The battle of Constantinople was the bloodiest battle of the Balkan war as the Ottoman government gave a single order to hold the city against all odds. The Ottoman forces along the rapidly crumbling Thrace Line routed and began a 'retreat' to Constantinople. Not all of the men along the line made it to the city those defending against Bulgaria and Serbia managed to reach the capital under the command of Mustafa Kemal Pasha whom despite his defeat at Gallipoli had been given command of the garrison of the city. Yet the forces defending against the Greek forces were trapped by a British thrust towards the Thrace Line the majority of the trapped forces surrendered to the allied forces yet a small force held out for three days in Vakif before being crushed by the Greek forces.
When the forces of the Balkan league and the United Kingdom finally reached the defences that the Ottoman forces had built over the week that they had to prepare they began to prepare for a siege against the capital of the Ottoman Empire. George I of Greece would begin the school of thought that today dominates the second Byzantine Empire that the Balkan war was merely a continuation of the war that had raged between the early Ottoman Empire and the first Byzantine Empire that began in the 1250's. As the bombardment of Constantinople began led by the British plasma artillery while certain locations were not on the target list most notably the Hagia Sophia the majority of the expanded city was pounded by the artillery of the Balkan league.
-Extract from Wilhelm von Wittelsbach's book A history of sieges translated from the original German by William Tolkien in 2068.
The forces assigned to Operation Snowfall had one of the easiest campaigns of the British intervention in the Balkan war while the forces fighting in Operation Monolith faced the last forces of the Ottoman Empire, Operation Green Dragon faced a few scattered militias or particularly patriotic police forces and Operation Shanty broke the enemy forces at Beersheba while the Arabs revolted. The men fighting in Operation Snowfall had to deal with three old men with rifles at the most heavily defend beach as the pushed north to secure the Straits. The militias that they met immediately surrendered to the British forces and there is an interesting amount of Turkish-British people in the region following the British occupation.
-Extract from Peter Snow's book Coffee, Sex and Plasma: Operation Snowfall
As the bombardment of Constantinople raged it became clear that the Ottoman forces were refusing to surrender despite the rising levels of civilian casualties the Ottoman parliament had been dissolved by Mehmed V and he had taken complete power with only certain military officials being given power. The decision of the Balkan league military commanders was simple the city would not surrender and so they would capture it. The assault was divided into three major focuses one led by the Bulgarians striking from the north the Greeks and British forces from Operation Monolith would march along the coast to the central city where they would meet up with the third force a naval landing in the Golden Horn with forces from all of the nations involved in the war.
The assault began on the first of September with the last ships in the Golden Horn being sunk by the forces of the Royal Navy and the Royal Hellenic navy as they protected the ships transporting the multinational forces that had been ordered to secure the harbour. The international force stormed the beaches and piers and every landing force secured a beachhead yet all of them faced stiff resistance with the early goal of establishing a single beachhead in a single day seeming incredibly foolish. Yet despite the brutal bloody fight that the Ottomans put up the forces slowly established a thin unified beachhead and began to push entering into the urban warfare that would define Constantinople.
-Extract from David Eisenhower's book Overlord of battles: The Battle of Constantinople
The Bulgarian push on Constantinople from the north had some of the least amount of Ottoman soldiers due to both the Bulgarian tactics and the lack of defences to the north of the city. The first Bulgarian push broke the Ottoman defective line and it seemed that they might escape the gruelling house by house warfare that the British and Greek forces to the south were dealing with then Mustafa Kemal Pasha ordered the last few reserves he had to attack the Bulgarians. Led by the man himself the Ottoman counter-attack seemed to be on the verge of throwing the Bulgarians out of the city until the Greek forces managed to make another breakthrough and forced the Ottomans to withdraw men from the Bulgarian assault and hold back the joint Greek-British assaults.
-Extract from Vasily Grossman's book Life and Fate: Constantinople
The Greek-British advance on Constantinople faced some of the harshest resistance of the battle both due to the Ottoman survivors of Gallipoli refusing to fail again and the largest number of Ottoman troops had been assigned to hold the southern flank of Constantinople. The British and the Greeks were forced to fight for every room as one Australian officer John Monash said the Ottomans fought for every brick. The slaughter though would and never be in the favour of the Ottoman Empire the allied forces had more men and the British by far had better weapons the bolt-action rifles utilised by the Ottomans were nothing compared to the plasma rifles used by the British.
Over three weeks the allied forces slowly pushed towards the forces that had landed along the Golden Horn and the central city of Constantinople. As the British advanced so did their artillery and so they began to rain further down into the city further hindering the Ottoman reinforcements as they moved to the front. Then three weeks after the bombardment of the city had begun the most important death from the British artillery happened. Mehmed V had been taking a briefing in the bunker that had become the source of all power in the Ottoman Empire and a series of plasma strikes on the ruins that the bunker hid under collapsed the celling of the main room killing the majority of the high ranking Ottoman commanders, the Grand Vizier and Mehmed V. Mustafa Kemal Pasha survived the strike due to the virtue of being late to the briefing and was in fact just in front of the door to the room it was held in. With the death of every other high-ranking Ottoman left in the city Mustafa Kemal Pasha took complete control over the remnants of the Ottoman army and prepared to fight a losing battle. The battle of Constantinople ended that day and the fall began the last battle of the Ottoman Empire.
-Extract from Dan Snows book The Lion strikes: Britain in the Balkan war
Following Mustafa Kemal Pasha securing his power over the Ottoman controlled section of Constantinople the already Ottoman's morale collapsed, and the allies began to advance across the city. Most notably the force that had landed at along the Golden Horn secured a breakthrough and began to advance towards the Hagia Sophia led by the First Greek Division tasked to raise three flags atop the Hagia Sophia. They were supported by the Victorian Scottish Regiment and the Black Watch in their push to take the mosque that dominated the Constantinople sky-line. The Ottomans recognized the goal of the Greek forces and the last major Ottoman defensive position was the mosque with two-thousand Ottoman men holding the ancient structure while around them their empire died in flame and plasma.
The First Division knew of the forces arrayed against them in the halls of the mosque and they cared not as their commander Emmanouil Manousogiannakis said "For five hundred years has Constantinople been under the rule of the Turks no longer! Constantinople was a Greek city; Constantinople is a Greek city and will be a Greek city now and forever. For Hellas endures. For Hellas will emerge triumphant." The First Division stormed the gates of the Hagia Sophia and managed to secure a foothold within the building and began to march forward fighting for every step. The Greeks continued their brutal bloody advance for two days until the last Ottoman supply line to the Hagia Sophia was cut off and the last of the Ottoman ammunition ran out. The Ottomans surrendered on the 4th of October and a trio of Greek soldiers ran to the roof of the building and lowered the Ottoman flag that had been raised as a symbol of defiance and in its place rose the Greek flag, the Union Jack and a flag made specially for rising over Constantinople a red flag with a golden double headed eagle atop a cross the first use of the flag of the Second Byzantine Empire.
-Extract from Dr. Harold Turtledove's book the Hagia Sophia: the heart of a reborn empire
With the fall of the Hagia Sophia the remaining Ottoman forces realised that they had no chance of holding out or any longer and so Mustafa Kemal Pasha sent out peace feelers to the allies requesting that the allied forces accept his surrender of both Constantinople and the Empire. The allies accepted and on the 10th of October the guns in the city fell silent. For three days the centre of the city was thrown into a frenzy of restoration and rebuilding to welcome seven kings to the city. The 13th of October was a beautiful day for the death of an Empire. Mustafa Kemal Pasha waited in the ruins of the Çırağan Palace with the other high-ranking Ottoman officers left in the city bearing the Imperial Standard and the national flag waiting for the conquerors of the city to enter. The monarchs of the Balkan league entered the city first (George V had just made it to the city being transported the last few kilometres on HMS Lionheart) George V rode in the lead flanked by George I of Greece and Ferdinand I of Bulgaria behind them rode Nikola I of Montenegro and Peter I of Serbia and behind them rode Hussein I of Arabia and the newly crowned Ajkuna I of Albania. After them marched a battalion from each of nations involved in the war. When the procession reached the Çırağan Palace the Ottoman flag and Imperial Standard were lowered symbolising the end of the Empire surrendering to the conquerors of the city. As the ceremony ended the negotiations for the treaty of Constantinople and the later Sofia protocols began.
-Extract from Horrible Histories book Bloody Balkans