WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.759 OK, I want you to just close your eyes for a 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:05.440 second. Picture a scene that if you saw it in 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:07.320 some high budget Hollywood movie, you'd probably 00:00:07.320 --> 00:00:10.519 roll your eyes and say, OK, the writers are trying 00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:12.599 way too hard now. Right. It's just too unbelievable. 00:00:12.820 --> 00:00:14.679 Exactly. So it's the middle of the night. It's 00:00:14.679 --> 00:00:19.399 pitch black. The date is April 22nd, 1453. You're 00:00:19.399 --> 00:00:21.440 standing on a hill and you're overlooking the 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:24.320 Golden Horn, this massive legendary harbor of 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:28.289 Constantinople. It's quiet. maybe a little foggy 00:00:28.289 --> 00:00:31.929 and then suddenly you hear this sound yeah and 00:00:31.929 --> 00:00:35.229 it's it's not the wind it's not the sea it's 00:00:35.229 --> 00:00:37.630 this deep groaning of wood yeah and the cracking 00:00:37.630 --> 00:00:40.350 of whip the bellowing of thousands and thousands 00:00:40.350 --> 00:00:43.950 of oxen yeah and drums the steady rhythmic almost 00:00:43.950 --> 00:00:46.810 terrifying beating of drums and the torches light 00:00:46.810 --> 00:00:51.270 up and what you see It just shouldn't be possible. 00:00:51.369 --> 00:00:54.670 You see ships, full size, 70 foot Ottoman warships 00:00:54.670 --> 00:00:56.810 with their sails furled, but they aren't in the 00:00:56.810 --> 00:00:58.710 water. No, they're moving over the side of the 00:00:58.710 --> 00:01:00.770 hill. Over land. It's one of the most surreal 00:01:00.770 --> 00:01:05.909 images in all of military history. 80 galleys 00:01:05.909 --> 00:01:08.769 being physically dragged up and over a steep 00:01:08.769 --> 00:01:11.890 forested hill on these greased logs for over 00:01:11.890 --> 00:01:15.870 a mile. Why? To get around a giant chain. A simple 00:01:15.870 --> 00:01:17.609 chain that was blocking the harbor entrance. 00:01:17.870 --> 00:01:20.750 It is this incredible moment where the solution 00:01:20.750 --> 00:01:23.209 to an impossible military problem wasn't some 00:01:23.209 --> 00:01:25.109 brilliant strategy. And it wasn't diplomacy. 00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:28.590 It was just sheer brute force engineering. Just 00:01:28.590 --> 00:01:31.730 manpower and will. It's absolute madness. And 00:01:31.730 --> 00:01:33.549 it sets the stage perfectly for the guy we're 00:01:33.549 --> 00:01:35.790 talking about today. Because this whole landship 00:01:35.790 --> 00:01:38.689 maneuver, this wasn't the idea of some grizzled, 00:01:38.689 --> 00:01:41.069 battle -hardened general with 40 years of experience. 00:01:41.329 --> 00:01:43.209 Not even close. This was the brainchild of a 00:01:43.209 --> 00:01:45.129 21 -year -old. That is the part. That always, 00:01:45.170 --> 00:01:47.349 always gets me. He was barely out of his teens. 00:01:47.810 --> 00:01:49.969 Today on The Deep Dive, we are tackling the life 00:01:49.969 --> 00:01:52.650 of Mehmed II, better known to the world as Mehmed 00:01:52.650 --> 00:01:54.730 the Conqueror. And I think for most people, the 00:01:54.730 --> 00:01:57.870 mental image of an Ottoman sultan is, you know, 00:01:57.890 --> 00:02:00.250 pretty fixed. Oh, yeah. You picture this stern 00:02:00.250 --> 00:02:02.969 warrior figure, maybe a guy with a scimitar and 00:02:02.969 --> 00:02:05.549 a big turban looking very severe, very distant. 00:02:05.730 --> 00:02:09.449 The scourge of God archetype. The man who basically... 00:02:09.659 --> 00:02:11.979 ended the Middle Ages by smashing the walls of 00:02:11.979 --> 00:02:15.360 Eastern Rome. And look, he was that. He was absolutely 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:17.840 a conqueror in the most literal sense. But the 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:19.439 source material we've been digging through for 00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:22.080 this, I mean, it just paints a picture that is 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:25.719 so much more, well, jarring. It's just full of 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:29.060 these crazy contradictions. We are talking about 00:02:29.060 --> 00:02:32.319 a guy who was a master gardener, an oed, who 00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:34.580 wrote these incredibly emotional verses under 00:02:34.580 --> 00:02:37.199 a pseudonym. A scholar who spoke, what, half 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:40.159 a dozen languages? And he's commissioning portraits 00:02:40.159 --> 00:02:42.860 from Italian Renaissance masters. And in the 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:45.280 same breath, we are talking about a man who legally 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:47.639 codified the execution of his own brothers to 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:49.919 ensure the stability of the state. A man who 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:52.680 impaled his enemies by the thousand and absolutely 00:02:52.680 --> 00:02:55.139 terrified Europe for half a century. That's the 00:02:55.139 --> 00:02:56.740 tension. That's what we're going to unpack today. 00:02:56.960 --> 00:02:59.120 How does a Renaissance prince, because that is 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:01.419 really what he was in many ways, also become 00:03:01.419 --> 00:03:04.659 the architect of mass impalements and legal fratricide? 00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:07.080 It's a huge question. We have a massive stack 00:03:07.080 --> 00:03:09.960 of campaign logs, diplomatic letters, Venetian 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:12.939 spy reports to get through. Our mission is to 00:03:12.939 --> 00:03:15.800 understand how this 21 -year -old kid managed 00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:18.639 to do what entire armies had failed to do for 00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:20.939 a thousand years. And whether he was, in the 00:03:20.939 --> 00:03:25.159 end, a monster, a genius, or maybe both. And 00:03:25.159 --> 00:03:27.199 to get there, you really can't start at the conquest. 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:29.360 You can't start with the ships on the hill. The 00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:32.259 whole psychology of Mehmed II is rooted in a 00:03:32.259 --> 00:03:36.180 really traumatic childhood. You have to go back 00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:38.400 to what I call the false start. I love that term 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:40.129 for it. Because usually when we hear about these 00:03:40.129 --> 00:03:42.530 great kings, their story is so linear. They're 00:03:42.530 --> 00:03:44.430 born, they're educated, they take the throne 00:03:44.430 --> 00:03:47.849 and they rule. Mehmed's path was just so much 00:03:47.849 --> 00:03:50.110 messier. Much, much messier. So he's born in 00:03:50.110 --> 00:03:53.449 a derny in 1432. Now, context here is absolutely 00:03:53.449 --> 00:03:55.610 key. He was the third son of the reigning sultan, 00:03:55.789 --> 00:03:58.949 Murad II. His mother, Humahatun, was a slave 00:03:58.949 --> 00:04:01.349 concubine. So not a royal princess from another 00:04:01.349 --> 00:04:03.969 kingdom. No, we don't know much about her. Possibly 00:04:03.969 --> 00:04:06.969 she was of European or Slavic origin. But in 00:04:06.969 --> 00:04:09.530 the Ottoman system, that wasn't a disqualifier 00:04:09.530 --> 00:04:12.250 status followed the father. But being the third 00:04:12.250 --> 00:04:15.090 son, well, that meant he wasn't the priority. 00:04:15.150 --> 00:04:17.350 He wasn't plan A for the succession. He's the 00:04:17.350 --> 00:04:19.790 spare to the spare. Exactly. But in the Ottoman 00:04:19.790 --> 00:04:22.089 tradition, these young princes didn't just sit 00:04:22.089 --> 00:04:24.329 around the palace. They were sent out to govern 00:04:24.329 --> 00:04:26.170 provinces to learn the ropes. It was like an 00:04:26.170 --> 00:04:29.269 apprenticeship in ruling. So at age 11, Mehmed 00:04:29.269 --> 00:04:31.629 is sent to Amasya. Yep. It's a governorship. 00:04:31.750 --> 00:04:34.269 He has to learn how to manage taxes, how to judge 00:04:34.269 --> 00:04:35.990 legal disputes, how to command local troops. 00:04:36.209 --> 00:04:39.009 It's a very real hands -on internship running 00:04:39.009 --> 00:04:42.810 a piece of the state. But then fate intervenes. 00:04:43.069 --> 00:04:46.009 His two older brothers die. Suddenly this 11 00:04:46.009 --> 00:04:48.389 -year -old is the heir apparent. And then his 00:04:48.389 --> 00:04:50.949 father, Sultan Murad II, does something that 00:04:50.949 --> 00:04:53.470 is almost unheard of in history. He quits. He 00:04:53.470 --> 00:04:56.439 literally abdicates. He just steps down. Murad 00:04:56.439 --> 00:04:59.240 had a really rough go of it. He'd been fighting 00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:01.699 these draining wars on two fronts, in Europe 00:05:01.699 --> 00:05:04.779 and in Anatolia. He finally manages to sign peace 00:05:04.779 --> 00:05:07.139 treaties with Hungary in the west and the Karamanids 00:05:07.139 --> 00:05:10.019 in the east. He looks at the map, sees peace 00:05:10.019 --> 00:05:12.420 for the first time in years, and basically says, 00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:15.040 I'm done. I'm out. I want to study religion, 00:05:15.220 --> 00:05:18.540 retire to a nice garden in Manisa, and just relax. 00:05:19.660 --> 00:05:24.199 So in 1444, he steps down and he hands the... 00:05:24.410 --> 00:05:26.550 absolute power of the Ottawa Empire to Mehmed, 00:05:26.629 --> 00:05:29.610 his 12 -year -old son. Imagine being 12. In our 00:05:29.610 --> 00:05:31.209 timeline, you're just starting middle school. 00:05:31.389 --> 00:05:34.350 And he's handed the nuclear codes. He is the 00:05:34.350 --> 00:05:36.490 sultan. And it goes about as well as you would 00:05:36.490 --> 00:05:38.790 expect. Right. It's a disaster. The vultures 00:05:38.790 --> 00:05:41.889 started circling immediately. Instantly. The 00:05:41.889 --> 00:05:43.449 Christian powers in Europe look at the Ottoman 00:05:43.449 --> 00:05:45.370 throne. They see a child sitting on it and all 00:05:45.370 --> 00:05:47.430 those peace treaties Murad just signed. They're 00:05:47.430 --> 00:05:49.649 torn up. And this wasn't just some minor border 00:05:49.649 --> 00:05:52.329 skirmish. This was a full -blown crusade. It 00:05:52.329 --> 00:05:55.329 was led by John Hunyadi of Hungary and King Ladislav 00:05:55.329 --> 00:05:58.230 of Poland and Hungary. They saw a once -in -a 00:05:58.230 --> 00:06:00.629 -lifetime opportunity to wipe the Ottomans off 00:06:00.629 --> 00:06:03.009 the map of Europe. I want to pause on the justification 00:06:03.009 --> 00:06:05.649 for breaking that treaty because the sources 00:06:05.649 --> 00:06:08.209 mention a specific figure, a Cardinal Julian 00:06:08.209 --> 00:06:10.550 Cesarini. He's the one who really pushes for 00:06:10.550 --> 00:06:15.050 this. Yes, the papal legate. He used a very cynical 00:06:15.050 --> 00:06:18.009 bit of theological logic to convince the king 00:06:18.009 --> 00:06:21.350 of Hungary to attack. He essentially argued that 00:06:21.350 --> 00:06:24.230 an oath sworn to an infidel, a Muslim, was null 00:06:24.230 --> 00:06:26.290 and void in the eyes of God. So breaking the 00:06:26.290 --> 00:06:28.670 truce isn't a sin. He argued it was almost a 00:06:28.670 --> 00:06:31.350 holy duty. So the crusade launches. Yeah. The 00:06:31.350 --> 00:06:33.629 Ottoman army is panicking. The Grand Vizier, 00:06:33.689 --> 00:06:35.810 a guy named Shandarva Halil Pasha, who really, 00:06:35.850 --> 00:06:38.850 really did not like Mehmed, is panicking. And 00:06:38.850 --> 00:06:42.029 12 -year -old Sultan Mehmed realizes, I cannot 00:06:42.029 --> 00:06:45.209 handle this. It has to be a profoundly humiliating 00:06:45.209 --> 00:06:47.829 realization for a boy who has been told his whole 00:06:47.829 --> 00:06:50.149 life that he's a prince destined to rule. So 00:06:50.149 --> 00:06:51.990 he sends a message to his father, who's off in 00:06:51.990 --> 00:06:54.189 his garden retreat, begging him to come back 00:06:54.189 --> 00:06:57.290 and lead the army. And Murad refuses. He basically 00:06:57.290 --> 00:06:59.410 says, no, I'm retired. I'm praying. It's your 00:06:59.410 --> 00:07:02.680 problem now, son. Good luck. Which is just incredible. 00:07:02.759 --> 00:07:05.180 And this is where we get the first real flash 00:07:05.180 --> 00:07:07.860 of the brilliance and maybe the snark that defines 00:07:07.860 --> 00:07:10.319 Mehmed later in life. He writes a second letter. 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:12.879 And this is one of the most famous documents 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:15.540 in all of Ottoman history. So good. It's brilliant. 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:19.019 He writes, If you are the sultan, come and lead 00:07:19.019 --> 00:07:22.139 your armies. But if I am the sultan, I hereby 00:07:22.139 --> 00:07:25.120 order you to come and lead my armies. Checkmate, 00:07:25.139 --> 00:07:27.579 dad. There's no way out of that one. It worked. 00:07:27.860 --> 00:07:30.800 Murad II came back. completely crushed the Crusader 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:32.759 army at the Battle of Varna and saved the empire. 00:07:33.199 --> 00:07:35.779 But then, and this is the crucial psychological 00:07:35.779 --> 00:07:38.879 blow for young Mehmed, he stayed. He took the 00:07:38.879 --> 00:07:41.899 throne back. So Mehmed is deposed. Yeah, unsultaned. 00:07:41.899 --> 00:07:43.819 He's packed up and sent back to the minor leagues 00:07:43.819 --> 00:07:46.300 as a governor in Manisa. That has to absolutely 00:07:46.300 --> 00:07:49.319 destroy a kid's ego. You taste absolute power. 00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:51.519 You fail spectacularly. Your dad has to come 00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:53.660 and rescue you. And then you're basically grounded 00:07:53.660 --> 00:07:56.519 for years. It created a chip on his shoulder 00:07:56.519 --> 00:07:59.029 the size of the bus for a street. Most historians 00:07:59.029 --> 00:08:01.829 agree that his time in Manisa was spent just 00:08:01.829 --> 00:08:05.889 stewing. He became obsessed. He wanted to prove 00:08:05.889 --> 00:08:08.769 to his father, to the court, to the world that 00:08:08.769 --> 00:08:11.050 he wasn't just some incompetent child. And he 00:08:11.050 --> 00:08:13.790 had people in his ear. Right. Mentors who are 00:08:13.790 --> 00:08:16.930 shaping this ambition. Oh, absolutely. Specifically, 00:08:16.930 --> 00:08:20.689 a very influential religious figure named Aksham 00:08:20.689 --> 00:08:25.009 Sadin and his tutor Mola Gurani. They whispered 00:08:25.009 --> 00:08:27.750 a very specific destiny in his ear. They told 00:08:27.750 --> 00:08:30.949 him his. Purpose in life, his holy duty was the 00:08:30.949 --> 00:08:33.210 conquest of Constantinople. This wasn't just 00:08:33.210 --> 00:08:36.190 a random military target. It had this deep religious 00:08:36.190 --> 00:08:39.669 significance. Huge. There is a Hadith, a saying 00:08:39.669 --> 00:08:41.590 attributed to the Prophet Muhammad that says, 00:08:41.750 --> 00:08:44.210 Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What 00:08:44.210 --> 00:08:46.169 a wonderful leader will he be and what a wonderful 00:08:46.169 --> 00:08:48.409 army will that army be. So they're telling him 00:08:48.409 --> 00:08:50.750 this isn't just about glory, Mehmed. This is 00:08:50.750 --> 00:08:53.659 about you fulfilling prophecy. Exactly. It's 00:08:53.659 --> 00:08:55.799 not just about territory. It's about spiritual 00:08:55.799 --> 00:08:59.000 validation. It's your destiny. So when his father 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:02.340 finally died in 1451 and Mehmed took the throne 00:09:02.340 --> 00:09:05.159 for the second time, he was 19 years old and 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:07.659 he was a completely different person. No more 00:09:07.659 --> 00:09:10.519 ask you for help. None. He was aggressive, he 00:09:10.519 --> 00:09:13.200 was secretive, and he was singularly focused. 00:09:13.539 --> 00:09:15.820 The Byzantine emperor at the time, Constantine 00:09:15.820 --> 00:09:18.000 XI, actually tried to play these old diplomatic 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:20.840 games with him, sending envoys to demand more 00:09:20.840 --> 00:09:23.320 money, thinking Mehmed was still that incompetent 00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:25.559 kid from the first reign. He could stay. Huge. 00:09:25.879 --> 00:09:28.360 Mehmed didn't even bother responding diplomatically. 00:09:28.419 --> 00:09:30.419 He just started building. Let's talk about the 00:09:30.419 --> 00:09:33.240 preparation for 1453. Yeah. Because he didn't 00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:37.220 just march an army up to the walls. He strangled 00:09:37.220 --> 00:09:40.100 the city first. It was a strategic chokehold, 00:09:40.220 --> 00:09:43.279 a brilliant one. He looked at the Bosphorus Strait, 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:45.159 that narrow strip of water that connects the 00:09:45.159 --> 00:09:47.620 Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Constantinople 00:09:47.620 --> 00:09:49.899 relied on grain shipments coming down from the 00:09:49.899 --> 00:09:52.179 Black Sea ports to survive. So if you control 00:09:52.179 --> 00:09:54.460 the Strait... You control the city's food supply. 00:09:54.879 --> 00:09:57.019 His grandfather had already built a fortress 00:09:57.019 --> 00:09:59.980 on the Asian side. So Mehmed went to the European 00:09:59.980 --> 00:10:03.179 side, directly opposite, and in a ridiculously 00:10:03.179 --> 00:10:06.419 short amount of time, built Rumelihisari. the 00:10:06.419 --> 00:10:09.360 name is so intense the source is translated as 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:12.860 the fortress on the land of the romans but colloquially 00:10:12.860 --> 00:10:15.360 it was known as the throat cutter and it was 00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:18.200 literal he installed these massive cannons right 00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:20.980 at the water level any ship passing through now 00:10:20.980 --> 00:10:23.620 had to lower its sails acknowledge the ottoman 00:10:23.620 --> 00:10:27.259 presence and pay a toll if they didn't well we 00:10:27.259 --> 00:10:29.240 have the account of a venetian ship that tried 00:10:29.240 --> 00:10:31.200 to run the blockade The captain thought he was 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:33.240 fast enough. He thought he could use the current 00:10:33.240 --> 00:10:35.720 and the wind to just zip past the guns. He was 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:39.139 wrong. Badly wrong. A single stone cannonball 00:10:39.139 --> 00:10:41.480 weighing hundreds and hundreds of pounds shattered 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:43.759 the ship's hull. I agree. The crew was captured 00:10:43.759 --> 00:10:47.720 and beheaded. But the captain, Mehmed, had him 00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:50.460 impaled on a stake and displayed on a rocky outcrop 00:10:50.460 --> 00:10:52.700 visible to anyone sailing by. It's a billboard. 00:10:52.860 --> 00:10:54.399 It's a billboard for the rest of Europe that 00:10:54.399 --> 00:10:56.679 says, the rules have changed. I'm in charge now. 00:10:56.840 --> 00:10:59.480 Which brings us to the siege itself. Spring. 00:11:00.970 --> 00:11:04.009 1453. The scale of this whole operation is just, 00:11:04.049 --> 00:11:07.009 it's hard to wrap your head around. It's asymmetrical 00:11:07.009 --> 00:11:10.330 warfare at its most extreme. Inside the city, 00:11:10.370 --> 00:11:14.070 you have maybe 7 ,000 defenders, a mix of Byzantines 00:11:14.070 --> 00:11:17.409 and Genoese and Venetian mercenaries. 7 ,000. 00:11:17.509 --> 00:11:20.110 Outside, Mehmed has an army that's estimated 00:11:20.110 --> 00:11:24.139 somewhere between 80 ,000 and 200 ,000. But numbers 00:11:24.139 --> 00:11:27.000 alone don't break the Theodosian walls. These 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:29.539 were a triple layer of fortifications that had 00:11:29.539 --> 00:11:31.679 stood for a thousand years. They were legendary. 00:11:32.019 --> 00:11:34.440 Attila the Hun couldn't break them. The Arabs 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:36.720 couldn't break them. They were the ultimate defensive 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:39.159 technology of the ancient and medieval world. 00:11:39.379 --> 00:11:41.899 So Mehmed decides to bring in new technology 00:11:41.899 --> 00:11:44.179 to break the old technology. We have to talk 00:11:44.179 --> 00:11:47.240 about Orban. The gun for hire. the master mercenary 00:11:47.240 --> 00:11:50.279 engineer. Orban was a Hungarian, a master cannon 00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:52.419 founder. And ironically, he had actually gone 00:11:52.419 --> 00:11:55.700 to the Byzantine emperor first. Yes, he offered 00:11:55.700 --> 00:11:57.960 to build him super weapons to defend the city. 00:11:58.100 --> 00:12:00.879 But the emperor was broke. He couldn't afford 00:12:00.879 --> 00:12:05.399 Orban's salary. So Orban just shrugs, walks across 00:12:05.399 --> 00:12:07.879 the battle lines to the Ottoman camp. And Memon 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:10.279 has the money. Oh, he has the money and the vision. 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.360 He asks Orban, can you build me a cannon that 00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:16.649 can smash the walls of Babylon? Orban says, I 00:12:16.649 --> 00:12:18.669 can cast the cannon, but I can't guarantee the 00:12:18.669 --> 00:12:21.570 aim. And Mehmed essentially says, cast it. I'll 00:12:21.570 --> 00:12:24.429 worry about the aim. And this is the birth of 00:12:24.429 --> 00:12:27.509 the Basilica bombard. It was a monster. I mean, 00:12:27.509 --> 00:12:30.350 we're talking about a tube 27 feet long. It fired 00:12:30.350 --> 00:12:32.950 a stone ball that weighed over 1 ,300 pounds. 00:12:33.190 --> 00:12:36.169 It took 60 oxen just to move the thing. And when 00:12:36.169 --> 00:12:38.799 they test fired it back in Ader. The sound was 00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:41.000 so powerful they had to send out criers to warn 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:42.879 pregnant women in the area because they thought 00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:45.120 the shockwave could cause miscarriages. And when 00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:47.259 that thing hit the walls of Constantinople, it 00:12:47.259 --> 00:12:49.639 turned thousand -year -old masonry into dust. 00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:52.620 But there was a problem. The reload time was 00:12:52.620 --> 00:12:55.419 terrible. Maybe three hours between shots because 00:12:55.419 --> 00:12:57.639 the barrel got so hot it would crack if they 00:12:57.639 --> 00:13:00.500 didn't constantly cool it with oil. So the Byzantines 00:13:00.500 --> 00:13:03.120 had time to repair the damage. Exactly. They 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:05.620 would frantically rebuild the wall with rubble 00:13:05.620 --> 00:13:07.899 and barrels of dirt in between shots. It became 00:13:07.899 --> 00:13:12.200 this slow, grinding war of attrition. The cannon 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:13.940 would knock it down. They'd build it back up. 00:13:14.700 --> 00:13:18.620 But the city still had a lifeline, the sea. As 00:13:18.620 --> 00:13:20.600 long as they could get supplies from their Genoese 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:22.980 and Venetian allies, they could theoretically 00:13:22.980 --> 00:13:26.120 hold out forever. And the Ottomans couldn't get 00:13:26.120 --> 00:13:27.980 into the main harbor because of the Great Chain. 00:13:28.330 --> 00:13:31.309 A massive iron chain floated on wooden logs, 00:13:31.509 --> 00:13:34.090 strung across the mouth of the Golden Horn. The 00:13:34.090 --> 00:13:36.129 Ottoman Navy tried to break it multiple times 00:13:36.129 --> 00:13:38.830 and failed miserably. And this is the point where 00:13:38.830 --> 00:13:41.049 the siege almost collapsed for Mehmed. Really? 00:13:41.250 --> 00:13:43.769 Yeah. His troops were getting restless. The old 00:13:43.769 --> 00:13:45.629 guard viziers, the ones who never liked him, 00:13:45.669 --> 00:13:47.490 were telling him, give it up, kid. It's impossible. 00:13:47.889 --> 00:13:50.309 A European relief army is going to show up any 00:13:50.309 --> 00:13:52.970 day now and crush us. And that brings us right 00:13:52.970 --> 00:13:56.500 back to our intro. The ship's on the hill. This 00:13:56.500 --> 00:13:58.419 was the moment that proved he wasn't just a kid 00:13:58.419 --> 00:14:00.639 with a big cannon. It's the lateral thinking. 00:14:00.799 --> 00:14:03.320 It's pure genius. He realized he couldn't break 00:14:03.320 --> 00:14:06.860 the chain so he just circumvented it. He mobilized 00:14:06.860 --> 00:14:09.820 thousands of workers to level a path behind the 00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:12.700 Genoese colony of Galata. They laid down these 00:14:12.700 --> 00:14:15.340 massive wooden planks, greased them with animal 00:14:15.340 --> 00:14:18.120 fat and olive oil. And in a single night. In 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:20.960 a single night, they hauled 70 or 80 ships up 00:14:20.960 --> 00:14:23.200 the hill over the top and splashed them down 00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:25.600 into the water on the other side behind the chain. 00:14:25.820 --> 00:14:28.480 The psychological impact on the defenders inside 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:30.500 the city must have been absolutely devastating. 00:14:31.159 --> 00:14:33.220 Can you imagine? You go to sleep thinking your 00:14:33.220 --> 00:14:35.759 flank is totally secure because of this impenetrable 00:14:35.759 --> 00:14:38.159 chain, and you wake up to the sound of Ottoman 00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:40.820 sailors chanting morning prayers from their fleet, 00:14:40.940 --> 00:14:43.159 which is now sitting in your backyard. It's over. 00:14:43.259 --> 00:14:45.539 It broke their morale. And more practically, 00:14:45.700 --> 00:14:47.980 it stretched their defenses too thin. They had 00:14:47.980 --> 00:14:50.299 to pull men off the mainland walls to guard the 00:14:50.299 --> 00:14:52.580 much weaker sea walls. It was the beginning of 00:14:52.580 --> 00:14:57.820 the end. On May 29, 1453, after a brutal 57 -day 00:14:57.820 --> 00:15:00.960 siege, the final assault began. The fall of the 00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:04.460 city is a chaotic, bloody affair. But I want 00:15:04.460 --> 00:15:06.679 to focus on the moment Mehmed himself enters 00:15:06.679 --> 00:15:10.539 the city. He's 21. He has just done the impossible. 00:15:10.860 --> 00:15:13.919 He rides his horse to the Hagia Sophia, the greatest 00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:16.799 church in all of Christendom. And what does he 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:20.179 do? He dismounts. He stoops down, takes a handful 00:15:20.179 --> 00:15:22.639 of dust, and pours it over his turban as a sign 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:25.220 of humility before God. And then he wanders through 00:15:25.220 --> 00:15:27.679 the ruined halls of the Ukuleon, the ancient 00:15:27.679 --> 00:15:29.860 palace of the Caesars. And this is where the 00:15:29.860 --> 00:15:32.200 poet side of him comes out. He doesn't cheer, 00:15:32.379 --> 00:15:34.220 he doesn't give a victory speech. No, he quotes 00:15:34.220 --> 00:15:37.440 a Persian couplet from the poet Saadi. The spider 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:39.360 is curtain -bearer in the palace of Chosros. 00:15:39.679 --> 00:15:42.720 The owl sounds the relief in the castle of Afraiziab. 00:15:43.049 --> 00:15:45.690 It's this profound reflection on how fleeting 00:15:45.690 --> 00:15:48.250 power is. One day you are the Roman emperor, 00:15:48.429 --> 00:15:50.950 the next day spiders are literally spinning webs 00:15:50.950 --> 00:15:53.570 in your bedroom curtains. It shows this depth 00:15:53.570 --> 00:15:55.789 of character you just don't expect from a warlord 00:15:55.789 --> 00:15:58.710 in the middle of a sack. He was deeply, deeply 00:15:58.710 --> 00:16:01.370 aware of history. And speaking of history, this 00:16:01.370 --> 00:16:03.190 brings us to a really major insight from the 00:16:03.190 --> 00:16:06.090 sources. Mehmed didn't see himself as the destroyer 00:16:06.090 --> 00:16:08.389 of Rome. No, not at all. Quite the opposite. 00:16:08.750 --> 00:16:11.309 He saw himself as the conqueror who has earned 00:16:11.309 --> 00:16:14.009 the right to possess it and, in his view, save 00:16:14.009 --> 00:16:17.490 it. He immediately adopted the title Caesar Irum. 00:16:17.809 --> 00:16:21.190 Which means? Caesar of Rome. His logic, from 00:16:21.190 --> 00:16:23.990 his perspective, was airtight. The seat of the 00:16:23.990 --> 00:16:26.929 Roman Empire is Constantinople. I hold the seat. 00:16:27.149 --> 00:16:30.169 Therefore, I am the emperor. Did anyone else 00:16:30.169 --> 00:16:33.809 buy that? I have to imagine the Pope wasn't thrilled 00:16:33.809 --> 00:16:36.269 about a Muslim Caesar of Rome. The Catholic West 00:16:36.269 --> 00:16:38.850 definitely laughed at it. Or rather, they feared 00:16:38.850 --> 00:16:40.789 it, but they certainly didn't recognize it. But 00:16:40.789 --> 00:16:43.509 here's the critical nuance. The Orthodox Church 00:16:43.509 --> 00:16:45.769 more or less accepted it. And that was entirely 00:16:45.769 --> 00:16:47.750 by design. He didn't wipe out the Christians 00:16:47.750 --> 00:16:50.330 in the city. No, he sought out a specific man, 00:16:50.529 --> 00:16:53.049 a monk named Gennadius Scolarius. And he was 00:16:53.049 --> 00:16:54.789 known for being staunchly anti -Catholic, right? 00:16:55.470 --> 00:16:58.330 Viciously so. Gennadius famously said, I would 00:16:58.330 --> 00:17:00.289 rather see the Turkish turban in the city than 00:17:00.289 --> 00:17:03.129 the Latin miter. He hated the Pope and the Catholic 00:17:03.129 --> 00:17:05.730 Church for what he saw as their betrayal. So 00:17:05.730 --> 00:17:08.089 Mehmed finds him, makes him the new patriarch, 00:17:08.210 --> 00:17:11.009 and gives him authority over all Orthodox Christians 00:17:11.009 --> 00:17:15.230 in the entire empire. That is just. It's 4D chess. 00:17:15.390 --> 00:17:18.269 By empowering the anti -Catholic faction of the 00:17:18.269 --> 00:17:21.970 Greeks, he ensures they will never, ever unite 00:17:21.970 --> 00:17:24.450 with the Catholic West to launch a crusade against 00:17:24.450 --> 00:17:28.789 him. Exactly. It's strategic tolerance. He integrates 00:17:28.789 --> 00:17:30.990 the Orthodox Church into the Ottoman state machinery. 00:17:31.410 --> 00:17:34.569 He gives the patriarch the rank of a pasha, makes 00:17:34.569 --> 00:17:36.829 him the second largest landlord in the empire. 00:17:37.190 --> 00:17:40.109 He wanted to rule a universal empire, not just 00:17:40.109 --> 00:17:42.349 a Muslim one. And he had this fascination with 00:17:42.349 --> 00:17:44.690 the deeper history, too. The sources mention 00:17:44.690 --> 00:17:46.450 he actually went to the site of ancient Troy. 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:49.960 Yes, about 10 years later, he walked the ruins 00:17:49.960 --> 00:17:52.559 of Troy and reportedly told his companions that 00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:55.220 by conquering the Greeks, the Byzantines, he 00:17:55.220 --> 00:17:58.079 had finally avenged the Trojans. He saw history 00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:00.779 as this long, continuous narrative arc, and he 00:18:00.779 --> 00:18:03.220 was the climax. He's the avenger of Hector. He's 00:18:03.220 --> 00:18:04.779 the avenger of Hector, he's the new Alexander 00:18:04.779 --> 00:18:07.039 the Great, and he's the new Caesar, all rolled 00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:09.480 into one. So he has the title, he has the capital, 00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:11.960 but he did not settle down. The section on his 00:18:11.960 --> 00:18:15.640 later campaigns is just... It's exhausting just 00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:18.200 to read. The man was an endless campaigner. He 00:18:18.200 --> 00:18:20.180 spent pretty much his entire adult life on a 00:18:20.180 --> 00:18:23.980 horse. He expanded into Serbia, Bosnia, Trebizond, 00:18:24.099 --> 00:18:26.619 the Moria in Greece. But we have to talk about 00:18:26.619 --> 00:18:28.799 the personal rivalries because there are two 00:18:28.799 --> 00:18:31.279 men who really defined his later years and the 00:18:31.279 --> 00:18:34.519 stories are just wild. Okay, let's start with 00:18:34.519 --> 00:18:38.210 the big one. Vlad. Vlad III. Vlad Dracula. And 00:18:38.210 --> 00:18:40.690 the history here is intensely personal. It's 00:18:40.690 --> 00:18:43.369 not just two kings fighting over territory. They 00:18:43.369 --> 00:18:46.369 knew each other as kids. Intimately. Vlad and 00:18:46.369 --> 00:18:48.589 his younger brother Radu had been sent as child 00:18:48.589 --> 00:18:50.869 hostages to the Ottoman court to ensure their 00:18:50.869 --> 00:18:53.710 father's loyalty. He grew up alongside Mehmed. 00:18:53.829 --> 00:18:56.450 He probably studied in the same classrooms, trained 00:18:56.450 --> 00:18:59.369 with the same weapons masters. He learned Ottoman 00:18:59.369 --> 00:19:01.970 military tactics, the language, their psychology. 00:19:02.049 --> 00:19:05.039 He knew the system from the inside out. So when 00:19:05.039 --> 00:19:07.079 Vlad eventually goes back to rural Wallachia 00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:09.880 and decides to stop paying tribute to the sultan, 00:19:10.059 --> 00:19:12.900 he knows exactly who he's poking. He does. And 00:19:12.900 --> 00:19:15.339 when Mehmed sent envoys to demand the tribute, 00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:18.440 Vlad committed an act of just, incredible diplomatic 00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:21.779 desecration. The Ottoman envoys refused to take 00:19:21.779 --> 00:19:23.940 off their turbans in his presence. It's a religious 00:19:23.940 --> 00:19:27.180 custom. A sign of respect. Exactly. And Vlad 00:19:27.180 --> 00:19:30.619 said, I will help you keep them on forever. He 00:19:30.619 --> 00:19:32.779 had his men hold them down and nail the turbans 00:19:32.779 --> 00:19:35.220 to their skulls. That's a declaration of war. 00:19:35.319 --> 00:19:37.920 A very clear one. So Mehmed marches north with 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:40.940 a massive army. But Vlad knows he can't fight 00:19:40.940 --> 00:19:43.140 him in an open battle. He's totally outnumbered. 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:47.079 Ten to one, at least. So Vlad uses terror as 00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:50.799 his primary weapon. He wages a campaign of pure 00:19:50.799 --> 00:19:53.579 psychological warfare. He poisons the wells. 00:19:53.799 --> 00:19:56.359 He burns the crops so the Ottoman horses have 00:19:56.359 --> 00:19:58.920 nothing to eat. And he even sends people with 00:19:58.920 --> 00:20:02.420 infectious diseases, leprosy, tuberculosis, the 00:20:02.420 --> 00:20:05.319 bubonic plague, into the Ottoman camps to mingle 00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:07.380 with the soldiers. That's biological warfare 00:20:07.380 --> 00:20:09.200 in the 15th century. And then you have the famous 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:11.740 night attack of 1462. This is like a special 00:20:11.740 --> 00:20:14.700 ops mission from a modern movie. Vlad took his 00:20:14.700 --> 00:20:16.960 best men, disguised them in Ottoman uniforms, 00:20:17.019 --> 00:20:19.079 and walked right into the middle of the Ottoman 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:21.279 camp in the dead of night. What was the goal? 00:20:21.559 --> 00:20:24.180 A decapitation strike. His one and only goal 00:20:24.180 --> 00:20:26.700 was to find Mehmed's personal tent and assassinate 00:20:26.700 --> 00:20:29.400 him. They tore through the camp, causing absolute 00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:32.079 chaos. They actually hit the tent of two of his 00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:34.460 grand viziers, mistaking it for the sultan's, 00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:37.059 but the message was clear. You are not safe, 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:39.559 not even in the heart of your own army. And then 00:20:39.559 --> 00:20:42.519 Mehmed marches on Vlad's capital, Targovieti, 00:20:42.519 --> 00:20:46.380 and what he finds there is... The forest. The 00:20:46.380 --> 00:20:48.759 forest of the impaled. It was a field of stakes 00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:52.059 stretching for kilometers. Sources say 20 ,000 00:20:52.059 --> 00:20:54.579 bodies, men, women and children, all impaled. 00:20:54.700 --> 00:20:56.900 And on the highest stake, right in the center, 00:20:57.059 --> 00:20:59.759 was the rotting corpse of Hamza Bey, the Ottoman 00:20:59.759 --> 00:21:02.319 general who Vlad had captured earlier. The sources 00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:04.779 say that even Mehmed, a man we know was a hardened 00:21:04.779 --> 00:21:07.240 killer, was physically sickened by the sight. 00:21:07.420 --> 00:21:09.640 He reportedly said, how can I despoil the lands 00:21:09.640 --> 00:21:12.019 of a man who does such things? It was this moment 00:21:12.019 --> 00:21:14.660 of grudging, horrified respect for the sheer... 00:21:14.759 --> 00:21:17.740 of the brutality, Mehmed actually withdrew his 00:21:17.740 --> 00:21:20.849 main army. So Vlad won. Not exactly. And this 00:21:20.849 --> 00:21:22.769 is the genius of Mehmed again. He didn't lose. 00:21:22.890 --> 00:21:25.269 He just changed tactics. He used politics. He 00:21:25.269 --> 00:21:28.150 left behind Vlad's younger brother, Radu. Radu 00:21:28.150 --> 00:21:30.690 the Fair. Who was also a hostage, but unlike 00:21:30.690 --> 00:21:33.569 Vlad, Radu had assimilated completely. He was 00:21:33.569 --> 00:21:36.369 handsome, charming, and totally loyal to Mehmed. 00:21:36.789 --> 00:21:39.329 Mehmed basically let Radu and the Wallachian 00:21:39.329 --> 00:21:41.710 nobles, who were tired of Vlad's reign of terror, 00:21:41.849 --> 00:21:44.930 fight it out. Eventually, Vlad was ousted by 00:21:44.930 --> 00:21:48.529 his own people. Mehmed won by proxy without losing 00:21:48.529 --> 00:21:51.589 another. We tend to see Mehmed as this invincible 00:21:51.589 --> 00:21:54.509 figure after Constantinople, but the sources 00:21:54.509 --> 00:21:56.569 are clear that he did take some serious losses. 00:21:56.950 --> 00:22:00.410 The siege of Belgrade in 1456 was a total disaster 00:22:00.410 --> 00:22:03.279 for him. A complete and utter failure. He went 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:05.559 up against John Hunyadi again, the man who had 00:22:05.559 --> 00:22:08.220 defeated the crusade when Mehmed was a boy. During 00:22:08.220 --> 00:22:10.500 battle, the Ottoman lines broke, and Mehmed, 00:22:10.599 --> 00:22:12.779 trying to rally his troops, charged into the 00:22:12.779 --> 00:22:15.039 melee personally. He fought himself. He did. 00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:17.019 He killed a knight in single combat, but then 00:22:17.019 --> 00:22:19.519 he took a javelin to the thigh. He was badly 00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:21.579 wounded and had to be carried off the field unconscious. 00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:25.000 The Ottomans retreated in disarray. It was a 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:27.480 huge humiliation. And then there was Skanderbeg 00:22:27.480 --> 00:22:31.190 in Albania. Another former hostage. Yes. It seems 00:22:31.190 --> 00:22:33.329 like the Ottomans had a really bad habit of training 00:22:33.329 --> 00:22:36.369 their own worst enemies. Skanderbeg was a military 00:22:36.369 --> 00:22:38.849 genius. He held out in the mountains of Albania 00:22:38.849 --> 00:22:42.210 for decades. Mehmed led multiple armies against 00:22:42.210 --> 00:22:45.410 him personally, and he could not break him. It 00:22:45.410 --> 00:22:47.890 was guerrilla warfare before the turn even existed. 00:22:48.470 --> 00:22:51.230 Albania only fell to the Ottomans after Skanderbeg 00:22:51.230 --> 00:22:54.250 died of natural causes, malaria. So it shows 00:22:54.250 --> 00:22:56.029 that while the Ottoman war machine was incredibly 00:22:56.029 --> 00:22:59.450 powerful, it wasn't unstoppable. But Mehmed just 00:22:59.450 --> 00:23:03.430 kept pushing. In 1480, near the end of his life, 00:23:03.589 --> 00:23:06.650 he made the move that terrified Europe more than 00:23:06.650 --> 00:23:09.950 anything else. He landed an army in Italy. The 00:23:09.950 --> 00:23:12.309 invasion of Otranto. This is often just a footnote 00:23:12.309 --> 00:23:14.369 in textbooks, but at the time it was seen as 00:23:14.369 --> 00:23:16.829 the apocalypse. Ottoman troops seized a major 00:23:16.829 --> 00:23:19.230 city on the heel of the Italian boot. They were 00:23:19.230 --> 00:23:22.690 only about 350 miles from Rome itself. The Pope 00:23:22.690 --> 00:23:25.329 was literally packing his bags. Pope Sixtus IV 00:23:25.329 --> 00:23:28.069 was making concrete plans to evacuate the Vatican 00:23:28.069 --> 00:23:30.690 and flee to France. The panic in Italy was absolute. 00:23:30.910 --> 00:23:33.089 They called Mehmed the Grand Turk. The red apple 00:23:33.089 --> 00:23:35.150 was about to be his. They thought, this is it. 00:23:35.230 --> 00:23:37.509 St. Peter's Basilica is going to become a mosque 00:23:37.509 --> 00:23:40.190 just like the Hagia Sophia. And honestly, if 00:23:40.190 --> 00:23:42.289 Mehmed had lived another five or ten years... 00:23:42.289 --> 00:23:44.150 The history of Western Europe would look fundamentally 00:23:44.150 --> 00:23:46.069 different. There's no question. We'll get to 00:23:46.069 --> 00:23:48.950 his death. But I want to pivot now to the other 00:23:48.950 --> 00:23:51.190 side of his personality, the side that is so 00:23:51.190 --> 00:23:53.529 hard to reconcile with all this. We touched on 00:23:53.529 --> 00:23:55.670 it in the intro, the Renaissance intellectual. 00:23:56.529 --> 00:23:58.970 Because while he was busy impaling people in 00:23:58.970 --> 00:24:02.009 the Balkans, he was collecting fine art in Istanbul. 00:24:02.369 --> 00:24:05.170 He was a true polymath. He didn't want to just 00:24:05.170 --> 00:24:07.710 conquer the West. He wanted to participate in 00:24:07.710 --> 00:24:10.470 its high culture. He invited Italian artists, 00:24:10.710 --> 00:24:13.269 architects, and scholars to his court. The most 00:24:13.269 --> 00:24:16.089 famous of these is the Venetian painter, Gentile 00:24:16.089 --> 00:24:17.970 Bellini. And that's where we get that iconic 00:24:17.970 --> 00:24:20.829 portrait Mehmed in profile, wrapped in furs, 00:24:20.910 --> 00:24:23.609 this sharp, intelligent, almost severe look on 00:24:23.609 --> 00:24:26.529 his face. That's a Bellini. It is. And you have 00:24:26.529 --> 00:24:29.130 to think about how radical that is. In conservative 00:24:29.130 --> 00:24:31.630 Islamic tradition, distinct portraiture creating 00:24:31.630 --> 00:24:34.869 realistic images of living things can be seen 00:24:34.869 --> 00:24:37.950 as a form of idolatry. Mehmed did not care. He 00:24:37.950 --> 00:24:40.369 wanted to be immortalized on metals and in paintings, 00:24:40.609 --> 00:24:42.890 just like a European prince. In his library. 00:24:43.329 --> 00:24:45.430 The sources that list the inventory are just. 00:24:45.670 --> 00:24:48.650 It's wild. It's a universal library for a universal 00:24:48.650 --> 00:24:51.950 empire. He had the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greek. 00:24:52.230 --> 00:24:55.150 He had works on geography, astronomy, mathematics, 00:24:55.549 --> 00:24:59.150 medicine. He had texts in Hebrew, Latin, Persian, 00:24:59.410 --> 00:25:01.950 Arabic. He was obsessed with Alexander the Great, 00:25:01.990 --> 00:25:05.049 right? Completely. He supposedly slept with Arian's 00:25:05.049 --> 00:25:07.829 biography of Alexander under his pillow. He read 00:25:07.829 --> 00:25:09.369 about the lives of the popes. He read about the 00:25:09.369 --> 00:25:12.049 Frankish kings. He wanted to know everything 00:25:12.049 --> 00:25:15.170 about everyone, friend and foe alike. And then 00:25:15.170 --> 00:25:17.589 there are the Christian relics. This part is 00:25:17.589 --> 00:25:19.730 so strange. The source mentions he collected 00:25:19.730 --> 00:25:22.009 things like the alleged arm of St. John the Baptist 00:25:22.009 --> 00:25:24.990 and the Stone of the Nativity. This is a really 00:25:24.990 --> 00:25:27.589 weird one. Some of his contemporaries in Europe 00:25:27.589 --> 00:25:30.109 claimed he just held them hostage to squeeze 00:25:30.109 --> 00:25:33.240 money out of Christian states. But other accounts 00:25:33.240 --> 00:25:36.000 say he treated them with genuine reverence. There's 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:38.000 a story that he would light candles in front 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:40.019 of the relics. That kind of behavior must have 00:25:40.019 --> 00:25:41.740 really confused people. There were actual rumors 00:25:41.740 --> 00:25:44.279 in Europe that he was a closet Christian or that 00:25:44.279 --> 00:25:46.440 he was on the verge of converting. Pope Pius 00:25:46.440 --> 00:25:49.619 II actually wrote him a letter, a very, very 00:25:49.619 --> 00:25:51.920 long letter, basically saying, just a drop of 00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:53.960 water, Mehmed, just get baptized, and I will 00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:56.119 name you emperor of the East and the West. We 00:25:56.119 --> 00:25:58.000 can rule the world together. Did Mehmed ever 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:02.240 answer? No. He likely just laughed at it. He 00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:03.880 didn't need the Pope's permission to be emperor. 00:26:03.940 --> 00:26:07.220 He had the canons. But it shows how much of an 00:26:07.220 --> 00:26:10.140 enigma he was to his contemporaries. He was a 00:26:10.140 --> 00:26:13.359 devout Muslim, no doubt, but he wasn't dogmatic 00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:16.019 in the way they expected. But not everyone in 00:26:16.019 --> 00:26:18.900 his own court loved this Renaissance fight he 00:26:18.900 --> 00:26:22.140 was cultivating. His son, Bazid, was the complete 00:26:22.140 --> 00:26:25.420 opposite. Bazide was pious, deeply conservative, 00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:27.599 and he hated the Italian influence at court. 00:26:27.779 --> 00:26:29.880 He thought his father was essentially a heretic, 00:26:29.900 --> 00:26:31.700 that he was straying too far from tradition. 00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:34.359 When Bazide eventually took the throne, one of 00:26:34.359 --> 00:26:36.200 the first things he did was sell off his father's 00:26:36.200 --> 00:26:38.779 entire European art collection in the bazaar. 00:26:38.819 --> 00:26:40.740 He just got rid of it. Purged the court of the 00:26:40.740 --> 00:26:43.079 Western influence. He wanted to take the empire 00:26:43.079 --> 00:26:46.180 back to what he saw as its pious roots. Which 00:26:46.180 --> 00:26:48.180 brings us to the structure of the empire itself. 00:26:49.640 --> 00:26:52.690 Mehmed didn't just expand the borders. He completely 00:26:52.690 --> 00:26:55.309 rewired the operating system of the state. He 00:26:55.309 --> 00:26:58.650 centralized everything. Before him, the sultans 00:26:58.650 --> 00:27:01.069 had to share power with these incredibly powerful 00:27:01.069 --> 00:27:04.509 Turkish aristocratic families like the Dajshundarling 00:27:04.509 --> 00:27:07.410 clan. Memin systematically broke them. He had 00:27:07.410 --> 00:27:10.049 his own grand vizier, Shandala Halil, executed 00:27:10.049 --> 00:27:12.690 right after the conquest of Constantinople. It 00:27:12.690 --> 00:27:15.289 was a message. It was a very clear message. No 00:27:15.289 --> 00:27:17.470 one is untouchable. The only power here is me. 00:27:17.710 --> 00:27:20.250 And he replaced those old Turkish families with 00:27:20.250 --> 00:27:22.900 the Defshirme. The gathering. This was the system 00:27:22.900 --> 00:27:24.759 where Christian boys were taken as a tax from 00:27:24.759 --> 00:27:27.400 the Balkan provinces, converted to Islam, and 00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:29.640 raised in the palace schools. They were completely 00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:31.519 cut off from their families, their roots, their 00:27:31.519 --> 00:27:34.380 culture. They had no loyalties to anyone or anything 00:27:34.380 --> 00:27:37.319 except the sultan's person. It created a meritocracy, 00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:41.420 but a slave meritocracy. It did. A man could 00:27:41.420 --> 00:27:43.779 start as a shepherd in Serbia and end up as the 00:27:43.779 --> 00:27:46.980 grand vizier ruling the entire empire. But legally, 00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:50.180 he was the sultan's personal slave. It made the 00:27:50.180 --> 00:27:52.920 Sultan the absolute, unquestionable center of 00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:55.500 gravity. Mehmed also made himself physically 00:27:55.500 --> 00:27:57.980 distant. He stopped eating in public. He built 00:27:57.980 --> 00:28:00.700 high walls around the new Topkapi Palace. He 00:28:00.700 --> 00:28:03.180 became the shadow of God on Earth, a remote, 00:28:03.319 --> 00:28:05.859 almost divine figure. But the most controversial 00:28:05.859 --> 00:28:08.740 part of his governance, and maybe his darkest 00:28:08.740 --> 00:28:12.400 legacy, is the law regarding succession. The 00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:14.440 law of fratricide. This is the one that just 00:28:14.440 --> 00:28:17.230 makes modern listeners shudder. He actually wrote 00:28:17.230 --> 00:28:20.009 it down into law. He codified it in his kanunim, 00:28:20.049 --> 00:28:22.869 his great book of laws. The line reads, and I'm 00:28:22.869 --> 00:28:25.390 paraphrasing slightly, of any of my sons that 00:28:25.390 --> 00:28:27.710 ascends the throne, it is acceptable for him 00:28:27.710 --> 00:28:29.690 to kill his brothers for the common benefit of 00:28:29.690 --> 00:28:31.750 the people. For the common benefit of the people. 00:28:31.829 --> 00:28:34.029 That's the cold utilitarian argument right there. 00:28:34.130 --> 00:28:36.569 It's the ultimate trolley problem. Mehmed looked 00:28:36.569 --> 00:28:38.529 at the history of his own grandfather's reign. 00:28:38.670 --> 00:28:41.009 After his death, there had been a brutal civil 00:28:41.009 --> 00:28:43.809 war, the Ottoman interregnum, where brothers 00:28:43.809 --> 00:28:45.809 fought each other for the throne for a decade. 00:28:46.299 --> 00:28:48.839 And this newly destroyed the empire. It did. 00:28:49.039 --> 00:28:51.599 Thousands of soldiers died. Villages were burned. 00:28:51.779 --> 00:28:55.279 The state almost collapsed entirely. Mehmed looked 00:28:55.279 --> 00:28:57.220 at that and decided that the state sanctioned 00:28:57.220 --> 00:28:59.559 death of one or two princes was a tragic but 00:28:59.559 --> 00:29:02.059 necessary price to pay to prevent a civil war 00:29:02.059 --> 00:29:04.700 that would kill tens of thousands of common people. 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:08.799 The concept of Nizam -i Yelem, the order of the 00:29:08.799 --> 00:29:11.640 world. That was the core concept. It sounds barbaric 00:29:11.640 --> 00:29:13.880 and monstrous to us, but to him, it was an act 00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:16.319 of mercy for the realm. and it became standard 00:29:16.319 --> 00:29:19.339 practice. For centuries after him, a new sultan's 00:29:19.339 --> 00:29:21.880 first act upon taking the throne was to send 00:29:21.880 --> 00:29:23.839 out the executioners to strangle his brothers 00:29:23.839 --> 00:29:26.680 with a silk bowstring. The coffin of the old 00:29:26.680 --> 00:29:28.720 sultan would leave the palace through one gate, 00:29:28.799 --> 00:29:30.819 and the small coffins of his sons would leave 00:29:30.819 --> 00:29:32.960 through another. That is a chilling, chilling 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:36.420 image. It's the price of absolute power. So we 00:29:36.420 --> 00:29:39.359 have this man -conqueror, scholar, poet, fratricide 00:29:39.359 --> 00:29:42.839 legalizer, and then 1481, he's only 49 years 00:29:42.839 --> 00:29:45.599 old. He's in the absolute prime of his power. 00:29:45.740 --> 00:29:48.799 He gathers a massive new army. He crosses the 00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:51.650 Bosphorus to the Asian side. The destination 00:29:51.650 --> 00:29:55.049 is a state secret, as always. Some think he was 00:29:55.049 --> 00:29:57.230 going for Egypt to fight the Mamelukes. Others 00:29:57.230 --> 00:29:59.289 think he was finally going for Rhodes to fight 00:29:59.289 --> 00:30:02.170 the Knights of St. John. But he never makes it. 00:30:02.250 --> 00:30:04.609 He falls ill. At a place called the Sultan's 00:30:04.609 --> 00:30:08.049 Meadow, near Geddes. The official symptoms sound 00:30:08.049 --> 00:30:11.450 like dysentery or maybe severe gout, which he 00:30:11.450 --> 00:30:14.289 suffered from. But the historical consensus leans 00:30:14.289 --> 00:30:17.509 heavily toward something darker. Poison. Poison. 00:30:17.750 --> 00:30:20.009 The timing is just too convenient. He was on 00:30:20.009 --> 00:30:22.130 the verge of yet another world -changing campaign. 00:30:22.410 --> 00:30:24.890 So who are the suspects? The list is long. Venice 00:30:24.890 --> 00:30:26.990 is always a prime suspect. Their spy network 00:30:26.990 --> 00:30:29.089 had tried to assassinate him a dozen times before. 00:30:29.529 --> 00:30:31.450 But a lot of the circumstantial evidence points 00:30:31.450 --> 00:30:34.630 closer to home. To his own son, Bayzid. The conservative 00:30:34.630 --> 00:30:36.750 son who hated the art and the Western influence. 00:30:37.130 --> 00:30:38.950 The son who was tired of waiting in the wings. 00:30:39.130 --> 00:30:41.430 The son who may have feared that Mehmed was about 00:30:41.430 --> 00:30:43.769 to pass the throne to his other, more favored 00:30:43.769 --> 00:30:46.829 son, Semselton. The theory goes that Mehmed's 00:30:46.829 --> 00:30:49.309 personal doctor, a man named Yakub Pasha, was 00:30:49.309 --> 00:30:51.690 the one who administered the poison, likely flipped 00:30:51.690 --> 00:30:54.910 by either Venetian agents or, more likely, Bayzid's 00:30:54.910 --> 00:30:57.529 faction. And when the news of his death hit Europe. 00:30:57.730 --> 00:31:01.170 It was like VE Day. Church bells rang out in 00:31:01.170 --> 00:31:03.849 London and Paris. In Venice, the messenger ran 00:31:03.849 --> 00:31:07.210 into the Senate shouting, La grande chila morta. 00:31:07.569 --> 00:31:11.299 The great eagle is dead. They lit bonfires and 00:31:11.299 --> 00:31:13.119 celebrated in the streets because they truly 00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:15.900 believed they had just dodged extinction. It's 00:31:15.900 --> 00:31:17.960 hard to overstate that. They really thought he 00:31:17.960 --> 00:31:19.880 was coming for Rome next. And he probably was. 00:31:20.099 --> 00:31:23.859 So when we look back at his legacy, he completely 00:31:23.859 --> 00:31:27.740 transformed the city. He turned a dying, depopulated 00:31:27.740 --> 00:31:30.940 Byzantine ruin into the thriving metropolis of 00:31:30.940 --> 00:31:33.180 Istanbul. Though, quick fact check, the name 00:31:33.180 --> 00:31:35.599 Istanbul wasn't made official until the 1930s, 00:31:35.599 --> 00:31:37.470 right? That's right. The Ottomans themselves 00:31:37.470 --> 00:31:40.269 called it Constantinia, the city of Constantine 00:31:40.269 --> 00:31:43.549 for centuries. But Mehmed was the one who repopulated 00:31:43.549 --> 00:31:46.509 it. He used forced resettlement, the surrogate, 00:31:46.650 --> 00:31:49.529 to bring Muslims, Christians and Jews from all 00:31:49.529 --> 00:31:52.529 over his empire to create a new cosmopolitan 00:31:52.529 --> 00:31:55.369 world capital. He laid the foundation for the 00:31:55.369 --> 00:31:58.430 Ottoman Empire to last another 400 years. So 00:31:58.430 --> 00:32:00.509 when you boil it all down, what's the takeaway? 00:32:00.789 --> 00:32:03.710 Why does Mehmed II still matter to someone listening 00:32:03.710 --> 00:32:06.190 to this in the 21st century? I think he matters 00:32:06.190 --> 00:32:08.710 because he is in many ways the prototype of the 00:32:08.710 --> 00:32:11.190 modern state builder. He broke the old feudal 00:32:11.190 --> 00:32:13.970 model. He centralized power. He used new technology 00:32:13.970 --> 00:32:16.970 gunpowder to render ancient defenses obsolete. 00:32:17.089 --> 00:32:19.250 And he understood the immense power of image 00:32:19.250 --> 00:32:22.049 and propaganda. He stands with one foot firmly 00:32:22.049 --> 00:32:24.549 in the medieval world using impalement and religious 00:32:24.549 --> 00:32:27.049 rhetoric and one foot in the early modern era 00:32:27.049 --> 00:32:30.450 using cannons, centralized bureaucracy and Renaissance 00:32:30.450 --> 00:32:33.369 art. He's a bridge, a very violent, very brilliant, 00:32:33.430 --> 00:32:35.869 very complicated bridge. He literally broke the 00:32:35.869 --> 00:32:37.690 timeline. So here's a thought to leave you with. 00:32:37.829 --> 00:32:42.029 A what if. We know he had troops in Otranto in 00:32:42.029 --> 00:32:45.369 Italy. We know the Pope was panicking. If Mehmed 00:32:45.369 --> 00:32:47.789 hadn't drunk that glass of sherbet or whatever 00:32:47.789 --> 00:32:50.170 it was that was poisoned, if he had lived another 00:32:50.170 --> 00:32:53.769 10 years to be 60, would we today be talking 00:32:53.769 --> 00:32:56.230 about the Ottoman Empire as the legitimate continuation 00:32:56.230 --> 00:32:59.630 of the Roman Empire? Would St. Peter's Basilica 00:32:59.630 --> 00:33:02.309 in Rome be a mosque today? That is the question 00:33:02.309 --> 00:33:04.609 that haunts historians of this period. It would 00:33:04.609 --> 00:33:07.789 have rewritten the next 500 years of global history. 00:33:07.930 --> 00:33:09.589 If you have a second today, pull up your phone 00:33:09.589 --> 00:33:12.289 and Google Bellini Mehmed II. Just look at the 00:33:12.289 --> 00:33:14.450 face of the man who ended one world and started 00:33:14.450 --> 00:33:16.750 a new one. Thanks for diving deep with us. Until 00:33:16.750 --> 00:33:17.130 next time.