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98 ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
came to an end a few years after, Georgia lost its only Christian
support, and together with Armenia lay isolated, a small
Christian community wedged in between hostile Moslem
races on every side.
At this very time, moreover, in the middle of the fifteenth
century, when unity was so necessary, the Georgia of the
Bagratids was divided between the three sons of King
Alexander I into the kingdoms of Karthlia, Kakhetia, and
Imeretia, with five principalities : Mingrelia, Guria, Abkhasia,
Svanetia, and Samzkhe (Meshia). The strength of the country
was thereby seriously reduced, and its divisions and internal
feuds gave its external enemies, especially the Persians and
the Turks, ample opportunities for intrigue.
The history of these centuries is unutterably grim, with its
monotonous, blood-stained chronicles of continual wars,
battles, and destruction, feuds and treacheries, murder and
rapine, and incursions of Turks, Persians, Tatars, and mountain
tribes, attended by the most inhuman massacres. At the
same time the people were crushed by innumerable taxes
which had to be paid to the kings and feudal lords, and which
cut away all chance of prosperity—apart from the ruthless
exactions whenever foreign armies overran the country.
The chief external enemies were three in number : the
Turks in the south-west, the Persians in the south-east, and
the mountain tribes in the north. The Turks occupied the
Chorokh Valley and seized, in the middle of the sixteenth
century, the towns of Akhaltsikh, Ardahan, and Ardanuch ;
the Georgian, i.e. the old Meshian (Moshian) mountain
tribes in those parts, were compelled to embrace the faith of
Islam, and the Turkish language gained a foothold. Guria,
Mingrelia, and Imeretia also became more or less dependent
on the Turks. The Persians exercised suzerainty over
Karthlia and Kakhetia, whose kings were satraps under the
Shah. In order to please their overlord several of the kings
went over to Islam and introduced the Persian alongside of
the Georgian language.
On the other hand, the northern divisions of the country,
Aragva, Svanetia, and Abkhasia, retained their independence.
The mountain tribes in the north acknowledged no masters,
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