The New World of Islam Part 12

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 ma.s.s, 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 const.i.tute "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 pa.s.s 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 a.n.a.logous to patriotism, but with this difference: this Islamic fraternity, though resulting in ident.i.ty 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 G.o.d."[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 ma.s.ses, by directing the political tendencies of the elites, 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 statesmans.h.i.+p of the highest order. Unfortunately, the Versailles peace conference was devoid of true statesmans.h.i.+p, and the resulting "settlement" not only failed to give peace to Europe but disclosed an att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude 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 p.r.o.nouncements 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 pa.s.sed before England, France, and Italy were able to come to an even superficial agreement as to the part.i.tion 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 mult.i.tudes 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 pa.s.sivity.

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 Ca.n.a.l. 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 att.i.tude was firm. The Egyptian att.i.tude 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 a.s.sume unveiled control. Meanwhile the nationalists announced that they were going to hold a plebiscite to determine the att.i.tude 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 indors.e.m.e.nt of their demands.

This defiant att.i.tude 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 ma.s.sed 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 cla.s.ses solidly nationalist, but they had behind them the hitherto pa.s.sive 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 pa.s.sive dislike but active hatred of British rule.

Authoritative English experts on Egypt were seriously alarmed. Shortly after the riots Sir William Willc.o.c.ks, 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 cla.s.ses, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses. 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 att.i.tude 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 Willc.o.c.ks and Sir Valentine Chirol, stated that extensive concessions must be made.[175] Other qualified observers a.s.serted that concessions would be weakness and would spell disaster. Said Sir M. McIlwraith: "Five years of a Nationalist regime would lead to hopeless chaos and disorder.... If Egypt is not to fall back into the mora.s.s 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 Ca.n.a.l 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 p.r.o.nouncements 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 pa.s.s 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 part.i.tioned 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sistance to the British in safeguarding Egypt and the Suez Ca.n.a.l, 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 circ.u.mstances they are capable of sudden expansion to an extraordinary degree. Such a circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.signed, but the intent was to stake out claims which would part.i.tion Turkey's Arab provinces between England and France.

Naturally the existence of this secret treaty was an embarra.s.sment to the British officials in Egypt in their negotiations with the Arabs.

However, an Arab rebellion was too valuable an a.s.set 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 doc.u.ment 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 part.i.tioned 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 s.h.i.+ft 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 _denouement_. 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 a.s.sistance 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 integrale!" "All Syria!" was the cry. And this "all" included not merely the coast-strip a.s.signed 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 a.s.serted 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.