Excerpt from The Fall of Constantinople, Being the Story of the Fourth Crusade My object is to call attention to the political aspect of the conquest of Constantinople, to point. Out that the empire had fought continuously, and in the main successfully, for one hundred and fifty years against the forces of Asia, and had spent its strength partly in this struggle and partly in educat ing the races which had flowed into the empire, and that it was only when it was struck in the rear that the New Rome was unable to defend itself; that the conquest of the empire was the final blow given after a long series of attacks by ene mies on every side, and that the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders was the cause which brought about the fall of the Roman Empire in the East, and rendered its ultimate capture by the Turks both certain and easy. The conquest of Constantinople was the first great blunder committed by the West in dealing with the Eastern question. That question really means whether Asiatic influences and an Asiatic re. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.