Istanbul was once called Constantinople, named after the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great who founded the city in 324 AD, on the site of an already existing city known as Byzantium, which was settled by Greek colonialists around 657 BC. Due to its geographical position Byzantium became a leading trading port in the Mediterranean Sea and developed into a great commercial city. In 330 AD the capital of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople, the city once known as Byzantium.
Constantinople, the greatest city of its time straddled two continents: Asia and Europe, and was known in the east as the gateway to Europe. However, after the span of a thousand years, this once great empire had shrunk into a small impoverished city-state. Yet from the year 1054 AD Constantinople retained the seat of the Greek Orthodox Church, while Rome was the seat of the pope and the Catholic Church. Hostilities between Rome and Constantinople continued until it lead to the the Forth Crusade in 1204 AD, where Constantinople was sacked by the Roman Catholic Crusaders and their armies. As devastating as this was for the city of Constantine, a couple centuries later another militant force would attack Constantinople. For in 1453 AD the Muslim Ottoman Turks made their way into the Golden Horn and would conquer it completely.
This Ottoman army that besieged Constantinople was led by the ambitious young Sultan Mehmed II, who would later be known as Mehmed the Conqueror. Mehmed was only twenty-one years old at the time of the siege and was well educated. In addition to his Turkish army, Mehmed used the Janissaries to aid him in the siege of the city. The Janissaries were an elite infantry unit of the Ottoman Empire made up of Serbs, Bulgarians, and Albanians who were kidnapped as young boys, converted to Islam, and then trained as highly skilled warriors. But the key element that decided the victory for the Ottomans was a massive cannon that would breach the walls of the city. Forged in Germany, Mehmed’s giant cannon was 29 feet long and weighed more than twenty tons, and could fire a half ton marble cannon ball over the distance of a mile. This grand cannon gave the Turks an edge over the Greeks. In addition to this large cannon, Mehmed also secured dozens of other smaller cannons that would be used in the assault against the city’s walls.
In addition to securing artillery to help with the siege of the city, Mehmed and his army crossed the Bosphorus Strait which divides Asia from Europe, and built a tower ready for the siege of Constantinople. However, the defense of the city by its Greek citizens was firm. Constantinople was protected by castle walls and the sea. Chains were stretched around the entrance to Golden Horn Bay to prevent the invasion of warships. For Golden Horn was the main waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Constantinople. Mehmed then conceived a strategy: his troops would carry their ships over and across the mountain from the Bosphorus Strait into Golden Horn Bay. Dozens of ships were carried across the mountain with grease smeared upon the bottoms of the hulls to ease in this arduous task. With this move by the Muslim Turks, the fate of the Christian Greeks was almost certainly sealed.
The defense of Constantinople was led by emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, who would be the last ruler of the Byzantine Empire. Constantine did what he could in order to organize the defense of the city, securing food and water, and repairing the city’s walls damaged by Mehmed’s cannons. Constantine led an army numbering around 7,000, against the Ottoman army which was about ten times that of Constantine’s forces. Mehmed then sent an ultimatum to Constantine saying, “Either the capital will die or I will be killed, for I am determined to seize the capital.” For this battle was not just a fight to seize or defend the city, it was the declaration of war by the Ottoman Empire who’s people were Muslim, against Christianity and the Greek people who held their faith in Christ.
Though the Turkish cannons damaged the city’s walls, the people of Constantinople managed to repair the walls and fight off the Ottoman assaults. Seeing this, Mehmed then aimed all of his cannons at one section of the wall, and soon the structure began to crumble and collapse. After the walls were breached the Turks entered the city where looting, raping, and killing went on for days. The men of the city were killed and the women and children left behind were sold into slavery. Mehmed then entered the city and went directly to Hagia Sophia and declared that the greatest church of Christian Orthodoxy, was now a Muslim mosque. Then a voice was heard saying, “Isn’t there a single Christian who will stab a sword in my chest?” These were the last words of the last emperor of Constantinople. The city fell on May 29th 1453 AD, which would be a day when a great shift in the history of the world took place. For now Constantinople would be known as Istanbul.
References:
Kinross, L. The Ottoman Centuries. (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 1977).
Norwich, J.J. A Short History of Byzantium. (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1999).
Robinson, J.J. Dungeon, Fire & Sword. (Lanham, MD: The Rowman & Litttlefield Publishing Group Inc., 2009).