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Conquest of Constantinople

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 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 passi...

Conquest of Serbia

Mehmed II's first campaigns after Constantinople were in the direction of Serbia, which had been an Ottoman vassal state since the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. The Ottoman ruler had a connection with the Serbian Despotate – one of Murad II's wives was Mara Branković – and he used that fact to claim some Serbian islands. That Đurađ Branković had recently made an alliance with the Hungarians, and had paid the tribute irregularly, may have been important considerations. When Serbia refused these de...

Conquest of Morea

The Despotate of the Morea bordered the southern Ottoman Balkans. The Ottomans had already invaded the region under Murad II, destroying the Byzantine defenses – the Hexamilion wall – at the Isthmus of Corinth in 1446. Before the final siege of Constantinople Mehmed ordered Ottoman troops to attack the Morea. The despots, Demetrios Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos, brothers of the last emperor, failed to send any aid. Their own incompetence resulted in an Albanian-Greek revolt against them,...

Mehmed II introduced the word Politics into Arabic "Siyasah" from a book he published and claimed to be the collection of Politics doctrines of the Byzantine Caesars before him. He gathered Italian artists, humanists and Greek scholars at his court, allowed the Byzantine Church to continue functioning, ordered the patriarch Gennadius to translate C...

Mehmed had a strong interest in ancient Greek and medieval Byzantine civilization. His heroes were Achilles and Alexander the Great and he could discuss Christian religion with some authority. He was reputed to be fluent in several languages, including Turkish, Serbian, Arabic, Persian, Greek and Latin. At times, he assembled the Ulama, or learned ...

In 1481 Mehmed marched with the Ottoman army, but upon reaching Maltepe, Istanbul he became ill. He was just beginning new campaigns to capture Rhodes and southern Italy, however according to some historians his next voyage was planned to overthrow the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and to capture Egypt and claim the caliphate. But after some days he di...