The Sultans themselves as well as their ministers were willing to foster the trade which traversed their lands. It left a share of its proceeds in the Turkish treasury. As a matter of fact, commerce between Turkish lands under Mohammedan rule and the west existed only because of the income it brought to the Turkish government. But the Turk could not compete successfully with the Christian in the markets of the world and this proved a barrier to commerce. The significance of the Turkish conquest of the Byzantine Empire is to be found therefore in the fact that it practically cut off land communications between western Europe and eastern Asia. Incentive to western exploration was intensified. Before the fall of Constantinople the discovery of a western sea route to the east was regarded as highly desirable. It now became a necessity. The possibility of reaching the Far East by a voyage through the pillars of Hercules had suggested itself to the active intellect of the Greeks and Romans, yet the incentive to undertake exploration did not acquire intensity until the latter half of the fifteenth century. The Turkish advance into western Asia came, therefore, as a shock whose impact forced trade out of the Mediterranean through the straits of Gibraltar into the wide Atlantic. But there was another important result of the Turk’s conquests in the Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas. The diversion of the eastern trade from European land routes into sea lanes impoverished the German-speaking inhabitants dependent on the Danube artery of continental life. The land on either side of this main highway was blessed with natural wealth, but its treasures had been drained by the Vatican. The reformation, which combined religious and political aspirations, was an excellent opportunity for the chiefs of the small states scattered in the long valley of the great river to pounce upon the landed property owned by the Roman church and establish economic conditions favorable to themselves. The present world relations of Turkey may be summarized by the statement that the country lies squarely in the path of both Teutonic and Slavic advance. A natural course of expansion is leading Germany to the southeast across the Balkan peninsula into Turkey. The extension of frontiers required by Russia likewise impels Slavic conquest of Turkey. Overpopulation in the one case and the need of access to ice-free waters in the other make the contest inevitable. The Teuton is answering the call of the land, the Slav that of climate. In both the problem is mainly economic. At bottom it is the modern phase of the Homeric struggle idealized in the Iliad.