The long struggle against these barbarians, who menaced Europe, was begun in 1241 by King Henry the Pious at the battle of Lignica. Jan Sobieski, in 1683, struck the decisive blow to Turkish power under the walls of Vienna. Europe could never have developed as it did, had not the bar barian invaders who had overrun Eastern Europe for five hundred years been checked by the victorious resistance of the Poles. In the middle ages the Lithuanians, the last pagan people of Europe, were converted to Christianity by the Poles who introduced the Bible and western civilization into their country.' The Polish people at that time had reached a high state of intellectual development.