Great Chain
The Great Chain was a giant chain at the entrance of the Golden Horn in Constantinople, which was pulled from the Galata Tower, preventing ships from entering or leaving the inlet.
History
There were three notable times when the chain across the Horn was either broken or circumvented.
- In the 10th century, the Kievan Rus' dragged their longships out of the Bosphorus, around Galata, and relaunched them in the Horn. However, the Byzantines defeated them with Greek Fire.
- In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, Venetian ships were able to break the chain with a ram.
- In 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, having failed in his attempt to break the chain with brute force, instead used the same tactic as the Rus', towing his ships across Galata into the estuary over greased logs.
Assassin's Database Entry
Built some time around 1000CE, the Great Chain was an ingenious - if slightly mad - defensive measure. Anchored to two large towers and strung across the mouth of the Golden Horn, the chain's primary purpose was to prevent enemy ships from sailing up the waterway and attacking the sensitive and poorly defended ports of Constantinople's interior.
As low tech as this sounds, the chain performed admirably on more than a few occasions for more than 400 years, and in 1453, it so vexed the Sultan Mehmet II that he was forced to improvise an even stranger plan to circumvent the Byzantine defenses: he pulled his warships over the hills of Galata and slid them on greased tracks into the Golden Horn, far upriver from the chain. It just goes to show that crazy is often the only way to beat crazy.
Gallery
-
Ezio Auditore standing beside the chain mechanism.
-
Ezio aiming at the bomb placed near the chain.
-
Ezio escaping the blast.
-
A small part of the chain.
