The fall of the millennial Constantinople

The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, which meant the collapse of the millennial Byzantine Empire, had such a profound impact on Western civilization that it is considered a watershed between the Middle Ages and the Modern.

Byzantium — such was the city’s Greek name — was chosen as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire in AD 324. C., when Emperor Constantine I decided to divide it into two parts for succession purposes. By adopting Christianity as the official region, the city that would bear his name would become the axis of the monotheistic religion, from which both dogmas and heresies would emerge.

It was the crossroads that united two continents, Europe and Asia, and that controlled the maritime route between the Mediterranean and the territories of the Black Sea, formerly known as Ponto, whose markets had recovered after the Black Death that devastated the region with the loss of a third of the population. What’s more, it was one of the links on the silk road It would soon become an important mulberry manufacturing center, bringing the Ottomans a bonanza that would serve to pay for their nascent empire.

The Mongolian horde had destroyed the Seljuk Sultanate at the beginning of the fourteenth century, which controlled the Anatolian peninsula, from where small Turkish principalities arose, prevailing that of Osman, who would found his own dynasty, thus beginning a slow conquest of territories both in the Asian as well as the European part, increasingly encircling Constantinople on both sides. They established their capital in Brusa, which, although it was not a stone’s throw from Byzantium, was in front: the first on the south bank of the Sea of ​​Marmara; the other, to the north, on the European shore, separated by 160 km.

Attacks and defenses

Along its history, Constantinople would withstand 34 rounds, 13 of which would correspond to the Ottomans. The walls built by Emperor Theodosius in the 5th century were the most advanced of the time, being considered impregnable. Seven kilometers long and triangular in shape, they protected the imperial metropolis with their tall towers, battlements, parapets and deep wells. Its layout, which included branches to make the defense by sectors more effective, was a fenced peninsula that ran from the Marmara to the Golden Horn, its legendary natural port, with the tip ending in the Bosphorus (‘channel’, in Turkish), which it continues until it empties into the Black Sea.

Vast domains that had previously been ridden for months had been reduced to a few hours’ walk from the walls; to more than scattered enclaves of the Aegean Sea that would soon be wiped from the map. With the rise of Muslim Turks in the Middle East, many Christians joined their host in the hope of loot and protection. This trend would give rise to the Janissaries, or “new soldiers”, who would eventually become the Ottoman military elite. They would end up developing their own creed, called bektashi, a mixture of Sufi Islam with beliefs from Anatolian Christianity and shamanism.

The peace agreement that maintained the the status quo between adversaries came to an end in 1452, when the young and ambitious Sultan Mohamed II decided to build the fortress of Rumelia on the European shore of the Bosphorus, thereby imposing a blockade on unauthorized navigation circulating to or from the Black Sea. He secretly signed bilateral neutrality treaties with Hungarians and Serbs for three years to ensure their non-intervention.

The next step was to build a prototype cannon large enough to destroy the walls of Constantinople. The eight-meter-long piece would be christened “Urban”, in homage to the Hungarian artisan who made it possible. It fired 600 kilogram projectiles at a distance of one kilometer and a half. A cyclopean task was to move several units from their manufacturing site in Edirne, eastern Thrace, to the siege site 240 kilometers away. Teams of 50 oxen would be used, which would take two months to travel.

The ultimate contest

On April 5, 1453, the siege of the city was completed, opening hostilities. The Ottoman army under Mohamed II was made up of 80,000 combatants, while the defenders numbered 8,000, mostly mercenaries led by the condottier Giovanni Giustiniani, under the orders of Emperor Constantine XI.

The only hope of salvation lay in the aid of the papacy, Venice, or other European powers, who had been asked to send a fleet that would serve to disperse the infidels. The appearance of four galleons with reinforcements served to fuel the moral decline of the Byzantines. With great difficulty they managed to reach the Golden Horn, which with its thick chain blocked the way to a hundred Turkish rowing ships that were pursuing them. But the support was no more than symbolic.

In a bold decision, Mohamed II decided to transport his light fleet by land, Through the use of rollers, pulled by men and beasts, which, saving valleys, hills and streams, by surprise managed to introduce them to the Golden Horn during the night / early morning of April 22, thereby paralyzing the Christian ships that were confined in the small port of Galata, a neutral Genoese enclave. From that port flank the wall became more vulnerable.

After 54 days of endless fighting, the sultan decided that the time had come for the final assault, scheduled for the early morning of May 29. As an encouragement he offered his host three days of looting at the discretion of the wealthy city. Luckily for him, during the attack, for inexplicable reasons, as the six main gates held out tenaciously with the walls half collapsed by the cannonade, The Kerkaporta, a secondary school that served for the pass of citizens in peacetime, was opened by an oversight, This allowed the entry of a party of Ottomans that without delay rose to the top to fly the red flag of the crescent and white star.

The bloody defeat

In the act the word spread that the city had been taken, and both the defenders and their inhabitants, including the elderly, women and children, were left at the mercy of an unbridled mob that with their cutlasses, spears and daggers blinded lives at will, in an orgy of blood, attacking in the midst of the chaos temples and palaces to satiate your greed for fortune.

At dawn, Mohamed II made his triumphal entry on horseback, being moved and admitting with regret: “What a magnificent city we have given up to pillage and destruction!” His first order was to remove the golden cross from the dome of Hagia Sophia, to turn it on the spot into the imperial mosque. Christendom would have enough time to regret not having acted. Very soon the Ottoman hordes would conquer much of eastern and central Europe, with Vienna on the verge of passing the fate of Constantinople. (F)