With this summary of the story of the Balkans we shall proceed to give in more detail its recent history, comprising the wars of 1876–78 and of 1912–13. As for the relations between Turkey and the Balkan peninsula, it is well known how the Asiatic conquerors known as Turks, having subdued Asia Minor, invaded Europe in 1355, overran most of the Balkan country, and attacked and took Constantinople in 1453. Servia, Bosnia, Albania, and Greece were added to the Ottoman Empire, which subdued half of Hungary and received its first check on land before the walls of Vienna in 1529, and on the ocean at the battle of Lepanto in 1571. Vienna was again besieged by the Turks in 1683, and was then saved from capture by Sobieski of Poland and Charles of Lorraine. This was the end of Turkish advance in Europe. Since that date it has been gradually yielding to European assault, Russia beginning its persistent attacks upon Turkey about the middle of the eighteenth century. At that time Turkey occupied a considerable section of Southern Russia, but by the end of the century much of this had been regained. In 1812 Russia won that part of Moldavia and Bessarabia which lies beyond the Pruth, in 1828 it gained the principal mouth of the Danube, and in 1829 it crossed the Balkans and took Adrianople. The independence of Greece was acknowledged the same year. The next important event in the history of Turkey in Europe was the Crimean War, the story of which has been told in an earlier chapter. The chief results of it were a weakening of Russian influence in Turkey, the abolition of the Russian protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia (united in 1861 as the principality of Roumania), and the cession to Turkey of part of Bessarabia. Turkey also came out of the Crimean War weakened and shorn of territory. But the Turkish idea of government remained unchanged, and in twenty years’ time Russia was fairly goaded into another war. In 1875 Bosnia rebelled in consequence of the insufferable oppression of the Turkish tax-collectors. The brave Bosnians maintained themselves so sturdily in their mountain fastnesses that the Turks almost despaired of subduing them, and the Christian subjects of the Sultan in all quarters became so stirred up that a general revolt was threatened. THE BULGARIAN HORRORS The Turks undertook to prevent this in their usual fashion. Irregular troops were sent into Christian Bulgaria with orders to kill all they met. It was an order to the Mohammedan taste. The defenseless villages of Bulgaria were entered and their inhabitants slaughtered in cold blood, till thousands of men, women, and children had been slain.