Viscount Grey has been criticized for not understanding the Balkan problem. If his critics understood how complex is the story of the last century in this part of Europe they would withold their strictures. I, at least, do not blame any man for failing to carry in his mind an appreciation of all that the mixed mass of races and religions in the Balkan country have striven and hoped for during the recent past. In this chapter the best that can be promised is an account of the main facts of Balkan history. A more detailed narrative would be confusing to the reader. A failure to mention the subject would leave much unexplained that is essential to an understanding of the origin of the present war. And we shall hardly know how to decide what kind of a peace the future security of Europe demands, if we leave out of consideration the proper disposition to be made of the small states of the Southeast. In 1453 Turkey took Constantinople and began a series of conquests that carried her to the very gates of the city of Vienna. That important stronghold seemed about to fall into her hands in 1683, when an army of Polish and German soldiers came to its rescue in the name of Christianity, drove off the infidels, and wrenched Hungary out of their hands for the benefit of the Austrian power. This struggle proved the highwater mark of Turkish conquest in Europe. From that time to this, wars of reconquest have followed one another, the pagans always playing a losing game. But for a long time all that part of Southeastern Europe that could be reached from the Black Sea was held by the Turks, the part that was easily reached from Germany was held by the Christians, and the part that lay between, a broad belt of hilly country, was continually in dispute. Across it armies fought back and forth, each side winning and losing in turn, but with the general result in favor of the Christians, who slowly pushed back the frontier of their enemies. The region held by the Turks was tenacious of its Christian faith and recognized the religious authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who, Christian though he was, stood under the control of the sultan. The inhabitants suffered many hardships and were reduced to the condition of serfs under Mohammedan masters. The long bondage to their overlords had a peculiar effect on their characters. They came to think it right to use fraud, violence, and subterfuge against their oppressors, and so they employed religion and patriotism to defend the commission of acts which in ordinary situations are considered without the pale of civilized conduct. To this day the Balkan states are not rid of their heritage from these years of moral darkness.