ABSTRACT
It will already be clear from remarks in preceding chapters that at the end of the Middle Ages the internal balance of continental Europe was in the process of change: a people coming from Central Asia had gradually extended their domination over Anatolia and built a powerful, well-organized state to the detriment of the Roman Empire in the East. The Turks proved to be first and foremost good soldiers, combining indisputable military genius with great talents as organizers and administrators. Unlike the other conquerors coming from the steppe, the Huns, Avars and Mongols who one or two generations before had occupied the Danubian area, the Ottomans founded a state which endured. In the fourteenth century, they crossed the straits which separate the Black Sea from the Aegean and extended their rule over the Balkan peninsula; in a great movement with Constantinople as its pivot, they occupied in succession Greece, Thrace and Albania, then destroyed the Serb and Bulgar monarchies, reducing the Christian population to the condition of 'protected' subjects.
