After the scimitar had swept the Greek Empire out of Asia Minor and had cut Spain from Christendom, the crusades and the rise of the Spanish kingdoms had gradually beaten it back.

But while the Saracen was being slowly but surely driven from the western peninsula, the banner of the Crescent in the east was seized by a race with a genius for war inversely proportional to its other gifts.

[Sidenote: The Turks] The Turks, who have never added to the arts of peace anything more important than the fabrication of luxurious carpets and the invention of a sensuous bath, were able to found cannon and to drill battalions that drove the armies of nobler races before them.

From the sack of Constantinople in 1453 to the siege of Vienna in 1529 and even to some extent long after that, the {449} majestic and terrible advance of the janizaries threatened the whole fabric of Europe.
[Sidenote: Selim I, 1512-20] Under Sultan Selim I the Turkish arms were turned to the east and south.

Persia, Kurdistan, Syria and Egypt were crushed, while the title of Caliph, and with it the spiritual leadership of the Mahommetan world, was wrested from the last of the Abassid dynasty.