Mehmed II Seizes Constantinople: Byzantine Empire Falls

The walls that had protected Christendom's greatest city for a thousand years finally broke. On May 29, 1453, Sultan Mehmed II's Ottoman forces breached the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople after a 53-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire and reshaping the political geography of Europe, Asia, and the Mediterranean world. Constantinople had survived over twenty sieges in its 1,123-year history. The triple-layered Theodosian Walls, built in the fifth century, were the most formidable fortifications in the medieval world. But by 1453, the Byzantine Empire had been reduced to the city itself and a few scattered territories. Emperor Constantine XI commanded roughly 7,000 defenders against an Ottoman army of 80,000 or more. Mehmed brought a weapon the walls had never faced: a massive cannon cast by the Hungarian engineer Orban, capable of firing stone balls weighing over 600 pounds. The bombardment opened breaches in the walls, though the defenders repaired them nightly. The final assault came before dawn on May 29. Three waves of Ottoman troops attacked the breaches. The Genoese commander Giovanni Giustiniani was wounded and carried from the wall, and his men broke. Ottoman Janissaries poured through the gaps. Constantine XI died fighting, probably near the Gate of St. Romanus. His body was never conclusively identified. Mehmed allowed his troops three days of plundering, then rode into the Hagia Sophia and ordered it converted into a mosque. The fall of Constantinople closed the overland trade routes to Asia that had enriched Italian merchant cities for centuries, accelerating the search for sea routes that led to the European Age of Exploration. Greek scholars fleeing to Italy carried manuscripts that fueled the Renaissance. The Ottoman Empire, now controlling both sides of the Bosporus, became the dominant power in southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean for the next four centuries. Mehmed was 21 years old. He renamed the city Istanbul, made it his capital, and earned the title Fatih: the Conqueror.