The City of Countless Names– History 3

The city of Constantinople sits at the juncture of two continents, two seas and countless empires across time. Since the cities’ founding, it’s mercantile, political, and religious significance ensured its constant growth and the covetous desire of others. The Greeks, the Romans, and the Christians once possessed this strategic city, and now it is the shining gem in the increasingly tarnished crown of the diminishing Ottoman Empire. In 1853, the Russian Czarina used a squabble over religious sites to threaten the Ottoman Empire with war, pulling the city into greater international import. With more English, French and Italian forces passing through the city each day, and its young Sultan’s new progressive policies, Constantinople faces enemies and allies unused to its exotic ways and ancient dangers.

Ottoman forces took the Byzantine city of Skoutarion (later called Scutari) in 1338. Over 100 years later, the Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror mustered his invasion forces here, to finally take Constantinople. The Sultan’s superior forces of men, horses, ships and cannons faced one of the best-fortified cities in the world on May 29^th, 1453. After a 53 day siege, Mehmed took Constantinople. 

Like Constantine, Mehmed sought to own a thriving city, not destroy it. He too made Constantinople the capital of his empire and ensured the city remained prosperous. He repaired the city’s defenses and built the magnificent Topkapu palace. He allowed those who had abandoned the city to come back and keep their surviving property, and let the Western Orthodox Aluminate Church flourish in Constantinople free of Roman Aluminate authority. He ruthlessly repopulated Constantinople with Slavs, Nithamiyeens, Aluminates, Greeks, and Yehudites, from across the Ottoman Empire, and gave freedom to the obedient. He made the Aluminate city into an Ottoman city, converting churches to mosques, renaming Constantinople to Kostantiniyye (At least in formal documents).

Ottoman Constantinople reached a golden age in art, culture, and architecture during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520 –1566). He brought craftsmen and artists from Europe to his court, funded public education, commissioned the impressively massive Süleymaniye Mosque, and was himself a fine poet.

In the 1600s, the Ottoman Empire grew through war. In the 1700s the empire grew stagnant. Tradition fought against the influence of the world around it. Reform after reform faded, choked to death by the stagnation within, leading the Empire into decline. Seeing this weakness, Russia, the old adversary of the empire, spotted a chance to expand their borders to the coveted shores of the Black Sea. From 1768-1826 Russia won a series of wars against the Ottomans, with the Russians gaining territory, and the Ottomans losing prestige. 

The Ottoman Empire bound incredibly diverse ethnic groups and religions to its authority. In the early 1800s, the ideas of nationalism and revolution stormed across Europe, inspiring minorities in the empire to rebel. Both Serbia and Greece won their independence, leaving the Ottoman Empire further diminished and its members pondering their own rebellions.

Worried by the Sultan Mahmud II’s plans for a new modernized army, the Janissaries (elite soldiers of the Ottoman Empire) mutinied in 1826. In the past, the Janissaries held great power and they removed every Sultan threatening their status, but Mahmud II’s forces defeated the warriors. The remaining Janissaries went to prison, lost their heads, or went into exile. While this “Auspicious Incident” opened the way to modernization, the new Ottoman military wasn’t ready for the disastrous the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, resulting in another war lost to the Russians.

Mahmud II built on the modernization of his predecessor, Sultan Selim III, with reforms influenced by European political thought. His reforms covered currency, crimes, conscription, corruption, and practically every other part of Ottoman society. His son, Abdulmejid I, carries on his father work, trying to keep the empire together, defend its territories, and to bring the empire into the modern world of 1855.

Sultan Mahmud II, and Sultan Abdulmejid I,’s reforms (knows as Tanzimât or “reorganization”) breathed new life into “the Sick Man”, but it may already be too late.

Adventure Ideas

In the confusion of the Siege of Constantinople, no one knows what happened to the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine IX. While he probably died to an Ottoman sword, old stories say an angel saved the emperor from the Sultan’s forces by turning him to marble and hiding him in a cave near the Golden Gate.  He slept in the cave ever since, waiting to take the city back.

Some Greeks still believe the legend. I’m sure some Russian agents in Constantinople would be willing to help.

When Suleiman the Magnificent died, his body was buried in Constantinople, but his heart remained in Szigetvar (in modern day Hungary). Specifically is heart was entombed in a golden chest at the Ottoman settlement of Turbek. Sadly, Habsburg soldiers destroyed Turbek in the 1680s, which means just about anyone could have the heart of Suleiman the Magnificent. Even better, why was his heart removed in the first place?

Mahmud II is the father of the current Sultan Abdulmejid I, and he destroyed the Janissaries about 30 years ago. Some of these elite warriors and bodyguards still wander around somewhere.  They probably know a lot about Constantinople, it’s secrets, it‘s defenses, and the best place to kill a Sultan.

That brings us to the 1850s. I hope you managed to follow this city’s story with me, and found some intriguing threads to follow as we look at adventures set in Constantinople. Before we move on to the nuts and bolts of the city, I have one more post on my favorite discovery from Constantinople’s past.