It was the
Ottoman Turk sultan Mehmed II who conquered Constantinople, bringing about the
final fall of the Roman Empire in the East. While the defenders of the city
were overwhelmed by sheer numbers; the invaders were assisted by the Byzantine
feuds and internecine fighting that went on in the upper echelons of the
empire.
Mehmed’s
father Murad, retired briefly from 1444-6, returning to put down a revolt of
the Janissaries[i];
possibly organised by the Grand Vizier Chandarli Halil Pasha. Mehmed’s two
older brothers died in mysterious circumstances and Mehmed ascended the throne
at the age of eighteen, for the second time, in 1451 on the death of Murad.
The
Europeans believed that Mehmed was too young to constitute a threat and Mehmed
made a series of treaties with Hungary, Serbia and Venice and sent good will messages
to others including the Prince of Wallachia and the Knights of St John. Mehmed
also swore to be at peace with the Byzantines sending a fulsome message to
Emperor Constantine XI Paleologus. Perhaps the message was overdone because
Constantine was one of the earliest rulers to suspect that Mehmed could be a
danger to the west.
Mehmed saw
the capture of Constantinople as a means of securing the loyalty of his
Janissaries, a loyalty he meant to retain by giving them the spoils the to-be
captured city. He had also decided to make jihad on the west and the
elimination of Halil Pasha. Mehmed intended that these four aims would be
complimentary. From the beginning of his reign Mehmed commenced a programme of
strengthening the Ottoman navy.
Some of the
Ottoman ruler’s subjects in Asia Minor thought to take advantage of Mehmed’s
inexperience and within weeks were disillusioned to find the young sultan and
his army ready to punish their daring. Mehmed returned home via the Bosphorus,
following reports of an Italian squadron sailing in the straits.
Preparing for the Fall
Constantine XI Paleologus
In 1449 Constantine
XI Paleologus[ii]
became emperor. He was the brother of his predecessor John VIII Paleologus. Constantine
had helped defend Constantinople in 1422 against a siege by Mehmed’s father
Murad. Murad had been informed by a Holy man, allegedly descended from the
Prophet Mohammed, that the city would fall on Monday 24th August.
When this prophecy failed to become reality the superstitious Murad withdrew
his troops.
The
Byzantines had been assisted by the machinations of one of the defenders
intriguing with the Ottoman opposition, who planned to replace Murad with his
youngest brother Mustafa[iii]. Murad had to return
home to stop the outbreak of civil war. 
John Paleologus VIII
In November 1423
Emperor John Paleologus began a tour of Europe in a last ditch attempt to see allies
to shore up the failing Byzantine Empire. He left the nineteen year old
Constantine in charge while he was away, giving him the title of Despot. The
Venetians paid John’s expenses for the month he stayed with them, but were
unwilling to do more than defend their own interests. If John was able to persuade
other countries to help, The Venetian Republic would join in to support the
empire.
John toured
through Italy meeting the reigning dukes, he also visited Hungary; but nowhere
could he enthuse the rulers sufficiently to underwrite or assist in the defence
of Byzantium against the infidel. By his return in November 1424 he found that
an Ottoman-Byzantine peace treaty had been signed, committing the Byzantines to
payment of large amounts of tribute. In March 1430 Thessalonika passed from
Venetian rule to the Ottomans. The city fell after a siege and was sacked in
Ottoman tradition[iv].
The
Byzantine Empire was short of funds and this was clearly visible in the state
of the buildings in the capital.
‘The Emperor’s palace must
have been very magnificent, but now it is such a state that both it and the
city show well the evils which the people have suffered, and which they still
endure.’[v]
wrote a
Castilian traveller Pero Tafur. The citizens of the empire had little hope of
assistance from outside and many able-bodied men and women emigrated to safer
havens.
Religion Raises its Head
Disputes in
Christendom between the Pope and the Council of Constance merely added to the
disarray. In 1437 John Paleologus and the Patriarch left Constantinople in an
attempt to persuade the heirs of the Empire in the West to support the little
that remained of the Empire in the East. The esoteric deliberations of the
church council held in Ferrara and then in Florence finally achieved agreement
between the Roman and Orthodox churches. A decree of union; ‘Laetentur Coeli’[vi]
was read out from the steps of the cathedral in early July 1439. John
Paleologus returned to his capital with very little to show for his absence.
The
Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria had already condemned the
Orthodox delegates at the council, who had signed the decree of their behalf.
In 1442 the emperor’s brother Demetrius tried to seize the throne, in the name
of Orthodoxy. Although assisted by the Turks Demetrius’s attempts at a coup
failed. But Orthodox dissatisfaction with the Decree of Union grew.
The Pope was
meanwhile committed to raise a crusade against the enemies of Byzantium. The
Ottoman menace was increasing; in 1439 the fortress of Smederovo, near
Belgrade, had surrendered and in 1441 the Ottoman army had marched into
Transylvania. The Hungarians, clearly next on the Ottoman list of potential
conquests, and the Serbians formed the bulk of the crusade.
Philip V of Burgundy
The crusade
got off to a rousing start and the Sultan found himself under attack at home
and abroad. However in November 1444 Murad smashed the Crusader’s army, ending
the last crusade from the west against the Turks. This disaster was the end of
all John Paleologus’s hopes. His brother Constantine found a new ally in Philip
V, Duke of Burgundy. Philip had already provided ships for the failed crusade
and in the summer of 1445 sent a contingent of his own men to Constantine’s lands,
the Morea[vii]. The combined forces
forced the Ottomans to retreat from the Delphi area. In November 1446 Murad,
who had retired in favour of Mehmed, now returned to the throne and swept
through the lands which returned to his sovereignty. His army boasted a new
secret weapon; heavy artillery.
John
Paleologus had named his brother Constantine as his successor. His two
surviving brothers both wanted the role of emperor for themselves, but
Constantine’s mother declared herself Regent and ruled for him until he could
arrive from the Morea. His short reign was spent attempting to find succour in
the west for the defence of what little remained of the Byzantine Empire.
France and England were still reeling from the after-effects of the 100 Years
War and few of the other rulers were in a position to aid the stricken remnants
of the Roman Empire.
The Fall
The Ottomans
had already built a fortress on the Asian side of the Bosphorus and the year
after his ascension Mehmed had a second fortress built. But this fortress was
built on the European side of the straits, on Byzantine land and built over
their ignored objections. The fortress was built in just over nineteen and a
half weeks, utilising the skills of over one thousand stonemasons.
By the time
of the final fall the city of Constantinople was surrounded by a small island
of land; an empire of a few square miles. Over the centuries the dependent
lands had split off to form their own countries; or become subsumed into the
empire of the Ottomans.
Ready for the
attack on Constantinople the Ottoman invasion fleet consisted of
‘Not less than six triremes
and ten biremes, fifteen oared galleys, some seventy five fast long boats,
twenty heavy sailing barges for transport and a number of light sloops and
cutters.’[viii]
The armada
assembled off Gallipoli in March 1453, while the army[ix] gathered in Thrace.
It was not
until 2nd April 1453 that the Ottoman troops appeared before the
walls of Constantinople. Among the troops was a new modified version of a
weapon introduced over a hundred years before; the cannon. In 1452 a German
engineer named Urban appeared before Mehmed, offering him cannon that would
bring down city walls. Mehmed rewarded him with everything he needed and four times
the salary requested.
By January
the following year Urban had created a 27 foot monster that threw balls
weighing1340lbs for a mile, before burying themselves 6 foot in the earth. Two
hundred men prepared the roads for this new weapon of mass destruction’s
transport to Constantinople.
Complying
with Islamic law Mehmed sent a message to Constantine proclaiming that all the
empire’s subjects families and properties would be spared in the event of
immediate and voluntary surrender. The offer was rejected and on the 6th
April Mehmed’s cannon opened fire. The bombardment continued for 48 days.
Mehmed had
decided that he needed to control the Golden Horn and set his engineers to
create a roadway to transfer ships. On 21st April some seventy
Turkish ships were lowered down into the Horn; the great harbour in
Constantinople was no longer secure and a further three and a half miles of
wall now required defending, with very limited resources.
The 29th
May was chosen as the date of the final assault. This news was not hidden from
the defenders of Constantinople. The defenders had 36 hours to make their
preparations. On the 29th wave after wave of attackers hit the city,
allowing the defenders no respite.
The
defenders included a contingent of Genoese, who left the city walls when their
leader Guistiniani Longo fell; returning to their ships. The Emperor begged
Longo to stay at his position well aware of the effect of his departure. Mehmed,
aware that something was wrong with the defenders of the city, launched another
Janissary attack. The Janissaries and Turkish troops gained footholds in the
defences, and Ottoman troops started pouring into the city through breaches in
the walls.
The Ottoman
troops had been promised three days of looting as allowed by Islamic tradition;
but such was their violence and rapacity that Mehmed called an end to the
looting the same day. There were few objections as there was little left to
plunder.
After the Fall
After the
fall of Constantinople Mehmed engineered the fall of Halil Pasha, whom he
blamed for the ending of his first brief reign from 1444-6. Pasha was executed
and from now on Mehmed chose his Grand Viziers from amongst his personal
entourage. Formerly the viziers had been chosen from the aristocracy or from
the ulema[x].
Mehmed
regarded himself as the only legitimate heir of the Roman Empire:
‘The world empire must be
one, with one faith and one sovereignty. To establish this unity, there is no
place more fitting than Constantinople.’[xi]
Mehmed, from
now on known as the Conqueror, claimed to unite the Islamic, Turkish and Roman
notions of sovereignty, appointing a new Greek Orthodox Patriarch and bringing
the Chief Rabbi and the Armenian Patriarch to Constantinople. The Ottomans
regarded Mehmed as their most prestigious ruler and he saw himself as fighting
on behalf of all Muslims.
Bibliography
Byzantium –
The Decline and Fall – John Julius Norwich, Folio Society 2003
The Ottoman Empire – Halil Inalcik,
Phoenix 1997
The Ottoman Empire – Andrina Stiles,
Hodder & Stoughton 1991
En.wikipedia.org [i] The Ottoman state practised devshirme (a rounding up of Christian boys from the Balkans in lieu of a monetary tax) on a yearly basis. The most talented of these child slaves were trained for work in the palace and the chance to work directly for the sultan. The remainder of the year’s crop were placed in the Janissaries, troops nominally loyal to the Sultan alone and rewarded by being allowed to loot cities. All the devshirme were converted to Islam.
[ii]
Also known as Constantine Dragases
[iii]
Mustafa was killed in early 1423, garrotted by a bowstring, which became
standard practise for a Sultan’s male siblings.
[iv]
That is not to say that Christians would have differed
[v]
The Decline and Fall - Norwich
[vi]
Let the heavens rejoice
[vii]
The Peloponnese; Constantine was its Despot
[viii]
The Decline and Fall - Norwich
[ix]
Up to 100,000 strong
[x]
Religious hierarchy
[xi]
The Ottoman Empire - Inalcik
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.