ABSTRACT
From the inauguration of Constantinople as the capital of the Christian world till her fall to the Sultan of the Ottoman Turks eleven centuries, twenty-three years and eighteen days later, the Byzantine Empire was unceasingly at odds with nomadic peoples impelled West by convulsions in their Eastern rear. In the beginning, while the Hellenistic East held its own, the West of Europe was overwhelmed. But the mental characteristics of its conquerors were of an indefiniteness which permitted their Europeanisation. Slowly they settled down to assimilate the remnant of Roman civilisation and to evolve that of the present world. Meanwhile, within two centuries of their advent, the more immediate East was launching into a new stride. The East—denoting, in common parlance, a temperament and intellect alien to our own—had already won a spiritual battle with Christianity over classicism. It was now to engage on physical ground. From 634 to 1453, Constantinople remained successively the barrier, the salient and the isolated outpost of the European front. By the time the last Greek arms were fallen, the last manuscript sold, Europe was saved. But by what small margin, only those who saw the Turks before Vienna in 1683 could realise.
