of the Palaiologan dynasty having fled the Despotate of the Morea the previous year for Italy, Trebizond had become the last outpost of Byzantine civilization, which came to an end with Trebizond's fall.As pointed out by Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, second edition (Cambridge: University Press, 1993), with Trebizond died the last vestiges of the Roman Empire p. 401 "It was the end of the free Greek world," wrote Steven Runciman, who then noted that those Greeks still not under Ottoman rule lived "under lords of an alien race and an alien form of Christianity. Only among the wild villages of Mani, in the southeastern Peloponnese, into whose rugged mountains no Turk ventured to penetrate, was there left any semblance of liberty."Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople: 1453 (Cambridge: University Press, 1969), p. 176
Background The sources differ in their explanation of Mehmed's actual motivations for attacking Trebizond. William Miller quotes Kritoboulos as stating that Emperor David of Trebizond's "reluctance to pay tribute and the intermarriages with Hassan and the Georgian court provoked the Sultan to invade the Empire."Miller, Trebizond, p. 100 On the other hand, Halil İnalcık cites a passage from the 15th-century Ottoman historian Kemal Pasha-zade, who wrote:Inalcik, "Mehmed the Conqueror (1432–1481) and His Time", Speculum, 35 (1960), p. 422
By the 1450s, the Ottoman Empire either occupied or had established hegemony over much of the territories the Byzantine Empire held before the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204. Many of Mehmed's campaigns in that period can be explained by assuming he was taking possession of the bits and fragments that he still did not rule directly: Enos fell after a lightning march in the winter of 1456;Miller, "The Gattilusj of Lesbos (1355–1462)", Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 22 (1913), pp. 431f after showing unusual patience with the surviving Palaiologoi ruling the Morea, who spent more time fighting each other than paying their tribute, Mehmed at last conquered all but one Byzantine fortress in that peninsula when Mistra fell on 29 May 1460;Nicol, Last Centuries, pp. 396–398 Amasria was taken from the Genoese around the same time;Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time, edited by William C. Hickman and translated by Ralph Manheim (Princeton: University Press, 1978), pp. 180f except for several islands in the Aegean Sea under the rule of various Latin lords, Trebizond was the one remaining piece of the former Eastern Roman Empire not under Mehmed's direct rule.Nicol, Last Centuries, p. 401
Emperor John IV of Trebizond was aware of the threat Mehmed II posed for him at least as early as February 1451, when the Byzantine diplomat George Sphrantzes arrived in Trebizond seeking a bride for his emperor, Constantine XI. John had happily related to the visiting diplomat the news of the death of Sultan Murad II and that Mehmed II's youth meant that his empire could last longer and be blessed. Sphrantzes, however, was taken aback and explained to him that Mehmed's youth and seeming friendship were only ploys and that Mehmed was more of a threat to both monarchies than his father had been.Sphranzes, ch. 30. translated in Marios Philippides, The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle by George Sphrantzes, 1401–1477 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1980), pp. 58ff
Trebizond could rely on its substantial fortifications to defend itself. While solid walls protected it on all sides, and along the eastern and western walls, two deep ravines augmented the defenses, parts of the city lay outside them, such as the Meydan or marketplace, and the Genoese and Venetian quarters. These walls had withstood many previous sieges: in 1223, when the city walls had not been as extensive as in the mid-15th century, the defenders had defeated a Seljuk assault; not more than a few decades earlier, Shaykh Junayd had attempted to take the city by storm, yet with only a few soldiers the Emperor John had been able to hold him off.Rustam Shukurov, "The campaign of Shaykh Djunayd Safawi against Trebizond (1456 AD/860 AH)", Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 17 (1993), pp. 127-140
Nevertheless, John reached out to make alliances. Donald Nicol lists some of them: the emirs of Sinope and Karaman, and the Christian kings of Georgia.Nicol, Last Centuries, p. 407 His brother and successor David is thought to have commissioned Michael Aligheri—and possibly the questionable Ludovico da Bologna—to travel to Western Europe in 1460 searching for friends and allies.This embassy is described in Anthony Bryer, "Ludovico da Bologna and the Georgian and Anatolian Embassy of 1460–1461", Bedi Kartlisa, 19–20 (1965), pp. 178–198 But the most powerful and reliable ally of the Emperors of Trebizond was the ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu (or White Sheep Turkomen), Uzun Hasan. The grandson of a princess of the Grand Komnenoi, Uzun Hasan had made the Aq Qoyunlu into the most powerful tribe of Turkmen by defeating their rivals the Black Sheep; he had heard of the beauty of the Emperor John's daughter Theodora Komnene (or Despina Khatun), and in return for her hand, Uzun Hasan pledged himself to protect her home city with his men, his money, and his person.
In 1456, Ottoman troops under Hizir Pasha assaulted Trebizond. According to Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Hizir raided the countryside, even penetrating the Meydan of Trebizond and capturing altogether about two thousand people. The city was deserted due to plague and likely to fall; John made his submission and agreed to pay an annual tribute of 2,000 gold pieces in return for Hizir freeing the captives he had taken. John sent his brother David to ratify the treaty with Mehmed II, which he did in 1458, but the Sultan raised the tribute to 3,000 gold pieces.Chalkokondyles 9.34; translated by Anthony Kaldellis, The Histories (Cambridge: Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2014), vol. 2 p. 313. Miller, Trebizond, p. 87
A tribute of 3,000 gold pieces each year must have proven too much for the revenues of the Empire because either John or David approached their relative by marriage Uzun Hasan about transferring the allegiance of Trebizond from the Ottomans to him. Uzun Hasan agreed to this and sent envoys to Mehmed II. However, these envoys not only asked for the tribute to be transferred to the Aq Qoyunlu, they demanded on behalf of their master that Mehmed resume payment of tribute Mehmed's grandfather was said to have sent to the Aq Qoyunlu.Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, pp. 190f The sources disagree on exactly how Mehmed II answered, but both versions were ominous. In one version, he told the envoys, "it would not be long before they learned what they ought to expect from him."Chalkokondyles, 9.70; translated by Kaldellis, The Histories, vol. 2 p. 353 In the other, Mehmed's response was, "Go in peace, and next year I will bring these things with me, and I will clear up the debt."Doukas 45.10; translated by Harry J. Magoulias, Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1975), p. 257
Mehmed advances
In the spring of 1461, Mehmed fitted out a fleet comprising 200 galleys and ten warships. At the same time, Mehmed crossed the Dardanelles to Prusa with the Army of Europe and assembled the Army of Asia; one authority estimates the combined force consisted of 80,000 infantry and 60,000 cavalry.John Freely, The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmed II, Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (New York: Overlook Press, 2009), p. 67 According to Doukas, as word of the Sultan's preparations circulated the inhabitants of places as far apart as Lykostomion (or Chilia Veche) at the mouth of the Danube, Caffa in the Crimea, Trebizond and Sinope, and the islands of the Aegean Sea as far south as Chios, Lesbos, and Rhodes, whether or not they had acknowledged his hegemony, all worried they would be his target.Doukas, 45.16; translated by Magoulias, Decline and Fall, p. 258 This appears to have been Mehmed's intent, for when later asked by a confidante where this force was destined, the Sultan scowled and said, "Be certain if I knew one hair of my beard knew my secret, I would pull it out and consign it to the flames."Doukas, 45.15; translated by Magoulias, Decline and Fall, p. 258
Sinope surrenders Commanding the army, Mehmed led his land troops towards Ancyra, stopping to visit the tombs of his father and ancestors. He had written the ruler of Sinope, Kemâleddin Ismâil Bey, to send his son Hasan to Ancyra, and the young man was already there when Mehmed reached the city and received his overlord graciously.Babinger, Mehmed, pp. 191 Mehmed made his interests quickly known: according to Doukas, he informed Hasan, "Tell your father that I want Sinope, and if he surrenders the city freely, I will gladly reward him with the province of Philippopolis. But if he refuses, then I will come quickly."Doukas, 45.17; translated by Magoulias, Decline and Fall, p. 258 Despite the extensive fortifications of the city and its 400 cannon crewed by 2,000 artillerymen, Ismail Bey caved into Mehmed's demands and accepted the lands Mehmed gave him in Thrace. There, he wrote a work on ritual prescriptions of Islam called Huulviyat-i Sultan and died in 1479.Babinger, Mehmed, pp. 192
Mehmed had many reasons for seizing Sinope. It was well-situated and had good harbors. It also lay between Mehmed's territories and his ultimate objective, the city of Trebizond. Kritoboulos states that one major reason Mehmed took it for his own was that Uzun Hasan might seize it himself, and Mehmed knew "from many indications that he was plotting [to do that] in every way, and determined to seize it."Critobulus, IV.22–23; translated by Charles T. Riggs, The History of Mehmed the Conqueror (Princeton: University Press, 1954), pp.167f
Marching into Anatolia