Note 113 — Chapter V · THE CRADLE OF THE OSMANLIS

“Estimates of population,” observes Marriott, “are notoriously untrustworthy, but it seems probable that at a time when Henry VIII ruled over about four million people the subjects of Sultan Suleiman numbered fifty million.” The Eastern Question, p. 89 (Oxford, 1917).

“After the conquest of Constantinople,” writes Finlay, “the Ottomans became the most dangerous conquerors who have acted a part in European history since the fall of the western Roman Empire. Their Dominion, at the period of its greatest extension, stretched from Buda on the Danube to Bussora on the Euphrates. On the north, their frontiers were guarded against the Poles by the fortress of Kamenietz, and against the Russians by the walls of Azof; while to the south the rock of Aden secured their authority over the southern coast of Arabia, invested them with power in the Indian Ocean, and gave them the complete command of the Red Sea. To the east, the Sultan ruled the shores of the Caspian, from the Kour to the Tenek; and his dominion stretched westward along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, where the farthest limits of the regency of Algiers, beyond Oran, meet the frontiers of the empire of Morocco. By rapid steps the Ottomans completed the conquest of the Seljouk sultans in Asia Minor, of the Mamlouk sultans in Syria and Egypt, of the fierce corsairs of northern Africa, expelled the Venetians from Cyprus, Crete, and the Archipelago, and drove the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem from the Levant, to find a shelter at Malta. It was no vain boast of the Ottoman sultan that he was the master of many kingdoms, the ruler of three continents, and the lord of two seas.” History of Greece, Vol. V, p. 6 (Oxford, 1877).