Turkey Author:Stanley Lane-Poole 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: ACROSS THE HELLESPONT. (1326-1380.) When Orkhan came to the throne, one of the chief strongholds of the Greeks in Asia had fallen : the rest were not slow to... more » succumb to the young vigour of the Turks. Nicomedia followed Brusa in the same year (1326). The Emperor Andronicus marched in 1329 against the invaders, but was wounded, and his camp at Pelecanon fell into the hands of Orkhan; Nicaea surrendered in 1330, and in 1336 Pergamon, the capital of Mysia, was taken from the prince of Karasi and added to the Ottoman realm. The people of Nicaea were permitted to emigrate and take with them all their goods, archives, and relics, and such moderation greatly strengthened the position of the conqueror. The little clan of shepherds, who had been graciously permitted to settle in the kingdom of the Seljuks, had now possessed themselves, in two generations, of the whole of the north-west corner of Asia Minor, where they commanded the eastern shore of the Bosphorus. Here for the moment they were content to rest. The Greek emperor was glad to make peace, and the Turks were anxious to gaintime to organize their new dominions and prepare for the great struggle which they knew was before them. For twenty years tranquility reigned undisturbed throughout the land of the Turks, and during these twenty years Orkhan and his elder brother Ala-ud- dln, the first Turkish Vezir,1 laboured at the organization of the State and the army. The insignia of sovereignty were now assumed : Orkhan issued money in his own name as independent Sultan. But the assumption of royal dignity could be but an empty form unless means were taken to defend it against the hostile forces that lay all around. To this end Ala-ud-dln, who was the true founder of the Ottoman Empire in so far as it depended upon military organiz...« less