https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/when_islam_came_the_rape_of_constantinople.html
Last Friday, May 29, was the 567th anniversary of the Islamic conquest of Constantinople, one of ancient Christianity’s greatest capitals that for the previous seven centuries had, as Europe’s easternmost bulwark, withstood Islam. Lesser known is what immediately transpired — which Turkey is immensely proud of — on the taking of “New Rome,” as described in what follows (note: all quotes were derived from contemporary sources, mostly eyewitnesses).
Once inside the city on that fateful May 29, the “enraged Turkish soldiers … gave no quarter,” wrote an eyewitness:
When they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing, raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks, priests, people of all sorts and conditions[.] … There were virgins who awoke from troubled sleep to find those brigands standing over them with bloody hands and faces full of abject fury[.] … [The Turks] dragged them, tore them, forced them, dishonored them, raped them at the cross-roads and made them submit to the most terrible outrages[.] … Tender children were brutally snatched from their mothers’ breasts and girls were pitilessly given up to strange and horrible unions, and a thousand other terrible things happened[.]
Because thousands of citizens had fled to and were holed up in Hagia Sophia, the ancient basilica offered an excellent harvest of slaves — once its doors were axed down. “One Turk would look for the captive who seemed the wealthiest, a second would prefer a pretty face among the nuns[.] … Each rapacious Turk was eager to lead his captive to a safe place, and then return to secure a second and a third prize. … Then long chains of captives could be seen leaving the church and its shrines, being herded along like cattle or flocks of sheep.”
