Book Description

Excerpt from The Conquest of Turkey: Or, the Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire, 1877-8 Deeming no apology necessary in offering the present volume to the public, either in respect to its subject or our method of presenting it, our preface is designed simply to invite attention to some facts and features of the work. Early last summer, Dr. L. P. Brockett published an interesting work, "The Cross and the Crescent," as an introduction to a history of the war then but just begun. When the time came for writing the history, however, that gentleman, for reasons of health and the pressure of other engagements, relinquished his purpose. Believing that a concise and reliable history would prove of value and interest to Americans, we have undertaken to compile and write one. It will be observed that we have prefixed the substance of Dr. Brockett's work to our history, omitting only those passages which did not appear strictly germane to an introduction. The first eight chapters and the biographies are abridged from the former work, the succeeding chapters are ours. We do not claim that the work is original in the same sense or to the same extent that we should make a treatise or an essay original; for instance, inasmuch as we were not an eye-witness of the battles or historic events narrated, we have necessarily obtained our facts at secondhand. But, on the other hand, we have not blindly copied or heedlessly followed the accounts of any one authority but have critically examined every accessible newspaper, magazine, pamphlet and book, in which information was to be obtained, comparing one with the others, and, when possible, discriminating between the several correspondents and other writers, and between the stated facts and the opinions and suppositions of each. 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.