Fortress Wars Hungary As The Bastion Of Europe: Fill & Download for Free

See, my dear friends, this is probably where that old chestnut, “never ask why before you ask if” should come into play. While the question does project some modern ideas about the Balkans and Central Europe backwards, its heart is in the right place.Well, let’s take a look at the map of the Ottoman Empire before the Siege of Vienna:Of these Provinces (eyalet), Bosna was taken in 1464, Budin (Buda - today a part of Budapest) in 1541, Temeşvar (Timişoara) in 1552, Eğri (Eger) in 1596, Kanije (Nagykanizsa) in 1600, Yanık and Papa around the same time, Varad in 1660 and Uyvar (Nové Zámky) in 1662. While you can see a forward momentum in the 16th century, you can see it was slow going in the 17th. However, we’ll get to that later.Here, we need to distinguish between the Ottoman frontier and heartland, since Buda was in the former and Belgrade in the latter.The frontier zone must be considered as a whole, despite the differences of the states on either side of the boundary. Not only is there some sort of commonality between the areas across the boundary from each other, but there is also a difference between the area near the border and the interior of each state. As one author puts it, “It is through the frontiers of a state that it has relations with other states; and its frontier areas are thereby differentiated from the interior parts of the territory.” [8 ; pp.15–16]So here then was a region between two empires that remained a sort of Wild West for most of the 17th century. This frontier spirit was not new: Ottoman gazis of the 14–15th centuries had pushed (usually with personal initiative rather than central planning), the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire by engaging in frontier military activity. A few centuries earlier was the famous Danishmend Gazi, and before him, the Border warriors in the Byzantine - Abbasid border. In Spain, too, the Christian adventurer Rodrigo Diaz (El Cid) operated in the borders between Christian Leon and the Taifas (famously taking Valencia). The Mediterranean Sea also worked as a frontier between the Christian and Muslim corsairs, the latter of whom often referred to themselves at gazis (Barbaros Hayreddin also commissioned a book about his own exploits named a Gazavatname (a book of gazas).This frontier world was characterized by a few things:(1) Cultural permeability. In the case of Dansihmend epics, this is represented by Artuhi (a half Armenian, half Turkish warrior), and Efrumiye, the daughter of the Greek Lord of Malatya, both of whom convert to Islam, parent a son called Halifat (=Caliphate) and join Danishmend in his adventures. There is a good chance that the real-life Danishmend was an Armenian convert. Köse Mihal and Evrenos Ghazi were Greek converts to Islam who fought alongside Osman. There were also international naval gazis such as Uluç Ali Reis (a Calabrian) and Murad Reis the Younger (Dutch). In the case of the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier in question, were the martolos warriors.Many Christian troops served the Ottomans during the early conquest of the Balkans. Christian soldiers such as voynuks served in the army and Christian craftsmen and troops served in the forts. The martolosan (sing. martolos) were the most important such troops found in garrisons in Hungary in the seventeenth century.… Of the 1,077 martolosan recorded in a 956 A.H / 1549–50 C.E. document for the vilayet of Budin seventeen Muslim names are listed, not counting the ağas [unit commanders who were always Muslim]. Of this handful, six men are called “ibn Abdullah” (son of the slave of G-d [sic]), the name traditionally taken by converts to Islam.… The seventeenth century witnessed an increase in the number of Muslim soldiers in the nominally Christian martolos units… As with the earlier, isolated instances of Muslim martolosan, many of these men were converts carrying the name “ibn Abdullah.” It appears that, for these soldiers, service in Ottoman forts, among Muslim comrades-at-arms, led to more formal association with Islam… In some garrisons in Hungary, half the martolosan were Muslim. [8 ; p.11]This use of border fortresses as a vector of cultural diffusion reminds me a little of the way Roman castra operated. This sort of thing happened in Candia during the long siege (1645–69) of the island. I’m partially mentioning this as some of my Cretan ancestors may well have converted under similar circumstances:Just as new Muslims from Trabzon went to fight in Hungary, new converts on Crete fought on the Ottoman side and in so doing found social advancement… In 1672, for example, one Hassan Bey b. Abdullah from a volunteer regiment (gönüllü) came to court in order to claim his share of his cousin’s inheritance…Hassan Bey testified that Ahmet beşe b. Abdullah (the deceased) was his cousin since their fathers - Manoles and Georges - were brothers. [4 ; loc. 3022](2) Political instability. Let’s face it: living on the frontier is no walk in the park. Since borders, as we discussed, were permeable, many Hungarians had to pay double taxes, one to the Ottomans and the other to the Hungarian nobles across the border, still claiming their feudal rights:The pashas often justified Ottoman raids into Habsburg territories by claiming that the troops were collecting back taxes. There were also complaints that Habsburg frontier troops threatened the local villagers with impalement if they paid the Ottoman authorities.The most compelling evidence in the letters of the development of some sort of commonality between Habsburg and Ottoman troops is the frequent requests that Habsburg authorities assist in the collection of Ottoman taxes. [8 ; pp. 25–26]Of course, as with all unstable places, there was great opportunity for riches if one was enterprising. This was the case in the Mediterranean Sea, early Ottoman Empire, and also Spain. The Poem of the Cid contains an almost comical number of descriptions of the bling taken. Opening randomly:If we perish in the field, our enemies will enter the fortress,but if we win the battle, we shall be richer than ever. [7 ; p.59]There he won for himself Colada, a sword worth more than a thousand silver marks. [7 ; p. 75]In the Hungarian frontier, raids had become almost formal affairs:The 1483 treaty with King Matthias of Hungary stated that raids involving less than 400 men would not be considered a cause for war. [8 ; p. 21]In the place of the gazis of old, volunteer units, called gönüllüs would offer their services in exchange of a small pay and a possibility to share in the booty. During peacetime, 20% of the garrison of Uyvar were gönüllüs, a number which could rise during war as Janissaries joined the field army. [8 ; p.21]An important part of the booty taken were slaves:Five leaders among the captives whom Evliya calls reis kafirleri [infidel chiefs], possibly officers, were sold for 1,000 gold coins each… Thus the money raised by selling captives — at least 13,500 gold coins and perhaps as much as 16,500 — was a major portion of the total of 18,160 gold coins that Evliya reports the sale of booty had generated. [8 ; p.22]There were also professional prisoners, who would allow themselves to get captured and would agree to negotiate the ransom of other prisoners, taking a middle man commission from the proceedings.This political instability and incessant raiding caused the frontier region to shift from farming to grazing. And while in the 1620s, both the Austrians and Venetians purchased large number of cattle, the later decrease in the demand for meat, coupled with the raids and the double taxation would have deleterious effects for the frontier populations.Fortresses and CitiesStarting with cities, it appears that one of the answers to this question suggested that Belgrade could not be built up because of is geography. This must have come as a shock to the citizens of Belgrade, as the city had a population of around 100,000 in the latter part of the 17th century, making it the largest city in the Balkans after Istanbul, and one of the larger cities in Europe at the time (around the size of Madrid, Lisbon, Milan, and Vienna):Under Ottoman rule, Belgrade was known as Dar al Jihad (House of the Holy War) and in the 17th Century it was one of the most prosperous Ottoman cities in Europe. [3]So it appears that the Ottomans did indeed build up Belgrade as a place to springboard into Europe. Not only Belgrade either: the city of Sarajevo had a similar population and was an important Ottoman city in the period (3/4th of the city would be destroyed by Eugene of Savoy in 1697).A comparison of Budin with these cities is not necessarily a good one. While a very important fort and logistical center, unlike these urban areas, Budin was at the front lines of the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier (see above for the problems associated with that), but even so, Budin was a a large fortress town, not unlike Eğri, Temeşvar, Kanije or Uyvar. The combined population of Budin and Peşte across the river was supposedly no more than 10,000, with Peşte being the more populous town:While Pest was low-lying, on the river bank and surrounded by a medieval stone wall, the castle of Buda dominated all the land below. It was built on steeply rising rocky ground and ringed by hills. The huge fortified palace occupied the high plateau above the Danube, separated by near-vertical escarpments from the land below, heavily defended by entrenchments, concentric walls (zwingers) and redoubts. It was shaped rather like a club or cudgel, with the narrow handle at the southern end, closest to the river. [9 ; p. 397]Therefore, it is important to look at Budin in the context of the Ottoman frontier fortresses in the region.I already mentioned the names of some major fortresses. Let’s look at the way that an ideal 17th century fortress was built. In the 17th century, a new type of fortress built in a manner called trace italienne came into fashion.With lower and sloped walls, and earthworks, as well as an increased front for maximum cannon usage, these bad boys were the bee’s knees when it came to frontier defense. However, it should be noted that because of the enormous cost in building and maintaining these, most early modern states could only afford one or two fully modernized fortresses, opting to partially modernize the rest.The Habsburgs fully modernized the defenses at Yanık and Uyvar, the other outposts along the frontier were only partially improved. In both cases, despite the improvements, the forts ended up in Ottoman hands. [8 ; p. 48]ABOVE: A model of the Fortress of Yanıkkale (Fortress of Győr)ABOVE: A picture of the Fortress of Uyvar (Hungarian: Érsekújvár, today Nové Zámky, Slovakia)It has been (justifiably) maintained that the Ottomans did not build in this modern trace italienne style:Ottoman forts were not as well designed and built as European ones. Montecuccoli [who fought and defeated the Ottomans at The Battle of Szentgotthárd] describes them as inferior and noted that they were not built in a “modern” style, lacked real flanks, were narrow, open in the middle, and made of wood. [8 ; pp.48–49]The wood part is true for a great many Ottoman border forts of the palanka style:The perimeter was made of a double stockade of tree trunks with space in between them filled with earth. This produced a wide earthen walkway at the top of the walls, where troops and guns could be placed. [8 ; p. 49]ABOVE: A simple Ottoman palankaThis does not mean that Ottomans built the fortresses exclusively of wood.The Ottomans did build with stone too, but tended to continue to erect high masonry walls, rather than the lower, earth-backed walls of artillery era forts. Many forts were a mix of stone work and palanka style wood fortifications. One Ottoman construction method, however, was the match for cannon bombardment. The “Horasani” technique, named after the chalky soil of that region, was a method of strengthening fortress walls. [8 ; p. 48–49]Either way, it should be understood that the purpose of a fortress is not to hold against enemy attacks forever but cause them to slow down until a relief army gets there. In the case of Ottoman fortress chains (of stone and wood variety), it seems they did their job. In the siege of Budin (1684) the Holy League forces could not capture the city because a relief army arrived to raise the siege. The one in 1686 was successful when the gunpowder storage exploded and there was no relief army. In this way, the up to date defenses of Vienna held out for the two months that the Ottoman army besieged it until Sobieski’s army arrived (though had the forces of Sobieski not arrived in time the survival of the city would have been far from guaranteed). In Candia, where the fort could be resupplied with men and resources from the sea by the Venetians, the siege lasted a whopping 21 years. The French traveler Jéan Thevénot, who travelled the interior, rather than the periphery, of the Ottoman Empire during the 1650s, notes a few specific attributed of Ottoman forts during this period:Most of the 131 forts [that he saw] were squares, rectangular or triangular (as opposed to the pentagonal trace italienne style). This may be because the standard military style of the modern period, which is the trace italienne, were too expensive and could only be positioned in strategically important border locations. [6 ; p.22]Thevanot saw the interior of the Ottoman Balkans, as opposed to the periphery. A look at the Ottoman forts in Bosnia [6 ; p.112] for example,shows a concentration of forts at the frontier with a series of defenses further back. In the 17th century, there appears to have been around 100–150 active forts in Ottoman Bosnia including the palankas.It appears, then, along with Thévanot’s notes, that Ottomans had a defense system of increasingly weaker forts, starting from major ones (either built or taken from the Austrians) at the forefront, slowly making way to palanka style wooden fortifications and even weaker styles. In solidly Ottoman positions such as Bulgaria and Eastern Balkans, it wasn’t forts but derbend villages of mostly Christian armed peasants who guarded crucial roads, river crossings, etc. An imperial charter from 1565, for the establishment of a derbend village in modern Bulgaria, can clarify the rationale:Order to the Cadi [kadı] of Tarnovo: In a letter you informed us that the road over the mountains between the villages of Kilifar[evo] and Drjanovo belonging to the jurisdiction of Tarnovo, to the villages of Hümalar and Keçi Dere, belonging to the jurisdiction of Kazanlak, is not taken in the normal manner. Because Yaylak is far off and there is no other village in the interval it is a dangerous and frightening road and a nest of robbers where nobody can pass through. For this reason the travelers make with all possible difficulties a detour over distant places. As this road is not safe, scoundrels use it to drive stolen cattle from this side of the mountain to the other.There is, however, in the middle of the mountains a site known by the name of Trjavna, which is suitable for founding a village there. So if it were ordered to have a village founded there on the condition of tax dispensation, in the manner of the Derbends, the travelers and all Muslim and Christian subjects, can pass in tranquility. On this you were informed by all of the sipahis and the subjects, Muslims as well as Christian.In this manner I order that: If the place mentioned is indeed dangerous and if there is indeed a suitable empty site to found a village, in the manner explained to you, a village that will be beneficial for the protection of the travelers, you have to bring together for three years and on the condition of tax freedom, from among the non-registered people without fixed domicile those who belong to nobody (to a particular sipahi [fief holder]) and are not disputed and place a village there. After three years, after it has become inhabited and prosperous, you have to report how many households there are and how many fixed inhabitants and how much the production will be. On the base of these data you have to submit a petition to have it registered as a Derbend. [4 ; loc. 184]So, in short, Ottoman defensive structures started as major stone fortifications, that were interspersed with and gave way to more wooden Palanka structure and eventually deepest in the Ottoman lands, to armed tax-exempt villages guarding important cross roads.A fun little story from Bosnia is the story of Isabella von Berks, an Austro-Hungarian noblewoman who got her husband to turn their estate (granted after the Hungarian takeover of Bosnia Herzegovina in the late 19th century) into a romantic castle:ABOVE: the mediaevalish additions on a 17th century Ottoman fort.Ottoman GarrisonsWell, that was the general structure of the Ottoman forts but what about the people that garrisoned them? Well, we don’t really have the time to go through them all, but quickly, we already mentioned the martolos and gönüllü troops. There is no need to introduce the janissaries. Other than there, there were the azeban [sing. azeb], and they were levied from the local population:One man was levied from every twenty to thirty households… The azeb had to be an unmarried man, in good health, strong and brave in battle. He could have no sons or other dependents, such as elderly or sick people. [8 ; p.76]Also, there were salaried cavalry troops called farisan [sing. faris], who unlike the kapıkulu sipahis were neither slaves, nor were they fief holders like the tımarlı sipahi.Also crucial were the topçuyan [sing. topçu], or the gunners.There also were the sekban who were low quality short-term enlisted men:A janissary officer, usually a çavuş, would be sent out to the provinces to enroll soldiers. Landless men would be taken into the new units, and would be promised pay from the central treasury. The officer would carry with him an order authorizing the enlistment of reaya a peasants, as well as a flag (bayrak) which would act as the unit’s standard. This standard, usually red in color, represented the authority granted to the unit by the Sultan, and its revocation was the sign that the troop would be disbanded. [8; p. ]It all reminds of this scene from Barry Lyndon, actually:Other than these main soldiers were the cebeciyan (armorers) who also included the lağımcı miners and the humbaracı granadiers, and the anbarcıyan (storekeepers), who oversaw the food, building material, etc. of the fort.Most of these units were organized into cemaats and bölüks, with an ağa (commander), kethüda (second in command), katib (scribe, for keeping (especially the all-important payroll) records, çavuş (messenger), alemdar (standard bearer).Other than those, there were the müstahfızan, who were under the direct command of the warden, and took care of the physical upkeep of the fort, religious officials, carpenters, caulkers, blacksmiths.Interestingly, the source I am using for this section, published in 2007, has the following lines:Intriguingly, one of the men in the unit [of religious officials] is listed as türbedar-ı Sultan Süleyman Han, or tomb keeper of Sultan Süleyman Han. Kanunî Süleyman is, of course, buried at the Süleymaniye mosque in Istanbul, but it is possible that there was some sort of funereal monument to him at Kanije, near where he died on campaign in 1566. [8 ; p.101]In 2015, a tomb of Süleyman (where his organs, which would have rotted on the long trek back to İstanbul were buried) was discovered by Hungarian archaeologists and restored, thus solving the mystery.ABOVE: a visual reconstruction of the tomb inside a palanka type fortNumerically, the makeup of each fort differed greatly, but the numbers and composition of troops would change depending on whether or not there was an active campaign. For example,As the Ottomans prepared for their campaigns against the Habsburgs the garrison was enhanced considerably. In 1093 A.H / 1682 C.E. The garrison had 525 Janissaries. More yeniçeri were assigned to the Kanije in the next two years, and troop levels rose to 728 Janissaries in the first half of 1097 A.H. / 1685–86 C.E. Military needs elsewhere along the Habsburg frontier, however, led to the garrison being reduced to 575 Janissaries later that year. [8 ; p.72]Ottoman AttacksOttomans, from when the first examples of this technology [trace italienne forts] was seen, adapted to it but did not attempt to adopt it or improve upon it. On the contrary, they tried to develop ways of countering this system in a way that assumed its enemies had to be ones to worry. [6 ; p.23]While the Ottomans could and did defend their fortresses (sometimes very successfully, as in the case of Kanije, where a smaller Ottoman force first held out against and then sallied out and routed a much larger Habsburg force, becoming the subject of many contemporary gazavatnames and a later book by the 19th century nationalist Namık Kemal), the Ottoman strength lied in attacking forts, not defending them.Early in the 17th century, with the strengthening of the border fortifications by the Habsburgs, the Ottoman army began specializing in sieges.The Ottomans had multiple cannon foundries across their empire where they cast their guns:From the mid-fifteenth century onward, besides Istanbul [the foundry, tophane, of Istanbul also served as the headquarters of the various gunners serving in Ottoman fortresses], the Ottomans cast cannon in their provincial capitals and mining centers, as well as in foundries established during campaigns. Of these, the foundries of Avalonya and Preveza in the Adriatic (also important naval bases), Rudnik, Semendire, İskenderiye, Novaberda, Pravişte and Belgrade in the Balkans, Buda and Temeşvar in Hungary, Diyarbekir, Erzurum, Birecik, Mardin and Van in Asia Minor, Baghdad and Basra in Iraq, and Cairo in Egypt were among the most important and were active from time to time… within ten months [during the Ottoman-Venetian war], the Ottomans cast 288 canons in Avlonya for the imperial navy… This volume of production was considerable. It took almost two years for William Lewett to manufacture 120 cast-iron cannons in his foundry in Sussex in 1543–45, though they were most certainly much larger than the Ottoman prangıs cast in Avlonya. As late as 1679, Seville’s cannon foundry, perhaps the most important ordinance factory in seventeenth-century Spain, could hardly manufacture most than 36 cannons of medium caliber per year. [1 ; p.180]However, the rest of the provincial foundries were not as productive as the one in Avlonya, with most of their function being the repair and replacement of cannons in the forts they were located in. On top of that, Ottomans had multiple locations where they produced the necessary black powder for their guns, such as those in Istanbul, Cairo, Baghdad, Aleppo, Yemen, Budin, Belgrade, Temeşvar, Estergon, Peç, Salonica, Gallipoli, İzmir, among others. [1 ; p.128]To quote at length:The most far-flung gunpowder factory in the European provinces was established in Buda, seat of the westernmost frontline province of the Ottoman Empire between 1541 and 1686. Although new conquests led to the creation of new provinces in Hungary, Buda remained the foremost Hungarian province, because (along with Belgrade) it was an important port on the Danube and the principal logistical base during the campaigns against Vienna. The fortress had a dual purpose: to defend the province and to support Ottoman campaigns in Europe by supplying the army with cannons, weaponry and military hardware. [1 ; p.136]It could produce around 54 metric tons of black powder per annum, and alongside the between 43–74 tons of powder produced in Temeşvar, and the 27 tons produced in Eğri (1 ; pp.136–137), could both supply the local garrisons, and if necessary the field army. As the Ottoman need for powder increased during the two-front war they waged against both Venice and Austria in the 1660s, a new powder mill near Salonica was established, which could produce 135–162 metric tons of powder, either as cannon powder or the fine English-type gunpowder (İngiliz perdahtı).All this would be transported to the front, either using the Danubian navy, or where that was not available (due to weather or the weight of the pieces to be carried), using camels, horses or carts.So, let’s take a look at the army on the march to the front:Within [their tents], the officers cosseted themselves with carpets, embroidered hangings and furniture; but even the tents for the ordinary soldiers were well made and comfortable, much more than the crude bivouacs used by western armies. Each unit of five or ten men were supplied with shelter from the elements and a sheepskin for each soldier to sleep upon…For the campaign of 1683 [i.e. the fateful Siege of Vienna], the imperial tent makers supplied more than 15,000 tents large and small, and every other provision was made on the same scale. No possible need for an army at war was neglected. Infantrymen did not carry their weapons on the march: the muskets, spears, bows and quivers of arrows together with the rations were loaded onto camels, or stacked in carts each pulled by two bullocks. Ottoman soldiers were not forced to forage or live off the land. Fresh supplies of food were waiting at each night’s encampment, while they carried with them wagons loaded with rice and flour. On the move, the army had its own flocks of sheep driven ahead of the soldiers, with the butchers ready to slaughter the livestock and prepare the meat at each night’s halt. [9 ; p.56]The army on the march to the western theater would be joined by some of the fortress garrisons and also usually a Crimean Tatar army. The purpose of the Tatar army was to pillage the countryside and to harass or meet with a relieving army, allowing the Ottomans to fully concentrate on the siege:During campaigns in the West, it was traditional to set the Tatars loose against the Hungarian countryside . As Montecuccoli puts it, the Tatars were sent to “destroy , damage, raid, brutalize, sack and humiliate the countryside.” These raids served several purposes. Supplies for the siege force, including food and building materials, were acquired during the Tatar raids. This not only supplied the attackers, but denied the same goods to the defenders or to a field army moving toward the siege. The Crimeans could also keep an eye on and harass such a relief force. Finally, the devastation of enemy territory dealt and economic and psychological blow to the local population. [8 ; pp.37–38]After reaching the fortress, the Ottoman command would hold a council to decide the best place to attack, and begin laying siege. According to Montecuccoli,They break the walls and ramparts with continuous batteries, using a large number of artillery of large caliber, dig ditches to the water, fill them with sacks of sand and wool, fascines, and other materials. They make galleries, push up mountains of dirt able to withstand many cannonballs, which are the height of the walls and earthworks of the besieged fort. They make mines, plain, double, and triple the size of ours, set deep and which can use 120, 150, or more barrels of powder, undermining, like the Romans did, the walls and wood supports, making the susceptible to fire in such a way to bring down a long face of the walls. They worry constantly, and are stubborn in attack and defense. [8 ; pp. 36–37]The military would first begin digging trenches, overseen by the engineers. These trenches (sıçan yolları) were longer and deeper than those of the Europeans ( ; p.38). The approaches, unlike those described by European manuals did not have exacting angles but were `snake-like and twisting`. Parallels (meteris) would branch from the approaches. At the end-points of the each parallel, communication trenches connected them to the ones behind them, and also housed batteries and redoubts for cannons and rifles, giving them a more grid-like appearance than European works. [8 ; p.38]The excavation of the trenches would be undertaken by the Janissaries, joined by sekban units and civilians.The Janissaries were perceived to be better at digging than European armies in that they dug sitting cross-legged on the ground instead of kneeling. This posture was not only more comfortable for the troops but also provided better cover as the men worked. [8 ; p.38]The Janissaries entered the siege works by company, and did not leave the trenches until the siege was over. They carried water, firewood, food, and even their tobacco with them and established barracks in the trenches… The Ottomans assigned more troops to the trenches than the Europeans. By placing a large part of the fighting force at the head of the trenches, the Ottomans were difficult to dislodge by a sortie and were able quickly to move large numbers of men into a breach to take ad hold new positions. [8 ; p.39]They would built mounds of earth higher than bastion walls as staging ground for cavalry assaults. On top of the 65,000–70,000 men in an average 17th century Ottoman army, there were around 20,000–30,000 additional workers levied to help construct the siege works.Rewards as well as coercion were used to recruit trained men to dig trenches. Montecuccoli reports that Ali Pasha gave out over 50,000 thalers in incentives during the siege of Varadin. [8 ; p.40]The cannons of many different sizes (matching the cross-section of European armies of the period) would be used to constantly batter the walls or attack the counter-batteries.Ottoman muskets were longer than European small arms, and of smaller caliber. The iron was of high quality, so the janissaries could load them with more powder, thus shooting farther than European weapons. [8 ; p.43]The main way to cause a breach in the defenses was by digging mines (Iağım) by specialized miners, who would first build a semi-circular redoubt at the opening of the mine at run the gallery.A plumb line hanging from this post would be lined up with a candle at the far end of the shaft to keep it straight… Mines were charged with two or even three times the powder that European armies would use in the same time. [8 ; p.44]Using all of this organization to bear, the Ottomans would then attempt (and usually succeed) in taking a fort.ConclusionYeah, I wrote, conclusion, but it’s going to be a long one. Let’s take another look at the question:Why didn’t the Ottomans massively build up Budapest or Belgrade to serve as a proper launching pad deeper into Europe? Wouldn’t that have helped them keep a tighter grip of their European territories if they had a major inland European city?This is good question! I don’t know why it is anonymous, since I don’t see anything trollish about it. Let’s answer it:Why didn’t the Ottomans massively build up Budapest or Belgrade to serve as a proper launching pad deeper into Europe?They did, and indeed did use both of these locations as launching pads into deeper Europe.Wouldn’t that have helped them keep a tighter grip of their European territories if they had a major inland European city?Not really. Ottomans did not lose these territories because they were not built up but because they lost wars. Also, they did continuously keep pushing into Europe right up to the moment they became defensive.This question would not make sense of the 16th century, since the Ottomans were quite quickly taking large European territories then. It also can’t apply to the 18th, since, while Ottomans still could defeat the Habsburgs, it was not consistently, and they were on the defensive. Further, the decentralization, and the rise of warlordism in later 18th century would cause major problems for Ottoman discipline and morale. As for the 19th century, well, asking why Ottomans did not make major attacks into Europe is a bit like asking “why didn’t the Ottomans set up a moon base whence they could stage major space laser attacks?” 19th Century Ottomans were trying to survive, and usually by the skin of their teeth. This does not mean that they consistently lost. Hell, even against Russia in the Crimean War, before Europeans joined and carried the war to the offensive, Ottomans performed well in the Danubian theater. But when they lost, they lost spectacularly. In the 1878 war with Russia, the Russian army came all the way to Florya, a suburb of Istanbul.So, this question can only truly apply to the 17th century, a period in which the Ottomans were still on the offensive but had slowed down. To understand why, let’s take another look at that map from the beginning:Here, Kanije fort (the red one) was taken in 1600, Varat and Uyvar later in that century, but see how small the territorial gains they made from it were. This was partially due to the fortress chains built by the Habsburgs which denied Ottomans large gains. Any forward push would be slow. Contrast that with Suleyman I, who could take over most of Hungary following a few quick sieges and one battle.Ottomans had slowed down, also due to reaching their natural borders. Look at this topographic map of Central Europe:The great Hungarian plain is surrounded at its north by the Carpathian and Alp Mountains, with Vienna straddling between them. If the Ottomans had taken Vienna, what then? Where would they go? At best, Vienna could serve as a border fort, with Ottomans surrounded by smaller German states as a buffer zone with major powers. Similarly, following the Moldavian Magnate Wars, Osman II made a campaign in 1620 to Poland. His army lost the Battle of Khotyn, but let us suppose he won and conquered Poland. It is an open field all the way to the Baltic. Would the Ottomans be able to hold a front stretching from the Adriatic all the way to Russia?No, these weren’t very likely. Also, the Ottoman army, which had been optimized for siege warfare, did not join the 30 years war, and therefore did not adapt to the newer style of line infantry combat (developed by Gustaphus Adolphus), which became the major way of winning wars for the next two centuries. However, the importance of this should not be overstated. As I said before, Ottomans, even weakened as they were in the 18th century could and would win battles. As Ágoston puts it:One should avoid the temptation to overemphasize the importance of European victories. Technological developments, such as the adoption of the socket bayonet and flintlock musket, played an important yet limited role. It was not better guns that ultimately gave the advantage to the Europeans, but better drill, command and control, and bureaucratic administration. Additionally, the Habsburgs were able to defeat their archenemy to the east only in coalition with the other forces of the Holy League. which comprised the German Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Poland-Lithuania and Russia, all of which in effect represented all the Christian neighbors of the Sultan. The Habsburgs also had to mobilize the economic and human resources of half the continent. As a consequence of the Christian coalition, the Ottomans were forced to fight in four different theaters of war: in Hungary against the imperial forces; in Dalmatia, the Morea and the Mediterranean against the Venetians; and in Moldavia against the Poles; the Russians, who joined the Holy League in 1686, tied up the Tatars on the Eastern European and Black Sea frontier. None of the major states in seventeenth century Europe would have been capable of waging war simultaneously on four different frontiers, and the Ottomans were not exception. Neither were the Habsburgs. After the Habsburgs were forced to withdraw their best forces from Hungary to the Rhine Frontier to fight the French in the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–97), the Ottomans quickly recaptured Belgrade in 1690… the Habsburgs subsequently failed to push further south until the late nineteenth century, and plans to “liberate the Balkans” and conquer Istanbul remained unfulfilled. [1 ; pp.201–202](OK, here I was really going to talk about racialization of Islam riding the coattails of 19th century European Imperialism and tie it with this question assuming a civilizational war that wasn’t and yaddi yadda but since it’s already very long, I’ll save that for later).Bibliography1. Ágoston, Gábor. (2005). Guns for the sultan: military power and the weapons industry in the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.2. Demir, Necati. (2012). Danişmend Gazi Destanı. Ankara: Uzman Matbaacılık3. Garcevic, Srdjan. “The Turbulent Birth of Modern Belgrade.” Balkan Insight, April 6 2017, The Turbulent Birth of Modern Belgrade | Balkan Insight4. Greene, Molly. (2015). The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 1453 to 1768: The Ottoman Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press5. Gürkan, Emrah Safa. (2018). Sultanın Korsanları Osmanlı Akdenizi’nde Gaza, Yağma ve Esaret, 1500-1700. Istanbul: Kronik Kitap6. Güven, Okan. (2017). İki Savaş Arasında Bosna Kaleleri (1669-1683) (Master’s Thesis). Retreived from: http://www.openaccess.hacettepe.edu.tr:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11655/3571/10150154.pdf?sequence=17. Hamilton, Rita; Perry, Janet H.; Michael, Ian. (1984). The poem of the Cid. London: Penguin Books8. Stein, Mark L. (2007). Guarding the Frontier: Ottoman Border Forts and Garrisons in Europe. London: I.B.Tauris.9. Wheatcroft, Andrew. (2009). The enemy at the gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe. New York: Basic Books

This article is not mine, I borrowed it from the webpage Badass, so upvotes and all the credits goes to them, well and to Skanderbeg as well.9Skanderbeg is the national hero of Albania. He's a hardcore, skull-crushing Albanian hardass who fought for 20 years on the side of the Ottoman Empire, then got bored of that, flipped his shit, and spent the next 25 years leading an Albanian revolution that kicked the Turks in the balls every time they tried to fuck with him. Now, surviving for 40 years of constant warfare in the 15th century is a big enough deal by itself, but this guy went above and beyond – his biographer credits him with personally killing 3,000 men on the battlefield during his career. That number might be a load of crap (then again, it might not) but the truth is that this dude is such an all-important hero to his people that his medieval battle standard is the present-day Albanian Flag, and all elementary school kids in Albania are required to memorize a song talking about how badass he was. It's like their pledge of allegiance. Or the lyrics to "Ice Ice Baby".But this guy didn't start his life shirtless with six-pack abs and a two-handed falchion. No, the origin story for the Dragon of Albania is much weirder. Gjergjj Kastrioti was born in 1405, the son of the Prince of a small Albanian district headquartered in the fortress city of Kruje. Gjergjj, whose name is mercifully Anglicized to George (because how in the holy living hell are you supposed to pronounce a man's name when the last three letters are g, j and j?), grew up in the shadow of the mighty Ottoman Turkish Empire – an ever-expanding Muslim world power that was brutally crushing all before it in a tremendous, unstoppable scimitar-laden stampede of blood, fire, and delicious pastries. By the time Georgejgjj (pronounced "GEORGE-guh-jay-jay") was eighteen, the armies of the mighty Sultan had crossed the Bosporus, conquered every Byzantine city except for Constantinople, and was already flooding the Christian cities of Eastern Europe with hundreds of thousands of horsemen, infantry, and artillery – all hardened by years of battle and equipped with some of the most advanced and badass weaponry in the world. Stuff like gunpowder cannons and rifles – which nobody else in the world really had at the time, and which just so happened to be pretty fucking useful in medieval combat.So when the Turks came knocking on the gates of Kruje with a sheet of notebook paper that said, "Tribute or Death? Pls circle 1", it probably shouldn't be too surprising that George's dad ran up the white flag, handed over his four kids as hostages, and agreed to pay an annual fee to his new Ottoman overlords. What this means for our homey George is that he and his three bros were forcibly circumcised (which probably isn't much fun when you're 18 years old), converted to Islam, and shipped out to war college to train as Ottoman Janissary warriors.Now, the Janissaries were pretty fucking awesome. I'm not going to get into it in too much detail here (it's probably a story for another time), but basically the premise was that the Ottoman Sultan would take the children of Eastern European families, force them to convert to Islam, indoctrinate them in military tactics and religious fanaticism, and then send them back out to attack their former countrymen. Here's a fun fact: Many of the troops who comprised the first wave of soldiers assaulting the walls during the fall of Constantinople were ethnic Greeks, some of whom had been born to Greek nobility that at the time of the battle were still living in Constantinople. This is amazingly diabolical and awesome – through the use of these soldiers you simultaneously build an army of fiercely loyal professional warriors, break the morale of your enemy, and win battles without sacrificing your own countrymen. Goddamn genius.George was really only supposed to remain in the Sultan's Janissary Corps for a period of three winters, but when his dad bit the dust the Sultan cancelled his contract, and the legitimate heir to the Princedom of Kruje remained a slave-soldier of the Ottoman Empire for a little more like twenty years. Oh, and his three brothers were all poisoned to death for reasons (and by persons) nobody has really ever been able to figure out. Regardless of this giant shit buffet life had served George Kastrioti, however, this guy persevered and lived to kick ass whenever it was presented to him, and to do so with whatever objects were made available to him at the time. He quickly proved himself as one of the toughest men in the entire Corps, shredding his enemies across Asia and Europe, and when this shit-kicker wasn't eating shards of broken glass or jamming cinders in his eyes, George commanded a cavalry regiment, governed over nine provinces, and once personally beat the snot out of a Mongol and two Persians in the Throne Room of the Ottoman Court after they were being disrespectful to the Sultan. On account of his ultimate bad-motherfucker-dom, the Sultan bestowed George with an appropriately badass title – Arnavuthu Iskender Bey, meaning "Lord Alexander the Albanian". Sure, Alexander wasn't this guy's given name or anything (as you'll remember, his Albanian name had significantly more consonants), but it was a pretty bitchin' reference to Alexander the Great, so George was pretty much down with it – although he preferred to go by Scenderbeu, because that was a little more Albanian-sounding (Western historians changed that to Skanderbeg, and since that's the one version of his name that doesn't make Spell Check freak out and die, that's the one I'm rolling with for the rest of the article.)Despite being a high-ranking Turkish official with all the wealth, women, and power he could shake a scimitar at, the whole "Building an empire on the backs of my former countrymen" thing really started to get to Skanderbeg after a while. (Note: While his admittedly-biased biographer claims that Skanderbeg only killed Muslims in combat and never attacked Christians on the battlefield, it seems a little hard to believe that you become a Janissary Commander without skewering an infidel or two.) So, somewhat abruptly, at the age of 38, Skanderbeg made a decision that would impact his life forever – he took a company of 300 Albanian Janissaries and deserted the Turkish army in the middle of their battle against the badass Hungarian Crusader John Hunyadi. Skanderbeg marched his AWOL army through Albania, straight to the gates of Kruje (his ancestral castle, which was now under Ottoman rule), presented a forged document to the governor claiming that Skanderbeg had been appointed Turkish Governor of the region. As soon as the legitimate Turkish governor of Kruje hit the road, Skanderbeg tore down the Ottoman flag and flew his own battle-standard from the parapets. So yeah, there's more than one badass way to occupy a city, motherfuckers, and they don't all involve catapults.Skanderbeg immediately proceeded to rally the Albanian lords and declare open rebellion against the Turkish Sultan. He re-converted back to Christianity again, declared himself the Avenger of the Albanian People, and went to work kicking the crap out of everyone around him. Reacting quickly before the Ottoman forces could mobilize, Skanderbeg's rebels captured a number of cities and towns throughout Albania – and in each fortress he took he gave the Turkish defenders two options – Baptism or Martyrdom. Neither was particularly appealing to them.Murad II quickly figured out what was going on, got ripshit pissed, and came after Skanderbeg with 100,000 of his former friends, who at this point were eager to repay the Albanian for his loyalty. Skanderbeg, who never commanded an army larger than 15,000 at any point during his 25 year slugfest with Turkey, ordered a scorched-earth retreat – burning everything around his capital in an effort to deny the Turks food. When Murad reached the walls of Kruje and layed siege to Skanderbeg's castle, the Albanian hero personally commanded 1,500 men in the defense of the citadel while ordering the rest of his men to fan out and hammer the Turkish supply caravans with hit-and-run guerilla attacks. With Murad deprived of ammunition, reinforcements, and food, and his force suffering from widespread disease and being turned back every time they assaulted the walls, he was forced to call off the attack. Sultan Murad returned a little later with another force, but Skanderbeg was ready for that too – he hid his men in some trees, drew the Turkish army into a trap, and then launched an ambush that annihilated the invading army and captured their supply train.For the next 23 years, Skanderbeg would personally lead his troops into battle on dozens of occasions. As one of the last Eastern European bastions of Jesus-ness, he was constantly surrounded, fighting the enemy from every direction, and outnumbered by 10-to-1 odds, but he seriously didn't give a shit that Albania was basically just a little circle completely surrounded by the Turkish Empire. The Roman Catholic Popes were obviously pretty ridiculously super-psyched about Skanderbeg's insane powers of being both alive and Christian, and they sent him a bunch of pump-up words of encouragement. For instance, Pope Nicholas V called him the "Champion of Christendom" (though this is sometimes awesomely translated into "The Athlete of Christendom"). Pope Pious II called him the "Christian Gideon", and Pope Calixtus III appointed him Captain-General of the Holy See in his ongoing Crusade against the invading infidels. I suppose that, above all, it's a testament to his longevity that he survived long enough to have three Popes give him sweet nicknames while basically being involved in a never-ending war with a significantly more-powerful adversary. To his peeps, Skanderbeg was simply the Dragon of Albania, which is kind of an interesting choice for a nickname considering that his battle-standard was a badass two-headed Eagle and didn't really involve dragons at all.When the Sultan Murad died, his son, Mehmet the Conqueror, gave the Albanians a slight reprieve – mostly because Mehmet wanted to go off and conquer Constantinople, and he didn't need Skanderbeg stabbing him in the ass the second he turned his back. Skanderbeg used this time to rebuild his fortresses, assemble his Crusaders, and get ready to once again assume the role of being the last bulwark between Ottoman Imperial expansion and European Christendom. Once Mehmet turned his attention back to those wacky Albanians, Skanderbeg was ready to cram some Catholicism into their chest cavities with a two-handed sword. Mehmet launched two more full-scale invasions of Albania, twice besieging Skanderbeg's castle, but both times the cagey warrior used guerilla attacks, mountain warfare, and hack-and-slashing to fight them back – and he did it all while wheeling and dealing with rival factions in Hungary, Serbia, and Venice, and putting down a rebellion instigated by his own nephew. He also somehow found time in his busy schedule of fighting for his life to lead 800 horse on an amphibious assault across the Adriatic Sea and break apart the Siege of Naples – a deed of heroism that would get him appointed to a Dukedom in the Neapolitan Kingdom (a position his son would inherit – even though Albania would fall, Skanderbeg's line would survive to be Dukes of Naples for the next few centuries).Since no conventional weapons seemed to be able to kill him, Skanderbeg eventually died in 1468 of malaria while organizing the defense of Albania against yet another obnoxious horde of Turkish invaders. At the time of his death, his biographer credited him with personally killing over 3,000 men on the battlefield. While that might be something of an exaggeration, it is true that when Albania finally fell to the Turks (an event that happened a good 10 years after Skanderbeg's death), the Turks dug his body up, dismembered him, and made bracelets out of his bones. I've heard two reasons for this – they either really hated his ass and wanted to destroy his corpse beyond all recognition, or they thought his bravery would rub off on them if they wore part of his skeleton around on his wrist. Either interpretation is pretty badass.Edit: Here is a short video from a documentary they lately made about him and Kings and General explanation of his military deeds:

After ten centuries of wars, defeats, and victories, the Byzantine Empire came to an end when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in May 1453. The city’s fall sent shock waves throughout Christendom. It is widely quoted as the event that marked the end of the European Middle Ages.By the mid-fifteenth century the Byzantine Empire had long been in decline, but it remained an important bastion of Christian Europe facing Muslim Asia.The Ottoman Turks, however, had extended their territories to include the Balkans as well as Anatolia. Only Constantinople held out behind its supposedly impregnable walls, as the Ottoman Empire spread around it. For the Ottomans, the city had enormous prestige, both as a center of the rival Christian faith and a symbol of imperial power. A attempted siege conducted by Sultan Murad II in 1422 failed, but Murad’s young successor, Mehmed II, leader of the Ottomans from 1451, was determined to carry out the operation that would cap all previous Turkish triumphs.When Mehmed II set out to take Constantinople in the spring of 1453, the city was a shadow of its former glory, but it remained highly difficult to capture by assault. Its formidable fortifications had held out through numerous sieges in the past. It was poorly garrisoned, its defenders, under Emperor Constantine XI, numbering around 8,000 men despite having been bolstered by the arrival of Christian volunteers from across western Europe.Κωνσταντίνος ΙΑ΄ Παλαιολόγος, Πλατεία Μητροπόλεως, Αθήνα-- Constantine XI Palaiologos, Mitropoleos Sqr, AthensMehmed besieged the city in early April with a force of between 75,000 and 100,000 and a large fleet. His preparations were extensive. He had built a castle on the Bosphorus with guns that would prevent any relief ships sailing to the city from the Black Sea.He also employed a Christian artillery expert, Urban, to build him the most powerful cannon ever seen to batter the city’s walls. Access to the inlet of the Golden Horn, Constantinople’s port alongside the walls, was blocked by a chain, so Mehmed had his ships dragged from the Bosphorus across land on logs, then refloated in the Golden Horn to menace the fortifications from the sea.Huge canons that were necessary for the great siege were molded in Hungary, Rumeli Castle on the European side was constructed to control the Bosphorus, a mighty fleet of 16 galleys was formed, the number of soldiers were doubled, the supply routes to Byzantine were taken under control, and finally an agreement was made with Genoese to keep Galata neutral during the war. In April 1453, the first Ottoman frontier forces were seen in front of the city, the siege was starting.On 6 April 1453 Sultan Mehmed pitched his imperial tent by the door of St. Romanus in Topkapi neighborhood. The same day the city was besieged from the Golden Horn to the Marmara Sea from the land.First cannons were fired. Some of the fortresses in Edirnekapi neighborhood were destroyed. Three days after Baltaoglu Suleyman Bey launched the first attack to enter the Golden Horn inlet.Initial attacks on the city’s ancient but formidable walls failed with heavy casualties, but after attempts to negotiate a surrender came to nothing, the attacks began again, with increasing frequency and ferocity.Some of the fortresses on Bosphorus were taken. Baltaoglu Süleyman Bey seized the Marmara Islands.The big walls were bombarded by cannon fires. Holes and cracks were opened here and there and a serious destruction was inflicted by ceaseless bombardment.On 12nd April 1453, the Ottoman fleet attacked the ships protecting the Golden Horn. The victory of the Christian ships decreased the morale of the Ottoman army. At the order of Sultan Mehmed, the Byzantine ships were pounded by mortar fire, and one galley was sunk.The Sultan gave his first crucial order, the attack lasted four hours but it was scattered.On 20th April 1453 a naval skirmish took place close to Yenikapi neighborhood between the Ottoman fleet and four Byzantine warships with three supply ships full of food and weapons sent by the Papacy. The Sultan came to the shore himself and ordered Baltaoglu Süleyman Pasha to sink those ships by any means possible. The Ottoman fleet could not stop enemy's ships. With this failure, the Ottoman army lost its morale and showed the signs of defeat. Ottoman soldiers started defecting from the army. Soon, the Byzantine Emperor wanted to take advantage of this situation and offered peace.The offer was supported by the Vizier Çandarli Halil Pasha, but was rejected by Sultan Mehmed. The siege and bombardment of the fortresses with cannons continued.During this chaos and widespread feeling of defeat, a letter from the Sultan's spiritual teacher Aksemseddin promised good news about the conquest. Encouraged by this spiritual support, Fatih Sultan Mehmed escalated the attack and decided to add an element of surprise: the Ottoman fleet anchored in Dolmabahçe bay would be moved to the Golden Horn by land.In early hours of the Apr 22nd morning, Byzantines were shocked and horrified when they saw Ottoman galleys moving down on the hills of the harbor. Seventy ships carried by cows and balanced by hundreds of soldiers via ropes were slid over slipways. By the afternoon, the ships were inside the well protected bay.The surprise appearance of the Ottoman fleet in the bay created panic among Byzantine residents of Constantinople. The wall on the shore of the Golden Horn became a vulnerable spot and some of the Byzantine forces were moved there. This weakened the defense of the land walls.An attempt to burn the Ottoman ships in the bay was prevented by heavy cannon fire. A bridge was constructed between Ayvansaray and Sutluce neighborhoods to attack the walls located on the shore of the bay.An offer of unconditional surrender was delivered to the Emperor through the Genoese. If he surrendered he could have gone wherever he wanted and the life and property of his people would have been spared. The Emperor rejected this offer.On 7th May a three hour long attack was launched on the stream of Bayrampasa with a 30,000 strong force; but it was failed.Five days later, a thunderous attack made towards the point between Tekfur Palace and Edirnekapi was defeated by the Byzantine defence.On 16th when the underground tunnel dug in the direction of Egrikapi intersected the Byzantine underground tunnel, an underground skirmish erupted.The same day, an attempt to cut the big chain blocking the entrance of the Golden Horn failed. The following day the attack was repeated, but again ended with failure.A couple of days further and Ottoman forces launched another attack from the direction of Topkapi neighborhood by using a wooden mobile tower. The Byzantines burned the tower at night and emptied the trenches that were filled by Ottomans. Over the following days, bombarding of the land walls was continued.Fatih Sultan Mehmed, sent, on 25th May, Isfendiyar Beyoglu Ismail Bey as an ambassador offering the Emperor to surrender for the last time. According to this offer, the Emperor and his followers could take their wealth and go anywhere they wished. The people who decided to stay could keep their belongings and estates. This offer too was rejected.According to rumors, European countries and especially Hungarians were planning to mobilize their troops to help the Byzantines unless the siege was ended. Upon hearing these rumors Sultan Mehmed gathered his war council. In the meeting Candarli Halil Pasha and his party defended their previous position, that is, of putting an end to the siege. Sultan Mehmed with his tutor Zaganos Pasha, his teachers Aksemseddin, Molla Gürani and Molla Hüsrev opposed the idea of quitting.They decided to continue the war and Zaganos Pasha was commissioned for preparations.The general attack was announced to the Ottoman army on May 27thThe army spent the day by resting and preparing for the next day's attack. There was a complete silence among soldiers. Sultan Mehmed inspected the army and encouraged them for the great attack.On the other side, a religious ceremony was held in Hagia Sophia Church. The Emperor urged people to participate in the defense. This would be the last Byzantine ceremony.Platoons positioned for the assault. Sultan Mehmed gave the order to attack at midnight. Inside Constantinople, while the soldiers positioned for war, people filled the churches.The Ottoman army launched its final assault. The first assault was performed by infantry and it was followed by Anatolian soldiers. When 300 Anatolian soldiers were killed, the Janissaries started their attack. With the presence of Sultan Mehmed, the Ottoman army was motivated and hand to hand fights started. A young soldier, Ulubatli Hasan, who first erected the Ottoman flag on Byzantine land wall, was martyred. Upon the entrance of the Janissaries from Belgradkapi neighborhood and the surrender of the last defenders in Edirnekapi front, the Byzantine defense collapsed.Finally, on 29 May, Mehmed launched simultaneous assaults from the sea and land sides of the city that overcame the defenders.The Turks poured into the city through one of the gates that was unlocked by a bribed bizantine traitor.At once the Ottomans killed the emperor as he attempted a counterattack with his remaining defenders.The Turks spread out to sack the city, massacring so many that, in the words of eyewitness Nicolo Barbaro, “blood flowed in the city like rainwater in the gutters after a sudden storm” and bodies “floated out to sea like melons along a canal”. Mehmed, still only twenty years old, rode a white horse through the streets to Hagia Sophia, Constantinople’s famed cathedral, which was immediately used as a mosque to say prayers of thanks for victory.The fall of Constantinople was a huge blow for the Christian world but, although Pope Nicholas V called for a crusade to regain the city for Christendom, no concerted military response was made.Now styled “the Conqueror”, Mehmed declared the city his new capital and claimed to be the rightful successor to the Roman Empire.The conquest of Constantinople has had such a historical impact in the world, some historians even marked the end of the Middle Ages. With the siege of Istanbul, the Ottomans proceeded to establish hegemony over numerous independent Turkish states (Beylik) within Anatolia (Asia Minor).The result of imperial conquest was to unify the Turkish populations in Anatolia. In turn, other non-Turkish, Muslim communities and principalities were brought together under the aegis of Ottoman leadership so that the Ottoman Beylik would eventually expand into an Empire.After the conquest, Ottoman Muslims were to take dynamic roles in shaping international politics. Up until that point European Christendom has kept Muslims from Asia Minor away, with Istanbul functioning as a border station for the Crusaders. But After the conquest, the sovereignty of the Muslims was assured, and they were no longer threatened by the Crusaders. Indeed Muslims would eventually begin European campaigns.Another critical significance of the conquest to world events and history was its relationship to the Renaissance.After the conquest, many Byzantine artists and philosophers emigrated to European centers, mostly Rome, taking with them valuable manuscripts regarding advanced intellectual developments.These intellectuals played a key role in the movement to revive and revise classical Greek culture. The clash and reunification of the two divergent schools sparked the ideological revolution known as the European Renaissance, and Byzantine intellectuals from Istanbul took their part in this movement.SOURCES:Babinger, Franz: Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Princeton University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-691-01078-1Crowley, Roger: 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West. Hyperion, 2005 ISBN 978-1-4013-0558-1Fletcher, Richard A.: The Cross and the Crescent Penguin Group, 2005 ISBN 0-14-303481-2Harris, Jonathan: Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium. Hambledon/Continuum, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84725-179-4Harris, Jonathan: The End of Byzantium. Yale University Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-300-11786-8Momigliano, Arnaldo; Schiavone, Aldo:. Storia di Roma. Turin: Einaudi, 1997 ISBN 88-06-11396-8.Murr Nehme, Lina: 1453: The Conquest of Constantinople. Aleph Et Taw, 2003 ISBN 2-86839-816-2.Runciman, Steven: La caída de Constantinopla,1453, Editorial Espasa-Calpe, 1973. ISBN 84-933656-2-9Waltari, Mika: El Sitio de Constantinopla: la Caída del Imperio Bizantino, Colección Narrativas Históricas, Editorial Edhasa, Barcelona, España, 2004. ISBN 84-350-0594-1Wheatcroft, Andrew: The Infidels: The Conflict Between Christendom and Islam, 638–2002. Viking Publishing. 2003 ISBN 0-670-86942-2Wintle, Justin: The Rough Guide History of Islam. Rough Guides, 2003 ISBN 1-84353-018-XZweig, Stefan. Momentos Estelares de la Humanidad. Ed. Acantilado, Barcelona (2002). ISBN 84-95359-92-8