The Fall of Constantinople - A Thread

What were you doing at 18? At 21? Chances are, you weren't quite as baller as our Turkish prodigy here in Mehmed II, leading his forces to destroy an empire at the same age Sebastian Vettel made his F1 debut.

How did he do this though? Well shut up, and let me tell you.

This won't be a play by play of the siege itself. Rather, a look at why it happened, how it happened, the gigantic ramifications it held for all of history, and why crusade happy Europe decided to sit this one out.

The story starts with war and famine. Struggles against the Balkan and Latin claims to territory saw Constantinople, the capital of The Byzantine Empire, shrink from 400K in the 12th century, to 40K in the 15th. The hayday of the Roman Empire was over.

By 1450, the Ottomans had basically yoinked all of Anatolia and the balkans. The Byzantine Empire was loosing territory like Ferrari losing reputation. Quickly. Constantinople was a Vassal to the Ottomans who were more threatened by Hungary.

Mehmed I had unsuccessfully sieged constantinople in 1422, and now his son Mehmed II was determined to take on the family business. He set off to work, covering his frontiers from outside attack so he could focus solely on the Byzantines.

Despite their floundering, the taking of Constantinople was not a foregone conclusion. The Theodosian Walls protected the city and withstood siege after siege. Just like stan f1 Twitter, They were basically impregnable.

While the Ottomans assembled their invasion fleet, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI asked the entirety of christendom for assistance. Constantinople was a beacon of hope during the struggles against the Muslims. Surely they wouldn't let it fall?

Britain and France has just finished beating the shit out of eachother after their 100 year discussion (war is such a strong word) so they weren't able to help. Hungary just sent some troops.

But the main reason that European powers didn't help their fellow christian byzantines is actually very easy to answer.

Why would they?

Byzantium was the source of loathing and envy for the European powers.

They weren't close intellectually, culturally, or even religiously as you might think. The catholicism the europeans had adopted was seen as a barbaric heresy by the byzantines.

If anything, they'd be happier to join the Ottomans in sacking the Byzantine capital.

Their 2 heads of church had mutually excommunicated the other during the Great Schism which saw the church split in two.

The first crusade definitely didn't help relations when western princes refused to hand land back the byzantine territory they reconquered from the muslims.

There's also the very small fact that during the 4th crusade, the crusaders, with a bit of prodding from Venice, sacked Constantinople themselves.

No amount of romantic sentiment would give any major european power reason to help the Byzantines, despite Constantine's efforts.

Please, don't think for second that the feeling wasn't mutual. Many Byzantines would have rather converted to Islam than joined the west. The west had an inferiority complex towards them, and they weren't too keen on grovelling.

So we go back to our narrative. The pope tbf actually wasn't too keen on Constantinople getting pimp slapped by some turks and saw this as an opportunity to reunite the eastern and western religions. The citizens of Constantinople rejected this adamantly. Even took to rioting.

Not every european power was going to sit this one out though. Venice and Genoa sent troops and galleys to Constantinople, including some leading generals.

And so, 1453 came and the stage was set.

Surely, the Theodosian Walls, which hadn't been breached in 1000 years of existence, would hold. The huge walls and naval defenses were near impossible to break. The Ottomans had a huge task on their hands.

The byzantines lacked manpower though. 30K armed civilians, but only 7K trained soldiers. The Ottomans had about 60-80k. Mehmed's plan was simple. Artillery and inshallah. He would of course also blockade the city and try and breach. But cannon was his main weapon of choice.

How Mehmed wins the Siege is nothing short of genius.

The byzantines had a chain across the golden horde. Designed to stop invaders from fully encircling the city. After bombarding the walls, Mehmed decided to aim his cannons at the defenders at the chain.

Coupled with this, he portaged his fleet across land and set them to water right at the Byzantine fleet, completely bypassing the chain and moving troops away from the main defenses. A few more assaults later, and the walls were finally breached. Constantine was killed soon after

Mehmed allowed for only a small amount of looting to be done in the captured city, as he planned on making it his capital. After converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, he called all ransacking off.

Constantinople, had fallen.

The ramifications for this are BIBLICAL. First off, this cut trade off for the West to India meaning they had to find another way. This pretty much directly leads to Cristopher Columbus finding that little patch of land we call America.

It marks the end of the middle ages and into the early modern period of history and the Renaissance.

It saw the end of the Roman Empire, an entity that had existed for 400 years, endured being split up and rebranded, then existed for another 1 thousand years.

Que decline.

Europe gets a rude awakening with a fat new determined Empire right on it's doorstep. Russia inevitably does the brunt of this fighting.

Speaking of Russia, Moscow gets the title of 'Third Rome' after the first two rome's (Rome and Constantinople) fall

So if your friend for whatever reason asks you what the three most important historical dates are, just tell them 1783, 1066, and 1453. If they ask you for a source, tell em to fuck off and follow me

Here's a nice quick video by @KingsGenerals detailing it far better than I could