of Asia Minor and established themselves on the eastern shore of the
Bosphorus. The great city of Brusa, whose groves to-day enshrine the
stately beauty of their mosques and sultans' tombs, capitulated to
Orkhan, the son of the first Sultan, in 1326; and Nicaea, the cradle
of the Greek church and temporary capital of the Greek Empire,
surrendered in 1330. On the other side of the Bosphorus Orkhan could
see the domes and palaces of Constantinople which, however, for
another century was to remain the seat of the Byzantine Empire.

The Turks crossed the Hellespont and, favored by an earthquake,
marched in 1358 over the fallen walls and fortifications into the
city of Gallipoli. In 1361 Adrianople succumbed to the attacks of
Orkhan's son, Murad I, whose sway was soon acknowledged in Thrace
and Macedonia, and who was destined to lead the victorious Ottoman
armies as far north as the Danube.

But though the provinces of the corrupt and effete Byzantine Empire
were falling into the hands of the Turks, the Slavs were still
unsubdued. Lazar the Serb threw down the gauntlet to Murad. On the
memorable field of Kossovo, in 1389, the opposing forces met--Murad
supported by his Asiatic and European vassals and allies, and Lazar
with his formidable army of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians, Poles,
Magyars, and Vlachs. Few battles in the world have produced such a
deep and lasting impression as this battle of Kossovo, in which the
Christian nations after long and stubborn resistance were vanquished
by the Moslems. The Servians still sing ballads which cast a halo of
pathetic romance round their great disaster. And after more than
five centuries the Montenegrins continue to wear black on their caps
in mourning for that fatal day.