_THE SIEGE OF BELGRADE_
The empire of Rome finally reached its end, not in the fifth century, as
ordinarily considered, but in the fifteenth; not at Rome, but at
Constantinople, where the Eastern empire survived the Western for a
thousand years. At length, in 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople,
set a broad foot upon the degenerate empire of the East, and crushed out
the last feeble remnants of life left in the pygmy successor of the
colossus of the past.
And now Europe, which had looked on with clasped hands while the Turks
swept over the Bosphorus and captured Constantinople, suddenly awoke to
the peril of its situation. A blow in time might have saved the Greek
empire. The blow had not been struck, and now Europe had itself to save.
Terror seized upon the nations which had let their petty intrigues stand
in the way of that broad policy in which safety lay, for they could not
forget past instances of Asiatic invasion. The frightful ravages wrought
by the Huns and the Avars were far in the past, but no long time had
elapsed since the coming of the Magyars and the Mongols, and now here
was another of those hordes of murderous barbarians, hanging like a
cloud of war on the eastern skirt of Europe, and threatening to rain
death and ruin upon the land.
Pages:
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265