Strength: 2
Type: Siege Unit
Flavor Text: All my life will be obscured by the doleful addition: 'In his time, Constantinople was taken and plundered.'
Flavor Source: Pope Nicholas V
Artwork: The Capture of Constantinople in 1204 by Jacopo Tintoretto (1580)
About the card:
This card combines the two most famous sieges of Constantinople: the 1204 Ventetian sack and the 1453 Ottoman sack. The earlier 1204 sack (depicted in the card art) by the Ventetians and various German and French crusaders was a part of the Fourth Crusade (see also Crusader). The crusaders had wanted men and money in exchange for putting a Byzantine prince on the throne, but after the prince was deposed they still wanted what he had promised and layed siege to the city. After the sack, the crusaders were universally condemned in Europe and the irreparable damage done to the Byzantine state (the crusaders and local nobles carved up Anatolia into many separate kingdoms), allowed for its Muslim successor the Ottoman Turks to become the dominate power in the region.
By the time of the later Sack in 1453, the Ottomans had dominion over much of Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Anatolia. Mehmed II, the Ottoman Sultan, laid siege to Constantinople for almost two month before its walls fell. He had the world's largest bombard at the time constructed in order to hurl boulders at the city walls (see also Cannon). After many inconclusive assaults and tunnel battles, one final assault was planned and the attackers broke through. For the next three days the city was plundered and most of its inhabitants were killed or captured as slaves. The Conquest of Constantinople would spread fear and calls for crusade throughout Europe, but little action was taken. The flavor text for this card was written by Pope Nicholas V after he found out about the sack. The Ottoman expansion into the Balkans would continue for the next 200 years until the Sultan was at the Holy Roman Emperor's doorstep (see also Siege).
