Filters:
Group: Akragas (Dorian Greek) city-state of
People: Muhammad I al-Mustansir
Topic: Constantinople, Siege of (717–718)
Location: Kamakura Kanagawa Japan

Constantinople, Siege of (717–718)

Years: 717 - 718

The Second Arab Siege of Constantinople is a combined land and sea effort by the Arabs to take the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople.

The Arab ground forces, led by Maslama, are defeated by Constantinople's seemingly impregnable walls and Bulgarian attacks while their naval fleet is defeated by Greek Fire and the remnants of it subsequently sunk in a storm on its return home.

It is often compared to the more widely studied Battle of Tours in the fact that it halts Muslim expansion into Europe from the East for almost 700 years.

"Remember that the people you are following didn’t know the end of their own story. So they were going forward day by day, pushed and jostled by circumstances, doing the best they could, but walking in the dark, essentially."

—Hilary Mantel, AP interview (2009)