The most important changes were in 1870, when conscription was introduced, and in 1872, when universal service was proposed in its place. The military virtues of the rank and file and the devotion of the officers were conspicuously displayed in the Spanish-American War of 1898, and it cannot be claimed even for the Germans of 1870 that they fired so coolly and accurately as did the defenders of S. Juan and El Caney. TURKISH ARMY 98. The writers who have left the most complete and trustworthy contemporary accounts of the Turkish army in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it reached the height of its most characteristic development, are Bertrandon de la Brocquiere, equerry to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and Francesco Filelfo of Tolentino. Bertrandon, a professional soldier, visited Palestine in 1432, and returned overland in 1433, traversing the Balkan Peninsula by the main trade-route from Constantinople to Belgrade. He wrote an account of his journey for Philip: see _Early Travels in Palestine_, translated and edited by T. Wright (London, 1848). Filelfo served as secretary to the Venetian _baylo_ at Constantinople, and recorded his observations in a series of letters (see FILELFO). Both ascribe the military superiority of the Turks over the nations of western Europe to two facts--firstly to their possession of a well-organized standing army, an institution unknown elsewhere, and secondly to their far stricter discipline, itself a result of their military organization and of the moral training afforded by Islam.