As Guest, Some Pages Are Restricted
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CON STAN TI N E TH E , LAST E MP E ROR OF T E E E H GR KS . C O N S T A N T I N E ‘ Gbe last E mperor of tbe W eeks TH E CONQUEST OF CONSTANTI NOPLE BY TH E TURKS D . 1 (A . 4 5 3 ) A F TE R TH E LA TE S T H I S TOR I CA L R E S E A R CH E S CH E DO M I L M I J A T O V I CH FO R M E R LY S E RV I A N M I N I S T E R A T T H E CO URT O F S T jA M E S Q “ v t 5 i l o n b o n M P N W P S A S O LO , M A R ST ON COM AN Y Lz mitcd ’ i t B aastan s E o ns ! FETTE R LA N E F LE ET T R E E T , S , E C. 1 8 9 2 W I T H P ROFOU N D A DM I RA T I ON OF T H E H E ROI S M DI S P LAY F D CON STA N TI N E P A LfE OLOGOS Debicateb M OS T R E S P E CI’ ‘ FU LLY A N D BY S P E CI A L P E RM I SS I ON TO H I S R OYA L H lG H N E S S P R I N C E C O N S T A N T I N E D U K E O F S P A RTA H E I R TO T H E T H R ON E OF G R E E CE P RE FACE . H E III a T German Emperor Frederie . in letter written 145 3 V. June to Pope Nicholas , lamenting greatly th e ca lls a th e catastrophe on the Bosphorus, Const ntinople ca ita lo the E astern E m ire the hea d o Greece the p f p , f , home o a rts a n d terature i f li Orientalis imper i sedem , Greeciae caput veluti do micilium litterarum arti An d fro m a indeed , the time of Const ntine the Great to the time when the dawn of Renaissance a was aroused Italy to her noble task , Const ntinople the capital of Christian civiliz atio n . Its place in the history of the w o rld has been always a most remark — R o n l suc able one, ome being the y city which can cessfull co m ariso n i y bear p with t. When in 145 3 it passed into the hands of Mohammed 1 ' The who le texto f Frederic s lon g a n d in terestin g le tte r in Ray n aldi A n na lee E cclesiastici vol. xviii. Co lo n iw A r 1 694 . 408 . , , , g . , p P RE F viii ACE . E I - Fathi its possession consolidated at once the new Mohammedan Empire, and enabled the Sultans of the Ottoman Turks to exte nd their sway up to the blue Carpathians in the north - west and to the Gulf of - Persia in the south east. There seems almost a mira in fluen ce in fl uen ce culons telepathic in that place , an Which inspires its occupants, as long as they possess some power, with an irresistible ambition to rule over three worlds , and which enables old and exhausted Empires to live longer than the most flatterin g pro hecies u p ever tho ght probable or possible. There are theories which assert that the possession C of onstantinople enervates, disorganizes, and in the . S o I end kills far as have been able to read history , I have found that he who takes Constantinople , once u securely seated on the Bosphor s, unavoidably feels that his power is strengthened for a higher task , that his political horizon has widened to the misty limits the of an Universal Empire, and that it is manifest destiny of Constantinople to be the capital, if not of r an universal , then at least of a g eat Empire, stretch in A A A n d I g over Europe, sia, and frica. would even say that it seems to me that neither the Byzantine n o r the Ottoman Empires could have withstood so long P RE FACE . the consequences of disorganiz ation if their capital had not been Constantinople . It is somewhat singular that, notwithstanding the undoubted interest which European nations in general , rt r and the British in pa icular, feel in eve ything con d a catastm he n ecte with Constantinople , the gre t p of 145 3 , so tragic in its incidents and so terrible in its l consequences, has never yet been ful y and thoroughly a worked out and pl ced before the readers of history . I do not fl atter myself for a moment that I shall be r I able to do what othe s have not done. wish only to state , as an undeniable fact, that up to the present o u o f no work , and no description , the conquest of Constantinople has used all the materials which exist in our time. Gibbon wrote his incomparably graphic description 02 (vol . iii . 7 using only the Byzantine historians , P hran tz es Chalcocho n d las , Ducas , and y , and the letter V A addressed to the Pope Nicholas . by the rchbishop Leonardo of Chios. r The famous historian of the Ottoman Empi e , o se h r J p von Hammer, looked to the same sou ces of information , adding some scanty notes from the ’ -udo din Turkish historian Sa ad . A R A E P E F C . W. Geschichte des Osma n J Zinkeisen , in his ischen R eiches i 83 — 6 ( . 3 8 6) was able to use letters and reports found in the Vatican Library. M r S . Martin and M r Brosset (H istoire da ’ B as E m ire M r p , par Lebeau) improved Lebeau s de scription by details found in the poem of the A A so - rmenian braham , and in the called Grusian C hronicle . R s M r S tassulevich The ussian hi torian , in his work ' Ossa da, 73 vz a tt e Viza n tii Turha mi S t y y ( Petersburg, used only the old Byzantine sources and the ’ - - chronicle of Sa ad ud din . M r S rez n yevsky published in 185 5 an old Slavonic P ov esto Tza re md e chronicle , y g y , accompanying it with notes from Byzantine sources and from Leonardo of Chios . Dr D m n n us A . M ordt a has given one of the most interesting descriptions in his B elagerung un d E mb ’ erun Con sta n tim els ( lurch die Turken imJ a hre 145 3 g p , nf a ch Ori in a l- uellen bea rbeitet . g Q (Stuttgart, using largely the Jo urn alof Nicolo Barbaro . Die E roberun en von Professor Dr Y . U . Krause ( g Con sta n tin o elif n XI I I u n d X V J a hrhumlert n a ch p , B z a n tin ischcn Fra n hischen uf n d Turkischen uellen un d y , Q P F RE ACE . xi Berichten 1 870 B z an , Halle, ) drew principally from y ’ r - ud tine authors, eprinting some portions from Sa ad din , and taking some incidents from the poem of a - Greek eye witness . v r adribb M r on Re . W. J B o and Walter Besant ( C sta ntin o le a Sketch o its H istor romits Fou n dation p , f y f to its Con uest b the Turks in 14 5 3 1879 q y , London , ) M o rdtman n s followed and Krause, but consulted al o independently Byzantine authors , and added some interesting information on the condition of Constanti n o le Bertran do n p , given by the French knight de la Bro ui re cq e . The latest monograph that appeared in Western r M r E A V literature is that one w itten by . lasto Les demiers ou rs de Co n sta n tin o le ( j p , Paris, The author has mainly reproduced the general resul ts of the researches of modern Greek historians, and M P a arri o ulo especially those of r C. p g po but his able work leaves you the impression of being more a political dissertation than a historical picture of the catastrophe . It is rather sin gular that there should not exist a single monograph on the Conquest of Constanti n o le p by the Turks in English , though as early as in REF E xii P AC . 1 6 75 a tragedy entitled The S iege of Con sta n tin ople was published in London . I u believe that, by caref lly comparing the state - r ments of eye witnesses and contempora ies of the siege , as well as the letters and documents of the time, pre served in the Italian and other archives— it would be possible to give a tolerably complete and reliable account of one of the most stirring and important i I events of h story .