Constantinople and the Bosporus
The Strategic City and Waterway Where Europe Meets Asia
Apr 28, 2009
As early as 667 BC, settlers realized the strategic importance of a city along the Bosporus. Led by Byzas, they built the ancient city of Byzantium. The Bosporus, a 17-mile water link between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, ultimately leads to the Dardanelles and on to the Aegean Sea. The city itself, renamed Constantinople after the Roman Emperor Constantine enlarged it in AD 330, remained as one of the western world’s most important citadels.
Military and Commercial Importance
Constantinople was the bridge between Asia and Europe; it represented the diverse customs and cultures of East and West, blended into a metropolis that would thrive as the inheritor of Rome until AD 1453. Whoever controlled the Bosporus and the approaches along the Dardanelles, dominated the commercial wealth flowing through the Golden Horn.
The ancient Greeks recognized this and in their ascendancy during the pre-Archaic period, fought the Trojans for domination of the Dardanelles. Beyond the Bosporus lay the Black Sea and fertile land that produced grains as well as other agricultural products. Although Troy, located near the entrance of the Dardanelles, was destroyed many times and always rebuilt – as shown by Heinrich Schliemann’s excavations, the site has played an important strategic role for centuries.
Located near Canakkale, it was close to the World War I battle of Gallipoli, one of the last times Constantinople was militarily threatened. Throughout the latter part of the 19th Century, British regional security interests translated into squadrons of warships, ready to defend an Ottoman Constantinople, usually from Russian threats.
Contact between Russia and Constantinople coincided with the development of the first Russian state in Kiev. Earlier, more sporadic contact came through Vikings using the Dnieper River. By the time of Peter the Great in the late 17th Century and then Catherine the Great, the desire for Russian warm water ports pitted the Romanovs against the Ottomans.
The Height of Commercial Power
During the time of the Byzantines, Constantinople enjoyed tremendous prosperity, initially supplying medieval Europe with grain, silks, and jeweled reliquaries. An efficient guild system and state monopolies, such as on silk, ensured prosperity. Despite attacks from the Persians and the Muslims, the Bosporus remained an open route of commerce between east and west. This would slowly change with the coming of the Crusades in the late 11th Century.
Over a hundred years of European Crusades took Western Europe out of its early medieval slumber as trade increased and knowledge expanded. Competition from emerging Italian city-states, notably Venice, added to the city’s woes. In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, Venetians sacked Constantinople, demonstrating that crusading was often less about Christianity and more about profit and greed.
In 1453, Mehmet II conquered the city, pulling his ships onto land across from Constantinople and using trees to roll them past the heavy chains that the Byzantines had spanned across the Golden Horn. Bypassing the walls and a frontal attack, his landing was successful and the city became Muslim.
Still a Strategic City and Waterway
Renamed Istanbul after World War I, the region continued to play a vital role in terms of western security interests. As Soviet Russia attempted to absorb Greece and Turkey after World War II, U.S. President Harry Truman issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947, guaranteeing the sovereignty of both nations.
Control of the Bosporus remains a key interest even though there are no contemporary threats, all the more so in light of Turkey’s on-going quest to join the European Union.
Sources:
- Anna G. Edmonds, Turkey’s Religious Sites (Istanbul: Damko, 1998)
- Michael Grant, The Ancient Mediterranean (History Book Club/Plume-Penguin Putnam Inc, 2002)
