August 1452 · Bosphorus Strait Theater
August 1452
As his first act of war, Mehmed II ordered the construction of Rumeli Hisarı — the Throat-Cutter fortress — on the European shore of the Bosphorus, directly across from the older Anatolian fortress of Anadolu Hisarı. Built in just four months by an army of workers and completed in August 1452, the twin fortresses gave the Ottomans complete control of the Bosphorus strait and cut off Constantinople from Black Sea supplies. When a Venetian supply ship refused to stop and attempted to run the strait, Ottoman cannon fire sank it and the crew was executed. Mehmed had closed the city's supply lines before a single shot was fired at its walls.
Commanders