The Fall of Constantinople

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The whole history of the Ottoman Turks is a romance. The Thirteenth Century had half run its course when a Seljuk Sultan was one day bar beset near Angora by a Mongol host. Ertoghrul, a member of the Oghuz family of Turks, was journeying from the banks of the Euphrates, when he unexpectedly came upon the battlefield of Angora. Loving a scrimmage and seeing that the weaker side was getting the worst of it, he led his four hundred riders into the fray and won the day. Thus was the foundation of "Turkey in Europe" laid. Little did the impulsive Turk think that by his chivalrous act he had taken the first step towards founding an empire which in the later centuries, has been, and still is, in an intense political problem. In two generations the little body of shepherds had possessed themselves of the whole of the northwest corner of Asia Minor. Before Orkhan, the new Sultan, lay a valuable prize. The wealthy provinces of the Byzantine Empire were falling to pieces. Constantinople was the goal of his ambition, and the value of the firm and equitable government of the Turk was known to the Greeks who contrasted it with the persistent and perfidious intrigues of the Byzantine Emperor. Good and impartial government under the conditions obtaining, was out of the question. Civil war had reduced the Empire, and the advent of the Turk would have been welcomed. Slowly but persistently the Turks pushed further into Europe, and by the middle of the Fifteenth Century were masters of all the country round Constantinople save the city itself. All attempts to win it had failed, and this film, "The Fall of Constantinople," beautifully hand-colored, shows how Mohammed II succeeded in wresting the city from Constantine XIII, the last Christian Emperor of Constantinople.