nd, 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
crushing 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 Bo