1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West

In 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, then twenty-one years old, led a massive army to the walls of Constantinople in April. The city, which had stood for a thousand years as a wealthy Christian center and had survived sieges roughly every forty years, faced its final siege. Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of Byzantium, commanded the defense. Roger Crowley's account chronicles this fifty-five-day battle through eyewitness accounts. A small group of defenders resisted the Ottoman forces in combat on land, at sea, and underground. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 marked the end of the Byzantine Empire and a major shift in history. Crowley examines how this conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Byzantium connects to broader historical patterns, including the earlier resistance Constantinople mounted against Arab expansion and the later conflicts between Islamic and Western powers that would follow.