Original subtitles

- [Narrator] 2008, as a subprime scandal

erupts in the United States,

the Constantinople stock exchange,

Europe's major financial marketplace

is preparing to face a global economic crisis.

Europe's leading economic power, Greece,

is now the standard for financial stability.

Benefiting from its geostrategic location

at the crossroads of Europe and Asia

with the rich thousand-year history,

the Greek capital has become a cosmopolitan megalopolis

with a population of 19 million.

In 1998, it was naturally chosen

as a headquarters of the European Central Bank.

Half of Mediterranean trade passes through its vast port.

But none of this ever happened.

In the 15th century,

the city will be conquered by the Ottoman Empire.

Today, it is known under the name Istanbul.

Our history is no more than a series of incredible events.

Every one of us can influence its course.

(dramatic music)

The most infinitesimal of our decisions

can influence the future of humanity.

To know the past is to foresee the future.

April 12th, 1204,

the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade

on their way to the holy land

besieged and then sacked the city of Constantinople.

May 29th, 1453,

the Genoese commander, Giustiniani Longo,

is grievously wounded by a shot from a firearm.

The following day, Sultan Mehmet II

rides into his new capital, Constantinople.

These three intimately connected events

are the key moments in the battle

and then the fall of Constantinople,

capital of the Byzantine Empire.

410 AD,

Rome, the eternal city, heart and soul of the Roman Empire,

has just fallen into the hands of the barbarians.

The impossible has just happened.

Inexorably, the other western provinces fall in turn,

and yet the Roman Empire is not dead,

far from it.

A century earlier, Emperor Constantine the Great

had ordered the building of a second capital, a second Rome.

Built at the frontier between Asia and Europe,

on the site of the ancient Byzantium,

the new city was named Constantinople,

the city of Constantine.

When the western Roman Empire disappears permanently in 476,

the Eastern Roman Empire continues alone.

Later, it will be called the Byzantine Empire.

(dramatic music)

The Byzantine Empire is the Roman Empire.

However, Constantinople is not Rome.

Situated on Greek and not Latin territory,

Constantinople is at the meeting point

of western and eastern influences.

Citizens of the empire speak Greek, not Latin.

A veritable economic crossroads,

its strategic position on the Bosporus

gives it control of commercial exchanges

between east and west.

Protected by the sea,

it can only be reached on foot from the west.

The city rapidly expands,

a vast hippodrome,

a mirror of the Circus Maximus in Rome,

is soon host to a plethora of chariot races.

In 532, Emperor Justinian builds the Hagia Sophia Basilica.

Although Christian and extremely pious,

the city gradually becomes ideologically opposed

to the Holy See of Rome.

Theological divergences

lead to the definitive separation

between Catholic and orthodox Christians.

From his palace, the emperor governs an empire

exposed to permanent danger.

Like Rome before it,

the imperial armies have to defend its borders permanently.

Throughout its thousand-year exise,

the empire experiences peaks and crisis.

Its territory expands, then contracts.

In the 12th century, the empire is still influential,

but it has to share control of the Mediterranean

with the Italian cities Venice and Genoa.

At the head of veritable maritime empires,

these city states nibble at Byzantine power

in exchange for their military and financial aid.

For the empire,

this is a winning policy in the short term,

but dangerous in the long term.

- [Narrator] Welcome to the memory of humanity.

Here, we can control time,

analyze and compare billions of events,

and alter them to rewrite history endlessly.

All the events in our history,

however minute they might be,

are memorized and interconnected.

It only requires one to be changed for all the others

to be shaken to the core.

For example, let's look at what is happening in Europe

at the heart of the Middle Ages.

In Italy, a particular phenomenon is appearing.

Dozens of cities shake off the feudal political system

and become independent.

These cities govern themselves,

elected their leaders

and answer to no king,

orientated towards trade,

several become maritime republics.

Their strength is founded

upon the domination of trade routes

and the relationships they forged

with the Mediterranean powers.

Venice, the greatest of them,

will remain independent for centuries.

It will rapidly acquire the power of a country.

In our day,

it's as if Monaco were as rich as Germany

and could rival the armies of France.

In fierce competition with each other,

these cities were also able to maneuver

to guarantee their domination,

often at the expense of their rivals.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] April 12th, 1204.

The unforgivable has just been committed.

Manipulated by the Venetians,

the Fourth Crusade's mighty army

on its way to reconquer Jerusalem

turns away from its objective.

Constantinople, symbol of Christianity,

falls into the hands of the Crusaders.

Christians kill other other Christians.

Thanks to the formidable Venetian fleet,

the Crusaders went around the land defenses

and attacked from the sea.

The empire is dismembered

and shared out between the victors.

Each of them carves out its own little kingdom,

at least for a time.

Less than 60 years later,

after many fratricidal battles between Christians,

the Byzantine Empire is restored.

The capital is once more in the hands of the Greek orthodox,

but the empire will never regain its former power.

Ruined by conflict,

dispossessed of the majority of its territory,

it is no more than a shadow of itself.

And yet, the other threats have not diminished.

Founded by an Anatolian Turkish clan,

the Ottoman Empire is in full expansion,

vigorous, conquering,

and born along by the Muslim faith,

it is expanding its territory

at the expense of its neighbors.

And in the 15th century, nobody is capable of stopping it.

Byzantine cities fall one after another.

In 1450, the Ottoman Empire occupies

the major part of the Byzantine Empire.

Soon, Constantinople is no more

than a mere fortified enclave.

At the head of the Ottoman Empire Mehmet II.

The young sultan is learned,

speaks five languages,

and possesses real strategic and political talents.

However, he is in a difficult position.

Unpopular, unloved by a part of his army,

in particular, the elite corps of Janissaries.

In the past, he already had to deal

with the rebellion by his generals.

In order to impose himself

Mehmet II knows he has to do something spectacular.

The best way, take Constantinople.

He knows that the city will put up a fierce resistance.

The holy city is the bastion of Christianity,

a bastion endowed with ancient and colossal walls.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The city of Constantinople

is situated at a strategic location that is easy to defend.

To the north, the Golden Horn.

To the south, the Sea of Marmara.

To the east, the Bosphorus.

but that is not enough.

Very soon, the Roman emperors erected walls

to protect the city.

Constantinople's system of fortification

is a formidable one.

A 22-kilometer wall completely encloses the city.

To the west, the land wall are said to be impenetrable.

The enemy must first cross a 20-meter ditch,

braving a hail of projectile,

he then runs to the foot of the first wall.

If he manages to scale the nine-meter stone wall,

he finds himself in an open area

dominated by massive towers, manned by arches.

In front of him moves a second wall,

a huge 12-meter wall bristling with 96 towers.

This interior wall is the city's ultimate rampant.

This protected zone extends to 1,450 hectares.

By comparison, medieval Paris,

then the biggest western city,

extended to barely 440 hectares.

By the 15th century, these ancient walls

have already been subject to the ravages of time

for 1,000 years.

However, a line of fortifications is only effective

if it is in good repair and defended by lots of soldiers.

- [Narrator] 100,000 men,

including 12,000 elite corps Janissaries.

The Ottoman army is huge.

However, Mehmet II knows that without an effective strategy,

his army will be shattered on the walls of the city.

He orders the casting a gigantic cannons,

capable of smashing down any wall.

The biggest is eight meters long,

need 700 men to move it,

and can shoot 600-kilo stone balls,

a city taker.

Opposite him, Constantine XI,

the Byzantine emperor

places the city under state of siege.

He stocks up provisions,

reinforces the walls,

has silverware from the churches melted down

to pay for more troops.

The whole population has to participate.

He knows that a tidal wave of warriors

is heading towards him.

He has no more than a few thousand men to oppose it.

It will be fifteen to one.

Determined to defend his city,

he calls upon the west for assistance.

Venice, Genoa, and the pope

are approached to defend the holy city.

But the Italian cities are caught in the crossfire.

Trading with both empires,

they want to support one, without provoking the other.

Venice sends some military equipment, but no troops.

Only its colony inside the city decides to fight,

not that it has a choice.

The neighboring Genoese city of Pera

remains neutral and looks on.

Constantinople appears alone and abandoned by all.

And then on the 26th of January 1453,

along comes Giovanni Giustiniani Longo,

a young Genoese nobleman,

a leader of men and in excellent general.

He's at the head of 700 mercenaries.

A soldier of fortune,

he is immediately appointed commander of the land walls.

Charismatic, he inspires fresh hope in the combatants,

and becomes the keystone of the defense.

7,000 men, 26 ships,

and a thousand-year-old wall

against one 100,000 soldiers with gigantic cannons.

The emperor in his armor is determined to fight to the end.

April 2nd, 1453,

Mehmet II's army arrives within sight of Constantinople.

The great battle begins.

- [Narrator] In the Middle Ages,

the higher and more massive the defense,

the more effective it is.

To take it by assault,

you could attack frontally

with large ladders or mobile towers.

You can also elect to concentrate on the weak points,

such as games, using battering rams.

More discreet but equally formidable,

the work of a sapper consists of digging a tunnel

under the fortifications

in order to collapse them.

Bombardment from a distance with a huge trebuchet.

Catapults could take a long time, but avoided losses.

Finally, you can j wait till the stronghold,

dying from starvation surrenders by itself.

But the advent of cannons changes everything.

The bigger the cannon,

the more powerfully it can find a giant ball.

Whereas the trebuchet

shoots out 100-kilo projectile 200 meters,

Mehmet II's cannon fire a ball weighing

up to 600 kilos with a direct strike.

On classic walls, the effect is devastating.

The advances in artillery causes defenses to adapt.

Walls become angled to deflect shots,

instead of taking them directly.

In the 17th century, with French engineers Vauban,

systems of fortification become extremely complex,

and perfectly adapted to firearms.

The walls of Constantinople

have resisted many siege.

How will they stand up to this latest threat?

- [Narrator] Day after day,

deadly fire hammers the Byzantine defenses.

Each night, the defenders repair what they can

and fill in the breaches.

Constantine XI and his finest troops

are at the heart of the valley

where the defenses are weakest.

Against all expectations,

the Ottoman army fails to peers those defenses.

The Ottomans use every means in their attempt to enter.

The Christians use every means to prevent them.

In the Golden Horn, an enormous chain blocks access,

defended by ships that prevents an attack

from the Byzantine rear.

However, at the end of April,

defenders are stunned to discover Ottoman warships

upstream of the barrage.

In defiance of the terrain,

Mehmet II has transported his ships

six kilometers over dry land.

This sudden threat opens a new front

and divides the defending forces.

In May, Venice finally sends a relief fleet

of 2,000 men.

This army may swing the course of the battle,

on condition that it arrives in time.

For weeks, the cannons pound the walls.

Then assaults follow the bombardments.

On each occasion, the defenders managed to plug the gaps

and repelled the assailants.

All sapper attempts attempts are discovered and destroyed.

Galvanized by Giustiniani, the defense holds firm.

Hope is born again.

Victory no longer seems impossible.

In the Ottoman camp,

Mehmet II is in increasing difficulty.

He needs to obtain a rapid victory at all costs.

If the relief fleet arise, it will be too late.

He must break through.

The sultan decides to throw all of his forces

into one general assault.

It will be victory or death.

Tuesday, May 29th, 1453

three o'clock in the morning, the day of the verdict.

All along the frontline, war cries rise from the darkness.

The defenders ring the bells.

Everybody prepares for the final battle.

In waves, the Ottoman sweep upon

the half-destroyed walls.

The assailants are repelled one after another.

Greeks and Italians fight side by side

with the energy of despair.

When a giant cannonball shatters the stockade.

300 Ottoman swarm into the gaping hole.

The emperor and his d pushed them back.

All along the land wall as along the sea front,

the defenders are harassed.

Everybody is fighting.

Nobody can help anybody else.

But these attacks have just one aim,

to weaken the defenses

before the assaults by the elite troops.

At dawn the twelve thousand Janissaries

hurled themselves into the fray.

It is at this crucial moment

when the danger is at its height

that a bullet pierces Giustiniani's armor.

Grievously wounded,

the Genoese commander is losing lots of blood.

The emperor begs him to remain in place

to continue the fight,

but Giustiniani is evacuated from the front.

In the confusion, a gate is left open.

Turkish soldiers swarmed through it.

Deprived of their rock,

the defenders lose ground one by one.

The Janissaries intensified their attack.

They crossed the first wall.

They reached the second.

Constantine, the last Roman Emperor, tries to bar their way.

The defenders are overwhelmed.

The Ottoman flag flies over one of the towers.

The cry goes up, "The city is taken."

The situation can no longer be reversed.

Constantinople falls.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] We have just reached a turning point.

A turning point is a key event,

crossroads in our history,

where the world swings one way or the other.

Giustiniani at the head of his 700 mercenaries

coordinated the city's defense and galvanized resistance.

In the heart of the battle,

his evacuation is felt to signal the beginning of the end,

and defenders of seized with panic and lose ground.

If Giustiniani had remained at the front

it's quite possible that tanissaries

would have been repelled.

The arrival of Venetian reinforcements

several days later would have saved the city.

Faced with the failure of the siege,

Mehmet II would've found himself

in an extremely difficult position

with his political opponents.

The sultan would not have survived the set back politically.

He might even have been assassinated.

The Ottoman Empire would then have engaged

in a war of succession.

Rebellions might have broken out

on the predominantly Christian Weston territories.

Constantinople, freed of its enemy,

could have seen a renaissance.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Woe to the vanquished.

Pillage is the order of the day.

Men and women are turned into merchandise.

500,000 are reduced to slavery.

In Saint Sophia, the old and the wounded are slaughtered.

The Greek and Italian commanders are executed.

Nobody knows what became of Constantine XI.

A few vague witnesses say

they saw him die fighting, sword in hand.

The last Roman Emperor disappears with his empire.

The next day, Mehmet II orders an end to the pillaging

and enters his new capital.

Three days later, the ships that escaped

meets the now useless relief fleet.

News of the fall of the city spreads.

There's total stupor.

The Christian world is in shock.

Weakened by the Fourth Crusade,

alone against an implacable enemy,

abandoned by the west,

the Byzantine Empire gave up the ghost.

But the city itself is not dead.

Because though Rome may have been sacked by barbarians,

Constantinople has just fallen into the hands

of a brilliant civilization.

After a long thousand year existence,

the old empire was in its death throe, exhausted.

The young Ottoman Empire will bring a fresh breath of air.

The city will slowly be repopulated,

sumptuous new buildings

will come to stand beside ancient structures.

Saint Sophia, a Christian basilica, becomes a mosque.

The Ottoman Empire will also know its peak.

The heart of the Muslim world,

its territory will extend from Hungary to Iraq.

Like the Byzantine Empire, it will finally disappear.

After the First World War,

defeated, it will give way to Turkey.

Constantinople will become Istanbul,

but that is another story.

- [Narrator] The taking of Constantinople

by the Ottoman Turks is a seismic shock.

Likee, a thousand years before, the city seemed eternal.

Like Rome, it finally fell.

But although the Byzantine Empire can no longer be saved,

Orthodox Christianity is still alive,

and it needs a new capital.

Situated hundreds of kilometers to the north,

Moscow takes up the baton

and becomes the new orthodox refuge.

Human constructions are mortal.

They have the beginning, a peak,

(suspenseful music)

then an end.

(suspenseful music)

Whatever happens, they always disappear finally.

The question is not if this will happen,

but when?

What will the United States of America look like

in the century's time?

Will we all be speaking Chinese in 200 years

or will that language be dead like Latin?

These questions may appear fatalistic,

but the opposite.

Humanity is alive and on the move.

For every civilization that dies,

there is always another to take its place,

and continue to advance.

(dramatic music)