Abdul-Hamid, that much-maligned and dethroned Sultan, who, however, towers head and shoulders above all the Young Turks put together in practical intelligence and statesmanly skill, and would never have committed the unpardonable error of throwing in his lot with Germany in the war and so bringing about the certain downfall of Turkey, was the last ruler of Turkey that knew how to make use of Pan-Islamism as a successful instrument of authority.
Enver and Talaat and all that breed of jingoists on the Ittahad (Committee for Union and Progress) were upstarts without any schooling in political history, and so all the more inclined to the doctrinal revolutionism and short-sighted fanaticism of the successful adventurer, and were much too limited to recognise the tremendous political import of Pan-Islamism. Naturally once they had conceived the idea of the "Djihad," they tried to make theoretical use of Pan-Islamism; but practically, far from extending Turkey's influence to distant Arabian lands, to the Soudan and India, they simply let Turkey go to ruin through their Pan-Turkish illusions and their race-fanaticism.
Abdul-Hamid with his clever diplomacy managed to maintain, if not the real sympathies, at any rate the formal loyalty of the Arabs and their solidarity with the rest of the Ottoman Empire. It was he who conceived the idea of that undertaking of eminent political importance, the Hedjaz Railway, which facilitates pilgrimages to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and links up the Arabian territory with the Turkish, and he was always able to quell any disturbances in these outlying parts of the Empire with very few troops indeed. Nowadays the Young Turkish Government, even if they had the troops to spare, might send a whole army to the Hedjaz and they would be like an island of sand in the midst of that stormy Arab sea. The Arabs, intellectually far superior to the Turks, have at last made up their minds to defy their oppressors, and all the Arabic-speaking parts of the Ottoman Empire may be taken as already lost, no matter what the final result of the great war may be.
The Young Turks had scarcely come into power when they began with incredible lack of tact to treat the Arabs in a most supercilious manner, although as a matter of fact the Arabs far surpassed them in intellect and culture. They inaugurated a most un-modern campaign of shameless blood-sucking, cheated them of their rights, treated them in a bureaucratic manner, and generally acted in such an unskilful way that they finally alienated for ever the Arab element as they had already done in the case of the Armenians, the Greeks, and the Albanians.
The ever-recurring disturbances in Yemen, finally somewhat inadequately quelled by Izzet Pasha, are still in the memory of all. And later, directly after the reconquering of Adrianople during the Second Balkan war, there was another moment of real national rebirth when a reconciliation might have been effected. The visit of a great Syrian and Arabian deputation to the Sultan to congratulate him over this auspicious event should have provided an excellent opportunity. I was staying some months then in Constantinople on my way back from Africa, and I certainly thought that the half-broken threads might have been knotted together again then if the Young Turks had only approached the Arabs in the right way. Even the great Franco-British attack on Stamboul might have been calculated to rouse a feeling of solidarity among the Mohammedans living under the Ottoman flag, and in the autumn and winter of 1915-1916 Arab troops actually did defend the entrance to the Dardanelles with great courage and skill. But Arab loyalty could not withstand for ever the mighty flood of race-selfishness that possessed the Young Turks right from the moment of their entry into the war. The enthusiasm of the Arabs soon disappeared when Pan-Turkish ideas were proclaimed all too clearly even to the inhabitants of their own land, when an era of systematic enmity towards the non-Turkish parts of the population was introduced and the heavy fist of the Central Committee was laid on the southern parts of the Empire as well.
An attempt was made to bring the ethnic principle of "Turanism" within the region of practical politics, but it simply degenerated into complete race-partiality and was not calculated to further the ideas of Pan-Islamism and the Turko-Arabian alliance which were both of such importance in the present war. It is this idea of Turanism that lies at the back of the efforts being made towards a purely Turkish Turkey, and that of course makes it clear at once that it must to a very large extent oppose the idea of Pan-Islamism. It is true that both principles may be made use of side by side as sources of propaganda for the idea of expansion and the policy of a "Greater Turkey." Turanists peep over the crest of the Caucasus down into the Steppes of the Volga, where the Russian Tartars live, and to the borders of Western Siberia and Inner China where in Russian Turkestan a race of people of very close kinship live and where very probably the Ottoman people had their cradle. The Pan-Islamists want the alliance of these Russian parts as well, but from another point of view, and, above all, they aim at the expansion of Ottoman rule to the farthest corners of Africa and South-West Asia, to the borders of negro territory, and through Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan to the foot of the Himalayas, while on grounds of practical politics they strive to abolish the old, seemingly insurmountable antithesis between Sonnites and Shiites within the sanctuary of Islam.
The programme of the so-called "Djihad" works on this principle, but goes much farther. As well as stirring up against their present rulers those parts of Egypt and Tripoli which once owned allegiance to the Sultan and the Atlas lands, which are at any rate spiritually dependent on the Caliph in Stamboul, the "Djihad" aims at introducing the spirit of independence into all English, French, Italian, and Russian Colonial territory by rousing the Mohammedans and so doing infinite harm to the enemies of Turkey. It is most important, therefore, always to differentiate between this "Holy War" "stirring-up" propaganda from Senegal to Turkestan and British India, and the more territorial Pan-Islamism of the present war, which goes hand in hand with the efforts being made towards a "Greater Turkey."
Instead of uniting all these principles skilfully for the realisation of a great end, making sure of the Arab element by wisely restraining their selfish and exaggeratedly pro-Turkish instincts and their despotic lust for power, and so giving their programme of expansion southwards some prospect of succeeding, the Turks gave way right from the beginning of the war to such a flood of brutal, narrow-minded race-fanaticism and desire to enrich the Turkish element at the cost of the other inhabitants of the country, that no one can really be surprised at the pitiable result of the efforts to secure a Greater Turkey.
I should just like to give one small example of the fanatical hatred that exists even in high official circles against the non-Turkish element in this country of mixed race. The following anecdote will give a clear enough idea of the ruling spirit of fanaticism and greed. I was house-hunting in Pera once and could not find anything suitable. I approached a member of the Committee and he said in solemn earnest: "Oh, just wait a few weeks. We are all hoping that Greece will declare war on us before long, and then all the Greeks will be treated as the Armenians have been. I can let you have the nicest villa on the Bosporus. But then," he added with gleaming eyes, "we won't be so stupid as merely to turn them out. These Greek dogs (köpek rum) will have the pleasure of seeing us take everything away from them—everything—and compelling them to give up their own property by formal contract."
I can guarantee that this is practically a word-for-word rendering of this extraordinary outburst of fanaticism and greed on the part of an otherwise harmless and decent man. I could not help shuddering at such opinions. Apparently it was not enough that Turkey was already at war with three Great Powers; she must needs seek armed conflict with Greece, so that, as was the outspoken, the open, and freely-admitted intention of official persons, she might then deal with four and a half millions of Ottoman Greeks, practically her own countrymen, as she had done with the unfortunate Armenians. In face of such opinions one cannot but realise how unsure the existence of the Young Turkish State has become by its entry into the war, and cannot but foresee that this race-fanaticism will lead the nation to political and social suicide. Can one imagine a purely Turkish Turkey, when even the notion of a Greater Turkey failed?