Talk:List of sieges of Constantinople

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There were also sieges of constantinople in 674, 717-718, and 814-817. For all I know, there may have been others as well. Here is an article about the 717-718 siege:

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William Jockusch 14:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I created the article for the 718 Siege of Constantinople, originally calling it the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople. Constantinople has indeed been sieged many times previous to the crusades. In fact it was sieged by the Sassanian Persian allies as far back as the Byzantine Emperor Herakles.

User:Bbcrackmonkey June 8th, 2006

There are a few others, like the sieges in the 9th and 10th centuries by Kiev. Adam Bishop 04:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Move material

The final Siege of Constantinople happened in 1453. The Ottoman Empire had conquered almost all of the Byzantine Empire's territory, leaving Constantinople as a small tributary state. Ottoman Emperor Mehmed II besieged Constantinople with his main weapon — a huge cannon called the Basilic —, a fleet of 400 modern ships, and 80 000 soldiers. The Basilic could not fire continuously — there was a three hour interval between firing. The cannon collapsed after three weeks because it could not support its own weight. Surrounding Constantinople was 14 miles of walls — the only weak point in the walls was in the Blachernae area, where the crusaders penetrated them 249 years earlier.

When the siege began the Byzantines were able to repair the walls most of the time; however a few wall sections broke and the Byzantines had to drive the Turks back. The walls eventually were undermined, but the Byzantines were able to capture a Turkish engineer, who (after he was tortured) told them the locations of all the mines and the Byzantines countermined all the tunnels.

Mehmed stopped the siege for a time and said he would leave if the Byzantines paid him a massive sum of money which they could not pay. So the siege began again on May 28 and the Turks began assaulting the Blacernae walls and found the Kalkoporta gate was left open and went in. Obviously the gate had been inaccessible due to rubble and other things piled up there from the city, but was easy to get in from outside, and so the Ottomans quickly entered, and the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, died defending the walls alongside his countrymen.

The Siege of Constantinople began in 1203 during the Fourth Crusade. The crusaders had promised to pay Venice to transport their fleet of ships to Egypt, but were unable to do so. Their leader, Boniface of Montferrat, met with Alexius Angelus, son of the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II, who had fled to the court of Philip of Swabia. Alexius agreed to pay the debt if the crusaders helped his family return to the throne of the Byzantine Empire. After capturing Zara against the wishes of Pope Innocent III, the crusaders began the siege of Constantinople in 1203, and captured the city in 1204. Alexius Angelus was proclaimed Emperor Alexius IV and his father Isaac II was restored as co-emperor.

1261 siege

Alexios Strategopoulos captured Constantinople for Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261. No details are given on either of those pages, but it probably involved some sort of siege. Algebraist 14:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

No it did not; the walls were undefended as most of the Latin army was absent with the Venetians raiding an Island. The Byzantine entry was not accompanied by any bloodshed. Tourskin (talk) 23:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Rule of Constantinople

1st paragraph: "Two sieges resulted in the capture of Constantinople from Greek rule"

Would it not be better to say Byzantine rule rather than Greek or something of the sort as there was not a Greek state at the time? Please do correct me if I am wrong. I am not an expert on the subject. 82.41.10.26 (talk) 10:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Greek is an informal to Byzantine at this time. It was a de facto Greek state, even though de jure it was the Roman Empire. Tourskin (talk) 22:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for clearing that up. 82.41.10.26 (talk) 10:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thomas the Slav

Should the attack of Thomas the Slav in 821 be added? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas Hall (talk • contribs) 13:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. Thomas's attack was more of a coup de'tat then a siege - if we included every coup in this article as a siege... that would be long indeed. Tourskin (talk) 18:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Second Ottoman Siege?

Is the Fall of Constantinople really the second Ottoman Siege of the city, the German equivalent of this page gives also an Ottoman Siege of the city in 1432? And the article Battle of Nicopolis gives a lot more Ottoman sieges than the two on this page (see section below).

The German equivalent of the page Sieges of Constantinople gives also an Ottoman Siege of the city in 1432? And this page (http://www.answers.com/topic/1432) says: ‘Constantinople withstands a siege by the Ottoman sultan Murad II, who withdraws to Adrianople after a stubborn defense by the Byzantine emperor John VII Palaeologus.’ So are you sure there was no siege? [Unisigned by 86.87.73.104]

'Answers' is simply wrong. They got it confused with the year 1422, when there was a siege. Ostrogorsky's, History of the Byzantine State - a solid source, mentions nothing. 'Answers' is not a serious source. If you find a more reliable source, then put it in. Otherwise, it's their mistake. If your German is good enough, go ahead and fix it yourself. Take Care... Dinkytown 00:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Background

There were many minor crusades in the 14th century, undertaken by individual kings or knights. Most recently there had been a failed crusade against Tunisia in 1390, and there was ongoing warfare in northern Europe along the Baltic coast. After their victory at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the Ottomans had conquered most of the Balkans, and had reduced the Byzantine Empire to the area immediately surrounding Constantinople, which they later proceeded to besiege (in 1390, 1395, 1397, 1400, 1422 and finally conquering the Byzantine capital in 1453). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.87.73.104 (talk) 18:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Siege of 1376...

Ostrogorsky in his History of the Byzantine State [p542] mentions a thirty-two day siege ending on August 12, 1376 by Andronikos IV Palaiologos with the support of the Ottoman Turks. Dinkytown talk 03:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Moved to "List of sieges of Byzantium"

This is to include two sieges before the 4th century, when the city was only known as Byzantium. The siege of 193-195 is mentioned for instance in Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It is also alluded to in the article on Pescennius Niger. According to Gibbon, the siege lasted almost three years and ended successfully for the besiegers when the defenders ran out of food. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 16:58, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

The topic of the article is Constantinople, which is of particular importance as the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and one of the most important and best-defended cities in the Middle Ages. The sieges of Byzantium can be included, but can not alter the main scope of the article, which has been extant since its beginning. --Constantine ✍ 09:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough, I won't disagree with this. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 16:58, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Siege of 1101

Constantinople was besieged during the Crusade of 1101 by Lombard crusaders, I think this should be added to the list. See related article: https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Crusader_attack_on_Blachernae_(1101) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.194.56.122 (talk) 12:01, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

It wasn't a siege, though. Srnec (talk) 00:42, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Unsuccessful vs lifted

What is supposed to be the difference between unsuccessful and lifted? Srnec (talk) 00:42, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

There is no functional difference. Any unsuccessful siege could be said to be "lifted". It seems that an editor favorable to the Ottoman Empire doesn't want to call their earlier sieges "unsuccessful" for some reason. 2600:1702:6D0:5160:F1DC:1720:EAC8:A81C (talk) 16:31, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Could the same editor also be from Galatian? --78.135.95.81 (talk) 23:03, 7 September 2022 (UTC)