n soldiers and sailors.
             Constantinople was condemned. Rumeli Hisar was completed in August 1452 and the final struggle was about to begin. All links with the Ottoman side were broken and Constantine XI Palaeologus ordered for the city gates to be closed.
             John VIII hoped that the acceptance of the unification of the churches and the anticipated western military aid, he wouldn't be able to survive off of the collapse of the state. Leading Hellenism, he went to Florence. The people viewed the agreement as disloyalty to the Orthodox faith. The crusade, to save Constantinople, ended up collapsing on the battle field of Varna, in Bulgaria, on November 10, 1444. Four years later John VIII died, passing the crown on to his brother Constantine. Constantine was crowned on January 6, 1449 and the last Christian Roman emperor entered into the isolated imperial capital. Militarily irrelevant, the Byzantine Empire waited for the inevitable.
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