Constantinople

     Lynne and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary by taking a cruise. It was to be our first and we wanted to make sure it was a good one so we settled on the Greek Isles, leaving from Athens and arriving in Istanbul. It was a wonderful choice. The ship was close to perfection, every stop was a treat, and Istanbul turns out to be one of the world’s most beautiful cities. The skyline as seen from the Bosporus is absolutely breathtaking. I knew the city had a rich history but not much more than that so I decided to read up on it when I got home.
     Rich isn’t the word. It has been one of the world’s most important cities for at least 2500 years. For much of that time it was the capital of one or another of the worlds great empires, three of them altogether if you don’t consider the Byzantine Empire an extension of the Roman. It was there the Persian King Xerxes built a pontoon bridge in 480 B.C. and led an army of 150,000 men to annihilate 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. The Persian Wars collectively represent what may be the most decisive events in Western Civilization. Athens’ ultimate victory in a naval battle at Salamis made the Golden Age of Pericles possible, not least because it left Athenians in control of sea lanes through the Bosporus to grain fields around the Black Sea. 146 years later Alexander crossed the Bosporus in the other direction at the outset of his eleven year campaign in Asia.
     In the early 4th Century A.D. Constantine moved his capitol to Byzantium and renamed it for himself. Greeks never called it Constantinople. They always referred to it simply as “the city.” To Arab traders the Greek words sounded like Istanbul and that’s what they always called it. Ataturk officially changed the name at the founding of the Turkish Republic.
     Justinian built the Hagia Sophia in 532, at the time the grandest Church in Christendom, later one of Islam’s great mosques, and still one of the world’s great buildings. From the Hagia Sophia Greek Patriarchs vied with Popes for Christian Supremacy for over nine hundred years. The Franks of the 4th Crusade sacked the city in 1204, installed a Latin King and tried to deliver Greeks to the Latin Rite. They failed but they did accelerate a decline that left the city vulnerable to Ottoman conquest in 1453. Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror took the city by storm, made it his own capital, and converted the Hagia Sophia to a mosque. Ottomans would rule from Constantinople right up until the Young Turks took over the government in the years preceding WWI. As Defenders of the Faithful if not always Commanders, they would be the last line of Caliphs.
     What makes it so special? To paraphrase Bill Clinton’s first campaign theme, it’s the geography stupid. Not much wider than the Mississippi at New Orleans, the Bosporus is not only a convenient crossing from Europe to Asia, it is the only outlet from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and thus represents a major trade route that gives the city enormous economic advantages. Bounded on three sides by water Constantinople was readily defensible in a day of walled cities. Russian Tsars from Peter the Great on coveted the city for its naval value. Fears that Russia would gain control of the strait prompted England’s alliance with Ottomans in the Crimean War. Fears of German control figured in Russia’s entry into WWI. This city has some history.  Did I mention it is beautiful?