GREATEST EXTENT OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE.
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The essentially military constitution of the empire also insured its decay. History continually repeats the lesson that power founded by the sword and depending merely upon the sword for its maintenance can never be firm and permanent. The Turks were formidable so long s they could reap a harvest of plunder from the states and countries around them, but when a stop was put to their career of conquest by the increased power of their neighbors and they had to act upon the defensive the deficiency of their own resources was soon apparent, and would ere this have been blotted irreparably from the list of European kingdoms but for the intervention of selfish interests.
