for a
powerful resistance."[53] During the troublous first stages of the
Chinese revolution, the Mohammedans, emerging from their sulky
aloofness, co-operated so loyally with their Buddhist and Confucian
fellow-patriots that Dr. Sun-Yat-Sen, the Republican leader, announced
gratefully: "The Chinese will never forget the assistance which their
Moslem fellow-countrymen have rendered in the interest of order and
liberty."[54]

The Great War thus found Islam everywhere deeply stirred against
European aggression, keenly conscious of its own solidarity, and frankly
reaching out for Asiatic allies in the projected struggle against
European domination.

Under these circumstances it may at first sight appear strange that no
general Islamic explosion occurred when Turkey entered the lists at the
close of 1914 and the Sultan Caliph issued a formal summons to the Holy
War. Of course this summons was not the flat failure which Allied
reports led the West to believe at the time. As a matter of fact, there
was trouble in practically every Mohammedan land under Allied control.
To name only a few of many instances: Egypt broke into a tumult
smothered only by overwhelming British reinforcements, Tripoli burst
into a flame of insurrection that drove the Italians headlong to the
coast, Persia was prevented from joining Turkey only by prompt
Russo-British intervention, while the Indian North-West Frontier was the
scene of fighting that required the presence of a quarter of a million
Anglo-Indian troops. The British Government has officially admitted that
during 1915 the Allies' Asiatic and African possessions stood within a
hand's breadth of a cataclysmic insurrection.

That insurrection would certainly have taken place if Islam's leaders
had everywhere spoken the fateful word. But the word was not spoken.
Instead, influential Moslems outside of Turkey generally condemned the
latter's action and did all in their power to calm the passions of the
fanatic multitude.

The attitude of these leaders does credit to their discernment. They
recognized that this was neither the time nor the occasion for a
decisive struggle with the West. They were not yet materially prepared,
and they had not perfected their understandings either among themselves
or with their prospective non-Moslem allies. Above all, the moral urge
was lacking. They knew that athwart the Khalifa's writ was stencilled
"Made in Germany." They knew that the "Young-Turk" clique w