History repeats itself, but never in the same way. Events today seem likely to result, ultimately, in one regional power gathering in all the artificial countries cobbled together after WW1 by the British and French, and that regional power will be Iran or Turkey, and since it all was once a part of the Ottoman Empire, who made the fatal mistake of being on the wrong side in WW1, it is likely that at some point in the not too distant future the world will see a rebirth of the Ottoman Empire. But will we again see Ottoman galleys set out from the Golden Horn to ravage the coasts of Greece and Italy in search of booty and slaves? Possibly not. As stated above, history repeats but never in the same way.

Wild horsemen came from out the East
Faith Muslim, Mongol born
And settled near the Christian beast
Hard by the Golden Horn
Constantinople, stout stone walls
A thousand years it stood
Until bombards and great stone balls
Demolished them for good
The Eastern Empire of Rome
Had seen its sorrowed day
The place Justinian called home
Was gone and gone to stay
An empire rose in its wake
Atlantic to the Horn
The Med was now a Muslim lake
With Europe red and torn
Yet still the dream the Turk holds fast
Empire softly calls
To see again the storied past
From Constantinople’s walls