On this day, 29 May, 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottomans thus ending two millennia of Roman civilisation.
Constantinople, already weakened by centuries of betrayal by Western Christianity, the many invasions by Crusaders and others and by the indifference of fractured Western powers was in a weakened state. Many of her citizens had already moved away and parts of the city lay abandoned and empty. However, some of her great monuments still survived despite the earlier looting by Crusaders, Venetians and others which robbed the city of its incomparable treasures. As an example, the bronze horses which today are in St Mark's Basilica in Venice were looted by Doge Enrico Dandolo in 1204 from their original site at the great Hippodrome in Constantinople.
On those fateful days of May, 1453, as the city was besieged, the great dome of the Hagia Sophia built by the emperor, Justinian in 537 loomed over the doomed city and stood as a mighty monument to Western Civilisation and ingenuity. And the city's mighty defensive walls endured also. There is some debate whether or not the Ottoman siege of Constantinople was failing and only succeeded because of their use of cannons.
But the city did fall on the 29 May making it one of the greatest tragedies to befall Western Civilisation.
Three days of looting by the Ottomans followed and saw many atrocities committed by them. As clergy and lay people sought sanctuary in their holiest of places and the home of Greek Orthodoxy, the Hagia Sofia, they were murdered without pity. Greek homes were looted, Greek women raped and even the conqueror of Constantinople raped the sons of aristocratic Greek families after beheading their fathers and older brothers.
And thirty thousand hapless Greek residents were marched away into Muslim slavery.
Constantinople's fall rightly shocked the Western powers as they now faced frequent Ottoman incursions into their own territories and were forced to defend themselves during centuries of warfare. Perhaps the survival of Western Civilisation owes much to the Spanish Reconquista of 1492 and the expulsion of Muslims from Europe.
Origin of picture unknown. Sourced from the internet.
