h a series of campaigns has failed to
suppress. The conflict with the Arab element continues"--this was
written in 1916--"though the 'Holy War' has forced it to a certain
extent into the background."

"The conflict with the Arabs"--that has been the worst folly of the
Young Turkish politicians, and it will perhaps be the most powerful
solvent of the Empire which the Osmanlis have misgoverned so long. It is
the inevitable consequence of the camarilla government and the
Pan-Turkish chauvinism for which the Committee of Union and Progress has
come to stand.

The Committee consists by its statutes of Turks alone, and the election
even of one Arab was vetoed[10]. Tekin Alp informs us that

"The portfolio of the Minister of Trade and Agriculture, which has been
in the hands of Greeks and Armenians since the time of the Constitution,
and was lately given to a Christian Arab, has at last been handed over
to the Constantinople deputy Ahmed Nasimi Bey, who joined with Ziya Goek
Alp in laying the foundations of the Turkish Movement immediately after
the proclamation of the Constitution. With one exception the members of
the Cabinet are all imbued with the same ideas and principles."

The Armenian deportations gave the Committee an opportunity of
tightening its hold over the provincial officials as well. Valis who
refused to carry out the orders were superseded if they were
strong-minded enough to persist; but more often they were browbeaten by
the leaders of the local Young Turk organisations, or even by their own
subordinates, and let things go their way. Ways and means of packing the
administration with their own henchmen had been discussed by the
Committee already in their congress of October, 1911, and they had
defined their policy then in the following remarkable resolutions[11]:

"The formation of new parties in the Chamber or in the country must be
suppressed and the emergence of new 'liberal ideas' prevented. Turkey
must become a really Mohammedan country, and Moslem ideas and Moslem
influence must be preponderant. Every other religious propaganda must be
suppressed. The existence of the Empire depends on the strength of the
Young Turkish Party and the suppression of all antagonistic ideas....

"Sooner or later the complete Ottomanisation of all Turkish subjects
must be effected; it is clear, however, that this can never be attained
by persuasion, but that we must resort to armed force. The character of
the Empire mu