hich had
engineered the coup was made up of Europeanized renegades, many of them
not even nominal Moslems, but atheistic Jews. Far-sighted Moslems had no
intention of pulling Germany's chestnuts out of the fire, nor did they
wish to further Prussian schemes of world-dominion which for themselves
would have meant a mere change of masters. Far better to let the West
fight out its desperate feud, weaken itself, and reveal fully its future
intentions. Meanwhile Islam could bide its time, grow in strength, and
await the morrow.

The Versailles peace conference was just such a revelation of European
intentions as the Pan-Islamic leaders had been waiting for in order to
perfect their programmes and enlist the moral solidarity of their
followers. At Versailles the European Powers showed unequivocally that
they had no intention of relaxing their hold upon the Near and Middle
East. By a number of secret treaties negotiated during the war, the
Ottoman Empire had been virtually partitioned between the victorious
Allies, and these secret treaties formed the basis of the Versailles
settlement. Furthermore, Egypt had been declared a British protectorate
at the very beginning of the war, while the Versailles conference had
scarcely adjourned before England announced an "agreement" with Persia
which made that country another British protectorate in fact if not in
name. The upshot was, as already stated, that the Near and Middle East
were subjected to European political domination as never before.

But there was another side to the shield. During the war years the
Allied statesmen had officially proclaimed times without number that the
war was being fought to establish a new world-order based on such
principles as the rights of small nations and the liberty of all
peoples. These pronouncements had been treasured and memorized
throughout the East. When, therefore, the East saw a peace settlement
based, not upon these high professions, but upon the imperialistic
secret treaties, it was fired with a moral indignation and sense of
outraged justice never known before. A tide of impassioned determination
began rising which has set already the entire East in tumultuous
ferment, and which seems merely the premonitory ground-swell of a
greater storm. So ominous were the portents that even before the
Versailles conference had adjourned many European students of Eastern
affairs expressed grave alarm. Here, for example, is the judgment of
Leone Ca