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 4 sufficed to rebuild the empire, to overwhelm the Christians with just retribution for their perfidy, and to capture Constantinople. How could all this be done, and so soon? First, because of the superiority in physical and moral worth of the Ottoman Turks; because they represented a better government than those about them; because the disintegrated peoples of Asia Minor in the south and the conquered Christians in the north had become so impressed with these things that they were ready to fuse with the turks, even to accepting the religion of the latter; and because the clever Ottomans made no difference between born and converted Moslems in preferment; indeed, most of the Grand Viziers have been of Christian or of Jewish birth.

After Constantinople, the Crimea, Greece, Armenia and Kurdistan were taken, while a foothold was gained on the Italian coast at Otranto. Many important conquests now followed—those of Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia and Egypt; this was not only a vast addition, but, what was of infinitely greater moment, gave to the Ottoman Sultan the title of Khalif, for by the conquest of the Mamluks he succeeded to their supremacy over the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, while the last of the Baghdad Khalifs made over to the Ottoman Sultan the symbols of his high office—namely, the cloak and the standard of the Prophet himself. Then came the conquest of Hungary; but when Suleiman the Magnificent would take Vienna, his siege came to naught, and the Ottoman Empire met its first rebuff. Still, its conquests increased, as a rule, in spite of a second check—this time at Lepanto; Cyprus, Tunis, and Georgia were added to the