Editing Mehmed II (section)

=== Conquest of Constantinople ===
{{Main|Fall of Constantinople}}
[[File:OttomanEmpire1451.png|thumb|The Ottoman Empire at the beginning of Mehmed II's second reign]]
[[File:Rumeli Castle.jpg|thumb|[[Roumeli Hissar Castle]], built by Sultan Mehmed II between 1451 and 1452, before the [[Fall of Constantinople]]<ref name="WDL">{{cite web|url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/8836/|title=Bosphorus (i.e. Bosporus), View from Kuleli, Constantinople, Turkey|website=[[World Digital Library]]|date=1890–1900|access-date=12 December 2013|archive-date=20 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020201630/http://www.wdl.org/en/item/8836/|url-status=live}}</ref>]]

When Mehmed II ascended the throne again in 1451, he devoted himself to strengthening the Ottoman navy and made preparations for an attack on Constantinople. In the narrow [[Bosphorus|Bosphorus Straits]], the fortress [[Anadoluhisarı]] had been built by his great-grandfather [[Bayezid I]] on the Asian side; Mehmed erected an even stronger fortress called [[Rumelihisarı]] on the European side, and thus gained complete control of the strait. Having completed his fortresses, Mehmed proceeded to levy a toll on ships passing within reach of their cannon. A [[Republic of Venice|Venetian]] vessel ignoring signals to stop was sunk with a single shot and all the surviving sailors beheaded,<ref name="Silburn1912">Silburn, P. A. B. (1912).</ref> except for the captain, who was impaled and mounted like a human scarecrow as a warning to other sailors on the strait.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03l2shc|title=Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities|website=BBC Four|access-date=9 April 2017|archive-date=8 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170308102211/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03l2shc|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Abu Ayyub al-Ansari]], the companion and standard bearer of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, had died during the first [[Siege of Constantinople (674–678)]]. As Mehmed II's army approached Constantinople, Mehmed's sheikh [[Akshamsaddin]]{{sfn|Stavrides|2001|p=23}} discovered the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. After the conquest, Mehmed built [[Eyüp Sultan Mosque]] at the site to emphasize the importance of the conquest to the Islamic world and highlight his role as [[Ghazi warriors|ghazi]].{{sfn|Stavrides|2001|p=23}}

In 1453, Mehmed commenced the siege of Constantinople with an army between 80,000 and 200,000 troops, an artillery train of over seventy large field pieces,{{sfn|Arnold|2001|p=111}} and a navy of 320 vessels, the bulk of them transports and storeships. The city was surrounded by sea and land; the fleet at the entrance of the [[Bosphorus]] stretched from shore to shore in the form of a crescent, to intercept or repel any assistance for Constantinople from the sea.<ref name="Silburn1912"/> In early April, the [[Fall of Constantinople|Siege of Constantinople]] began. At first, the city's walls held off the Turks, even though Mehmed's army used the new bombard designed by [[Orban]], a giant cannon similar to the [[Dardanelles Gun]]. The harbor of the [[Golden Horn]] was blocked by a [[boom (navigational barrier)|boom chain]] and defended by twenty-eight [[warship]]s.

On 22 April, Mehmed transported his lighter warships overland, around the [[Republic of Genoa|Genoese]] [[Genoese colonies|colony]] of [[Galata]], and into the Golden Horn's northern shore; eighty galleys were transported from the Bosphorus after paving a route, little over one mile, with wood. Thus, the Byzantines stretched their troops over a longer portion of the walls. About a month later, Constantinople fell, on 29 May, following a fifty-seven-day siege.<ref name="Silburn1912"/> After this conquest, Mehmed moved the Ottoman capital from [[Edirne|Adrianople]] to Constantinople.

When Sultan Mehmed II stepped into the ruins of the [[Boukoleon Palace|Boukoleon]], known to the Ottomans and Persians as the Palace of the Caesars, probably built over a thousand years before by [[Theodosius II]], he uttered the famous lines of [[Saadi Shirazi|Saadi]]:<ref>''The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare'', Jim Bradbury, p. 68</ref>{{sfn|Stavrides|2001|p=22}}<ref>''East and West in the Crusader States'': Krijna Nelly Ciggaar, Adelbert Davids, Herman G. B. Teule, p. 51</ref><ref>''The Lord of the Panther-Skin'', Shota Rustaveli, p. xiii</ref>

{{blockquote|<poem>The spider is curtain-bearer in the palace of Chosroes,
The owl sounds the relief in the castle of Afrasiyab.</poem>}}

Some Muslim scholars claimed that a [[hadith]] in [[Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal|Musnad Ahmad]] referred specifically to Mehmed's conquest of Constantinople, seeing it as the fulfillment of a prophecy and a sign of the approaching apocalypse.<ref>{{ cite journal| last= Şahin| first= K.|date= 2010| title=Constantinople and the End Time: The Ottoman Conquest as a Portent of the Last Hour| journal=Journal of Early Modern History| volume=14|issue=4|pages= 317–354| doi= 10.1163/157006510X512223|mode=cs2}}</ref>

[[File:Zonaro GatesofConst.jpg|thumb|The entry of Sultan Mehmed II into [[Constantinople]], painting by [[Fausto Zonaro]] (1854–1929)]]

After the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed claimed the title of [[Caesar (title)|caesar]] of the [[Roman Empire]] (''Qayser-i Rûm''), based on the assertion that Constantinople had been the seat and capital of the [[Roman Empire]] since 330 AD and whoever possessed the Imperial capital was the ruler of the empire.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2004/12/19/pazar/yazortay.html |title=Milliyet İnternet – Pazar |publisher=Milliyet.com.tr |date=19 December 2004 |access-date=9 April 2017 |archive-date=31 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071031030657/http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2004/12/19/pazar/yazortay.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The contemporary scholar [[George of Trebizond]] supported his claim.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htm|title= Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453–1924|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=9 April 2017|archive-date=24 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190724153239/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/constantinople.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ftOp1cR7VK8C&q=%22The+seat+of+the+Roman+Empire+is+Constantinople.%22&pg=PT13|title=Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453|last=Crowley|first=Roger|year=2009|publisher=Faber & Faber|isbn=978-0571250790|language=en}}</ref> The claim was not recognized by the [[Catholic Church]] and most of, if not all, Western Europe, but was recognized by the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]]. Mehmed had installed [[Gennadius Scholarius]], a staunch antagonist of the West, as the [[ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople]] with all the ceremonial elements, ethnarch (or ''milletbashi'') status, and rights of property that made him the second largest landlord in the empire after the sultan himself in 1454, and in turn, Gennadius II recognized Mehmed the Conqueror as the successor to the throne.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=http://global.britannica.com/biography/Gennadios-II-Scholarios|title=Gennadios II Scholarios {{!}} patriarch of Constantinople|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=9 April 2017|language=en|archive-date=31 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171031214404/https://global.britannica.com/biography/Gennadios-II-Scholarios|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.patriarchate.org/list-of-ecumenical-patriarchs?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_pos=1&p_p_col_count=2&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_delta=20&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_keywords=&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_advancedSearch=false&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_andOperator=true&p_r_p_564233524_resetCur=false&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_cur=6|title=List of Ecumenical Patriarchs – The Ecumenical Patriarchate|website=www.patriarchate.org|language=en-US|access-date=9 April 2017|archive-date=2 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702213524/https://www.patriarchate.org/list-of-ecumenical-patriarchs?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_pos=1&p_p_col_count=2&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_delta=20&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_keywords=&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_advancedSearch=false&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_andOperator=true&p_r_p_564233524_resetCur=false&_101_INSTANCE_u1pdiOuFkFSc_cur=6|url-status=live}}</ref>

Emperor [[Constantine XI Palaiologos]] died without producing an heir, and had Constantinople not fallen to the Ottomans, he likely would have been succeeded by the sons of his deceased elder brother. Those children were taken into the palace service of Mehmed after the fall of Constantinople. The oldest boy, renamed [[Hass Murad Pasha|Hass Murad]], became a personal favorite of Mehmed and served as [[beylerbey]] of the [[Balkans]]. The younger son, renamed [[Mesih Pasha]], became admiral of the Ottoman fleet and [[sanjak-bey]] of the [[Sanjak of Gelibolu|Gallipoli]]. He eventually served twice as [[Grand Vizier]] under Mehmed's son, [[Bayezid II]].<ref>Lowry, Heath W. (2003). ''The Nature of the Early Ottoman State''. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. pp. 115–116.</ref>

After the fall of Constantinople, Mehmed would also go on to conquer the [[Despotate of Morea]] in the [[Peloponnese]] in [[Ottoman conquest of the Morea|two campaigns in 1458 and 1460]] and the [[Empire of Trebizond]] in northeastern Anatolia in 1461. The last two vestiges of Byzantine rule were thus absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of Constantinople bestowed immense glory and prestige on the country. There is some historical evidence that, 10 years after the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed II visited the site of [[Troy]] and boasted that he had avenged the Trojans by conquering the Greeks (Byzantines).<ref name="Wood1985">{{cite book|author=Michael Wood|title=In Search of the Trojan War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N5HDjtGwYjsC&pg=PA38|access-date=1 May 2013|year=1985|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-21599-3|pages=38–|archive-date=12 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012221935/http://books.google.com/books?id=N5HDjtGwYjsC&pg=PA38|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Konuk2010">{{cite book|author=Kader Konuk|title=East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDGhU1g9hM0C&pg=PA78|access-date=3 May 2013|year=2010|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-7575-5|pages=78–|archive-date=12 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012222155/http://books.google.com/books?id=bDGhU1g9hM0C&pg=PA78|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Freely2009">{{cite book|author=John Freely|title=The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II – Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ybm4b0xItDEC&pg=PT95|access-date=3 May 2013|year=2009|publisher=Overlook|isbn=978-1-59020-449-8|pages=95–|archive-date=12 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012222409/http://books.google.com/books?id=Ybm4b0xItDEC&pg=PT95|url-status=live}}</ref>