Constantinople

Excerpt from Constantinople "Blessed shall he be who shall take Constantinople," said the Prophet. Many desperate tights were fought and many valiant blows were struck in the endeavor to earn that promised blessing. Eyub, Mohammed's brave companion in arms, perished in the first attempt made by the Arabs to win the capital of the East. The Crusaders took it and got scant blessings, and did more destruction in one week than all other conquerors in twelve centuries or thereabouts; and at last came a successor and namesake of the Prophet himself, Mehemet the Patch, he who of all others is called by the Turks the Conqueror, to this day. Though the whole great empire of the first Constantine had dwindled, in the days of the last of the name, to the narrow limits comprised within the walls of the city, a war of several years' duration was the price paid by Mehemet for the few miles of land that lie between Rumeli Hissar and St. Sophia. Impregnable castles had to be built, vast intrenchments had to be dug, and the invading fleet had to be hauled up high and dry upon the shores of the Bosphorus and taken overland upon wheels to be launched again upon the waters of the Golden Horn. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.