The child sultan who orchestrated the fall of the Byzantine Empire

Wars & Conflicts · Published 16 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: At just 12 years old, Mehmed II took the Ottoman throne amidst a looming Crusade. While his enemies saw a boy, he was preparing a masterpiece of military engineering and diplomacy that would dismantle the Byzantine Empire and reshape the map of Europe for four centuries.

Mehmed II's path to power was defined by instability. He first ascended the throne in 1444, facing a coalition of the Pope, Venice, and Hungary. This period was marked by internal friction between the grand vizier Çandarlı Halil and viziers who pushed for the conquest of Constantinople. Though his father, Murad II, was forced to intervene to defeat the Crusaders at Varna in 1444, Mehmed remained on the throne until 1446, when a Janissary revolt led by Çandarlı forced his abdication.

Upon his second accession in 1451, Mehmed pivoted from survival to expansion. He systematically neutralized threats by signing favorable peace treaties with Venice and Hungary to ensure their neutrality. His preparation for the siege of Constantinople was a feat of logistics and technology: he built the fortress of Boğazkesen to control the Bosporus, assembled a fleet of 31 galleys, and commissioned the Hungarian master gunsmith Urban to cast cannons of unprecedented size.

The siege of Constantinople (April 6–May 29, 1453) saw Mehmed personally directing operations against the city walls. Following the victory, he executed the dissenting Çandarlı and replaced him with his father-in-law, Zaganos. Rather than merely destroying the city, Mehmed focused on reconstruction. He restored the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in 1454, established Jewish and Armenian religious seats, and forcibly resettled populations from Anatolia and the Balkans to repopulate the metropolis, which eventually became the largest city in Europe by the early 1500s.

General information, not professional advice. Spotted an error? Flag the card or see corrections and complaints.

Intellect Plus is a visual educational discovery platform for exploring fascinating facts and ideas. Brain Food, Not Brain Rot. What is Intellect Plus?

Related

• At 21, Mehmed II sailed warships over land to take Constantinople
• An Ottoman sultan abdicated for his 12-year-old son, then was called back
• How Mehmed I earned his title as the second founder of the Ottoman Empire
• The Ottoman Sultan who ruled through his mother and executed nineteen brothers at once
• A six-year-old sultan reigned for 39 years, mostly while out hunting
• How a frontier province became a unique Muslim heartland in the Ottoman Balkans
• How a medieval trading empire navigated two centuries of conflict with the Mongol successor states
• The Ottoman Empire’s forgotten struggle to control the strategic coastline of the Red Sea
• How Cossack raiders forced the mighty Ottoman Empire to rethink its naval supremacy
• How the Ottoman Empire briefly turned Morocco into a vassal through strategic military intervention
• When the young United States lost its British naval protection, it faced a Mediterranean crisis.
• How a numerically inferior Afghan army humiliated the mighty Ottoman Empire in 1726

More in Ottoman wars · More in Wars & Conflicts · Latest · A–Z · All topics