In 1453, in Constantinople, the last pearl of the Byzantine Empire, there was one of the most splendid battles in history, which began with a group of rising eastern conquerors and ended with the complete demise of the Eastern Roman Empire in Europe.
This castle attack and defense battle was full of ups and downs, wonderful and extraordinary, but in the end, because of a mistake that no one expected, the defender's efforts were frustrated, and it ended the long Middle Ages in Europe.
The strongest shield in medieval Europe, the Walls of Theodosius
Constantinople was founded in 330 AD by The First Emperor of Rome, Constantinople, and until the early 13th century AD, Constantinople was the largest and most prosperous metropolis. In a sense, Constantinople is a symbol of medieval European civilization.
Before the Battle of Constantinople, the once-invincible Byzantine Empire was already weakening, with only Constantinople and its surrounding areas, and Turkey cut off all the transportation routes around Constantinople, making the coastal city an isolated city. However, Constantinople still has thousands of years of ancient walls.
For more than a thousand years, each generation of emperors strengthened and renovated these walls, and this great castle was filled with countless conquerors, leaving those who wanted to conquer it fruitless. Europe's strongest shield was still enough to deter the conquerors in the twilight of the Byzantine Empire.
The strongest spear of the Turkish Empire, the Urban Cannon
Whether it is a Roman siege hammer or a new siege cannon, any kind of siege weapon that has existed in history is powerless in front of the walls of Theosido, but this cannot stop the ambition of the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad to conquer Constantinople.
For this, Muhammad was willing to pay all the costs, so he attracted a very good artillery expert, the Hungarian Urbas. The young sultan fulfilled all the material requirements of the master of artillery, and Urbas was not a liar in The Emperor's New Clothes, he really created the strongest siege weapon in history for Muhammad, which was the Urban Cannon.
The Length of the Urkan Cannon reached more than 5 meters, weighed up to 17 tons, the barrel caliber reached 76 cm, and even an adult could be hidden in the barrel, this huge cannon used hard granite as a cannonball, and each shell weighed 680 kg. In that era, it was a siege weapon beyond the limits of human imagination.
In order to transport this behemoth to the battlefield, the Sultan mobilized almost all the Ottoman troops, they leveled the roads, supported the balance of the gun barrels from the left and right with a few hundred strong men, and fifty craftsmen constantly replaced the rollers, lubricated them, reinforced the supports, and erected bridges. Wherever the cannons went, the newly repaired roads would be crushed to rubble.
In this way, dozens of Urkan cannons were aimed at Constantinople, the last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire.
Now, twenty or thirty of these behemoths had pointed their black mouths at Byzantium, revealing their sharp fangs. Since then, the heavy artillery team has entered the annals of war history. The duel between the thousand-year-old walls of the Eastern Roman Emperor and the new cannons of the new sultans began. —"When the Stars Of Humanity Shine", Stephen Zweig
The strongest attack and defense: Byzantium's last hope, the sultan's genius plan
The rate of fire of the Urkan cannons was not fast, and the number of shells that could be fired every day was limited, but the defenders could only watch these behemoths continue to encroach on the fortress, and the steel walls they were proud of were unconsciously full of holes.
But the soldiers on the watchtower and the people in the city were still waiting day and night for reinforcements, believing that Europe would not abandon Byzantium.
Finally, in the early hours of one day, four huge warships appeared on the surface of the sea, and they were about to sail into the Golden Horn.
The Golden Horn is like a tongue of the sea diving into the land, an inner bay with a very narrow entrance, and the Byzantines placed a huge iron chain at the entrance, which formed a natural defense.
But just as the defenders cheered and thundered, God began to show his goddamn humor again. The wind stopped, the four warships did not move on the surface of the sea, and the ships of the Orientals surrounded the reinforcements like swarms of bees and launched a frenzied attack.
For the Romans, who often watched the Colosseum performances, a realistic bloody performance was staged in front of them, but their mood was the despair of the end of the world. However, in the desperate cries of the people, the miracle happened again, the wind suddenly rose, the four large ships broke away from the encirclement and entered the Golden Horn, the chains were raised, and the Orientals were isolated from the bay.
The Sultan, who had witnessed all this happening, hated the Golden Horn, and since there was no access to this inner bay from the sea, was there any other way?
An incredible genius plan took shape in Sultan's mind.
The Sultan mobilized many craftsmen, who made slippery skids out of countless logs, thousands of workers leveled the ground, dragged the warships with countless buffaloes, smeared grease on the logs to reduce friction, and constantly diverted the attention of the defenders with shelling...
In this way, 70 warships of the Orientals crossed the hills and fields and were transported from land to the interior of the Golden Horn, and appeared in the heart of Byzantium unconsciously.
This kind of action was unimaginable to the free and loose Europeans, who were stunned to see the miraculous appearance of these warships, and felt that the throat of the castle had been firmly choked by the Orientals.
The final general attack, the incredibly forgotten little door
150,000 Ottoman troops against 8,000 European defenders, the walls were broken, and the Golden Horn was lost. At this time, everyone knew that the final general offensive was about to begin.
Outside the city walls, the Sultan, riding majestic horses, was demoralizing 150,000 men, and he knew that the most effective way to do this was an order: after the city was destroyed, all soldiers were allowed to plunder for three days, without any restrictions, gold, silver, jewelry, or women, which could become the personal property of soldiers.
The defenders were at an absolute disadvantage, but they had been holding out for more than 6 weeks, and they were well aware of the policy of the Easterners, and if they failed, something more terrible awaited them than death.
In the most palatial Hagia Sophia in all of Europe, the Byzantines held their last Mass, where emperors, nobles, soldiers and commoners gathered, and there was no longer a barrier between the superior and inferior, and all prayed with one heart for the sake of the thousand-year-old empire they shared, Byzantium.
The general offensive began, the Orientals shouted "Allah is the Allah", launched wave after wave of crazy attacks, the forwards who were not afraid of death used their flesh to bear the buffer, and hundreds of ladders were indomitablely mounted on the city walls, death became a trivial matter, and countless deaths were only exchanged for a little fighter in the siege battle.
The morale of the defenders was unprecedented, and they continued to hold on with the inner walls that had not yet been damaged, constantly resisting a steady stream of attacks, and the arrows and stones fell like raindrops, and they even forgot their fatigue. For an instant, the Byzantines seemed to see hope, and at one point they thought they could drive these savage Orientals back to their homeland.
But it was at this moment that a tragic accident occurred, a mysterious second in the long river of time, which occasionally led history to make inexplicable rulings, and it was this event that suddenly determined the fate of Byzantium. —"When the Stars Of Humanity Shine", Stephen Zweig
Between the inner and outer walls, there was a small, unattracted gate called the Kelkal Gate, which led directly to the center of the inner city, and at this moment there was no defense, open to the enemy "enthusiastically".
The Ottoman army was not Sima Yi, the Byzantines were not Zhuge Liang, and the opening of Kyle Carmen was not an empty city plan.
It was just a small mistake that no one expected. Perhaps the defenders were so involved in defensive warfare that they completely forgot about the side door.
The Eastern army rushed into Kelkamen, and the Europeans, who were still desperately defending the city, suddenly found that a group of enemies appeared in their rear, and they kept shouting "The city is broken", and these simple three words disintegrated the inner defenses of everyone in the city.
Constantinople fell in such a miraculous way, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire died on the battlefield, and the millennium empire collapsed.
The magic of history is gathered in these incredible moments, it may be a certain day, a certain time or even a certain minute and a second, a small change has an impact beyond time, like a star piercing the darkness, forever changing the course of history. That's the charm of history!