FOOTNOTES:
[111] T. Morison, Imperial Rule in India, p. 43 (London, 1899).
[112] Quoted from Arminius Vambéry, Western Culture in Eastern Lands, pp. 305-306 (London, 1906).
[113] A.H. Lybyer, "The Turkish Parliament," Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, Vol. VII., p. 67 (1910).
[114] Vambéry, op. cit., p. 307.
[115] A good account of these liberal movements during the nineteenth century is found in Vambéry, "Freiheitliche Bestrebungen im moslimischen Asien," Deutsche Rundschau, October, 1893; a shorter summary of Vambéry's views is found in his Western Culture in Eastern Lands, especially chap. v. Also, see articles by Léon Cahun, previously noted, in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Générale, Vols. XI. and XII.
[116] Vambéry, supra, p. 332.
[117] Vambéry, La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans, p. 22 (Paris, 1898).
[118] W. Morgan Shuster, The Strangling of Persia, p. xxi (New York, 1912).
[119] Cromer, Political and Literary Essays, pp. 25-28.
[120] E. J. Dillon, "Persia not Ripe for Self-Government," Contemporary Review, April, 1910.
[121] E. Mercier, La Question indigène, p. 220 (Paris, 1901).
[122] "Egypt," No. 1 (1914), p. 6.
[123] Rev. J. P. Jones, "The Present Situation in India," Journal of Race Development, July, 1910.
[124] Dr. T. Madavan Nair, "Caste and Democracy," Edinburgh Review, October, 1918.
[125] Bukhsh, Essays: Indian and Islamic, pp. 213-214 (London, 1912).
[126] I. e., the increase of self-government granted India by Britain as a result of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report.
[127] E. Bevan, "The Reforms in India," The New Europe, January 29, 1920.
[128] Vambéry, La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans, p. 58.
[129] G. W. Bury, Pan-Islam, pp. 202-203 (London, 1919).
[130] The assembly of religious notables.
[131] A. H. Lybyer, "The Turkish Parliament," Proceedings of the American Political Science Association, Vol. VII., pp. 66-67 (1910).
[132] The name of the Persian Parliament.
[133] Shuster, The Strangling of Persia, pp. 240-246.
[134] Ibid., p. 333.
[135] I. e., the British Government of India.
[136] I. e., the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, previously noted.
[137] Lionel Curtis, Letters to the People of India on Responsible Government, pp. 159-160 (London, 1918).
CHAPTER V
NATIONALISM
The spirit of nationality is one of the great dynamics of modern times. In Europe, where it first attained self-conscious maturity, it radically altered the face of things during the nineteenth century, so that that century is often called the Age of Nationalities. But nationalism is not merely a European phenomenon. It has spread to the remotest corners of the earth, and is apparently still destined to effect momentous transformations.
Given a phenomenon of so vital a character, the question at once arises: What is nationalism? Curiously enough, this question has been endlessly debated. Many theories have been advanced, seeking variously to identify nationalism with language, culture, race, politics, geography, economics, or religion. Now these, and even other, matters may be factors predisposing or contributing to the formation of national consciousness. But, in the last analysis, nationalism is something over and above all its constituent elements, which it works into a new and higher synthesis. There is really nothing recondite or mysterious about nationalism, despite all the arguments that have raged concerning its exact meaning. As a matter of fact, nationalism is a state of mind. Nationalism is a belief, held by a fairly large number of individuals, that they constitute a "Nationality"; it is a sense of belonging together as a "Nation." This "Nation," as visualized in the minds of its believers, is a people or community associated together and organized under one government, and dwelling together in a distinct territory. When the nationalist ideal is realized, we have what is known as a body-politic or "State." But we must not forget that this "State" is the material manifestation of an ideal, which may have pre-existed for generations as a mere pious aspiration with no tangible attributes like state sovereignty or physical frontiers. Conversely, we must remember that a state need not be a nation. Witness the defunct Hapsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary, an assemblage of discordant nationalities which flew to pieces under the shock of war.
The late war was a liberal education regarding nationalistic phenomena, especially as applied to Europe, and most of the fallacies regarding nationality were vividly disclosed. It is enough to cite Switzerland—a country whose very existence flagrantly violates "tests" like language, culture, religion, or geography, and where nevertheless a lively sense of nationality emerged triumphant from the ordeal of Armageddon.
So familiar are these matters to the general public that only one point need here be stressed: the difference between nationality and race. Unfortunately the two terms have been used very loosely, if not interchangeably, and are still much confused in current thinking. As a matter of fact, they connote utterly different things. Nationality is a psychological concept or state of mind. Race is a physiological fact, which may be accurately determined by scientific tests such as skull-measurement, hair-formation, and colour of eyes and skin. In other words, race is what people anthropologically really are; nationality is what people politically think they are.
Right here we encounter a most curious paradox. There can be no question that, as between race and nationality, race is the more fundamental, and, in the long run, the more important. A man's innate capacity is obviously dependent upon his heredity, and no matter how stimulating may be his environment, the potential limits of his reaction to that environment are fixed at his birth. Nevertheless, the fact remains that men pay scant attention to race, while nationalism stirs them to their very souls. The main reason for this seems to be because it is only about half a century since even savants realized the true nature and importance of race. Even after an idea is scientifically established, it takes a long time for it to be genuinely accepted by the public, and only after it has been thus accepted will it form the basis of practical conduct. Meanwhile the far older idea of nationality has permeated the popular consciousness, and has thereby been able to produce tangible effects. In fine, our political life is still dominated by nationalism rather than race, and practical politics are thus conditioned, not by what men really are, but by what they think they are.
The late war is a striking case in point. That war is very generally regarded as having been one of "race." The idea certainly lent to the struggle much of its bitterness and uncompromising fury. And yet, from the genuine racial standpoint, it was nothing of the kind. Ethnologists have proved conclusively that, apart from certain palæolithic survivals and a few historically recent Asiatic intruders, Europe is inhabited by only three stocks: (1) The blond, long-headed "Nordic" race, (2) the medium-complexioned, round-headed "Alpine" race, (3) the brunet, long-headed "Mediterranean" race. These races are so dispersed and intermingled that every European nation is built of at least two of these stocks, while most are compounded of all three. Strictly speaking, therefore, the European War was not a race-war at all, but a domestic struggle between closely knit blood-relatives.
Now all this was known to most well-educated Europeans long before 1914. And yet it did not make the slightest difference. The reason is that, in spite of everything, the vast majority of Europeans still believe that they fit into an entirely different race-category. They think they belong to the "Teutonic" race, the "Latin" race, the "Slav" race, or the "Anglo-Saxon" race. The fact that these so-called "races" simply do not exist but are really historical differentiations, based on language and culture, which cut sublimely across genuine race-lines—all that is quite beside the point. Your European may apprehend this intellectually, but so long as it remains an intellectual novelty it will have no appreciable effect upon his conduct. In his heart of hearts he will still believe himself a Latin, a Teuton, an Anglo-Saxon, or a Slav. For his blood-race he will not stir; for his thought-race he will die. For the glory of the dolichocephalic "Nordic" or the brachycephalic "Alpine" he will not prick his finger or wager a groat; for the triumph of the "Teuton" or the "Slav" he will give his last farthing and shed his heart's blood. In other words: Not what men really are, but what they think they are.
At first it may seem strange that in contemporary Europe thought-race should be all-powerful while blood-race is impotent. Yet there are very good reasons. Not only has modern Europe's great dynamic been nationalism, but also nationalism has seized upon the nascent racial concept and has perverted it to its own ends. Until quite recent times "Nationality" was a distinctly intensive concept, connoting approximate identity of culture, language, and historic past. It was the logical product of a relatively narrow European outlook. Indeed, it grew out of a still narrower outlook which had contented itself with the regional, feudal, and dialectic loyalties of the Middle Ages. But the first half of the nineteenth century saw a still further widening of the European outlook to a continental or even to a world horizon. At once the early concept of nationality ceased to satisfy. Nationalism became extensive. It tended to embrace all those of kindred speech, culture, and historic tradition, however distant such persons might be. Obviously a new terminology was required. The keyword was presently discovered—"Race." Hence we get that whole series of pseudo "race" phrases—"Pan-Germanism," "Pan-Slavism," "Pan-Angleism," "Pan-Latinism," and the rest. Of course these are not racial at all. They merely signify nationalism brought up to date. But the European peoples, with all the fervour of the nationalist faith that is in them, believe and proclaim them to be racial. Hence, so far as practical politics are concerned, they are racial and will so continue while the nationalist dynamic endures.
This new development of nationalism (the "racial" stage, as we may call it) was at first confined to the older centres of European civilization, but with the spread of Western ideas it presently appeared in the most unexpected quarters. Its advent in the Balkans, for example, quickly engendered those fanatical propagandas, "Pan-Hellenism," "Pan-Serbism," etc., which turned that unhappy region first into a bear-garden and latterly into a witches' sabbath.
Meanwhile, by the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the first phase of nationalism had patently passed into Asia. The "Young-Turk" and "Young-Egyptian" movements, and the "Nationalist" stirrings in regions so far remote from each other as Algeria, Persia, and India, were unmistakable signs that Asia was gripped by the initial throes of nationalist self-consciousness. Furthermore, with the opening years of the twentieth century, numerous symptoms proclaimed the fact that in Asia, as in the Balkans, the second or "racial" stage of nationalism had begun. These years saw the definite emergence of far-flung "Pan-" movements: "Pan-Turanism," "Pan-Arabism," and (most amazing of apparent paradoxes) "Pan-Islamic Nationalism."
I
Let us now trace the genesis and growth of nationalism in the Near and Middle East, devoting the present chapter to nationalist developments in the Moslem world with the exception of India. India requires special treatment, because there nationalist activity has been mainly the work of the non-Moslem Hindu element. Indian nationalism has followed a course differing distinctly from that of Islam, and will therefore be considered in the following chapter.
Before it received the Western impact of the nineteenth century, the Islamic world was virtually devoid of self-conscious nationalism. There were, to be sure, strong local and tribal loyalties. There was intense dynastic sentiment like the Turks' devotion to their "Padishas," the Ottoman sultans. There was also marked pride of race such as the Arabs' conviction that they were the "Chosen People." Here, obviously, were potential nationalist elements. But these elements were as yet dispersed and unco-ordinated. They were not yet fused into the new synthesis of self-conscious nationalism. The only Moslem people which could be said to possess anything like true nationalist feeling were the Persians, with their traditional devotion to their plateau-land of "Iran." The various peoples of the Moslem world had thus, at most, a rudimentary, inchoate nationalist consciousness: a dull, inert unitary spirit; capable of development, perhaps, but as yet scarcely perceptible even to outsiders and certainly unperceived by themselves.
Furthermore, Islam itself was in many respects hostile to nationalism. Islam's insistence upon the brotherhood of all True Believers, and the Islamic political ideal of the "Imâmât," or universal theocratic democracy, naturally tended to inhibit the formation of sovereign, mutually exclusive national units; just as the nascent nationalities of Renaissance Europe conflicted with the mediæval ideals of universal papacy and "Holy Roman Empire."
Given such an unfavourable environment, it is not strange to see Moslem nationalist tendencies germinating obscurely and confusedly throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. Not until the second half of the century is there any clear conception of "Nationalism" in the Western sense. There are distinct nationalist tendencies in the teachings of Djemal-ed-Din el-Afghani (who is philosophically the connecting link between Pan-Islamism and Moslem nationalism), while the Turkish reformers of the mid-nineteenth century were patently influenced by nationalism as they were by other Western ideas. It was, in fact, in Turkey that a true nationalist consciousness first appeared. Working upon the Turks' traditional devotion to their dynasty and pride in themselves as a ruling race lording it over many subject peoples both Christian and Moslem, the Turkish nationalist movement made rapid progress.
Precisely as in Europe, the nationalist movement in Turkey began with a revival of historic memories and a purification of the language. Half a century ago the Ottoman Turks knew almost nothing about their origins or their history. The martial deeds of their ancestors and the stirring annals of their empire were remembered only in a vague, legendary fashion, the study of the national history being completely neglected. Religious discussions and details of the life of Mohammed or the early days of Islam interested men more than the spread of Ottoman power in three continents. The nationalist pioneers taught their fellow-countrymen their historic glories and awakened both pride of past and confidence in the future.
Similarly with the Turkish language; the early nationalists found it virtually cleft in twain. On the one hand was "official" Turkish—a clumsy hotchpotch, overloaded with flowers of rhetoric and cryptic expressions borrowed from Arabic and Persian. This extraordinary jargon, couched in a bombastic style, was virtually unintelligible to the masses. The masses, on the other hand, spoke "popular" Turkish—a primitive, limited idiom, divided into many dialects and despised as uncouth and boorish by "educated" persons. The nationalists changed all this. Appreciating the simple, direct strength of the Turkish tongue, nationalist enthusiasts trained in European principles of grammar and philology proceeded to build up a real Turkish language in the Western sense. So well did they succeed that in less than a generation they produced a simplified, flexible Turkish which was used effectively by both journalists and men of letters, was intelligible to all classes, and became the unquestioned vehicle for thought and the canon of style.[138]
Of course the chief stimulus to Turkish nationalism was Western political pressure. The more men came to love their country and aspire to its future, the more European assaults on Turkish territorial integrity spurred them to defend their threatened independence. The nationalist ideal was "Ottomanism"—the welding of a real "nation" in which all citizens, whatever their origin or creed, should be "Ottomans," speaking the Turkish language and inspired by Ottoman patriotism. This, however, conflicted sharply with the rival (and prior) nationalisms of the Christian peoples of the empire, to say nothing of the new Arab nationalism which was taking shape at just this same time. Turkish nationalism was also frowned on by Sultan Abdul Hamid. Abdul Hamid had an instinctive aversion to all nationalist movements, both as limitations to his personal absolutism and as conflicting with that universal Pan-Islamic ideal on which he based his policy. Accordingly, even those Turkish nationalists who proclaimed complete loyalty were suspect, while those with liberal tendencies were persecuted and driven into exile.
The revolution of 1908, however, brought nationalism to power. Whatever their differences on other matters, the Young-Turks were all ardent nationalists. In fact, the very ardour of their nationalism was a prime cause of their subsequent misfortunes. With the rashness of fanatics the Young-Turks tried to "Ottomanize" the whole empire at once. This enraged all the other nationalities, alienated them from the revolution, and gave the Christian Balkan states their opportunity to attack disorganized Turkey in 1912.
The truth of the matter was that Turkish nationalism was evolving in a direction which could only mean heightened antagonism between the Turkish element on the one side and the non-Turkish elements, Christian or Moslem, on the other. Turkish nationalism had, in fact, now reached the second or "racial" stage. Passing the bounds of the limited, mainly territorial, idea connoted by the term "Ottomanism," it had embraced the far-flung and essentially racial concepts known as "Pan-Turkism" and "Pan-Turanism." These wider developments we shall consider later on in this chapter. Before so doing let us examine the beginnings of nationalism's "first stage" in other portions of the Moslem world.
Shortly after the Ottoman Turks showed signs of a nationalistic awakening, kindred symptoms began to appear among the Arabs. As in all self-conscious nationalist movements, it was largely a protest against some other group. In the case of the Arabs this protest was naturally directed against their Turkish rulers. We have already seen how Desert Arabia (the Nejd) had always maintained its freedom, and we have also seen how those Arab lands like Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Hedjaz which fell under Turkish control nevertheless continued to feel an ineradicable repugnance at seeing themselves, Islam's "Chosen People," beneath the yoke of a folk which, in Arab eyes, were mere upstart barbarians. Despite a thousand years of Turkish domination the two races never got on well together, their racial temperaments being too incompatible for really cordial relations. The profound temperamental incompatibility of Turk and Arab has been well summarized by a French writer. Says Victor Bérard: "Such are the two languages and such the two peoples: in the latitude of Rome and in the latitude of Algiers, the Turk of Adrianople, like the Turk of Adalia, remains a man of the north and of the extreme north; in all climates the Arab remains a man of the south and of the extreme south. To the Arab's suppleness, mobility, imagination, artistic feeling, democratic tendencies, and anarchic individualism, the Turk opposes his slowness, gravity, sense of discipline and regularity, innate militarism. The Turkish master has always felt disdain for the 'artistic canaille,' whose pose, gesticulations, and indiscipline, shock him profoundly. On their side, the Arabs see in the Turk only a blockhead; in his placidity and taciturnity only stupidity and ignorance; in his respect for law only slavishness; and in his love of material well-being only gross bestiality. Especially do the Arabs jeer at the Turk's artistic incapacity: after having gone to school to the Chinese, Persians, Arabs, and Greeks, the Turk remains, in Arab eyes, just a big booby of barrack and barnyard."[139]
Add to this the fact that the Arabs regard the Turks as perverters of the Islamic faith, and we need not be surprised to find that Turkey's Arab subjects have ever displayed symptoms of rebellious unrest. We have seen how the Wahabi movement was specifically directed against Turkish control of the holy cities, and despite the Wahabi defeat, Arab discontent lived on. About 1820 the German explorer Burckhardt wrote of Arabia: "When Turkish power in the Hedjaz declines, the Arabs will avenge themselves for their subjection."[140] And some twenty years later the Shereef of Mecca remarked to a French traveller: "We, the direct descendants of the Prophet, have to bow our heads before miserable Pashas, most of them former Christian slaves come to power by the most shameful courses."[141] Throughout the nineteenth century every Turkish defeat in Europe was followed by a seditious outburst in its Arab provinces.
Down to the middle of the nineteenth century these seditious stirrings remained sporadic, unco-ordinated outbursts of religious, regional, or tribal feeling, with no genuinely "Nationalistic" programme of action or ideal. But in the later sixties a real nationalist agitation appeared. Its birthplace was Syria. That was what might have been expected, since Syria was the part of Turkey's Arab dominions most open to Western influences. This first Arab nationalist movement, however, did not amount to much. Directed by a small group of noisy agitators devoid of real ability, the Turkish Government suppressed it without much difficulty.
The disastrous Russian war of 1877, however, blew the scattered embers into a fresh flame. For several years Turkey's Arab provinces were in full ferment. The nationalists spoke openly of throwing off the Turkish yoke and welding the Arab lands into a loose-knit confederation headed by a religious potentate, probably the Shereef of Mecca. This was obviously an adaptation of Western nationalism to the traditional Arab ideal of a theocratic democracy already realized in the Meccan caliphate and the Wahabi government of the Nejd.
This second stirring of Arab nationalism was likewise of short duration. Turkey was now ruled by Sultan Abdul Hamid, and Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic policy looked toward good relations with his Arab subjects. Accordingly, Arabs were welcomed at Constantinople, favours were heaped upon Arab chiefs and notables, while efforts were made to promote the contentment of the empire's Arab populations. At the same time the construction of strategic railways in Syria and the Hedjaz gave the Turkish Government a stronger grip over its Arab provinces than ever before, and conversely rendered successful Arab revolts a far more remote possibility. Furthermore, Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic propaganda was specially directed toward awakening a sense of Moslem solidarity between Arabs and Turks as against the Christian West. These efforts achieved a measure of success. Certainly, every European aggression in the Near East was an object-lesson to Turks and Arabs to forget, or at least adjourn, their domestic quarrels in face of the common foe.
Despite the partial successes of Abdul Hamid's efforts, a considerable section of his Arab subjects remained unreconciled, and toward the close of the nineteenth century a fresh stirring of Arab nationalist discontent made its appearance. Relentlessly persecuted by the Turkish authorities, the Arab nationalist agitators, mostly Syrians, went into exile. Gathering in near-by Egypt (now of course under British governance) and in western Europe, these exiles organized a revolutionary propaganda. Their formal organization dates from the year 1895, when the "Arabian National Committee" was created at Paris. For a decade their propaganda went on obscurely, but evidently with effect, for in 1905 the Arab provinces of Hedjaz and Yemen burst into armed insurrection. This insurrection, despite the best efforts of the Turkish Government, was never wholly suppressed, but dragged on year after year, draining Turkey of troops and treasure, and contributing materially to her Tripolitan and Balkan disasters in 1911-12.
The Arab revolt of 1905 focussed the world's attention upon "The Arab Question," and the nationalist exiles made the most of their opportunity by redoubling their propaganda, not only at home but in the West as well. Europe was fully informed of "Young Arabia's" wrongs and aspirations, notably by an extremely clever book by one of the nationalist leaders, entitled The Awakening of the Arab Nation,[142] which made a distinct sensation. The aims of the Arab nationalists are clearly set forth in the manifesto of the Arabian National Committee, addressed to the Great Powers and published early in 1906. Says this manifesto: "A great pacific change is on the eve of occurring in Turkey. The Arabs, whom the Turks tyrannized over only by keeping them divided on insignificant questions of ritual and religion, have become conscious of their national, historic, and racial homogeneity, and wish to detach themselves from the worm-eaten Ottoman trunk in order to form themselves into an independent state. This new Arab Empire will extend to its natural frontiers, from the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates to the Isthmus of Suez, and from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Oman. It will be governed by the constitutional and liberal monarchy of an Arabian sultan. The present Vilayet of the Hedjaz, together with the territory of Medina, will form an independent empire whose sovereign will be at the same time the religious Khalif of all the Mohammedans. Thus, one great difficulty, the separation of the civil and the religious powers in Islam, will have been solved for the greater good of all."
To their fellow Arabs the committee issued the following proclamation: "Dear Compatriots! All of us know how vile and despicable the glorious and illustrious title of Arabian Citizen has become in the mouths of all foreigners, especially Turks. All of us see to what depths of misery and ignorance we have fallen under the tyranny of these barbarians sprung from Central Asia. Our land, the richest and finest on earth, is to-day an arid waste. When we were free, we conquered the world in a hundred years; we spread everywhere sciences, arts, and letters; for centuries we led world-civilization. But, since the spawn of Ertogrul[143] usurped the caliphate of Islam, they have brutalized us so as to exploit us to such a degree that we have become the poorest people on earth." The proclamation then goes on to declare Arabia's independence.[144]
Of course "Young Arabia" did not then attain its independence. The revolt was kept localized and Turkey maintained its hold over most of its Arab dominions. Nevertheless, there was constant unrest. During the remainder of Abdul Hamid's reign his Arab provinces were in a sort of unstable equilibrium, torn between the forces of nationalist sedition on the one hand and Pan-Islamic, anti-European feeling on the other.
The Young-Turk revolution of 1908 caused a new shift in the situation. The Arab provinces, like the other parts of the empire, rejoiced in the downfall of despotism and hoped great things for the future. In the Turkish Parliament the Arab provinces were well represented, and their deputies asked for a measure of federal autonomy. This the Young-Turks, bent upon "Ottomanization," curtly refused. The result was profound disillusionment in the Arab provinces and a revival of separatist agitation. It is interesting to note that the new independence agitation had a much more ambitious programme than that of a few years before. The Arab nationalists of Turkey were by this time definitely linking up with the nationalists of Egypt and French North Africa—Arabic-speaking lands where the populations were at least partly Arab in blood. Arab nationalism was beginning to speak aloud what it had previously whispered—the programme of a great "Pan-Arab" empire stretching right across North Africa and southern Asia from the Atlantic to the Indian Oceans. Thus, Arab nationalism, like Turkish nationalism, was evolving into the "second," or racial, stage.
Deferring discussion of this broader development, let us follow a trifle further the course of the more restricted Arab nationalism within the Turkish Empire. Despite the Pan-Islamic sentiment evoked by the European aggressions of 1911-12, nationalist feeling was continually aroused by the Ottomanizing measures of the Young-Turk government, and the independence agitation was presently in full swing once more. In 1913 an Arabian nationalist congress convened in Paris and revolutionary propaganda was inaugurated on an increased scale. When the Great War broke out next year, Turkey's Arab provinces were seething with seditious unrest.[145] The Turkish authorities took stern measures against possible trouble, imprisoning and executing all prominent nationalists upon whom they could lay their hands, while the proclamation of the "Holy War" rallied a certain portion of Arab public opinion to the Turkish side, especially since the conquest of Egypt was a possibility. But as the war dragged on the forces of discontent once more raised their heads. In 1916 the revolt of the Shereef of Mecca gave the signal for the downfall of Turkish rule. This revolt, liberally backed by England, gained the active or passive support of the Arab elements throughout the Turkish Empire. Inspired by Allied promises of national independence of a most alluring character, the Arabs fought strenuously against the Turks and were a prime factor in the débâcle of Ottoman military power in the autumn of 1918.[146]
Before discussing the momentous events which have occurred in the Arab provinces of the former Ottoman Empire since 1918, let us consider nationalist developments in the Arabized regions of North Africa lying to the westward. Of these developments the most important is that of Egypt. The mass of the Egyptian people is to-day, as in Pharaoh's time, of the old "Nilotic" stock. A slow, self-contained peasant folk, the Egyptian "fellaheen" have submitted passively to a long series of conquerors, albeit this passivity has been occasionally broken by outbursts of volcanic fury presently dying away into passivity once more. Above the Nilotic masses stands a relatively small upper class descended chiefly from Egypt's more recent Asiatic conquerors—Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, Albanians, and Turks. In addition to this upper class, which until the English occupation monopolized all political power, there are large European "colonies" with "extraterritorial" rights, while a further complication is added by the persistence of a considerable native Christian element, the "Copts," who refused to turn Mohammedan at the Arab conquest and who to-day number fully one-tenth of the total population.
With such a medley of races, creeds, and cultures, and with so prolonged a tradition of foreign domination, Egypt might seem a most unlikely milieu for the growth of nationalism. On the other hand, Egypt has been more exposed to Western influences than any other part of the Near East. Bonaparte's invasion at the close of the eighteenth century profoundly affected Egyptian life, and though the French were soon expelled, European influences continued to permeate the valley of the Nile. Mehemet Ali, the able Albanian adventurer who made himself master of Egypt after the downfall of French rule, realized the superiority of European methods and fostered a process of Europeanization which, however superficial, resulted in a wide dissemination of Western ideas. Mehemet Ali's policy was continued by his successors. That magnificent spendthrift Khedive Ismail, whose reckless contraction of European loans was the primary cause of European intervention, prided himself on his "Europeanism" and surrounded himself with Europeans.
Indeed, the first stirrings of Egyptian nationalism took the form of a protest against the noxious, parasitical "Europeanism" of Khedive Ismail and his courtiers. Sober-minded Egyptians became increasingly alarmed at the way Ismail was mortgaging Egypt's independence by huge European loans and sucking its life-blood by merciless taxation. Inspired consciously or unconsciously by the Western concepts of "nation" and "patriotism," these men desired to stay Ismail's destructive course and to safeguard Egypt's future. In fact, their efforts were directed not merely against the motley crew of European adventurers and concessionaires who were luring the Khedive into fresh extravagances, but also against the complaisant Turkish and Circassian pashas, and the Armenian and Syrian usurers, who were the instruments of Ismail's will. The nascent movement was thus basically a "patriotic" protest against all those, both foreigners and native-born, who were endangering the country. This showed clearly in the motto adopted by the agitators—the hitherto unheard-of slogan: "Egypt for the Egyptians!"
Into this incipient ferment there was presently injected the dynamic personality of Djemal-ed-Din. Nowhere else did this extraordinary man exert so profound and lasting an influence as in Egypt. It is not too much to say that he is the father of every shade of Egyptian nationalism. He influenced not merely violent agitators like Arabi Pasha but also conservative reformers like Sheikh Mohammed Abdou, who realized Egypt's weakness and were content to labour patiently by evolutionary methods for distant goals.
For the moment the apostles of violent action had the stage. In 1882 a revolutionary agitation broke out headed by Arabi Pasha, an army officer, who, significantly enough, was of fellah origin, the first man of Nilotic stock to sway Egypt's destinies in modern times. Raising their slogan, "Egypt for the Egyptians," the revolutionists sought to drive all "foreigners," both Europeans and Asiatics, from the country. Their attempt was of course foredoomed to failure. A massacre of Europeans in the port-city of Alexandria at once precipitated European intervention. An English army crushed the revolutionists at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and after this one battle, disorganized, bankrupt Egypt submitted to British rule, personified by Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer. The khedivial dynasty was, to be sure, retained, and the native forms of government respected, but all real power centred in the hands of the British "Financial Adviser," the representative of Britain's imperial will.
For twenty-five years Lord Cromer ruled Egypt, and the record of this able proconsul will place him for ever in the front rank of the world's great administrators. His strong hand drew Egypt from hopeless bankruptcy into abounding prosperity. Material well-being, however, did not kill Egyptian nationalism. Scattered to the winds before the British bayonet charges, the seeds of unrest slowly germinated beneath the fertile Nilotic soil. Almost imperceptible at first under the numbing shock of Tel-el-Kebir, nationalist sentiment grew steadily as the years wore on, and by the closing decade of the nineteenth century it had become distinctly perceptible to keen-sighted European observers. Passing through Egypt in 1895, the well-known African explorer Schweinfurth was struck with the psychological change which had occurred since his earlier visits to the valley of the Nile. "A true national self-consciousness is slowly beginning to awaken," he wrote. "The Egyptians are still very far from being a true Nationality, but the beginning has been made."[147]
With the opening years of the twentieth century what had previously been visible only to discerning eyes burst into sudden and startling bloom. This resurgent Egyptian nationalism had, to be sure, its moderate wing, represented by conservative-minded men like Mohammed Abdou, Rector of El Azhar University and respected friend of Lord Cromer, who sought to teach his fellow-countrymen that the surest road to freedom was along the path of enlightenment and progress. In the main, however, the movement was an impatient and violent protest against British rule and an intransigeant demand for immediate independence. Perhaps the most significant point was that virtually all Egyptians were nationalists at heart, conservatives as well as radicals declining to consider Egypt as a permanent part of the British Empire. The nationalists had a sound legal basis for this attitude, owing to the fact that British rule rested upon insecure diplomatic foundations. England had intervened in Egypt as a self-constituted "Mandatory" of European financial interests. Its action had roused much opposition in Europe, particularly in France, and to allay this opposition the British Government had repeatedly announced that its occupation of Egypt was of a temporary nature. In fact, Egyptian discontent was deliberately fanned by France right down to the conclusion of the Entente Cordiale in 1904. This French sympathy for Egyptian aspirations was of capital importance in the development of the nationalist movement. In Egypt, France's cultural prestige was predominant. In Egyptian eyes a European education was synonymous with a French education, so the rising generation inevitably sat under French teachers, either in Egypt or in France, and these French preceptors, being usually Anglophobes, rarely lost an opportunity for instilling dislike of England and aversion to British rule.
The radical nationalists were headed by a young man named Mustapha Kamel. He was a very prince of agitators; ardent, magnetic, enthusiastic, and possessed of a fiery eloquence which fairly swept away both his hearers and his readers. An indefatigable propagandist, he edited a whole chain of newspapers and periodicals, and as fast as one organ was suppressed by the British authorities he started another. His uncompromising nationalism may be gauged from the following examples from his writings. Taking for his motto the phrase "The Egyptians for Egypt; Egypt for the Egyptians," he wrote as early as 1896: "Egyptian civilization cannot endure in the future unless it is founded by the people itself; unless the fellah, the merchant, the teacher, the pupil, in fine, every single Egyptian, knows that man has sacred, intangible rights; that he is not created to be a tool, but to lead an intelligent and worthy life; that love of country is the most beautiful sentiment which can ennoble a soul; and that a nation without independence is a nation without existence! It is by patriotism that backward peoples come quickly to civilization, to greatness, and to power. It is patriotism that forms the blood which courses in the veins of virile nations, and it is patriotism that gives life to every living being."
The English, of course, were bitterly denounced. Here is a typical editorial from his organ El Lewa: "We are the despoiled. The English are the despoilers. We demand a sacred right. The English are the usurpers of that right. This is why we are sure of success sooner or later. When one is in the right, it is only a question of time."
Despite his ardent aspirations, Mustapha Kamel had a sense of realities, and recognized that, for the moment at least, British power could not be forcibly overthrown. He did not, therefore, attempt any open violence which he knew would merely ruin himself and his followers. Early in 1908 he died, only thirty-four years of age. His mantle fell upon his leading disciple, Mohammed Farid Bey. This man, who was not of equal calibre, tried to make up for his deficiency in true eloquence by the violence of his invective. The difference between the two leaders can be gauged by the editorial columns of El Lewa. Here is an editorial of September, 1909: "This land was polluted by the English, putrefied with their atrocities as they suppressed our beloved dustour [constitution], tied our tongues, burned our people alive and hanged our innocent relatives, and perpetrated other horrors at which the heavens are about to tremble, the earth to split, and the mountains to fall down. Let us take a new step. Let our lives be cheap while we seek our independence. Death is far better than life for you if you remain in your present condition."
Mohammed Farid's fanatical impatience of all opposition led him into tactical blunders like alienating the native Christian Copts, whom Mustapha Kamel had been careful to conciliate. The following diatribe (which, by the way, reveals a grotesque jumble of Western and Eastern ideas) is an answer to Coptic protests at the increasing violence of his propaganda: "The Copts should be kicked to death. They still have faces and bodies similar to those of demons and monkeys, which is a proof that they hide poisonous spirits within their souls. The fact that they exist in the world confirms Darwin's theory that human beings are generated from monkeys. You sons of adulterous women! You descendants of the bearers of trays! You tails of camels with your monkey faces! You bones of bodies!"
In this more violent attitude the nationalists were encouraged by several reasons. For one thing, Lord Cromer had laid down his proconsulate in 1907 and had been succeeded by Sir Eldon Gorst. The new ruler represented the ideas of British Liberalism, now in power, which wished to appease Egyptian unrest by conciliation instead of by Lord Cromer's autocratic indifference. In the second place, the Young-Turk revolution of 1908 gave an enormous impetus to the Egyptian cry for constitutional self-government. Lastly, France's growing intimacy with England dashed the nationalist's cherished hope that Britain would be forced by outside pressure to redeem her diplomatic pledges and evacuate the Nile valley, thus driving the nationalists to rely more on their own exertions.
Given this nationalist temper, conciliatory attempt was foredoomed to failure. For, however conciliatory Sir Eldon Gorst might be in details, he could not promise the one thing which the nationalists supremely desired—independence. This demand England refused even to consider. Practically all Englishmen had become convinced that Egypt with the Suez Canal was a vital link between the eastern and western halves of the British Empire, and that permanent control of Egypt was thus an absolute necessity. There was thus a fundamental deadlock between British imperial and Egyptian national convictions. Accordingly, the British Liberal policy of conciliation proved a fiasco. Even Sir Eldon Gorst admitted in his official reports that concessions were simply regarded as signs of weakness.
Before long seditious agitation and attendant violence grew to such proportions that the British Government became convinced that only strong measures would save the situation. Therefore, in 1911, Sir Eldon Gorst was replaced by Lord Kitchener—a patent warning to the nationalists that sedition would be given short shrift by the iron hand which had crushed the Khalifa and his Dervish hordes at Omdurman. Kitchener arrived in Egypt with the express mandate to restore order, and this he did with thoroughness and exactitude. The Egyptians were told plainly that England neither intended to evacuate the Nile valley nor considered its inhabitants fit for self-government within any discernible future. They were admonished to turn their thoughts from politics, at which they were so bad, to agriculture, at which they were so good. As for seditious propaganda, new legislation enabled Lord Kitchener to deal with it in summary fashion. Practically all the nationalist papers were suppressed, while the nationalist leaders were imprisoned, interned, or exiled. In fact, the British Government did its best to distract attention everywhere from Egypt, the British press co-operating loyally by labelling the subject taboo. The upshot was that Egypt became quieter than it had been for a generation.
However, it was only a surface calm. Driven underground, Egyptian unrest even attained new virulence which alarmed close observers. In 1913 the well-known English publicist Sidney Low, after a careful investigation of the Egyptian situation, wrote: "We are not popular in Egypt. Feared we may be by some; respected I doubt not by many others; but really liked, I am sure, by very few."[148] Still more outspoken was an article significantly entitled "The Darkness over Egypt," which appeared on the eve of the Great War.[149] Its publication in a semi-scientific periodical for specialists in Oriental problems rendered it worthy of serious attention. "The long-continued absence of practically all discussion or even mention of Egyptian internal affairs from the British press," asserted this article, "is not indicative of a healthy condition. In Egypt the superficial quiet is that of suppressed discontent—of a sullen, hopeless mistrust toward the Government of the Occupation. Certain recent happenings have strengthened in Egyptian minds the conviction that the Government is making preparations for the complete annexation of the country.... We are not concerned to question how far the motives attributed to the Government are true. The essential fact is that the Government of the Occupation has not yet succeeded in endearing, or even recommending, itself to the Egyptian people, but is, on the contrary, an object of suspicion, an occasion of enmity." The article expresses grave doubt whether Lord Kitchener's repressive measures have done more than drive discontent underground, and shows "how strong is the Nationalist feeling in Egypt to-day in spite of the determined attempts to stamp out all freedom of political opinion. As might be expected, this wholesale muzzling of the press has not only reduced the Mohammedan majority to a condition of internal ferment, but has seriously alienated the hitherto loyal Copts. It may be that the Government can discover no better means of recommending itself to the confidence and good-will of the Egyptian people; it may be that only by the instant repression of every outward sign of discontent can it feel secure in its occupation; but if such be the case, it is an admission of extreme weakness, or recognized insecurity of tenure." The article concludes with the following warning as to the problem's wider implications: "Egypt, though a subject of profound indifference to the English voter, is being feverishly watched by the Indian Mohammedans, and by the whole of our West and Central African subjects—themselves strongly Moslem in sympathy, and at the present time jealously suspicious of the political activities of Christian Imperialism."
Such being the state of Egyptian feeling in 1914, the outbreak of the Great War was bound to produce intensified unrest. England's position in Egypt was, in truth, very difficult. Although in fact England exercised complete control, in law Egypt was still a dependency of the Ottoman Empire, Britain merely exercising a temporary occupation. Now it soon became evident that Turkey was going to join England's enemies, the Teutonic empires, while it was equally evident that the Egyptians sympathized with the Turks, even the Khedive Abbas Hilmi making no secret of his pro-Turkish views. During the first months of the European War, while Turkey was still nominally neutral, the Egyptian native press, despite the British censorship, was full of veiled seditious statements, while the unruly attitude of the Egyptian populace and the stirrings among the Egyptian native regiments left no doubt as to how the wind was blowing. England was seriously alarmed. Accordingly, when Turkey entered the war in November, 1914, England took the decisive plunge, deposed Abbas Hilmi, nominated his cousin Hussein Kamel "Sultan," and declared Egypt a protectorate of the British Empire.
This stung the nationalists to fury. Anything like formal rebellion was rendered impossible by the heavy masses of British and colonial troops which had been poured into the country. Nevertheless, there was a good deal of sporadic violence, suppressed only by a stern application of the "State of Siege." A French observer thus vividly describes these critical days: "The Jehadd is rousing the anti-Christian fanaticism which always stirs in the soul of every good Moslem. Since the end of October one could read in the eyes of the low-class Mohammedan natives their hope—the massacre of the Christians. In the streets of Cairo they stared insolently at the European passers-by. Some even danced for joy on learning that the Sultan had declared the Holy War. Denounced to the police for this, they were incontinently bastinadoed at the nearest police-station. The same state of mind reigned at El Azhar, and I am told that Europeans who visit the celebrated Mohammedan University have their ears filled with the strongest epithets of the Arab repertory—that best-furnished language in the world."[150]
The nationalist exiles vehemently expressed abroad what their fellows could not say at home. Their leader, Mohammed Farid Bey, issued from Geneva an official protest against "the new illegal régime proclaimed by England the 18th of last December. England, which pretends to make war on Germany to defend Belgium, ought not to trample underfoot the rights of Egypt, nor consider the treaties relative thereto as 'scraps of paper.'"[151] These exiles threw themselves vehemently into the arms of Germany, as may be gauged from the following remarks of Abd-el-Malek Hamsa, secretary of the nationalist party, in a German periodical: "There is hardly an Egyptian who does not pray that England may be beaten and her Empire fall in ruins. During the early days of the war, while I was still in Egypt, I was a witness of this popular feeling. In cities and villages, from sage to simple peasant, all are convinced in the Kaiser's love for Islam and friendship for its caliph, and they are hoping and praying for Germany's victory."[152]
Of course, in face of the overwhelming British garrison in Egypt, such pronouncements were as idle as the wind. The hoped-for Turkish attacks were beaten back from the Suez Canal, the "State of Siege" functioned with stern efficiency, and Egypt, flooded with British troops, lapsed into sullen silence, not to be broken until the end of the war.
Turning back at this point to consider nationalist developments in the rest of North Africa, we do not, as in Egypt, find a well-marked territorial patriotism. Anti-European hatred there is in plenty, but such "patriotic" sentiments as exist belong rather to those more diffused types of nationalist feeling known as "Pan-Arabism" and "Pan-Islamic Nationalism," which we shall presently discuss.
The basic reason for this North African lack of national feeling, in its restricted sense, is that nowhere outside of Egypt is there a land which ever has been, or which shows distinct signs of becoming, a true "nation." The mass of the populations inhabiting the vast band of territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara desert are "Berbers"—an ancient stock, racially European rather than Asiatic or negroid, and closely akin to the "Latin" peoples across the Mediterranean. The Berbers remind one of the Balkan Albanians: they are extremely tenacious of their language and customs, and they have an instinctive racial feeling; but they are inveterate particularists, having always been split up into many tribes, sometimes combining into partial confederations but never developing true national patriotism.[153]
Alongside the Berbers we find everywhere a varying proportion of Arabs. The Arabs have colonized North Africa ever since the Moslem conquest twelve centuries ago. They converted the Berbers to Islam and Arab culture, but they never made North Africa part of the Arab world as they did Syria and Mesopotamia, and in somewhat lesser degree Egypt. The two races have never really fused. Despite more than a thousand years of Arab tutelage, the Berbers' manner of life remains distinct. They have largely kept their language, and there has been comparatively little intermarriage. Pure-blooded Arabs abound, often in large tribal groups, but they are still, in a way, foreigners.[154]
With such elements of discord, North Africa's political life has always been troubled. The most stable region has been Morocco, though even there the sultan's authority has never really extended to the mountain tribes. As for the so-called "Barbary States" (Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli), they were little more than port-cities along the coast, the hinterland enjoying practically complete tribal independence. Over this confused turmoil spread the tide of French conquest, beginning with Algiers in 1830 and ending with Morocco to-day.[155] France brought peace, order, and material prosperity, but here, as in other Eastern lands, these very benefits of European tutelage created a new sort of unity among the natives in their common dislike of the European conqueror and their common aspiration toward independence. Accordingly, the past generation has witnessed the appearance of "Young Algerian" and "Young Tunisian" political groups, led by French-educated men who have imbibed Western ideas of "self-government" and "liberty."[156] However, as we have already remarked, their goal is not so much the erection of distinct Algerian and Tunisian "Nations" as it is creation of a larger North African, perhaps Pan-Islamic, unity. It must not be forgotten that they are in close touch with the Sennussi and kindred influences which we have already examined in the chapter on Pan-Islamism.
So much for "first-stage" nationalist developments in the Arab or Arabized lands. There is, however, one more important centre of nationalist sentiment in the Moslem world to be considered—Persia. Persia is, in fact, the land where a genuine nationalist movement would have been most logically expected, because the Persians have for ages possessed a stronger feeling of "country" than any other Near Eastern people.
In the nineteenth century Persia had sunk into such deep decrepitude that its patent weakness excited the imperialistic appetites of Czarist Russia and, in somewhat lesser degree, of England. Persia's decadence and external perils were, however, appreciated by thinking Persians, and a series of reformist agitations took place, beginning with the religious movement of the Bab early in the nineteenth century and culminating with the revolution of 1908.[157] That revolution was largely precipitated by the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907 by which England and Russia virtually partitioned Persia; the country being divided into a Russian "sphere of influence" in the north and a British "sphere of influence" in the south, with a "neutral zone" between. The revolution was thus in great part a desperate attempt of the Persian patriots to set their house in order and avert, at the eleventh hour, the shadow of European domination which was creeping over the land. But the revolution was not merely a protest against European aggression. It was also aimed at the alien Khadjar dynasty which had so long misruled Persia. These Khadjar sovereigns were of Turkoman origin. They had never become really Persianized, as shown by the fact that the intimate court language was Turki, not Persian. They occupied a position somewhat analogous to that of the Manchus before the Chinese revolution. The Persian revolution was thus basically an Iranian patriotic outburst against all alien influences, whether from East or West.
We have already seen how this patriotic movement was crushed by the forcible intervention of European imperialism.[158] By 1912 Russia and England were in full control of the situation, the patriots were proscribed and persecuted, and Persia sank into despairing silence. As a British writer then remarked: "For such broken spirit and shattered hopes, as for the 'anarchy' now existing in Persia, Russia and Great Britain are directly responsible, and if there be a Reckoning, will one day be held to account. It is idle to talk of any improvement in the situation, when the only Government in Persia consists of a Cabinet which does not command the confidence of the people, terrorized by Russia, financially starved by both Russia and England, allowed only miserable doles of money on usurious terms, and forbidden to employ honest and efficient foreign experts like Mr. Shuster; when the King is a boy, the Regent an absentee, the Parliament permanently suspended, and the best, bravest, and most honest patriots either killed or driven into exile, while the wolf-pack of financiers, concession-hunters and land-grabbers presses ever harder on the exhausted victim, whose struggles grow fainter and fainter. Little less than a miracle can now save Persia."[159]
So ends our survey of the main "first-stage" nationalist movements in the Moslem world. We should of course remember that a nationalist movement was developing concurrently in India, albeit following an eccentric orbit of its own. We should also remember that, in addition to the main movements just discussed, there were minor nationalist stirrings among other Moslem peoples such as the Russian Tartars, the Chinese Mohammedans, and even the Javanese of the Dutch Indies. Lastly, we should remember that these nationalist movements were more or less interwoven with the non-national movement of Pan-Islamism, and with those "second-stage," "racial" nationalist movements which we shall now consider.
II
Earlier in this chapter we have already remarked that the opening years of the twentieth century witnessed the appearance in Asia of nationalism's second or racial stage, especially among the Turkish and Arab peoples. This wider stage of nationalism has attained its highest development among the Turks; where, indeed, it has gone through two distinct phases, describable respectively by the terms "Pan-Turkism" and "Pan-Turanism." We have described the primary phase of Turkish nationalism in its restricted "Ottoman" sense down to the close of the Balkan wars of 1912-13. It is at that time that the secondary or "racial" aspects of Turkish nationalism first come prominently to the fore.
By this time the Ottoman Turks had begun to realize that they did not stand alone in the world; that they were, in fact, the westernmost branch of a vast band of peoples extending right across eastern Europe and Asia, from the Baltic to the Pacific and from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean, to whom ethnologists have assigned the name of "Uralo-Altaic race," but who are more generally termed "Turanians." This group embraces the most widely scattered folk—the Ottoman Turks of Constantinople and Anatolia, the Turkomans of Persia and Central Asia, the Tartars of South Russia and Transcaucasia, the Magyars of Hungary, the Finns of Finland and the Baltic provinces, the aboriginal tribes of Siberia, and even the distant Mongols and Manchus. Diverse though they are in culture, tradition, and even personal appearance, these people nevertheless possess certain well-marked traits in common. Their languages are all similar, while their physical and mental make-up displays undoubted affinities. They are all noted for great physical vitality combined with unusual toughness of nerve-fibre. Though somewhat deficient in imagination and creative artistic sense, they are richly endowed with patience, tenacity, and dogged energy. Above all, they have usually displayed extraordinary military capacity, together with a no less remarkable aptitude for the masterful handling of subject peoples. The Turanians have certainly been the greatest conquerors that the world has ever seen. Attila and his Huns, Arpad and his Magyars, Isperich and his Bulgars, Alp Arslan and his Seljuks, Ertogrul and his Ottomans, Jenghiz Khan and Tamerlane with their "inflexible" Mongol hordes, Baber in India, even Kubilai Khan and Nurhachu in far-off Cathay: the type is ever the same. The hoof-print of the Turanian "man on horseback" is stamped deep all over the palimpsest of history.
Glorious or sinister according to the point of view, Turan's is certainly a stirring past. Of course one may query whether these diverse peoples actually do form one genuine race. But, as we have already seen, so far as practical politics go, that makes no difference. Possessed of kindred tongues and temperaments, and dowered with such a wealth of soul-stirring tradition, it would suffice for them to think themselves racially one to form a nationalist dynamic of truly appalling potency.
Until about a generation ago, to be sure, no signs of such a movement were visible. Not only were distant stocks like Finns and Manchus quite unaware of any common Turanian bond, but even obvious kindred like Ottoman Turks and Central Asian Turkomans regarded one another with indifference or contempt. Certainly the Ottoman Turks were almost as devoid of racial as they were of national feeling. Arminius Vambéry tells how, when he first visited Constantinople in 1856, "the word Turkluk (i. e., 'Turk') was considered an opprobrious synonym of grossness and savagery, and when I used to call people's attention to the racial importance of the Turkish stock (stretching from Adrianople to the Pacific) they answered: 'But you are surely not classing us with Kirghiz and with the gross nomads of Tartary.' ... With a few exceptions, I found no one in Constantinople who was seriously interested in the questions of Turkish nationality or language."[160]
It was, in fact, the labours of Western ethnologists like the Hungarian Vambéry and the Frenchman Léon Cahun that first cleared away the mists which enshrouded Turan. These labours disclosed the unexpected vastness of the Turanian world. And this presently acquired a most unacademic significance. The writings of Vambéry and his colleagues spread far and wide through Turan and were there devoured by receptive minds already stirring to the obscure promptings of a new time. The normality of the Turanian movement is shown by its simultaneous appearance at such widely sundered points as Turkish Constantinople and the Tartar centres along the Russian Volga. Indeed, if anything, the leaven began its working on the Volga sooner than on the Bosphorus. This Tartar revival, though little known, is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in all nationalist history. The Tartars, once masters of Russia, though long since fallen from their high estate, have never vanished in the Slav ocean. Although many of them have been for four centuries under Russian rule, they have stubbornly maintained their religious, racial, and cultural identity. Clustered thickly along the Volga, especially at Kazan and Astrakhan, retaining much of the Crimea, and forming a considerable minority in Transcaucasia, the Tartars remained distinct "enclaves" in the Slav Empire, widely scattered but indomitable.
The first stirrings of nationalist self-consciousness among the Russian Tartars appeared as far back as 1895, and from then on the movement grew with astonishing rapidity. The removal of governmental restrictions at the time of the Russian revolution of 1904 was followed by a regular literary florescence. Streams of books and pamphlets, numerous newspapers, and a solid periodical press, all attested the vigour and fecundity of the Tartar revival. The high economic level of the Russian Tartars assured the material sinews of war. The Tartar oil millionaires of Baku here played a conspicuous rôle, freely opening their capacious purses for the good of the cause. The Russian Tartars also showed distinct political ability and soon gained the confidence of their Turkoman cousins of Russian Central Asia, who were also stirring to the breath of nationalism. The first Russian Duma contained a large Mohammedan group so enterprising in spirit and so skilfully led that Russian public opinion became genuinely uneasy and encouraged the government to diminish Tartar influence in Russian parliamentary life by summary curtailments of Mohammedan representation.[161]
Of course the Russian Mohammedans were careful to proclaim their political loyalty to the Russian Empire. Nevertheless, many earnest spirits revealed their secret aspirations by seeking a freer and more fruitful field of labour in Turkish Stambul, where the Russian Tartars played a prominent part in the Pan-Turk and Pan-Turanian movements within the Ottoman Empire. In fact, it was a Volga Tartar, Yusuf Bey Akchura Oglu, who was the real founder of the first Pan-Turanian society at Constantinople, and his well-known book, Three Political Systems, became the text on which most subsequent Pan-Turanian writings have been based.[162]
Down to the Young-Turk revolution of 1908, Pan-Turanism was somewhat under a cloud at Stambul. Sultan Abdul Hamid, as already remarked, was a Pan-Islamist and had a rooted aversion to all nationalist movements. Accordingly, the Pan-Turanians, while not actually persecuted, were never in the Sultan's favour. With the advent of Young-Turk nationalism to power, however, all was changed. The "Ottomanizing" leaders of the new government listened eagerly to Pan-Turanian preaching, and most of them became affiliated with the movement. It is interesting to note that Russian Tartars continued to play a prominent part. The chief Pan-Turanian propagandist was the able publicist Ahmed Bey Agayeff, a Volga Tartar. His well-edited organ, Turk Yurdu (Turkish Home), penetrated to every corner of the Turko-Tartar world and exercised great influence on the development of its public opinion.
Although leaders like Ahmed Bey Agayeff clearly visualized the entire Turanian world from Finland to Manchuria as a potential whole, and were thus full-fledged "Pan-Turanians," their practical efforts were at first confined to the closely related Turko-Tartar segment; that is, to the Ottomans of Turkey, the Tartars of Russia, and the Turkomans of central Asia and Persia. Since all these peoples were also Mohammedans, it follows that this propaganda had a religious as well as a racial complexion, trending in many respects toward Pan-Islamism. Indeed, even disregarding the religious factor, we may say that, though Pan-Turanian in theory, the movement was at that time in practice little more than "Pan-Turkism."
It was the Balkan wars of 1912-13 which really precipitated full-fledged Pan-Turanism. Those wars not merely expelled the Turks from the Balkans and turned their eyes increasingly toward Asia, but also roused such hatred of the victorious Serbs in the breasts of Hungarians and Bulgarians that both these peoples proclaimed their "Turanian" origins and toyed with ideas of "Pan-Turanian" solidarity against the menace of Serbo-Russian "Pan-Slavism."[163] The Pan-Turanian thinkers were assuredly evolving a body of doctrine grandiose enough to satisfy the most ambitious hopes. Emphasizing the great virility and nerve-force everywhere patent in the Turanian stocks, these thinkers saw in Turan the dominant race of the morrow. Zealous students of Western evolutionism and ethnology, they were evolving their own special theory of race grandeur and decadence. According to Pan-Turanian teaching, the historic peoples of southern Asia—Arabs, Persians, and Hindus—are hopelessly degenerate. As for the Europeans, they have recently passed their apogee, and, exhausted by the consuming fires of modern industrialism, are already entering upon their decline. It is the Turanians, with their inherent virility and steady nerves unspoiled by the wear and tear of Western civilization, who must be the great dynamic of the future. Indeed, some Pan-Turanian thinkers go so far as to proclaim that it is the sacred mission of their race to revitalize a whole senescent, worn-out world by the saving infusion of regenerative Turanian blood.[164]
Of course the Pan-Turanians recognized that anything like a realization of their ambitious dreams was dependent upon the virtual destruction of the Russian Empire. In fact, Russia, with its Tartars, Turkomans, Kirghiz, Finns, and numerous kindred tribes, was in Pan-Turanian eyes merely a Slav alluvium laid with varying thickness over a Turanian subsoil. This turning of Russia into a vast "Turania irredenta" was certainly an ambitious order. Nevertheless, the Pan-Turanians counted on powerful Western backing. They realized that Germany and Austria-Hungary were fast drifting toward war with Russia, and they felt that such a cataclysm, however perilous, would also offer most glorious possibilities.
These Pan-Turanian aspirations undoubtedly had a great deal to do with driving Turkey into the Great War on the side of the Central Empires. Certainly, Enver Pasha and most of the other leaders of the governing group had long been more or less affiliated with the Pan-Turanian movement. Of course the Turkish Government had more than one string to its bow. It tried to drive Pan-Turanism and Pan-Islamism in double harness, using the "Holy War" agitation for pious Moslems everywhere, while it redoubled Pan-Turanian propaganda among the Turko-Tartar peoples. A good statement of Pan-Turanian ambitions in the early years of the war is that of the publicist Tekin Alp in his book, The Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal, published in 1915. Says Tekin Alp: "With the crushing of Russian despotism by the brave German, Austrian, and Turkish armies, 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 Turanians will receive their independence. With the 10,000,000 Ottoman Turks, this will form a nation of 50,000,000, advancing toward a great civilization which may perhaps be compared with that of Germany, in that it will have the strength and energy to rise even higher. In some ways it will be superior to the degenerate French and English civilizations."
With the collapse of Russia after the Bolshevik revolution at the end of 1917, Pan-Turanian hopes knew no bounds. So certain were they of triumph that they began to flout even their German allies, thus revealing that hatred of all Europeans which had always lurked at the back of their minds. A German staff-officer thus describes the table-talk of Halil Pasha, the Turkish commander of the Mesopotamian front and uncle of Enver: "First of all, every tribe with a Turkish mother-tongue must be forged into a single nation. The national principle was supreme; so it was the design to conquer Turkestan, the cradle of Turkish power and glory. That was the first task. From that base connections must be established with the Yakutes of Siberia, who were considered, on account of their linguistic kinship, the remotest outposts of the Turkish blood to the eastward. The closely related Tartar tribes of the Caucasus must naturally join this union. Armenians and Georgians, who form minority nationalities in that territory, must either submit voluntarily or be subjugated.... Such a great compact Turkish Empire, exercising hegemony over all the Islamic world, would exert a powerful attraction upon Afghanistan and Persia.... In December, 1917, when the Turkish front in Mesopotamia threatened to yield, Halil Pasha said to me, half vexed, half jokingly: 'Supposing we let the English have this cursed desert hole and go to Turkestan, where I will erect a new empire for my little boy.' He had named his youngest son after the great conqueror and destroyer, Jenghiz Khan."[165]
As a matter of fact, the summer of 1918 saw Transcaucasia and northern Persia overrun by Turkish armies headed for Central Asia. Then came the German collapse in the West and the end of the war, apparently dooming Turkey to destruction. For the moment the Pan-Turanians were stunned. Nevertheless, their hopes were soon destined to revive, as we shall presently see.
Before describing the course of events in the Near East since 1918, which need to be treated as a unit, let us go back to consider the earlier developments of the other "second-stage" nationalist movements in the Moslem world. We have already seen how, concurrently with Turkish nationalism, Arab nationalism was likewise evolving into the "racial" stage, the ideal being a great "Pan-Arab" empire, embracing not merely the ethnically Arab peninsula-homeland, Syria, and Mesopotamia, but also the Arabized regions of Egypt, Tripoli, French North Africa, and the Sudan.
Pan-Arabism has not been as intellectually developed as Pan-Turanism, though its general trend is so similar that its doctrines need not be discussed in detail. One important difference between the two movements is that Pan-Arabism is much more religious and Pan-Islamic in character, the Arabs regarding themselves as "The Chosen People" divinely predestined to dominate the whole Islamic world. Pan-Arabism also lacks Pan-Turanism's unity of direction. There have been two distinct intellectual centres—Syria and Egypt. In fact, it is in Egypt that Pan-Arab schemes have been most concretely elaborated, the Egyptian programme looking toward a reunion of the Arab-speaking lands under the Khedive—perhaps at first subject to British tutelage, though ultimately throwing off British control by concerted Pan-Arab action. The late Khedive Abbas Hilmi, deposed by the British in 1914, is supposed to have encouraged this movement.[166]
The Great War undoubtedly stimulated Pan-Arabism, especially by its creation of an independent Arab kingdom in the Hedjaz with claims on Syria and Mesopotamia. However, the various Arab peoples are so engrossed with local independence agitations looking toward the elimination of British, French, and Italian control from specific regions like Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Tripoli, that the larger concept of Pan-Arabism, while undoubtedly an underlying factor, is not to-day in the foreground of Arab nationalist programmes.
Furthermore, as I have already said, Pan-Arabism is interwoven with the non-racial concepts of Pan-Islamism and "Pan-Islamic Nationalism." This latter concept may seem a rather grotesque contradiction of terms. So it may be to us Westerners. But it is not necessarily so to Eastern minds. However eagerly the East may have seized upon our ideas of nationality and patriotism, those ideas have entered minds already full of concepts like Islamic solidarity and the brotherhood of all True Believers. The result has been a subtle coloration of the new by the old, so that even when Moslems use our exact words, "nationality," "race," etc., their conception of what those words mean is distinctly different from ours. These differences in fact extend to all political concepts. Take the word "State," for example. The typical Mohammedan state is not, like the typical Western state, a sharply defined unit, with fixed boundaries and full sovereignty exercised everywhere within its frontiers. It is more or less an amorphous mass, with a central nucleus, the seat of an authority which shades off into ill-defined, anarchic independence. Of course, in the past half-century, most Mohammedan states have tried to remodel themselves on Western lines, but the traditional tendency is typified by Afghanistan, where the tribes of the Indian north-west frontier, though nominally Afghan, enjoy practical independence and have frequently conducted private wars of their own against the British which the Ameer has disavowed and for which the British have not held him responsible.
Similarly with the term "Nationality." In Moslem eyes, a man need not be born or formally naturalized to be a member of a certain Moslem "Nationality." Every Moslem is more or less at home in every part of Islam, so a man may just happen into a particular country and thereby become at once, if he wishes, a national in good standing. For example: "Egypt for the Egyptians" does not mean precisely what we think. Let a Mohammedan of Algiers or Damascus settle in Cairo. Nothing prevents him from acting, and being considered as, an "Egyptian Nationalist" in the full sense of the term. This is because Islam has always had a distinct idea of territorial as well as spiritual unity. All predominantly Mohammedan lands are believed by Moslems to constitute "Dar-ul-Islam,"[167] which is in a sense the joint possession of all Moslems and which all Moslems are jointly obligated to defend. That is the reason why alien encroachments on any Moslem land are instantly resented by Moslems at the opposite end of the Moslem world, who could have no possible material interest in the matter.
We are now better able to understand how many Moslem thinkers, combining the Western concept of nationality with the traditional idea of Dar-ul-Islam, have evolved a new synthesis of the two, expressed by the term "Pan-Islamic Nationalism." This trend of thought is well set forth by an Indian Moslem, who writes: "In the West, the whole science of government rests on the axiom that the essential divisions of humanity are determined by considerations of race and geography; but for Orientals these ideas are very far from being axioms. For them, humanity divides according to religious beliefs. The unity is no longer the nation or the State, but the 'Millah.'[168] Europeans see in this a counterpart to their Middle Ages—a stage which Islam should pass through on its way to modernity in the Western sense. How badly they understand how religion looks to a Mohammedan! They forget that Islam is not only a religion, but also a social organization, a form of culture, and a nationality.... The principle of Islamic fraternity—of Pan-Islamism, if you prefer the word—is analogous to patriotism, but with this difference: this Islamic fraternity, though resulting in identity of laws and customs, has not (like Western Nationality) been brought about by community of race, country, or history, but has been received, as we believe, directly from God."[169]
Pan-Islamic nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon and has not been doctrinally worked out. Nevertheless it is visible throughout the Moslem world and is gaining in strength, particularly in regions like North Africa and India, where strong territorial patriotism has, for one reason or another, not developed. As a French writer remarks: "Mohammedan Nationalism is not an isolated or sporadic agitation. It is a broad tide, which is flowing over the whole Islamic world of Asia, India, and Africa. Nationalism is a new form of the Mohammedan faith, which, far from being undermined by contact with European civilization, seems to have discovered a surplus of religious fervour, and which, in its desire for expansion and proselytism, tends to realize its unity by rousing the fanaticism of the masses, by directing the political tendencies of the élites, and by sowing everywhere the seeds of a dangerous agitation."[170] Pan-Islamic nationalism may thus, in the future, become a major factor which will have to be seriously reckoned with.[171]
III
So ends our survey of nationalist movements in the Moslem world. Given such a tangled complex of aspirations, enormously stimulated by Armageddon, it was only natural that the close of the Great War should have left the Orient a veritable welter of unrest. Obviously, anything like a constructive settlement could have been effected only by the exercise of true statesmanship of the highest order. Unfortunately, the Versailles peace conference was devoid of true statesmanship, and the resulting "settlement" not only failed to give peace to Europe but disclosed an attitude toward the East inspired by the pre-war spirit of predatory imperialism and cynical Realpolitik. Apparently oblivious of the mighty psychological changes which the war had wrought, and of the consequent changes of attitude and policy required, the victorious Allies proceeded to treat the Orient as though Armageddon were a skirmish and Asia the sleeping giant of a century ago.
In fact, disregarding both the general pronouncements of liberal principles and the specific promises of self-determination for Near Eastern peoples which they had made during the war, the Allies now paraded a series of secret treaties (negotiated between themselves during those same war-years when they had been so unctuously orating), and these secret treaties clearly divided up the Ottoman Empire among the victors, in absolute disregard of the wishes of the inhabitants. The purposes of the Allies were further revealed by the way in which the Versailles conference refused to receive the representatives of Persia (theoretically still independent), but kept them cooling their heels in Paris while British pressure at Teheran forced the Shah's government to enter into an "agreement" that made Persia a virtual protectorate of the British Empire. As for the Egyptians, who had always protested against the protectorate proclaimed by England solely on its own initiative in 1914, the conference refused to pay any attention to their delegates, and they were given to understand that the conference regarded the British protectorate over Egypt as a fait accompli. The upshot was that, as a result of the war, European domination over the Near and Middle East was riveted rather than relaxed.
But the strangest feature of this strange business remains to be told. One might imagine that the Allied leaders would have realized that they were playing a dangerous game, which could succeed only by close team-work and quick action. As a matter of fact, the very reverse was the case. After showing their hand, and thereby filling the East with disillusionment, despair, and fury, the Allies proceeded to quarrel over the spoils. Nearly two years passed before England, France, and Italy were able to come to an even superficial agreement as to the partition of the Ottoman Empire, and meanwhile they had been bickering and intriguing against each other all over the Near East. This was sheer madness. The destined victims were thereby informed that European domination rested not only on disregard of the moral "imponderables" but on diplomatic bankruptcy as well. The obvious reflection was that a domination resting on such rotten foundations might well be overthrown.
That, at any rate, is the way multitudes of Orientals read the situation, and their rebellious feelings were stimulated not merely by consciousness of their own strength and Western disunion, but also by the active encouragement of a new ally—Bolshevik Russia. Russian Bolshevism had thrown down the gauntlet to Western civilization, and in the desperate struggle which was now on, the Bolshevik leaders saw with terrible glee the golden opportunities vouchsafed them in the East. The details of Bolshevik activity in the Orient will be considered in the chapter on Social Unrest. Suffice it to remember here that Bolshevik propaganda is an important element in that profound ferment which extends over the whole Near and Middle East; a ferment which has reduced some regions to the verge of chaos and which threatens to increase rather than diminish in the immediate future.
To relate all the details of contemporary Eastern unrest would fill a book in itself. Let us here content ourselves with considering the chief centres of this unrest, remembering always that it exists throughout the Moslem world from French North Africa to Central Asia and the Dutch Indies. The centres to be here surveyed will be Egypt, Persia, and the Turkish and Arab regions of the former Ottoman Empire. A fifth main centre of unrest—India—will be discussed in the next chapter.
The gathering storm first broke in Egypt. During the war Egypt, flooded with British troops and subjected to the most stringent martial law, had remained quiet, but it was the quiet of repression, not of passivity. We have seen how, with the opening years of the twentieth century, virtually all educated Egyptians had become more or less impregnated with nationalist ideas, albeit a large proportion of them believed in evolutionary rather than revolutionary methods. The chief hope of the moderates had been the provisional character of English rule. So long as England declared herself merely in "temporary occupation" of Egypt, anything was possible. But the proclamation of the protectorate in 1914, which declared Egypt part of the British Empire, entirely changed the situation. Even the most moderate nationalists felt that the future was definitely prejudged against them and that the door had been irrevocably closed upon their ultimate aspirations. The result was that the moderates were driven over to the extremists and were ready to join the latter in violent action as soon as opportunity might offer.
The extreme nationalists had of course protested bitterly against the protectorate from the first, and the close of the war saw a delegation composed of both nationalist wings proceed to Paris to lay their claims before the Versailles conference. Rebuffed by the conference, which recognized the British protectorate over Egypt as part of the peace settlement, the Egyptian delegation issued a formal protest warning of trouble. This protest read:
"We have knocked at door after door, but have received no answer. In spite of the definite pledges given by the statesmen at the head of the nations which won the war, to the effect that their victory would mean the triumph of Right over Might and the establishment of the principle of self-determination for small nations, the British protectorate over Egypt was written into the treaties of Versailles and Saint Germain without the people of Egypt being consulted as to their political status.
"This crime against our nation, a breach of good faith on the part of the Powers who have declared that they are forming in the same Treaty a Society of Nations, will not be consummated without a solemn warning that the people of Egypt consider the decision taken at Paris null and void.... If our voice is not heard, it will be only because the blood already shed has not been enough to overthrow the old world-order and give birth to a new world-order."[172]
Before these lines had appeared in type, trouble in Egypt had begun. Simultaneously with the arrival of the Egyptian delegation at Paris, the nationalists in Egypt laid their demands before the British authorities. The nationalist programme demanded complete self-government for Egypt, leaving England only a right of supervision over the public debt and the Suez Canal. The nationalists' strength was shown by the fact that these proposals were indorsed by the Egyptian cabinet recently appointed by the Khedive at British suggestion. In fact, the Egyptian Premier, Roushdi Pasha, asked to be allowed to go to London with some of his colleagues for a hearing. This placed the British authorities in Egypt in a distinctly trying position. However, they determined to stand firm, and accordingly answered that England could not abandon its responsibility for the continuance of order and good government in Egypt, now a British protectorate and an integral part of the empire, and that no useful purpose would be served by allowing the Egyptian leaders to go to London and there advance immoderate demands which could not possibly be entertained.
The English attitude was firm. The Egyptian attitude was no less firm. The cabinet at once resigned, no new cabinet could be formed, and the British High Commissioner, General Allenby, was forced to assume unveiled control. Meanwhile the nationalists announced that they were going to hold a plebiscite to determine the attitude of the Egyptian people. Forbidden by the British authorities, the plebiscite was nevertheless illegally held, and resulted, according to the nationalists, in an overwhelming popular indorsement of their demands. This defiant attitude determined the British on strong action. Accordingly, in the spring of 1919, most of the nationalist leaders were seized and deported to Malta.
Egypt's answer was an explosion. From one end of the country to the other, Egypt flamed into rebellion. Everywhere it was the same story. Railways and telegraph lines were systematically cut. Trains were stalled and looted. Isolated British officers and soldiers were murdered. In Cairo alone, thousands of houses were sacked by the mob. Soon the danger was rendered more acute by the irruption out of the desert of swarms of Bedouin Arabs bent on plunder. For a few days Egypt trembled on the verge of anarchy, and the British Government admitted in Parliament that all Egypt was in a state of insurrection.
The British authorities met the crisis with vigour and determination. The number of British troops in Egypt was large, trusty black regiments were hurried up from the Sudan, and the well-disciplined Egyptian native police generally obeyed orders. After several weeks of sharp fighting and heavy loss of life, Egypt was again gotten under control.
Order was restored, but the outlook was ominous in the extreme. Only the presence of massed British and Sudanese troops enabled order to be maintained. Even the application of stern martial law could not prevent continuous nationalist demonstrations, sometimes ending in riots, fighting, and heavy loss of life. The most serious aspect of the situation was that not only were the upper classes solidly nationalist, but they had behind them the hitherto passive fellah millions. The war-years had borne hard on the fellaheen. Military exigencies had compelled Britain to conscript fully a million of them for forced labour in the Near East and even in Europe, while there had also been wholesale requisitions of grain, fodder, and other supplies. These things had caused profound discontent and had roused among the fellaheen not merely passive dislike but active hatred of British rule. Authoritative English experts on Egypt were seriously alarmed. Shortly after the riots Sir William Willcocks, the noted engineer, said in a public statement: "The keystone of the British occupation of Egypt was the fact that the fellaheen were for it. The Sheikhs, Omdehs, governing classes, and high religious heads might or might not be hostile, but nothing counted for much while the millions of fellaheen were solid for the occupation. The British have undoubtedly to-day lost the friendship and confidence of the fellaheen." And Sir Valentine Chirol stated in the London Times: "We are now admittedly face to face with the ominous fact that for the first time since the British occupation large numbers of the Egyptian fellaheen, who owe far more to us than does any other class of Egyptians, have been worked up into a fever of bitter discontent and hatred. Very few people at home, even in responsible quarters, have, I think, the slightest conception of the very dangerous degree of tension which has now been reached out here."
All foreign observers were impressed by the nationalist feeling which united all creeds and classes. Regarding the monster demonstrations held during the summer of 1919, an Italian publicist wrote: "For the first time in history, the banners flown showed the Crescent interwoven with the Cross. Until a short time ago the two elements were as distinct from each other as each of them was from the Jews. To-day, precisely as has happened in India among the Mussulmans and the Hindus, every trace of religious division has departed. All Egyptians are enrolled under a single banner. Every one behind his mask of silence is burning with the same faith, and confident that his cause will ultimately triumph."[173] And a Frenchwoman, a lifelong resident of Egypt, wrote: "We have seen surprising things in this country, so often divided by party and religious struggles: Coptic priests preaching in mosques, ulemas preaching in Christian churches; Syrian, Maronite, or Mohammedan students; women, whether of Turkish or Egyptian blood, united in the same fervour, the same ardent desire to see break over their ancient land the radiant dawn of independence. For those who, like myself, have known the Egypt of Tewfik, the attitude of the women these last few years is the most surprising transformation that has happened in the valley of the Nile. One should have seen the nonchalant life, the almost complete indifference to anything savouring of politics, to appreciate the enormous steps taken in the last few months. For example: last summer a procession of women demonstrators was surrounded by British soldiers with fixed bayonets. One of the women, threatened by a soldier, turned on him, baring her breast, and cried: 'Kill me, then, so that there may be another Miss Cavell.'"[174]
Faced by this unprecedented nationalist fervour, Englishmen on the spot were of two opinions. Some, like Sir William Willcocks and Sir Valentine Chirol, stated that extensive concessions must be made.[175] Other qualified observers asserted that concessions would be weakness and would spell disaster. Said Sir M. McIlwraith: "Five years of a Nationalist régime would lead to hopeless chaos and disorder.... If Egypt is not to fall back into the morass of bankruptcy and anarchy from which we rescued her in 1882, with the still greater horrors of Bolshevism, of which there are already sinister indications, superadded, Britain must not loosen her control."[176] In England the Egyptian situation caused grave disquietude, and in the summer of 1919 the British Government announced the appointment of a commission of inquiry headed by Lord Milner to investigate fully into Egyptian affairs.
The appointment was a wise one. Lord Milner was one of the ablest figures in British political life, a man of long experience with imperial problems, including that of Egypt, and possessed of a temperament equally remote from the doctrinaire liberal or the hidebound conservative. In short, Lord Milner was a realist, in the true sense of the word, as his action soon proved. Arriving in Egypt at the beginning of 1920, Lord Milner and his colleagues found themselves confronted with a most difficult situation. In Egypt the word had gone forth to boycott the commission, and not merely nationalist politicians but also religious leaders like the Grand Mufti refused even to discuss matters unless the commissioners would first agree to Egyptian independence. This looked like a deadlock. Nevertheless, by infinite tact and patience, Lord Milner finally got into free and frank discussion with Zagloul Pasha and the other responsible nationalist leaders.
His efforts were undoubtedly helped by certain developments within Egypt itself. In Egypt, as elsewhere in the East, there were appearing symptoms not merely of political but also of social unrest. New types of agitators were springing up, preaching to the populace the most extreme revolutionary doctrines. These youthful agitators disquieted the regular nationalist leaders, who felt themselves threatened both as party chiefs and as men of social standing and property. The upshot was that, by the autumn of 1920, Lord Milner and Zagloul Pasha had agreed upon the basis of what looked like a genuine compromise. According to the intimations then given out to the press, and later confirmed by the nature of Lord Milner's official report, the lines of the tentative agreement ran as follows: England was to withdraw her protectorate and was to declare Egypt independent. This independence was qualified to about the same extent that Cuba's is toward the United States. Egypt was to have complete self-government, both the British garrison and British civilian officials being withdrawn. Egypt was, however, to make a perpetual treaty of alliance with Great Britain, was to agree not to make treaties with other Powers save with Britain's consent, and was to grant Britain a military and naval station for the protection of the Suez Canal and of Egypt itself in case of sudden attack by foreign enemies. The vexed question of the Sudan was left temporarily open.
These proposals bore the earmarks of genuinely constructive compromise. Unfortunately, they were not at once acted upon.[177] Both in England and in Egypt they roused strong opposition. In England adverse official influences held up the commission's report till February, 1921. In Egypt the extreme nationalists denounced Zagloul Pasha as a traitor, though moderate opinion seemed substantially satisfied. The commission's report, as finally published, declared that the grant of self-government to Egypt could not be safely postponed; that the nationalist spirit could not be extinguished; that an attempt to govern Egypt in the teeth of a hostile people would be "a difficult and disgraceful task"; and that it would be a great misfortune if the present opportunity for a settlement were lost. However, the report was not indorsed by the British Government in its entirety, and Lord Milner forthwith resigned. As for Zagloul Pasha, he still maintains his position as nationalist leader, but his authority has been gravely shaken. Such is the situation of Egypt at this present writing: a situation frankly not so encouraging as it was last year.
Meanwhile the storm which had begun in Egypt had long since spread to other parts of the Near East. In fact, by the opening months of 1920, the storm-centre had shifted to the Ottoman Empire. For this the Allies themselves were largely to blame. Of course a constructive settlement of these troubled regions would have been very difficult. Still, it might not have proved impossible if Allied policy had been fair and above-board. The close of the war found the various peoples of the Ottoman Empire hopeful that the liberal war-aims professed by the Allied spokesmen would be redeemed. The Arab elements were notably hopeful, because they had been given a whole series of Allied promises (shortly to be repudiated, as we shall presently see), while even the beaten Turks were not entirely bereft of hope in the future. Besides the general pronouncements of liberal treatment as formulated in the "Fourteen Points" programme of President Wilson and indorsed by the Allies, the Turks had pledges of a more specific character, notably by Premier Lloyd George, who, on January 5, 1918, had said: "Nor are we fighting to deprive Turkey of its capital or of the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and Thrace, which are predominantly Turkish in race." In other words, the Turks were given unequivocally to understand that, while their rule over non-Turkish regions like the Arab provinces must cease, the Turkish regions of the empire were not to pass under alien rule, but were to form a Turkish national state. The Turks did not know about a series of secret treaties between the Allies, begun in 1915, which partitioned practically the whole of Asia Minor between the Allied Powers. These were to come out a little later. For the moment the Turks might hope.
In the case of the Arabs there were far brighter grounds for nationalist hopes—and far darker depths of Allied duplicity. We have already mentioned the Arab revolt of 1916, which, beginning in the Hedjaz under the leadership of the Shereef of Mecca, presently spread through all the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and contributed so largely to the collapse of Turkish resistance. This revolt was, however, not a sudden, unpremeditated thing. It had been carefully planned, and was due largely to Allied backing—and Allied promises. From the very beginning of the war Arab nationalist malcontents had been in touch with the British authorities in Egypt. They were warmly welcomed and encouraged in their separatist schemes, because an Arab rebellion would obviously be of invaluable assistance to the British in safeguarding Egypt and the Suez Canal, to say nothing of an advance into Turkish territory.
The Arabs, however, asked not merely material aid but also definite promises that their rebellion should be rewarded by the formation of an Arab state embracing the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately for Arab nationalist aspirations, the British and French Governments had their own ideas as to the future of Turkey's Arab provinces. Both England and France had long possessed "spheres of influence" in those regions. The English sphere was in southern Mesopotamia at the head of the Persian Gulf. The French sphere was the Lebanon, a mountainous district in northern Syria just inland from the Mediterranean coast, where the population, known as Maronites, were Roman Catholics, over whom France had long extended her diplomatic protection. Of course both these districts were legally Turkish territory. Also, both were small in area. But "spheres of influence" are elastic things. Under favourable circumstances they are capable of sudden expansion to an extraordinary degree. Such a circumstance was the Great War. Accordingly the British and French Foreign Offices put their heads together and on March 5, 1915, the two governments signed a secret treaty by the terms of which France was given a "predominant position" in Syria and Britain a predominant position in Mesopotamia. No definite boundaries were then assigned, but the intent was to stake out claims which would partition Turkey's Arab provinces between England and France.
Naturally the existence of this secret treaty was an embarrassment to the British officials in Egypt in their negotiations with the Arabs. However, an Arab rebellion was too valuable an asset to be lost, and the British negotiators finally evolved a formula which satisfied the Arab leaders. On October 25, 1915, the Shereef of Mecca's representative at Cairo was given a document by the Governor-General of Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, in which Great Britain undertook, conditional upon an Arab revolt, to recognize the independence of the Arabs of the Ottoman Empire except in southern Mesopotamia, where British interests required special measures of administrative control, and also except areas where Great Britain was "not free to act without detriment to the interests of France." This last clause was of course a "joker." However, it achieved its purpose. The Arabs, knowing nothing about the secret treaty, supposed it referred merely to the restricted district of the Lebanon. They went home jubilant, to prepare the revolt which broke out next year.
The revolt began in November, 1916. It might not have begun at all had the Arabs known what had happened the preceding May. In that month England and France signed another secret treaty, the celebrated Sykes-Picot Agreement. This agreement definitely partitioned Turkey's Arab provinces along the lines suggested in the initial secret treaty of the year before. By the Sykes-Picot Agreement most of Mesopotamia was to be definitely British, while the Syrian coast from Tyre to Alexandretta was to be definitely French, together with extensive Armenian and Asia Minor regions to the northward. Palestine was to be "international," albeit its chief seaport, Haifa, was to be British, and the implication was that Palestine fell within the English sphere. As to the great hinterland lying between Mesopotamia and the Syrian coast, it was to be "independent Arab under two spheres of influence," British and French; the French sphere embracing all the rest of Syria from Aleppo to Damascus, the English sphere embracing all the rest of Mesopotamia—the region about Mosul. In other words, the independence promised the Arabs by Sir Henry McMahon had vanished into thin air.
This little shift behind the scenes was of course not communicated to the Arabs. On the contrary, the British did everything possible to stimulate Arab nationalist hopes—this being the best way to extract their fighting zeal against the Turks. The British Government sent the Arabs a number of picked intelligence officers, notably a certain Colonel Lawrence, an extraordinary young man who soon gained unbounded influence over the Arab chiefs and became known as "The Soul of the Arabian Revolution."[178] These men, chosen for their knowledge of, and sympathy for, the Arabs, were not informed about the secret treaties, so that their encouragement of Arab zeal might not be marred by any lack of sincerity. Similarly, the British generals were prodigal of promises in their proclamations.[179] The climax of this blessed comedy occurred at the very close of the war, when the British and French Governments issued the following joint declaration which was posted throughout the Arab provinces: "The aim which France and Great Britain have in view in waging in the East the war let loose upon the world by German ambition, is to insure the complete and final emancipation of all those peoples, so long oppressed by Turks, and to establish national governments and administrations which shall derive their authority from the initiative and free will of the people themselves."
This climax was, however, followed by a swift dénouement. The war was over, the enemy was beaten, the comedy was ended, the curtain was rung down, and on that curtain the Arabs read—the inner truth of things. French troops appeared to occupy the Syrian coast, the secret treaties came out, and the Arabs learned how they had been tricked. Black and bitter was their wrath. Probably they would have exploded at once had it not been for their cool-headed chiefs, especially Prince Feisal, the son of the Shereef of Mecca, who had proved himself a real leader of men during the war and who had now attained a position of unquestioned authority. Feisal knew the Allies' military strength and realized how hazardous war would be, especially at that time. Feeling the moral strength of the Arab position, he besought his countrymen to let him plead Arabia's cause before the impending peace conference, and he had his way. During the year 1919 the Arab lands were quiet, though it was the quiet of suspense.
Prince Feisal pleaded his case before the peace conference with eloquence and dignity. But Feisal failed. The covenant of the League of Nations might contain the benevolent statement that "certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone."[180] The Arabs knew what "mandatories" meant. Lloyd George might utter felicitous phrases such as "Arab forces have redeemed the pledges given to Great Britain, and we should redeem our pledges."[181] The Arabs had read the secret treaties. "In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." The game no longer worked. The Arabs knew that they must rely on their own efforts, either in diplomacy or war.
Feisal still counselled peace. He was probably influenced to this not merely by the risks of armed resistance but also by the fact that the Allies were now quarrelling among themselves. These quarrels of course extended all over the Near East, but there was none more bitter than the quarrel which had broken out between England and France over the division of the Arab spoils. This dispute originated in French dissatisfaction with the secret treaties. No sooner had the Sykes-Picot Agreement been published than large and influential sections of French opinion began shouting that they had been duped. For generations French imperialists had had their eye on Syria,[182] and since the beginning of the war the imperialist press had been conducting an ardent propaganda for wholesale annexations in the Near East. "La Syrie intégrale!" "All Syria!" was the cry. And this "all" included not merely the coast-strip assigned France by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but also Palestine and the vast Aleppo-Damascus hinterland right across to the rich oil-fields of Mosul. To this entire region, often termed in French expansionist circles "La France du Levant," the imperialists asserted that France had "imprescriptible historic rights running back to the Crusades and even to Charlemagne." Syria was a "second Alsace," which held out its arms to France and would not be denied. It was also the indispensable fulcrum of French world-policy. These imperialist aspirations had powerful backing in French Government circles. For example, early in 1915, M. Leygues had said in the Chamber of Deputies: "The axis of French policy is in the Mediterranean. One of its poles is in the West, at Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco. The other must lie in the East, with Syria, Lebanon, Palestine."[183]
After such high hopes, the effect of the Sykes-Picot Agreement on French imperialists can be imagined. Their anger turned naturally upon the English, who were roundly denounced and blamed for everything that was happening in the East, Arab nationalist aspirations being stigmatized as nothing but British propaganda. Cried one French writer: "Some psychiatrist ought to write a study of these British colonial officials, implacable imperialists, megalomaniacs, who, night and day, work for their country without even asking counsel from London, and whose constant care is to annihilate in Syria, as they once annihilated in Egypt, the supremacy of France."[184] In answer to such fulminations, English writers scored French "greed" and "folly" which was compromising England's prestige and threatening to set the whole East on fire.[185] In fine, there was a very pretty row on between people who, less than a year before, had been pledging their "sacred union" for all eternity. The Arabs were certainly much edified, and the other Eastern peoples as well.
Largely owing to these bickerings, Allied action in the Near East was delayed through 1919. But by the spring of 1920 the Allies came to a measure of agreement. The meeting of the Allied Premiers at San Remo elaborated the terms of the treaty to be imposed on Turkey, dividing Asia Minor into spheres of influence and exploitation, while the Arab provinces were assigned England and France according to the terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement—properly camouflaged, of course, as "mandates" of the League of Nations. England, France, and their satellite, Greece, prepared for action. British reinforcements were sent to Mesopotamia and Palestine; French reinforcements were sent to Syria; an Anglo-Franco-Greek force prepared to occupy Constantinople, and Premier Venizelos promised a Greek army for Asia Minor contingencies. The one rift in the lute was Italy. Italy saw big trouble brewing and determined not to be directly involved. Said Premier Nitti to an English journalist after the San Remo conference: "You will have war in Asia Minor, and Italy will not send a single soldier nor pay a single lira. You have taken from the Turks their sacred city of Adrianople; you have placed their capital city under foreign control; you have taken from them every port and the larger part of their territory; and the five Turkish delegates whom you will select will sign a treaty which will not have the sanction of the Turkish people or the Turkish Parliament."
Premier Nitti was a true prophet. For months past the Turkish nationalists, knowing what was in store for them, had been building up a centre of resistance in the interior of Asia Minor. Of course the former nationalist leaders such as Enver Pasha had long since fled to distant havens like Transcaucasia or Bolshevik Russia, but new leaders appeared, notably a young officer of marked military talent, Mustapha Kemal Pasha. With great energy Mustapha Kemal built up a really creditable army, and from his "capital," the city of Angora in the heart of Asia Minor, he now defied the Allies, emphasizing his defiance by attacking the French garrisons in Cilicia (a coast district in Asia Minor just north of Syria), inflicting heavy losses.
The Arabs also were preparing for action. In March a "Pan-Syrian Congress" met at Damascus, unanimously declared the independence of Syria, and elected Feisal king. This announcement electrified all the Arab provinces. In the French-occupied coastal zone riots broke out against the French; in Palestine there were "pogroms" against the Jews, whom the Arabs, both Moslem and Christian, hated for their "Zionist" plans; while in Mesopotamia there were sporadic uprisings of tribesmen.
Faced by this ominous situation, the "mandatories" took military counter-measures. The French took especially vigorous action. France now had nearly 100,000 men in Syria and Cilicia, headed by General Gouraud, a veteran of many colonial wars and a believer in "strong-arm" methods. On July 15 Gouraud sent Feisal an ultimatum requiring complete submission. Feisal, diplomatic to the last, actually accepted the ultimatum, but Gouraud ignored this acceptance on a technicality and struck for Damascus with 60,000 men. Feisal attempted no real resistance, fighting only a rearguard action and withdrawing into the desert. On July 25 the French entered Damascus, the Arab capital, deposed Feisal, and set up thoroughgoing French rule. Opposition was punished with the greatest severity. Damascus was mulcted of a war-contribution of 10,000,000 francs, after the German fashion in Belgium, many nationalist leaders were imprisoned or shot, while Gouraud announced that the death of "one French subject or one Christian" would be followed by wholesale "most terrible reprisals" by bombing aeroplanes.[186]
Before this Napoleonic "thunder-stroke" Syria bent for the moment, apparently terrorized. In Mesopotamia, however, the British were not so fortunate. For some months trouble had patently been brewing, and in March the British commander had expressed himself as "much struck with the volcanic possibilities of the country." In July all Mesopotamia flamed into insurrection, and though Britain had fully 100,000 troops in the province, they were hard put to it to stem the rebellion.
Meanwhile, the Allies had occupied Constantinople, to force acceptance of the draft treaty of peace. Naturally, there was no resistance, Constantinople being entirely at the mercy of the Allied fleet. But the silence of the vast throngs gathered to watch the incoming troops filled some Allied observers with disquietude. A French journalist wrote: "The silence of the multitude was more impressive than boisterous protests. Their eyes glowed with sullen hatred. Scattered through this throng of mute, prostrated, hopeless people circulated watchful and sinuous emissaries, who were to carry word of this misfortune to the remotest confines of Islam. In a few hours they would be in Anatolia. A couple of days later the news would have spread to Konia, Angora, and Sivas. In a brief space of time it would be heralded throughout the regions of Bolshevist influence, extending to the Caucasus and beyond. In a few weeks all these centres of agitation will be preparing their counter-attack. Asia and Africa will again cement their union of faith. Intelligent agents will record in the retentive minds of people who do not read, the history of our blunders. These missionaries of insurrection and fanaticism come from every race and class of society. Educated and refined men disguise themselves as beggars and outcasts, in order to spread the news apace and to prepare for bitter vengeance."[187]
Events in Turkey now proceeded precisely as the Italian Premier Nitti had foretold. The Allied masters of Constantinople compelled the Sultan to appoint a "friendly" cabinet which solemnly denounced Mustapha Kemal and his "rebels," and sent a hand-picked delegation to Sèvres, France, where they dutifully "signed on the dotted line" the treaty that the Allies had prepared. The Allies had thus "imposed their will"—on paper. For every sensible man knew that the whole business was a roaring farce; knew that the "friendly" government, from Sultan to meanest clerk, was as nationalist as Mustapha Kemal himself; knew that the real Turkish capital was not Constantinople but Angora, and that the Allies' power was measured by the range of their guns. As for Mustapha Kemal, his comment on the Sèvres Treaty was: "I will fight to the end of the world."
The Allies were thus in a decidedly embarrassing situation, especially since "The Allies" now meant only England and France. Italy was out of the game. As Nitti had warned at San Remo, she would "not send a single soldier nor pay a single lira." With 200,000 soldiers holding down the Arabs, and plenty of trouble elsewhere, neither France nor Britain had the troops to crush Mustapha Kemal—a job which the French staff estimated would take 300,000 men. One weapon, however, they still possessed—Greece. In return for large territorial concessions, Premier Venizelos offered to bring the Turks to reason. His offer was accepted, and 100,000 Greek troops landed at Smyrna. But the Greek campaign was not a success. Even 100,000 men soon wore thin when spread out over the vast Asia Minor plateau. Mustapha Kemal avoided decisive battle, harassing the Greeks by guerilla warfare just as he was harassing the French in Cilicia at the other end of the line. The Greeks "dug in," and a deadlock ensued which threatened to continue indefinitely. This soon caused a new complication. Venizelos might be willing to "carry on" as the Allies' submandatory, but the Greek people were not. Kept virtually on a war-footing since 1912, the Greeks kicked over the traces. In the November elections they repudiated Venizelos by a vote of 990,000 to 10,000, and recalled King Constantine, who had been deposed by the Allies three years before. This meant that Greece, like Italy, was out of the game. To be sure, King Constantine presently started hostilities with the Turks on his own account. This was, however, something very different from Greece's attitude under the Venizelist régime. The Allies' weapon had thus broken in their hands.
Meanwhile Mustapha Kemal was not merely consolidating his authority in Asia Minor but was gaining allies of his own. In the first place, he was establishing close relations with the Arabs. It may appear strange to find such bitter foes become friends; nevertheless, Franco-British policy had achieved even this seeming miracle. The reason was clearly explained by no less a person than Lawrence ("The Soul of the Arab Revolution"), who had returned to civil life and was thus free to speak his mind on the Eastern situation, which he did in no uncertain fashion. In one of several statements given to the British press, Lawrence said: "The Arabs rebelled against the Turks during the war, not because the Turkish Government was notably bad, but because they wanted independence. They did not risk their lives in battle to change masters, to become British subjects or French citizens, but to win a State of their own." The matter was put even more pointedly by an Arab nationalist leader in the columns of a French radical paper opposed to the Syrian adventure. Said this leader: "Both the French and the English should know once for all that the Arabs are joined by a common religion with the Turks, and have been politically identified with them for centuries, and therefore do not wish to separate themselves from their fellow believers and brothers-in-arms merely to submit to the domination of a European nation, no matter what form the latter's suzerainty may assume.... It is no use for M. Millerand to say: 'We have never thought of trespassing in any respect upon the independence of these people.' No one is deceived by such statements as that. The armistice was signed in accordance with the conditions proclaimed by Mr. Wilson, but as soon as Germany and its allies were helpless, the promises of the armistice were trodden underfoot, as well as the Fourteen Points. Such a violation of the promises of complete independence, so prodigally made to the Arabs on so many occasions, has resulted in re-uniting closer than ever the Arabs and the Turks. It has taken but a few months to restore that intimacy.... It is probable that France, by maintaining an army of 150,000 men in Syria, and by spending billions of francs, will be able to subdue the Syrian Arabs. But that will not finish the task. The interior of that country borders upon other lands inhabited by Arabs, Kurds, and Turks, and by the immense desert. In starting a conflict with 4,000,000 Syrians, France will be making enemies of 15,000,000 Arabs in the Levant, most of whom are armed tribes, without including the other Mohammedan peoples, who are speedily acquiring solidarity and organization under the blows that are being dealt them by the Entente. If you believe I am exaggerating, all you have to do is to investigate the facts yourself. But what good will it do to confirm the truth too late, and after floods of blood have flowed?"[188]
In fact, signs of Turco-Arab co-operation became everywhere apparent. To be sure, this co-operation was not openly avowed either by Mustapha Kemal or by the deposed King Feisal who, fleeing to Italy, continued his diplomatic manœuvres. But Arabs fought beside Turks against the French in Cilicia; Turks and Kurds joined the Syrian Arabs in their continual local risings; while Kemal's hand was clearly apparent in the rebellion against the British in Mesopotamia.
This Arab entente was not the whole of Mustapha Kemal's foreign policy. He was also reaching out north-eastward to the Tartars of Transcaucasia and the Turkomans of Persian Azerbaidjan. The Caucasus was by this time the scene of a highly complicated struggle between Moslem Tartars and Turkomans, Christian Armenians and Georgians, and various Russian factions, which was fast reducing that unhappy region to chaos. Among the Tartar-Turkomans, long leavened by Pan-Turanian propaganda, Mustapha Kemal found enthusiastic adherents; and his efforts were supported by a third ally—Bolshevik Russia. Bolshevik policy, which, as we have already stated, was seeking to stir up trouble against the Western Powers throughout the East, had watched Kemal's rise with great satisfaction. At first the Bolsheviki could do very little for the Turkish nationalists because they were not in direct touch, but the collapse of Wrangel's "White" army in November, 1920, and the consequent overrunning of all south Russia by the Red armies, opened a direct line from Moscow to Angora via the Caucasus, and henceforth Mustapha Kemal was supplied with money, arms, and a few men.
Furthermore, Kemal and the Bolsheviki were starting trouble in Persia. That country was in a most deplorable condition. During the war Persia, despite her technical neutrality, had been a battle-ground between the Anglo-Russians on the one hand and the Turco-Germans on the other. Russia's collapse in 1917 had led to her military withdrawal from Persia, and England, profiting by the situation, had made herself supreme, legalizing her position by the famous "Agreement" "negotiated" with the Shah's government in August, 1919.[189] This treaty, though signed and sealed in due form, was bitterly resented by the Persian people. Here was obviously another ripe field for Bolshevik propaganda. Accordingly, the Bolshevik government renounced all rights in Persia acquired by the Czarist régime and proclaimed themselves the friends of the Persian people against Western imperialism. Naturally the game worked, and Persia soon became honeycombed with militant unrest. In the early summer of 1920 a Bolshevist force actually crossed the Caspian Sea and landed on the Persian shore. They did not penetrate far into the country. They did not need to, for the country simply effervesced in a way which made the British position increasingly untenable. For many months a confused situation ensued. In fact, at this writing the situation is still obscure. But there can be no doubt that Britain's hold on Persia is gravely shaken, and she may soon be compelled to evacuate the country, with the possible exception of the extreme south.
Turning back to the autumn of 1920: the position of England and France in the Near East had become far from bright. Deserted by Italy and Greece, defied by the Turks, harried by the Arabs, worried by the Egyptians and Persians, and everywhere menaced by the subtle workings of Bolshevism, the situation was not a happy one. The burden of empire was proving heavy. In Mesopotamia alone the bill was already 100,000,000 sterling, with no relief in sight.
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that in both England and France Near Eastern policies were subjected to a growing flood of criticism. In England especially the tide ran very strong. The Mesopotamian imbroglio was denounced as both a crime and a blunder. For example, Colonel Lawrence stated: "We are to-day not far from disaster. Our government is worse than the old Turkish system. They kept 14,000 local conscripts in the ranks and killed yearly an average of 200 Arabs in maintaining peace. We keep 90,000 men, with aeroplanes, armoured cars, gunboats, and armoured trains. We have killed about 10,000 Arabs in the rising this summer."[190] Influenced by such criticisms and by the general trend of events, the British Government modified its attitude, sending out Sir Percy Cox to negotiate with the Arabs. Sir Percy Cox was a man of the Milner type, with a firm grip on realities and an intimate experience with Eastern affairs. Authorized to discuss large concessions, he met the nationalist leaders frankly and made a good impression upon them. At this writing matters have not been definitely settled, but it looks as though England was planning to limit her direct control to the extreme south of Mesopotamia at the head of the Persian Gulf—practically her old sphere of influence before 1914.
Meanwhile, in Syria, France has thus far succeeded in maintaining relative order by strong-arm methods. But the situation is highly unstable. All classes of the population have been alienated. Even the Catholic Maronites, traditionally pro-French, have begun agitating. General Gouraud promptly squelched the agitation by deporting the leaders to Corsica; nevertheless, the fact remains that France's only real friends in Syria are dissatisfied. Up to the present these things have not changed France's attitude. A short time ago ex-Premier Leygues remarked of Syria, "France will occupy all of it, and always"; while still more recently General Gouraud stated: "France must remain in Syria, both for political and economic reasons. The political consequences of our abandonment of the country would be disastrous. Our prestige and influence in the Levant and the Mediterranean would be doomed. The economic interests of France also compel us to remain there. When fully developed, Syria and Cilicia will have an economic value fully equal to that of Egypt."
However, despite the French Government's firmness, there is an increasing public criticism of the "Syrian adventure," not merely from radical anti-imperialist quarters, but from unimpeachably conservative circles as well. The editor of one of the most conservative French political periodicals has stated: "Jealous of its autonomy, the Arab people, liberated from the Ottoman yoke, do not desire a new foreign domination. To say that Syria demands our protection is a lie. Syria wishes to be entirely independent."[191] And recently Senator Victor Bérard, one of France's recognized authorities on Eastern affairs made a speech in the French Senate strongly criticising the Government's Syrian policy from the very start and declaring that a "free Syria" was "a question of both interest and honour."
Certainly, the French Government, still so unyielding toward the Arabs, has reversed its attitude toward the Turks. Side-stepping the Sèvres Treaty, it has lately agreed on provisional peace terms with the Turkish nationalists, actually agreeing to evacuate Cilicia. In fact, both France and England know that the Sèvres Treaty is unworkable, and that Turkish possession of virtually the whole of Asia Minor will have to be recognized.
In negotiating with Mustapha Kemal, France undoubtedly hopes to get him to throw over the Arabs. But this is scarcely thinkable. The whole trend of events betokens an increasing solidarity of the Near Eastern peoples against Western political control. A most remarkable portent in this direction is the Pan-Islamic conference held at Sivas early in 1921. This conference, called to draw up a definite scheme for effective Moslem co-operation the world over, was attended not merely by the high orthodox Moslem dignitaries and political leaders, but also by heterodox chiefs like the Shiah Emir of Kerbela, the Imam Yahya, and the Zaidite Emir of Yemen—leaders of heretical sects between whom and the orthodox Sunnis co-operation had previously been impossible. Most notable of all, the press reports state that the conference was presided over by no less a personage than El Sennussi. This may well be so, for we have already seen how the Sennussi have always worked for a close union of all Islam against Western domination.
Such is the situation in the Near East—a situation very grave and full of trouble. The most hopeful portent is the apparent awakening of the British Government to the growing perils of the hour, and its consequent modifications of attitude. The labours of men like Lord Milner and Sir Percy Cox, however hampered by purblind influences, can scarcely be wholly barren of results. Such men are the diplomatic descendants of Chatham and of Durham; the upholders of that great political tradition which has steered the British Empire safely through crises that appeared hopeless.
On the other hand, the darkest portent in the Near East is the continued intransigeance of France. Steeped in its old traditions, French policy apparently refuses to face realities. If an explosion comes, as come it must unless France modifies her attitude; if, some dark day, thirty or forty French battalions are caught in a simoom of Arab fury blowing out of the desert and are annihilated in a new Adowa; the regretful verdict of many versed in Eastern affairs can only be: "French policy has deserved it."
Leaving the Near Eastern problem at this critical juncture to the inscrutable solution of the future, let us now turn to the great political problem of the Middle East—the nationalist movement in India.