CONSTANTINOPLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1918, Page 7

CONSTANTINOPLE.

A MEDIEVAL EASTERN CITY.

Constantinople, perhaps tie most interesting city in the world, contained within its walls tihe scenes of more tragedies, more unexpected turns of good fortuue and ill; more massacres, assassinations, and cruelties, than are to be found in any similar area elsewhere (writes W. J. C. in Blackwood's Magazine.) The latest chapter of Constantinople's wonderful history is altogether worthy of its setting. The city's history is a story of tragedy diversified by the unexpected and picturesque. Dairus and his Persian host captured and 'burnt Constantinople some 2400 years ago. Xerxes, with 2,000,000 men, passed through it later, when it had been rebuilt. Afterwards the Ten Thousand, lately come from great adventures, pro- . posed to sack it as a city well worth sacking. And then, after an interval of five centuries, it was destroyed by the Romans. It was captured by the Fourth Crusade in the year 1203, perhaps the I strangest story of all in the city's k>j mantic history. The Crusaders undertook the capture of the city, tihen I Christian, and first in the world in j wealth, population, and strength of forj tifications. During the assault the Venetians, who attacked the sea walls, captured 25 towers along the Golden Horn. TBie French crusaders fought before the land walls. The crusaders deposed the usurping Emperor, and were then invited by the restored Greek Emperor to withdraw to Galata, on the score of r. 'ling offence to the population. Having got them outside the wall he showed no readiness to pay for tfneir great services, and the siege had to he undertaken again. This time the city \vas captured, and there was great slaughter. The crusaders then founded the short-lived Latin empire in Constantinople. Two (hundred and fifty years later the city was attacked by Mahomet 11. with a Turkish army of ISO,OOO men. He could not get his fleet past the chain across the Golden Horn. Possession of the harbor became vital to his success, so 'he made the famous transfer of his fleet from the JSosphorus across the high land of P'era. The exact route that was followed is still debated. Wherever it lay, however, he faad to haul his ships—--70 of them—up the steep face of a hill 300 ft. high, and cover at least two miles of land before launching on the Golden Horn. After secretly preparing a cutting provided with greased ways in tihe bottom, the transfer was made in a single night. To the Greeks a miracle seemed to have happened. The real soul of the defence was Giustiniani, a Genoese, who commanded 2000 of his countrymen. The same day the fell mortally wounded the last Emperor of Constantinople perished in a breach of the great wall. The date was 29th May, 1453.