Post by Catsmate on Jun 25, 2020 10:39:02 GMT
Who left the gate open?
Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul, call it what you will. For centuries it was a strategically invaluable crossroads, the gateway between Europe and Asia. Not to mention wealthy, beautiful, culturally rich and sitting on a busy and profitable harbour.
Every empire wanted it, but with it's twin rings of fortified walls buttressing the city, Constantinople held off more than twenty sieges.
Except it did fall, on the 29th May 1453, to Mehmed the Conqueror ending the Byzantine Empire and the last vestige of old Rome.
The siege had lasted almost two months and was a slow, grinding, business. Ottoman assaults were repulsed with heavy losses and while peripheral fortifications were taken the walls survived gunpowder artillery bombardment and mining with little loss of strength. A massive infantry assault was begun around midnight on the 28/29th but the Ottoman forces were being held off by the defenders. Until they found an unlocked gate...
In the early hours of 29 May 1453 a force of around sixty Ottoman troops gained entry by the small postern gate known as Kerkoporta, which had been "left open by accident". The Ottomans raised their banner atop the Inner Wall and fired on defenders below, triggering a panicked retreat and beginning the rout of the defenders
The city fell later that day and the Sack of Constantinople entered history.
But who left the gate open? And what if someone derailed history as we know it, by preventing the entry of those troops? Perhaps accidentally, or perhaps deliberately.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Sailing to Byzantium, W. B. Yeats.
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Sailing to Byzantium, W. B. Yeats.
Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul, call it what you will. For centuries it was a strategically invaluable crossroads, the gateway between Europe and Asia. Not to mention wealthy, beautiful, culturally rich and sitting on a busy and profitable harbour.
Every empire wanted it, but with it's twin rings of fortified walls buttressing the city, Constantinople held off more than twenty sieges.
Except it did fall, on the 29th May 1453, to Mehmed the Conqueror ending the Byzantine Empire and the last vestige of old Rome.
The siege had lasted almost two months and was a slow, grinding, business. Ottoman assaults were repulsed with heavy losses and while peripheral fortifications were taken the walls survived gunpowder artillery bombardment and mining with little loss of strength. A massive infantry assault was begun around midnight on the 28/29th but the Ottoman forces were being held off by the defenders. Until they found an unlocked gate...
In the early hours of 29 May 1453 a force of around sixty Ottoman troops gained entry by the small postern gate known as Kerkoporta, which had been "left open by accident". The Ottomans raised their banner atop the Inner Wall and fired on defenders below, triggering a panicked retreat and beginning the rout of the defenders
The city fell later that day and the Sack of Constantinople entered history.
But who left the gate open? And what if someone derailed history as we know it, by preventing the entry of those troops? Perhaps accidentally, or perhaps deliberately.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
