Both Mesopotamia and Anatolia are lacking in indispensable raw materials which they must acquire by trade. For them, Syria meant access to international trade. Syria possesses ports where merchandise from far-away countries is received and exchanged for whatever Asia has to offer. Hence, all political development in the Near East tends toward the domination of Syria by its neighbours. The interplay of the Egyptians, the Mitannians with their Hurrian partisans, and the Hittites, determined the fate of Syria in the fourteenth century. This chapter first deals with the war between Tushratta of the Mitannians, and the Shuppiluliumash of the Hittites. Then, it discusses the first and second Syrian wars of Shuppiluliumash. The first war was with Tushratta in which the Mittanni king was defeated. In the second war, he removed the Hurrian city-rulers who had been the mainstay of Mitannian domination and replaced them with men of his own choice. The chapter also discusses the Hurrian War of Shuppiluliumash.

This chapter deals with the history of Anatolia from the period of Shuppiluliumash till the Egyptian war of Muwatallish. Shuppiluliumash had already, as crown prince, succeeded in stabilizing the situation during the later part of the reign of Tudkhaliash, his father. He had led the Hittite armies skilfully and successfully and had restored the frontier, particularly in the north and in the east. When Murshilish, son of Shuppiluliumash, ascended the throne, his efforts in the first ten years were concentrated upon the reassertion of Hittite power, mainly in Asia Minor. Under him, the empire spread from the Lebanon and the Euphrates in the south to the mountains of Pontus in the north and to the western reaches of Asia Minor. As field-marshal of the Hittite armies Khattushilish, the younger brother of Murshilish, claims to have conducted numerous campaigns for his brother, both offensively and defensively.