Mehmed the Conqueror. The man who brought the Byzantine Empire to its knees and showed the world what a formidable foe the Ottoman Empire could really be. A man of power, wisdom, and creativity. He was a sultan for the ages and a legend that would make its way into history books around the globe. His life was like a movie that millions would pay to watch. But how didyoung Mehmed II become the fabled conqueror?… The third son of Sultan Murad II and his concubine Huma Hatun was born on March 30, 1432. Named after his grandfather, Mehmed I, the future sultan spent the earliest years of his life in the Ottoman capital of Edirne before being sent to Amasya where he learned at a precious young age to govern and study all forms of education. With the help of his tutors, Mehmed was instructed about religion, history, a plethora of foreign languages, and all the knowledge that he both required and desired as the son of a sultan. Given the context, young Mehmed II had a fairly typical life, that is, until the boy was 12 years old…Murad II, Mehmed’s father, was a troubled sultan. His reign was marred by both domestic and foreign tensions and wars that eventually led the 44-year-old sultan to retire to Bursa, abdicating the throne to his 12-year-old son in 1444. This would be the start of Mehmed II’s first reign as sultan of the Ottoman Empire…No one, including Mehmed himself, seemed pleased that a child had ascended to the throne. The empire had been on eggshells due to the turmoil during Murad’s reign and a 12-year-old was far from capable of rectifying this, nor did the boy want such responsibility. With foreign threats ever-growing and the Ottoman nobility in crisis, Sultan Mehmed and his Grand Vizier Halil Candarli sent letters to the retired ruler demanding that he return to the throne he had thus abandoned. In fact, to be precise, Mehmed said to his father:
“If you are the sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the sultan I hereby order you to come and lead my armies.”
And, being faced with a command he could not ignore nor disobey, Murad returned to his former seat, and Mehmed gladly yielded the Ottoman throne to his predecessor. With his father back and taking the reigns just in time for the Battle of Varna against the European crusaders, Mehmed could now focus once more on his studies and further preparing for true leadership. These few years in the interim gave the young sultan some crucial knowledge and experience that would be truly necessary when Murad II left his throne for the second and final time after his passing in 1451. Mehmed now had no choice but to take full control of his empire – and now, he was ready…The second and widely remembered, famed reign of Mehmed II was a busy one, to say the least. The now-adult man had many changes and endeavors in mind from the moment of his ascension. Inspired, according to many, by the wondrous life of Alexander the Great, Sultan Mehmed got right to work .Maybe one of the ruler’s most important strategies utilized throughout his reign was that of tolerance. Mehmed, contrary to many great monarchs of his time, showed remarkable religious tolerance to his imperial subjects. While dissension and opposition to his power were not well accepted, differing religious beliefs were, gaining the young sultan a wide array of support and cooperation throughout his lands. Furthermore, Mehmed was known to enact policies that favored those less fortunate, even so far as his lowest-class citizens. This was often done in ways such as reallocating lands of the noble class to the lower slave class.
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Doing so was quite ingenious, as it both won over loyalty from the bottom of society, and kept the high-class nobility in check. But, Mehmed’s intelligence as a leader didn’t just pertain to winning over fans. He also knew just what to do when it came to solidifying his authority. Unlike some of the 6 sultans before him, Mehmed wanted to ensure that he was surrounded by men who would be loyal to him and his cause and nothing else; as opposed to working with the already-established aristocracy. He thus formed a more centralized and highly organized administration that would work as a cohesive and faithful unit, allowing his focus to stray outside the Ottoman borders .Intelligent leaders such as Mehmed, however, tend to have further interests beyond just government affairs and wars. For the 7th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, arts and literature were his most precious hobbies. Mehmed was wildly fond of classical literature and the work of renaissance artists. At one point during his reign, he had built a library that would house over 8000 pieces of literature in languages spanning from Arabic to Greek to Latin to Persian. He furthermore commissioned multiple Renaissance artists from out West and the portrait we all know today as likely his most famous depiction was painted by none other than Gentile Bellini.
The sultan’s interests in foreign arts worked both to inspire and were helped by his ability to converse in multiple languages, including Latin, Greek, Persian, Serbian, Arabic, and Turkish. But, while all this was quite impressive, Mehmed II was far from limited in his education. In fact, he was fascinated by many topics of learning such as mathematics, astronomy, arithmetic, geography, philosophy, and had a particular interest in religious theology. Still, though wise beyond his years and a man of vast culture, Sultan Mehmed II was more than just a scholar. After all, he would rightfully earn himself the title of “the Conqueror”…By far the most famous and the first of Mehmed’s valiant expeditions of expansion and conquest was the one that led to the ultimate fall of Constantinople and Byzantium as the world knew it. From the moment he was named Sultan, the young man had known that it would be he who would finally bring the Byzantine capital under the sovereignty of a Muslim empire. There would be no exceptions, no excuses, and failure would simply not be tolerated. Having already taken control of the Bosphorus Straits with the building of the Rumelihisari fortress across from the Anadoluhisari fortress, the sultan was in no mood to waste time. And with Constantinople already in a weakened state from battering plagues and incursions, there was no reason to wait any longer .After expedited preparations, Mehmed gave the mighty emperor of Byzantium a single warning: surrender now, or your empire will be reduced to dust and ashes.
A terrifying ultimatum from a respectable imperial power, but nevertheless, the young sultan was yet to prove himself, and the Byzantines were no pushovers. As Mehmed had likely anticipated, Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos refused to accept the Ottoman injunction. If the sultan wanted Constantinople, he would have to come and take it…On April 2, 1453, the Ottoman Empire laid siege to the waning yet still-standing capital of the great successor to the Romans, the Byzantine Empire. Mehmed was determined to make this siege successful. With him, he had brought an army of somewhere between 100-200,000 men, a naval force of over 300 vessels, and anywhere up to 60 some-odd cannons. The Sultan had employed engineers and gunsmiths from all around the region to build his massive artillery for this assault and was finally ready to put them to good use as the shots rang out. This was a siege like the Byzantines had never seen before…The assault would last for nearly 2 months, throughout which time the sheer ingenuity and intelligence of Sultan Mehmed were put on display. From the colossal cannons to the thoughtfulness of moving naval ships overland along a path of greased logs to overcome a Byzantine obstacle, Mehmed was earning the “Conqueror” title in a spectacular way. And finally, on May 29, the capital of the renowned Byzantine Empire collapsed, and its emperor died with it. Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire had done it. Constantinople was his…Now having styled himself the Caesar of the Roman Empire, Mehmed the Conqueror looked to his next target: Serbia. While the Serbian Desperate would not fully be conquered by Mehmed until the end of the 1450s, the Ottoman campaign in the region began the year after the Constantinople conquest. Serbia had long been a vassal of the Ottoman Empire making it minimally surprising that Mehmed would look to consolidate power over it, however, it would be his great-grandson who would finally stretch Ottoman control as far as Belgrade. Mehmed had tried to do the same, but John Hunyadi of Hungary proved a mighty obstacle, and the sultan had other matters on his mind as well .
The fall of Constantinople had left minimal territory in the hands of the Byzantines, but some remained nonetheless. Of those lingering lands stood the Desperate of Morea, which the Ottomans had already been entangled with for some time. The Desperate had existed as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire but its despots, Demetrios and Thomas Palaiologans, proved to be incredibly poor at their jobs. The region was in a growing state of unrest and the two brothers of the late Byzantine Emperor soon failed to pay their yearly tribute to the Ottoman Sultan, finally giving Mehmed the Conqueror an excuse to launch a new campaign. By the summer of 1460, the Desperate of Morea had fallen to the Ottomans as a product of its rulers’ incompetence and the sultan’s grand ambitions. And Mehmed was not ready to stop here; Morea hadn’t been the only dying ember left of the Byzantine flame that had been snuffed out. The nearby Empire of Trebizond would have to be torn down just the same if Mehmed was to fully conquer all of Byzantium…With the rest of its allies already disintegrated, the emperor of Trebizond wasn’t clueless to the fact that he would have a hard time finding aid when the Ottomans inevitably came. Emperor David responded to this reality by building up friendships with his Eastern neighbors, in hopes that they may therefore elicit assistance from some unconventional allies. Possibly undermining this move, however, David attempted in 1460 to free himself of Trebizond’s tribute to the Ottoman Sultan, making this request to the Sultan himself. Mehmed had no mind for such a plea, and made his reply the following year – with the invasion of Trebizond Those eastern allies of David’s? They were of little help and one, Sinope, gave in to the Ottomans even as they marched toward Trebizond.
With the Ottoman land forces and navy closing in, it became clear that the emperor and his territory had only a short time left. Eventually realizing that no one was coming to his aid and his only shot at survival would be to give up his city and the last pillar left of the outreaches of the once-mighty Byzantine Empire, David informed the Conqueror that he was ready to negotiate a surrender. Talks soon led to the official capitulation of Emperor David and Trebizond, thus, subduing all that had still remained of Byzantium and its existence as successor to the splendid Roman Empire…The full and marvelous conquest of all that the Greeks had left to call their own may be one of Mehmed’s most well-known accomplishments. One of. Quite possibly the sultan’s next most famed endeavor was his continued campaign against the Principality of Wallachia, and his rivalry with the man he’d once grown up with, Vlad III Dracula…Scarcely a hundred years after its formation, the Ottomans had long been attempting to bring Wallachia under their sphere of influence if not ultimate control. Simultaneously, the Ottoman Empire’s staunch enemies over in Hungary were also attempting to subjugate Wallachia by installing their own puppets on the principality’s throne. This caused Wallachia to be two things: one, a buffer zone between hardened adversaries, and two, in a constant state of turmoil and inconsistent leadership. Even during Mehmed’s childhood, Wallachia was a place of trouble for Sultan Murad on multiple occasions. Distrust of its leader or voivode, at that time Vlad II Dracul, led Murad to summon his vassal’s head and hold his two youngest sons as political hostages. These sons were Radu III and Vlad III Dracula, and both boys would from that point on grow up alongside the young Mehmed. Upon the later death of Vlad II and his eldest son Mircea II, the Ottomans knew that they would have to act quick to install a new voivode in Wallachia that would be loyal to their interests before the Hungarians could do the same.
Despite Vlad III having been a rather nuisance in Ottoman custody, much to the contrary of Radu, Murad chose Vlad, the elder of the two, to replace their father. Vlad III’s stint on the Wallachian throne would be short-lived for now as his Hungarian-backed cousin, Vladislav II, would overthrow the teenager after a month. Wallachia was up for grabs again as the mid-15th century carried on. Eventually, in 1456, Vlad III would once more take the Wallachian throne, but this time with Hungarian support. Still, with Mehmed now at the helm of the Ottoman Empire, the idea of Vlad at least tolerating the Ottomans from the position of a vassal didn’t seem too outlandish; considering these boys had not only been allies but also childhood colleagues. Had it been Radu in Vlad’s place, it can be assumed that such would’ve been the case. But Vlad had quite a different perspective from his brother; he hated the Ottomans. If any forgiveness had been left in his heart, it had all been used up on the Ottoman adversary John Hunyadi for his role in the death of Vlad’s father. Mehmed, on the other hand, would get none .By the end of the 1450s, Wallachia had stopped paying tribute to the sultan, and by 1462, the voivode had started a war with the Ottomans…Mehmed’s success against Vlad III must have come much later than he had anticipated or hoped for, but in the end, it would come. After warfare that had pushed the sultan and his men to the brink of retreat, finally, as summer came to end, Radu was placed on the Wallachian throne in place of his elder brother. Mehmed was rightfully confident that this son of Dracul would truly remain loyal. Thus, minus a short stint with Vlad III back at the head of the principality in 1476 and a whiplash of depositions and reinstatements alternating between Radu and another distant relative, Basarab Laiota, the Ottomans had locked down Wallachia and could move on to other expeditions once more. Shortly after his success in Wallachia, Mehmed the Conqueror proved his title’s worth once more and conquered the Kingdom of Bosnia. An invasion led to a swift victory and the execution of Bosnia’s king as the sultan proved that his expansion could stretch west as well as to the east of the Balkan region. So too would the coming war with the Venetians…In 1463, small-scale skirmishes between Ottomans and Venetians led to all-out war as the Venetians and their Hungarian ally, Matthias Corvinus, son of John Hunyadi, invaded Ottoman Morea and Bosnia.
3 years into the war, Mehmed would come face to face with the celebrated Skanderbeg of Albania, yet another former political hostage of the Ottoman Empire. Disease would soon assist the Ottomans to victory over the Albanians and the war would last a total of 15 years until Mehmed finally bested his opponents and won peace with the Treaty of Constantinople, weakening the Venetians and requiring a yearly tribute to the Ottomans for trading rights in the Black Sea. The Sultan, the Conqueror, had done it again. And he wasn’t done…The Ottomans had by now stretched their power over to Anatolia and established Moldavia as a vassal – at least for a short time. Peter III Aaron of Moldavia had been one of the first rulers of the principality to agree to a yearly tribute to the Ottoman Empire, but his successor, Stephen III was in general opposition to such a concept for much of his life. This led predictably to military conflict between the Ottomans and the new voivode of Moldavia, a war that would see Mehmed take similar and shocking hits as he had back in Wallachia. This time, however, he found no clear triumph and would eventually withdraw from the region as Stephen remained a violent nuisance for the years to come. As infuriating as this may have been for Mehmed, it was no matter in the bigger picture. The Ottoman Empire had already grown immensely thanks to the efforts of the gutsy Sultan and stretched both to the east and west. Failure is far from a word that comes to mind when Mehmed the Conqueror is the topic of discussion. And with his ambitions having no bounds, the Sultan refused to stop after the incident in Moldavia. Now, he looked instead to Italy…It is widely believed that Mehmed’s aims in Italy reached all the way to Rome – a fear that even the pope and Rome’s citizens shared. When Otranto fell to an Ottoman invading force, the Romans held their breath, preparing to evacuate as the worst possible scenario drew near.
That is, of course, until Sultan Mehmed II, the great Conqueror of Anatolia and the Balkans, died; on May 3, 1481…His dreams of conquering Italy had ended abruptly with his own life. How he died, however, remains a mystery. It is believed that the sultan had fallen ill a few days prior to his passing but some historians have posited that the cause may have been more sinister than an innocent disease. Murder by poison remains a highly suspected theory. Nevertheless, whatever the cause may have been, the glorious Sultan was no more; but behind him was left a legacy of power, wisdom, and culture. Still known today as “the Conqueror”, Mehmed II lived a life of massive accomplishment and ensured that both at home and around the world, he would never be forgotten…
