One of the great turning points of human history. For Europe it meant more than two centuries of conflict with the Ottoman Empire. For the Eastern Empire it meant extinction and for most of the Balkan Christian kingdoms it meant endless war and eventual rule by the Ottomans or the Holy Roman Empire. It gave the impetus to the life long search by Columbus for a Western route to Asia, and to the Portuguese, who started their explorations prior to the fall of Constantinople, the route to India via around Africa. If Constantinople had never fallen, so much of our history would be different.
Behold! Islam, the religion of “peace”
Anybody want to find a significant period of time in which it was not assailing Christendom?
I learned in my years among the Orthodox that they see this as a much bigger moment than it is typically presented in our schools and universities.
David, the Eastern Orthodox have never forgotten or forgiven the fall of Constantinople.
The West was in no position to help. In Castile and Aragon, the Reconquest had stalled. Castile had a weak king, Juan, who at the urging of his wife put his greatest ally, De Luna, to death. Queen Isabel was only two years old. The Hapsburgs ruled over Austria and that was about it. Portugal was a naval power but not on the level of the Ottomans. The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, who became the most avowed and most bitter enemy of the Ottomans, did not form until 1469. Muscovy was still a backwater.The Italian city states sought trade with the Ottomans.
There were individual heroes. Skanderbeg, if I spelled it right, was from the Balkans and fought the Ottomans with all he had and then some. El Cid. The Marquess of Cadiz, Rodrigo Ponce De Leon.
And still today, we have to allow Turkey NATO membership in order to maintain the illusion of control over the Bosphorus strait. And the Hagia Sophia is a flippin’ mosque!
Make Istanbul Constantinople again!
Well written summary, Penguins Fan.
Also, I recall one scholar saying the Byzantine Empire degraded their naval forces for decades due to financial mismanagement and waste, encouraging the Muslim forces to develop a powerful navy to gradually cut them off from the West and to control the seas.