Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/264

 230 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIRE thus advance further from evening to daybreak than others in three days. It is by these forced marches that they have succeeded in surprising and completely defeating the Christians in their different wars.' 1 The army which Mahomet commanded was not merely endued with the fatalism and confidence of an ordinary army of Islam ; it was engaged upon a work in which many generations of Moslems had longed to take a part. The prophet himself was represented in the Sacred Traditions as holding converse with Allah respecting the capture of New Borne, and was told that the Great Day of Judgment would not come before Constantinople had been captured by the sons of Isaac. On another occasion Mahomet declared that 'the best prince is he who shall capture Constantinople, and his the best army.' The inspired words had filled his immediate followers with the determination to capture the city. The Arabs attempted the task no less than seven times. At the third, in 672, they were accompanied by the aged Eyoub, who in his youth had been the standard- bearer and favourite of the Prophet. The huge army had sat down before the city during seven years, sowing the fields on the neighbouring coasts and gathering in the harvest, but determined to win the reward which Mahomet had promised to those who should capture the New Eome. Eyoub 's death before its walls and the failure in these Arab attempts of the largest and most powerful army and fleet which Islam could ever collect had not rendered the words of the Prophet void. The sacred promise still held good and served to stimulate every soldier to increased exertion. Seven centuries had passed since the long struggle against the Arabs, in which the Queen City saved European civilisa- tion, and now, once again in the fulness of time, that which the early Moslems had desired to see was within the reach of those who fought under a leader who bore the same 1 Early Travels in Palestine, p. 365. La Brocquiere made a careful study of the Turkish methods of fighting and of how they might be defeated by a combination of European troops among which he would have placed from England a thousand men at arms and ten thousand archers. As his visit was in 1433, it is not improbable that Agincourt was in his mind.