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.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] For these early stages of the Turkish nationalist movement, see Vambéry, La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans; and his Western Culture in Eastern Lands. Also the articles by Léon Cahun in Lavisse et Rambaud, previously cited; and L. Rousseau, L'Effort Ottoman (Paris, 1907).
[139] Bérard, Le Sultan, l'Islam et les Puissances, p. 16 (Paris, 1907).
[140] Cited by Bérard, p. 19.
[141] Cited by Bérard, p. 20.
[142] Le Revéil de la Nation arabe, by Negib Azoury (Paris, 1905).
[143] The semi-legendary founder of the Ottoman Empire.
[144] The texts of both the above documents can be most conveniently found in E. Jung, Les Puissances devant la Révolte arabe: La Crise mondiale de Demain, pp. 23-25 (Paris, 1906).