The Moldavian nobles, however, and their men-at-arms, made an heroic stand against Mohammed’s army; their cannon did such execution that the Janitschars threw themselves on the ground to escape the rain of projectiles. The Sultan was forced to lead his men in person to save the day. So stout was the stand the Christians made that the combat lasted far into the night. When most of his nobles had been slaughtered Stephen withdrew from this battle, which was fought at Razboieni, July 24, 1476. After he had been pursued to the forest country in the north of Moldavia, he was finally forced to withdraw to the inaccessible mountain regions. Here, with characteristic enterprise, he gathered together a second army, and the Turks, who already were exhausted by the strenuous campaign in a country ill provided with food, and ravaged as they were by disease, were easily driven back across the Danube. After this success Wallachia was invaded the same year by the Moldavian Boyars, who were joined by the Transylvanians under their new leader, Bathory. The pro-Turkish prince of the country was dethroned, and Vlad, the mighty hammerer of the Turks, now again an ally of Stephen, was replaced by the latter on the throne; but the veteran leader did not long survive his restoration. He died in December, 1477, near Bucharest, in a fight with the Turks, who attacked him as soon as Stephen had withdrawn to Moldavia. He was buried in a monastery founded by him at Snagov, but no inscription marked the resting place of the Christian champion. Mohammed’s own reign was closed on the 3d of May, 1481, in Anatolia. For some time, owing to his excessive weight, campaigning had been difficult and painful for him. In the latter years of his life he was often so incapacitated by gout that he was compelled to give up more than one important warlike expedition, and it was to this disease that his death was due. During his reign the Turkish Empire acquired much new territory; Anatolia was occupied as far as the northern reaches of the Euphrates, and in Europe the Balkan peninsula was made subject to his arms as far as the Danube. Many successful expeditions were also made far beyond these limits, both on the east and on the west. But two great obstacles to Turkish advance he failed to overcome: Rhodes and Belgrade, the latter stronghold commanding the Danube, while the former was the key to the Ægean. VI SELIM AND SOULIMAN