in the Turkish Empire, declined, while that of Germany
became supreme. Every consideration of prudence therefore prompted the
Governments of London and Paris to come to a close understanding, in
order to make headway against the aggressive designs of the two Kaisers
in the Balkans and Asia Minor. Looking forward, we may note that the
military collapse of Russia in 1904-5 enabled the Central Powers to push
on in the Levant. Germany fastened her grip on the Turkish Government,
exploited the resources of Asia Minor, and posed as the champion of the
Moslem creed. Early in the twentieth century that creed became
aggressive, mainly under the impulse of Sultan Abdul Hamid II., who
varied his propagandism by massacre with appeals to the faithful to look
to him as their one hope in this world. Constantinople and Cairo were
the centres of this Pan-Islamic movement, which, aiming at the closer
union of all Moslems in Asia, Europe, and Africa around the Sultan,
threatened to embarrass Great Britain, France, and Russia. The Kaiser,
seeing in this revival of Islam an effective force, took steps to
encourage the "true believers" and strengthen the Sultan by the
construction of a branch line of the Bagdad system running southwards
through Aleppo and the district east of the Dead Sea towards Mecca.
Purporting to be a means for lessening the hardships of pilgrims, it
really enabled the Sultan to threaten the Suez Canal and Egypt.

The aggressive character of these schemes explains why France, Great
Britain, and Russia began to draw together for mutual support. The three
Powers felt the threat implied in an organisation of the Moslem world
under the aegis of the Kaiser. He, a diligent student of Napoleon's
career, was evidently seeking to dominate the Near East, and to enrol on
his side the force of Moslem enthusiasm which the Corsican had forfeited
by his attack on Egypt in 1798. The construction of German railways in
the Levant and the domination of the Balkan Peninsula by Austria would
place in the hands of the Germanic Powers the keys of the Orient, which
have always been the keys to World-Empire.

Closely connected with these far-reaching schemes was the swift growth
of the Pan-German movement. It sought to group the Germanic and cognate
peoples in some form of political union--a programme which threatened to
absorb Holland, Belgium, the greater part of Switzerland, the Baltic
Provinces of Russia, the Western portions of the Hapsburg