3-VI: The Sacking of Constantinople, Mamelukes & Introduction to the Ottomans

We ended the last segment (3-V) with the Christians (the Crusaders and Byzantines) defeating both Muslim sects (the Seljuks Sunnis and Fatimid Shias) to conquer the Holy Lands and give the Byzantines some relief from the Islamic invaders.  Their success was primarily due to the enmity between the Muslim sects and the short-lived alliance of the Crusaders and Byzantines. 

After winning in the 1st Crusade, many of the participants returned to the west.  Those who remained established four principalities along the Levant which included Palestine.  There was a major shift in power on the Muslim side.  Ultimately, Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin, a Sunni, conquered/united Muslims from Arabia to Egypt up to Syria and made himself Sultan of the Sunnis. Saladin ended the reign of the Shia Fatimids and established the short-lived Ayyubid Dynasty, He retook much of the territory won by the Crusaders including Jerusalem.  This precipitated both the 3rd and 4th Crusades.  The 3rd is perhaps the most famous since it pitted Saladin against Richard the Lionhearted.  However, we are going to focus on the 4th Crusade since It was the most consequential.  It resulted in the invasion and sacking of Constantinople and led to the ultimate collapse of the Byzantine Empire at the hands of Mehmed II, the 7th Sultan of the Ottomans.

The Disastrous 4th Crusade. I must confess that after digging a bit further, the Crusaders did have some justification for attacking Constantinople. The 4th Crusade was initiated by Pope Innocent III in 1202. While Saladin was now dead, Jerusalem remained in the hands of his successors, the Ayyubids, whose capitol was in Cairo, Egypt. The Crusaders’ plan was to sail to Egypt with a large Western European army, assisted by the Byzantines, where they would defeat the Muslim forces and retake Jerusalem.  Due to miscommunications and a shortage of funding, the plan went very awry.  The Crusaders did not have enough money to pay the Venetians for the fleet the Venetians built for the Crusaders’ invasion force.  So, the leader of Venice beguiled the Crusaders into plundering a rich Byzantine city, Zara, on the Adriatic Coast to get the treasure to pay for the fleet.  The Crusaders did so and upon learning of it, the Pope excommunicated everyone involved.

The Crusaders then set sail for Jerusalem.  Among the leaders was the Byzantine prince Alexios Angelos who convinced the Crusaders to first stop in Constantinople and restore his deposed father,  Issac II Angelos, as emperor.   Alexios promised the Crusaders they would be paid handsomely if they successfully restored his father.  Some of the Crusader leaders accepted the proposition. Others did not.

On 23 June 1203, the main Crusader army reached Constantinople.   In August 1203, following the siege of Constantinople, Alexios was crowned co-emperor. However, in January 1204 he was deposed by a popular uprising, depriving the Crusaders of their promised bounty payments. Following the murder of Alexios on 8 February, the Crusaders decided on the outright conquest of the city. In April 1204, they captured and plundered the city’s enormous wealth.  A description of the plundering and its results are given by an American historian in Byzantium and Europe

Only a handful of the Crusaders continued to the Holy Land thereafter. As noted, there were several prominent Crusaders who had been totally against attacking the Byzantine cities, refused to take part in them, and left the crusade.  When Pope Innocent III heard of the conduct of his pilgrims, he was filled with shame and rage, and he strongly rebuked them. Even so, the Greek Orthodox Church broke with the Latins and the Great Schism continues even now. 

Following the capture of Constantinople, the Crusader and Venetian leaders selected the new Byzantine emperor.  The Western Europeans would control the diminishing Byzantine Empire for half a century before Byzantine descendants reclaimed it.

The 4th Crusade was a disaster and a great tragedy by most accounts. Its purpose had been to support the Byzantines in reclaiming  the Holy Land from the Muslims.  Instead, they so weakened the Byzantines that their entire Empire was conquered by the Ottomans in 1453.  Prior to then, by the end of the 13th century, all the Crusaders were defeated and evicted from Palestine. Constantinople was the repository for the finest art, literature, philosophy and history of ancient Greece and Rome.  Priceless  treasures of Western civilization were lost or destroyed by the Latins in the 4th Crusade.  Besides the Ottomans, the Venetians most benefited from that Crusade.  Among their great plunder were the Horses of the Hippodrome, which are still prominently displayed in Venice’s St. Mark’s Square.

Let’s back up a bit and discuss the Mamelukes.  These were the fellows who in 1291 expelled the last of the Crusaders from Palestine.  They were also the ones who defeated the Mongols and prevented their hordes from spreading further devastation westward.

The Mamelukes.  In Arabic, the term means “one who is owned” i.e. a slave.  In the process of conquering so many lands, the Muslims acquired many slaves.  Some of the strongest and most competent were trained in martial skills and became part of Arab leaders’ armies.  Over time, the Mamelukes became a powerful military knightly class in various Muslim societies that were controlled by dynastic Arab rulers. This was particularly true in Egypt and Syria with the Fatimids and the Ayyubids.

In 1249, the Ayyubid Sultan died.  His young son had been designated as his successor.  Mameluke generals were unhappy with how accommodating the Ayyubids had been toward the Christians and at the end of the day, disposed of their masters and took over in 1250. Meanwhile, the Mongols, under Hulegu Khan had destroyed Bagdad, killing some 250,000 Muslims, and had come west and captured Damascus in Syria. Hulegu then turned toward Egypt shortly after General Qutuz became the Mameluke Sultan in late 1259.   Hulegu sent envoys demanding that Qutuz surrender without a fight.  This was an understandable demand considering that the  Mongols had never been defeated. Sultan Qutuz responded by chopping off the heads of the envoys and putting them on a gate outside Cairo. The Mamelukes under the command of a general named Baybars fought five battles with the Mongols, winning all but one.  The Mongols were evicted from the Mameluke territory.  Meanwhile, Baybars killed Qutuz and made himself Sultan.  Thereafter, killing one’s predecessor and assuming the Sultanate, became the standard method of succession for the Mamelukes.  They ruled Egypt for over two and half centuries until they were displaced by the Ottomans.  The Mamelukes proved to be remarkably good rulers. Egypt prospered during their dynasty. 

To learn how the Mamelukes were able to defeat the heretofore invincible Mongols, go to this article.  They proved to be as good, if not better horseman and archers than the Mongols.  Extensive training was the key. They were formidable fighters.

Introduction to the Ottomans. In Segment 3-IV, I addressed the Seljuk Turks.  They came from a region in southwestern Mongolia, migrated into northern Persia/Iran, became Muslims, united the fractured Sunnis in the eastern portion of the Muslim Empire and invaded the territory of the Byzantines. This caused the panicked Byzantine emperor to ask for help from Latin Christians which resulted in the Crusades which were ultimately responsible for the demise of Eastern Roman Empire aka Byzantium.  And then little else was said about the Seljuks.  Other than being the impetus for the Crusades, the Seljuks are important to our story because it was their descendants, spawned in northwestern Turkey,  that created the Ottoman Empire.

The actual founder of the Ottoman dynasty was Osman Gazi, known in Italy as Ottomano, hence the English term Ottoman.  Osman was born in 1260 around the time that the Byzantines reclaimed the rule of Constantinople from the Crusaders. He became a tribal chieftain around 1300 and through both warfare and diplomacy, he was able to unify inherited and captured lands held by the Seljuks.  One of his goals was to one day make Constantinople the capital of his nascent empire.  His triple great grandson, Mehmed II, would fulfill that ambition.

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