Selim the Magnificent may be called the Turkish top-note. After him the Ottoman Empire gradually declined. It has generally taken advantage of disaster or dissension to extend its borders—a precarious method of empire-building unless consolidated by benevolent and sound administration, which is not a feature of Turkish rule. Add to this the facts that Turks are slack Moslems, that the national party which ousted Abdul Hamid (himself most orthodox) is not religious at all, with all its barbarian, totemistic nonsense of the "White Wolf," and that they would pose as conquerors on insufficient grounds, and we begin to see why they have been kicked out of their Asiatic empire bit by bit.
If Turk and Mongol had been capable of dynastic evolution and co-ordinate policy they might have shared most of the Eastern Hemisphere between them. We have seen the high-water mark of the Ottoman Empire; Marco Polo has told us of Kubla Khan's Chinese Empire, and the Moguls did much for India in their prime. But the wolf-taint was in their blood, and just as a pet wolf gets fat and degenerate, so it has been with these Tartars. Their undoubted soldierly qualities are sapped by luxury, and they possess no constructive gifts which peace and prosperity might develop. Hence it is that every empire they have founded has risen to a culminating point of conquest and then dwindled away in sloth and corruption.
The Turk is not fit to be put in charge of any race but his own, for he is at heart a bitter wolf who will turn and rend without ruth or warning. I have met Turks who have shown tact, humanity, and ability under trying conditions, and I have met well-mannered wolves in captivity, but would not trust the pack ranging in its native forest. I once heard a member of our Ottoman Embassy who has unique experience of the Turk size him up as follows: "The Turk can be a suave and cultured gentleman till his time comes, and then he will tear your guts out and dance on them." It was the Seljouk Turks whose persecutions caused the Crusades. Before them, Arab rule in Palestine was tolerant enough, and the Caliph Omar was scrupulously careful when he entered Jerusalem as a conqueror to respect Christian prejudices and the monuments of our creed.
So it came about that their empire was dropping from them piecemeal even before the War, for a race that can no longer conquer and has never learned to conciliate must draw in its borders or cease to exist as a State.
When war broke out Turkey was just hanging on to the last scrap of her empire in Europe and had lost all but the shadow of sovereignty in Egypt, while Arabia was seething with discontent, where not in actual revolt, and regarded the belated efforts of local officials to govern tactfully as signs of weakness.
The colossal brigandage of Germany appealed to her freebooting instincts, although it took a corrupt, self-seeking Government and a final push from the "Goeben" and the "Breslau" to plunge her into war against her best friends.
To proclaim a jihad was her obvious course, if only to keep Arabia moderately quiet, apart from its value as a weapon against her Christian foes. We will now see how she fared in the "Holy War."
CHAPTER II
ITS BEARING ON THE WAR
Quite early in the War those of us who had to deal with pan-Islamic propaganda realised that the widespread organisation which Germany had grafted on to the original Turkish movement must have existed some time before the outbreak of actual hostilities.