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WHY CHRISTIAN ATTEMPTS FAILED 177 in 1438, but with much more caution, since he had been through Asia Minor and had seen the Turks. Nevertheless, this Western traveller states that, though he would not depre- ciate them, he is ' convinced that it would be no difficult matter for troops well mounted and well led to defeat them,' and, in regard to himself, he adds, ' I declare that with one half of their numbers I should never hesitate to attack them.' 1 He fully realised, as he explains again and again, that their victories had been gained by their enormous superiority in numbers, but though he was very far from despising them as soldiers, he regards them individually as greatly inferior to the soldiers of Western states. His estimate of the inferiority of the Turk was shared by his countrymen and Western statesmen generally, 2 but they did not recognise to the same extent as he did how great and ever increasing was the host which had to be fought. Nor did they recognise, as did he, the wonderful mobility of the Turkish army. It was the same error of forgetting their mobility which brought disaster upon Hunyadi at Varna and at Cossovo-pol. While the first mistake was in underrating the might of the enemy in regard to numbers, warlike spirit, and mobility, the Western powers blundered also in dividing their forces. The sermon before the pope already referred to, on New Year's Day 1452, called for international concerted action to defend Constantinople, Cyprus, and Ehodes. The mistake was in trying to do too much. On many occasions, as we have seen, the forces sent against the Turk were divided, and an army which might have been sufficiently strong to strike an effective blow against one of the Turkish divisions was defeated in detail when split into two or three, to be sent against Saracens, or to the aid of the military knights, as well as against the Turks. The one chance of safety for Constantinople now lay in sumenda erunt spolia sine sudore et sanguine.' Oratio Komae habita anno 1452 de passagio Cruce signatorum contra Mahometanos suscipiendo. Edita apud Keynaldum [by Dr. Dethier]. 1 La Brocquiere, 366. 2 Qprjvos, line 720. N