Interesting point, but I don't think that it was written that way to be PC.
More that it assumes the reader already knows that Constantinople fell to the Muslims in 1453 -- but generally that's all they know.
“I don’t think it was written that way to be PC”
Have to disagree. The author is a student in a Canadian school.
In Canada the Muslim minority is both hypersensitive and empowered by government to act against any criticism of Islam. Writing about horrific Turkish atrocities in the capture of Byzantium five centuries earlier will be perceived as implied criticism of Islam and Muslims. And that is verboten in Canada.
“The author mentions the nationalities of Byzantium’s western allies, but not those of the besiegers, nor their religion. Interesting omission, JMHO.”
To not mention the besieger is to insult them. If you read the author’s line (it’s a kid!) the author writes “Yet death, true death, Constantine felt, would not come to him. He would live on, if not in heaven then in memory, along with his Empire.”
The last Roman emperor’s memory lives in eternal glory - the leader of his besieging enemy is remembered as a rapist and murdered of little boys.