The force which had thus shown its quality only five years previously was by far the most important division under Mahomet’s command. The ablest, bravest, most terrible portion of the army of the arch-enemy of Christendom was composed exclusively from Christian families. The most formidable instrument employed by the Turks for the conquest of the Christians of South-eastern Europe and for attacking the nations of the West was formed of boys born of Christian parents, enslaved, forcibly converted to a hostile religion, who yet became devotedly attached to the slavery to which they had been condemned. It was their boast in after years that they had never fled from an enemy, and the boast was not an idle one. The remainder of the Turkish forces which may be classed among regular troops came from all parts occupied by the Turks but mainly from Anatolia. Their organisation, discipline, and powers of endurance probably made them as formidable an army as any which a European power of the period could have put into the field. The Bashi Bazouks constituted an undisciplined mob who were good enough to be employed where numbers and wild courage were of use in annoying or weakening the enemy. La Brocquière states that the ‘innumerable host’ of these irregulars took the field with no other weapon than their curved swords or scimitars. ‘Being,’ says Philelphus, ‘under no restraint, they proved the most cruel scourge of a Turkish invasion.’ In speaking of the Turkish host it must not be forgotten that in 1453 hardly any European power can be said to have possessed a standing army. It is with no surprise, therefore, that we note that contemporary European writers from the West speak with astonishment of the discipline which prevailed. ‘Their obedience to superiors,’ says La Brocquière, ‘is boundless; none dare disobey even when their lives are at hazard, and it is chiefly owing to their steady submission that such great exploits have been performed and such conquests gained.’ The same writer bears testimony to the great mobility of the Turkish army. ‘Ten thousand Turks on the march will make less noise than a hundred men in our Christian armies. In their ordinary marches they only walk, but in forced marches they always gallop, and, as they are lightly armed, they will thus advance further from evening to daybreak than others in three days. It is by these forced marches that they have succeeded in surprising and completely defeating the Christians in their different wars.’[222]