The chief independent Slavonic powers were those of Servia and Bulgaria. Of these, Servia represents the unmixed Slave, as unmixed, that is, as any nation can be; Bulgaria represents the Slave brought under some measure of Turanian influence and mixture. The history of the purer race is the longer and the more brilliant. The Servian people made a longer resistance to the Turk than the Bulgarian people; they were the first to throw off his yoke; one part of them never submitted to his yoke at all. ♦Extent of Servia.♦ The oldest Servia, as we have seen, stretched far beyond the bounds of the present principality, and had a considerable Hadriatic sea-board, though interrupted by the Roman cities. Among the Zupans or princes of the many Servian tribes, the chief were the northern Grand-Zupans of Desnica on the Drina, and the southern Grand-Zupans of Dioklea or Rascia, so called from their capital Rassa, the modern Novi-Bazar. This last principality was the germ of the historical kingdom of Servia. ♦Relations to the Empire.♦ But till the fall of the old Empire, the Imperial claims over Servia were always asserted and were often enforced. ♦1018.♦ Indeed common enmity to the Bulgarian, the momentary conqueror of Servia,[42] formed a tie between Servia and the Empire down to the complete incorporation of Servia by Basil the Second. ♦1040.
Conquest by Manuel Komnênos; 1148.♦ The successful revolt of Servia made room for more than one claimant of Servian dominion and kingship; but the Imperial claims remained, to be enforced again in their fulness by Manuel Komnênos. At last the Latin conquest relieved Servia from all danger on the part of Constantinople; Servia stood forth as an independent power under the kings of the house of Nemanja.

They had to struggle against more dangerous enemies to the north in the Kings of Hungary. ♦Loss of Bosnia.♦ Even before the last Imperial conquest, the Magyars had cut away the western part of Servia, the land beyond the Drina, known as Bosnia or Rama. Under the last name it gave the Hungarian princes one of their royal titles. ♦1286.♦ This land was more than once won back by Servia; but its tendency was to separation and to growth at the cost of Servia. ♦1326.♦ In the first half of the fourteenth century, Bosnia was enlarged by the Servian lands bordering on the Dalmatian coast, the lands of Zachloumia and Terbounia, which were never permanently won back. So the lands on the Save, between the Drina and the Morava, taking in the modern capital of Belgrade, passed, in the endless shiftings of the frontier, at one time to Bulgaria and at another to Hungary. ♦Servian advance eastward and southward.♦ Servia, thus cut short to the north and west, was driven to advance southward and eastward, at the expense of Bulgaria and of the powers which had taken the place of the Empire on the lower Hadriatic coast. From the latter part of the thirteenth century onwards, Servia grew to be the greatest power in the south-eastern peninsula. ♦Her seaboard. 1296.♦ Shorn of her old Hadriatic seaboard, she gained a new and longer one, stretching from the mouths of Cattaro to Durazzo. ♦1319-1322.♦ Durazzo itself twice fell into Servian hands; but at the time of the highest power of Servia that city remained an Angevin outpost on the Servian mainland. ♦Reign of Stephen Dushan, 1331-1355.♦ That highest power was reached in the reign of Stephen Dushan, who spread his dominions far indeed at the cost of Greeks and Franks, at the cost of his old Slavonic neighbours and of the rising powers of Albania. In the new Servian capital of Skopia, Skoupi, or Skopje, the Tzar Stephen took an Imperial crown as Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks. ♦1346.
The Servian Empire.♦ The new Empire stretched uninterruptedly from the Danube to the Corinthian gulf. At one end Bosnia was won back; at the other end the Servian rule was spread over Aitôlia and Thessaly, over Macedonia and Thrace as far as Christopolis. It only remained to give a head to this great body, and to make New Rome the seat of the Servian power.

But the Servian tzardom broke in pieces at the death of the great Servian Tzar; and before he died, the Ottoman was already in Europe. In fact the historical result of the great advance of Servia was to split up the whole of the Greek and Slavonic lands, and to leave no power of either race able to keep out the barbarian. We have seen how the titles of Stephen’s Empire lived for a generation in the Greek part of his dominions.[43] In Macedonia and Thrace several small principalities sprang up, and a power arose at Skodra of which we shall have to speak again. To the north Bosnia fell away, and carried Zachloumia with it. ♦Later Kingdom of Servia.♦ Servia itself comes out of the chaos as a separate kingdom, a kingdom wholly cut off from the sea, but stretching southward as far as Prisrend, and again holding the lands between the Drina and the Morava. ♦Conquests and deliverances of Servia. 1375.♦ The Turk first took Nish, and brought the kingdom under tribute. ♦1389.♦ The overthrow at Kossovo made Servia wholly dependent. ♦1403.♦ With the fall of Bajazet it again became free for a generation. ♦1438.♦ Then the Turk won the whole land except Belgrade. ♦1442.
1444.♦ Then the campaign of Huniades restored Servia as a free kingdom; the event of Varna again brought her under tribute. ♦1459.♦ At last Mahomet the Conqueror incorporated all Servia, except Belgrade, with his dominions.

The history of Bosnia, as a really separate power, holding its own place in Europe, begins with the break-up of the momentary Servian Empire. ♦Its origin, 1376.♦ The Ban Stephen Tvartko became the first king of the last Bosnian dynasty, under the nominal superiority of the Hungarian crown. Thus, at the very moment of the coming of the Turk, a kingdom of Latin creed and associations became the first power among the south-eastern Slaves. For a while it seemed as if Bosnia was going to take the place which had been held by Servia. ♦Greatest extent of Bosnia, 1382.♦ The Bosnian kingdom at its greatest extent took in all the present Bosnia and Herzegovina, with, it would seem, all Dalmatia except Zara, and the north-west corner of Servia stretching beyond the Drina. But the Bosnian power was broken at Kossovo as well as that of Servia. ♦Loss of Jayce, 1391.♦ In the time of confusion which followed, Jayce in the north-west corner became a power connected with both Hungary and Bosnia, while the Turk established himself in the extreme south. The Turk was driven out for a while, but the kingdom was dismembered to form a new Latin power. ♦Duchy of Saint Saba or Herzegovina. 1440.♦ The Lord of the old Zachloumia, a Bosnian vassal, transferred his homage to the Austrian king of the Romans, and, became sovereign Duke of Saint Sava, perhaps rather of Primorie. Thus arose the state of Herzegovina, that is the Duchy, commemorating in its half-German name the relation of its prince to the Western Empire. But neither kingdom nor duchy was long-lived. ♦1449.♦ Within ten years after the separation of Herzegovina the Turk held western Bosnia. ♦Turkish conquest of Bosnia, 1463;♦ Fourteen years later he subdued the whole kingdom. ♦of Herzegovina, 1483.♦ The next year the duchy became tributary, and twenty years after the conquest of Bosnia it was incorporated with the now Turkish province of Bosnia. But in the long struggle between Venice and the Turk various parts of its territory, especially the coast, came under the power of the Republic.

Meanwhile one small Slavonic land, one surviving fragment of the great Servian dominion, maintained its independence through all changes.

In the break-up of the Servian Empire, a small state, with Skodra for its capital, formed itself in the district of Zeta, reaching northwards as far as Cattaro. ♦Dominion of the house of Balsa at Skodra.
Loss of Skodra, 1394.♦ For a moment its princes of the house of Balsa spread their power over all Northern Albania; but the new state was cut short on all sides by Bosnia, Venice, and the Turk, and Skodra itself was sold to Venice. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the state took a more definite shape, though with a smaller territory, under a new dynasty, that of Tzernojevich. ♦Beginning of Montenegro, 1456.♦ This independent remnant answered to the modern Tzernagora or Montenegro, with a greater extent to the east and with a small seaboard taking in Antivari. ♦Establishment of Tzetinje, 1488.♦ Its capital Zabljak was more than once lost and won from the Turk; at the end of the century it was found hopeless to defend the lower districts, and prince and people withdrew to the natural fortress of the Black Mountain with its newly founded capital of Tzetinje. ♦The Vladikas, 1499.
Lay princes, 1851.♦ The last prince of the dynasty resigned his power to the metropolitan bishop, and Montenegro remained an independent state under its Vladikas or hereditary prelates, till their dominion was in our own time again exchanged for that of temporal princes. During all this time the territory of Montenegro was simply so much of the mountain region as could maintain its independence against the ceaseless attacks of the Turk. Yet Montenegro, as the ally of England and Russia, bore her part in the great European struggle, and won for herself a haven and a capital at Cattaro. ♦1813.
1858.♦ Her allies stood by while Cattaro was filched by the Austrian; and, more than forty years later, when a definite frontier was first traced, Western diplomacy so traced it as to give the Turk an inlet on both sides to the unconquered Christian land. ♦Montenegrin conquests, 1876-1877.♦ In the latest times the Montenegrin arms set free a large part of the kindred land of Herzegovina, and won back a considerable part of the lost territory to the east, including part of the old seaboard as far as Dulcigno. ♦1878.♦ Then Western diplomacy drew another frontier, which forbade any large incorporation of the kindred Slavonic districts, while a small extension was allowed in that part of the lost ancient territory which had become Albanian. Of three havens won by Montenegro in the war, Dulcigno has been given back to the Turk. ♦Spizza.♦ Austria has been allowed to filch Spizza, as she had before filched Ragusa and Cattaro. The third haven, that of Antivari, was left to those who had won it under such restrictions as armed wrong knows how to impose on the weaker power of right.

The continued independence of Montenegro enables the Servian branch of the Slavonic race to say that their nation has never been wholly enslaved. ♦The third Bulgarian kingdom.♦ The case has been different with Bulgaria. We have seen the origin of the third Bulgarian, or rather Vlacho-Bulgarian, kingdom which won its independence of the Empire in the last years of the twelfth century. From that time to the Turkish conquest, one or more Bulgarian states always existed. And throughout the thirteenth century, the Bulgarian kingdom, though its boundaries were ever shifting, was one of the chief powers of the south-eastern peninsula.

The oldest Bulgaria between Danube and Hæmus was the first to throw off the Byzantine dominion, and the last to come under the power of the Turk. ♦Bulgarian advance. 1197-1207.♦ But the new Bulgarian power grew fast, and for a while called back the days of Simeon and Samuel. Under Joannice the frontier stretched far to the north-west, over lands which gradually passed to Servia, taking in Skupi, Nish, and even Belgrade. ♦Dominion of John Asan. 1218-1241.♦ Under the Tzar John Asan the new Bulgaria, the kingdom of Tirnovo, reached its greatest extent. The greater part of Thrace, Philippopolis and the whole land of Rhodopê or Achridos, Hadrianople itself, Macedonia too stretching away to Samuel’s Ochrida and to Albanon or Elbassan, were all under his rule. If his realm did not touch the Hadriatic or the Ægæan, it came very near to both; but Thessalonikê at least always remained to its Frank and Greek lords.[44] But this great power, like so many other powers of its kind, did not survive its founder. ♦Decline of Bulgaria. 1246-1257.♦ The revived Greek states, the Nicene Empire and the Epeirot despotat, cut the Bulgarian realm short. The disputes of an older and of a later time went on.[45] ♦Shiftings of the frontier.♦ There was undisputed Bulgaria north of Hæmus, an ever-shifting frontier south of it. The inland Philippopolis, and the coast towns of Anchialos and Mesêmbria, passed backwards and forwards between Greek and Bulgarian. ♦Philippopolis finally Bulgarian. 1344-1366.♦ The last state of things, immediately before the common overthrow, gave Philippopolis to Bulgaria and the coast towns to the Empire.

An attempt at extension of the north by an attack on the Hungarian Banat of Severin, the western part of modern Wallachia, led only to a Hungarian invasion, to a temporary loss of Widdin, and the assumption of a Bulgarian title by the Magyar king. ♦Cuman dynasty in Bulgaria. 1280.♦ Presently a new Turanian dynasty, this time of Cuman descent, reigned in Bulgaria, and soon after, the kingdom passed for the moment under a mightier overlord in the person of Nogai Khan. ♦Break-up of the kingdom. 1357.♦ In the fourteenth century the kingdom broke up. ♦Principality of Dobrutcha.♦ The despot Dobroditius—his name has many spellings—formed a separate dominion on the seaboard, stretching from the Danube to the Imperial frontier, cutting off the King of Tirnovo from the sea. Part of his land preserves his memory in its modern name Dobrutcha. Presently we hear of three Bulgarias, the central state at Tirnovo, the sea-land of Dobroditius, and a north-western state at Widdin. ♦1362.
1365-1369.♦ By this time the Ottoman inroads had begun; Philippopolis was lost, and Bulgarian princes were blind enough to employ Turkish help in a second attack on Severin, which led only to a second temporary loss of Widdin. ♦1382.
1388.♦ The Turk now pressed on; Sofia was taken; the whole land became a Turkish dependency. ♦Conquest by Bajazet, 1393.♦ After Kossovo the land was wholly conquered, save only that the northern part of the land of Dobroditius passed to Wallachia. Bulgaria passed away from the list of European states both sooner and more utterly than Servia. Servia still had its alternations of freedom and bondage for sixty years. In after times large parts of it passed to a rule which, if foreign, was at least European. In later days Servia was the first of the subject nations to win its freedom. But the bondage of Bulgaria was never disturbed from the days of Bajazet to our own time.

§ 7. The Kingdom of Hungary.

The origin of the Hungarian kingdom and the reasons for dealing with along with the states which arose out of the break-up of the Eastern Empire have already been spoken of.[46] ♦Character of the Hungarian kingdom.♦ The Finnish conquerors of the Slave, admitted within the pale of Western Christendom, founding a new Hungary on the Danube and the Theiss while they left behind them an older Hungary on the Kama, have points of contact at once with Asia and with both Eastern and Western Europe. ♦Its position in south-eastern Europe.♦ But, as closely connected in their history with the nations of the south-eastern peninsula, as sharers in the bondage and in the deliverance of Servia, Greece, and Bulgaria, in our geographical survey they claim a place where they may be looked at strictly as part of the south-eastern world.

It has been already noticed[47] that the main geographical work of the Magyar was to cut off that south-eastern world, the world where the Greek and the Slave, struggling for its supremacy, were both swallowed up by the Ottoman, from the Slavonic region between the Carpathians and the Baltic. ♦Great Moravia. 884-894.♦ At the moment of the Magyar inroad, the foundation of the Great-Moravian kingdom, the kingdom of Sviatopluk, made it more likely than it has ever been since that the Slaves of the two regions might be united into a single power. That kingdom, stretching to Sirmium, marched on the north-western dependencies of the Eastern Empire, while on the north it took in the Chrobatian land which was afterwards Little Poland. Such a power might have been dangerous to both Empires at once; but the invaders whom the two Emperors called in proved far more dangerous than Great Moravia could ever have been. The Magyars, Ogres, or Hungarians, the Turks of the Imperial geographer,[48] were called in by his father Leo to check the Bulgarians, as they were called in by Arnulf in the West to check the new power of Moravia. They passed, from the north rather than from the east, into the land which was disputed between Moravian and Bulgarian. ♦906. Relations between Hungary and Germany.♦ The Moravian power was overthrown, and the Magyars, stepping into its place, became constant invaders of both Empires and their dependent lands. But to the west, the victories of the Saxon kings put a check to their inroads, and, save some shiftings on the Austrian march, the frontier of Germany and Hungary has been singularly abiding.

While the Magyar settlement placed a barrier between the two chief regions of the Slavonic race as a whole, it specially placed a barrier between the two divisions of the Croatian or Chrobatian people, those on the Vistula and those on the Drave and Save. ♦1025.♦ The northern Chrobatia still reached south of the Carpathians, and it was not until the eleventh century that the Magyar kingdom, by the acquisition of its southern part, gained a natural frontier which, with some shiftings, served to part it off from the Slavonic powers to the north of it. To the south-east an uncultivated and wooded tract separated the Magyar territory from the lands between the Carpathians and the lower Danube which were still held by the Patzinaks. ♦Geographical position of the Magyars.♦ The oldest Magyar settlement thus occupied the central part of the modern kingdom, on the Theiss and the middle Danube. There the Turanian invaders formed a ruling and central race, within a Slavonic fringe at each end. There were northern and southern Croats, Slovaks to the north, and Ruthenians to the north-west, towards the kindred land of Halicz or Red Russia.

Hungary, ranking from the beginning of the eleventh century as a kingdom of Latin Christendom, presently grew in all directions. We have just seen its advance at the expense of the northern Chrobatian land. Its advance at the expense of the southern branch of that race, and of the other Slavonic lands which owed more or less of allegiance to the Eastern Empire, was still more marked. ♦Hungary and Croatia.♦ All these lands at one time or another gave royal titles to the King of Hungary, King also of Croatia, of Dalmatia, of Rama, even of Bulgaria. But in most of these lands the Hungarian kingship was temporary or nominal; in Croatia alone, though the frontier has often shifted, Hungarian rule has been abiding. Croatia has never formed an independent state since the first Hungarian conquest; it has never been fully wrested from Hungary since the days of Manuel Komnênos. In those days it was indeed a question whether Hungary itself had not an overlord in the Eastern Emperor. After the great Bulgarian revolt that question could never be raised again. But the Hungarian frontier was ever shifting towards the former lands of the Empire, Venetian, Servian, and Bulgarian. ♦Kingdom of Slavonia. 1492.♦ One part of the old Croatian kingdom, the land between Save and Drave, was cut off to form, first an appanage, then an annexed kingdom, by the special name of Slavonia, a name shared by it with lands on the Baltic, perhaps on the Ægæan.

But, from the first days of its conversion, the Hungarian realm began to advance in other directions, in lands which had formed no part of the Empire since the days of Aurelian. ♦Transsilvania or Siebenbürgen.
1004.♦ Before their Chrobatian conquest, the Magyars passed the boundary which divided them from the Patzinaks, and won the land which from its position took the name of Transsilvania.[49] Colonists were invited to settle in the thinly inhabited land. One chief settlement was of the Low-Dutch speech from Saxony and Flanders. ♦Various colonies.♦ Another element was formed by the Turanian Szeklers, whose Latin form of Siculi might easily mislead. Another migration brought back the name and speech of the Old Rome to the first land from which she had withdrawn her power.

The legendary belief in the unbroken life of the Roman name and speech in the lands north of the Danube is merely a legendary belief.[50] There can be no reasonable doubt that the present principality of Roumania and the Rouman lands beyond its borders derived their present population and language from a settlement of the Rouman people further south. South of the Danube, the Rouman or Vlach population, scattered among Greeks, Slaves, and Albanians, at many points from Pindos northwards, has kept its distinct nationality, but it has never formed a political whole. ♦Their Northern migration.♦ But a migration beyond the Danube enabled the Roumans in course of time to found two distinct principalities, and to form a chief element in the population of a third. There is no sign of any Rouman population north of the Danube before the thirteenth century. The events of that century opened a way for a reversal of the ordinary course of migration, for the settlement of lands beyond the Empire by former subjects of the Empire.

We have seen that the third Bulgarian kingdom, that which arose at the end of the twelfth century, was in its origin as much Rouman as Bulgarian. ♦Cumans in Dacia.♦ By this time the rule of the Patzinaks beyond the lower Danube had given way to that of the kindred Cumans. ♦Mongolian invasion.♦ Then the storm of Mongolian invasion, which crushed Hungary itself for a moment, crushed the Cuman power for ever. But the remnant of the Cuman nation lived on within the Magyar realm, and gave its king yet another title, that of King of Cumania. ♦Rouman settlement in the Cuman land.♦ The former Cuman land now lay open to new settlers, and the Rouman part of the inhabitants of the new Bulgaria began to cross the Danube into that land and the neighbouring districts. In the course of the thirteenth century they occupied the present Wallachia, and already formed an element in the mixed population of Transsilvania. A Rouman state thus began to be formed, which took the name by which the Roumans were known to their neighbours. The new Vlachia, Wallachia, stretched on both sides of the Aluta. ♦Little Wallachia.♦ To the west of that river, Little Wallachia formed, as the banat of Severin, an integral part of the Hungarian kingdom. ♦Great Wallachia.♦ Great Wallachia to the east formed a separate principality, dependent or independent on Hungary, according to its strength from time to time. ♦Dobrutcha.♦ And, towards the end of the fourteenth century, the land south of the Danube, called Dobrutcha, passed from Bulgaria to Wallachia. ♦Moldavia. c. 1341.♦ Another Rouman migration, passing from the land of Marmaros north of Transsilvania, founded the principality of Moldavia between the Carpathians and the Dniester. This too stood to the Hungarian crown in the same shifting relation as Great Wallachia, and sometimes transferred its vassalage to Lithuania and Poland.

The greatest extension of the Hungarian dominion was in the fourteenth century, under the Angevin King Lewis the Great. Before his time the Magyar frontier had advanced and fallen back. ♦First possession of Halicz, 1185-1220,♦ Hungary, having a Russian population within its borders, had for a while enlarged its Russian dominion by the annexation of the Red Russian land of Halicz or Galicia. ♦of Widdin, 1260-1264.♦ It had also, for a shorter time, occupied the Bulgarian town of Widdin. ♦Conquests of Lewis, Halicz and Vladimir, 1342; Widdin, 1365-1369.♦ Lewis renewed both these conquests, and made others. Halicz was not only won again, but was enlarged by the neighbouring principality of Vladimir. The great day of Hungary was contemporary with the great day of Servia, but it was a longer day, and Hungary profited greatly by the fall of Servia. ♦1356.♦ While Lewis annexed Dalmatia, he also at various times established his supremacy over Bosnia and the Rouman principalities. That Lewis was king of Poland by a personal union did not affect Hungarian geography. ♦Red Russia restored to Poland, 1390.♦ But the separation of the crowns at his death led presently to the restoration of the Red Russian provinces to Poland. ♦Pledging of Zips, 1412.♦ Somewhat later, under Sigismund, a territory within the Hungarian border, part of the county of Zips or Czepusz, was pledged to Poland, and continued to be held by that power.

Meanwhile the Ottoman was on his march to overthrow Hungary as well as its neighbours, though the position of the Magyar kingdom made it the last to be devoured and the first to be delivered. The Turkish inroads as yet barely grazed the strictly Hungarian frontier. ♦First Turkish invasion. 1391.♦ The first Turkish invasion of Hungary, the first Turkish exaction of tribute from Wallachia, came in the same year in which Sigismund established his supremacy over Bosnia. ♦Battle of Nikopolis. 1396.
Campaign of Huniades 1443.
Battle of Varna. 1444.♦ The defeat of Nikopolis confirmed the Turkish supremacy in Wallachia, a supremacy which was again won for Hungary in the great campaign of Huniades, and was again lost at Varna. ♦Disputes for Dalmatia.♦ Meanwhile the full possession of Dalmatia did not outlive the reign of Lewis. Henceforth Hungary is merely one competitor among others in the ceaseless shiftings of the Dalmatian frontier.

Later in the fifteenth century came another day of Hungarian greatness under the son of Huniades, Matthias Corvinus. ♦1477.
1485.♦ Its most distinguishing feature was the extension of the Magyar power to the west, over Bohemia and its dependencies, and even over the Austrian archduchy. ♦1467.♦ In the south-eastern lands Wallachia and Moldavia again became Hungarian dependencies. ♦1463.♦ Jayce was won back from the Turk, now lord of Bosnia, and, Belgrade being now Hungarian, the frontier towards the Ottoman was fixed till the time of his great advance northwards.

The first stage of Ottoman conquest in Hungary, as distinguished from mere ravage, was the taking of Belgrade. ♦Battle of Mohacz. 1526.♦ With the battle of Mohacz, five years later, the separate history of Hungary ends. ♦Turkish occupation of the greater part of Hungary. 1552-1687.♦ That victory, followed by the disputes for the Hungarian crown between an Austrian archduke and a Transsilvanian palatine, enabled Suleiman to make himself master of the greater part of the kingdom, especially of the part which was most thoroughly Magyar. From the middle of the sixteenth century till the latter years of the seventeenth, the Austrian Kings of Hungary kept only a fragment of Croatia, including Zagrab or Agram, and a strip of north-western Hungary, including Pressburg. The whole central part of the kingdom passed under the immediate dominion of the Turk, and a Pasha ruled at Buda. Besides this great incorporation of Hungarian soil, the Turk held three vassal principalities within the dominions of Lewis the Great. ♦Tributary principalities: Transsilvania, Wallachia, Moldavia. 1497.♦ One was Transsilvania, increased by a large part of north-eastern Hungary; the second was Wallachia; the third was Moldavia, which began to be tributary late in the fifteenth century. The Rouman lands became more and more closely dependent on the Turk, who took on him to name their princes. ♦1606.♦ Indeed, one might for a while add the Austrian kingdom of Hungary itself as a fourth vassal state, as it paid tribute to the Turk into the seventeenth century. ♦The Rouman lands disputed between Poland and the Turk.♦ For the superiority of the Rouman principalities an endless struggle went on between Poland and the Turk. At last the same Slavonic power stepped in to deliver Hungary and Austria also. ♦Battle of Vienna. 1683.♦ With the overthrow of the Turk before Vienna began the reaction of Christendom against Islam which has gone on to our own day.

The wars which follow answer to the wars of independence in Servia and Greece in so far as the Turk was driven out of a Christian land. They differ in this, that the Turk was driven out of Greece and Servia to the profit of Greece and Servia themselves, while he was driven out of Hungary to the profit of the Austrian king. ♦Peace of Carlowitz. 1699.♦ The first stage of the work, the war which was ended by the Peace of Carlowitz, won back nearly all Croatia and Slavonia, and all Hungary proper, except the land of Temeswar between Danube, Theiss, and Maros. ♦Incorporation of Transsilvania. 1713.♦ Transsilvania became a dependency of the Hungarian kingdom, with which it was presently incorporated. Wallachia and Moldavia remained under Turkish supremacy. ♦Peace of Passarowitz. 1718.♦ The next war, ended by the Peace of Passarowitz, fully restored the Hungarian kingdom as part of Christendom. The Turk kept only a small part of Croatia. All Slavonia and the banat of Temeswar were won back; the frontier was even carried south of the Save, so as to take in a small strip of Bosnia and a great part of Servia, as also the Lesser Wallachia, the old banat of Severin. Thus, while the first stage delivered Buda, the second delivered Belgrade. But the next war, ended by the Peace of Belgrade, largely undid the work. ♦Losses by the Peace of Belgrade. 1739.♦ The frontier fell back to the point at which it stayed till our own day. From the mouth of the Unna to Orsovo, the Save and the Danube became the frontier. Belgrade, and all the land south of those rivers, passed again to the Turk, and Little Wallachia became again part of a Turkish dependency. ♦Final loss of Belgrade. 1789-1791.♦ At a later stage of the century Belgrade was again delivered and again lost.

The later acquisitions of the House of Austria were made in the character of Hungarian kings, but they did not lead to any enlargement of the Hungarian kingdom. Thus the claim to the Austrian acquisitions made at the first and third partitions of Poland, rested solely on the two Hungarian occupations of Red Russia. ♦Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ Under the softened forms of Galicia and Lodomeria, the Red Russian lands of Halicz and Vladimir, together with part of Poland itself, became a new kingdom of the House of Habsburg, as the greater part of the territory thus won still remains. ♦Acquisition of Bukovina. 1776-1786.♦ Between the two partitions the new kingdom was increased by the addition of Bukovina, the north-western corner of Moldavia, which was claimed as an ancient part of the Transsilvanian principality. It was again only in its Hungarian character that the House of Habsburg could make any claim to Dalmatia. ♦Dalmatia.♦ Certainly no Austrian duke had ever reigned over Dalmatia, Red Russia, or the Rouman principalities. Yet in the present dual arrangement of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy the so-called triple kingdom of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia, is divided between the rule of Pest and the rule of Vienna. Galicia also counts to the Austrian, and not to the Hungarian, division of the monarchy. All this is perhaps in harmony with the generally anomalous character of the power of which they form part. ♦Spizza. 1878.♦ The port of Spizza has been added to the Dalmatian kingdom. ♦Bosnia and Herzegovina.♦ It is hard to say in which of his many characters the Hungarian King and Austrian Archduke holds the lands of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of which the Treaty of Berlin confers on him, not the sovereignty, but the administration. They might have been claimed by the Hungarian king in his ancient character of King of Rama. But the formal aspect of the transaction would seem rather to be that he has, like his predecessors in the sixteenth century, become the man of the Turk.

After the restoration of the Lesser Wallachia to the Turk and the addition of Bukovina to Galicia, the geographical history of the Rouman principalities parts off wholly from that of Hungary, and will be more fittingly treated in another section.

§ 8. The Ottoman Power.

Last among the powers which among them supplanted the Eastern Empire, comes the greatest and most terrible of all, that which overthrew the Empire itself and most of the states which arose out of its ruins, and which stands distinguished from all the rest by its abiding possession of the Imperial city. This is the power of the Ottoman Turks. ♦Their special character as Mahometans.♦ They stand distinguished from all the other invaders of the European mainland of the Empire by being Mahometan invaders. The examples of Bulgaria and Hungary show that Turanian invaders, as such, are not incapable of being received into European fellowship. This could not be in the case of a Mahometan power, bound by its religion to keep its Christian subjects in the condition of bondmen. The Ottomans could not, like the Bulgarians, be lost in the greater mass of those whom they conquered. ♦Preservation of the subject nations.♦ But this very necessity helped in some measure to preserve the national being of the subject nations. Greeks, Servians, Bulgarians, have under Ottoman rule remained Greeks, Servians, and Bulgarians, ready to begin their national career afresh whenever the time for independence should come. ♦Comparison with the Saracen power in Spain.♦ The dominion of the Turk in Eastern Europe answers, as a Mahometan dominion, to the dominion of the Saracen in Western Europe. But in everything, save the mere reckoning of years, it has been far more abiding. The Mahometan dominion in southern Spain did indeed last two hundred years longer than Mahometan dominion has yet lasted in any part of Eastern Europe. But the Saracen power in the West began to fall back as soon as it was established, and its last two hundred years were a mere survival. The Ottomans underwent no considerable loss of territory till more than four centuries and a half after their first appearance in Asia, till more than three centuries after their passage into Europe. Constantinople has been Ottoman sixty years longer than Toledo was Saracen.

The Ottoman, possessor of the Eastern Rome, does in a rough way represent the Eastern Roman in the extent of his dominion. The dominions and dependencies of the Sultans at the height of their power took in, in Eastern Europe, in Asia, and in Africa, nearly all that had formed part of the Empire of Justinian, with a large territory, both in Europe and Asia, which Justinian had not held. Justinian held nothing north of the Danube; Suleiman held, as sovereign or as overlord, a vast dominion from Buda to Azof. On the other hand, no part of the dominions of Justinian in Western Europe, save one city for one moment, ever came under Ottoman rule. The Eastern Empire in the year 800 was smaller than even the present reduced dominion of the Turk. The Eastern Empire, at its height in the eleventh century, held in Europe a dominion far smaller than the dominion of the Turk in the sixteenth century, far larger than his dominion now. But in the essential feature of Byzantine geography, the possession of Constantinople and of the lands on each side of the Bosporos and Hellespont, the Ottoman Sultan took the place of the Eastern Emperor, and as yet he keeps it.

The history of the Eastern Empire, and that of the Ottomans in connexion with it, was largely affected by the movements of the Mongols in the further East. Mongolian pressure weakened the Seljuk Turks, and so allowed the growth of the Nicene Empire. Mongolian invasions also led indirectly to the growth of the Ottoman power, and at a later time they gave it its greatest check. ♦Origin of the Ottomans.♦ The Ottomans grew out of a Turkish band who served the Seljuk Sultan against the Mongols. As his vassals, they began to be a power in Asia and to harry the coasts of Europe. They passed into Europe, and won a great European dominion far more quickly than they had won their Asiatic dominion. This is the special characteristic of the Ottoman power. Asiatic in everything else, it is geographically European; most of its Asiatic and all its African dominion was won from an European centre. ♦Break-up and reunion of the Ottoman power.♦ Already a power in Europe, but not yet in possession of the Imperial city, the new Ottoman power was for a moment utterly broken in pieces by the second flood of Mongol invasion. That the shattered dominion came together again is an event without a parallel in Eastern history. The restored Ottoman power then won Constantinople, and from Constantinople, as representing the fallen Empire, it won back the lost dominion of the Empire. ♦Its permanence.♦ The permanence of the Ottoman power, when Constantinople was once won, is in no way wonderful. Even the unreclaimed Asiatic, when he was once seated on the throne of the New Rome, inherited his share of Rome’s eternity.