Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the text
- List of abbreviations
- Maps
- 1 ‘Then was then and now is now’: an overview of change and continuity in late-medieval and early-modern warfare
- 2 Warfare and the international state system
- 3 War and the emergence of the state: western Europe, 1350–1600
- 4 From military enterprise to standing armies: war, state, and society in western Europe, 1600–1700
- 5 The state and military affairs in east-central Europe, 1380–c. 1520s
- 6 Empires and warfare in east-central Europe, 1550–1750: the Ottoman–Habsburg rivalry and military transformation
- 7 Ottoman military organisation in south-eastern Europe, c. 1420–1720
- 8 The transformation of army organisation in early-modern western Europe, c. 1500–1789
- 9 Aspects of operational art: communications, cannon, and small war
- 10 Tactics and the face of battle
- 11 Naval warfare in Europe, c. 1330–c. 1680
- 12 Legality and legitimacy in war and its conduct, 1350–1650
- 13 Conflict, religion, and ideology
- 14 Warfare, entrepreneurship, and the fiscal-military state
- 15 War and state-building
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Warfare and the international state system
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the text
- List of abbreviations
- Maps
- 1 ‘Then was then and now is now’: an overview of change and continuity in late-medieval and early-modern warfare
- 2 Warfare and the international state system
- 3 War and the emergence of the state: western Europe, 1350–1600
- 4 From military enterprise to standing armies: war, state, and society in western Europe, 1600–1700
- 5 The state and military affairs in east-central Europe, 1380–c. 1520s
- 6 Empires and warfare in east-central Europe, 1550–1750: the Ottoman–Habsburg rivalry and military transformation
- 7 Ottoman military organisation in south-eastern Europe, c. 1420–1720
- 8 The transformation of army organisation in early-modern western Europe, c. 1500–1789
- 9 Aspects of operational art: communications, cannon, and small war
- 10 Tactics and the face of battle
- 11 Naval warfare in Europe, c. 1330–c. 1680
- 12 Legality and legitimacy in war and its conduct, 1350–1650
- 13 Conflict, religion, and ideology
- 14 Warfare, entrepreneurship, and the fiscal-military state
- 15 War and state-building
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
On 28 May 1453 the walls of Constantinople were finally breached by gunpowder weapons, allowing the Ottoman Turks entry into the city. Streaming through the breaches, the elite Janissaries quickly opened the gates, then they and other Ottoman soldiers spread through the large city. The Janissaries proved extremely respectful of the Constantinopolitans. Disciplined and well trained, they did not rape, ravage, or pillage, nor kill anyone unarmed or begging for their lives. The same could not be said for the irregular forces, who were given three days of pillage, the period allowed by the Qur'an according to Ottoman religious leaders. Yet even then Mehmed had set limits: Hagia Sophia would be his, the world's greatest Christian church becoming a monument to an epoch-making Islamic victory. The sultan meant it, too. He personally cut off the head of an irregular soldier whom he found attacking the icons in the Hagia Sophia with a sword. Neither was the Church of the Holy Apostles to be violated, remaining a place of worship (albeit the only one) for the Christians who would continue to live in the city. As Runciman notes, ‘the Greeks, as the second people in his Empire, could keep the second great church’.
The reason for Mehmed's restrictions was simple. Long before his attack on Constantinople, he had decided to make the city his imperial capital. Conquerors are different from invaders.
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- European Warfare, 1350–1750 , pp. 27 - 49Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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