[soldiers roaring, grunting]
[soldiers crying out]
[horse neighs]
[soldiers shouting]
[man] Your city is ours!
[soldiers yelling]
[man] Constantinople.
Either I conquer you...
or you conquer me.
[man 2] Come... my son.
[man] Father?
Constantinople.
Why didn't you believe in me?
-[woman] They betrayed you. -[man 2] My son.
[man] ...believe in me?
-[man 3] This is madness! -[man] No!
-[echoing] Constantinople... -[woman] Mehmed!
[man] Am I to take Constantinople?
[overlapping voices]
-[roaring] -No!
-[voices echoing] -[panting]
[man roaring]
[panting]
[coughing]
[horse neighing]
[thunder crackling]
[man] Constantinople.
[narrator] Every empire has a beginning
forged of blood, steel, fortune and conquest.
In 1453, Roman Emperor Constantine XI
and Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II
wage an epic battle for Constantinople.
Twenty-three armies have tried to take the legendary city.
All have failed.
Out of the carnage, one ruler will emerge victorious
and change the course of history for the next 300 years.
For one empire to rise, another must fall.
Constantinople is a city...
just destined to be the center of the world.
It's the hinge: Asia, Europe,
Black Sea, the Mediterranean,
the Balkan world, Italian city-states...
It's like there's a butterfly,
and Constantinople is the body of the butterfly.
[woman] Constantinople is a concept.
It's more than just a strategic place.
It represents layers of empire,
it represents layers of civilizations
that have been embedded in it.
[man] In the Mediterranean,
the largest city has always been Constantinople.
This was always cited as the Promised Land.
Whoever holds Constantinople, he will be the ruler of the world.
[narrator] In 1451,
Constantinople's protector and ruler is Emperor Constantine XI.
[man 2] There were few people more autocratic
and absolutist than Eastern Roman emperors.
They literally stood halfway to heaven, between God and man,
they were God's sword-arm on Earth.
Constantine XI, he's very brave,
and the principle for which he will sacrifice literally everything else
is the preservation of Constantinople.
[narrator] Twenty-three enemy armies
have tried to take the legendary walled city and failed.
The biggest threat to the Romans' 1100-year reign
are their longtime foes, the Ottomans.
Former Anatolian warlords and nomads
who've built a burgeoning empire
reaching all the way to Eastern Europe...
[thunder crashing]
The death of Ottoman Sultan Murad II in 1451
unleashes a chain of events
that will soon bring the Ottomans and Romans
to the brink of war.
Two hundred miles away, Sultan Murad's son, Mehmed II,
has been serving as governor of Manisa
in the Aegean Province.
The Crown Prince has been living in semi-exile for several years
after a falling out with his father's court.
[man] Prince!
I'm rotting out here in the provinces.
[man] My prince--
By the time Alexander the Great was my age, he'd conquered all of this land.
My prince.
Yes, Zaganos Pasha. What is it?
Your father.
[bird cawing]
There are some whispers
that the grand vizier and the others in the sultan's court
are discussing plans for a successor.
Of course they are.
Deceitful scum.
They'd want nothing more than for me to disappear.
Ready the horses.
We must leave for the capital.
[narrator] Mehmed sets out for Adrianople
to claim the throne,
uncertain whether he'll be named Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
or have to take the throne by force.
In the Ottoman throne, any member of the dynasty
has an equal right to the throne.
There is no established line of succession.
[man] They had to fight it out,
or be the one who could establish leadership.
It was survival of the fittest.
[narrator] Mehmed is met by his father's grand vizier,
Candarli Halil Pasha,
the sultan's right hand.
[Gürkan] The grand vizier is the prime minister of the empire.
When there is a new sultan inheriting his father's grand vizier,
there's always a clash,
and that grand vizier has to be controlled.
If you lose that game, you become a puppet sultan.
[horse nickers]
-[clicks tongue] -[horse whinnies]
[Mehmed] Halil Pasha...
it's been a couple years since I last saw you.
I wish...
it was under better circumstances.
Grand Vizier.
My sultan.
[narrator] After living in his father's shadow for years,
expectations for the 19-year-old ruler are crushing.
[Murad] You have grown since I last saw you.
[young Mehmed] Father?
[Murad] I've asked too much of you.
The throne will be yours, my son, when you are ready.
Don't test me, boy!
[man] He's a very young guy.
People didn't know was he up to the job?
Maybe he wasn't gonna be able to follow his father,
who was a good warrior.
I promised you your time would come.
[Mehmed] Mother Mara.
[narrator] Mehmed's stepmother, Mara Brankovic,
is among his closest allies
in a capital anxious to see how the young sultan will rule.
Do you know what Alexander the Great said when he took the throne?
"In the end, when it's over...
all that matters is what you have done."
It's yours.
[Goodwin] When he does come to the throne,
he realizes that he's got a signal
that he's everything that his father wished him to be.
[man 2] So, what would this kid do?
He says, "I need a crowning achievement..."
...and what will that be?
Take Constantinople.
The dream of everybody!
They will try and shame you as the boy they remembered, Sultan.
Yes, they will try.
[narrator] Mehmed's court is divided
between the young advisors he brings from Manisa,
led by Zaganos Pasha,
and his father's older viziers who harbor doubts about his leadership.
Those doubts extend beyond the capital to the Ottoman's many enemies.
[crowd roaring]
[narrator] A rival Turkish warlord tests the 19-year-old sultan,
raiding Ottoman lands in Anatolia.
[battle cries]
Mehmed and his army crush the rebellion.
The gravest threat to Mehmed's rule comes in late 1451
from the Ottoman's old enemy, the Romans.
[Mehmed] Hasan Pasha,
what news from Constantinople?
What do our spies say?
The Romans have...
sent a request.
What sort of request?
They've threatened to release your Uncle Orhan
if we don't triple our payments
for his continued safety and upkeep.
Prince Orhan represents this long Byzantine tradition of diplomacy.
[narrator] Prince Orhan has a claim to Mehmed's throne,
but the Romans keep him safely tucked away inside Constantinople
in exchange for a yearly payment from the Ottomans.
[Sengör] Prince Orhan is an interesting case.
He was kept a prisoner.
The Romans wanted to use him against the Ottomans.
When Mehmed comes to the throne,
he's only 19 years old,
no one really knows, uh... what kind of a ruler he would be,
so Constantine tries to...
uh, tries to threaten him.
It was always a threat that
"If you do something aggressive, we can send Orhan back
with a little money, a little support,
and maybe overthrow your throne."
[Crowley] The Romans offset
their weakness in terms of military strength,
land, and power,
in their ability to stir up civil war
within the Ottoman Empire.
[Sengör] The question becomes:
"What do you do in a situation like this?"
[Brownworth] This is one of the rare moments
where Constantine badly miscalculates.
This turns out to be a pretty bad mistake.
[Mehmed] I will build my fort right here.
Sultan, this is not diplomacy.
It's an act of war.
We will control the Bosphorus and every ship that travels through it.
[narrator] In response to the Roman threat,
Mehmed reveals his plan for Rumeli Hisari,
literally translated:
"Fortress in the land of the Romans."
Strategically located on the European side of the Bosphorus Strait,
the fort cuts off all supplies and military aid
from Roman allies in the Black Sea.
The fortress is ominously nicknamed "The Throat Cutter."
Sultan, I urge you to reconsider.
Building a fort on the Roman side will provoke them--
Anything inside the walls of Constantinople
belongs to the Romans.
Anything outside those walls
belongs to me.
[Sengör] Candarli didn't like the idea
because he said, "Look, Your Majesty,"
he said, "Europeans could unite against us.
The pope could send an army against us.
And while trying to get Constantinople, we might lose everything."
And Mehmed said, "Piss off."
Yeah... [laughs]
[narrator] The Throat Cutter is completed in an astonishing four-and-a-half months,
bringing the Ottomans and Romans a step closer to war.
Emperor Constantine sends emissaries to Mehmed's court
to protest construction of the fort.
[Brownworth] Some emissary would say, "This is Roman land.
Your father at least had the grace to ask permission
before he did something like this."
He sends them away, he won't even hear them.
So Constantine sends back more messengers,
this time loaded down with gifts, and say,
"Can we at least be assured
that this does not herald an attack on Constantinople?"
[grunts]
[panting]
[blacksmith's hammer clanking]
[Brownworth] Mehmed decapitates the advisors
and let's Constantine draw his own conclusion.
[angry chatter in court]
[nobleman] This cannot go unanswered!
We must teach the child a lesson!
[man] Then he will taste the Roman slap.
[laughter]
And who will deliver that slap, pray tell?
You?
Mehmed is a menace, but force is not the answer.
We must avoid confrontation until Catholic help arrives from Europe.
If the Catholics are our only hope,
we are doomed.
[man 2] The right-hand man of Constantine
was Loukas Notaras.
He held the position of grand duke,
which was the equivalent of the Ottoman vizier
or a prime minister.
[Notaras] I'd rather see a sultan's turban
than a cardinal's cap inside these walls.
[narrator] Constantinople is the center
of Orthodox Christianity.
Like most of the city and the emperor's court,
Notaras is Greek and Orthodox Christian,
and distrusts the European Catholic Church,
a schism dating back four centuries.
Faced with the Ottoman threat,
the city desperately needs soldiers and ships from the pope.
-[hushing crowd] -[crowd murmuring]
We are all brothers in the eyes of God.
At this moment, we have emissaries sent to the Vatican
and all the courts of Europe securing aid for our defense.
Already, there are generous troops bound for the city--
the first of many.
With God's Grace,
the pope will be sending troops in the coming weeks.
-[nobleman] Long live the emperor. -[all] Long live the emperor!
[narrator] Notaras is the wealthiest man in Constantinople,
with business interests ranging from Anatolia to Italy.
No one has more to lose in a war with the Ottomans.
Send this to our Turkish friend.
[bird warbles]
[horse nickers, snorts]
[coins jingle]
[chatter, laughter]
[Candarli Halil] You slippery Greek goat fucker.
Halil Pasha.
[Goodwin] Candarli Halil was the grand vizier
and an experienced older statesman.
Also known as Halil the Greek...
because he didn't really want Mehmed to conquer Constantinople,
he didn't think it was a useful thing to do.
Or maybe he'd been bribed by the Greeks to kind of divert Mehmed.
[Nataras] I'm glad you could make it, Pasha.
Though by the look on your face,
it's not with good tidings.
The sultan won't be swayed.
[sighs deeply]
A war is bad for all of us.
And your interests in the city.
Peace is much more profitable.
[Candarli Halil] He is arrogant, young,
convinced he'll conquer the West,
just as Alexander conquered the East.
[chuckling]
[Philippedes] Loukas was probably
the richest man in all of the Balkans.
He tried to play every side.
There's more talk of the emperor releasing Prince Orhan.
-The emperor is willing to arm him. -With a wine flask?
[both laugh]
Tell your sultan the emperor prefers peace with the Ottomans.
I'll make sure of this.
And we can come to terms to avoid a war.
But...
if the sultan is...
hell-bent on taking the city...
I hate to think of you dying by his side
in a war that could have easily been avoided.
[Candarli Halil] And if it goes the other way,
I'll have a front row seat for your beheading...
my old friend.
[Mehmed] I should have his head for this.
Deceitful dog!
Mehmed, patience.
A commodity of which I have precious little at the moment.
It's wiser to keep him close for now.
Think about the importance of continuity for a new sultan
who's relatively untested.
To come in and start firing people and executing them as soon as you get in,
that's not gonna make you many friends.
So in some ways it's a tactical decision.
You use him for as long as he's useful, and if he proves useful, great.
If he doesn't, get rid of him eventually.
Perhaps you can use his carelessness...
to your advantage.
[banging on door]
[Zaganos] Where is your master?
Halil Pasha!
Zaganos Pasha...
what is the meaning of this?
The sultan requests your presence at the palace.
-Now? -At once, Halil Pasha.
Give me a moment to dress.
Sure.
[Zaganos] Sultan.
We brought Halil Pasha.
My sultan.
May I please speak?
What is this?
It's...
It's customary to bring gifts
when summoned by the sultan in the middle of the night.
I don't need your gold, Pasha.
I need your ear. Get up.
Get up.
I just woke from a dream.
I saw my father,
my ancestors,
Osman.
They showed me the road ahead.
It led me to Constantinople.
The gates of the city flew open.
I walked straight to Hagia Sophia...
and there I saw the Red Apple itself.
It was given to me.
You understand, Pasha...
Allah has sent me a vision.
He has commanded me to take Constantinople.
I have no choice but to obey his wish.
There's a prophecy that Constantinople's the Red Apple, and a warrior will come,
he will take this center of Christian orthodoxy
and wrest it from the Christians
and bring it home to the Islamic world.
In my vision, you, too, were by my side, Pasha.
Devoted teacher, my loyal servant,
commander of my fearsome army,
and utterly committed to our destiny.
I am all those things.
Then I have your support in this endeavor?
Mehmed played it very, very wisely.
He was able to put him at ease,
so he was able to use him.
[narrator] As grand vizier, Candarli Halil Pasha
is the second most powerful man in the Ottoman Empire.
The young sultan must have his full support
for an attack on Constantinople.
I knew I could rely upon you, Pasha.
Sleep well.
[narrator] The Ottoman war machine
shifts into high gear.
Within six months, Mehmed assembles an army of 80,000
ready to march on Constantinople.
[soldiers roaring]
Mehmed's troops quickly capture and destroy
the few remaining Roman outposts outside of Constantinople,
further isolating the emperor.
The biggest addition to the Ottoman war machine
is yet to come.
Your reputation precedes you, Orban.
I've heard much about your big guns.
Yes, Sultan. And "guns..." [laughs]
...doesn't do my latest offerings justice.
You see, you need huge balls
to take down the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople.
I know them and I know their weak spots.
[whispering] Father, it's in here.
[Orban sighs, grunts]
Father.
Forgive me, my lord. May I?
[Orban] This...
this is my new cannon.
It's eight meters long.
The largest ever designed.
And I call it Basilica.
-You can build this? -Yes.
Yes, Sultan.
She fires a cannon ball two-and-a-half meters in diameter.
This gun would blast through the walls of Babylon.
[chuckles]
Although I know you have no quarrels with the Babylonians.
-[Mehmed] You're a Hungarian? -Yes.
-And a Christian? -Yes.
Why aren't you offering these inventions to Constantine?
There is a price for my knowledge.
The emperor was unable to pay.
[Jacob] And, of course,
you are the true ruler of these lands.
Who is this young man?
Uh, Jacob. My son and my apprentice.
The only one who knows these guns as well as me.
One day he will make a cannon even bigger than Basilica.
So then, what's your asking price?
Uh, 10,000 ducats.
[laughs]
You got pretty big balls yourself, my friend.
Firearms on the battlefield
have been around for a few decades by this point.
But cannons of this size were something
that was completely out of most people's imagination.
And so Orban goes to a number of people around the world
offering his services as a cannon maker.
[Mehmed sighs]
If this gun can bring down the walls of Constantinople,
as you claim, I'll pay you four times that.
My only condition is they must be ready and on the battlefield in three months.
[dramatic music playing]
[Talbot] The vision of building a weapon like that is remarkable,
not least because early firearms were prone to explode.
So if you think about what it is,
it's a big metal tube that you shove a load of gunpowder into,
and then light on fire to put a projectile out.
That's as likely to blow up in your face as it is to blow up the enemy.
[hammers banging]
[Goodwin] This huge, huge thing,
the biggest cannon that's ever been made up to that point,
and when they fire it, you know,
animals collapse in the fields and, you know,
women give birth suddenly, and it's just kind of like
no one's heard anything like this before,
and the ball flies for a mile,
and, you know, it is an astonishing thing.
[narrator] Mehmed's super-gun is revolutionary.
-[boots stomping] -[crowd roaring]
But Constantine has a secret weapon of his own...
Genoese soldier of fortune, Giovanni Giustiniani Longo.
[crowd cheering]
[Brownworth] He's a gallant, kind of a swashbuckling figure,
and he's well known as
an expert in defending walled cities.
[Philippedes] He was a pirate...
[laughing] ...and he was particularly attacking ships from Egypt,
up to the point that the Genoese government
had brought charges against him.
And he ran away so he wouldn't be tried.
He offered his services to the emperor.
The chronicles say that the emperor promised him the island of Lemnos.
[cheering]
Lord Giustiniani, you and your men are a welcome sight.
So...
you have studied our, uh, situation.
Yes. I have.
What do you think?
By my calculations,
you have just under 7,000 soldiers.
It is certainly not ideal,
but I have faith that with your allegiance--
Allegiance?
Your...
with your faithful support, we, uh,
will defeat the Ottomans.
I would decree you head of the land forces.
There are 14 miles of walls to defend, Emperor.
Yes.
But, uh, I've sent envoys to every ally in Europe.
Reinforcements from the pope
hopefully should be arriving any day now.
We will be in better shape then.
Forgive me...
but in my line of work,
hope will get you killed.
If you are to have my trust,
paid or otherwise, then I must have yours...
Emperor.
Lord Giustiniani...
the fate of the city is in your hands.
Take heart, my lord.
The Ottomans don't like long sieges.
And we have those big, beautiful walls.
My lord, it's as you suspected.
The emperor put the Genoan in charge of the defenses.
[birds chirping]
[horse whinnies]
[narrator] In March of 1453,
the Ottomans set out on the 148-mile march
to Constantinople.
[Sengör] The Ottoman army was a dynamic,
growing entity.
They had a unity of command
which the Europeans didn't have.
When these crusader armies attacked the Ottomans,
they hardly ever listened to their supreme commander.
You know, every unit did whatever they wanted to do.
They were running after the most glory.
But the Ottoman army had a central command.
Really, there was nobody in the Balkans who could stop them.
[narrator] The most feared warriors in Mehmed's army
are the Janissaries.
Former Christian slaves taken as children,
converted to Islam,
and trained to be the sultan's elite special forces.
[Goodwin] In the 1300s,
these captives become this standing army
that never disbands, they're always there,
they're always ready to fight.
That's the first standing army in Europe. This has never happened before.
They become the backbone of this empire.
[narrator] The Ottoman army arrives
on the outskirts of Constantinople at Easter,
the holiest day in the Christian world.
[church bells ringing in distance]
[church bells continue ringing]
[Talbot] And then you look out across these walls
and you see what must have been an incredible sight.
There hadn't really been a professional army wandering around
since the time of the Romans,
so these guys must have been particularly terrifying to look at.
I can't even imagine what Constantine must have felt.
I was hoping this day would never come.
This day was always going to come, Emperor.
It's what we do tomorrow
that will be important.
[narrator] Mehmed walks the battlefield
where 23 armies, including his father's,
have tried to take the city and failed.
His own destiny remains unknown.
[Talbot] There's a particular hadith that becomes popular.
A hadith is a saying of the Prophet Muhammad,
and it says... [speaking Arabic]
[in English] "Surely you, the Islamic nation,
will conquer Constantinople."
[speaking Arabic]
[in English] "And how wonderful will its commander be,
the commander of that nation."
[speaking Arabic]
[in English] "And how amazing, how wonderful will the army be,
the army of that nation."
This particular setting,
that there will one day be a great commander
who will conquer Constantinople,
starts to become important for Mehmed.
...the Father, the Son, and the Holy...
[priest continues]
We are going to need more than that, Father.
Lady?
You are George Sphrantzes' daughter.
My name is Therma, sir...
should you wish to use it.
I have never seen so many people in one place.
[Giustiniani] The sultan appears determined to make a fight of it.
But they must get through these walls first.
A lot of people will die.
I have no intention of dying.
[horse whinnies]
[narrator] On April 6th, Mehmed sends a final offer of truce
to Emperor Constantine.
[Talbot] So, the siege is governed by different cultural norms,
and some of those cultural norms are specific to Islam.
There's several rules of war set down in the Quran,
um... that dictate the way that we should treat such people.
So we give them the opportunity to change their minds,
that we give them the opportunity to negotiate a new treaty,
we give them the chance to extricate themselves
from the potential bloodletting ahead.
[Ottoman emissary] "Our lord, the merciful Sultan Mehmed,
will spare the citizens of the city,
harming neither their families
nor their belongings,
if you voluntarily surrender.
The people of Constantinople
may keep their possessions;
there will be no looting.
In return,
you will open the gates of the city
and kiss the hands of our sultan."
[all murmuring]
"Sultan Mehmed will the one ruler of the Romans."
We'll soon find out if the emperor loves his city enough to die for it.
[Ottoman emissary] They rejected the offer, Sultan.
-Prepare the cannons. -[troops roar]
[roaring continues]
Get ready, boys!
[battle cries]
[distant roaring]
-[soldier 1] Prepare the cannons! -[soldier 2] Prepare the cannons!
[soldier 3] Ready!
Fire!
[blast reverberates]