His son and successor, Orkhan, inherited the same commanding qualities and
the kind of ability required to organize a new state.

By one terrible stroke of genius he created the most effective military
organization which has ever been known--one which, from that time down to
our own century, was the terror of Europe and of Asia.

He conceived the idea of exterminating Christianity by means of
Christians.

The plan was, every year to enroll 1,000 Christian boys taken from the
Christian families captured in war. Only the finest were selected. They
must be very young, so that they would have no ties to remember, no human
sympathies to enfeeble them.

These boys were placed under a rigid military training, with rich rewards
and indulgences for zeal and aptitude, and terrible disgrace and
punishment for the reverse.

They were familiarized with awful atrocities, their sensibilities
destroyed, and at the same time intelligence rendered acute by severe
intellectual training.

In this way was developed the strongest, the fiercest military corps, the
most terrible instrument for the use of despotic power, ever created by
subtle craft or employed by fanaticism.

They were called the Janizaries. And the very name struck a terror which
almost conquered in advance.