ABSTRACT
A glance at the map of Europe shows that its eastern part is more land than sea oriented and more vulnerable than the western part to invasion. The medieval kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland, and Bohemia, not to speak of the Byzantine Empire, matched or exceeded in achievement their western contemporaries. The Ottoman expansion, culminating in the fall of Constantinople in 1453, contributed to the shift of economic gravity from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. The impact of the empires varied. Initially, the condition of the Turkish sultan's European subjects compared favorably with the situation in much of contemporary Europe. Incorporation into the staunchly Catholic Austrian Empire of the Habsburgs did not necessarily benefit those lands of eastern Europe that became part of it, particularly not their Protestant inhabitants, but at least it helped prevent them from falling under Ottoman rule.
