Скачать или смотреть Why Did Three Empires Fail at Constantinople in 626?

Constantinople, June 626 AD.

The Byzantine Empire faces its darkest hour as Emperor Heraclius strips the capital of its garrison, gambling everything on a campaign deep into Sassanid Persian territory. The Eastern Roman Empire's greatest city stands nearly defenseless behind the legendary Theodosian Walls, protected only by a skeleton crew of old men and teenagers under Patriarch Sergius.

Three empires see their moment. The Avar Khaganate under Khan Bayan rolls siege towers toward the western fortifications. The Persian Empire masses forces under General Shahrbaraz across the Bosphorus, cutting off relief. Slavic warriors gather their fleets to assault the Golden Horn's sea walls. This medieval siege represents the most sophisticated military coordination in ancient warfare—a synchronized, three-front assault designed to crack the one city that's never fallen.

Inside Constantinople's walls, twelve thousand Byzantine defenders face fifty thousand attackers in brutal siege warfare. The mathematics are impossible. But the Byzantine military possesses something their enemies have never encountered: an experimental incendiary weapon, the legendary Greek Fire.

What follows is three weeks of desperate medieval combat featuring Byzantine naval warfare, ancient military tactics, and historical battles that doom the Avar invasion, fracture an alliance between ancient enemies, and ensure Byzantine Constantinople survives another eight centuries. This is the story of the siege that changed medieval history forever.