Fall of Constantinople

[The Wizard]

Here's a picture of the end of the romano/greek state:


I hope I was there to kill the bastard who left one of the gates open for the Turks to get in.

Note 1: that is ol' Mehmed watching as his fleet gets its ass owned by the Genoese and Greeks.

Note 2: The Kerkoporta was at the moment of the final assault obstructed by debris left behind by the collapse of one of the great towers defending the Blachernae quarter. The bashi-bazouks found it, and stormed through.

Note 3: Try to say that the siege of Constantinople had any possibility of victory in it for the Byzantines. It didn't. Especially not after Galata was taken by Mehmed. The outcome could not at that time, and cannot now, ever have been disputed. Which is why the Genoese allowed Mehmed to come through Galata without a fight.

And finally, the Byzantines caused their own downfall. When one studies the history of their decline and eventual fall, one sees that at every moment when they needed one thing, they got the opposite.

When they needed longevity, they got premature death (John Kaloianis). When they needed allies, they got enemies. When they needed loyalty, they got dissension. When they needed strength, it got weakness. When it needed unity, it got civil war.

Byzantium was plagued by the bad basileioi at the bad time. And when Andronicus II and John V needed to die quickly, they had the two longest reigns in Byzantine history. Plus the fact that the Byzantines never ceased what seemed to be a Roman tradition: civil war. Even when it was clear as day that the Byzantine empire was in a deep crisis and needed unity and strong leadership to survive at all, as with John VI Cantacuzenus, the Byzantine aristrocrats never stopped their foul plotting and intriguing against him, and amongst each other. The Byzantine crown jewels were pawned for a loan of 30,000 ducats by Empress Anne to finance her struggle against John. A loan! And it didn't even arrive!

No, the Byzantines had nobody but themselves to thank for their downfall. While around them their enemies never diminished in number and vigor, the Byzantines blissfully ignored them and kept plotting and intriguing amongst each other, as if they were still the greatest empire in Europe. Take one look at the rule of Andronicus II, and you will understand. One almost wants to quit reading of the Byzantines to learn of the vigorous young empire of the Ottomans, if only to escape the senseless infighting over power that meant nothing.

The reception of Manuel II gives a little respite, and it is not until one reads of the honor and nobility displayed by the defenders of Constantinople (except the cowardly Genoese, who sailed off a day after pledging their aid to the defence), chief amongst them Constantine Dragases, that one regains the interest to read to the very end. And after that, one is left to lament all the choices of stupidity that led to the downfall of a people capable of such nobility of spirit, yet also such deplorable decadence and intrigue.



~Wiz