The Constantinople campaign has been raging for so long that the number of corpses in the city's corners is unknown; they started to rot before they could be dealt with.
Both warring parties only cleared the bodies in front of them, while those in the corners of the city and inside residents' houses were neglected.
With the arrival of the scorching summer heat, Constantinople in August was shrouded in a stench so oppressive that it was terrifying.
Artillery fire still roared, leaving only ruins and remnants to speak of the past. To conquer this city, the Russians had already paid too high a price.
Daily casualty reports? Menshikov had long since stopped looking. The toll of thousands of casualties each day had numbed him over the course of several months.
"The Constantinople meat grinder" had become known worldwide; wherever there were Europeans, the brutality of the war spread.
