ABSTRACT
It is a useful experiment to turn the map of the EuroAsian land mass on its side, and view the terrain from the east. With the familiar shapes now lost, Europe appears as a mere appendix to a huge and gradually narrowing peninsula. When the sites of battles and sieges are marked on the ground, the quarrels of the Spanish, French, Dutch, Germans and Danes take on an almost peripheral character, and the eye is drawn more and more to the Turkish Empire, as the epicentre of shock waves whose furthest tremors may be traced as far as the Atlantic in one direction and Moghul India in the other.
