more or less constantly engaged, first with Italy and then with the Balkan States, made any serious interference with his plans unlikely.

It was in August 1916 that Husein issued his proclamation against the Turkish Government. A little later he announced himself as Sultan of the Arabs, a title somewhat modified after a while, when the Allies recognized him as the King of Hedjaz. The part taken in the Great War by the Arabs was honorable, and contributed not a little to the success of General Allenby's campaign in Palestine. At the Peace Table King Husein was represented by his third son, the Emir Feisal, afterward King of Iraq. We shall have occasion again to refer to the treaty by which Turkey renounced all rights over the Arabian peninsula, on condition that the King of Hedjaz should allow pilgrims access to the Holy Places.

A few words will suffice for some remaining portions of the Turkish dominions which, after the war, were placed under European mandates.

Syria had suffered severely for some years before the Great War, though only indirectly, from Turkey's campaigns against Italy and the Balkan States. In February 1912, however, Beyrout was bombarded by an Italian squadron and received. some damage. During the Great War Syria was naturally overrun, first by the Turks and later by the British. Damascus was captured by British and Arabs on October 1, 1918. Syria had always been looked upon as more or less in the French sphere of influence, hence it was no surprise that, at the conclusion of peace, France was made the mandatory for Syria by the League of Nations. Of France's troubles with her mandate and of the war with the Druses 1 after the retirement of the British army of occupation we must speak hereafter.

In Palestine proper, to the south of Syria, the situation prior to the war was in no wise different from that in the north. The first year of the war brought terrible misery to the people,

1 A people of Mid-Syria, possessing a secret faith; they expect the return of their prophet Hakim to conquer the world. See Gertrude L. Bell, The Desert and the Sown.

through Turkish rapacity and the blockade combined. The situation was aggravated by the occurrence of one of the most destructive plagues of locusts in Palestinian history. It was to a starved populace that the British army, under General Allenby, came at last in December 1917, through the capture of Jerusalem. From this time onward the settlement of matters under British administration was sadly hampered by the commitments as to Zionism1 made by the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lord (then Mr.) Balfour. The Arabs proved intensely hostile to a large immigration of Jews, carrying with it the assumption that Palestine was the Jewish homeland. Tactless propaganda on the part of Zionists assisted instead of allaying the spread of Moslem opposition. The Zionist Commission did its best to settle the thousands of immigrants who arrived from Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Persia, Austria, and elsewhere, but the situation for a long while was extremely dangerous, with raids and riots of frequent occurrence.

Under the mandate given to Great Britain by the San Remo Conference of April 1920, Sir Herbert Samuel was made the first High Commissioner of Palestine, and his difficult task has been carried out with conspicuous wisdom and some degree of success. Of certain developments of Zionism and the Palestine mandate we shall speak later.

As to Mesopotamia, now the Kingdom of Iraq, it must be remembered that here too, many years before the war, the sympathies of the people were Arab rather than Turkish, though important posts continued to be filled from Constantinople. "Young Turks" seemed, from the Revolution of 1908, inclined to develop the country and restore to it some of its ancient fertility. They even engaged the famous English engineer, Sir William Willcocks,2 to plan a system of irrigation which should remove the danger of alternate floods and

1 The movement looking for the repatriation of the Jews in Palestine, founded by Theodor Herz in 1896. See The Jewish Encyclopædia, sub voce.

2 Carried through the making of the famous Assuan Dam in 1898; commenced the irrigation of Mesopotamia in 1911.

droughts. Yet hostility fomented immediately before the war from Germany, and connected not remotely with Teutonic schemes for the making of the Bagdad Railway and the control of the oil resources of Persia, developed especially against the British. During the war itself the Mesopotamian Arabs gave comparatively little assistance to the Turks. They were generally ready to hang upon the skirts of either army for the sake of plundering the wounded. The main incidents of the campaign on the Euphrates have already been mentioned.

After the war there appeared some division of opinion between the Government of India and the British Home Government over the disposition of Iraq, as the territory had come to be called. Many favored its retention by Great Britain, while others as strongly supported the spirit of General Maude's proclamation that the British came as liberators, not as conquerors. For the time being, the mandate was accepted. The Emir Feisal, son of King Husein, was declared king on August 23, 1921. The final issue has yet to be determined, and the boundary between the kingdom and the Turkish dominions is being adjudicated by the League of Nations. At least one thing is certain, namely, that Iraq will not go back to the tyranny under which it has groaned during past centuries. The world's hope is that the great river valleys which were once the most fertile region of the civilized world, and which, under Hammurabi, 2000 years before Christ, had a system of irrigation that made a garden of the whole country, may once again under a benign government and a stable administration flourish to the happiness of its tribes.

CHAPTER XIX

ASIA AND THE WORLD WAR

WHY should the World War have concerned Asia? In August 1914 there were many who asked this particular question. Many, moreover, tried their best so to localize the conflict that the races of Asia might not be called upon to witness — much less to take part in the fratricidal strife of the white races of Europe. They might just as well have attempted to sweep back the rollers of the Pacific Ocean as they break upon the shore.

The reason is not far to seek. The interests and possessions of the belligerent Powers interlocked in Asia even more than in Europe. There were Australia and New Zealand, long suspicious of the policy which had acquired the Bismarck Islands and other groups to the north. There was Tsingtao in Shantung, and there was Hongkong off the coast of Kwangtung, representing antagonistic ambitions as much as if they looked out upon the waters of the North Sea. There were the great fleets at their Pacific stations, straining for the signal to cut across the trade routes of their competitors.

There was, again, Japan, eager for the establishment of her own hegemony in the East, and more than ready to avail herself of the opportunity to repay to Germany the affront of 1895. Everywhere, in Asia as in Europe, the stake on the seas was as great as that upon the land. It was discerned from the beginning that this was to be no mere struggle of armies in array, but a war of blockades, of cutting off supplies, of destroying trade present and potential.

So, with German and Allied possessions scattered over the Pacific, with Russian territory stretching from East Prussia to Vladivostok, with India an Allied asset which hostile intrigue hoped to turn into a liability, and (after the entry of Turkey into the war) with all Islam potentially involved, it was necessarily to be a hard time for neutrals in Asia as elsewhere.

Some features of Japan's part in the war have already been touched upon. upon. It had been expected by the Central Powers that Japan would be caught at a disadvantage, seeing that her finances were in bad condition and that the Yamamoto Government had fallen in the spring of 1914. But Okuma at once took the Premiership, with Baron Kato as Foreign Minister. It was felt that a strong foreign policy, at previous times of crisis, was something which was bound to unite all parties. The alliance with Great Britain gave quite sufficient reason for the declaration of war, but it is hardly to be doubted that the chance to remove Germany from her favored position in Shantung was welcome to Japanese statesmen. The Drang nach Osten policy which had followed the visit of Prince Henry of Prussia to the Far East and of the Kaiser to Constantinople was even more obnoxious to Japan than to England. When the capture of Kiaochao was achieved, it became at once plain that Japan did not consider her part in the war at an end.

It was not a little strange to find a Japanese fleet working in coöperation with the Australian squadron, in view of the fears the Island Continent had expressed as to the ambitions of Nippon. But the partnership worked well and the Japanese ships, strung out over the Pacific, not only gathered in such German possessions as the Marshall, Caroline, and Pelew Islands, but helped to head off Von Spee, and so made possible the British victory off the Falklands.1 They assisted also in the operations which brought to an end the romantic exploits of the Emden, when the famous raider was destroyed by the Australian cruiser Sydney off the Cocos-Keeling Islands.2 To sum up the advantage brought to the Allied cause by a fleet 2 Nov. 10, 1914.

1 Dec. 8, 1914.