Mehmed II – known as Mehmed the Conqueror – is a Turkish national hero who reigned twice as the seventh sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
A competent statesman fluent in five languages, he also set a new Ottoman family standard of despotic rule. Callous and aloof, he ate alone and treated his top officials like slaves. The role of Grand Vizier (chief minister) to Mehmed was dangerous. He had at least two GVs beheaded in front of him without any warning.
He’d barely been sultan for five minutes before he ordered his infant brother be drowned in a bath, in keeping with the policy of fratricide (murder of brothers) common with sultans until the early 17th century. Then, to put it out of his mind, he also ordered the execution of the guard who’d drowned his baby bro.
In the spring of 1453, at the age of 21, Mehmed took the Byzantine city of Constantinople (later renamed Istanbul) and made it the imperial capital. Mehmed had deliberately incentivised his troops by declaring that when they took the city they’d be free to pillage for three days and that its entire population would be theirs. This they did. The city was systematically plundered, women and girls were raped, churches desecrated, and everyone was either massacred or carted off as slaves.
One day, it was said, Mehmed discovered that a melon had been stolen in his palace. He determined that the fruit thief was one of 14 staff members. None of them fessed up, so he had each of the 14 servants sliced open to find the culprit. After he found the melon in one of their guts he ate it.
About The Author
