Genoese sailors medieval total war 1
When Sultan Murad II was succeeded by his son Mehmed II in early 1451 it was widely believed that he was to turn out an incapable ruler and pose no threat to the Christian possessions in the Balkans and the Aegean. The Empire of Trebizond, a completely independent successor state formed after the Fourth Crusade also survived on the coast of the Black Sea. By 1453 the empire consisted of the city of Constantinople itself and a portion of the Peloponnese centred on the fortress of Mystras. In the following two centuries the much weakened Byzantines were facing threats from the Latins, Serbians, Bulgarians and most importantly, the Ottoman Turks. The Nicaean Greeks were the first to re-conquer Constantinople, taking it from the Latins in 1261. The Greek states allied together to fight against the Latin establishments, but also fought against each other over the Byzantine throne. The Empire fell into a plethora of Greek successor states, most notably Trebizond, Epirus and Nicaea. The crusaders had not intended to take the city from the beginning, but after the capture a Latin state was established, which was quite unstable. In the 1,100 years of the Empire Constantinople had only been taken once in the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The siege of Constantinople (April 2nd – May 29th 1453) marked the end of the old Byzantine Empire, and the rise of the Ottoman Turks.
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