Page 201 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

campaign, at the time largely blamed on Churchill, was one such unnecessary
disaster; on August 8 1915, Admiral von Tirpitz (from 1911 Commander of the
German Navy) noted, “Heavy fighting has been going on since yesterday at the
Dardanelles … The situation is obviously very critical. Should the Dardanelles
fall, the World War has been decided against us.” (See Decisive Battles of the
Western World, Volume 2, by J.F.C. Fuller at P. 264). (But see ‘Sultans of Spring’,
‘The Economist’, July 15th, 2017 for ‘what might have happened’.)

History being seen at its actual site becomes much more alive. And this is as
it was with Istanbul itself. The city of Constantinople, Byzantium and Istanbul (as
you may choose) resonates with the rise and fall of Christendom in the history
of the Near East, and it is no coincidence that the Stavrianos book referred to
earlier began its tale in 1453, when Byzantium fell to the Ottomans because of
the indifference – until it was too late – of the Christian West. I really wanted
to go ashore, and this time took the opportunity to pay for a tour. (It is to be
remembered that at that time there was no bridge joining Europe and Asia, so
one could see either one side of the Bosphorus or the other, and the consensus
seemed to be that the European side was much the more interesting).

The tour, actually rather an exhausting one, encompassed fascinating places.
The Hagia Sophia Museum and the Blue Mosque were breath-taking, though
having been more accustomed to English Gothic magnificence and Italian
pictorial splendour, the Spartan Islamic equivalent was startling, especially
in light of the fact that there must have been immense baroque and Orthodox
grandeur in all of these places prior to the Byzantine Empire falling. Any belief
that the Ottomans believed in simplicity for its own sake, however, was negated
by visiting the Topkapi Palace.

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was accompanied by widespread killing of
its citizens and destruction of the Empire’s old and substantial buildings. At the
time the sack of a city and the ruthless massacre of occupants was an accepted part
of conquest, but in this instance the Sultan, wishing to make the city his capital and
aware of the dwindling number of people living in the area, caused the destruction to
cease and imported citizens from Anatolia to re-create a great city. He also engaged
in wholesale and Islamic-style construction of palaces, places of worship, barracks
and ‘factories’. Central to the reconstruction was Topkapi Palace, a combination of
living quarters and buildings designed to show off the magnificence of the Ottoman
Empire, which after this victory expanded westwards into the Balkan peninsular.
The lives of the Sultan and his entourage was characterised by opulence; every
surface was a decorative opportunity! The display of jewels, in particular emeralds
and rubies, was quite spectacular. The opulence is in the stones, but the ‘too much’
level is soon reached; I have not seen many emeralds (though the British Crown
Jewels and those in Sri Lanka are impressive enough) but here the gems themselves
were just too large. These were not to be worn or carried, but simply displayed!

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