The conquest of Constantinople
Sultan Mehmed II takes Constantinople after a seven-week siege, ending the Byzantine Empire and making the city, Istanbul, the Ottoman capital.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
- The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 — Halil İnalcık, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1973)
- The Great Church in Captivity — Steven Runciman, Cambridge University Press (1968)
By the 1450s the Byzantine Empire, once ruler of the eastern Mediterranean, was little more than the city of Constantinople, its population shrunk to perhaps fifty thousand inside its ancient walls, surrounded by Ottoman territory on both sides of the Bosphorus.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
The siege
The young Sultan Mehmed II, who came to the throne in 1451 at the age of 19, was determined to take it. He built the fortress of Rumeli Hisarı on the Bosphorus to cut the city off, and hired a Hungarian founder, Orban, to cast enormous cannon. In April 1453 an army usually estimated at between 50,000 and 80,000 or more besieged a city defended by about 7,000–8,000 men, including Genoese and Venetians, under Emperor Constantine XI.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
The cannon battered the land walls for weeks. When a chain across the Golden Horn kept his fleet out, Mehmed had ships dragged overland on greased rollers into the harbour behind it, a story every Turkish schoolchild knows. In the early hours of 29 May, after a final assault by waves of troops ending with the Janissaries, the defences broke. Constantine XI died fighting.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
The sack and the new city
As was the custom for a city taken by storm, the soldiers were allowed to plunder; many inhabitants were killed or enslaved. Mehmed rode to Hagia Sophia, the great sixth-century church, and had it converted into a mosque.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
He then set out to rebuild. He made the city his capital, resettled it with Muslims, Greeks, Armenians and Jews from across his lands, appointed a new Greek Orthodox patriarch, Gennadios, and built the Topkapı Palace and the mosque complex that bears his name. Later, Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 were welcomed. Mehmed called himself Kayser-i Rum, Caesar of Rome, as well as a Muslim sultan.
- The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 — Halil İnalcık, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1973)
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
Two memories
For Turks, the Conquest is one of the proudest moments in their history, celebrated each 29 May with re-enactments, fireworks and ceremonies, and Mehmed is “Fatih”, the Conqueror. Many Muslims also see in it the fulfilment of a hadith praising the army that would take Constantinople.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
Hagia Sophia sits at the centre of both memories. Atatürk’s government turned it into a museum in 1934, a gesture of secularism and reconciliation. In July 2020 a Turkish court annulled that decision and President Erdoğan reopened it as a mosque, to the joy of many devout Turks and the dismay of Greece, Orthodox churches and many secular Turks.
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
- The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey — Soner Cagaptay, I.B. Tauris (2017)
The Conquest fulfilled a hadith praising the commander who would take Constantinople, opened a new age in world history and made the city Turkish and Muslim. Mehmed was a tolerant conqueror who protected the Orthodox Church and repopulated the city with all faiths.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
The Fall of the City ended the thousand-year Christian Roman Empire, and three days of sack, killing and enslavement followed. Hagia Sophia, the great church of Orthodoxy, became a mosque, and its 2020 reconversion felt like a second loss.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
By 1453 Byzantium was a shrunken city-state surrounded by Ottoman lands. Mehmed did allow his troops a sack, as was customary for a city taken by storm, and then worked to revive and repopulate the city as a multi-faith imperial capital and heir to Rome.
- 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West — Roger Crowley, Hyperion (2005)
- The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 — Halil İnalcık, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1973)
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
Why it matters today
For Turks, 1453 is "the Conquest" (Fetih), a glorious national and Islamic victory celebrated every 29 May, and Istanbul is the beloved heart of the country. For Greeks and Orthodox Christians the same day is "the Fall", still mourned. The fate of Hagia Sophia, reconverted from a museum to a mosque in 2020, shows how alive the event remains.
For Orthodox Christians, and Greeks above all, 1453 is "the Fall of the City", the end of the Christian Roman Empire that had shaped their faith. It began centuries of Orthodox life under Muslim rule, and the Ecumenical Patriarch still lives in Istanbul. Hagia Sophia's reconversion to a mosque in 2020 was mourned in Orthodox churches worldwide.