Siege of Negroponte (1470)

Siege of Negroponte
Date 10 July – 5 August 1470 Location Chalcis, Euboea Result Ottoman victory, Negroponte captured
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire	Republic of Venice
Commanders and leaders
Mehmed II	Paolo Erizzo  Nicolò Canal
Casualties and losses
77,000	6,000

The Siege of Negroponte was fought between the forces of the Ottoman Empire, led by Sultan Mehmed II in person, and the garrison of the Venetian colony of Negroponte (Chalcis), the capital of the Venetian possession of Euboea in Central Greece. It lasted for almost a month, and despite great Ottoman casualties ended in the capture of the city and the island of Euboea by the Ottomans.

Defeat of the relief fleet

The leader of the Venetian relief force was Nicolò Canal, known as "a man of letters rather than a fighter, a learned man readier to read books than direct the affairs of the sea."^[1] His fleet had 53 galleys and 18 smaller ships, a fifth of the Ottoman fleet's size. He arrived three weeks into the siege, lost his nerve and withdrew to Samothrace, asking for more help, but only Papal indulgences arrived. Canal could have broken the siege if he had attacked the Pontoon bridge the Turks depended on. Wind and tide were in his favour and the Venetians were sailing 15 knots towards it, but he lost his nerve and withdrew. He took his now mutinous fleet back to Venice and Negropont surrendered the next day.

Aftermath

Upon entering the city, the Turks committed massacres against the inhabitants. The men were slaughtered, Christian boys were kidnapped and raised as Islamic janissaries, women were taken as harems, Greek citizens were enslaved and Italian soldiers were flayed alive and impaled on wooden stakes. More than 6,000 Italians and Greeks died in defense of Negroponte. Only 30 known survivors made it back to Venice, consisting of 15 women, 12 children, 3 men. The garrison commander, bailo Paolo Erizzo, was sawed in half. Canal was tried, fined, stripped of his rank and exiled to Portogruaro.

References

Major sieges by the Ottoman Empire by century
14th	1326 Prusa 1331 Nicaea 1333 Nicomedia 1360s Adrianople 1385 Sofia 1393 Tarnovo
15th	1422 Constantinople 1422–30 Thessalonica 1448 Svetigrad 1453 Constantinople 1456 Belgrade 1461 Trebizond 1462 Siege of Mytilene 1470 Negroponte 1478 Scutari 1480 Rhodes 1481 Otranto
16th	1517 Cairo 1521 Belgrade 1522 Rhodes 1529 Algiers 1529 Vienna 1532 Güns (Kőszeg) 1532 Maribor 1534 Tunis 1534 Baghdad 1537 Klis 1537 Corfu 1538 Diu 1538 Aden 1539 Castelnuovo 1541 Buda 1543 Nice 1543 Esztergom 1547 Van 1551 Tripoli 1552 Muscat 1552 Hormuz 1552 Temesvár 1552 Eger 1556 Oran 1563 Oran 1565 Malta 1566 Szigetvar 1574 Tunis 1578 Gvozdansko 1593 Sisak 1596 Eger
17th	1638 Baghdad 1663 Uyvar 1664 Novi Zrin 1648–69 Candia 1672 Kamenets 1683 Vienna
18th–19th	1739 Belgrade 1825–26 Missolonghi
Ottoman defeats shown in italics.

Coordinates: 38°28′N 23°16′E / 38.467°N 23.267°E / 38.467; 23.267