In what year did the Ottomans conquer Byzantium? Ottoman Empire. Taking Constantinople. Preconditions for the fall of the empire

Already with the accession of Mehmed II to the throne, it was clear to everyone that a capable monarch would rule the state. Beylik Karamanov remained his main rival in Anatolia, and the Byzantine emperor in Europe. Having embarked on state affairs, Mehmed II (later nicknamed Fatih the conqueror for his numerous successful military campaigns) immediately put the task of conquering Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium, in the first place.

By order of Mehmed II, at the end of March 1452, on the opposite bank of the Bosphorus, in the narrowest part of the strait, the construction of the Rumelikhisar fortress began. With the completion of the construction of this fortress, Constantinople could at any time be cut off from the Black Sea, which meant the termination of the supply of food from the Black Sea regions. After the completion of the construction of the fortress, a strong garrison was located in it. Large-caliber cannons were installed on the towers. Mehmed II gave the order to subject ships passing through the Bosphorus to customs inspection, and to destroy ships that evade inspection and payment of duties with cannon fire. Soon, a large Venetian ship was sunk and its crew was executed for disobeying a search order. The Turks began to call this fortress "Bogaz kesen" (cutting the throat).

When Constantinople learned about the construction of the Rumelihisar fortress and assessed the possible consequences of this for Byzantium, the emperor sent ambassadors to the Sultan, protesting against the construction of a fortress on lands that still formally belonged to Byzantium. But Mehmed did not even receive Constantine's ambassadors. When the work was already completed, the emperor again sent ambassadors to Mehmed, wishing at least to get an assurance that the fortress would not threaten Constantinople. The Sultan ordered to throw the ambassadors into prison, and offered Constantine to surrender the city to him. In return, Mehmed offered Emperor Constantine the possession of Morey. Constantine flatly rejected the proposal to abandon the ancient capital, saying that he preferred death on the battlefield to such a shame. After the completion of the construction of the new fortress, Mehmed's army approached Constantinople. "

On April 5, 1453, the Sultan himself arrived at the walls of the city with the last divisions, leading the army. The Sultan's army surrounded Constantinople along the entire line of its land defensive lines. Half of the troops (about 50 thousand soldiers) came from the European vassals of Mehmed II from Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece.

On the morning of April 6, the Sultan's envoys conveyed his message to the defenders of Constantinople, in which Mehmed offered the Byzantines a voluntary surrender, guaranteeing them the preservation of life and property. Otherwise, the Sultan promised no mercy to any of the city's defenders. The offer was rejected. Then the Turkic guns thundered, which at that time had no equal in Europe. Although the artillery bombarded the walls incessantly, the damage it inflicted was very minor. Not only because of the strength of the walls of Constantinople, but also the inexperience of Mehmed's artillerymen made themselves felt. Among other cannons was a huge bombardment cast by the Hungarian engineer Urban, which had a powerful destructive force .. However, in the very first days of the siege, the Urban bombard, which terrified the defenders, exploded, wounding its creator in the explosion. As a result, by the end of the siege, the cannon was still able to be repaired and a successful shot was fired from it, destroying the wall, from where they could break into the city.

The siege of the city continued for fifty days. The fall of Constantinople was precipitated by the cunning resorted to by Mehmed. He ordered the delivery of part of his ships by land to the Golden Horn Bay, where heavy iron chains blocked the entrance of Turkish ships.

To drag the ships overland, a huge wooden deck was built. It was laid at the very walls of Galata. During one night on this flooring, thickly greased, the Turks dragged 70 heavy ships on ropes to the northern shore of the Golden Horn and lowered them into the water of the bay.

In the morning, the defenders of the city saw a Turkic squadron in the waters of the Golden Horn. No one expected an attack from this side, the sea walls were the weakest part of the defense. The ships of the Byzantines, standing guard at the entrance of the bay, were also under threat.

The day before the last assault on the city, Mehmed suggested that the emperor either agree to an annual tribute of 100 thousand golden Byzantines, or leave the city with all its inhabitants. In the latter case, they were promised not to be harmed. On the advice of the emperor, both proposals were rejected. Such an incredibly large tribute to the Byzantines could never have been collected, and the emperor and his entourage did not want to cede the city to the enemy without a fight.

At dawn on May 29, 1453, before the start of the decisive assault on Constantinople, the Sultan (according to the Greek historian Duke, who witnessed these events) turned to his soldiers with the words that "he is not looking for any other prey except the buildings and walls of the city." After his speech, the command was given to storm. The deafening sounds of Turkic horns - suras, timpani and drums announced the beginning of the assault. By evening, the capital of Byzantium fell. Emperor Constantine was also killed in street battles, they simply did not recognize him, since he was dressed in ordinary military clothes. Mehmed II entered the conquered Constantinople three days after its capture, renamed the city to Istanbul and moved his residence here.

Constantinople was twice on the verge of falling, and both times fate helped him out. The first time was when Seljuk troops approached its walls at the end of the 11th century. And only the collapse of the Seljuk Empire and the outbreak of the crusades saved Constantinople.

For the second time at the beginning of the 15th century. the troops of the Great Timur defeated the army of Sultan Bayazid and thus again saved Constantinople from conquest.

For the third time, the fate of Constantinople was decided

Fall of Constantinople (1453) - the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Turks, which led to its final fall.

Day May 29, 1453is undoubtedly a turning point in human history. It means the end of the old world, the world of Byzantine civilization. For eleven centuries, a city stood on the Bosphorus, where a deep mind was the subject of admiration, and the science and literature of the classical past were carefully studied and cherished. Without Byzantine researchers and scribes, we would not know much about the literature of ancient Greece today. It was also a city whose rulers for many centuries encouraged the development of a school of art that has no analogy in the history of mankind and was a fusion of the unchanging Greek common sense and deep religiosity, which saw in a work of art the embodiment of the Holy Spirit and the sanctification of the material.

In addition, Constantinople was a great cosmopolitan city, where, along with trade, the free exchange of ideas flourished and the inhabitants considered themselves not just some kind of people, but the heirs of Greece and Rome, enlightened by the Christian faith. The wealth of Constantinople was legendary at that time.

The beginning of the decline of Byzantium

Until the XI century. Byzantium was a brilliant and powerful power, a bulwark of Christianity against Islam. The Byzantines courageously and successfully performed their duty until, in the middle of the century, a new threat from Islam came upon them from the East, together with the invasion of the Turks. Western Europe, meanwhile, went so far that it itself, in the person of the Normans, tried to carry out aggression against Byzantium, which was involved in a struggle on two fronts just at the time when it itself was experiencing a dynastic crisis and internal turmoil. The Normans were driven back, but the cost of this victory was the loss of Byzantine Italy. The Byzantines also had to give the Turks forever the mountainous plateaus of Anatolia - the lands that were for them the main source of replenishment of human resources for the army and food supplies. In the best times of its great past, the prosperity of Byzantium was associated with its domination over Anatolia. The huge peninsula, known in antiquity as Asia Minor, was one of the most populated places in the world during the time of the Romans.

Byzantium continued to play the role of a great power, while its power was already actually undermined. Thus, the empire found itself between two evils; and this already difficult position of hers was further complicated by the movement that went down in history as the Crusades.

Meanwhile, the deep old religious differences between the Eastern and Western Christian Churches, inflated for political purposes throughout the eleventh century, steadily deepened until, by the end of the century, there was a final split between Rome and Constantinople.

The crisis came when the army of the crusaders, carried away by the ambition of their leaders, the jealous greed of their Venetian allies and the hostility that the West now felt towards the Byzantine church, turned to Constantinople, captured and plundered it, forming the Latin Empire on the ruins of the ancient city ( 1204-1261).

After this campaign, Byzantium itself ceases to exist as a state for more than 50 years. Some historians, not without reason, write that after the catastrophe of 1204, actually two empires were formed - Latin and Venetian. Part of the former imperial lands in Asia Minor were captured by the Seljuks, in the Balkans - by Serbia, Bulgaria and Venice. Nevertheless, the Byzantines were able to retain a number of other territories and create their own states on them: the Epirus kingdom, the Nicene and Trebizond empires.

Having settled in Constantinople as masters, the Venetians increased their trade influence throughout the territory of the fallen Byzantine Empire. The capital of the Latin Empire for several decades was the seat of the most noble feudal lords. They preferred the Constantinople palaces to their castles in Europe. The nobility of the empire quickly got used to Byzantine luxury, adopted the habit of constant festivities and merry feasts. The consumerist character of life in Constantinople under the Latins became even more pronounced. The crusaders came to these lands with a sword and for half a century of their dominion did not learn to create. In the middle of the XIII century, the Latin Empire fell into complete decline. Many cities and villages, devastated and plundered during the aggressive campaigns of the Latins, were never able to recover. The population suffered not only from unbearable taxes and extortions, but also from the oppression of foreigners, who with contempt trampled on the culture and customs of the Greeks. The Orthodox clergy led an active preaching of the struggle against the oppressors.

In the summer of 1261emperor Michael VIII of Nicaea Palaeologus managed to conquer Constantinople, which entailed the restoration of the Byzantine Empire and the destruction of the Latin empires.

Byzantium in the XIII-XIV centuries

After that, Byzantium was no longer the dominant power in the Christian East. She retained only a reflection of her former mystical prestige. During the XII-XIII centuries, Constantinople seemed so rich and magnificent, the imperial court was so magnificent, and the marinas and bazaars of the city were so full of goods that the emperor was still treated as a powerful ruler. In reality, however, he was now only a sovereign among his equals or even more powerful. Several other Greek rulers have already appeared. To the east of Byzantium was the Trebizond Empire of the Great Comnenos. In the Balkans, Bulgaria and Serbia took turns claiming hegemony on the peninsula. In Greece - on the mainland and the islands - small Frankish feudal principalities and Italian colonies arose.

The entire XIV century was a period of political setbacks for Byzantium. The Byzantines were threatened from all sides - Serbs and Bulgarians in the Balkans, the Vatican in the West, Muslims in the East.

Position of Byzantium by 1453

Byzantium, which had existed for more than 1000 years, was in decline by the 15th century. It was a very small state, the power of which extended only to the capital - the city of Constantinople with its suburbs - several Greek islands off the coast of Asia Minor, several cities on the coast in Bulgaria, as well as the Morea (Peloponnese). This state could be considered an empire only conditionally, since even the rulers of several pieces of land that remained under its control did not actually depend on the central government.

At the same time, Constantinople, founded in 330, was perceived as a symbol of the empire throughout the entire period of its existence as the Byzantine capital. Constantinople for a long time was the largest economic and cultural center of the country, and only in the XIV-XV centuries. began to decline. Its population, which in the XII century. together with the surrounding inhabitants amounted to about a million people, now it numbered no more than one hundred thousand, continuing to gradually decrease further.

The empire was surrounded by the lands of its main enemy - the Muslim state of the Ottoman Turks, who saw Constantinople as the main obstacle to the spread of their power in the region.

The Turkish state, which was rapidly gaining power and successfully fought to expand its borders both in the west and in the east, had long sought to conquer Constantinople. The Turks attacked Byzantium several times. The offensive of the Ottoman Turks on Byzantium led to the fact that by the 30s of the 15th century. from the Byzantine Empire, only Constantinople with its surroundings remained, some islands in the Aegean Sea and Morea - an area in the south of the Peloponnese. Back at the beginning of the XIV century, the Ottoman Turks captured the richest trading city of Bursa, one of the important points of transit caravan trade between East and West. Very soon they took two other Byzantine cities - Nicaea (Iznik) and Nicomedia (Izmid).

The military successes of the Ottoman Turks became possible thanks to the political struggle that took place in this region between Byzantium, the Balkan states, Venice and Genoa. Very often, the rival parties sought to enlist the military support of the Ottomans, thereby ultimately facilitating the expanding expansion of the latter. The military strength of the growing state of the Turks was especially clearly demonstrated in the battle of Varna (1444), which, in fact, also decided the fate of Constantinople.

Battle of Varna- the battle between the Crusaders and the Ottoman Empire near the city of Varna (Bulgaria). The battle was the end of the unsuccessful crusade against Varna of the Hungarian and Polish king Vladislav. The outcome of the battle was the complete defeat of the Crusaders, the death of Vladislav and the strengthening of the Turks on the Balkan Peninsula. The weakening of the position of Christians in the Balkans allowed the Turks to take Constantinople (1453).

Attempts by the authorities of the empire to get help from the West and imprisonment for this purpose in 1439 union with the Catholic Church were rejected by the majority of the clergy and people of Byzantium. Of the philosophers, the Florentine union was approved only by the admirers of Thomas Aquinas.

All neighbors were afraid of the Turkish strengthening, especially Genoa and Venice, which had economic interests in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Hungary, which received in the south, beyond the Danube, an aggressively disposed powerful enemy, the John Knights, who feared the loss of the remnants of their possessions in the Middle East, and the Pope Roman, who hoped to stop the rise and spread of Islam along with the Turkish expansion. However, at the decisive moment, the potential allies of Byzantium were trapped in their own confusing problems.

The most likely allies of Constantinople were the Venetians. Genoa remained neutral. The Hungarians have not yet recovered from their recent defeat. Wallachia and the Serbian states were in vassal dependence on the Sultan, and the Serbs even allocated auxiliary troops to the Sultan's army.

Preparing the Turks for war

The fall of the Byzantine Empire is associated with the fall of their legendary capital, Constantinople, a fortress that was almost impossible to take by storm.
Constantinople fell on May 23, 1453 under the onslaught of the huge army of Mehmed II, the Sultan of the Ottomans.
At the time of its fall, the Byzantine Empire could hardly be called an empire. Only Constantinople remained the only center of Christianity - everything else had already been captured by the Turks.

Preconditions for the fall of the empire

For many years the Byzantine Empire possessed colossal power, but in the 15th century, the crisis and decline of the centuries-old empire began. In 1453, the Byzantine Empire lost almost all of its possessions and was only the last city with powerful walls. In its last days, the Byzantine Empire was not even an empire, but rather a city-state, a shadow of its former power.
Constantinople in the 15th century is not a flourishing city, after the Crusades it was badly destroyed and plundered, but its walls were still strong. If in the era of the power of Byzantium, 1 million people lived in Constantinople, then by the time of the fall it was hardly possible to count 50 thousand people.
The Turks have always dreamed of taking Constantinople, and now he was already surrounded by them, all that remained was to take the most impregnable fortress in the world. In 1451, Mehmed II became the sultan of the Ottomans, who vowed to take the city. The new sultan knew that the walls of the city were so strong that they could not be pierced by any existing siege weapon or even artillery. Then Mehmed decided to make such artillery, before which even the walls of Constantinople could not resist.
Large-scale preparations for the storming of the city began in 1452.
Sultan Mehmed gathered a huge army of more than 100 thousand people - there is no exact figure, but some historians talk about 180 thousand, and some about 300 thousand.
The city was perfectly defended, as it was located on a peninsula, and all the streets of the city were protected by powerful walls. The city was huge, but the number of soldiers was too small to prepare a solid defense from all sides. The number of defenders did not exceed 10 thousand people, including volunteers.
The last emperor of Byzantium was Constantine XI, and he defended the most vulnerable point of the city - the channel in the wall through which the Lycos river flowed into the city.
Before starting to storm the city, Mehmed sent ambassadors to Constantine and offered to surrender the city without a battle, in which case the Turks would have saved everyone's lives and would have allowed them to take their property. But Constantine refused, he said that he was ready to pay any tribute to the Turks, but he would not surrender the city under any conditions.

Siege of Constantinople

The vanguard of the Turks approached the city walls on April 2, 1453. All residents hid behind the walls of the city, the main gate was closed, and a chain was stretched in the Golden Horn. On April 5, the entire army approached the city walls. The next day the city was already under siege, it was completely blocked from the outside world.
Byzantine forts with defenders were placed outside the city walls. Within a few days, these forts were destroyed, and all the defenders were killed. Then the Turks put the dead on a stake in front of the walls of Constantinople so that the inhabitants and defenders of the city could see what very soon awaited them themselves.
Until April 9, the Turks did not dare to act on a large scale, and only on this day the Golden Horn was attacked by the Turkish fleet, but it failed, the Byzantines repulsed this attack. Knowing about the vulnerability of the wall near the Lykos river, the Turks placed a huge number of artillery against this section of the wall, then the first artillery bombardment in the history of mankind began - it lasted for six weeks. However, the artillery, despite great efforts, could not do anything with the walls of the city. But here Mehmed used the Basilica bombard - the largest in the world at that time, it fired half-ton cannonballs and only thanks to it, the Turks will be able to break through the wall in the future.
On April 12, the Turks tried to storm the Golden Horn again, but this time they met resistance from the Greeks. The Greeks were able to withstand the attack of Turkish ships and even went over to a counterattack.
On April 18, the first powerful attack on the city walls began. A wall near the Lykos riverbed was hit. On that day, the Turks achieved absolutely nothing, the Greeks repulsed the attack with practically no losses.
Two days later, the Pope helped Constantine - he sent several ships with food and weapons. A small group of ships skillfully fought off the Turkish fleet and was able to reach the Golden Horn, where the entire Byzantine fleet began to cover them - the Turks were afraid to join the battle and allowed the Pope's ships to enter the city. For this blunder, Sultan Mehmed ordered to punish the commander of his fleet and removed him from office.
On April 21, a powerful artillery bombardment destroyed the first tower of Constantinople, next to the Lycos River. The morale of the defenders immediately fell, the walls could no longer fully protect them. However, Sultan Mehmed has not yet given the command to storm the city.
On April 22, the Turks did the incredible - they dragged 70 ships by land, thereby bypassing the impenetrable chain of the Golden Horn. It was an outstanding engineering operation that brought the city's fall very close. The Greeks were stunned by this move and did nothing, although they could attack these ships with their entire fleet, while the enemy did not expect it. It was decided to attack the Turkish fleet on April 28, but the Turks were able to win, probably, someone had a plan of attack on the Turks and they were warned of the attack.
In early May, one Venetian ship, under cover of night, managed to break out of the encirclement and set off in search of the Venetian fleet - the city desperately needed help, without it it could not survive. Meanwhile, the Turks continued to shell the city walls. The Greeks assumed that the Turks would attack from two sides at once: the city walls and the Golden Horn with the help of the fleet.
On May 7, the assault began - the Turks attacked the breaches in the wall, but the Greeks stood bravely and did not allow the Turks to go beyond the walls of their city - the attack was repulsed, albeit with losses, but the losses of the Turks significantly exceeded.
On May 14, they launched another attack, but the Greeks repulsed this attack too. But already now the Greeks have huge problems, if before there were simply not enough people for protection, now they were sorely lacking, they even had to remove the sailors from the fleet.
On May 18, the tower of St. Roman was destroyed - a fierce battle ensued, but the Greeks were again able to repel the attack and partially restored the tower, they even managed to set fire to the siege machine.
To the sound of drums, the Turks began to dig under the walls of the city, but the Greeks noticed this and blew up their tunnels, then flooding them with water. Even the trenches did not help break the city's defenses.

The last days of the empire

On May 21, Mehmed again suggested that the defenders surrender the city, but Constantine again refused him. He promised to make all possible concessions, a great tribute, anything, but he said that he would never surrender the city. The Turks broke such a price of tribute that Byzantium could not afford such an amount. Consequently, the Greeks refused to pay and said that they would defend the cities of their last breath.
Two days later, a Venetian ship arrived, which was able to break through the siege. They failed to find the fleet of Venice. They invited Constantine to secretly leave the city and lead a war against the Turks somewhere outside of it. Constantine refused this, saying that the city would quickly fall without its emperor, he wished to die as the emperor of his city.
The Sultan, meanwhile, was preparing for a decisive assault. On May 26 and 26, a powerful bombardment of the city walls began again, the cannons fired almost closely. Many historians wrote that only artillery helped the Turks take the city, if not for her, Constantinople would not succumb.
On May 29, a decisive assault began, the main blow of which was aimed at breaches in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Lykos River. All who could hold weapons began to defend the city walls. Emperor Constantine also stood on the defense and personally commanded the defense. Despite the fact that the onslaught of the Turks was monstrous, the Greeks defended themselves desperately - the losses of the Turks were terrible. Such a brave defense was aided by the presence of the emperor, who fought alongside his soldiers. But the fall of Constantinople was already close, as was the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
The Greeks even used Greek fire in defense, which burned the Turks like napalm. The morale of the Turks was greatly undermined, many began to retreat, but the rest with sticks drove those retreating to the walls of the city.
The first attack was repulsed and the Greeks began to repair the gaps in the walls. Very soon, the regular army of the Turks began to attack, at the same time artillery hit the walls.
But even the regular army could not break through the walls of the city, the Greeks defended themselves to death. Then the bombard made a large breach in the city wall, but even this attack was repulsed. The Turks were defeated in all areas of the fortifications. Before the last attack of the Turks, Constantine made a final speech to the defenders of the city. This time, the sultan threw his janissaries into battle.
After one of the commanders of the defense, Giustiniani Longo, was wounded, the defenders of the city began to retreat. Seeing the retreat of the Greeks, the Turks were finally able to break through the walls of the city. The Greeks had no reserves to be thrown to defend the breach - the city's defenses collapsed. And only Emperor Constantine, along with his personal protection, rushed to the huge army of the enemy. Before the battle, he dropped all insignia and went into battle like an ordinary warrior. The Turks were many times outnumbered, and the emperor and his associates were killed.
The Greeks began to flee from the walls, but some troops fought desperately on the streets of the city until their death. They understood that the Sultan would kill them anyway, and they thought that they would rather die defending the city.
Some managed to break through to the ships and leave the city (Venetians, some Greeks, Italians). The battle for the city continued until nightfall - the Greeks did not surrender, they fought to the death, and therefore the Turks had almost no prisoners. All the defenders were either still on the defensive, or fled, and the rest lay dead.

Outcome

The body of the emperor was found among the killed only by the boots. His head was chopped off and impaled on a lance. The surviving Christians then buried the body of Constantine as befits an emperor.
During the defense of the city, almost all the defenders of the city died - up to 10 thousand people. But the losses of the Turks amounted to about 90 thousand, if not more.
The fall of Constantinople marked the fall of one of the greatest empires - Byzantium.

1451 - the winner of Varna, Sultan Murad II, died. The new sultan was 19-year-old Mehmed II. As soon as he came to power, Mehmed vowed that he would conquer Constantinople by all means. And it was not at all easy to do this, because Constantinople was one of the most powerful fortresses in the world. Therefore, Mehmed, barely ascending the throne, began a thorough and well-thought-out preparation for the attack on Constantinople.

Mehmed landed a sizable army on the European coast of the Bosphorus, in that part of it that still belonged to the empire. He began to destroy Greek villages, seize the few remaining Greek cities, and then ordered to build a fortress equipped with powerful cannons in the narrowest part of the Bosphorus. The outlet to the Black Sea was locked. The supply of bread to Constantinople could now be stopped at any time. It is no coincidence that this fortress was given the unofficial name Bogaz-kesen, which in translation from Turkish means “cutting the throat”.

Mehmed II, shortly after the construction of the fortress, approached the walls of Constantinople for the first time, but after spending about three days near the walls, he retreated. Most likely, it was a reconnaissance, with a personal assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the fortress. 1452, autumn - the Turks also invaded the Peloponnese and attacked the brothers of the emperor Constantine, so that they could not come to the aid of the capital. And in the winter of 1452-1453, preparations began for the storming of the city itself. In early March, the Turks set up camp at the walls of Constantinople, and in April excavation work began to siege Constantinople.

The sultan arrived at the walls of the city on April 5, 1453. The city was already besieged both from the sea and from land. The inhabitants of Constantinople had also been preparing for a siege for a long time. They repaired the walls, cleaned out the moats. For defense purposes, donations were received from monasteries, churches and individuals. The garrison, however, was negligible: less than 5,000 subjects of the empire and about 2,000 Western warriors, primarily Genoese. The besieged also had about 25 ships. The Turkish army consisted of 80,000 regular soldiers, not counting the militia, which was about 20,000. More than 100 ships came with the Sultan.

The city of Constantinople is located on a peninsula formed by the Sea of \u200b\u200bMarmara and the Golden Horn. The city quarters facing the sea and the coast of the bay were covered by city walls. A special system of fortifications made of walls and towers covered the city from land. The Golden Horn was the weak point. The Byzantines developed a kind of defensive system there.

A large chain was stretched across the entrance to the bay. It is known that one end of it was fixed on the Eugene Tower at the northeastern end of the peninsula, and the other - on one of the towers of the Pera quarter on the northern bank of the Golden Horn. On the water, the chain was supported by wooden rafts. The Turkish fleet could not enter the Golden Horn and land troops under the northern walls of the city.

The Byzantine fleet, protected by a chain, could safely make repairs in the Golden Horn. In the west, from the Golden Horn to the Sea of \u200b\u200bMarmara, the city was fenced by a double row of walls. And although the walls of the city by that time were very dilapidated and crumbling, but these defensive fortifications still represented a rather impressive force. But a strong decline in the city's population made itself felt. Since the capital itself occupied a very large area, the available soldiers to repel the assault were clearly not enough.

Arriving at the walls of the city, Mehmed sent envoys with a proposal to surrender. However, Emperor Constantine XI, whom his entourage more than once offered to leave the doomed city, was ready to remain until the end at the head of his small army. And although the residents and defenders had different attitudes towards the prospects of the siege that had begun, and some generally preferred the power of the Turks to a close alliance with the West, almost everyone was ready to defend the City.

On April 6, hostilities began. The Sultan tried in every possible way to achieve a decisive predominance at sea, but he considered the main goal of assault on land fortifications. Therefore, a powerful artillery preparation continued for several weeks. The large cannon of the Hungarian cannon master Urban fired 7 times a day; in general, guns of various calibers fired up to a hundred cannonballs a day through the city.

On April 12, the Turks on ships attacked the chain blocking the entrance to the Golden Horn. The attack turned into a sea battle with ships that covered the chain from the outside. The Turks swam up to them and tried to set them on fire or board them. The taller ships of the Greeks, Venetians and Genoese volunteers managed to repel the attack and even launched a counterattack, trying, in turn, to surround the Turkish ships. The Turks were forced to retreat to the Bosphorus.

Already on April 18, the Turks undertook the first, trial, assault on one of the walls, but their attack was easily repulsed. Obviously, this was just preparation. But on April 20, the Turks suffered a serious setback already at sea. 4 ships with weapons and food, which were in short supply in Constantinople, approached the city. They were greeted by many Turkish ships. Dozens of Ottoman ships surrounded three Genoese and one imperial ship, trying to set them on fire and board them. But the excellent training and discipline of the European sailors prevailed over the enemy, who had a huge numerical advantage. After many hours of battle, 4 victorious ships broke out of the encirclement and entered the Golden Horn Bay. The Sultan was furious.

Then, by his order, a road was built on uneven, elevated terrain, along which the Turks dragged many ships to the Golden Horn on wooden skids on special, immediately built wooden carts. In this way, they were able to drag about 70 ships. In response, the besieged launched a night attack by Venetian and Genoese ships. They had the task of burning Turkish ships in the Golden Horn, but the attack was repulsed by the Turks and bombardment fire.

Now all the advantages were on the side of the besiegers. In the first half of May, the Turks carried out several assaults in various places, probably checking the readiness of the besieged and identifying weak points in the defense. On May 16, the Turks began to dig under the walls near the Blakherna quarter, but the defenders of Constantinople were able to find the tunnel and began to carry out counter-digging. On May 23, the Byzantines were able to bring a mine under the tunnel and blow it up. After such a failure, the Turks stopped further attempts to dig.

Two days after the failure with the digging, Sultan Mehmed gathered a council, at which, contrary to the opinion of many skeptics, they decided on a general assault on Constantinople on May 26 and 27, the city was heavily bombarded. The Turkish artillerymen erected special platforms closer to the wall and pulled heavy weapons onto them to shoot at the walls at close range.

1453, May 28 - a day of rest in the Turkish camp was declared so that the soldiers would gain strength before the decisive battle. While the army was resting, the Sultan and his commanders held a final council before the assault. On it, the role and place of each attacking detachment was finally determined, the main and distracting goals were outlined.

On the night of May 28-29, Turkish troops along the entire line went on an assault. An alarm was raised in the capital and everyone who was capable of carrying weapons took their places on the walls and at the gaps. Emperor Constantine himself took a personal part in the battles and repelled the onslaught of the enemy. The assault was protracted and extremely bloody, but Mehmed II, having such a significant army, did not pay attention to the losses.

In the first wave, he sent bashi-bazouk militias, whose purpose was to wear down the besieged and pave the way for regular troops with their blood. The losses of the Bashi-bazouks were very high, but their attacks were fairly easily repulsed. But it was clear that this was only a prelude to a real assault.

Immediately after the recall of the militia, a second wave of attack began, in which the regular Turkish troops of Ishak Pasha went. A particularly dangerous situation was created in the most vulnerable spot of the land wall, at the gates of Saint Roman. But the defenders of the capital found new strength in themselves, and the Turks again met with a fierce rebuff. But when the assault, it seemed, had already drowned, the cannon fired from the huge cannon of the Hungarian Urban smashed the barrier erected in the gaps in the wall. Several hundred Turks rushed into the gap with triumphant shouts. But the troops under the command of the emperor surrounded them and killed most of them. In other areas, the attackers' successes were small. The Turks withdrew again.

And only now, when the besieged were extremely tired of the continuous four-hour battle, the elite of the Sultan's army - the elite detachments of the Janissaries - were thrown into the assault. Soon, the Turks discovered a secret door designed for secret forays. Oddly enough, it was not locked, and more than 50 Turks rushed into the city. Perhaps the besieged could cope with this detachment. But just at that moment one of the main leaders of the defense, the Genoese Giustiniani, was mortally wounded. Despite Constantine's request to remain at his post, Giustiniani gave the order to be carried away. When the Genoese saw their commander being carried away through the gates of the inner wall, they rushed after him in panic. The Greeks were left alone, they repulsed several more attacks of the Janissaries, but, in the end, they were thrown from the outer fortifications and killed.

Emperor Constantine gathered around him the available warriors and, with a relatively small detachment, rushed into a desperate counterattack. In the ensuing hand-to-hand combat, the emperor was killed. The Turks, not recognizing him, left him lying in the street like a simple warrior.

The death of Constantine XI seemed to mark the last stage of the battle - the agony of the thousand-year capital of the great empire. At first, the Turks who broke in rushed to the gates, so that new Turkish units would pour into the city from all sides. In many places the besieged were surrounded on the walls they defended. Some tried to break through to the ships and escape. Some resisted staunchly and were killed.

Panic soon broke out among the besieged. Only a few defenders of the city, mainly Italians, were able to break through to the ships and sail away, which the Turks did not particularly interfere with. The rest of the defenders, who had nowhere to run, were brutally punished. By the evening of May 29, the last centers of resistance were suppressed. Constantinople fell.

The fall of Constantinople is a landmark event in the history of Europe. Some modern historians even believe that it was it that completed the history of the Middle Ages (most, however, consider this the discovery of America by Columbus). Its consequences were great. The connection between the West and the East turned out to be broken for a long time, which, in fact, led to the era of the great geographical discoveries. With the fall of Constantinople, the heiress of great Rome, the Byzantine Empire, was destroyed. The Turkish onslaught on Europe rose sharply and over the next 100-plus years the Ottomans won victory after victory.

Constantinople fell on May 29, 1453. Mehmed II allowed his army to plunder the city for three days. Wild crowds poured into the broken "Second Rome" in search of prey and pleasure.

Agony of Byzantium

Already at the time of the birth of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, the entire territory of Byzantium was limited only by Constantinople and its environs. The country was in agony, or rather, as the historian Natalya Basovskaya correctly put it, she was always in agony. The entire history of Byzantium, with the exception of the first centuries after the formation of the state, is an incessant series of dynastic feuds, which were aggravated by attacks from external enemies who tried to seize the "Golden Bridge" between Europe and Asia. But the worst became after 1204, when the crusaders, who once again set off for the Holy Land, decided to stop at Constantinople. After that defeat, the city was able to rise and even unite some lands around itself, but the inhabitants did not learn from their mistakes. A struggle for power has flared up in the country again.

By the beginning of the 15th century, most of the nobility secretly adhered to a Turkish orientation. At that time, Palamism was popular among the Romans, which was characterized by a contemplative and detached attitude to the world. Supporters of this doctrine lived in prayer and were maximally detached from what was happening. The Union of Florence, which declared the primacy of the Roman pontiff over all Orthodox patriarchs, looks truly tragic against this background. Its acceptance meant the complete dependence of the Orthodox Church on the Catholic Church, and its refusal led to the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the last pillar of the world of the Romans.

The last of the Komnenos

Mehmed II the conqueror became not only the conqueror of Constantinople, but also its patron. He preserved Christian churches, rebuilt them into mosques, and established contacts with representatives of the clergy. To some extent, we can say that he loved Constantinople, the city under him began to experience its new, this time Muslim heyday. In addition, Mehmed II himself positioned himself not so much as an invader, but as a successor to the Byzantine emperors. He even called himself "Kaiser-i-Rum" - the ruler of the Romans. Allegedly, he was the last of the family of the once overthrown imperial dynasty of Komnenos. According to legend, his ancestor emigrated to Anatolia, where he converted to Islam and married a Seljuk princess. Most likely, this was just a legend that justified the conquest, but not without reason - Mehmed II was born on the European side, in Adrianople.
In fact, Mehmed had a very dubious pedigree. He was the fourth son of the harem, from the concubine of Hyuma Hatun. He had zero chances of power. Nevertheless, he managed to become a sultan, now all that remained was to legitimize his origin. The conquest of Constantinople forever secured him the status of a great legitimate ruler.

The audacity of Constantine

Constantine XI himself, the emperor of Constantinople, was to blame for the deterioration of relations between the Byzantines and the Turks. Taking advantage of the difficulties that the sultan had to face in 1451 - the revolts of the rulers of the unconquered emirates and the unrest among the troops of his own Janissaries - Constantine decided to show his parity before Mehmed. He sent ambassadors to him with a complaint that the sums promised for the maintenance of Prince Orhan, a hostage at the court of Constantinople, had not yet been paid.

Prince Orhan was the last living contender for the throne in place of Mehmed. The ambassadors had to carefully remind the Sultan of this. When the embassy reached the Sultan - probably in Bursa - Khalil Pasha, who received him, was embarrassed and angry. He had already studied his master well enough to imagine what his reaction to such insolence would be. However, Mehmed himself limited himself to coldly promised them to consider this issue upon his return to Adrianople. He was not moved by the insulting and empty demands of the Byzantines. Now he had an excuse to break his oath promise not to invade Byzantine territory.

Mehmed's killer cannons

The fate of Constantinople was not determined by the rage of the Ottoman soldiers, whose influxes the city fought off for two whole months, despite the obvious superiority in numbers. Mehmed had another trump card up his sleeve. Three months before the siege, he received a formidable weapon from the German engineer Urban, which "pierced any walls." It is known that the length of the cannon was about 27 feet, the thickness of the barrel wall was 8 inches, and the diameter of the vent was 2.5 feet. The cannon could fire cannonballs weighing about thirteen centners at a distance of about a mile and a half. 30 pairs of bulls pulled the cannon to the walls of Constantinople, another 200 people supported it in a stable position.
On April 5, on the eve of the battle, Mehmed pitched his tent right in front of the walls of Constantinople. In accordance with Islamic law, he sent a message to the emperor in which he promised to keep all his subjects alive if the city was immediately surrendered. In case of refusal, the residents could no longer wait for mercy. Mehmed received no response. Early on Friday morning, April 6, Urban's cannon fired.

Signs of fate

On May 23, the Byzantines managed to experience the taste of victory for the last time: they captured the Turks who were digging the trenches. But it was on May 23 that the last hopes of the residents collapsed. Towards the evening of that day, they saw a ship rapidly approaching from the side of the Sea of \u200b\u200bMarmara, pursued by Turkish ships. He managed to get away from the pursuit; under cover of darkness, the chain that blocked the entrance to the Golden Horn was opened, allowing the ship to enter the bay. At first, it was thought that this was the ship of the rescue fleet of the Western Allies. But it was the brigantine that set out twenty days ago in search of the Venetian fleet promised to the city. She went around all the islands of the Aegean Sea, but never found a single Venetian ship; moreover, no one even saw them there. When the sailors told the emperor their sad news, he thanked them and wept. From now on, the city could only rely on its divine patrons. The forces were too unequal - seven thousand defenders against the hundred thousandth army of the Sultan.

But even in faith, the last Byzantines could not find consolation. I remembered the prediction of the death of the empire. The first Christian emperor was Constantine, son of Helena; so will the last one. There was another thing: Constantinople will never fall while the moon is shining in the sky. But on May 24, on the night of the full moon, a total lunar eclipse occurred. We turned to the last protector - the icon of the Mother of God. They put her on a stretcher and carried her through the city streets. However, during this procession, the icon fell from the stretcher. When the procession was resumed again, a thunderstorm with hail broke out over the city. And the next night, according to sources, Saint Sophia was illuminated by some strange radiance of unknown origin. He was spotted in both camps. The next day, a general assault on the city began.

Ancient prophecy

Cannonballs rained down on the city. The Turkish fleet blocked Constantinople from the sea. But there was still the inner harbor of the Golden Horn, the entrance to which was blocked off, and where the Byzantine fleet was located. The Turks could not enter there, and the Byzantine ships even managed to win the battle with the huge Turkish fleet. Then Mehmed ordered to drag the ships overland by dragging and lower them to the water in the Golden Horn. When they were being dragged, the Sultan commanded to raise all the sails on them, the rowers to wave the oars, and the musicians to play frightening melodies. This is how another ancient prophecy came true that the city would fall if sea-going ships went overland.

Three days of robberies

Rome's successor, Constantinople fell on May 29, 1453. Then Mehmed II gave his terrible instruction, which is usually forgotten in stories about the history of Istanbul. He allowed his numerous army to plunder the city with impunity for three days. Wild crowds poured into the broken Constantinople in search of booty and delights. At first, they could not believe that the resistance had already ended, and they killed everyone who came across them on the streets, without taking apart men, women and children. Rivers of blood flowed down the steep hills of Petra and colored the waters of the Golden Horn. The warriors grabbed everything that glitters, ripping off vestments from icons and precious bindings from books and destroying the icons and books themselves, as well as breaking pieces of mosaics and marble from the walls. So they plundered the Church of the Savior in Chora, as a result of which the already mentioned, most revered icon of Byzantium - the Mother of God Hodegetria, which, according to legend, was written by the Apostle Luke himself, perished.

Some of the residents were caught during a prayer service in the Hagia Sophia. The oldest and weakest parishioners were killed on the spot, the rest were captured. The Greek historian Duka, a contemporary of events, tells about what is happening in his essay as follows: “Who will tell about the crying and cries of children, about the cry and tears of mothers, about the sobs of fathers, who will tell? Then the slave was knitted with the mistress, the master with the slave, the archimandrite with the gatekeeper, gentle youths with virgins. If anyone resisted, they were killed without mercy; each, taking his captive to a safe place, returned for the prey a second and third time. "
When the Sultan and his court left Constantinople on July 21, the city was half destroyed and blackened by fires. Churches have been plundered, houses have been devastated. Driving through the streets, the Sultan shed tears: "What city did we give to plunder and destruction."