Planted like a bridge between Asia and Europe, the peninsula of Asia Minor has been from the beginning of history a battlefield between the East and the West. Across this bridge the religion, art, and civilisation of the East found their way into Greece; and the civilisation of Greece, under the guidance of Alexander the Macedonian, passed back again across the same bridge to conquer the East and revolutionise Asia as far as the heart of India. Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, have all followed the same route in the many attempts that Asia has made to subdue the West.

The very character of the country has marked it out as a battleground between the Oriental and the European spirit. The great mass of Asia Minor consists of a plateau, 3000 to 5000 feet above sea-level, around which there is a fringe of low-lying coast-land. The plateau is like a continuation of Central Asia, vast, immobile, monotonous. The western coasts on the Aegean sea are full of variety, with a very broken coast-line and long arms of the sea alternating with prominent capes.

In the scenery also, the plateau presents an equally strong contrast to the western coast. The plateau from the Anti-Taurus westwards consists chiefly of great gently undulating plains. The scenery, as a rule, is monotonous and subdued; even the mountains of Phrygia seem not to have the spirit of freedom about them.