The dream was a mighty one, and proved inspiring largely because it was impersonal. The Emperor stood as the champion, unselfish and devoted, of progress, so far as his age appreciated that much abused term. It was, at least, a reality in respect to the conscious effort on his part to moralize government, and by doing so to contribute to an ideal solidarity of men and races. Yet the task he had assigned himself was too great; and his work remained but an unfinished sketch, soon to be demolished in the troublous and hopeless reigns of his descendants. * * * * * THE OTTOMANS I OSMAN The empire of the Seldjoukian Turks by which the crusading conquests were destroyed, showed no greater powers of endurance than the other creations of Moslem rule; it did not escape the tendency to dismemberment due to the transfer of personal and autocratic control into the hands of rulers of mediocre ability. By the beginning of the fourteenth century the effect of disintegration showed itself plainly and definitely in Western Asia throughout the territory which had been won from the Emperors of Eastern Rome. One of the results of the expansion of the Mongol conquests towards the West was to hasten not only the division among the Seldjouks, but their speedy downfall. Their Sultans found no safety against the pressure of the Mongols on their territories, even though they combined with their Christian neighbors, with whom they had kept up for so long incessant warfare, against a danger which threatened annihilation to all races and peoples in the path of the Mongol hordes from the East. The Turks made peace with the Greeks at Nicæa, and even engaged the help of Frankish mercenary troops, but these counsels of despair did not save them from becoming tributaries to the Mongol rulers of Asia.