THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
FOUNDING OF THE EMPIRE.—The latest, most permanent, and most important of the Tartar sovereignties was established by the Ottoman Turks, who were an offshoot of the Seljukians. Gradually this martial race seized province after province of the Asiatic possessions of the Byzantine emperors. Through the quarrels that were constantly distracting Constantinople, they at last gained a foothold in Europe (1353). During the reign of Amurath I. (1360-1389), a large part of the country known as Turkey in Europe fell into their hands.
CONQUESTS OF BAJAZET (1389-1403).—Amurath was followed by his son Bajazet who, by the rapid advance of his arms, spread the greatest alarm throughout Western Europe. The warriors of Hungary, Germany, and France united their armies to arrest his progress; but their combined forces, numbering 100,000 men, were cut to pieces by the sabres of the Turks on the fatal field of Nicopolis, in Bulgaria (1396). Bajazet now vowed that he would stable his horse in the Cathedral of St. Peter at Rome, and there seemed no power in Christendom to prevent the sacrilege.
Before proceeding to fulfil his threat, however, Bajazet turned back to capture Constantinople, which he believed in the present despondent state of its inhabitants would make little or no resistance. Now it happened that just at this time Tamerlane was leading the Mongols on their career of conquest. He directed them against the Turks in Asia Minor, and Bajazet was forced to raise the siege of Constantinople, and hasten across the Bosporus, to check the advance in his dominions of these new enemies. The Turks and Mongols met upon the plains of Angora, where the former suffered a disastrous defeat (1402). The battle of Angora checked for a time the conquests of the Ottomans, and saved Constantinople to the Christian world for another period of fifty years.
THE CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE (1453).—The Ottomans gradually recovered from the blow they had received at Angora. In the year 1421 they made another attempt upon Constantinople, but were unsuccessful. Finally, in the year 1453, Mohammed II., the Great, sultan of the Ottomans, laid siege to the capital, with an army of over 200,000 men. After a short investment, the place was taken by storm. The Cross, which since the time of Constantine the Great had surmounted the dome of St. Sophia, was replaced by the Crescent, which remains to this day.
CHECK TO THE OTTOMAN ARMS.—The consternation which the fall of Byzantium created throughout Christendom was like the dismay which filled the world upon the downfall of Rome in the fifth century. All Europe now lay open to the Moslem barbarians, and there seemed nothing to prevent their marching to the Atlantic. But the warriors of Hungary made a valiant stand against the invaders, and succeeded in checking their advance upon the continent, while the Knights of St. John (see p. 443), now established in the island of Rhodes, held them in restraint in the Mediterranean. Mohammed II. did succeed in planting the Crescent upon the shores of Italy—capturing and holding for a year the city of Otranto, in Calabria; but by the time of the death of that energetic prince, the conquering energy of the Ottomans seems to have nearly spent itself, and the limits of their empire were not afterwards materially enlarged.
The Turks have ever remained quite insensible to the influences of European civilization, and their government has been a perfect blight and curse to the countries subjected to their rule. They have always been looked upon as intruders in Europe, and their presence there has led to several of the most sanguinary wars of modern times. Gradually they are being pushed out from their European possessions, and the time is probably not very far distant when they will be driven back across the Bosporus, as their Moorish brethren were expelled long ago from the opposite corner of the continent by the Christian chivalry of Spain.