CHAPTER VI

  “The Terrible Turk”

The Greek Empire at Constantinople.—­The invading Mohammedans.—­The Ottoman Turks.—­The fall of Constantinople.—­The enslaving of the Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, and Roumanians.—­One little part of Serbia unconquered.—­The further conquests of the Turks.—­The attack on Vienna.—­John Sobieski to the rescue.—­The waning of the Turkish empire.—­The Spanish Jews.—­The jumble of languages and peoples in southeastern Europe.

In the last chapter, we referred briefly to the Greek empire at Constantinople.  This city was originally called Byzantium, and was a flourishing Greek commercial center six hundred years before Christ.  Eleven hundred years after this, a Roman emperor named Constantine decided that he liked Byzantium better than Rome.  Accordingly, he moved the capital of the empire to the Greek city, and renamed it Constantinopolis (the word polis means “city” in Greek).  Before long, we find the Roman empire divided into two parts, the capital of one at Rome, of the other at Constantinople.  This eastern government was continued by the Greeks nearly one thousand years after the government of the western empire had been seized by the invading Germanic tribes.

[Illustration:  The Turkish Sultan before Constantinople]

For years, this Greek empire at Constantinople had been obliged to fight hard against the Mohammedans who came swarming across the fertile plains of Mesopotamia (mes’o po ta’ mi a) and Asia Minor. (Mesopotamia is the district lying between the Tigris (ti’gris) and Euphrates (ufra’tez) Rivers.  Its name in Greek means “between the rivers.”) The fiercest of the Mohammedan tribes, the warlike Ottoman Turks, were the last to arrive.  For several years, they thundered at the gates of Constantinople, while the Greek Empire grew feebler and feebler.

At last in 1453, their great cannon made a breach in the walls, and the Turks poured through.  The Greek Empire was a thing of the past, and all of southeastern Europe lay at the mercy of the invading Moslems (another name for “Mohammedans").  The Turks did not drive out the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, and Albanians, but settled down among them as the ruling, military class.  They strove to force these peoples to give up Christianity and turn Mohammedans, but were successful only in the case of the Skipetars of Albania.  The Albanians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Roumanians remained where they had been, but were oppressed by the newcomers.

For more than two hundred years after the capture of Constantinople, the Turks pushed their conquests farther and farther into Europe.  The entire coast of the Black Sea fell into their hands.  All of Greece, all of Bulgaria, and all of Roumania became part of their empire.  Of the kingdom of Serbia, one small province remained unconquered.  Up in the mountains near the coast of the Adriatic gathered