VENETIAN GRAIN SHIP SUNK BY THE SULTAN’S GUNS IN THE BOSPORUS

CONSTANTINOPLE, 1452-11-26. — A Venetian merchant vessel commanded by Antonio Rizzo has been sunk in the Bosporus by cannon discharged from Sultan Mehmed’s new fortress on the European shore. The ship, carrying grain from the Black Sea, attempted to pass without submitting to the fortress’s demand that vessels stop. Its destruction gives terrible substance to the Sultan’s claim to command this narrow waterway. What might previously have been reckoned a demand for dues, or a threat intended to compel obedience, has now been enforced against a ship of a great trading republic. For Constantinople, the matter concerns not distant merchandise alone, but the passage by which much of its provision must come.

The essential circumstance is plain: a merchantman has been brought down by artillery mounted on the shore, rather than taken in a contest between fleets. The guns of Rumeli Hisarı stand where the Bosporus narrows, opposite an older Ottoman fortress on the Asiatic bank. A vessel descending towards Constantinople must therefore pass between positions held by the Sultan. Rizzo’s ship did not stop as required, and the battery fired upon it. The destruction demonstrates that neither the commercial character of a vessel nor the standing of Venice is sufficient protection against the order to submit.

Rumeli Hisarı is itself a work of this year. Its construction began in the spring and proceeded with extraordinary speed through the summer, placing a powerful new fortress upon the European bank within a few months. The Sultan’s designation, “Boğazkesen,” bears the double sense of “strait-cutter” and “throat-cutter.” Those words are no idle flourish beside the wreck of a grain carrier. The fortress was not raised merely to shelter a garrison. Its situation gives its guns command of passing traffic, while the older work across the water supplies a second Ottoman hold upon the channel.

The immediate question for merchants is whether the Bosporus remains a passage governed by customary intercourse between ports, or has become a gate which opens only upon the Sultan’s permission. The standing requirement is that ships stop and pay the prescribed dues. Such a demand bears upon every master who must calculate the hazards and charges of a voyage. Grain, freight and the vessel itself are all exposed when compliance is disputed. Today’s loss is therefore larger in consequence than the value of one cargo: it establishes that the penalty for refusing the fortress’s summons may be the destruction of the means by which the cargo is carried.

The Black Sea trade joins distant places to this narrow passage. Venetian merchants conduct business at Tana, near the mouth of the Don, while Genoese commerce extends through Caffa and other settlements. Their ships bring grain and other merchandise into the Mediterranean system of exchange. Constantinople stands immediately below the disputed gate and depends upon supplies arriving by water as well as upon such resources as remain within reach of the city. Any interruption in the descent of grain vessels consequently touches both the merchant’s account and the household’s bread. The cannon shot has made the distinction between a military question and a commercial one exceedingly difficult to maintain.

No trustworthy general alteration in grain prices or freight charges can yet be set down upon the strength of this day’s occurrence. Nor would it be prudent to declare that every vessel has ceased to pass. The fact established is narrower, but grave enough: a ship which disregarded the Ottoman requirement has been sunk. A merchant arranging another cargo must now reckon with that demonstrated danger. A master may submit to inspection and payment, await clearer instructions, or decline the passage; each course carries its own burden. The uncertainty lies not in whether the fortress can strike, but in the terms under which trade will henceforth be suffered to proceed.

For Emperor Constantine, the new fortress has already presented a difficulty beyond the strength of ordinary remonstrance. The imperial dominion about Constantinople is greatly reduced, while Ottoman power surrounds the city on land and now presses more closely upon its northern water approach. The opposite fortress was established under Sultan Bayezid, Mehmed’s grandfather; the new European work completes a disposition which one bank alone could not provide. The Emperor cannot treat the sinking merely as a disagreement between a Venetian captain and an Ottoman officer. The same guns stand across a principal route by which supplies, ships and assistance may reach his capital.

Venice, for its part, must weigh the loss of a ship and cargo against the much wider interests of its merchants. Its commerce reaches through waters and ports where agreements with rulers are as necessary as stout hulls and armed crews. A violent answer to the sinking would have consequences beyond the Bosporus; acquiescence would leave the Sultan’s command conspicuously enforced against Venetian shipping. No resolution of the Senate can yet be reported here in answer to this occurrence. The interval required for intelligence and instructions is itself a disadvantage to masters already at sea, who must decide whether to obey a demand before their government can determine its reply.

The Genoese also have reason to attend closely, although the vessel destroyed was Venetian. Their settlement at Galata faces Constantinople across the Golden Horn, and their Black Sea possessions depend upon maritime communication through the same strait. Rivalry between the two trading peoples does not provide a second entrance to the sea. A shore battery which can compel one republic’s vessel to halt can present the same demand to another. Yet common exposure does not establish a common policy. It would be premature to report an agreement among the merchants, the republics or the Emperor where none is presently known.

The next passages through the Bosporus will therefore be watched for what they disclose of the Sultan’s purpose and the obedience he expects. The sinking does not by itself establish that all commerce is forbidden, nor that an assault upon Constantinople has begun. It does establish that the new fortress is an instrument in use, not merely a warning built in stone. Until the conditions of passage are made secure, every grain ship descending from the Black Sea must approach these guns with its master’s livelihood and its crew’s lives at hazard. The city’s northern road of provision remains open only under a power which has now shown itself willing to fire.