November 14, 1918 
LAND &? WATER 
U 
of the Turks with, of course, proper guarantees for its poHc- 
ing, and for the prevention of fortifications. 
As diplomatists almost invariably take the line of least 
resistance, it is perhaps probable that such a course, which 
indeed has many advantages to recommend it, will be adopted. 
•The above are among the most important matters which 
will have to be considered in a settlement with Turkey. 
But the people of the Empire, and especially the natives of 
the East all through India, will pay more attention to the 
events which have gone on in Asia Minor, Syria, and Arabia 
during the last three years than to their immediate results. 
Our Indian fellow-subjects in particular will have noted 
the various phases of the war since it became one in which 
England took part against Turkey. When the first expedi- 
tion was sent to Bassora and received a check at Kut, the 
report in the bazaars would be that England constantly 
fails on local expeditions by under-estimating the strength 
of the enemy, but that the result invariably is that a stronger 
force is sent out, the errors committed avoided, and the 
expedition returns to its base having achieved full success. 
What took place was considered normal, but General Mar- 
shall's success has been so great that it will have e.xcited 
wonder and admiration. Indian troops under British 
leaders' can apparently do what they like in the East. It 
■was no matter that the armies sent against him were under 
the command of the Ottoman Caliph and were reported 
to be well equipped, they were no match for Indian Moslems. 
Russia has for generations been a bugbear even to English 
soldiers in India, and these take far too keen an interest in 
their profession not to have felt that the great enemy on the 
frontier was Russia. They know, little of the causes which 
have led to the disruption of Russia. But they will recog- 
nise that the English army imder General Marshall has 
overcome all opposition, and has been fighting in complete 
harmony with the true Believers of the Hedjaz and the 
Holy Cities. 
Nowhere in the world is the story of Alexander the Great 
better known than amongst the natives of India and in the 
East generally. For them it remains the great romance 
of war. It was the aim of Mahomet, the conqueror of Con- 
stantinople, to imitate him. He and the leaders of the 
Turkish conquering army delighted to hear the story of the 
Macedonian hero recounted around their own camp fires. 
The Indian Moslem soldier will now relate that Allenby and 
Marshall, with a few British troops, and with Indians of 
Moslem and of various other creeds with them, made acam- 
paign from Egypt to the Persian Gulf more romantic than 
Alexander ever made. They will mention how the British 
fleet co-operated with the army when it struck north from 
the Suez Canal, and made light of the great stony desert 
which the Turks believed to be impassable. The care and 
even reverence with which Allenby approached the holy 
places dear to Moslems will be recounted in every province 
of our Indian Empire. The description of the Mosque of 
Omar and of the remarkable conformation of rock which 
from the earliest records has been a holy place will be told ' 
by those who saw it. The narrator will explain that it was 
on this natural altar on which Abraham prepared to offer 
his son to Allah ; that beneath it were the caves containing 
the seats of David and, in the eye^ of all Easterns, his still 
greater son Solomon. These and all the wonderful stories 
of the wisest of men are well known and more highly appre- 
ciated in India than in colder climates. It will be' told that 
this new Alexander took infinite pains, though himself a 
Christian, to show his reverence for one of the greatest of 
their prophets as well as ours, and that he placed Indian 
troops as guardians of the Mosque which covers this holy 
place, to which Mahomet himself will one day descend from 
Heaven. Nor will the narrator fail to make the comparison 
between the entry into Jerusalem of Allenby and his officers, 
after they had dismounted and showed their reverence for 
the sacred soil by entering on foot, with that of the entry 
of the Kaiser who twenty years earlier had had a portion of 
the wall pulled down in order that his entry might be more' 
conspicuous and triumphant. 
It will not be forgotten that the inhabitants of Palestine 
were astonished to find that every member of the British 
army reverenced the holy places, paid for whatever he took, 
that looting was not permitted, so that soon confidence 
was expressed in the honesty of the British and Indian troops ; 
that Moslems and Christians aUke brought forth their little 
treasures which they had always been accustomed to hide 
at the coming of Turkish troops. Tlie spectacle was so novel 
that a wave of enthusiasm passed over the whole country, 
and the population, mostly Moslem, flocked everywhere to 
WQJcome the British troops as deliverers from tire misgovern- 
ment of the Turks. r^., 
I may mention, in pjissing. a story, of which I have heard 
many, illustrating the Arab desire to get rid of the domina- 
tion of the Turks. Dr. John Peters, the famous discoverer 
of Nippur, in his latest return from the ruins of that city 
to the southern coast of Palestine, was interested in the 
remains of a castle a few miles from the sea. He took 
measurements and sketches. A venerable Arab Sheik had 
observed him and at length asked, "When are you coming ? " 
showing that he considered the explorer to be taking notes 
for a militarj' purpose. Dr. Peters explained that he belonged 
to a country which had no military interests in Palestine. 
The old Sheik remarked: "American or English or any 
nation you hke, so long as you will rid the country of Tur- 
kish rule we shall all welcome you." 
The march to Damascus occasioned some anxiety in Eng- 
land to those who know the district. It would have been 
easy to occupy a strong defensive position, but Allenby soon 
found that he was everywhere welconled as a deliverer. 
This, of course, would have been natural if the Maronite 
population of the Lebanon and the Horan had been in a 
majority, but they were not, the great majority of those who 
welcomed him were Moslems. Ihen we learnt that Liman 
von Sanders, the soldier who with Admiral Souchon had 
threatened to knock the Sublime Porte about the ears of 
the Turkish Ministry if they attempted to disarm the Goeben 
and the Breslau, had been placed at the head of 12,000 Tur- 
kish and German troops which were to make a great stand 
about twelve miles from the ancient city of Aleppo. But 
as Allenby's army approached the Turkish army melted 
away, and none remamed to oppose this progress. 
Co-operation with Hedjaz Forces 
It will be»remembered also that Allenby worked in accord 
with the new King of the Hedjaz. The Moslem soldier will 
explain that the Arabs are devout believers in their faith ; 
that while the Turks are cold the Arab faith is like a blood 
passion among them. With the contempt that the Moslem 
always feels for those who abandon monotheistic belief for 
relapse into idolatry, he will explain that the Turks had not 
merely ventured to alter the sacred language of the Koran 
to give place to that of their conquerors, but had dared to 
propose that a thing called Turanianism, such as many of 
them had seen in remote districts in India, which had never 
been converted to the faith, was to be substituted for Islam, 
and that it was for this infidelity that the Arabs had thrown 
off the Turkish yoke. -~ 
Our soldiers will recovmt also that on the shores of the 
great rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and especially to the east 
of these rivers land had been reclaimed and placed under 
cultivation which had for centuries been barren. The whole 
story indeed of the English in Syria, from the Levant to the 
Persian Gulf, will be related throughout India and the East 
as a great romance. 
Wlien the changes here foreshadowed are accomplished 
the Turkey which will remain will be far different from that 
of five years ago. It will be smaller. But it will be more 
compact. As Mr. Disraeli cynically ^^bserved when Bulgaria 
was made into an independent State: "The Turk will be 
free from the disturbing element," this time of the Arab, 
an element which, as the Turks lately and truthfully declared 
in an official document, has never been loyal to' Turkey. 
The great Christian populations will be no longer under the 
sterilising influence of a race which has made little progress 
in civilisation and has prevented the advance of other races. 
Representatives of the Powers or of the League of Nations 
will be in every district where the Turk rules to protect the 
Christian minority. Indeed I .think it quite possible that 
the Turkish governing class wfll understand that religious 
liberty has to be permitted for the benefit of all sections 
of the community. Great Britain has been Turkey's great- 
est and best friend. What she failed to accomplish by 
representations made in the interests of the Turkish people 
has been brought about by the apostacy of some of the lead- 
ing Turks who profess to speak for the nation, and by the 
irresistible logic of facts. No Turk can deny that England 
made great sacrifices for his country, but his rulers elected 
to join Germany, and he must face the consequences. »• 
The new Turkey which the Powers will create may still 
retain the friendship of England if the rulers carry out the 
programme which they have accepted as conditions of peace. 
For the old traditional friendship of the two States, flouted 
as it was four years ago, is still not without its effect. In 
a reformed Anatolia, with good government for all classes, 
Turkey may yet have a career of peace, development and 
progress, but it will not be a development such as was looked 
for when Germany counted upon retaining possession of Asia 
Minor and Mesopotamia by means of the Berlin-Bagdad 
railway. 
