Posted on 03/16/2023 5:16:32 AM PDT by MtnClimber
When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had survived for 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.
Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines’ survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.
Generations of self-sacrifice ensured ample investment for infrastructure. Each generation inherited and improved on singular aqueducts and cisterns, sewer systems, and the most complex and formidable city fortifications in the world.
Brilliant scientific advancement and engineering gave the empire advantages like swift galleys and flame throwers—an ancient precursor to napalm.
The law reigned supreme for nearly a millennium after the emperor Justinian codified a prior thousand years of Roman jurisprudence.
Yet this millennium-old crown jewel of the ancient world that once was home to 800,000 citizens had only 50,000 inhabitants left when it fell.
There were only 7,000 defenders on the walls to hold back a huge Turkish army of over 150,000 attackers.
The Islamic winners took over the once magical city of Constantine and renamed it Istanbul. It had been the home of the renowned Santa Sophia, the largest Christian church in the world for over 900 years. Almost immediately, this “Church of the Holy Wisdom” was converted into the then largest mosque in the Islamic world, with minarets to follow.
So what happened to the once indomitable city fortress and its empire?
Christendom had cannibalized itself. Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy fought endlessly. Westerners often hated each other more than they did their common enemy.
In the final days of Constantinople, almost no help was sent from Western Europe to the besieged city.
In fact, 250 years earlier, the Western Franks of the Fourth Crusade had detoured...
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
At least the Byzantines did not just allow the islamist Ottomans to just walk in like we are doing.
VDH ping
I think we are Austria-Hungary — multiculturalism is killing us.
I for one have no doubts about Professor Hanson’s question.
“Are We the Byzantines?”
YES!
Recently, we are more like Weimar Berlin with homosexuals and other perverts pouring out of the closet,
As usual, VDH is chillingly accurate.
I once read an article about the fall of the western Roman Empire. The author listed all the usual reasons for it. Then he added one I hadn’t heard before.
He said the Roman Empire fell because its inhabitants believed it couldn’t fall. Such a thing just couldn’t happen. Impossible! So there was no need to take any corrective action. Party on!
I think that description pretty much fits us today.
Are We the Byzantines?
No, we are Sodom and Gomorrah, and will suffer the same fate.
The Republic has failed because we were not able to keep it.
We are the feet of iron and clay.................
Istanbul not Constantinople
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALkjA1t8ibQ
Enjoy the ear worm
you got it. They were martyrs, while our leaders are traitors from within.
The Kaiserliche und Königliche Monarchy of Austro-Hungary was not "killed" by allowing droves of barbarians to cross over its borders and into its unprotected lands unhindered.
Austro-Hungary did not invite hordes of unassimilable foreigners to come in and live off of the state treasury.
Austro-Hungary did not encourage sizable internal minorities to view themselves as a permanently wronged underclass, deserving of unlimited reparations.
Regards,
Perfect.
We are far below the level of that bunch. They still knew the difference between men and women.
All civilizations fall. Follows a pattern. We are in process. Amazing how blind citizens for the most part are.
Agreed. The Enemy is within the gates. The Long March is succeeding.
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