Capture of Constantinople. The fall of Constantinople is one of the most pathetic events in history. Greek military forces

DEATH OF THE GREAT EMPIRE. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Gumelev Vasiliy Yuryevich
Ryazan high airborne command school name of the General of the army V. Margelov
candidate of technical sciences

Abstract
The paper considers the main events of the siege the Ottoman Turks of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, which led to the fall of this city and throughout the Empire.

The fall of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, was the final defeat of Byzantium, which completed the death of the great empire. The death of the Byzantine Empire was of truly world-historical significance, and its leading geopolitical position in modern world Western European countries is to a certain extent a direct consequence of those distant events.

The advance of the Ottoman Turks to Constantinople in January - March 1453 is presented as shown in Figure 1.

1 – Constantine XI sends ships to the Aegean Sea for purchases and military equipment (winter 1452/53); 2 – raids of the Byzantine fleet on the Ottomans;
3 – Constantine XI repairs the fortifications of Constantinople (winter 1452/53); 4 – the Turks are repairing the road to Constantinople for the passage of artillery (winter of 1452/53); 5 – the Turks begin to build siege lines around Constantinople; 6 – Mehmed II returns to Edirne; 7 - 700 Genoese soldiers arrive in Constantinople under the command of John Giustiniani Longo, Constantine XI appoints him commander of the land defense line (January 29, 1453); 8 – the Ottoman vanguard brings up artillery from Edirne (February 1453); 9 – foreign merchant ships flee from Constantinople (February 26, 1453); 10 – the Turks seize Byzantine possessions on the coast of the Black and Marmara seas (February – March 1453); 11 – the fortresses of Selymbria, Epibates, Studium, Therapia resist the Ottomans; 12, 13 – the Turkish fleet departs for the Bosphorus and transports troops from Asia Minor (March 1453); 14 – Mehmed II leaves Edirne with Janissary regiments (March 23, 1453)

Figure 1 – Advancement of the Ottoman Turks to Constantinople in 1453

Before the start of hostilities, the Sultan invited the Emperor to capitulate on very honorable and personally beneficial terms for the latter. Byzantine emperor Constantine XI conditions. But the emperor, heir to the valor of the ancient Romans and descendant of Slavic princes, proudly refused - he did not trade his homeland.

In March 1453, the Turks managed to take a number of the most important Byzantine fortifications on the Black Sea coast. But according to:

“Selimvria bravely defended itself until the capital was captured.”(Figure 1, item 11)

Although the Turks blocked the Byzantine-Romans' access to the sea in many places, they, with the support of their Italian allies, continued to dominate the sea and devastated the Turkish coast with their ships.

The Venetians actively helped the Byzantines in this.

In early March, Turkish troops camped outside the walls of Constantinople, and in April they began intensive engineering work around the perimeter of the besieged city. Sultan Mehmed II set out from his capital with his palace regiments on March 23, 1453 (Figure 2) and from the beginning of April personally led the Turkish troops that began the siege of Constantinople. By this time, the capital of the Romans was already surrounded by land and sea.

The balance of forces was dismal for the Byzantines - the great city was fighting against the Sultan's army of about eighty thousand soldiers, not counting the numerous hordes of Turkish militias. It was surrounded by walls some 25 km long, which had to be protected by less than 7 thousand professional soldiers of various nationalities and from thirty to forty thousand poorly trained citizen militias.

Figure 2 – Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror sets out from Edirne for the siege of Constantinople. Painting by an unknown European artist.

The Greek fleet defending Constantinople consisted of only twenty-six ships. Of these, only ten belonged to the Romans themselves, the rest of the ships were mainly Italian. The fleet was small in number and consisted of ships different types, did not have a unified command and did not represent any serious force.

The Ottoman Turks had a clear overwhelming advantage in the fleet (its number - according to some estimates, about four hundred ships - and quality) and artillery. During the siege of Constantinople, the Turks were able to organize its massive use, ensuring the timely production and delivery of cannonballs and gunpowder in the required quantities.

Despite such an overwhelming numerical and qualitative advantage, the troops of Sultan Mehmed II faced a very difficult task. Constantinople was defended by the decrepit, but repaired and still powerful Theodosian Walls, 5630 meters long, which were erected from 408 to 413. The reconstructed section of the Theodosian Walls is presented in accordance with Figure 3.

Figure 3 – Reconstructed section of the Theodosian Walls

A wide ditch was dug in front of the wall. The Theodosian wall (the internal wall in the city’s fortification system), twelve meters high and five meters wide, was fortified every fifty-five meters with a hexagonal or octagonal tower twenty meters high, the total number of which reached one hundred. The lower tier of the towers was adapted for a food warehouse.

In addition to Feodosieva, there was also an external city wall, which was smaller than the internal one both in height and width. Of the ninety-six towers of the outer wall, ten were drive-through towers.

The location of the opposing sides' troops is presented according to Figure 4.

Figure 4 – Disposition of Turkish and Byzantine (Roman) troops during the siege of Constantinople

Turkish artillery in the 15th century was the same as in other European countries. Large guns were mounted in sloping trenches with massive wooden blocks as shock absorbers. Aiming such guns was difficult and time consuming. The giant cannons of the Hungarian Urban were located as part of artillery batteries, which included much smaller cannons. Between the batteries and the walls of Constantinople, the Ottomans built a protective rampart with a ditch in front of it. They installed a wooden palisade along the top of the shaft (Figure 5).

Figure 5 - Ottoman artillerymen place a huge cannon in position before the siege begins (March 1453). Artist K. Hook

The shelling of the Theodosian walls by the artillery of Sultan Mehmed II is presented according to Figure 6.

“And the Turks threw the city into confusion with their bombards: with noise and roar they hit the walls and towers with them... And the battle did not subside either day or night: fights, skirmishes and shooting continued all the time.”

Figure 6 – Shelling of the walls of Theodosius by the artillery of Sultan Mehmed II. Artist P. Dennis

The Turks constantly stormed the city walls. During the assaults, some of the soldiers and engineering units of the Turks tried to fill up the ditches, but to no avail:

“During the whole day the Turks filled up the ditches; We spent the whole night pulling out earth and logs from them: and the depth of the ditches remained the same as before.”

While the Byzantines and Italian soldiers (mercenaries and volunteers) fought bravely on the city walls, the Italian merchants living in Constantinople betrayed both. They entered into negotiations with Sultan Mehmed II (tyrant - as Michael Duca called him). Merchants tried to save their property at any cost:

“And the Galatian Genoese, even before the arrival of the tyrant, who was still in Adrianople, sent ambassadors, proclaiming sincere friendship for him and renewing the treaties written earlier. And he answered that he was their friend and had not forgotten his love for them, just so that they would not find themselves helping the city.”

Meanwhile, the siege of Constantinople dragged on. This clearly did not strengthen the morale of the Ottoman army. Certain difficulties began to arise with supplying the army. But On April 22, the Ottomans managed to drag their warships by land around the massive iron chain blocking the Golden Horn Bay. At this time, Turkish artillery fired diversionary fire along the chain at the entrance to the bay.

On April 28, Venetian and Genoese ships in the besieged city attacked the Turkish fleet in the Golden Horn at night. The attackers failed to burn the Turkish fleet - the Turks repulsed the attack and inflicted big losses Italian sailors. The attempt to destroy the Turkish fleet was quite predictable and therefore the Ottomans were vigilant and ready to repel the attacks of the besieged. It is also possible that the Turks were warned about the planned night attack, since there were many people in Constantinople who sympathized with the Ottomans. And the work with agents behind enemy lines was always well done by the Turks.

After this unsuccessful night attack on the Turkish ships, as reported by Sfrandzi:

“The king and the whole city, seeing this, fell into great confusion of spirit, for the king was afraid of our small number.”

The length of city walls requiring active defense has increased significantly.

At the same time, Turkish miners made several attempts to place mines under the city walls. But the underground mine war ended in favor of the besieged. They attacked enemy miners, blew up and flooded passages dug by the Turks with water.

But not everyone in the besieged city withstood the hardships of war:

“And some of our people - rebellious and inhuman people, seeing that we were weakening, and finding that the moment was favorable for vile aspirations, began to organize riots and riots every day...”

Despite all this, the foreigner, the courageous warrior John Giustiniani Longo, leader of a detachment of volunteers from Genoa, continued to honestly fulfill his soldier’s duty:

“... with his word, advice and deed he showed himself to be terrible for the enemy: every night he fired and made forays against the enemies and captured many of them alive, and finished off others with a sword.”

His men regularly made daring forays and attacked the besiegers outside the city walls.

On May 27, the Turks launched another assault on the city. The Ottoman troops marched on the walls in several waves, replacing each other, in order not to give the besieged any respite.

While repelling the next onslaught of the Turks, John Giustiniani was mortally wounded and died. But according to the Byzantine author, Giustiniani deserved his disgrace. For what? The mortally wounded officer, most likely in a state of severe pain shock, left his defense area only to die peacefully. And the author considers this an unworthy and despicable act. Like a real officer Giustiniani must was to die only on the battlefield.

For some reason, such concepts of military honor in our strange times are considered wild and inhumane (brutal - such a very fashionable word has now appeared). But during a mortal fight, they are the ones who are correct.

So, on May 29, 1453, through a breach in the wall on the fifty-third day of the siege, Turkish soldiers broke into Constantinople, they robbed and killed its inhabitants.

The Turks captured all the walls of the city “except for... the towers... where the sailors from Crete stood. For these sailors fought bravely until the sixth and seventh hour and killed many of the Turks. ... One Turk made a report to the emir about their bravery, and he ordered that, by mutual agreement, they should leave and be free ... they barely persuaded them to leave the tower.”.

The capital of the Byzantine Empire fell, and the empire itself ceased to exist. The last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, arms in hand, continued to fight the enemy who had burst into the city. His fate is not known for certain; his body has not been found. But, apparently, he died in battle as honorably as he lived. In Figure 7, the artist depicted Constantine XI with a raised sword, with a Turkish saber already raised above his head from behind.

According to eyewitnesses, many residents of Constantinople continued to offer serious resistance to the Ottoman troops that broke into the city for a long time.

Figure 7 – The last battle of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI. Artist K. Hook

On the same day, Sultan Mehmed II entered Constantinople, accompanied by troops (Figure 8). At the end of the day, Mehmed II, accompanied by the supreme ministers, imams and a detachment of Janissaries, drove up to the Hagia Sophia. At his direction, the Supreme Imam ascended the pulpit and announced: there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. Hagia Sophia became the Hagia Sophia mosque for many centuries. The Turks later added minarets to the cathedral. It is currently a national museum.

Figure 8 – Entry of Mehmed II into Constantinople. Artist Zh.Zh. Benjamin-Constant

Before the assault, Sultan Mehmed II promised his soldiers three days to plunder the city, but he stopped the outrages by the evening of the first day (although, citing a number of sources, the author of the work claims that the Sultan kept his word - and Turkish soldiers plundered Constantinople for the three he promised day).

Interesting, if this word is appropriate in this case, is the fate of the Byzantine admiral Luke Notaras. It was he who said during the Turkish siege: “It is better to let a Turkish turban reign in the city than a papal tiara.”

But an admiral, if he really is an admiral, during a war should defend his homeland to the last drop of blood, and not cynically calculate which enemy is more profitable to lie under.

After the capture of the city, Luka Notaras went to serve the Turks. Sultan Mehmed II made him governor and then executed him along with his relatives in early June.

The reason for this was that Notaras allegedly did not hand over the entire treasury of the Byzantine emperor to the Sultan. Sfrandzi, with poorly concealed gloating, reports on how Sultan Mehmed II dealt with the defector.

The Sultan ordered all the rich Genoese merchants living in Constantinople to be captured and sent as rowers to the galleys. We are talking about the very merchants who, behind the backs of the city’s defenders, bargained with Mehmed II on how to preserve their wealth after the expected fall of the city. During the bargaining with the Turks, they probably bought their safety through betrayal.

The actions of Mehmed II were logical as a soldier and therefore understandable: he honorably released the courageous Cretan sailors who offered furious resistance to the Turks and did not want to surrender even after the fall of the city. Well, the Sultan acted shamelessly with people without conscience.

Most of the defenders were exterminated, about sixty thousand inhabitants of the city were sold into slavery. Constantinople, which the Turks had long called Istanbul, became the capital of the Ottoman state. Then the Sultan imposed a universal tax on the population of Constantinople, and took one hundred of the most beautiful young men and women into his harem (the Sultan was a sodomite and pedophile).

Although the Orthodox patriarchs were restored again in Turkish Constantinople, they found themselves in a situation that the Russian people could not come to terms with. The law (firman) on freedom of religion was issued by Sultan Mehmed II in 1478.

The fall of Constantinople for the Russian Church was the impetus that led to the establishment of its actual independence from the Patriarchs of Constantinople.

Bibliography

1. Gumelev V.Yu . The causes and geopolitical significance of the death of the Byzantine Empire. // Politics, state and law. – March, 2013 [Electronic resource]. URL: (access date: 03/19/2014).
2. Nicholl, D. Fall of Constantinople: last days Byzantium. Crescent over the Bosphorus [Text] / D. Nicoll, J. Heldon, S. Turnbull - M.: Eksmo, 2008. - 256 p.
3. MirioBiblion website. Library of works of ancient and Byzantine authors. Mikhail Duka. "Byzantine history" (siege and fall of Constantinople). [Electronic resource] – URL: http://miriobiblion.org/byzhistory.htm
4. Website "Byzantine Lesson". Stephen Runciman. Fall of Constantinople in 1453. – M.: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House. [Electronic resource] – URL: http://www.vizantia.info/docs/138.htm#ar3
5. Website "Oriental Literature". Georgy Sfrandzi. Great chronicle. Book III. [Electronic resource] – URL: http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus2/Sfrandzi/text.phtml?id=1371
6. MirioBiblion website. Library of works of ancient and Byzantine authors. The story of the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. According to the publication: Monuments of Literature Ancient Rus'. Second half of the 15th century. – M.: Artist. lit., 1982. [Electronic resource] – URL: http://myriobiblion.byzantion.ru/romania-rosia/nestor.htm
7. Website "LITMIR.net - Digital library" John Norwich. History of Byzantium. [Electronic resource] – URL: http://www.litmir.net/br/?b=147109
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9. Tree. Open Orthodox encyclopedia. Jonah of Moscow. [Electronic resource] – URL:

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Fall of Constantinople in 1453- the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, by the Ottoman Turks under the leadership of Sultan Mehmed II on Tuesday, May 29, 1453. This meant the destruction of the Eastern Roman Empire, the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Dragas fell in battle. The victory ensured the Turks' dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean basin. The city remained the capital of the Ottoman Empire until its collapse in 1922.

Position of other states

Constantine's most likely allies were the Venetians. Their fleet went to sea only after April 17 and received instructions to wait for reinforcements near the island of Tenedos until May 20, and then break through the Dardanelles to Constantinople. Genoa remained neutral. The Hungarians have not yet recovered from their recent defeat. Wallachia and the Serbian states were vassals of the Sultan, and the Serbs even contributed auxiliary troops to the Sultan's army. As for the weak Trebizond Empire, it had long been a submissive Ottoman vassal and no help could be expected from it.

Position of the Romans

Defense system of Constantinople

The city of Constantinople was located on a peninsula formed by the Sea of ​​Marmara and the Golden Horn. The city blocks facing the seashore and the bay shore were protected by city walls. A special system of fortifications made of walls and towers covered the city from land - from the west. The Greeks were relatively calm behind the fortress walls on the shores of the Sea of ​​Marmara - the sea current here was fast and did not allow the Turks to land troops under the walls. The Golden Horn was considered a vulnerable place. The Byzantines developed a unique defensive system here.

A large chain was stretched across the entrance to the bay. It is known that one end of it was attached to the tower of St. Eugene on the northeastern tip of the peninsula, and the other on one of the towers of the Pera quarter on the northern bank of the Golden Horn (the quarter was a Genoese colony). 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, covered with a chain, could take refuge and calmly make repairs in the Golden Horn.

Walls and a ditch stretched from the west from the Sea of ​​Marmara to the quarter of Blachernae bordering the Golden Horn. The ditch was about 20 meters wide, deep and could be filled with water. On the inside of the ditch there was a jagged parapet. Between the parapet and the wall there was a passage 12 to 15 meters wide, called Perivolos. The first wall was 8 meters high and had defensive towers at a distance of 45 to 90 meters from one another. Behind this wall there was another internal passage along its entire length, 12-15 meters wide, called Paratychion. Behind it rose a second wall 12 meters high with square or octagonal towers, which were positioned to cover the gaps between the towers of the first wall.

The terrain in the middle of the fortification system decreased: here the Lykos River flowed into the city through a pipe. The area of ​​fortifications above the river was always considered particularly vulnerable due to the lowering of the relief by 30 meters; it was called Mesotikhion. In the northern part, the fortress walls connected with the fortifications of the Blachernae quarter, protruding from the general row; The fortifications were represented by a moat, an ordinary wall and fortifications of the imperial palace, built close to the fortress wall by Emperor Manuel I.

Throughout the entire fortification system there were also several gates and secret gates that could be used for sudden attacks. One of them, inadvertently left open after the Greek attack, played a fatal role in the fate of the great city.

Greek military forces

Although the walls of the city by that time were very dilapidated and crumbling, its ancient defensive fortifications still represented an impressive force. However, the strong decline in the population of the capital made itself felt in a very detrimental way. Since the city itself occupied a very large area, there were clearly not enough soldiers to defend it. The total number of eligible Roman soldiers, not counting the allies, was about 7 thousand. And according to Georgiy Sfrandzi, in the city, according to the census carried out on the orders of Constantine, there were only 4,773 people capable of carrying weapons, not counting foreign volunteers. Having learned about this, the emperor ordered this information to be kept secret so that the morale of the defenders would not drop even further. The allies were even smaller in number, for example, Giovanni Giustiniani Longo, a volunteer who arrived from Genoa, provided about 700 people. A small detachment was sent by the Catalan colony. Shehzade Orhan brought with him 600 warriors.

In addition to the small number of the city's garrison, its strength was significantly weakened by differences between the Greeks and Western Catholics, as well as between Catholics from different countries. These disagreements continued until the fall of the city and the emperor had to spend a lot of effort to smooth them out.

The Greek fleet defending Constantinople consisted of 26 ships. 10 of them belonged to the Romans themselves, 5 to the Venetians, 5 to the Genoese, 3 to the Cretans, 1 came from the city of Ancona, 1 from Catalonia and 1 from Provence. These were all high-sided, oarless sailing ships. The city had several cannons and a significant supply of spears and arrows, but the Greeks clearly did not have enough fire weapons.

The main forces of the Romans, under the command of Constantine himself, concentrated at the most vulnerable place, on Mesotikhion, where the Lykos River passed through a pipe under the fortress walls into the city. Giustiniani Longo positioned his troops to the right of the emperor's troops, but then joined him. Giustiniani's place was taken by another detachment of Genoese soldiers led by the Bocchiardi brothers. A detachment of the Venetian community under the command of a certain Minotto defended the Blachernae quarter. South of Mesotikhion there was another detachment of Genoese volunteers under the command of Cattaneo, a Greek detachment under the command of a relative of the emperor Theophilus Palaiologos, a detachment of the Venetian Contarini and a Greek detachment of Demetrius Kantakouzin.

April 6 - May 18

The first half of April passed in minor contractions. On April 9, the Turkish fleet approached the chain blocking the Golden Horn, but was repulsed and returned to the Bosporus. On April 11, the Turks concentrated heavy artillery against the wall above the bed of the Lykos River and began the first real bombardment in the history of siege warfare, which lasted 6 weeks. It was not without problems, as heavy guns constantly slipped from special platforms into the spring mud. The Turks then brought up two huge bombards, one of which, called the Basilica, was built by the famous Hungarian engineer Urban and caused enormous destruction within the walls of Constantinople. The bombard, built by Urban, had a barrel 8 - 12 meters long, a caliber of 73 - 90 centimeters and threw 500-kilogram cannonballs.

However, in the April mud, Urban's cannon could fire no more than seven shots a day. One of the bombards was installed against the imperial palace, the other - against the Roman gates. In addition, Sultan Mehmed had many other smaller cannons (Halkondil Laonik, “History”; 8).

In the city, they immediately learned about the Turks’ decision to launch a decisive assault, since the Christians who were in the Turkish army informed the besieged about this through notes tied to arrows and thrown over the city walls. But this information could no longer help the besieged city.

The attacking Turkish troops suffered huge losses and many soldiers were ready to turn back to escape the devastating shelling from the walls. “But the chaushis and palace ravdukhs (military police officers in the Turkish army) began to beat them with iron sticks and whips so that they would not show their backs to the enemy. Who can describe the screams, screams and sorrowful groans of those beaten!” . The historian Duca writes that the Sultan himself, personally “standing behind the army with an iron stick, drove his soldiers to the walls, where he flattered with merciful words, where – threatening.” Chalcocondyl points out that in the Turkish camp the punishment for a timid warrior was immediate death.

After a two-hour battle, Turkish commanders gave the command to the bashi-bazouks to retreat. The Romans began to restore temporary barriers in the gaps. At this time, Turkish artillerymen opened fire on the walls, and the second wave of besiegers - the regular Turkish troops of Ishak Pasha - was sent to storm. The Anatolians attacked the walls from the coast of the Sea of ​​Marmara to Lykos inclusive. At this time, the artillery fired heavily at the walls. Sources say that both the attack and the cannon fire were carried out simultaneously.

The third attack on the city was carried out by the Janissaries, whom Sultan Mehmed himself led to the fortress moat. The Janissaries advanced in two columns. One stormed the Blachernae quarter, the second went to the breach in the Lykos area.

At the same time, in the area of ​​Lykos, Giustiniani Longo was wounded by a lead bullet or a fragment of a cannonball, they began to carry him out of the battlefield, and many Genoese, due to his absence, succumbed to panic and began to retreat randomly. With this they left the Venetians and Greeks, led by Emperor Constantine himself, against the breach. The Turks noticed the confusion among the besieged, and one detachment of 30 people, led by a certain giant Hassan, was able to break into the passage. Half of them and Hassan himself were killed immediately, but the rest dug in.

The Latinophile historian Duca describes these tragic events a little differently. In an effort to justify Giustiniani Long, he writes that the Turkish attack was repulsed at the gates of St. Roman after he left. But in the place where the walls of the Blachernae quarter connected with the main city fortifications, the Janissaries discovered the secret gate of Kerkoporta. The Romans made sorties through it, but it so happened that due to an oversight it was left open. Having discovered this, the Turks entered the city through it and attacked the besieged from the rear.

One way or another, the Turks broke through the walls of the great city. This led to the immediate collapse of the defense of Constantinople, since, due to the extreme small number of its defenders, there were no reserves to eliminate the breakthrough. More and more crowds of attacking Janissaries came to the aid of those who had broken through, and the Greeks now no longer had the strength to cope with the flow of enemies that had overwhelmed them. In a desperate attempt to repel the onslaught of the Turks, Emperor Constantine, with a group of his most devoted associates, personally launched a counterattack and was killed in hand-to-hand combat. According to legend, the last words of the emperor preserved in history were: “The city has fallen, but I am still alive,” after which, tearing off the signs of imperial dignity, Constantine rushed into battle as a simple warrior and fell in battle. His comrade Theophilus Palaiologos also died along with him.

The Turks did not recognize the emperor and left him lying in the street as a simple warrior among the others killed (Dukas, “Byzantine History”, 39).

Having finally climbed the wall, the advanced Turkish detachments scattered the defenders and began to open the gates. They also continued to push the Romans so that they could not interfere with this (Sphrandisi, “Great Chronicle” 3:5). When the besieged saw this, a terrible cry was heard throughout the city, even in the harbor area, “The fortification has been taken; Enemy signs and banners have already been raised on the towers!” Panic began throughout the city; the soldiers standing on the walls everywhere stopped resisting and fled. The Venetians and Genoese (those who remained neutral) began to break through to the bay in order to board ships and flee the city. The Greeks ran and hid. Some Byzantine troops, the Catalans and especially the Turks of Sehzade Orhan continued to fight in the streets, many of them fought to the death, realizing that if they surrendered, Sultan Mehmed would simply torture them in captivity.

The Bocchiardi brothers defended themselves on the walls near Kerkoporta, but the onset of panic forced them to make a breakthrough to the sea. Paolo was killed, but the other two, Antonio and Troilo, managed to get through. The Venetian commander Minotto was surrounded in the Blachernae Palace and taken prisoner (the next day he would be executed by order of the Sultan).

After the Turks broke into the city, many Constantinople men and women gathered around the Column of Constantine the Great. They hoped for divine salvation, since, according to one of the prophecies, as soon as the Turks reached this column, an angel would descend from heaven and hand over the kingdom and sword to some unknown person standing at this column, who, leading the army, would win.

To the south of Lykos the troops of Filippo Contarini and the Greek Demetrius Cantacuzene defended. When surrounded by the Turks, they were partly killed, partly taken prisoner, including their commanders. The person in charge of the defense in the Acropolis area, Cardinal Isidore, fled his post, changing his appearance. Gabriel Trevisano also assessed the situation too late, failed to descend from the walls in time and was captured by the Turks. Alviso Diedo managed to escape with several Genoese ships.

The Italians, Venetians and Greeks were able to break through to the ships, unlocked the chain that closed the entrance to the Golden Horn, and for the most part were able to escape to the open sea. It is known that seven Genoese ships, five ships of the emperor and most of the Venetian ships managed to escape to the safety of the Sea of ​​​​Marmara. The Turks did not particularly interfere with them, fearing a long war with Venice, Genoa and possible allies of these states. The battle in the city itself lasted the whole day, the Turks had very few prisoners, about 500 Roman soldiers and mercenaries, the rest of the city’s defenders either fled or were killed.

The sailors from Crete, who valiantly defended the towers of Vasily, Leo and Alexei and refused to surrender, were able to leave unhindered. Admired by their bravery, Mehmed II allowed them to leave, taking with them all their equipment and their ship.

Consequences

Sfrandzi writes that after the assault ended and the city was taken, the body of Emperor Constantine was found and identified only by the royal boots with eagles that he wore. Sultan Mehmed, having learned about this, ordered Constantine's head to be exhibited at the hippodrome. At the same time, by his order, the Christians who were in the city buried the royal body with imperial honors (Sfrandzi, “Great Chronicle” 3:9). According to other sources (Ducas), Constantine's head was placed on a column in the Forum of Augustus.

Soon the Sultan learned from the captured Greeks that the Hungarian Urban offered his services to Constantine, but the Byzantine nobility did not want to share the funds, and Constantine did not have the funds. Urban explained that he decided in this way to help Mehmed conquer Constantinople. Having learned about such a terrible betrayal, the Sultan ordered the execution of both Urban and the entire Byzantine nobility. According to another version, Urban died during the siege when one of his bombards exploded.

Constantine was the last of the Roman emperors. With the death of Constantine XI, the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist. Its lands became part of the Ottoman state. The Sultan granted the Greeks the rights of a self-governing community within the empire; the head of the community was to be the Patriarch of Constantinople, responsible to the Sultan.

The Sultan himself, considering himself the successor of the Byzantine emperor, took the title Kaiser-i Rum (Caesar of Rome). This title was borne by the Turkish sultans until the end of the First World War.

Many historians consider the fall of Constantinople to be a key moment in European history, separating the Middle Ages from the Renaissance, attributing it to the collapse of the old religious order, as well as the use of new military technologies such as gunpowder and artillery during the battle. Many universities in Western Europe were replenished with Greek scientists who fled from Byzantium, which played a significant role in the subsequent reception of Roman law.

The fall of Constantinople also closed the main trade route from Europe to Asia, forcing Europeans to seek a new sea route and possibly leading to the discovery of America and the beginning of the Age of Discovery.

But most Europeans believed that the death of Byzantium was the beginning of the end of the world, since only Byzantium was the successor to the Roman Empire. With the death of Byzantium, terrible events could begin in Europe: plague epidemics, fires, earthquakes, droughts, floods and, of course, attacks by foreigners from the East. Only towards the end of the 17th century did Turkey’s onslaught on Europe weaken, and towards the end of the 18th century Turkey began to lose its lands.

When the city fell, the Venetians suffered the most. With the exception of two small groups on the southern walls, most of Venetian forces concentrated around the Blachernae palace of the emperor. The northern section of the fortress walls curved towards the Golden Horn. It was at this point that the Turks first broke through the wall and invaded the city. Many Venetians fell in battle, and those who were captured were beheaded by the victors.

It was not just the fall of the Orthodox and commercial capital; with the fall of Constantinople, Byzantium no longer existed as political force. An important market has disappeared. The victorious Sultan could now plot new conquests; all that could be hoped for was his good will.

Many contemporaries blamed Venice for the fall of Constantinople (Venice, as a trading, maritime city, had one of the most powerful fleets). However, it should be borne in mind that the remaining Christian powers did not lift a finger to save the dying empire. Without the help of other states, even if the Venetian fleet had arrived on time, it would have allowed Constantinople to hold out for a couple more weeks, but this would only have prolonged the agony. However, from a historical perspective, it is difficult to consider Venice innocent. The Byzantine Empire had been dying for two centuries, it never recovered from the Fourth Crusade of the Catholic army organized by Venice. Venice then received the greatest benefit from the robbery. But while defending Constantinople, Venice suffered huge losses. The Venetian army fought heroically on the destroyed walls to the last, killing at least 68 patricians

• Byzantine historians Doukas, Sphrandisi, Laonik Chalkondil about the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. // BB. T. 7. 1953.
• Duca. Byzantine history. / In the book: Byzantine historians Dukas, Sphrandisi, Laonik Chalkondil about the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. // BB. T. 7. 1953.
• Sphrandisi Georgiy. Big Chronicle. / In the book: Byzantine historians Dukas, Sphrandisi, Laonik Chalkondil about the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. // BB. T. 7. 1953.
• Chalkondyl Laonik. Story. / In the book: Byzantine historians Dukas, Sphrandisi, Laonik Chalkondil about the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. // BB. T. 7. 1953.
• Runciman S. Fall of Constantinople in 1453. - M.: Nauka, 1983.
• Norwich D. History of the Venetian Republic. - P. 422-433
• Golubev A. Fall of Constantinople. Magazine "Dilettant", March 2016.
• Constantinople// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

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 booty 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 to Constantinople and its environs. The country was in agony, or rather, as historian Natalya Basovskaya correctly put it, it was always in agony. The entire history of Byzantium, with the exception of the first centuries after the formation of the state, is an ongoing series of dynastic civil strife, which was aggravated by attacks from external enemies who tried to seize the “Golden Bridge” between Europe and Asia. But things got worse after 1204, when the crusaders, who had 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 residents did not learn from their mistakes. The struggle for power flared up again in the country.

By the beginning of the 15th century, most of the nobility secretly adhered to the Turkish orientation. Palamism, which was characterized by a contemplative and detached attitude towards the world, was popular among the Romans at that time. Supporters of this teaching lived by prayer and were as distant as possible 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. Her acceptance meant complete dependence Orthodox Church from the Catholic one, and the refusal led to the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the last pillar of the Roman world.

Last of the Komnenos line

Mehmed II the conqueror became not only the conqueror of Constantinople, but also its patron. He preserved Christian churches, rebuilding them into mosques, and established connections with representatives of the clergy. To some extent, we can say that he loved Constantinople; under him, the city 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” - ruler of the Romans. Allegedly, he was the last of the line of the once overthrown imperial dynasty of the Komnenos. His ancestor, according to legend, 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 Andrianople.
Actually, Mehmed had a very dubious pedigree. He was the fourth son of the harem, from his concubine Huma Khatun. He had zero chance of power. Nevertheless, he managed to become a sultan; now all that remained was to legitimize his origin. The conquest of Constantinople forever secured his status as a great legitimate ruler.

Constantine's insolence

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 rebellions of the rulers of the unconquered emirates and unrest in the troops of his own Janissaries - Constantine decided to show his parity in front of Mehmed. He sent envoys 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 to succeed Mehmed to the throne. The ambassadors needed to carefully remind the Sultan of this. When the embassy reached the Sultan - probably in Bursa - Khalil Pasha, who received it, was embarrassed and angry. He had already studied his master well enough to imagine what his reaction would be to such insolence. However, Mehmed himself limited himself to coldly promising them to consider this issue upon returning to Adrianople. He was not affected 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 lethal guns

The fate of Constantinople was not determined by the rage of the Ottoman soldiers, whose influx the city fought off for two whole months, despite the clear superiority in numbers. Mehmed had another ace up his sleeve. Three months before the siege he received 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 muzzle was 2.5 feet. The cannon could fire cannonballs weighing about thirteen hundredweight over a distance of about one and a half miles. The cannon was pulled to the walls of Constantinople by 30 pairs of bulls, and 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 spare the lives of all his subjects if the city was immediately surrendered. In case of refusal, the residents could no longer expect mercy. Mehmed received no response. Early on the morning of Friday, April 6, Urban's cannon fired.

Signs of doom

On May 23, the Byzantines managed to taste victory for the last time: they captured the Turks who were digging tunnels. But it was on May 23 that they collapsed last hopes residents. By the evening of that day, they saw a ship quickly approaching the city from the Sea of ​​Marmara, pursued by Turkish ships. He managed to escape pursuit; under cover of darkness, the chain blocking the entrance to the Golden Horn was opened, allowing the ship into the bay. At first they thought it was a ship from the rescue fleet of the Western Allies. But it was a brigantine that twenty days ago set out 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 began to cry. 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 Helen; so will the last one. There was another thing: Constantinople will never fall as long as the moon shines 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. She was placed on a stretcher and carried through the streets of the city. However, during this procession, the icon fell from the stretcher. When the procession resumed again, a thunderstorm with hail broke out over the city. And the next night, according to sources, Hagia Sophia was illuminated by some strange radiance of unknown origin. He was noticed in both camps. The next day the general assault on the city began.

Ancient prophecy

Cannonballs rained down on the city. The Turkish fleet blocked Constantinople from the sea. But there still remained the inner harbor of the Golden Horn, the entrance to which was blocked, 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 the ships to be dragged overland and launched into the Golden Horn. As they were being dragged, the Sultan ordered all the sails to be raised on them, the rowers to wave their oars, and the musicians to play fearsome melodies. Thus, another ancient prophecy came true, that the city would fall if sea ships sailed on land.

Three days of looting

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

Some 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 Ducas, a contemporary of the events, talks about what is happening in his work: “Who will tell about the crying and screams of children, about the screams and tears of mothers, about the sobs of fathers, who will tell? Then the slave was mated to the mistress, the master to the slave, the archimandrite to the gatekeeper, gentle young men to maidens. If anyone resisted, he was killed without mercy; each, having taken his captive to a safe place, returned for the booty 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 were looted, houses were devastated. Driving through the streets, the Sultan shed tears: “What a city we gave up to robbery and destruction.”

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

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 people, but the heirs of Greece and Rome, enlightened by the Christian faith. There were legends about the wealth of Constantinople at that time.

The beginning of the decline of Byzantium

Until the 11th century. Byzantium was a brilliant and powerful power, a stronghold of Christianity against Islam. The Byzantines courageously and successfully fulfilled their duty until, in the middle of the century, a new threat from Islam approached them from the East, along 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 found itself involved in a struggle on two fronts just at a time when it itself was experiencing a dynastic crisis and internal turmoil. The Normans were repulsed, but the price of this victory was the loss of Byzantine Italy. The Byzantines also had to permanently give the Turks the mountainous plateaus of Anatolia - lands that were for them the main source of replenishing human resources for the army and food supplies. IN better times of its great past, the well-being of Byzantium was associated with its dominance over Anatolia. The huge peninsula, known in ancient times as Asia Minor, in Roman times was one of the most populated places in the world.

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

Meanwhile, the deep old religious differences between the Eastern and Western Christian Churches, fanned for political purposes throughout the 11th century, steadily deepened until, towards the end of the century, a final schism occurred between Rome and Constantinople.

The crisis came when the Crusader army, 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 on Constantinople, captured and sacked it, founding it in ruins. ancient city Latin Empire (1204-1261).

4th Crusade and the formation of the Latin Empire

The Fourth Crusade was organized by Pope Innocent III to liberate the Holy Land from infidels. The original plan for the Fourth Crusade included organizing a naval expedition on Venetian ships to Egypt, which was supposed to become a springboard for an attack on Palestine, but was later changed: the crusaders moved on the capital of Byzantium. The participants in the campaign were mainly French and Venetians.

Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople on April 13, 1204. Engraving by G. Doré

April 13, 1204 Constantinople fell . The fortress city, which withstood the onslaught of many powerful enemies, was captured by the enemy for the first time. What was beyond the power of the hordes of Persians and Arabs, the knightly army succeeded. The ease with which the crusaders captured the huge, well-fortified city was the result of the acute socio-political crisis that the Byzantine Empire was experiencing at that moment. A significant role was also played by the fact that part of the Byzantine aristocracy and merchant class was interested in trade relations with the Latins. In other words, there was a kind of “fifth column” in Constantinople.

Capture of Constantinople (April 13, 1204) by the Crusader troops was one of the epoch-making events of medieval history. After the capture of the city, mass robberies and murders of the Greek Orthodox population began. About 2 thousand people were killed in the first days after the capture. Fires raged in the city. Many cultural and literary monuments that had been stored here since ancient times were destroyed in the fire. The famous Library of Constantinople was especially badly damaged by the fire. Many valuables were taken to Venice. For more than half a century, the ancient city on the Bosphorus promontory was under the rule of the Crusaders. Only in 1261 did Constantinople again fall into the hands of the Greeks.

This Fourth Crusade (1204), which evolved from the "road to the Holy Sepulcher" into a Venetian commercial enterprise leading to the sack of Constantinople by the Latins, ended the Eastern Roman Empire as a supranational state and finally split Western and Byzantine Christianity.

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

Latin Empire

Having established themselves in Constantinople as masters, the Venetians increased their trading influence throughout the territory of the fallen Byzantine Empire. The capital of the Latin Empire was the seat of the most noble feudal lords for several decades. They preferred the palaces of Constantinople to their castles in Europe. The nobility of the empire quickly became accustomed to Byzantine luxury and adopted the habit of constant celebrations and cheerful feasts. The consumer nature of life in Constantinople under the Latins became even more pronounced. The crusaders came to these lands with a sword and during the half-century of their rule they never learned to create. In the middle of the 13th 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 levies, but also from the oppression of foreigners who disdained the culture and customs of the Greeks. The Orthodox clergy actively preached the struggle against the enslavers.

Summer 1261 Emperor of Nicaea Michael VIII Palaiologos managed to recapture Constantinople, which entailed the restoration of the Byzantine and destruction of the Latin empires.

Byzantium in the XIII-XIV centuries.

After this, Byzantium was no longer the dominant power in the Christian East. She retained only a glimpse of her former mystical prestige. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Constantinople seemed so rich and magnificent, the imperial court so magnificent, and the piers and bazaars of the city so full of goods that the emperor was still treated as a powerful ruler. However, in reality he was now only a sovereign among his equals or even more powerful ones. Some 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 alternately laid claim to hegemony on the peninsula. In Greece - on the mainland and islands - small Frankish feudal principalities and Italian colonies arose.

The entire 14th century was a period of political failures 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, whose power 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 only be considered an empire conditionally, since even the rulers of the few pieces of land that remained under its control were actually independent of 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 country, and only in the XIV-XV centuries. began to decline. Its population, which in the 12th century. together with the surrounding residents, amounted to about a million people, now there were no more than one hundred thousand, continuing to gradually decline 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 quickly gaining power and successfully fought to expand its borders in both the west and the east, had long sought to conquer Constantinople. Several times the Turks attacked Byzantium. The offensive of the Ottoman Turks on Byzantium led to the fact that by the 30s of the 15th century. All that remained of the Byzantine Empire was Constantinople and its surroundings, some islands in the Aegean Sea and Morea, an area in the south of the Peloponnese. At the beginning of the 14th 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 captured 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, 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 strengthening 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 - battle between the Crusaders and the Ottoman Empire near the city of Varna (Bulgaria). The battle marked the end of the unsuccessful crusade against Varna by 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 Christian positions in the Balkans allowed the Turks to take Constantinople (1453).

Attempts by the imperial authorities to receive help from the West and to conclude a union with the Catholic Church for this purpose in 1439 were rejected by the majority of the clergy and people of Byzantium. Of the philosophers, only admirers of Thomas Aquinas approved the Florentine Union.

All neighbors were afraid of Turkish strengthening, especially Genoa and Venice, who had economic interests in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Hungary, which received an aggressively powerful enemy in the south, beyond the Danube, the Knights of St. John, who feared the loss of the remnants of their possessions in the Middle East, and the Pope Roman, who hoped to stop the strengthening and spread of Islam along with Turkish expansion. However, at the decisive moment, Byzantium's potential allies found themselves captive to their own complicated 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 vassals of the Sultan, and the Serbs even contributed auxiliary troops to the Sultan's army.

Preparing the Turks for war

Turkish Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror declared the conquest of Constantinople as his life's goal. In 1451, he concluded an agreement beneficial for Byzantium with Emperor Constantine XI, but already in 1452 he violated it, capturing the Rumeli-Hissar fortress on the European shore of the Bosphorus. Constantine XI Palaeologus turned to the West for help and in December 1452 solemnly confirmed the union, but this only caused general discontent. The commander of the Byzantine fleet, Luca Notara, publicly stated that he “would prefer that the Turkish turban dominate the City rather than the papal tiara.”

At the beginning of March 1453, Mehmed II announced the recruitment of an army; in total he had 150 (according to other sources - 300) thousand troops, equipped with powerful artillery, 86 military and 350 transport ships. In Constantinople there were 4973 inhabitants capable of holding weapons, about 2 thousand mercenaries from the West and 25 ships.

The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who vowed to take Constantinople, carefully and carefully prepared for the upcoming war, realizing that he would have to deal with a powerful fortress, from which the armies of other conquerors had retreated more than once. The unusually thick walls were practically invulnerable to siege engines and even standard artillery at that time.

The Turkish army consisted of 100 thousand soldiers, over 30 warships and about 100 small fast ships. Such a number of ships immediately allowed the Turks to establish dominance in the Sea of ​​Marmara.

The city of Constantinople was located on a peninsula formed by the Sea of ​​Marmara and the Golden Horn. The city blocks facing the seashore and the shore of the bay were covered by city walls. A special system of fortifications made of walls and towers covered the city from land - from the west. The Greeks were relatively calm behind the fortress walls on the shores of the Sea of ​​Marmara - the sea current here was fast and did not allow the Turks to land troops under the walls. The Golden Horn was considered a vulnerable place.

View of Constantinople

The Greek fleet defending Constantinople consisted of 26 ships. The city had several cannons and a significant supply of spears and arrows. There were clearly not enough fire weapons or soldiers to repel the assault. The total number of eligible Roman soldiers, not including allies, was about 7 thousand.

The West was in no hurry to provide assistance to Constantinople, only Genoa sent 700 soldiers on two galleys, led by the condottiere Giovanni Giustiniani, and Venice - 2 warships. Constantine's brothers, the rulers of the Morea, Dmitry and Thomas, were busy quarreling among themselves. The inhabitants of Galata, an extraterritorial quarter of the Genoese on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, declared their neutrality, but in reality they helped the Turks, hoping to maintain their privileges.

Beginning of the siege

April 7, 1453 Mehmed II began the siege. The Sultan sent envoys with a proposal to surrender. In case of surrender, he promised the city population the preservation of life and property. Emperor Constantine replied that he was ready to pay any tribute that Byzantium was able to withstand, and to cede any territories, but refused to surrender the city. At the same time, Constantine ordered Venetian sailors to march along the city walls, demonstrating that Venice was an ally of Constantinople. The Venetian fleet was one of the strongest in the Mediterranean basin, and this should have influenced the Sultan's resolve. Despite the refusal, Mehmed gave the order to prepare for the assault. The Turkish army had high morale and determination, unlike the Romans.

The Turkish fleet had its main anchorage on the Bosphorus, its main task was to break through the fortifications of the Golden Horn, in addition, the ships were supposed to blockade the city and prevent aid to Constantinople from the allies.

Initially, success accompanied the besieged. The Byzantines blocked the entrance to the Golden Horn Bay with a chain, and the Turkish fleet could not approach the walls of the city. The first assault attempts failed.

On April 20, 5 ships with city defenders (4 Genoese, 1 Byzantine) defeated a squadron of 150 Turkish ships in battle.

But already on April 22, the Turks transported 80 ships overland to the Golden Horn. The attempt of the defenders to burn these ships failed, because the Genoese from Galata noticed the preparations and informed the Turks.

Fall of Constantinople

Defeatism reigned in Constantinople itself. Giustiniani advised Constantine XI to surrender the city. Defense funds were embezzled. Luca Notara hid the money allocated for the fleet, hoping to pay off the Turks with it.

May 29 started early in the morning final assault on Constantinople . The first attacks were repulsed, but then the wounded Giustiniani left the city and fled to Galata. The Turks were able to take the main gate of the capital of Byzantium. Fighting took place on the streets of the city, Emperor Constantine XI fell in the battle, and when the Turks found his wounded body, they cut off his head and hoisted it on a pole. For three days there was looting and violence in Constantinople. The Turks killed everyone they met on the streets: men, women, children. Streams of blood flowed down the steep streets of Constantinople from the hills of Petra into the Golden Horn.

The Turks broke into men's and women's monasteries. Some young monks, preferring martyrdom to dishonor, threw themselves into wells; the monks and elderly nuns followed the ancient tradition of the Orthodox Church, which prescribed not to resist.

The houses of the inhabitants were also robbed one after another; Each group of robbers hung a small flag at the entrance as a sign that there was nothing left to take from the house. The inhabitants of the houses were taken away along with their property. Anyone who fell from exhaustion was immediately killed; the same thing was done with many babies.

Scenes of mass desecration of sacred objects took place in churches. Many crucifixes, adorned with jewels, were carried out of the temples with Turkish turbans dashingly draped over them.

In the Temple of Chora, the Turks left the mosaics and frescoes untouched, but destroyed the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria - her most sacred image in all of Byzantium, executed, according to legend, by Saint Luke himself. It was moved here from the Church of the Virgin Mary near the palace at the very beginning of the siege, so that this shrine, being as close as possible to the walls, would inspire their defenders. The Turks pulled the icon out of its frame and split it into four parts.

And here is how contemporaries describe the capture of the greatest temple of all Byzantium - the Cathedral of St. Sofia. "The church was still filled with people. The Holy Liturgy had already ended and Matins was underway. When noise was heard outside, the huge bronze doors of the temple were closed. Those gathered inside prayed for a miracle that alone could save them. But their prayers were in vain. Very little time passed, and the doors collapsed under blows from outside. The worshipers were trapped. A few old people and cripples were killed on the spot; The majority of the Turks were tied up or chained to each other in groups, and shawls and scarves torn from women were used as fetters. Many beautiful girls and the youths, as well as the richly dressed nobles, were almost torn to pieces when the soldiers who captured them fought among themselves, considering them their prey. The priests continued to read prayers at the altar until they were also captured..."

Sultan Mehmed II himself entered the city only on June 1. Escorted by selected troops of the Janissary Guard, accompanied by his viziers, he slowly rode through the streets of Constantinople. Everything around where the soldiers visited was devastated and ruined; churches stood desecrated and looted, houses uninhabited, shops and warehouses broken and plundered. He rode a horse into the Church of St. Sophia, ordered the cross to be knocked off it and turned into the largest mosque in the world.

Cathedral of St. Sofia in Constantinople

Immediately after the capture of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II first issued a decree “providing freedom to all who survived,” but many residents of the city were killed by Turkish soldiers, many became slaves. To quickly restore the population, Mehmed ordered the entire population of the city of Aksaray to be transferred to the new capital.

The Sultan granted the Greeks the rights of a self-governing community within the empire; the head of the community was to be the Patriarch of Constantinople, responsible to the Sultan.

In subsequent years, the last territories of the empire were occupied (Morea - in 1460).

Consequences of the death of Byzantium

Constantine XI was the last of the Roman emperors. With his death, the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist. Its lands became part of the Ottoman state. The former capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, became the capital of the Ottoman Empire until its collapse in 1922 (at first it was called Constantine and then Istanbul (Istanbul)).

Most Europeans believed that the death of Byzantium was the beginning of the end of the world, since only Byzantium was the successor to the Roman Empire. Many contemporaries blamed Venice for the fall of Constantinople (Venice then had one of the most powerful fleets). The Republic of Venice played a double game, trying, on the one hand, to organize a crusade against the Turks, and on the other, to protect its trade interests by sending friendly embassies to the Sultan.

However, you need to understand that the rest of the Christian powers did not lift a finger to save the dying empire. Without the help of other states, even if the Venetian fleet had arrived on time, it would have allowed Constantinople to hold out for a couple more weeks, but this would only have prolonged the agony.

Rome was fully aware of the Turkish danger and understood that all of Western Christianity might be in danger. Pope Nicholas V called on all Western powers to jointly undertake a powerful and decisive Crusade and intended to lead this campaign himself. From the moment the fatal news arrived from Constantinople, he sent out his messages calling for active action. On September 30, 1453, the Pope sent a bull to all Western sovereigns declaring a Crusade. Each sovereign was ordered to shed the blood of himself and his subjects for the holy cause, and also to allocate a tenth of his income to it. Both Greek cardinals - Isidore and Bessarion - actively supported his efforts. Vissarion himself wrote to the Venetians, simultaneously accusing them and begging them to stop the wars in Italy and concentrate all their forces on the fight against the Antichrist.

However, no Crusade ever happened. And although the sovereigns eagerly caught reports of the death of Constantinople, and writers composed sorrowful elegies, although the French composer Guillaume Dufay wrote a special funeral song and it was sung in all French lands, no one was ready to act. King Frederick III of Germany was poor and powerless, since he had no real power over the German princes; Neither politically nor financially he could participate in the Crusade. King Charles VII of France was busy rebuilding his country after a long and ruinous war with England. The Turks were somewhere far away; he had more important things to do in his own home. For England, which suffered even more than France from the Hundred Years' War, the Turks seemed an even more distant problem. King Henry VI could do absolutely nothing, since he had just lost his mind and the whole country was plunging into the chaos of the Wars of the Roses. None of the kings showed any further interest, with the exception of the Hungarian king Ladislaus, who, of course, had every reason to be concerned. But he had a bad relationship with his army commander. And without him and without allies, he could not dare to undertake any enterprise.

Thus, although Western Europe was shocked that a great historic Christian city had fallen into the hands of infidels, no papal bull could motivate it to action. The very fact that the Christian states failed to come to the aid of Constantinople showed their clear reluctance to fight for the faith if their immediate interests were not affected.

The Turks quickly occupied the rest of the empire. The Serbs were the first to suffer - Serbia became a theater of military operations between the Turks and Hungarians. In 1454, the Serbs were forced, under the threat of force, to give up part of their territory to the Sultan. But already in 1459, the whole of Serbia was in the hands of the Turks, with the exception of Belgrade, which until 1521 remained in the hands of the Hungarians. The neighboring kingdom of Bosnia was conquered by the Turks 4 years later.

Meanwhile, the last vestiges of Greek independence gradually disappeared. The Duchy of Athens was destroyed in 1456. And in 1461, the last Greek capital, Trebizond, fell. This was the end of the free Greek world. True, a certain number of Greeks still remained under Christian rule - in Cyprus, on the islands of the Aegean and Ionian seas and in the port cities of the continent, still held by Venice, but their rulers were of a different blood and a different form of Christianity. Only in the south-east of the Peloponnese, in the lost villages of Maina, into the harsh mountain spurs of which not a single Turk dared to penetrate, was a semblance of freedom preserved.

Soon all Orthodox territories in the Balkans were in the hands of the Turks. Serbia and Bosnia were enslaved. Albania fell in January 1468. Moldavia recognized its vassal dependence on the Sultan back in 1456.

Many historians in the 17th and 18th centuries. considered the fall of Constantinople to be a key moment in European history, the end of the Middle Ages, just as the fall of Rome in 476 was the end of Antiquity. Others believed that the mass flight of Greeks to Italy caused the Renaissance there.

Rus' - the heir of Byzantium

After the death of Byzantium, Rus' remained the only free Orthodox state. The Baptism of Rus' was one of the most glorious acts of the Byzantine Church. Now this daughter country was becoming stronger than its parent, and the Russians were well aware of this. Constantinople, as was believed in Rus', fell as punishment for its sins, for apostasy, having agreed to unite with the Western Church. The Russians vehemently rejected the Union of Florence and expelled its supporter, Metropolitan Isidore, imposed on them by the Greeks. And now, having preserved their Orthodox faith unsullied, they found themselves the owners of the only state that had survived from the Orthodox world, whose power was also constantly growing. “Constantinople fell,” wrote the Metropolitan of Moscow in 1458, “because it retreated from the true Orthodox faith. But in Russia this faith is still alive, the Faith of the Seven Councils, which Constantinople handed over to the Grand Duke Vladimir. On earth there is only one true Church - Russian Church."

After his marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor from the Palaiologan dynasty, the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III declared himself heir to the Byzantine Empire. From now on, the great mission of preserving Christianity passed to Russia. “The Christian empires have fallen,” the monk Philotheus wrote in 1512 to his master, the Grand Duke, or Tsar, Vasily III, “in their place stands only the power of our ruler... Two Romes have fallen, but the third still stands, and there will never be a fourth... You are the only Christian sovereign in the world, ruler over all true faithful Christians."

Thus, in the entire Orthodox world, only the Russians derived some benefit from the fall of Constantinople; and for the Orthodox Christians of the former Byzantium, groaning in captivity, the consciousness that in the world there was still a great, albeit very distant sovereign of the same faith as them, served as consolation and hope that he would protect them and, perhaps, someday come save them and restore their freedom. The Sultan-Conqueror paid almost no attention to the fact of the existence of Russia. Russia was far away. Sultan Mehmed had other concerns much closer to home. The conquest of Constantinople certainly made his state one of the great powers of Europe, and henceforth it was to play a corresponding role in European politics. He realized that Christians were his enemies and he needed to be vigilant to ensure that they did not unite against him. The Sultan could fight Venice or Hungary, and perhaps the few allies the pope could muster, but he could fight only one of them at a time. No one came to the aid of Hungary in the fatal battle on the Mohacs Field. No one sent reinforcements to the Johannite Knights to Rhodes. No one cared about the loss of Cyprus by the Venetians.

Material prepared by Sergey SHULYAK

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

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 people, but the heirs of Greece and Rome, enlightened by the Christian faith. There were legends about the wealth of Constantinople at that time.

The beginning of the decline of Byzantium

Until the 11th century. Byzantium was a brilliant and powerful power, a stronghold of Christianity against Islam. The Byzantines courageously and successfully fulfilled their duty until, in the middle of the century, a new threat from Islam approached them from the East, along 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 found itself involved in a struggle on two fronts just at a time when it itself was experiencing a dynastic crisis and internal turmoil. The Normans were repulsed, but the price of this victory was the loss of Byzantine Italy. The Byzantines also had to permanently give the Turks the mountainous plateaus of Anatolia - lands that were for them the main source of replenishing human resources for the army and food supplies. In the best times of its great past, the well-being of Byzantium was associated with its dominance over Anatolia. The vast peninsula, known in ancient times as Asia Minor, was one of the most populated places in the world during Roman times.

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

Meanwhile, the deep old religious differences between the Eastern and Western Christian Churches, fanned for political purposes throughout the 11th century, steadily deepened until, towards the end of the century, a final schism occurred between Rome and Constantinople.

The crisis came when the Crusader army, 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 on Constantinople, captured and plundered it, forming the Latin Empire on the ruins of the ancient city ( 1204-1261).

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

Having established themselves in Constantinople as masters, the Venetians increased their trading influence throughout the territory of the fallen Byzantine Empire. The capital of the Latin Empire was the seat of the most noble feudal lords for several decades. They preferred the palaces of Constantinople to their castles in Europe. The nobility of the empire quickly became accustomed to Byzantine luxury and adopted the habit of constant celebrations and cheerful feasts. The consumer nature of life in Constantinople under the Latins became even more pronounced. The crusaders came to these lands with a sword and during the half-century of their rule they never learned to create. In the middle of the 13th 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 levies, but also from the oppression of foreigners who disdained the culture and customs of the Greeks. The Orthodox clergy actively preached the struggle against the enslavers.

Summer 1261 Emperor of Nicaea Michael VIII Palaiologos managed to recapture Constantinople, which entailed the restoration of the Byzantine and destruction of the Latin empires.

Byzantium in the XIII-XIV centuries.

After this, Byzantium was no longer the dominant power in the Christian East. She retained only a glimpse of her former mystical prestige. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Constantinople seemed so rich and magnificent, the imperial court so magnificent, and the piers and bazaars of the city so full of goods that the emperor was still treated as a powerful ruler. However, in reality he was now only a sovereign among his equals or even more powerful ones. Some 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 alternately laid claim to hegemony on the peninsula. In Greece - on the mainland and islands - small Frankish feudal principalities and Italian colonies arose.

The entire 14th century was a period of political failures 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, whose power 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 only be considered an empire conditionally, since even the rulers of the few pieces of land that remained under its control were actually independent of 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. For a long time, Constantinople 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 12th century. together with the surrounding residents, amounted to about a million people, now there were no more than one hundred thousand, continuing to gradually decline 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 quickly gaining power and successfully fought to expand its borders in both the west and the east, had long sought to conquer Constantinople. Several times the Turks attacked Byzantium. The offensive of the Ottoman Turks on Byzantium led to the fact that by the 30s of the 15th century. All that remained of the Byzantine Empire was Constantinople and its surroundings, some islands in the Aegean Sea and Morea, an area in the south of the Peloponnese. At the beginning of the 14th 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 captured 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, 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 strengthening 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- battle between the Crusaders and the Ottoman Empire near the city of Varna (Bulgaria). The battle marked the end of the unsuccessful crusade against Varna by 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 Christian positions in the Balkans allowed the Turks to take Constantinople (1453).

Attempts by the imperial authorities to receive help from the West and to conclude a union with the Catholic Church for this purpose in 1439 were rejected by the majority of the clergy and people of Byzantium. Of the philosophers, only admirers of Thomas Aquinas approved the Florentine Union.

All neighbors were afraid of Turkish strengthening, especially Genoa and Venice, who had economic interests in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Hungary, which received an aggressively powerful enemy in the south, beyond the Danube, the Knights of St. John, who feared the loss of the remnants of their possessions in the Middle East, and the Pope Roman, who hoped to stop the strengthening and spread of Islam along with Turkish expansion. However, at the decisive moment, Byzantium's potential allies found themselves captive to their own complicated 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 vassals of the Sultan, and the Serbs even contributed auxiliary troops to the Sultan's army.

Preparing the Turks for war