Turkey

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 40, 17 June 1915, Page 6

Turkey

CONSTANTINOPLE. Though Constantinople lias never fallen since it was taken in 145.3 by Mohammed 11.. who thus extinguished the Byzantine Empire, it has been twice in dire peril and might have been taken but for outside influence. Russia, in 187 S, was halted by the British fleet when her forces had reached San Stofano. In 1012-113 the Bulgarians were within some thirty miles of the city. However, Constantinople was thrice taken before Mohammed’s time, and in view of the present attack on the Dardanelles-it is significant that sea-power contributed directly "to its downfall on each occasion. In 120:3 the Frankish warriors of flic Fourth Crusade, diverted from their objective in the Holy Band by Vcnetiandntrigne, aided by a \ enetian fleet, under the great blind Doge Dandolo, captured the city, and set ii]> an emperor of their own choosing. Not satisfied with his recognition oi their friendship they captured the city again in 1204, and this time crowned one of their own leaders, Count Baldwin of Flanders, as Emperor of the East. But the Franks of Europe did not support them ; they lacked the seapower to maintain comnnmicutions with the West, and in 1261 Michael Palaeologns, founder of the last lino of Byzantine emperors, was able to overcome the feeble remnant of the giant, mail-clad warriors, who, For a brief space, bad promised to renew the glories of the empire’s halcyon days. (