The Turkish power now began to wane, and its forces gradually declined in strength during the wars with Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One by one the provinces of the Turkish Empire became detached from Turkish rule and proclaimed their independence under their own sovereigns. In this way arose the independent kingdoms of Greece, Servia, and Roumania, and the principality of Bulgaria (under Turkish suzerainty), all of them during the present century. Eastern Roumelia is still in the hands of the Turks, but she has her own administration. The Turkish Empire—once the terror of Christendom—is now fighting for very existence, and to retain her hold over the small remnants of her European possessions. Russia, who considers herself the champion of the Greek-Catholic Church in the East, would by this time have undoubtedly seized the lands of the “Sick Man” on the Bosphorus, if it were not that the ambition of other Powers has secured a frail but fleeting life for him. Since, however, Turkey is determined not to let go of her European possessions without a stiff fight for them, and since no one can foretell what far-reaching consequences such a war would entail, we must not skip her over, but must give a short account of her Army as well as of the others. Turkey has now, since the disbanding of the Janissaries (who formed the Sultan body-guard, of 12,000 men at first, and later of 100,000), organised her Army on a purely European footing. The officer who is chiefly responsible for this organisation, and who was sent for that purpose to Turkey, at the request of the then Sultan Mahmoud II., from 1835 to 1839, is no less a personage than Field-Marshal Count Moltke. Since his time, the Turkish Army has improved after every war. Though it is yet by no means equal to that of any of the great Powers, still that is the fault of neither the military system nor yet of the Turkish soldier. The responsibility lies with the confused system of military administration, which deals in the most hopeless and in the worst possible way with the clothing and equipment, and even with the feeding and pay of the Army. [Sidenote: +Terms of Service.+] According to the Law, every able-bodied Mahomedan inhabitant of Turkey is bound to serve in the Army. Christians are exempted on payment of a fine. Service in the “Nizam,” or Active Army, lasts six years, of which the Infantry soldier spends three and the Cavalry and Artilleryman four years with the Colours and the remaining time in the Active Reserve or “Ikhtiat.” After this the soldier joins the Landwehr or “Redif” for eight years, and subsequently six years in the Landsturm or “Muhstafiz.” As a matter of fact, the period of service with the Colours is usually reduced to two years, or three at the outside. [Sidenote: +Organisation.+]