Siege of Constantinople (1394–1402) 1394
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
About the battle
The siege of Constantinople from 1394 to 1402 was a long blockade of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I. Already in 1391, the rapid Ottoman conquests in the Balkans had cut off the city from its hinterland. After constructing the fortress of Anadoluhisarı to control the Bosporus strait, Bayezid tried to starve the city into submission by blockading it both by land and, less effectively, by sea.
The Crusade of Nicopolis was launched to relieve the city, but it was decisively defeated by the Ottomans. In 1399, a French expeditionary force under Marshal de Boucicaut arrived, but was unable to achieve much. The situation became so dire that in December 1399 the Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Palaiologos, left the city to tour the courts of Western Europe in a desperate attempt to secure military aid. The emperor was welcomed with honours, but secured no definite pledges of support. The city was relieved when Bayezid had to confront the invasion of Timur in 1402. Bayezid's defeat in the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and the subsequent Ottoman civil war enabled the Byzantines to regain some lost territories in the Treaty of Gallipoli.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Constantinople (1394–1402) (revision 1376587015), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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