The Independent Review (Volume 4) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE STORY OF KARAGEORGE WEST EUROPE has, for the most part, forgotten that Servia was once a great Empire. But the Serb has never forgotten it. He has treasured the memory of it, handed down its glories in song, dreamed dreams of it, and seen in visions the day when the Serb shall have his own again; for in the fourteenth century the Serb Tsar swayed almost the whole of the Balkan peninsula, and the heart of his empire was in what is now perhaps the most unhappy spot in all Europe, the present vilayet of Kosovo. The coming of the Turk brought the fall of the Serb. Upon the fatal field of Kosovo, in June, 1389, was fought the battle which not only sealed the doom of the Balkan peoples, but affected us all, even to the present day. It established the Turk in Europe. For another century, the Serbs were ruled by native princes under" Turkish suzerainty; but the hand of the conqueror was upon them, The castle of Smederovo still stands on the banks of the Danube, a grim monument of Servia's expiring efforts. George Brankovich, its builder, the last of the native rulers, died on the battle-field in 1487; Servia surrendered to the Turks, and was blotted out from among the nations. Lying, as it does, on the highway between Hungary and Constantinople, Servia suffered even more bitterly than did the other conquered peoples. In the sixteenth century, the Sultan's armies traversed the land almost yearly; and a contemporary traveller describes the people as poor captives, not one of whom dared lift his head. Plundered to feed their conquerors, and deprived of weapons, they were entirely at the mercy of the local pasha and the Janissaries, who were let loose upon them. The weakwere slaves; the bolder, reckless and desperate, turned brigand, took to the forests and mountains, and li...