The event put an end to the semi-independent Genoese lordship that the Gattilusio family had established in the northeastern Aegean since the mid-14th century, and heralded the beginning of the First Ottoman–Venetian War in the following year.

Despite promises, many of the defenders were executed, and a large part of the inhabitants were carried off as slaves, as servants in the Sultan's palace, or to help repopulate Constantinople.

[2] The Gattilusi also ruled Old Phocaea on the Anatolian mainland and the town of Ainos in Thrace, but by the 1430s, with the precipitate decline of Byzantine power, they had also seized Thasos and Samothrace.

[8][9] This did not prevent the Sultan from seizing Old Phocaea in December, or attacking the domains of Domenico's cousin, Dorino II Gattilusio, in January 1456: Mehmed himself captured Ainos, while his admiral Yunus Pasha took the islands of Imbros and Samothrace.

[9][10] Lemnos, ruled by Domenico's younger brother Niccolò Gattilusio, was also lost when the local population rebelled in spring 1456 and called for Ottoman aid.

[15][16] In late 1458, Niccolò Gattilusio, who had found refuge on Lesbos, deposed and strangled his older brother, usurping rule over the island.

[17][18] In preparation for the upcoming campaign, the Sultan began an expansion of his fleet, and initiated extensive works around Constantinople and the Dardanelles, in order to secure an impregnable base of operations for his navy.

[19][20] In the meantime, the Ottomans succeeded in recovering the islands lost to Trevisan (1459) and in subduing the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea (1460), cementing their control over mainland Greece.

Three were emplaced at the soap works near the city wall, one at St. Nicholas, one at St. Kali, and one in the suburbs opposite a barbican tower, held by a monk and a Knight Hospitaller.

He did indeed hold for five days against repeated Ottoman attacks, although the Turks once succeeded in climbing the walls and carrying off an Aragonese flag as a trophy.

With suspicions circulating that Luchino and the castle commander had shown Mahmud Pasha the weak sections of the wall, discipline broke down completely.

The soldiers broke into warehouses and looted them, becoming drunk with wine and consuming provisions that would have allowed the castle to hold for an entire year.

[31][32] Mahmud Pasha drew up a document outlining the terms of surrender, and swore by his sword and by the Sultan's head that their lives would be safe.

[1][36] Although the lives of all people on the island had been guaranteed, some 300 Italian soldiers were executed as pirates by being cut in half—the Sultan reportedly remarked that he thus honoured Mahmud Pasha's promise to "spare their heads".

[1][36] The civilian population was not harmed at first, but on 17 September, the inhabitants of Mytilene were ordered to parade in front of the Sultan and three clerks, who recorded their names.

Some 800 boys and girls were selected for service in the Sultan's palace, while the remainder of the population was divided into three: the poorer and most frail of the inhabitants were allowed to remain in their homes, but the strongest and healthiest were sold off in auction as slaves to the Janissaries, and the third portion, including the island's nobility, were shipped off to repopulate Constantinople.

[33][36][37] Altogether, some 10,000 inhabitants of the island were violently uprooted from their homes, some of whom perished in the overcrowded ships conveying them to Constantinople and the slave markets.

But although the Venetians captured Lemnos in 1464, followed by Imbros, Tenedos, and Samothrace, these conquests proved ephemeral, as they were either recaptured by the Turks or abandoned at war's end.

In April 1464, the Venetians under Orsato Giustiniano laid siege to Mytilene, but were forced to withdraw after six weeks of fruitless attacks, taking as many of the Christian inhabitants with them as they could.