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 be sure, but it had ultimately, in the long run, a certain conclusiveness.

Such was the situation in Central Europe. At the beginning of April the Protestant armies were entering Austria and Bavaria by way of Czechoslovakia, while the Catholics were overrunning Denmark and Pomerania. Holland, as already stated, had completely vanished from the map of Europe.

In Italy internal warfare was raging between the parties of Urban and Martin: meanwhile Sicily fell into the hands of the Greek Evzones. The Portuguese occupied Austria and Castile, but lost their own Estramadura; in the South as a whole the war was waged with quite exceptional ferocity.

England had been fighting on Irish soil and then in the colonies. By the beginning of April she held only the coastline of Egypt. The other colonies had been lost, and the settlers killed by the natives. With the aid of the Arabians, Sudanese, and Persian armies the Turks had overwhelmed the entire Balkan region, and had made themselves masters of Hungary, when the schism broke out between the Shiahs and the Sunnis on what was apparently a very important question concerning Ali, the fourth Caliph. Both sects pursued each other from Constantinople to the Carpathians with a zeal and bloodthirstiness which unfortunately also vented itself upon the