It was in the reign of Sigismund that the Turks first regularly invaded
Hungary; and the young Hunyadi soon distinguished himself by a series of
victories over the Moslems. To him Europe is indebted for the check he
gave the Turks. He forced them to relinquish Servia and Bosnia, and in
his time both provinces were placed under the vassalage of Hungary. We
may go further and say that had Hunyadi's plans for hurling back the
Moslem invaders been seconded by the other Christian powers, we should
not have the Eastern Question upon our hands in this our day. But, alas!
all the solicitations of this great patriot were met with short-sighted
indifference by the Courts of Europe. It is true that the Diet of
Ratisbon, summoned by the Emperor Frederick, voted 10,000 men-at-arms
and 30,000 infantry to assist in repelling the Turks; and it is true
that the Pope in those days was anti-Turkish, and vowed on the Gospels
to use every effort, even to the shedding of his blood, to recover
Constantinople from the infidels. The old chronicles give a curious
account of the monk Capestrano, who, bearing the cross that the Pope had
blessed, traversed Hungary, Transylvania, and Wallachia, to rouse the
people to the danger that threatened them from the intrusion of the
Moslem into Europe. Special church services were instituted; and at noon
the "Turks' bell" was daily sounded in every parish throughout these
border-lands, when prayers were offered up to arrest the progress of the
common enemy of Christendom.
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