448 



THE NATIONAIv GEOGRAPHIC AIAGAZIXE 



it sustained against Macedonians, Per- 

 sians, and Saracens. 



CONSTANTlNOPIvU 



The history of the greatest city of them 

 all has for nearly 2,000 years been the 

 history of the little sea that lies before 

 it. It was founded, a little later than 

 Rome, by seamen from Megara. Always 

 an important center of trade and long 

 accounted one of the strongest cities of 

 antiquity, it was not until Constantine, 

 on that opposite shore of the Bosphorus 

 where Xenophon camped with the rem- 

 nant of his 10,000, conquered his last 

 rival in 324 and became master of the 

 Roman world, that Byzantium achieved 

 its undisputed supremacy. 



As the imperial city of Constantinople 

 it remained for nearly a thousand years 

 the true capital of the western world, the 

 center of fashion, of art, of learning. 



During that long period it was attacked 

 by many an invader from East and West. 

 It resisted them all until 1204, when it 

 fell for a tmie into the power of the 

 Franks and Venetians of the Fourth Cru- 

 sade. The short-lived Latin dynasty was 

 expelled in 1261, but Latins continued in 

 possession of many parts of the Greek 

 world and became the paramount power 

 in the Marmora. 



Their occupation has left its mark to 

 this day in the Romaic Greek language 

 and in the navigating terms of Greeks 

 and Turks alike. The Genoese, obtain- 

 ing a permanent foothold first at Hera- 

 cleia and then in Galata, at the very gates 

 of the capital, gained control of the Bos- 

 phorus, where the ruins of their two 

 castles still exist at the mouth of the 

 Black Sea, and of the Dardanelles. They 

 built a stronghold at the narrowest part 

 of the latter strait, on the Asiatic shore, 

 at the point known today as Chanak 

 Kalesi. 



THE advance; 01^ THE TURKS 



The hold of the Genoese on the Mar- 

 mora was shaken in 1306 by the Grand 

 Company of Catalan mercenaries, orig- 

 inally hired by the emperor Andronicus 

 II to oppose the incursions of the Turks. 

 The Grand Company established itself at 

 Gallipoli and played havoc with the traffic 

 of the strait until it was dispersed in 



1310; but the Turks continued to ad- 

 vance. These nomads of the East whose 

 very name was unknown to the ancients 

 had long been filtering into Asia IMinor. 

 They reached the Marmora in 1326, seiz- 

 ing Nicomedia and establishing their 

 capital at Brusa. 



Thirty years later they crossed the 

 Dardanelles, whence they spread into 

 Thrace, captured Adrianople, and pene- 

 trated the Balkans. After the battle of 

 Aacopolis, in 1396, which made the in- 

 vaders secure against European interfer- 

 ence. Sultan Bajezid I tightened his grip 

 on Constantinople and the Marmora by 

 building forts at Gallipoli and on the Asi- 

 atic shore of the Bosphorus, at its nar- 

 rowest point (see picture, page 439). 



His plans were cut short by the in- 

 vasion of Tamerlane, who nearly anni- 

 hilated the growing power of the Turks. 

 But no later than 1452 the great-grand- 

 son of Bajezid was able to build a second 

 and stronger castle on the European 

 shore of the Bosphorus, only seven miles 

 from Constantinople (see page 439). 



He thus disputed the control of the 

 strait with Greeks and Genoese alike and 

 at the same time established a base for 

 his operations against the doomed city. 

 The next year it fell into his power, and 

 with it the last pretension of the Genoese 

 to control the adjacent waters. To se- 

 cure himself against surprise by sea, Mo- 

 hammed II built another pair of castles 

 at the narrowest part of the Dardanelles. 



Since that time the Marmora, that sto- 

 ried lake of the Greco-Roman world, has 

 been an essentially Turkish lake. But the 

 Turks have never succeeded in giving it 

 a purely Turkish atmosphere. Greek it 

 was from the beginning of time and 

 Greek it remains in great part today. 

 The language of the towns, the cultiva- 

 tion of the vineyards, the navigation of 

 the sea, are after 500 years of subjection 

 more Greek than Turkish. 



Since the Balkan war, accordingly, the 

 Turks have attempted to remedy this 

 state of afifairs — by the simple process of 

 expelling their Greek neighbors. From 

 the European coast of the Marmora they 

 have driven whole villages into exile and 

 seized their lands, on the pretense that 

 the Turks in Macedonia were so treated 

 bv the Hellenic authorities. 



