Conquest of Constantinople 1204 and 1453

The goal of this thesis is the comparison of the Latin conquest of Constantinople by the troops of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Both of these milestones in the history of the Byzantine Empire meant a huge disaster and its aftermath had a profound impact on all structures of Byzantine society. Constantinople - political, spiritual and cultural center of Byzantium - thanks to its monumental system of its walls resisted many attempts to its conquer and this fact must necessarily set the enquiry of why in these two cases, the city defense failed. In this work I tried to dismantle both of falls in the widespread context of comparison and is not only a military and strategic point of view, where the differences between these events is evident. The Crusaders, which in 1204 conquered Constantinople, in any case could not be measured with a huge and highly disciplined army of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. I focused on theme besiegers and their behavior to Romans. With well-known stereotype that crusaders meant to Constantinople greater disaster than the Ottoman Turks, one could argue. Recent findings of current historians refutes this general opinion and refer primarily to the fact that the Crusaders did not destroyed Byzantium, while successful attack Mehmed II. of..