THE final overthrow of the Roman empire was effected in the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, and their establishment of Islam in southeastern Europe. Though the empire had long been in a state of dissolution and decay, its extinction was the work of a brave race, led by an able warrior.

Mohammed II. was the seventh sultan of the Ottoman dynasty,

so named from Othman, the first leader of the Turkish horde. He was born in 1430, and, at the early age of thirteen, ascended the throne by the desire of his father, Murad II., who abdicated in his favor. But the safety of the Empire being menaced by Ladislas, King of Hungary, Murad was called upon to place himself again at the head of the army and the imperial government; and again abdicated as soon as the danger was past. His long-desired and well-earned repose was soon disturbed by a rising among the Janizaries, and extensive preparations among the Christian princes, which warned him that the government was not yet safe in the hands of his son, and compelled him once more to assume sovereign authority.

Mohammed in the meantine had resumed his place among

his father's subjects, learning obedience and accustoming himself to command. He was permanently placed on the throne of the sultans at his father's death, and commenced his new reign in 1451, in the twenty-second year of his age. The unbroken series of victories and conquests which marked his whole career, from the day of his accession to the day of his death, has gained for him the title of Mohammed the Great. Like a true Turk, he began his reign by the murder of his young brother, under the pretext that his own safety and that of the empire required it, and then delivering up to the vengeful mother the executioner by whom his murderous mandate was carried out. He next took the field against the Prince of Caramania, who was threatening the Asiatic provinces, and quickly compelled him to sue for peace.

Then the ambitious sultan turned his undivided attention to the conquest of Constantinople. Having soon found a pretext, he built a fortress about two miles from the city, equipped it with troops and a powerful artillery, among which was the famous Hungarian piece cast in bronze, and capable of throwing a six-hundred-pound ball over two thousand yards. He thus succeeded in closing the entrance to the Black Sea, and bringing destruction to the very gates of Constantinople. In the meantime, in order to deprive the Greeks of their last resources, he sent an army to attack their possessions in the Peloponnesus. Sparta was the only city which, by the strength of its defences, could withstand the fury of the Turks. At the same time he subdued the Greek provinces on the shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora, as well as those in Thrace.

At last, in April, 1453, Mohammed appeared before Constantinople at the head of an army of three hundred thousand men of all nationalities-Greeks, Romans, Poles, Germans, and Huns, as well as Turks-supported by a powerful artillery and a fleet of one hundred and twenty sail. At the end of fifty-five days he carried the city by assault, and buried in its ruins Constantine, the last of the Palæologi, who fell in the breach, fighting bravely. The city was given up to pillage for three days, during which every atrocity was permitted but that of fire. When the disorder ceased, Mohammed, who had

bought up a large number of captives, had the most illustrious of them beheaded, and set the rest at liberty. He then set about re-peopling the city, with a view of making it the capital of his empire. Several privileges and immunities were granted to the inhabitants; they were allowed the free exercise of their religion; half of the churches in the city were placed at their disposal; and Mohammed himself solemnly invested the patriarch, according to the ancient custom of the Greek emperors.

In order to establish his authority, the sultan remained in his new capital for three years. In the meantime, his generals had subdued, almost without resistance, the rest of Thrace, and the whole of Macedonia; but failed in Albania, where the famous Scanderbeg cut the Ottoman army to pieces. This check to his arms did not prevent Mohammed from making a triumphant entry into Adrianople, amid the acclamations of the people, followed by a multitude of slaves laden with the spoils of the Greek capital. Many Christian princes hastened to offer their allegiance, and all were laid under tribute.

Mohammed laid siege to Belgrade; but Hunyady, coming quickly to the rescue with a small number of vessels, defeated a Turkish fleet of two hundred sail, which was to blockade the Danube, and entered the city with a large reinforcement of troops, provisions, and munitions of war. Many ineffectual attempts were made to carry the city, but every attack was successfully repulsed, mostly with heavy loss to the besiegers. At last, in one desperate assault, Mohammed himself received a severe wound, and had to be carried to a neighboring village, narrowly escaping capture. Such rout and disorder ensued in the retreat of his army that they left behind them one hundred and sixty pieces of artillery, forty flags, the whole of the ammunition, and the greater part of the baggage; and had not an excess of caution prevented Hunyady from pursuing the infidels, the entire army would have been annihilated. That siege cost the sultan forty thousand men.

But the Turk was soon indemnified for his loss at Belgrade by other conquests in Greece, Wallachia, Trebizond, and the islands of the Archipelago. The Venetians had been deprived

by him of all their most important territories, but they at last succeeded in exciting against him a new enemy, who, for a time, directed attention to the East. This was the Shah of Persia, who had already looked with jealous eyes on Mohammed's unprecedented success and uninterrupted increase of power, and was easily induced to enter into an alliance with the Venetians, Pope Sixtus IV., the Kings of Naples and Cyprus, and the Knights of Rhodes. A Persian army was sent into Natolia, which captured Trebizond in 1472, and completely defeated an Ottoman army. Afterwards, the two monarchs led their armies in person, and encountered on the plains of Cappadocia. The superiority of the sultan's artillery gained for him a decisive victory; but not thinking himself in a condition to pursue, and satisfied with having humbled his enemy, he confined himself to inciting the shah's eldest son to revolt. Both were glad enough to retire from the contest, and a treaty of peace was concluded in 1474.

On the Black Sea, Kaffa was taken from the Genoese in 1475; the Crimea forced to receive a khan at the discretion of Mohammed; Georgia and Circassia were made tributary. Moldavia, Albania, and the islands of the Archipelago were added to the Turkish Empire; Dalmatia invaded; the Venetians forced to purchase a humiliating peace in 1478, and Italy scared by an Ottoman army and the capture of Otranto in 1480. These and other warlike exploits, by land and sea, from the centre of Europe to the centre of Asia, founded the military glory of Mohammed II., the most illustrious, the bravest, and the most fortunate of the Ottoman line that ever a Turk admired or a Christian feared. His arms were not always successful, and his capacity as a general was not equal to that of Hunyady or Scanderbeg. He was better equipped with artillery than any of the powers with which he contended, and always had the superiority in numbers. Religious fasts and public rejoicings in every part of Europe sufficiently attest that Christianity placed in the list of triumphs the honor of having resisted him. Neither the crushing defeat at Belgrade nor the raising of the siege of Rhodes, in 1480, could humble the pride of Mohammed. Time alone foiled this insatiable conqueror. His timely death probably saved Italy and

Christian Europe from Musselman subjugation. He was removed from the arena of his ambitious projects in 1484, leaving behind him an impression of greatness, which posterity has regarded with astonishment, rather than admiration.

THE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

Of the triangle which composes the figure of Constantinople, the two sides, along the sea, were made inaccessible to an enemy; the Propontis, by nature, and the harbor by art. Between the two waters, the basis of the triangle, the land side was protected by a double wall and a deep ditch of the depth of one hundred feet. Against this line of fortification, which Phranza, an eye-witness, prolongs to the measure of six miles, the Ottomans directed their principal attack; and the emperor, after distributing the service and command of the most perilous stations, undertook the defence of the external wall.

In the first days of the siege, the Greek soldiers descended into the ditch, or sallied into the field; but they soon discovered that, in the proportion of their numbers, one Christian was of more value than twenty Turks; and, after these bold preludes, they were prudently content to maintain the rampart with their missile weapons. Nor should this prudence be accused as pusillanimity. The nation was indeed pusillanimous and base; but the last Constantine deserves the name of a hero; his noble band of volunteers was inspired with Roman virtue; and the foreign auxiliaries supported the honor of the Western chivalry. The incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the fire of musketry and cannon. Their small arms discharged, at the same time, either five, or even ten, balls of lead, of the size of a walnut; and, according to the closeness of the ranks and the force of the powder, several breastplates and bodies were transpierced by the same shot.

But the Turkish approaches were soon sunk in trenches, or covered with ruins. Each day added to the science of the Christians; but their inadequate stock of gunpowder was wasted in the operations of each day. Their ordnance was not powerful, either in size or number; and if they possessed