The New World of Islam Part 11

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 Circa.s.sian 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 ma.s.sacre 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.

Pa.s.sing 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 att.i.tude, owing to the fact that British rule rested upon insecure diplomatic foundations. England had intervened in Egypt as a self-const.i.tuted "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 enn.o.ble 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_ [const.i.tution], 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 att.i.tude 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 const.i.tutional 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 Ca.n.a.l 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 exact.i.tude. 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 ent.i.tled "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," a.s.serted 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 censors.h.i.+p, was full of veiled seditious statements, while the unruly att.i.tude 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 ma.s.ses 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-cla.s.s Mohammedan natives their hope--the ma.s.sacre of the Christians. In the streets of Cairo they stared insolently at the European pa.s.sers-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 regime 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 'sc.r.a.ps 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 p.r.o.nouncements were as idle as the wind. The hoped-for Turkish attacks were beaten back from the Suez Ca.n.a.l, 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 ma.s.s 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 appet.i.tes 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 part.i.tioned 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 a.n.a.logous 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 a.s.signed 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 apt.i.tude 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 Vambery 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 cla.s.sing 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 Vambery and the Frenchman Leon 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 Vambery 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 ident.i.ty. Cl.u.s.tered 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sured the material sinews of war. The Tartar oil millionaires of Baku here played a conspicuous role, 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 a.s.suredly 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 pa.s.sed 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 kins.h.i.+p, 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"