the eastern empire—the marriage of orkhan and theodora—solyman crosses the hellespont—the death of solyman—amurath i conquers adrianople—a crusade against amurath—amurath conquers nish—revolt of the slavs—western europe at this period—successes of the slavs—the battle of kossova—sultan bajazet—another crusade against turkey—bajazet defeats the crusaders—the ascendancy of tamerlane—bajazet is defeated by tamerlane—death of bajazet and tamerlane—civil war—musa marches against servia—mohammed i succeeds musa—amurath ii—pretender mustapha—attack on constantinople—hunyadi janos—peace of szeggedin—the death of ala-ed-din—battle of varna—mohammed, son of amurath—scanderbeg—mohammed ii—conquest of constantinople.
that turkish rule has lasted as long as it has, has not died down like the power of other asiatic races who swept over europe, held parts of it for a while, and were then forced out again, is probably due to the fact that earlier ottoman sultans took no step in advance before consolidating their power behind them. they allowed time for each conquered province, each subject race to blend into the general nationality of their empire by the assimilation of military and civil institutions. asia minor became a solid empire under turkish rule, and allowed the sultan to look further afield for fresh conquests. he was naturally drawn towards the west, where lay the heart of the empire out of which successive sons of othman had carved their possessions. again, the troubled state of the greek empire, frequently rent by civil war, offered the strong young turk rulers an opportunity for interfering much in the same way that great powers of to-day concern themselves with the doings of less well-ordered states. the eastern empire was indeed in a parlous state by the{169} time orkhan had brought his country from a chaos of conquered provinces to a heterogeneous empire, and invited interference. the emperor john v (cantacuzene) realized the power of the turks, and sought to strengthen his position by an alliance with the sultan, so a marriage was arranged and celebrated with great pomp and splendour between orkhan, a widower of some sixty years, and the emperor’s young daughter theodora. this should have led to a good understanding between the monarchs, but it did not, as the east was pressing relentlessly on the enfeebled west, and temporary expedients could not avert the coming catastrophe. all about constantinople were foreign settlements; venetians and genoese fought for mastery in the narrow waters of the bosphorus, and both united to wring concessions out of the eastern empire. the rivalry of these two republics gave orkhan a reason for interfering, and he decided to ally himself with the genoese, for he hated the venetians, who had insulted him by declining to receive his envoys to the doges. but the venetians were allied to emperor john cantacuzene, in his struggles against another son-in-law, john pal?ologus.
solyman, son of orkhan, crossed the hellespont by night with a handful of followers and took koiridocastron, or “hog’s castle.” no attempt was made to regain this castle from the turk, as the emperor was fully occupied with the armies of his rebel son-in-law, pal?ologus, and with the genoese fleet. the greek emperor, finding himself in such sore straits, without making any attempt to dislodge solyman from the castle, without even a remonstrance, implored orkhan to send him assistance. this orkhan readily granted; he reinforced solyman’s small party with an army of ten thousand men. this force defeated pal?ologus and his slavonic{170} army, but did not return to asia; the turk had landed in europe, and showed a determination to stay. cantacuzene offered solyman ten thousand ducats to evacuate the “hog’s castle,” and the sultan’s son agreed, but before the sum had been paid an earthquake visited thrace and threw down the walls of its strongholds. the greeks saw in this a sign of heaven’s ill-will, the turks believed it to be a manifestation of the will of allah in their favour and a plain command to proceed with the conquests in europe. so while the greeks were still trembling two of solyman’s captains, adjé bey and ghasi fasil, occupied gallipoli, marched in over its defences shattered by the earthquake. soon after these events solyman, when engaged in his favourite sport of falconry, was thrown from his horse and killed. he was buried on the spot where he had landed with his followers, and near him are buried his two captains, to whose efforts the turks owe their first firm foothold in europe, when gallipoli, the key of the dardanelles, the southern passage to constantinople, fell into their hands.
from the reign of orkhan dates the first decisive influence of turkey over eastern europe. orkhan and his brother, ala-ed-din, forged the weapons which were to bring the eastern empire to its fall and set up another empire in its place, an empire which spread far afield over europe, and trod western civilization under foot from the black sea to the walls of vienna. to-day that empire’s european possessions have dwindled down to a small strip of land beyond the city’s old walls and the lines of chatalja.
another strong ruler followed orkhan, amurath i, his youngest son, in 1359. there were troubles in asia to keep the new sultan engaged, the prince of carmania stirred up several turkish emirs to rise against the house of othman. this matter settled, amurath bent his mind{171} to further conquests in europe, and by 1361 he had captured the great city adrianople and made it his capital. adrianople, the city of hadrian, scene of many historic events. here emperor valens met the goths as they were streaming down the valley of the maritza, and tried to stem the tide of barbarian invasion; but the goths broke the trained legions of rome, who for years after could not be brought to face that foe again, and valens, the emperor, was numbered among the slain. a few centuries later bulgarians and greeks met here, and again an emperor fell; whereas the goths contented themselves with slaying valens in battle, the conquering bulgarians made a drinking-vessel of the skull of nicephorus i, vanquished at adrianople.
to-day bulgarians are investing a turkish force in adrianople, the first european capital of the sultans, where amurath i lies buried. from here amurath prepared the way for the conquest of constantinople; from here he set out on those expeditions which brought one christian nation after another under the turkish yoke. here, too, the turks first met their present enemy, the slav. hitherto their opponents had been only the enfeebled greeks, and these had few, if any, friends in europe. as schismatics, the pope was not concerned with their fate, but when amurath’s campaigns extended westward, and threatened catholic countries, pope urban v became alarmed, and called upon western europe for a new crusade. the king of hungary, the princes of servia, bosnia, wallachia, formed a league intended to drive the osmanli out of europe; they collected their armed forces and marched towards the east, crossing the maritza about two days’ march from constantinople. there was no force of equal strength available to lalashahin, then in command of the ottoman forces in europe, for the allied princes{172} disposed of some twenty thousand men, and the turkish army was scattered about in various garrisons. the christians, assured of victory, neglected all military precautions, were caught unprepared during a night of revelry, “as wild beasts in their lair. they were driven before us as flames before the wind, till, plunging into the maritza they perished in its waters,” says seadeddin, the oriental historian. this was the first encounter between turks and slavs; there were many others, mostly with the same result, and resulting in centuries of suffering for the vanquished. but the times have changed; the slav, no longer careless, undisciplined, ill-prepared, has met the turk again by the banks of the maritza, and before the west—prepared, purposeful, and strong—the east has failed as it always has done, as it ever will do.
it was amurath i who thus began to place the yoke on the slav nations of eastern europe; his troops captured nissa (nish), the strong city of the servians, and forced their prince to sue for peace; it was granted on the condition that he supplied a tribute of a thousand pounds of silver and a thousand horse-soldiers every year. sisvan, king of the bulgarians, had also taken part in the crusade of western christianity against amurath, and he was compelled to beg for mercy, which was shown him at the price of his daughter’s marriage to the conqueror.
but the slavs, servians, bulgarians, and bosniaks were not disposed to give in calmly to the methods of colonization adopted by turkey. most of thrace was added to the european possessions, and all roumelia, and there seemed to be no limit to the osmanli’s greed of territory. the natives of conquered districts were removed to other parts of turkey, and turks and arabs sent to colonize in their stead. all this urged the princes of the neighbouring slav races to another mighty effort against{173} the asiatic invader. servia, remembering her past greatness, was chief of the movement, which was joined by an albanian people, the skipetars, wallachians and magyars from hungary, poles from the northern slav kingdom, all combined with the southern slavs in this enterprise. but the old crusading enthusiasm was dead, and western europe, which had sent heroes such as godfrey of bouillon, richard c?ur de lion, frederick barbarossa, looked on with apathy at the encroachments of the turk and the spread of islam. richard ii, weak and worthless, was king of england, the imbecile charles vi reigned over france, and the germanic empire was torn by civil wars, raging between robber knights and the free towns of the hansa, under the dissolute emperor wenzel. the chivalry of spain was still fully occupied with its own crusade against the moors, and finally there were divisions in the papacy itself between clement vii and urban vi. so no help could come to the slav crusaders from the west. still the league against amurath was powerful, and he realized that its subjection would tax all his energy and resources. he made all necessary arrangements for the good government of asia during his absence in the field, then crossed the hellespont to meet the enemy.
in the meantime the bulgarians and serbs had become over-confident, owing to a successful battle in bosnia; an ottoman army moving through that country was attacked by the allies with great vigour, and fifteen out of twenty thousand turks killed. inactivity on the part of the christians marked the next few months, while amurath was pouring troops into bulgaria, and completing the conquest of that important member of the league. ali pasha, amurath’s general, marched with an army of thirty thousand men against sisvan, over the passes of the nadir derbend, and forced shumla to surrender; tirnova{174} and pravadi fell, and the bulgarian king fled to nicopolis. here ali pasha besieged him, and sisvan begged for peace. the terms of peace eventually agreed to by the conquering turk put an end to bulgaria’s existence as a political entity; it became a province of the ottoman empire.
lazar, king of the servians, the head of the powers leagued against amurath, was alarmed at the rapid strides made by the osmanli forces, and prepared for a resolute struggle. amurath accepted the formal challenge sent him by the servian king, and marched westward towards the frontiers of servia and bosnia; on the plain of kossova he met the allies. after a night spent in a council of war in both camps, the antagonists met on the plain of kossova, the “amselfeld,” as the germans call it. to northward of the small stream shinitza, which traverses the plain, the chivalry of servia, bosnia, and albania, their auxiliaries from poland, hungary, and wallachia, were drawn up in battle array on 27th august, 1389.
but the crusaders were unable to stand before the fierce onslaught of the osmanli, despite their reckless bravery. slav chivalry went under in a sea of blood, though milosh kabilovitch had inflicted a fatal wound on the conqueror. the battle of the “amselfeld” settled the fate of the southern slavs for many centuries.
amurath ii had died from the wound inflicted by milosh kabilovitch, and his son bajazet reigned in his stead. he pursued the war against servia energetically, and made that country a vassal state of the ottomans. king stephen lazarevitch, successor to king lazar, gave the sultan his sister to wife, and agreed to pay as tribute a certain portion of the produce of the silver mines in his dominions. thus bajazet broke down servia’s resistance, and then turned against the other states which had taken part in the latest crusade. myrtché, prince of wallachia, submitted, and his{175} country became a vassal state of turkey; sigismund, king of hungary, invaded bulgaria, but after some slight successes, was defeated by a superior turkish army in 1372, and forced to retreat. while returning to his country from this campaign king sigismund saw fair elizabeth morsiney, and loved her. their son, the great hunyadi janos, avenged king sigismund in his victorious campaigns against the turks.
once again western chivalry attempted to check the rising tide of islam. sigismund, king of hungary, felt the danger of that power pressing on his frontiers, and succeeded in moving the sympathies of other members of the catholic church. so when pope boniface ix, in 1394, proclaimed a crusade against the osmanli, many of the martial youth of france and burgundy, set free by the end of the one hundred years’ war with england, joined in this new crusade. count de la manche, three cousins of the king of france, james of bourbon, henri and philippe de bar, acted as commanders under count de nevers; besides these were other frankish nobles, philippe of artois, comte d’eu, and constable of france, lord de courcy, guy de la tremouille, jean de vienne, admiral of france, st. pol. montmorel, and reginald de roze, marched from france, and on their way through germany were joined by frederic, count of hohenzollern, grand commander of the teutonic order, and grand master philibert de naillac, who came from rhodes with a strong body of knights of st. john of jerusalem. there came also bavarian knights, under the elector palatine, and the count of mumpelsgarde; styria sent its contingent under count de cilly. in all, some ten to twelve thousand of the flower of western chivalry came down the danube, full of high pride, and boasting that “if the sky should fall, they would uphold it on the point of their spears.” myrtché, prince of{176} wallachia, though vassal and tributary to the sultan, had been induced to tempt the fortunes of war once more, and joined the hosts of the crusaders.
bajazet was away in asia, but his general, yoglan bey, defended nicopolis stoutly against the crusaders, who closely invested it, and so gained time for his master. swiftly and silently came bajazet, with his well-trained, well-disciplined army, and the christian knights at table on the 24th september, 1396, were suddenly informed that a large turkish army was bearing down upon them. the franks flew to arms and charged recklessly into battle; their impetuosity and want of discipline proved their undoing, and by evening bajazet had vanquished this last crusade against the rising fortunes of islam. king sigismund escaped; most of the prisoners taken by the turks were massacred, and those who were spared lived weary months in captivity at broussa until ransomed in 1397.
thus was the west defeated in its attempt at rescuing eastern christians, and bajazet’s victorious armies moved on to new conquests; they overran and devastated styria and southern hungary, marched through the pass of thermopyl?, where there was no leonidas and his devoted band to bid them halt, and under their conquering sultan, locris, phocis, and b?otia fell to the sword of othman, till finally the whole peloponese was a turkish province.
constantinople, the only remaining portion of the greek emperor, had escaped so far, but now its fate seemed about to be sealed when another man, as great, perhaps, as bajazet himself, came out of asia—tamerlane and his mongolian hordes.
timour the tartar, timourlenk, tamerlane, as he is variously called, was born near samarkand in the earlier part of the fourteenth century, and spent the first half of his life in struggling for ascendancy over the petty chiefs{177} of rival tribes until, at the age of thirty-five, he had fought his way to undisputed pre-eminence, and was proclaimed khan of zagatai by the warriors of his race.
he made samarkand his capital, and as he proposed to conquer the whole habitable earth from there, this ambition was sure to bring him into conflict with the osmanli on the western confines of his territory.
tamerlane had been insulted by the sultan of egypt, so he marched from sivas, which he had taken from the turks in bajazet’s absence, towards syria, which experienced for two years the terror and cruelty of his arms. an interchange of letters and embassies between bajazet and tamerlane, on the subject of the latter’s occasional incursions into turkish territory, served only to aggravate the tension between the two monarchs, till hostilities became the only way out of an impossible situation. tamerlane’s forces outnumbered the hundred and twenty thousand men with which bajazet marched against the tartar at sivas, but bajazet was impatient of the warnings of his best general, who had observed a bad spirit in the army amongst the soldiers of tartar race whom tamerlane had corrupted, and decided to bring matters to a definite conclusion. he did, but to his own undoing, for tamerlane out-man?uvred him at angora, where the opposing forces met on july 20th, 1402. the mongol army is said to have numbered eight hundred thousand, and bajazet could not have had more than one hundred thousand to put into the field, for many had died by the way. moreover, tamerlane’s army was in high spirits, and well found in every way, whereas bajazet’s troops were discontented, and large numbers of tartars deserted from him to swell the ranks of the mongol army, and only the ottoman centre, where stood the janissaries and the servians, made any effective resistance to the fierce charges of the tartar cavalry. at{178} nightfall, when all was lost, bajazet attempted to escape from the field, but his horse stumbled and fell with him, and so delivered him into the hands of his enemy. after an ineffectual attempt to escape, bajazet, who had hitherto been kindly treated, was placed in fetters every night, and he died of a broken heart only eight months after the battle of angora. prince musa was allowed to take the body of his father, bajazet, to broussa for burial, by tamerlane who did not survive his fallen rival long. tamerlane died two years later, at otrar, while on the march to china, at the age of seventy-one, thirty-six years of which he had reigned and conquered, and shed more blood, caused more misery, than any other human before or since.
bajazet’s misguided efforts against tamerlane brought the ottoman empire, which had been gaining strength so steadily, to the verge of ruin, and calamity after calamity fell upon the house of othman after the disaster of angora. civil war broke out as each son of bajazet strove for the throne; solyman fought against his brother musa, and though at first successful, spoilt the results by debauchery and the cruelty with which he treated his troops, so they deserted to musa, and solyman was killed while endeavouring to escape to constantinople. musa followed in his father’s footsteps, and seems to have inherited his energy and ferocity. he thought fit to consider that the servian prince, vassal of the ottoman empire, had assisted solyman against him, so he carried war in servia, war with all the barbarity a turkish sultan and turkish troops were capable of, and then turned towards constantinople, for the emperor manuel pal?ologus had been the ally of solyman. musa laid siege to the city, and manuel called to mohammed, the youngest and ablest son of bajazet, for assistance, and so we find ottoman{179} troops defending the castle of c?sar against their own brothers.
the war between the two brothers raged with varying success till the troops of musa, whose conduct towards them was little better than that of solyman, ranged themselves against him at the decisive moment when the two brothers confronted each other on the field of battle. musa was wounded in a fray with hassan, the aga of his janissaries, and seeing things going against him, fled, and was found dead in a swamp near the field of battle. the only other son of bajazet, issa, had disappeared during the war between solyman and mohammed in asia, so the latter succeeded to the throne of turkey, and was girt with the sword of othman.
in mohammed i, who reigned from 1413-1421, the house of othman put forth one of the best sovereigns of that race. he did not win such distinction in the field as did some of his predecessors and successors; his conquests were over the affections of men, for he was just and merciful. his people called him pehlevan, champion, for he was brave, and of great personal strength and activity; others called him tshelebi, which suggests that he had all those attributes that make a gentleman; true to his friends, a terror to his enemies the rebellious turcomans, his country’s historian calls him, “the noah who preserved the ark of the empire, when menaced by the deluge of tartar invasion.”
those were troubled times, but they seem peaceful compared to the days of mohammed i’s predecessors, and by the time death overtook mohammed i in the eighth year of his reign, rebellions had been suppressed, order restored, and honourable peace settled for a while in ottoman dominions. but it was broken soon after amurath ii, son of mohammed i, had been girt with the{180} sword of othman at broussa; a claimant to the throne, alleged son of bajazet, had long been held captive by the emperor of byzant, who now thought fit to set up this pretender mustapha against young amurath. but the new sultan, though only eighteen years of age, showed promise of the military and political abilities of the great sons of othman from whom he was descended, and when he and mustapha met in battle the latter was out-man?uvred and forced to flee to gallipoli, where he sought refuge in the strong fortress. aided by genoese, amurath ii broke down the defences of gallipoli, captured mustapha, and had him put to death. then amurath ii turned towards constantinople to punish the emperor for his unprovoked hostility to him. constantinople was invested, and amurath’s troops surged in successive waves against the walls of theodosius. the fight was fiercest near the gate of st. romanus, where a number of dervishes, headed by a renowned saint, seid bakhari, formed the vanguard of a forlorn hope in a desperate attack on 25th august, 1422. among the inducements which urged these five hundred dervishes to dash out their souls against the city walls was one calculated to appeal to a mohammedan saint, marking the ethical difference between him and the christian variant; the many nuns in the convents of constantinople were assigned to these pious souls as their share of the spoil. no doubt it was hoped that the company of those ladies would brighten up the monastic seclusion of the dervishes in times of peace if ever they came as intervals in the popular diversion—war. the garrison of constantinople was making a stout defence, and might conceivably have held out by itself, but supernatural intervention was evidently called for, if only for the sake of the ladies, and the bright apparition of a virgin, robed in violet of dazzling lustre, further encouraged the besieged, while{181} the besiegers, hearing of this interference with their business, decided to raise the siege, and try again some other day. historians, who are always ready to discount the value of supernatural apparitions which sparkle in the sky just in the nick of time, maintain that amurath ii was drawn from the siege of constantinople by trouble in asia. he had a brother, another mustapha, whom the greek emperor had bribed to raise rebellion in asia minor. the extraordinary rapidity of amurath’s movements frustrated all young mustapha’s plans; he fled, was caught by some of the sultan’s officers, and hanged on the nearest tree, which act, no doubt, saved the sultan a good deal of trouble.
amurath returned to europe and resumed hostilities with the greek emperor, not by besieging constantinople again, but by annexing other towns here and there. he took several towns on the black sea coast which had held to byzant till then, captured thessalonica from the venetians, and made matters easier for the campaign he was obliged to undertake against turbulent neighbours and insubordinate vassals on the western marches of the ottoman empire in europe. hungary, still smarting under the defeat of their king at nicopolis, was roused to action by the great hunyadi; bosniaks and albanians feared for their independence, and wallachia longed to be free; servia, too, was troublesome, under a fiery leader vuk brankovi?, and after much vacillation, these enemies of the osmanli contrived to drop their jealousies for a while, and to combine against the eastern invader. the fortunes of war went against amurath, and his renowned opponent, hunyadi janos, beat his armies at belgrade and hermanstadt, and again at vasag. the allies pushed on triumphantly through servia and bulgaria of to-day, up to the balkan range, where they wrested two mountain-passes,{182} strongly defended, from the fiercely resisting turks. strange to say, hunyadi did not advance on adrianople, but returned to pesth after a final victory at the foot of mount kunobitza. during most of this time amurath had been away in asia; he now hurried back to retrieve the fallen fortunes of his empire in europe, but finding that impossible, decided to consolidate what was left to him, and entered into peace negotiations with his adversaries, which ended in the treaty of szeggedin, in 1444; hereby george brankovi?, son of vuk, became independent ruler of servia, and wallachia was lost to hungary.
misfortune dogged amurath; his eldest son ala-ed-din died, he who had assisted in command of the ottoman forces in asia, his father’s right hand, and left the sultan inconsolable, borne down by the weight of accumulating affliction. there was a second son, mohammed, still young, and to him amurath entrusted the throne and its heavy burdens, while he retired into dignified seclusion at magnesia. but mohammed was too young for the enormous responsibilities of his post, and amurath had to revisit the scenes of his former activity from time to time. the successes of the christians, and the retirement to asia of amurath, roused the greek emperor to fresh intrigues against his asiatic adversary; he and the pope induced the king of hungary to break the oath made at the peace of szeggedin, cardinal julian salved that monarch’s conscience, and so king ladislaus started off on another crusade against the turk. amurath hurried back from asia, crossed the hellespont with the aid of the genoese, and met his adversaries near varna in november, 1444. the battle raged with varying success all day, until king ladislaus, whose horse fell with him, was captured and slain on the spot. his head impaled on a spear threw his troops into a panic; many of{183} them perished by the sword, among them cardinal julian, stephan bathory, and many other nobles. this victory of the sword of othman at varna settled the fate of those vassal slavs who had risen against the sultan; servia was thoroughly reconquered, bosnia’s royal family was exterminated, and their country added to the ottoman dominions.
once again amurath retired to the pleasant seclusion he had sought at magnesia; some describe it as monastic in character, but that description sounds unlikely; at least the monasticism of the sultan and that of christian monks can have had little in common, the former probably allowing pleasures which a christian monk would be bound to regard with pious horror. alas, and i am sorry for amurath, because he had worked hard and deserved a good time, his son mohammed proved unfit to hold the victorious turkish soldiery, so he was given a change at magnesia, while his father re-established order in the army. amurath reigned for another six years after these happenings—years which he spent usefully, in gathering in odd outlying bits of territory into the ottoman fold. the peleponese peninsula was made a vassal state, and hunyadi janos severely beaten at kossova.
the only trouble which amurath was unable to settle was caused by the albanian, scanderbeg, who defied the sultan from his mountain fastnesses, and reigned over his wild country and fierce subjects for many years after amurath, who had himself instructed scanderbeg in the art of war, had been laid to rest at broussa.
his son mohammed lost no time in ascending the throne, removing a slight obstacle, or what might have become one, in the person of amurath’s infant son by a servian princess. the babe was drowned in a bath at the moment when his mother was offering her congratulations to the new sultan.{184} mohammed’s subjects failed to see the humorous side of this act of statecraft, and made trouble, so the sultan put all the blame on the officer who had carried out the order, and had him put to death for treason. mohammed had to confess to his own share in the deed when, many years later, he included fratricide among the permissible expedients of statesmanship.
mohammed ii lives in history as “the conqueror,” and he seems to have had all the qualities as well as the good fortune which help mortals to that high title; he had some other qualities which were, if not necessary to success, at least picturesque, and in keeping with the morals and ideals of the time he lived in, and of the peoples with whom he had to deal. he was strong of purpose and far-sighted, ingenious and of tireless energy, and these qualities brought him victory over his enemies in the field and success in the guidance of his people’s life through the dark passages of diplomacy. these qualities shone out into the foreground; in the background were cruelty, perfidy, and a sensuality which revolted even the loose-living warriors of his day.
the west called to mohammed ii; there was yet one more city awaiting conquest by a son of othman ere the eastern empire should pass out of history and the turk should rule large european provinces from the seat of constantine. another, constantine xi, and last of that long line of byzantine emperors, had come to the throne some three years before mohammed was girt with the sword of othman. this constantine was wise, just, and merciful, and has gone down to history among the heroes of the world. but all the noblest qualities united in the person of its emperor were unable to stem the tide rising up to the walls of constantinople, were inadequate when opposed to relentless force from without, and supineness, sloth, cowardice, within the city walls. the fate of constantinople{185} drew nearer, till in may, 1453, the hour had struck, and mohammed ii rode as conqueror over heaps of slain, among whom was the lost emperor, through the breach in the wall made by his huge cannon and the fiery assaults of the janissaries, to the deserted palaces of imperial byzant.
thus fell constantinople, the city of many sieges, into the hands of an asiatic nation which from here ruled wide tracts of europe, raiding right up to the gates of vienna, the kaiserstadt of the holy roman empire, “deutscher nation.” for nearly five centuries an unbroken line of sons of othman have sat in the seat of c?sar, have conquered from here, and from here have watched the decay of their power in europe. one by one young races, reborn after years of slavery, rose and asserted their rights, gained first autonomy, then independence, from a master who seemed but a stranger and a sojourner in the lands of roum. now, as i write, those young nations have closed in on every side, and ottoman possessions in europe are hardly greater in extent than were those of decadent byzant when mohammed ii’s artillery thundered outside the walls, brought down those stout defences, and with them an old civilization, in a mass of crumbling ruins.
