provincial papers, since no well-established journal would admit so
scrannel an expression of views however exalted.[1] But the translation
of the Koran was the greatest linguistic feat, and Tekin Alp, the most
prominent exponent of Nationalism, refers to it as one of the noblest
tasks undertaken by the new movement. It mattered not at all that by
religious ordinance the translation of the Koran into any other tongue
was a sin. 'The Nationalists,' he tells us, 'have cut themselves off
from the superstitious prejudice.' A further attempt was made to
substitute Turkish letters for Arabic letters in the alphabet, but this
seems to have presented insuperable difficulties, and I gather that it
has been abandoned.

[Footnote 1: This thwarted poet retired from the Committee of Union and
Progress not long after, and his place was taken by Enver.]

The Ottomanisation of religion and language, then, was among the pacific
methods of spreading Pan-Turkism through the Empire. A monstrous idol
was set up, a Hindenburg idol, in front of which all peoples and
languages, not Christians alone, but Moslems, were bound to prostrate
themselves. Indeed it was against Arabs mainly that these provisions
were directed, for the Arabs constituted the most menacing obstacle to
the spread of Ottomanisation, since they numbered in the Empire only a
million less than the Turks themselves. It was ordained by statute that
no Arab could have a seat on the Committee of Union and Progress, and
the Cabinet similarly was purged of any Greek or Armenian element. Never
any more must there be new parties in the Chamber, never any more must
Liberal ideas (to champion which the New Turk party had come into being)
be allowed to prick up their pernicious heads. For the Nationalist
party, with whom the New Turks were now identical, had taken as their
creed all that the deposed Abdul Hamid stood for, and only differed from