flock.



MAHOMET II TAKES CONSTANTINOPLE.

END OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE

A.D. 1453

GEORGE FINLAY


By the greater number of historians the fall of Constantinople under the
Moslem power is considered as the decisive event which separates the
modern from the mediaeval period. From the same event dates the final
establishment of the Ottoman empire both in Asia Minor and in Europe. At
that moment, when the Moorish power in Spain had been almost destroyed,
Christian Europe was threatened for the second time with Mahometan
conquest.

From 1354, when Suleiman crossed the Hellespont and captured Gallipoli,
the Turks from Asia Minor had kept their foothold on European soil. Under
Amurath I (1359-1389), Bajazet I (1389-1403), Mahomet I and Amurath
II (1404-1451)--the last of whom, in 1422, unsuccessfully besieged
Constantinople--the Ottoman dominions in Europe were much extended. When
Mahomet II, son of Amurath II, became Sultan (1451), the Turks were so
strongly established, and the Eastern Empire was so much weakened, that
he was prepared to finish the work of his predecessors and make the
Ottoman power in Europe what it has ever since been.