Constantine XI Died Fighting. The City Fell May 29, 1453.
573 years ago today, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman army of Sultan Mehmed II, ending more than a thousand years of Byzantine civilization in a single morning.
By 1453, the Byzantine Empire existed in name only. It controlled little more than the city itself and scattered territories like the Despotate of Mystras. The population inside the walls had shrunk to roughly 50,000 people facing serious food shortages, and Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos could field just 7,000 defenders, around 2,000 of them foreign mercenaries, mostly Venetians and Genoese.
They would rather see a Turkish turban ruling in the city than a Latin mitre.
Mehmed had spent the early months of 1453 assembling a force of 150,000 troops and a fleet of 400 ships at his base in Adrianople. His most decisive weapon was a massive siege cannon built by Saxon engineers, which began daily bombardments of Constantinople's legendary double walls on April 12. Those walls had repelled every attack for a thousand years, but they had never faced artillery like this.
The siege was not purely military. Inside the city, a bitter religious divide had paralyzed any real hope of Western rescue. Many Byzantines refused union with the Catholic Church, the price Rome demanded for sending help. The popular slogan of the anti-union faction said it plainly: they would rather see a Turkish turban ruling in the city than a Latin mitre. Grand Duke Loukas Notaras made that sentiment famous with his own version of the same idea.
The final assault came in the early hours of May 29. Mehmed's soldiers poured through breaches in the walls and took the city within hours. Constantine XI, who had refused every offer to surrender, died fighting. He was never found. Ottoman troops then looted the city extensively and enslaved a large part of the remaining population. That evening, Mehmed entered Hagia Sophia, climbed onto the holy altar, and prayed.
The fall of Constantinople is observed each year on May 29 as a day of mourning in Greece and by Orthodox Christians around the world.
