and peoples once more. The cutting of the Suez Canal has led the
highways of commerce back to the Nearer East; the democracy and
nationalism of Europe have been extending their influence over Asiatic
races. On whatever terms the War is concluded, one far-reaching result
is certain already: there will be a political and economic revival in
Western Asia, and the direction of this will not be in Ottoman hands.

We are thus witnessing the foundation of a new era as momentous, if not
as dramatic, as Alexander's passage of the Dardanelles. The Ottoman
vesture has waxed old, and something can be discerned of the new forms
that are emerging from beneath it; their outstanding features are worth
our attention.




II


The new Turkish Nationalism is the immediate factor to be reckoned
with. It is very new--newer than the Young Turks, and sharply opposed to
the original Young Turkish programme--but it has established its
ascendancy. It decided Turkey's entry into the War, and is the key to
the current policy of the Ottoman Government.

The Young Turks were not Nationalists from the beginning; the "Committee
of Union and Progress" was founded in good faith to liberate and
reconcile all the inhabitants of the Empire on the principles of the
French Revolution. At the Committee's congress in 1909 the Nationalists
were shouted down with the cry: "Our goal is organisation and nothing