Nor were the Osmanlis, until the reign of Bayezid, one hundred years later, the strongest military and political factor in Asia Minor. The Turkish emirates of Sarukhan, of Kermian, and especially of Karaman, could match the Osmanlis in extent of territory and ability to defend it.[36] We shall see later how the Osmanlis conquered their Anatolian neighbours by a prestige won in Europe and by soldiers gathered in Europe. One of the principal tasks of this book is to correct the fundamental misconception of the foundation of the Ottoman Empire, which has persisted to this day.[37] It seems to be a pretty generally accepted idea that the Osmanlis were a Turkish Moslem race, who invaded Asia Minor, and, having established themselves there, pushed on into Europe and overthrew the Byzantine Empire. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Osmanlis were masters of the whole Balkan peninsula before they had subjugated Asia Minor as far as Konia! Osman and his people have no history until they come in contact with the Byzantines. The Ottoman chroniclers, and the Byzantine and European historians who have followed them, give at some length the early conquests of Osman. But the accounts are fantastical, obscure, and frequently contradictory. It is the story of a village chieftain, who succeeded in imposing his authority upon his neighbours over an increasingly wider area, until a small state was formed. But it is not the same story as that of the other emirs who built up independent states in the old Seljuk provinces. For Osman founded his principality in territory contiguous to Constantinople, and by attacking [Illustration: EMIRATE OF OSMAN] and conquering the last fragments of the Byzantine possessions along and in the hinterland of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora. Osman’s opponents were all Christians. Had he attacked his Turkish neighbours first, had he gone south and east instead of north and west, in building up his state, there would never have been a new race born to change the history of the world.