e great
majority, and so have done with the everlasting friction and weakness
entailed in jurisdiction over preponderant Christian elements. Here they
might throw off the remnants of their Byzantinism as a garment and, no
longer forced to face two ways, live and govern with single minds as the
Asiatics they are.

Vain illusion, as Osmanli imperialists know! It is their empire that would
fall away as a garment so soon as the Near East realized that they no
longer ruled in the Imperial City. Enver Pasha and the Committee were
amply justified in straining the resources of the Ottoman Empire to
cracking-point, not merely to retain Constantinople but also to recover
Adrianople and a territory in Europe large enough to bulk as Roum. Nothing
that happened in that war made so greatly for the continuation of the old
order in Asiatic Turkey as the reoccupation of Adrianople. The one
occasion on which Europeans in Syria had reason to expect a general
explosion was when premature rumours of the entry of the Bulgarian army
into Stambul gained currency for a few hours. That explosion, had the news
proved true or not been contradicted in time, would have been a
panic-stricken, ungovernable impulse of anarchy--of men conscious that an
old world had passed away and ignorant what conceivable new world could
come to be.

But the perilous moment passed, to be succeeded by general diffusion of a
belief that the inevitable catastrophe was only postponed. In the
breathing-time allowed, Arabs, Kurds, and Armenians discussed and planned
together revolt from the moribund Osmanli, and, separately, the mutual
massacre and plundering of one another. Arab national organizations and
nationalist journals sprang to life at Beirut and elsewhere. The revival
of Arab empire was talked of, and names of possible capitals and kings
were bandied about. One Arab province, the Hasa, actually broke away. Then
men began to say that the Bulgarians would not advance beyond Chataldja:
the Balkan States were at war among themselves: finally, Adrianople had
been re-occupied. And all was as in the beginning. Budding life withered
in the Arab movement, and the Near East settled down once more in the
persistent shadow of Roum.

Such is the first element in Osmanli prestige, doomed to disappear the
moment that the Ottoman state relinquishes Europe. Meanwhile there it is
for what it is worth; and it is actually worth a tradition of submission,
natural and honourable, to