78
1000–1500
By 1453, the once-great Byzantine
Empire, which had endured for
around 1,000 years, consisted
of little more than the city of
Constantinople, and small pieces of
land in the Peloponnese and along
the southern shore of the Black Sea.
The Ottoman Turks had been seizing Byzantine lands since the
late 13th century, and had conquered Anatolia, overrun the
Balkan provinces, and were surging towards the Danube and
Constantinople. Despite this threat to one of Christendom’s
great historic cities, the Byzantines responded weakly; even
after a Polish–Hungarian crusade ended in disaster at the Black
Sea port of Varna in 1444, they sent little aid.
In 1451, a new young sultan, Mehmed II, ascended to the
Ottoman throne. He was determined to take Constantinople,
which, situated at the junction of Europe and Asia, was the
obvious capital city for the Ottoman realm that spanned both
continents. In 1452, he built the fortress of Rumeli Hisar on the
Bosphorus strait to prevent Christian relief forces from reaching
the city via the Black Sea. Having cut o the city, he then
assembled an army of 75,000–80,000 men, a eet of around
100 ships, and an artillery train with several huge siege
cannon constructed by the Hungarian engineer Urban.
Mehmet’s army laid siege to Constantinople on April 5.
The city’s walls were relatively well maintained and the
8,000 defenders were well prepared to weather the attack;
they also had small detachments of reinforcements from
western Europe. However, the powerful Ottoman artillery
bombardments weakened the walls, and their ships
Fall of Constantinople
1453
◼
NORTHWESTERN TURKEY
◼
BYZANTINE EMPIRE VS. OTTOMAN EMPIRE
BYZANTINE–OTTOMAN WARS
The blood owed in the city like rainwater in the
gutters after a sudden storm, and the corpses of
Turks and Christians… oated out to the sea…
NICOLÒ BARBARO, WITNESS TO THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 1453
Mehmed II rst became sultan in 1444
when his father Murad II abdicated,
but he was deposed in 1446 when
the Janissaries (the elite infantry
of the Sultan’s household) restored
Murad to the throne. Mehmed’s
second reign began in 1451 and
lasted for 30 years. After capturing
Constantinople, he campaigned in
Anatolia and the Balkans, where he
conquered Bosnia and Albania and
besieged Belgrade. An energetic
administrator, he conciliated his
Christian subjects by recognizing the
Greek Orthodox Church, and gave
the Ottoman Empire a centralized
bureaucracy and legal system.
SULTAN MEHMED II 143281
1 Mehmed II was 21 years old
when he brought an end to the
Byzantine Empire.
4
THE SIEGE
This 15th-century miniature depicts Mehmed II directing
his troops toward the strongly defended land walls of Constantinople. The
Ottoman encampment is shown to be on the opposite side of the Golden
Horn, the waterway that was key to the Ottomans’ capture of the city.
breached the naval defences in the Golden Horn inlet
(see opposite and p.80). Constantinople eventually fell to
an assault on May 29. Emperor Constantine was killed, and
after three days of looting, Mehmed entered the city and
declared it his new capital. Although the remnants of the
Byzantine Empire struggled on until the capture of its last
stronghold, Trebizond, in 1461, the fall of Constantinople
eectively marked the end of the empire.
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79
FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
◼
1453
US_078-081_Fall_of_Constantinopole.indd 79 09/04/2018 11:46
80
1000–1500
2
CONSTANTINOPLE,
1453
The city was
protected by one
of the most complex
systems of defensive walls
ever built. Constructed
by Constantine the Great
1,000 years earlier, these
walls protected the city
from a landward attack
from the west, and three
possible seaward attacks.
Before Mehmed’s army
arrived, a chain barrier
was also extended across
the Golden Horn. The
Ottomans bypassed the
chain by dragging their
ships overland—and their
artillery breached the walls.
In detail
As the Ottoman army closed in on
Constantinople, defenders arrived from Italy,
including 700 men under the Genoese soldier
Giovanni Giustiniani, who then oversaw the
city’s defense. A chain was extended across
the Golden Horn—the waterway on the city’s
northern side—to prevent the Ottomans from
threatening the lightly defended sea walls.
However, the Ottomans built a log road across
Galata, on the eastern side of the Horn, and
rolled their eet along it to reach the water,
forcing Giustiniani to divert his troops from
the defense of the city’s landward walls.
Despite damage inicted by Urban’s giant
cannon and a series of assaults, the defenders
resisted, and on May 25 Mehmed opened
negotiations for the city’s peaceful surrender.
The Byzantines rebued his oer, and early
on May 29, the Ottomans launched a nal
4
CITY DEFENSES
This 16th-century fresco in Moldovita
monastery, Romania, depicts the Siege of Constantinople.
It shows the strength of the city's walls, which had
resisted numerous sieges. Emperor Constantine XI is
shown patroling the heavily garrisoned landward walls,
which lacked the protection of the Golden Horn.
attack: Turkish irregular troops advanced
rst, then the elite Janissaries assaulted a
damaged section of the northwestern walls.
At a critical moment, Giustiniani was wounded
and left his post; the Ottomans then found an
undefended gate, the Kerkoporta, and poured
in. As the Ottomans fanned through the city,
the Emperor was killed and the Byzantines’
defense collapsed. Some of the defenders
escaped to their ships, and, accompanied by
some Genoese and a few imperial vessels,
slipped past the Ottoman eet. Most of
the remaining defenders were massacred
or sold into slavery.
Golden
Horn
Marmara Sea
(Propontis)
Bosporus
River Lycus
CONSTANTINOPLE
Santa Hagia
church
Hippodrome
Acropolis
Holy Apostles
church
Tower of Galata
Galata
Constantanian Wall
Pontoon
bridge
Kerkoporta
gate
St Romanus
gate
Pege
gate
Golden
gate
Fifth
Military
gate
Ottoman
camp
Chain
¡
April 2–6:
Mehmed II’s troops
encamp outside
Constantinople
and begin attack
on the city walls
€
April 22:
The Ottomans
drag their ships
overland to avoid
the fence blocking
the Golden Horn
#
April 28:
Christian battleships are
unsuccessful in destroying
the Ottoman fleet. They
are forced to retreat
¢
May 29:
The Ottoman offensive
breaches the Kerkoporta
Gate and conquers the city
Byzantine forces
Byzantine ship
Ottoman forces
Ottoman ship
0 km
0 miles
0.5
0.5
1
1
21.5
1.5
N
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81
FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
◼
1453
1
CANNON FIRE
The Ottomans were equipped with massive cannon, or
bombards, which red huge stone balls at the walls of Constantinople. These
weapons were provided by Urban, a Hungarian engineer who had previously
oered his services to the Byzantines. However, the cannon took hours
to reload and the Ottomans had only limited ammunition. As a result, most
of the damage to Constantinople was inicted by smaller artillery pieces.
2
ELITE SOLDIERS
Ottoman Janissaries
(see p.93) prepare for
an assault on the walls
of Constantinople. An
elite corps of troops,
the janissaries were
recruited by the
devşirme system, by
which young Christian
boys from the Balkans
were removed from
their families, converted
to Islam, and trained
in military skills from
a very early age. They
were loyal to the sultan
in person, rather than to
the Ottoman nobility.
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