Topic summary
Fall of Trebizond
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Trebizond (1461).
Negotiations
Miller has collected two Turkish traditions about the fall of Trebizond. One tells how the citizens, expecting an army to arrive before dawn to force the Sultan to lift the siege, agreed to surrender at cock-crow. However, on that occasion, the roosters crowed in the small hours of the night, whereupon the Turks forced the city-dwellers to keep their word. The other describes how a girl, dressed in black, held out in the tower of the palace, and when all was lost, leaped to her death from its heights; consequently, that tower was called Kara kızın sarayı ("The Black Girl's palace").